Damage Control

by J. A. Jance

  What do you want to bet this is some jerk of a reporter determined to get a scoop? she asked herself.

  At the corner of Congdon and Arizona Street, Joanna pulled over to the curb and stopped. As soon as the trailing car, a Mercury Marquis, went past her, Joanna turned on her flashers and signaled for the driver to pull over. When she ran the plates, the vehicle came back as belonging to Saint Dominick’s Parish.

  She approached from behind, with one hand perched warily on her holstered Glock. “Driver’s license and registration, please,” she demanded.

  “You’re Sheriff Brady, aren’t you?” a male voice asked. “What seems to be the problem?”

  Peering inside the car, she saw a middle-aged man wearing a clerical collar. “I am Sheriff Brady,” she told him. “Were you following me?”

  “Yes,” he admitted at once. “I’m Father Rowan, Father Matthew Rowan, the new priest at Saint Dominick’s. Jaime Carbajal is one of my parishioners. So are Danny and Sunny Sloan. Jaime called and asked if I’d mind tagging along when you went to tell Sunny. I got to the hotel just as you were leaving. Since I’m new to town and don’t know my way around yet, I decided to play follow-the-leader.”

  A priest, not a reporter! Joanna’s anger turned to relief. “I’m glad to meet you, Father Rowan,” she said, waving aside his proffered ID. “I’m sorry I stopped you, but with everything that’s happened tonight—”

  “Think nothing of it,” he said. “Perfectly understandable.”

  “And thanks for coming,” she added. “I’m sure Sunny will be glad to have you there.” I know I am! “Their house is just a few blocks up the hill here,” she said, pointing. “I’ll lead the way.”

  A few minutes later, with the comforting presence of Father Rowan at her side, Joanna Brady approached Dan and Sunny Sloan’s apartment. The lights were off inside. Most likely Sunny was still asleep and had no idea that her husband was dead.

  There was no doorbell. Behind a flimsy screen door was a substantial mahogany one, an old-fashioned model with three stair-step panes of glass near the top. The bottom of the lowest piece of glass was still inches above the top of Joanna’s head.

  Squaring her shoulders, Joanna pulled open the screen door and knocked. Nothing happened. No light came on; no one answered the door. After waiting the better part of a minute, she knocked again, louder. Finally a lamp was switched on somewhere inside the house. Seconds later the door cracked open the length of a brass security chain.

  “Who is it?” a woman’s voice asked. She sounded anxious and wary and more than a little tired.

  “It’s Sheriff Brady,” Joanna said. “I’m sorry to awaken you, Sunny. We need to talk.”

  “Sheriff Brady?” Sunny repeated. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong?” As she spoke she fumbled with the lock, pulled the door open, and stood there in backlit disarray with her pregnant body swathed in a lightweight summer nightgown.

  “May Father Rowan and I come in?” Joanna asked.

  “Father Rowan?” Sunny gasped in surprise. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Then her eyes widened in comprehension. “Oh, no. It’s Danny. Something’s happened. Is he all right?”

  Joanna shook her head. “I’m afraid he’s not all right,” she replied softly. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this—” she began, but Sunny Sloan didn’t bother to hear her out.

  With her face blanching, she backed away from the door, holding up her hands as if to fend off Joanna and the news she was about to deliver.

  “No!” Sunny wailed, her voice rising in anguish. “No, please. It can’t be. It isn’t possible. Don’t tell me he’s dead. Danny can’t be dead. We’re expecting a baby!”

  Without a word, Father Rowan moved past Joanna into the small living room. He took Sunny by the elbow, guided her to an armchair, and helped ease her ungainly body into it. Closing the door behind her, Joanna followed them inside and took a seat on a faded flowered couch. While she waited for Sunny to quiet down, Joanna struggled to find the right words. What could she possibly tell this grieving woman that would offer any kind of consolation?

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again. “Your husband was on duty and attempting to apprehend a suspect in a homicide case. Shots were fired. Dan was struck at close range, possibly with his own weapon. He died before our officers found him.”

  Sitting as though frozen in place and with her face stark white, Sunny listened numbly to the news. Only the last sentence provoked a response.

  “He died?” she repeated. “You’re saying Danny’s dead? That can’t be. You must be mistaken. Doctors do all kinds of things to save gunshot victims these days. Surely there’s something they can do.”

  Denial, Joanna thought. The first stage of grief.

  “No one knew there’d been a problem with Dan until he didn’t call in on schedule,” Joanna explained. “An officer was dispatched to the scene, but by the time he arrived, it was too late. Your husband was already gone.”

  Gone, Joanna thought. Why do people say ‘gone’ instead of ‘dead’? They mean the same thing.

