by J. A. Jance
And that was what Luis Andrade was doing that steamy July morning—scavenging for whatever leavings there were to find. He knew it was likely that plenty of illegal travelers would have been tempted to take advantage of the previous night’s storm. They would have set out in the face of the lightning and pouring rain in hopes of evading the hordes of Border Patrol agents whose job it was to keep them from moving north. Everyone knew that Border Patrol agents were the same as everybody else. They naturally preferred sitting in the comfort of their dry vehicles to stomping around in mud and rain in search of prey.
Luis understood that when the floodwaters receded, the newly settled sand would form itself into a hard, damp surface that made for far easier walking than when it was dry. He marched along inside the wash until he was well beyond the reach of Mrs. Dumas’s prying eyes. Then, using an overhanging branch of mesquite, he clambered up the steep bank and set off across the desert with his eyes scanning back and forth for any sign of something useful or valuable that might have been left behind.
This was something Luis did often, and he was good at it. Through the months, he had made several reasonably valuable finds. One discarded backpack had yielded a zippered case with ten hundred-dollar bills in it. He had given his mother three of those. Worried about a possible emergency, he had kept back the remaining seven. They were still hidden away in the bottom of his sock drawer. Since Luis washed his own clothes, there was never any danger that his mother would go looking there.
Once Luis had come across an abandoned backpack stuffed full of marijuana. He could have taken it home. No doubt his mother would have known how to unload it on one of her many unsavory friends, but he hadn’t wanted to run that risk. What his mother did for a living was bad enough. If she got caught dealing drugs, no telling what would happen to her—or what would happen to Luis, either.
He wondered occasionally what he would do if, on one of these expeditions, he came across an even larger cache of cash. Both the drug trade and the transportation of illegals evidently involved impossibly large amounts of money. Luis sometimes fantasized about coming home with a real fortune—enough to buy his mother a decent place to live; enough for her to stop selling her body; enough for Luis to be able to think about going to college.
And that was what he was thinking about when he saw the chunk of something black caught in the branches of a mesquite tree.
At first he was afraid someone was sitting there—that someone had sat down under the tree and had simply fallen asleep. But then, as he came closer, he could see that he was actually looking at a shapeless mass of something made out of black plastic, some of which had torn and was now flapping in the occasional blasts of hot wind that blew across the desert floor. Only when he came much closer could he tell that he was looking at two separate garbage bags that had been welded into one with yards of duct tape.
When Luis saw the duct tape, he actually began to hope. Maybe Border Patrol had stumbled across some smugglers, startling them and forcing them to abandon their payload. Luis worried a little that the bags might turn out to contain a stash of drugs. If that happened, he didn’t know what he’d do next. But if the contents of the bag turned out to be just plain money…? No problem.
As Luis approached the bag he picked up a stick. When he prodded the plastic, a once small tear suddenly gave way and expanded. What rolled out onto the ground wasn’t at all what Luis had hoped or expected. It wasn’t a sheaf of cash or a plastic-wrapped packet of drugs. It was, instead, an empty-eyed human skull, its tooth-filled mouth gaping open.
Too shocked to breathe, Luis shrank away from the bone, stained red and still plastered with mud. For a moment, all he could do was stand there, staring and trembling. His legs seemed to have forgotten how to obey his mind. He willed them to move, but they didn’t. Couldn’t. Finally, one halting step after another, Luis managed to back away until he blundered, unseeing, into a mesquite. The shock of the branches unexpectedly brushing up against him filled him with such terror that it knocked him out of his stupor. He turned and ran then, racing back across the desert the way he had come, tearing toward home without caring if Mrs. Dumas saw him; not caring if he awakened his mother.
As he ran for the house, Luis knew there was no way he could keep this awful discovery a secret. He had to report it—he had to call his uncle. His mother’s big brother was a homicide detective for the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. Uncle Jaime would know what to do.
