Damage Control

by J. A. Jance

  Butch sat down on the couch as well, leaving a space for Lady in the middle. “I didn’t mean to upset you with that thing about Carol Sunderson,” he said. “It just seemed like an idea that might be good for all concerned.”

  “I shouldn’t have been so upset,” Joanna returned, taking his hand. “I guess I was just starting to come to terms with the idea of Mom helping out. I’m surprised to hear she’s changed her mind. Did she say why?”

  “No.”

  “As for Carol? We can talk to her, but we need to charge her a going-rate rent and pay her going-rate wages for whatever work she does for us. If we do anything else, we run the risk that the next time I’m up for reelection my opponent will be able to claim we worked out a barter arrangement in order to avoid having to pay taxes.”

  “So you’d be willing to talk to her about it?” Butch asked. “You’d be willing to discuss it?”

  “Butch, we already did discuss it,” Joanna said. “Your publisher wants you to go on tour for Serve and Protect, and you need to be able to do that with a clear conscience. You won’t be able to do a good job if you’re worried about things falling apart here at home. And if Carol Sunderson can’t or won’t do it, we’ll find someone else.”

  “Should we talk to Marianne and see if she can help us set up a meeting?” Butch said.

  Joanna nodded. “And Carol should have someone with her during the discussions so it doesn’t seem like we’re pressuring her. That’s easy to do when it’s two to one.”

  The phone rang again. It was Jaime. “Marcella’s not here. Her car’s gone. Her clothes are gone. Mrs. Dumas, their next-door neighbor, seems to keep an eagle eye on the place. She says she saw Marcella loading stuff into her car before she drove off late this afternoon. Luis’s clothes are still there at the house.”

  “Wait a minute,” Joanna said. “You’re saying Marcella just took off—maybe even moved out—without waiting around for Luis to be found?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How could she?” Joanna asked. “And why?”

  “Remember how she told us that Luis’s father ripped off one of his pals?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “His name was Castro, Paco Castro.”

  “That’s right. And she also told us that Paco’s money was confiscated when Marco Andrade was arrested. That part was evidently a lie. She still has it—some of it, anyway. I don’t know how much.”

  “Is that why she was so scared Paco would come looking for them? Is that why Luis ran away, because he was scared?”

  “Luis ran away because he was mad,” Jaime said. “Because he finally figured out that his mother has been lying to him. She kept telling him they were broke when she was anything but. He didn’t find out about it until she lit into him over the newspaper article. She berated him for being so stupid, for letting Paco find out so he could come take their money away, yada, yada, yada. After playing the ‘poor me’ game all this time, she finally let the cat out of the bag. Luis was pissed. He’s pretty broken up about it and couldn’t believe Marcella had played him that way. I told him welcome to my world.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Joanna asked.

  “He’s inside their house gathering up his stuff and loading it into some trash bags I found in the kitchen. Why Marcella had trash bags, I can’t imagine. She obviously never used them. Anyway, I’ve called Delcia to let her know I’m bringing him back up to the house. He’ll be sleeping on the couch in the living room tonight, not in the toolshed.”

  “Where do you think she went?”

  “Who knows?” Jaime said. “And right now, who cares? Tomorrow will be time enough to figure that out. For tonight, Luis is hurting, and he’s my main concern.”

  “He’s lucky to have you,” Joanna said.

  “Thanks, boss,” Jaime replied. “I hope so.”

  While Joanna had been on the phone, Butch had let the dogs out one last time, locked up the house, and was in the process of turning off the lights. “Bedtime,” he said. “No doubt little mister will wake us at the crack of dawn.”

  But it wasn’t Dennis who woke them. It was the phone. “It’s Deputy Sloan,” Tica Romero from Dispatch announced in Joanna’s ear. “He’s dead.”

  Butch groaned and pulled a pillow over his head while Joanna felt the bile rise in her throat. Deputy Dan Sloan, twenty-five years old, was a newbie who had graduated from the academy only six months earlier. Married. What was his wife’s name again? Joanna couldn’t quite remember, but she knew the couple was expecting a baby—sometime soon.

