Damage Control

by J. A. Jance

  “I suspect Luis was gone much earlier than that,” the detective said quietly. “Pepe and I stopped by after his Little League game to check on him.”

  Marcella was suddenly furious again. “You came by the house again? I thought I told you—”

  “That was a little after eight,” Jaime continued. “So either Luis refused to come to the door, or else—” He let the end of the sentence drift away unfinished.

  “Is there a chance that Luis may have gone off with his father someplace?” Joanna asked.

  Marcella shot Jaime a furtive glance before she answered. “No,” she said. “No chance.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Marco’s in prison in California right now,” she answered with a defiant glare in her brother’s direction.

  “And is Mr. Castro under the impression you and your son may have in your possession whatever it was Marco took from him?”

  “Marco took Paco’s money,” Marcella replied. “Drug money. Paco knows he’s not getting his money back. The cops confiscated it when they arrested him. This isn’t about the money. It’s all about getting even.”

  “Back to your house, then,” Joanna said. “When you came home, was anything out of place? Did you see any sign of a struggle?”

  Marcella shook her head. “No,” she said. “None.”

  “She might have missed something,” Jaime said. “I should probably go by the house and check.”

  “I already told you,” Marcella insisted. “It’s my house. I don’t want you there.”

  “You don’t have a choice about this, Mrs. Andrade,” Joanna told her firmly. “In order to help your son, we need to know whether or not a crime has been committed. Your brother is a detective, but because he’s also been to your house, he would be in a better position to spot something out of the ordinary. Of course, if you’d rather I sent a different investigator—”

  Marcella sighed. “Okay,” she said. “It’s all right, I guess.”

  “So go,” Joanna told Jaime. “Go now.”

  “Before the briefing?”

  Joanna nodded. “And take Dave Hollicker along with you, just in case.”

  In case it turns out to be a crime scene, Joanna thought. In case Luis really has been kidnapped.

  “What about that trip to Tucson?” Jaime asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Joanna said. “I’ll see if Ernie’s available or maybe even Deb Howell. The cases they’ve been working are pretty much under control. Wanda Mappin’s case isn’t.”

  Nodding, Jaime rose to his feet. “All right, then. Come on, Marcella,” he said gently. “Let’s go take a look.”

  Joanna followed the two of them out into the lobby, where she found Frank Montoya waiting outside her office, coffee cup in one hand and laptop in the other. “What’s up?” he asked, watching as Jaime escorted Marcella down the hall and away from the conference room. “Who’s that and where’s Jaime going? I thought we were going to have the briefing.”

  “That’s Jaime’s sister, the mother of Luis, the kid who found Wanda Mappin’s bones,” Joanna explained. “Luis has gone missing and Jaime’s on his way to their house to try to figure out whether or not foul play is involved. Let Dave Hollicker know I want him to go along with Jaime, and before we convene the briefing, I’d like you to take a look at this guy,” she added. She handed Frank the piece of paper on which she had jotted Juan Castro’s name.

  “Who is it?” Frank asked.

  “Somebody named Juan Francisco Castro. His street name is Paco, and he’s supposedly one of Luis Andrade’s father’s not-so-nice drug-dealing associates. Marcella thinks he may have something to do with her son’s disappearance. Just for the fun of it, let’s see what’s on his sheet.”

  By the time the briefing started ten minutes later, Frank had a copy of Juan “Paco” Castro’s very extensive rap sheet. The man had been in prison for the better part of the last ten years. He’d gone down once for attempted murder and once for aggravated assault. He also had a string of lesser offenses, including grand theft auto and several drug-related charges.

  “For somebody who’s only twenty-seven, this guy is quite the gangster,” Frank said. “In jail or out of it, I don’t think I’d want to be on Paco’s bad side. Jaime can’t be too thrilled to have his family mixed up with these kinds of individuals.”

  That was an understatement. “He’s not,” Joanna said.

  “Should we put out a BOLO on Luis Andrade?” Frank asked.

  “BOLO” was cop-speak for be-on-the-lookout.

  “Wait until we hear back from Jaime on that,” Joanna suggested. “Let’s see what he finds at his sister’s house before we make life any more complicated for them than it already is.”