When Luis got back to the house, he was relieved to find that his mother was still asleep. She wouldn’t want him to get involved in whatever was going on. He picked up the phone. When it was dead, he didn’t assume it was out of order. He thought, instead, that his mother had simply forgotten to pay the bill. That had happened often enough in the past.
Quietly, Luis left the house once again. This time he made his way on foot to the golf course. In the wintertime, the trailer park across the street was crammed with campers. Now, in the dead of summer, the place was almost deserted, so Luis kept on walking. When he reached Naco Highway, he stopped and waited. He realized as he stood there that his clothes had taken a beating during his run through the desert. He worried that someone from Border Patrol might see how he looked, assume he was an illegal, and pick him up, but that didn’t happen. Two marked Border Patrol vehicles drove past without giving him even a second glance.
Finally a private vehicle came toward him. Luis stuck out his thumb and a beat-up Chevy Lumina with Sonora plates pulled over and stopped.
“Where to?” the driver asked in Spanish.
“To town,” Luis replied.
“You have a funny accent,” the man told him.
That’s because I’m not a real Mexican, Luis thought.
The man was on his way to Wal-Mart in Douglas. He gave Luis a ride as far as the end of the Warren cutoff. There, Luis got out, thanked the driver, and headed for the Cochise County Justice Center. Luis had never been inside the place; he had only driven by, but he knew this was where Uncle Jaime worked—Pepe had told him. Someone there would be able to help him.
The buildings were painted pink on the outside. They looked bright and clean and cheerful—not at all like a jail, even though Luis knew the jail was there. As he walked up the gravel drive toward the parking lot, he began to have second thoughts. What if this was a bad idea? What if bringing this to Uncle Jaime’s attention also brought attention to Marcella? What if doing this somehow ended up causing trouble?
Even though he was beset with doubt, Luis kept walking—through the parking lot and up the long wheelchair ramp to the front door, which turned out to be locked. Unsure what to do next, he was about to turn away when a disembodied voice asked him, “May I help you?”
That’s when Luis realized there was a speakerphone of some kind attached to the door. The woman was speaking to him through that.
“I’m looking for my uncle,” he said. “I need to talk to him.”
The door clicked. “It’s unlocked now,” the voice said. “You can come in.”
Luis entered the polished lobby area. At the far end was a glass-fronted display case full of pictures of people wearing guns and badges and cowboy hats. Over to his right, from behind another thick wall of glass, a woman beckoned to him. She didn’t look very friendly. In fact, Luis thought she was going to tell him to go away.
“You say you’re looking for your uncle?” she asked. “Is he a prisoner here?”
It didn’t surprise Luis that she would make that assumption. He shook his head. “He works here,” he said.
“What’s his name?”
“Jaime,” Luis answered. “Jaime Carbajal. He’s a homicide detective, and that’s why I need to talk to him. I just found a body.”
The expression on the woman’s face changed remarkably. “Oh, my,” she said. “You poor thing. I believe Detective Carbajal’s out on a call right now, but please have a seat. Someone will be right with you.”
CHAPTER 4
BY TH
E TIME JOANNA LED CAROL SUNDERSON BACK OVER TO HER boys, her cell phone buzzed with a voice mail notification. She was relieved to know that at least the telecommunication situation had improved.
Marianne was talking on her own phone when they got there. “All right, Mrs. Sunderson,” she said, once the call was completed. “We’ve talked to the Red Cross and made arrangements for you and the boys to have vouchers so you can stay at Crocker’s Motel out in the Terraces for the next five days. We’re using that one because they allow pets and also because the rooms have kitchenettes. We’ve also arranged for gift cards for you to both Target and Safeway. That way you should be able to get the basics as far as food and clothing are concerned. And Mr. Morales, who runs the Chevron station on the traffic circle, says you have fifty gallons of free gas coming. Just go by there and fill up whenever you need to.”
Carol Sunderson’s eyes filled with tears. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said.
“Don’t thank me,” Marianne replied. “That’s what small towns are good for. When there’s a problem we all pull together. The trick is getting those solutions in place before something bad happens instead of doing it after the fact.”
