Downfall (2016)

by J. A. Jance

  “No, thank you,” Joanna replied. “It’s an urgent matter, and I wish to speak to him directly.”

  Joanna knew it was rude to blow her way past a receptionist who was only doing her job, but she needed to take control of the situation, and being rude was one way of accomplishing that goal.

  “To whom am I speaking?” Marvin McVey demanded when he came on the line a moment later.

  “This is Cochise County sheriff Joanna Brady, Marvin. Thank you for taking my call.”

  He was Marvin. She was Sheriff Brady. Establishing a hierarchy from the get-go was part of the game, and Joanna needed to be in charge.

  “If this is about the interviews you expect to conduct tomorrow morning,” McVey declared, “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Detective Waters. SVSSE’s job is to educate our young people, not to make them available to the whims and demands of local police officials.”

  “Excuse me, Marvin, was or was not Susan Nelson a member of your faculty?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Joanna pushed on. “Did you or did you not see the surveillance tapes of her being escorted—some would say strong-armed—from your campus late Saturday afternoon?”

  “Yes,” Mr. McVey agreed, “I did see the footage, but—”

  Joanna continued without allowing him to finish. “The fact that Mrs. Nelson’s assailant kept his hand in the pocket of that SVSSE hoodie indicates to us that he was most likely carrying a weapon. So let’s say Susan Nelson was escorted from your campus at gunpoint at four thirty P.M. on Saturday afternoon, and a few hours later, she was brutally murdered.”

  “Yes, but—” McVey attempted again.

  And again Joanna took control of the conversation. “I’m afraid there are no acceptable buts as far as you are concerned, Marvin. Susan Nelson, one of your faculty members, was murdered in cold blood, most likely by someone connected to your school. Until we determine who that individual is and why this tragedy occurred, there’s a possibility that more of your students and faculty may be at risk.

  “Our best chance of finding the person responsible is through interviewing the people closest to our victim, including both students and teachers from your campus. Interviewing students on the school grounds with their parents or guardians present is the most expeditious means of accomplishing that goal and of apprehending the suspect in a timely fashion. If you cause even the slightest delay in that process, Marvin, and if someone else is harmed as a result of that delay, you can be sure that I’ll inform the local media that you and you alone are fully responsible.”

  “But—” Marvin McVey said again.

  “We need space to do the interviews,” Joanna insisted, “starting at eight thirty A.M., and we will have investigators from my department and from the Sierra Vista Police Department on campus to conduct them. How many classes did Susan Nelson teach?”

  “Five.”

  “And they were?”

  “An advanced placement English course, two senior English classes, one junior, and one speech. Oh, and she had one planning period.”

  “So she interacted directly with how many students?”

  “Probably seventy-five or so. But since this is only the first week of a new school year, it’s likely that most of the seniors don’t know her very well, at least not yet. Last year’s seniors would probably know her better than this year’s.”

  “So seventy-five plus the students on her debate team?”

  “I suppose there’s some overlap,” McVey allowed. “Some of her speech students are part of the debate team as are some of her other students, especially the AP ones.”

  “Let’s start with those, then. The debate team kids and the kids who are in her classes. They’re who we’ll be interviewing first. I’m sure you’ll be able to send out text or e-mail notices on that, right?”

  “I suppose,” McVey conceded. At that point Joanna knew she had him.

  “Okay then, Marvin,” she said. “You get cracking on those notices. We’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

  As she hung up the phone, Joanna was surprised to hear applause coming from the doorway into the lobby. Marianne had evidently left the office door open on her way out. Looking in that direction now, Joanna saw a slender woman, a tall, good-looking brunette, in a sleek black suit, a white blouse, and sensible but stylish black pumps, standing in the doorway clapping her hands.

  “That’s one way to get their attention,” the interloper said. “Threaten them with a media crap storm. That’ll bring them to heel in a hell of a hurry every single time.”

  “Who are you?” Joanna demanded.