  Joanna stepped around Lady and grabbed clothes out of the closet and underwear from the dresser as she made her way into the bathroom. “What happened?”

  “Deputy Sloan didn’t report in when he was supposed to, and we weren’t able to raise him on the radio,” Tica said. “We knew he was supposed to be keeping an eye on the Beasley house up Tombstone Canyon, so I dispatched someone to check on him. He was found inside the house, shot dead on the kitchen floor.”

  “Did you call out the troops?” Joanna asked.

  “Yes,” Tica said. “Standard operating procedure. Then I called you.”

  “Good,” Joanna told her. “Let everyone know I’m on my way.”

  I did this, Joanna thought as she pulled on her clothing and ran a brush through her hair. If Larry Wolfe had known we’d already executed the search warrant, he wouldn’t have gone back to the house looking for his damned chocolate syrup. Danny Sloan wouldn’t be dead.

  Joanna tiptoed out of the bathroom. Before she reached the bedroom door, Butch sat up in bed and switched on the light. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “One of my deputies just got shot.”

  “Is he going to be all right?”

  Joanna came over to the bed and kissed Butch good-bye. “He’s not all right,” she said. “He’s dead. I have to go.”

  “Be careful,” Butch told her. “I love you.”

  CHAPTER 15

  DRIVING DOWN THE WASHBOARDED DIRT TRACK FROM THE ranch house to High Lonesome Road, Joanna’s sense of self-recrimination came to a full boil. Deputy Dan Sloan was dead and it was her fault; her responsibility. She hadn’t fired the fatal shot that had killed him—hadn’t pulled the actual trigger—but she knew his death could, would, and should be laid at her doorstep. The baby that Dan’s wife was expecting would grow up without a father as a direct result of the way Joanna and her department had been conducting their investigation into the deaths of Alfred and Martha Beasley.

  This wasn’t jumping to conclusions; this was fact. Joanna herself had called for the execution of the search warrant. Then, during the interview of Sandra Wolfe, she had deliberately withheld the search warrant information. That decision alone had allowed Larry Wolfe to think that he might still be able to remove any incriminating evidence left behind in his in-laws’ house.

  Detective Howell was the officer who had asked Deputy Sloan to remain on the scene in the aftermath of the search. She had done so because she had been concerned someone might come there hoping to destroy or remove evidence. Subsequent events proved Detective Howell’s assessment to be one hundred percent correct, but her decision—the one that had put Dan Sloan in harm’s way—was in tune with what Joanna herself would have done had she been on the scene. That put Joanna at the top of the chain of command that had left a relatively new officer to be slaughtered by a suspected killer.

  Just how new was Deputy Sloan? He’d been on the force for less than a year, but he had graduated from his state-accredited police academy training with high marks. He had also been working his way through a program of individualized continuing education Joanna had purchased for members of her department. The program included a comprehensive set of computerized tutorials, including several that dealt with failure to call for backup. But just because Dan Sloan had read something and successfully completed a quiz on it didn’t mean he had internalized the material enough so that it would become second nature in a life-and-death
decision-making process.

  Joanna knew full well that in the days and weeks ahead there would be plenty of Monday-morning quarterbacks questioning whether or not Deputy Sloan had been properly trained and supervised, but now wasn’t the time for those discussions. Tonight was all about finding and apprehending his killer. Joanna had a pretty fair idea of who that was and where to look for him—unless Larry Wolfe had already taken off for parts unknown.

  As Joanna swung off Double Adobe Road onto Highway 80, she switched on her flashers and reached for her radio. “Who’s securing the scene?” she asked.

  “That would be Detective Carbajal and Deputy Raymond,” Tica responded. “Raymond is the officer I dispatched to the scene initially. He’s the one who found the body. Detective Carbajal lives nearby. That’s how he got there so fast. Detectives Howell and Carpenter are both on the way. Uniformed officers from the City of Bisbee are also on the scene.”

  Deputy Sloan was a Cochise County deputy. Unfortunately he had died inside Bisbee’s city limits. That would make for one more layer of jurisdictional complication.