Joanna knew there was indeed no trick to it at all. What it took was hard work, organization, and lots of pre-planning. Fortunately for Carol Sunderson, Marianne Maculyea was good at all three.
By then the last fire truck was finishing its mopping-up operation. As Joanna directed deputies Raymond and Ruiz to put up a crime scene barrier, her phone rang, reminding her that she had not yet checked her voice mail messages, either.
“Frank here,” Chief Deputy Montoya said.
“What’s up?”
“To begin with, Jaime’s nephew showed up claiming to have found a body. The kid was too spooked to speak to anyone but Jaime. I’ve asked Dispatch to send Ernie out to the Double Adobe fire so Jaime can take his nephew down to Naco to check out his story,” Frank said. “Jaime said he’d stay on the scene until Ernie gets there to take over.
“But that’s only part of the problem,” Frank continued. “Now I’ve got a crazy woman here at the office who’s demanding to speak to you and nobody else.”
As sheriff, Joanna had dealt with more than her share of crazies. Some of them were such regulars that they were practically on a first-name basis. “Which one?” Joanna asked. “And is she armed or not?”
“Not,” Frank said. “She says her name is Edwards, Samantha Edwards. She wants to know why her sister received the next-of-kin notification about their parents’ deaths and she didn’t.”
Joanna waved at Matt Raymond, miming that it was time to drive.
“Where to?”
“Back to the Justice Center,” Joanna told him. “She’s one of the Beasleys’ daughters, then?” Joanna asked Frank.
“Yup.”
“And who was in charge of doing notifications?”
“Detective Howell.”
Deb Howell was Joanna’s newest detective. It was possible that inexperience had led to some kind of error in judgment.
“Where’s Deb right now?” Joanna asked.
“Up at Doc Winfield’s place,” Frank said. “She’s scheduled to be there most of the morning—for the official ID, and then she’s supposed to hang around and sit in on the autopsy as well.”
“Okay,” Joanna said. “Speaking of Doc Winfield. He can’t deal with any remains here until what’s left of the fire cools down. I’m going to leave Deputy Ruiz on-site to maintain the scene. When I left the house earlier, our wash was still up, so my Crown Victoria is stuck at home. I’ll have Deputy Raymond give me a ride to the office. Before I get there, though, I’ll try to talk to Deb and get her version of what happened.”
“She’d better have a hell of a good story,” Frank said. “This woman is not a happy camper.”
“So what’s all this about Jaime’s nephew and a body?”
Frank gave her a quick overview. “Like I said, Jaime’s on his way there and will call once he has had a chance to scope things out and let us know if he needs more people.”
“We don’t have more people,” Joanna pointed out. “According to my count, we’re already two homicides over capacity, and the weekend’s barely started.”
Rather than calling the medical examiner’s office and risking interrupting George, Joanna scrolled through her phone until she located Deb Howell’s number. Detective Howell answered after the third ring. She didn’t sound good.
“What’s wrong?” Joanna asked.
“Autopsies,” Deb replied weakly. “I’m still not very good at them.”
“Nobody is at first,” Joanna assured her. “And I’m still not. But which autopsy, Arthur Beasley’s?”
“That’s the one,” Debra replied. “Doc Winfield started on him just a few minutes ago. I was glad when my phone rang. It gave me an excuse to step outside. Madge said I’m a bit green around the gills. I’ll probably never hear the end of it.”
Madge Livingston was George’s tough-as-nails clerk/receptionist. She made fun of anybody who couldn’t handle the nitty-gritty of what went on in the medical examiner’s office—Joanna Brady included.
“It turns out the Beasleys are why I’m calling,” Joanna told Detective Howell. “Chief Deputy Montoya just told me that one of their daughters, Samantha Edwards, is waiting for me at the office. According to him, she’s pissed as hell that her sister was notified about her parents’ deaths and she wasn’t. Do you know anything about that?”
“Samantha Edwards is at your office?”