  The woman held up her badge. “Robin Watkins, FBI,” she said. “Please excuse my barging in like this. Your secretary—Kristin, is it?—went to use the restroom. I noticed when I arrived that your office had a private entrance, and I was worried you might try to scoot out through the back door without talking to me, so I took the liberty of letting myself in.”

  More nerve than a bad tooth, Joanna thought, thinking of one of Jim Bob Brady’s, her first father-in-law’s, favorite expressions and suppressing a smile. When Kristin had mentioned that an FBI agent was waiting, Joanna had imagined someone in a suit all right, but more on the order of a man in a suit. Not only that, but the idea of skipping out the back door had actually crossed her mind.

  “Since I’m officially on the case now,” Agent Watkins continued, “how about bringing me up-to-date?” Uninvited, she settled into one of the visitors’ chairs and then added, as an afterthought, “Sorry for your loss.”

  Obviously Agent Watkins had been well briefed. Each time someone offered their condolences, Joanna felt as though she was a thin rubber band gradually being stretched too far and too often. After a moment, though, she got a grip.

  “We’re dealing with a double homicide, Agent Watkins,” she said. “An apparent kidnapping that ended up with two women being murdered.”

  Joanna’s secretary, Kristin Gregovich, the wife of K9 officer Terry Gregovich, was nothing if not efficient. Breezing into the office, she delivered not one but two copies of the notes she had taken during the noontime meeting. She handed one set to Joanna and the other to Agent Watkins.

  “Would either of you care for tea or coffee?” she asked.

  “You have tea?” Agent Watkins asked.

  “Apricot decaf,” Joanna said, patting her baby bump. “I’ve discovered that in my current state, coffee most definitely does not agree with me or the little one.”

  “I won’t have coffee, then, either,” Agent Watkins said. “Apricot tea sounds just right.”

  “Make that two teas, please,” Joanna said, smiling at Kristin. “Thank you.”

  As Kristin bustled cheerfully out of the office, Joanna realized that if she did end up speaking to those lady sheriffs—as she liked to think of them—that was something else she’d need to mention to the newbies. That if people were used to taking orders from males, they might push back against the idea of having a woman in charge. That had certainly been the case between Joanna and Kristin initially, and it had taken time, effort, and patience on both their parts for them to establish a good working relationship.

  Once Kristin returned with the tea, Joanna and Agent Watkins sat quietly reading through the notes and studying the ME’s findings and line drawings.

  Agent Watkins spoke first. “So there was never any indication that Susan Nelson’s abductor was interested in making a ransom demand?”

  “No,” Joanna answered. “Whoever took her did so with the intention of killing her.”

  “But why transport her all the way to that mountain—what’s it called again?”

  “Geronimo,” Joanna replied, “and I have no idea. We know that the other victim, Desirée Wilburton, was camping at the base of Geronimo, but so far we’ve been able to find zero links between them.”

  “Why there?” Agent Watkins asked. “What’s so unique about that particular spot? Maybe Geronimo has some special meaning to the killer
.”

  “For kids from around here, climbing that particular peak is a rite of passage,” Joanna answered. “At least it was when I did it. It’s an interesting climb. Challenging enough and dangerous enough that you know the whole while you’re doing it that your parents would never approve.”

  Agent Watkins gazed out the windows of Joanna’s office at a looming wall of limestone cliffs behind a sea of bright green ocotillo. “Is Geronimo as tall as those cliffs back there?” she asked.

  Joanna shook her head. “The one on the right, the tallest one, is Grassy Hill at the top of Mexican Canyon. It clocks in at something like sixty-five hundred feet. Here at the Justice Center, we’re at around fifty-three hundred, which is why Bisbee is called a ‘mile-high’ city. I think Geronimo, or Gold Hill, as it’s officially known, is about fifty-nine hundred, so we’re talking a four- to six-hundred-foot climb, depending on the altitude at the base. Believe me, some of that is pretty much straight up and down.”

  “Could I go take a look at the crime scene?” Agent Watkins asked.

  Joanna eyed the stylish but entirely unsuitable suit and the pristine white blouse, to say nothing of the shiny pumps. “Not dressed like that,” she said.