  True to its name, the briefing proved to be brief. A weekend during which far too much had happened in Cochise County had been followed by a Monday in which very little had happened. Other than a few routine traffic stops and assorted minor fender benders, Patrol had very little to report. For a change neither the jail nor Animal Control was caught up in some kind of unexpected crisis. Once everyone had been brought up to speed on the fact that Luis Andrade had gone missing, Joanna turned to her detectives.

  “What about the Beasley situation?” she asked.

  “Sandra Wolfe and Samantha Edwards seem to have buried the hatchet for the moment,” Deb Howell reported.

  “Thank God for small blessings,” Frank murmured.

  “There’s an announcement from them in this morning’s paper,” Deb continued, “an announcement about Alfred and Martha’s joint funeral service—a memorial service rather than a funeral. It’s scheduled for Higgins Funeral Chapel Thursday morning at eleven. They’re due to be cremated prior to that. Anybody care to guess where they want their ashes scattered?”

  “Montezuma Pass?” Joanna ventured.

  “You’ve got it,” Deb Powell answered. “Norm Higgins gave me a copy of the list of final instructions the Beasleys had on file at the mortuary. It’s complete down to the last detail. And that means Martha may not have been at the wheel of the vehicle, but she was almost certainly the driving force behind making all these complex arrangements. I’ve talked to several of their friends and neighbors, and they’ve all told me the same thing—that Alfred had really lost focus in recent months. I don’t think he would have been capable of pulling these detailed specifics together.”

  “What do you mean, ‘lost focus’?” Joanna asked.

  “Even though Doc Winfield found no obvious signs of Alzheimer’s, several people mentioned they thought Alfred had been losing ground, mentally if not physically. Time and again they told me the same thing—that Alfred wasn’t himself; he seemed dazed and confused. He’d seem fine—almost normal—in the mornings, but by late afternoon and evening he’d barely know his own name.”

  “So there was something wrong with the man, even if we don’t know what it was,” Joanna said.

  Deb nodded. “According to Sandra, she had been actively involved in trying to find an assisted living facility where they could both be properly looked after.”

  “Looks like Alfred’s response to that was a definite no,” Frank said. “But we’ve still got a problem with the Beasleys’ house. So far today I’ve had two separate calls from Sandra Wolfe’s attorney asking when we’re going to be releasing it to them. He says that since it can’t be considered a crime scene in the ordinary sense of the word, Sandra and her sister need to be able to go in and start sorting through things.”

  Joanna glanced at Deb. It was her case and her call. “What do you think?” Joanna asked.

  The detective shrugged. “I suppose it’s okay to let the daughters do whatever they need to do,” she said.

  Joanna noticed Deb Howell’s singular lack of enthusiasm for the subject, but Frank Montoya apparently took her words at face value. “I’ll call Federer, then, and let him know it’s a go,” he said. “I’ll also tell Bisbee PD that they can take down our crime scene tape t
o allow Sandy and Samantha access.”

  Joanna turned to Ernie Carpenter. “What’s on your agenda today?” she asked.

  “I have a meeting with Tom McCracken in a little while,” Ernie said. “He’s been telling everyone who’ll listen that the Sundersons set fire to his place. I thought I’d give him a little reality check and bring him up to speed on what the DPS investigator told us. I won’t mention this to him, but if he was aware the wiring was hazardous, Carol Sunderson might be able to take him to court.”

  That possibility was enough to make Joanna smile. She turned to Casey Ledford, who as usual was sitting quietly in the far corner of the room and doodling in her notebook.

  “What about you, Casey?”

  “I’m still working on those plastic bags,” the fingerprint tech said. “And I’m still hoping to find something, maybe not on the bags themselves. The sand pretty well scrubbed all of that clean. But there are dozens of feet of duct tape there, and I’m going over every inch of them. That takes time.”

  Joanna looked around the conference table. “Anything else?”

  Shaking their heads, people stood and headed out, but Joanna called Detective Howell back before she made it out the door.

  “You clearly didn’t want to turn that house over to the daughters,” Joanna said. “How come?”