  “What about Frank?”

  “Chief Deputy Montoya is coming from Sierra Vista,” Tica said. “He’s probably half an hour out.”

  Sierra Vista again, Joanna thought.

  “Contact Ernie and Deb. Tell them to meet me at the Copper Queen Hotel,” she ordered. “And press the SAT button. I want those guys there, too.”

  “That’ll take a while,” Tica said. “They’re scattered all over the county.”

  “However long it takes is how long it takes,” Joanna returned. “Tell them to meet me at the bottom of Brewery Gulch. They should approach with caution and with flashing lights only. No sirens. Once you do all that, patch me through to Jaime.”

  The better part of a minute passed before Tica came back on the line. “Okay,” she said. “Here’s Detective Carbajal.”

  “How does it look?” Joanna asked.

  Jaime paused before he answered. Joanna knew him well enough to realize that he was fighting for control.

  “Pretty rough,” he answered at last. “Dan’s patrol vehicle is parked in front of the house and apparently undisturbed. I’d say something—a noise, maybe breaking glass—must have alerted Dan that someone was here at the back of the house. He came around to check it out and confronted the intruder. There was a struggle, and boom—that was it.”

  “Gunned down with his own weapon?” Joanna asked.

  “His Glock might be here somewhere,” Jaime said. “So far I don’t see it. So being killed with his own weapon is a very real possibility. Are you coming?”

  “Not right away. I’ve asked Ernie and Deb to meet me at the Copper Queen. SAT, too. I’m hoping Larry Wolfe is still there.”

  “You’re calling out SAT?” Jaime rasped. “Good luck, then,” he added. “I hope you nail this SOB.”

  He means it, too, Joanna thought. And she knew why. Jaime Carbajal was the one who had urged Dan Sloan to apply to work at the department.

  “Sheriff Brady,” Tica said. “Patching through Detective Howell.”

  “Where are you?” Joanna asked.

  “At the hotel,” Deb returned. “I was almost at the scene when I got called back here. Ernie’s right behind me. What are we doing?”

  “I’m on my way there, too,” Joanna said. “Do we know what kinds of cars the Wolfes drive?” Joanna asked.

  “Yes,” Deb said. “I already checked. He drives a three-year-old Dodge Ram pickup truck. She drives a 1999 Lexus. I just spotted his pickup. It’s right here in the hotel lot. So far there’s no sign of the Lexus. Ernie’s on his way inside to talk to the desk clerk.”

  “Okay,” Joanna said. “I’ll be there in a matter of minutes.” As she put the radio down, her cell phone rang. Answering, she could see that Frank Montoya was on the line, and she wondered why he was calling on her cell rather than using the radio.

  “I heard you’re bringing in SAT,” he said. “Are you sure calling in an assault team is a good idea?”

  Frank’s question took Joanna by surprise. “Why?” she returned. “Do you think it’s a good idea to pound on Larry Wolfe’s hotel room door without a hallway full of firepower backing us up?”

  “The man’s a suspected cop killer,” Frank pointed out. “What if one of Deputy Sloan’s buddies gets trigger-happy and decides to take him out?”

  Joanna knew then why Frank had called on her cell. He was questioning one of her orders, but he didn’t want to countermand her in public. Furthermore, she had to admit Frank had a point. What were the chances that one of her SAT guys, pumped up by what had happened to Deputy Sloan and fueled by a need for vengeance, would open fire on Larry Wolfe if he emerged from his room holding, say, a television remote rather than a weapon? If that was to happen, Joanna’s department would be embroiled in charges of using excessive force. The resulting lawsuits would most likely long outlast her second term in office.

  But Joanna had made a very public decision to deploy SAT, and she wasn’t ready to unmake it. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she returned.

  “All right, then,” Frank said. “Where do you want me?”

  Joanna heard the undertone of disapproval in her chief deputy’s voice and didn’t want to deal with it—not right then. “How about if you go to the scene and check in with Jaime?” Joanna suggested. “Then maybe you can see about rousting Judge Cameron out of bed and getting us another search warrant—this one for the hotel room and for their vehicles as well. Deb has the details on those. We’re going to need a warrant in hand, and the sooner we have it, the better.”