  Robin laughed aloud, an easy kind of infectious laughter. “Not to worry,” she said. “I keep several changes of clothing handy when I’m on the road. You can never tell what might turn up.”

  “What are you driving?”

  “A Taurus.”

  “Okay,” Joanna said. “Change into hiking duds if you have them. You don’t need to go down the hall. You’re welcome to use the private facilities here in my office. After that, I’ll give you a ride. Four-wheel drive is definitely called for on this venture. But about the crime scene: I won’t be able take you to the exact crime-scene location. I can take you to where the bodies came to rest, but we still don’t know exactly where they went airborne. I currently have my K9 unit and one of my CSIs out at the scene trying to track down that exact location.”

  Robin went out to her car and returned carrying a soft-sided duffel. She disappeared into Joanna’s private restroom looking like a respectable corporate executive and emerged a few minutes later looking like someone who was Cochise County born and bred. Her plaid, pearl-snapped cowboy shirt, her very slender jeans, to say nothing of a respectable silver buckle on a leather belt—one that also held her badge—would have been right at home at one of the local rodeos. The lace-up hiking boots were the only items in the outfit that didn’t exactly blend.

  “I didn’t expect you to show up looking like a total cowgirl,” Joanna commented.

  Robin laughed again. The more she laughed, the better Joanna liked her.

  “Did you ever hear the story of Br’er Rabbit?” Robin asked.

  “Of course,” Joanna said.

  “That’s my story, too,” Agent Watkins said. “Turns out I got into a pissing match with my supervisor back in DC, and he remoted me to Tucson. It was supposed to be a life lesson for me as well as a punishment, just like throwing Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch was supposed to get him to straighten up and fly right.

  “Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out the way my ex-boss intended. As soon as I drove into town, I discovered that I love Tucson. In fact, I love all of Arizona. I may have gone a little overboard in terms of going native—well, not Native native—but Western anyway. Just wait until you see my Stetson. I took myself straight to Arizona Hatters the first chance I had and got the real deal.”

  Yes, Joanna decided, maybe Robin Watkins was one FBI agent she could actually befriend. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get going.”

  Once they were out in the parking lot, Robin went back to her government-licensed Taurus, tossed the duffel bag into the trunk, and emerged wearing a white Stetson and grinning from ear to ear.

  “See there?” she asked, climbing into the passenger seat of Joanna’s Yukon. “What did I tell you?”

  “All you need is a gun and holster on your hip,” Joanna said.

  “Nope,” Robin replied. “I’m small-of-back or ankle holster all the way. So where are we going?”

  “Back into town. Where are you staying?”

  “The Copper Queen.”

  “The hotel is in a part of town known as Upper Bisbee—where the community actually started. Where we’re going now is a neighborhood called Warren. In the old days, most of the businesses were located in Upper Bisbee, while Warren was designed primarily for residential use.”

  Robin nodded. “I liked the photo, by the way,” she said.

  For a moment Joanna was lost. “Photo?” she asked. “What photo?”

  “The one of you back there at the Justice Center.”

  “You mean the one in the display case out in the main lobby?”

  Robin nodded. “I noticed that, to the man—all of your predecessors looked like so many tough guys, especially the ones posing with their handlebar mustaches, guns, and horses. They were all doing their best to look, if not fierce, then at least deadly serious. And then there you are, cute as a button—a little girl in pigtails dragging around a wagon loaded to the brim with Girl Scout cookies. By the way, I’m still a sucker for Thin Mints.”

  “That makes two of us,” Joanna said. “Too bad it isn’t Girl Scout cookie season right now. I’d break out a couple of those just for the heck of it.”

  CHAPTER 10

  JOANNA FOLLOWED THE SAME ROUTE TOM HADLOCK HAD TAKEN the night before to get from the Justice Center into town, first up Highway 80 and then turning left onto the Warren Cutoff. As they approached town, an intervening scrub-oak-covered hill kept Geronimo hidden from view. Only when they had entered the town itself and reached the top of Yuma Trail was the mountain completely visible.