“That’s what I just said.”
“But Sandra Wolfe told me she was dead.”
“Who’s Sandra Wolfe?” Joanna asked.
“Sandy Wolfe. The Beasleys’ other daughter. When I talked to her, she told me her sister was dead.”
“Either Sandy is mistaken, or her sister is risen from the dead,” Joanna said. “I’ll try running both those options past Samantha when I see her. I have a feeling they won’t go over very well.”
At the Justice Center Joanna directed Deputy Raymond to drop her off on the far side of the building near her private back entrance. Using the keypad, she let herself in. Even though it was not yet ten in the morning, the heat outside, combined with sky-high humidity, was downright brutal. Everyone always talked about Arizona’s “dry heat,” but as soon as the summer monsoons arrived, the whole idea of dry heat went right out the window.
Joanna set her purse and briefcase down on the credenza behind her desk. Then, with the door shut, she unbuttoned her blouse and slipped off her Kevlar vest. She required that all her officers wear bullet-resistant vests when they were out in the field. In an effort to lead by example, Joanna wore hers as well, but the damned things didn’t breathe, especially not in weather like this. Rebuttoning her blouse over her damp skin, Joanna dropped into her chair and allowed herself a moment to revel in the luxury of air-conditioning and to be grateful that somehow full electrical power had been restored to the Justice Center.
Finally she called Frank. “Okay, I’m here,” she said. And dressed, she thought. “Now where’s the dragon lady?”
“Out by Kristin’s desk,” he told her. That meant Samantha Edwards had left the public lobby behind and was seated directly outside the door that led to Joanna’s office.
“So I guess I can’t act like it’s business as usual and pretend I don’t know she’s here.”
“Nice try,” Frank said. “I guess not.”
“Bring her in, then,” Joanna said. “Let’s get this over with.”
The woman Frank ushered into Joanna’s office a few minutes later was a small, well-put-together lady who appeared to be somewhere in her early sixties. Her iron-gray hair was cut in a short pixie style that accented the sharp angles of her face. She was thin to the point of being bony, well dressed in a stylish pantsuit, and utterly furious.
“I want to know who’s responsible for my not learning about my parents’ deaths in a timely fashion,” she said
. “And once I know who the responsible party is, I want him or her fired. Immediately!”
Since Alfred and Martha Beasley had been dead for less than twenty-four hours, Samantha Edwards had obviously, one way or another, learned about the incident in what most of the world would regard as “a timely fashion.”
But she’s just lost both her parents, Joanna reminded herself. No point in being churlish about all this.
“Your sister would be the responsible party,” Joanna said aloud. “And since she’s not an employee of my department, I can’t exactly fire her, now can I.”
“My sister?” Samantha repeated.
“Yes,” Joanna replied. “Sandra Wolfe is your sister, correct?”
“What about her?”
“She told my investigator, Detective Howell, that you were dead,” Joanna said. “That made notifying you pretty much impossible.”
“She said what?” Samantha demanded. “As you can see very well, I’m anything but dead. I’m standing right here in front of you, aren’t I?”
“Indeed you are,” Joanna agreed. “Unfortunately my investigator relied on the information she was given. She had no way of knowing—”
“That my sister is a lying sack of crap?” Samantha returned. “Sandy stopped telling the truth sometime within the first minutes of birth, and nothing has ever changed. Of course she lied. When hasn’t she lied? So what actually happened to my parents? According to the news reports, Dad hit the accelerator when he meant to hit the brake and went off a cliff.”
“We won’t know for sure what happened until after the autopsy,” Joanna said quietly.
Samantha’s narrow jaw dropped. “Autopsy!” she repeated. “Someone is doing an autopsy? Who said anything about an autopsy? Who authorized that?”
“Ms. Edwards,” Joanna said patiently. “Please have a seat. Your parents’ deaths qualify as sudden and unexplained. As such they are currently under investigation. I’m the one who authorized the autopsies. In situations like this, they’re a routine matter.”