  “All right,” Frank said. “Will do.”

  As Joanna pulled into a parking spot at the mouth of Brewery Gulch, Ernie came trotting down Howell Avenue. She hopped out of her car and waved him down.

  “What’s up?”

  “I just talked to Darla MacPherson, the Copper Queen’s desk clerk. She remembered seeing Larry Wolfe go out around nine and come back later. Sometime after eleven. The hotel has several security cameras, and I got her to rewind the tape. One of them shows Wolfe riding the elevator down to the lobby at nine-oh-two and exiting via the front doors. He returned at eleven-twenty. When he left, he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. When he came back, the Hawaiian shirt had been replaced by a torn T-shirt.”

  “I want those security tapes taken into evidence,” Joanna said.

  “Already done,” Ernie said.

  “In other words, Larry Wolfe probably got blood on his shirt. That’s why he ditched it,” Joanna said. “But if he’d already shot Dan, why did he come back here in the first place? Why not just take off?” Joanna glanced at her watch. “That was a good hour and a half ago now. Is he still here?”

  “I doubt it,” Ernie said. “I’d be willing to bet that he’s managed to sneak out some other way without the desk clerk seeing him.”

  “What about Sandy?” Joanna asked. “Where’s she?”

  “No sign of her,” Ernie said. “Not in the tapes I saw, anyway. Darla hasn’t seen her either.”

  “And what about Deb?”

  “On the far side of the hotel,” Ernie told her. “She’s searching the upper parking lot to see if the missing Lexus is parked in one of those. Since it wasn’t listed on their registration form, it isn’t parked in the regular lot. I’m thinking we should probably put out an APB on it. If we wait until we know more—”

  He let the rest of that sentence go unfinished, but Joanna heard the unspoken part loud and clear. If Larry Wolfe had already made a run for it, every minute they delayed in launching an APB and starting a systematic search would allow the man more time to make good his escape. If he had gone north, he could be back in Tucson by now—in Tucson or beyond it. If he’d traveled east, he could be a long way into New Mexico. Or he might have gone south and crossed the international border at Naco. Joanna hated to think how many more miles he’d be able to cover by the time Frank arrived with a newly minted search warrant an
d her SAT guys got their gear together and converged on the scene as well.

  “Do it,” Joanna said. “For now he’s a person of interest, but he’s to be considered armed and dangerous. He’s already killed one cop. I don’t want him to take down another.”

  Nodding, Ernie headed for his car and his radio. Back in her patrol car, Joanna monitored the radio transmissions that were shooting back and forth. Casey Ledford and Dave Hollicker had now arrived at the crime scene in upper Tombstone Canyon. George Winfield was there as well. Just then the first member of the SAT team arrived at the base of Brewery Gulch.

  Deputy Jimmy Williams, the SAT team leader, hopped out of his Explorer and hurried over to Joanna’s Crown Vic. “My guys are all en route,” he told her when she rolled down her window. “They’ve been apprised of the situation. Is the perp still inside the hotel, and where do you want me?”

  “Talk to Ernie,” Joanna said. “He’s been in and out of the hotel lobby. You two decide.”

  Williams hustled off while Joanna picked up her phone. “Where are you now?” she asked Frank.

  “Just coming up the far side of the Divide.”

  “All right. Let Jaime know Larry Wolfe left the hotel at nine and returned a little after eleven. Somewhere along the way, he ditched his shirt—a Hawaiian shirt. We need to find it.”

  “What about notifying Dan’s wife?” Frank asked. “Do you want me to handle that? Or should Jaime do it?”

  “Definitely not Jaime,” Joanna declared. “He’s too close to them. I’ll handle it myself, but not yet. When I tell Sunny Sloan about this, I’d like nothing better than to be able to say we already have the guy in custody.” The name of Dan’s wife had come back to her unbidden.

  “Don’t wait too long,” Frank cautioned. “This is a small town. Things have a way of getting out.”