  “There it is,” Joanna said, pointing. “That’s Geronimo.”

  “The funny-looking one with the two bumps on the top?” Robin asked.

  “That’s the one.”

  “It looks steep.”

  “It is steep.”

  Joanna turned off the street onto the ranch road and then rumbled across the cattle guard. Last night, the dirt on the road had been topped by a layer of slick caliche-like mud. Today the crust had been broken, revealing red dirt underneath, which was marred by multiple tire tracks leading back and forth.

  “We had a big storm late yesterday afternoon, and this was all covered with a kind of slippery muck we call caliche,” Joanna explained. “Last night, too, the wash up ahead was running bank to bank. We had to park on this side of it and walk in and out, carrying the bodies by hand.”

  “That must have been fun,” Robin said.

  “Not so much,” Joanna replied. “The hiking boots I wore still aren’t dry.”

  As they approached the spot where the collection of vehicles had been parked the night before, Joanna looked around for signs of Terry’s K9 Tahoe and didn’t see it. Driving as far as the edge of the wash, she saw that enough sand had settled out of the water to make the entrances into and out of the wash gradual enough to be passable. Since there were already several other sets of tracks leading the way, her Yukon bounced into and out of the wash with no difficulty.

  “I hope you’ve been here long enough to know that when you see a sign that says ‘Do Not Enter When Flooded,’ they mean it, and you need to pay attention,” Joanna said, by way of conversation.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Robin replied. “I hear you loud and clear. I made that mistake last summer shortly after I got to town. I tried crossing Tucson Boulevard on Elm when water in the street was running curb to curb. It was a lot deeper than I expected, and the car almost floated away. I finally washed up on a sandbar that was solid enough for me to be able to get the wheels turning again.”

  “Company car?” Joanna asked.

  “Yup,” Robin said. “Another Taurus.”

  “I’ll bet you got hauled on the carpet for that one.”

  “I did. According to the motor-pool guy, the water completely screwed up the igni
tion system.”

  “I’m sure it did,” Joanna agreed.

  Up a short rise, Joanna parked next to Terry’s Tahoe. “Here we are,” she said. “Desirée Wilburton’s actual campsite was here inside this grove of scrub oak. There’s a water hole nearby, on the far side of the grove. The bodies landed on the far side of the water hole and partway up the mountain.”

  Leading the way, Joanna held up the crime-scene tape to let Agent Watkins pass underneath it.

  “Here?” Agent Watkins asked, looking around. “I don’t see anything resembling a camp.”

  “That’s because one of my CSIs, Dave Hollicker, came out here this morning, packed up everything he could find, and took it back to the lab.”

  When they approached the water hole, Robin looked into the brownish murk and frowned. “Those two kids you were telling me about planned to swim in this?”

  “If you’re a kid growing up in the desert,” Joanna said, “water is water, muddy or not, and swimming in the water hole is all part of the whole rite-of-passage deal. First you climb the mountain, then you go skinny-dipping. By the way, it’s a lot muddier this morning because of the storm. It’s actually fed by an underground spring halfway up the mountain, so there’s usually some water here year round. It’s only during the rainy season, however, when there’s enough to actually swim. Otherwise, it’s little more than a wading pool.”

  Walking side by side, Joanna and Agent Watkins made their way around the water hole and then climbed to the point where forward progress was blocked by a sheer wall of rock. The rocky bank at the base of the perpendicular cliff was littered with a number of bright yellow evidence markers.

  “This is where they landed?” Robin asked.

  Joanna nodded. “That’s where we found them, one on top of the other.”

  For the better part of a minute, Robin examined the surrounding dirt and rock. “I don’t see any blood spatter,” she observed. “Both victims had extensive injuries. Shouldn’t there be blood?”

  “There was,” Joanna answered, “but the runoff from last night’s storm was pretty fierce—enough so that it washed away most of the visible stains. However, with the help of luminol, we found evidence of blood stains scattered on the rocks down here and on the ones just above where they first landed. Those are what the other evidence markers designate.”