  Deb shut the conference room door and returned to the table. “Something about this isn’t right,” she said. “It’s nothing I can put my finger on—just a feeling I have.”

  “Women’s intuition?” Joanna asked with a smile. Since her arrival at the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department, Joanna herself had been derided for relying on that on more than one occasion, although she had been proved right more often than not.

  “I guess,” Deb admitted.

  “Look,” Joanna said. “What the guys call ‘gut instinct’ is fine, but calling it ‘women’s intuition’ will get you in trouble every time. So give me your best gut instinct.”

  “I don’t like the man,” Deb said. “I don’t like him at all.”

  “Who?” Joanna asked.

  “Larry Wolfe,” Casey replied with a shudder. “Sandra’s husband. He gives me the creeps; makes my skin crawl. And if they’re so broke, how can they afford a hot-shot defense attorney like Irwin Federer? Lawyers like that don’t come cheap.”

  “The Wolfes are broke?” Joanna asked. “Who says?”

  “Relatively broke,” Deb said. “Relative to how they were before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before they lost it all,” Deb said. “Years ago they lived in Texas. Houston, I believe. He was an executive for some big company that went broke.”

  “Enron, maybe?” Joanna asked.

  Deb nodded. “That’s the one. When that whole thing went south, the Wolfes pretty much lost everything—their savings, their retirement money, their house. When they moved back to Arizona—to Tucson—Alfred and Martha Beasley fronted them enough money—seventy-three thousand dollars—to make a down payment on a house. It was supposed to be a loan, but to this point none of it has been paid back, so that amount plus interest will have to be deducted from Sandra’s share of the estate.”

  “How much?” Joanna asked.

  “By the time the house is sold and after expenses, Sandra and Samantha should both come away with close to two hundred thou, maybe even more.”

  “If Larry Wolfe’s retirement went bye-bye, what’s he doing now?” Joanna asked.

  “Wearing an orange apron and working at Home Depot in Tucson. Plumbing supplies.”

  “And what is it you don’t like about him?”

  Deb thought about that for a moment. “For one thing, I didn’t like the way he looked at me. When guys look at you that way—like they’re trying to undress you—while their wives are sitting right there, it makes me want to puke.”

  Joanna had endured a few leering looks of her own on occasion, with much the same reaction. It didn’t help to think that Larry Wolfe would have to be a good twenty-five to thirty years older than Casey.

  “And if he was the least bit sorry about Sandra’s parents being dead,” the detective continued, “he sure as hell didn’t bother acting like it. I overheard him talking on the phone. He was chatting with one of his pals and setting up a golf game for late Thursday afternoon—twilight golf out at Palominas at the Rob Roy Links.”

  “The same day as Alfred and Martha’s funeral service,” Joanna observed. “So he isn’t planning on spending the whole day in deep mourning or consoling his wife. The man may be an uncaring jerk, but that doesn’t make him a killer.”

  “No,” Deb agreed. “It doesn’t, especially since he has an airtight alibi for the day Alfred and Martha went off that cliff. He was at work the whole time—punched in at eight in the morning and out at four, and we have that suicide note. I just flat didn’t like the guy, but he’s part of the Beasleys’ family, and I wanted to talk to him.”

  “You didn’t?” Joanna asked.

  Deb shook her head. “He bugged out before I had a chance. Sandra said he needed to get back to Tucson because he had to be at work early this morning.”

  “Tell you what,” Joanna said. “How about if we kill two birds with one stone. I need to drive up to Tucson to talk with the head of the Flannigan Foundation about Wanda Mappin. If you’ll ride along while I do the first interview, I’ll go with you to talk to Larry Wolfe.”

  “When will we be back?” Deb asked.

  “Probably late this afternoon. Why?”

  “Let me check with Katy,” Deb said. “I want to be sure it’s not a problem if we don’t turn up right on time.”

  Katy Rawlins was Deb’s younger sister. She was also Deb’s live-in babysitter for Benjamin, Deb’s six-year-old son, but the presence of a new boyfriend in Katy’s life had complicated their arrangement and made her less available than she had been previously.

  Jaime called while Joanna was waiting for Deb to return. “What have you got?” Joanna asked.

  “Not much,” Jaime answered. “According to Marcella, Luis’s school backpack is missing and some of his clothing, although the place is such a mess, I don’t know how she’d know what was there and what wasn’t.”

  “He left on his own, then?”

  “So it would seem. Their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Dumas, said she saw Luis leave the house just before sunset last night. He was alone at the time and wearing his backpack.”

  “No kidnap, then,” Joanna said. “No evil drug dealers.”

  “Evidently not. More like a runaway. I finally got Marcella to admit that the two of them had a huge fight after I brought him home the other day. Luis may have just gotten fed up with her and decided to strike out on his own.”

  “At age fourteen,” Joanna said. The same age as Jenny, she thought. “Does Marcella have any idea where he might have gone?”

  “She gave me a few names and numbers,” Jaime said. “I’ll be checking them out.”

  “What about an Amber Alert?” Joanna asked. “Or a BOLO?”

  “A BOLO maybe, but not an Amber Alert,” Jaime said. “Frank just called me with Paco Castro’s rap sheet. Plastering Luis’s name and face all over radio and TV might help us find Luis, all right, but it could also lead Paco and his crew straight to Marcella’s front door as well. Not a good idea.”

  Deb reappeared in Joanna’s doorway and gave her a thumbs-up sign. “You do what you think is best, Jaime,” Joanna told him. “Meantime, Deb and I are on our way to Tucson to have a chat with your Mr. Dietrich.”

  “Good luck with that,” Jaime said, but he didn’t sound particularly hopeful.

  Delayed by a couple of phone calls, it was after ten before Joanna and Deb headed for the parking lot. By then Joanna’s energy level was flagging. Driving in that condition didn’t seem wise.

  Joanna unlocked the Crown Victoria and then tossed the keys to her detective. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” Deb said. “Ben’s been sleeping through the nigh
t for years now. I can tell you’re not that lucky.”

  Joanna gave Deb the address for Flannigan Foundation and then climbed into the passenger seat. She was asleep before they ever made it over the Divide. She stirred briefly when they slowed for Tombstone and again for Benson. When she opened her eyes again, they were already in Tucson and turning off I-10 onto Valencia. It was after noon by then. Not having had any breakfast, Joanna was both groggy and starved.

  “Lunch first,” she said.

  They stopped at a tiny Mexican food dive near the airport. Over greasy tacos and several cups of bitterly strong coffee, Joanna brought Debra Howell up to speed on the Wanda Mappin case.

  “What if Don Dietrich refuses to talk to us?” Deb asked.

  By then, revived by both sleep and food, Joanna Brady was feeling a whole lot better. “No problem,” she said with a cheery smile. “We’ll park ourselves with him until he does.”

  Flannigan Foundation was housed in a handsome glass-and-stucco edifice on the road that led to the Executive Terminal. They parked in a visitor’s slot and then walked into a spacious marble-floored lobby that looked more like an upscale hotel than it did your basic nonprofit. There were several people already in the lobby, including a pair of sales representatives, a man and a woman, each dressed in business attire and armed with wheeled sample cases and laptops. A young woman wearing a telephone headpiece held sway behind an ultramodern teak desk that barred the way to a pair of ornately carved double doors.

  “May I help you?” she asked with a smile.

  Jaime had thought Joanna would charm her way past Don Dietrich’s gatekeepers. She opted instead for being hard-nosed. “We’re from the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department,” she announced, producing her ID wallet and handing it over. “I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady and this is Homicide Detective Debra Howell. We’re here to see Mr. Dietrich.”

  The receptionist’s welcoming smile faded. “I’m afraid Mr. Dietrich is very busy today,” she said. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “We’re investigating a murder,” Joanna replied coolly but without lowering her voice. Deb Howell wasn’t in uniform, but Joanna was, and she was more than happy to create a scene. “That kind of work doesn’t generally lend itself to making appointments in advance. We’ll be glad to wait—however long it takes. That’s him, isn’t it?” she added, gesturing toward a framed black-and-white photo that hung on the wall just to the left of the door. By then the two sales representatives were all ears. The receptionist nodded grimly but said nothing.