  For the longest time after that, Sunny Sloan simply sat there with one hand resting on her bulging belly. She appeared to be staring straight at Joanna but it seemed likely that she wasn’t seeing anything at all.

  “Did he suffer?” she asked at last.

  There it was again—the same question Lucinda had asked about the death of her daughter—the same question survivors always asked. Joanna had been so caught up with trying to apprehend Larry Wolfe that she had yet to visit the crime scene. Still, although she knew from talking to Jaime that Dan’s death had been ugly, she didn’t have to say that to his widow.

  “No,” Joanna answered at once. “I’m sure he didn’t.”

  Sunny covered her eyes with both hands. “Thank God for that,” she said despairingly, and burst into tears once more. When that paroxysm finally abated, Joanna handed Sunny one of her cards.

  “We won’t release Dan’s name to the media until you give us the go-ahead,” she said, “but once you’ve notified close friends and family, please let me know.”

  Sunny nodded. “I will,” she said.

  “Is there someone we should call right now?” Joanna asked. “Someone who can come stay with you tonight?”

  “My dad,” Sunny said. “My dad and my stepmom. They live out in Bisbee Junction.”

  Using his own phone, Father Rowan placed the call that rousted Fred and Anne Coyle out of bed. Joanna stayed on until they arrived. Then, as she prepared to leave, Father Cowan followed her out to the car.

  “I think I’ll hang around a while longer,” he said. “Try to make myself useful.”

  “I really appreciate your coming,” Joanna told him. “Having you here was a huge help.”

  He nodded. “No problem,” he said. “Glad to be of service.”

  Joanna opened her car door and then paused. “I hope you’ll look in on Jaime a little later,” she said. “He and Dan were close. He’s taking it pretty hard.”

  Father Rowan nodded. “I’ll make it a point to stop by and see him,” he said. “But you take care, too.”

  Joanna nodded her thanks and then ducked into her vehicle without saying anything more. After turning her key in the ignition, she reached for the radio.

  “I’m on my way back uptown,” she told Tica in Dispatch. “What’s happening?”

  “Doc Winfield is ready to transport, but he’s holding off until you get there. Chief Deputy Montoya delivered the search warrant to Ernie and Deb Howell. They’re still at the hotel. Frank is back at the crime scene in Tombstone Canyon. He asked me to call in some of our off-duty officers to serve as an honor guard when it’s time to bring out the body.”

  I should have thought of that, Joanna thought. It’s a good thing Frank did. He may have disagreed with her handling of things as far as SAT was concerned, but her chief deputy continued to be as indispensable as ever.

  “Chief Bernard said to tell you that his
detective—”

  “That would be Detective Lester,” Joanna supplied. “Phil Lester.”

  “Detective Lester went by that little 7-Eleven up the canyon. He wanted to check with them because he was pretty sure they had installed state-of-the-art surveillance cameras. He’s got a tape showing what looks like the suspect’s vehicle driving up Tombstone Canyon at nine forty-five. The tape shows a red Dodge Ram going up the canyon, but there’s no sign of it coming back down. Still, he says the resolution of the tape image is very good. We may be able to enhance it enough to ID the driver.”

  “That’s good news,” Joanna said.

  We’ll need all that stuff, she thought. Finding Larry Wolfe is only the first step. We also have to have enough evidence to convict him.

  A mile away from the crime scene Joanna could already see the wild pattern of flashing emergency lights pulsing off the steep canyon walls. Closer to the Beasley place, the street was parked full of haphazardly positioned vehicles, blocking driveways and jammed onto sidewalks. They filled both sides of Tombstone Canyon, with more on side streets as well. Joanna herself was forced to pull into a spot three blocks downhill from the crime scene and walk from there.

  Making her way up the sidewalk, she encountered countless clutches of hush-voiced neighbors and concerned bystanders, some of them still in their nightclothes. They gathered in anxious little knots to speculate about what had happened. Some of them recognized Joanna on sight. She nodded as she walked past, but she said nothing. They’d find out the ugly details soon enough.

  She found Jaime in his Econoline van talking on the radio. “What’s happening?” she asked when he put down the microphone.

  “Between here and the parking lot across from the hotel, we’ve already got a sizable media presence, with more news teams expected all the time,” he told her. “Chief Bernard is going to handle the public-information end of things. He’s scheduled a press conference at his headquarters down on the traffic circle in about half an hour. He’s doing it there to get the reporters out of our hair here. He also said that since I was the first detective on the scene, he’d like me to act as lead investigator.”

  It all made perfect sense. “Good thinking,” Joanna said.

  “Chief Bernard wanted to know if we’re ready to release the officer’s name.”

  “Not yet,” Joanna told him. “Not until Sunny Sloan gives me the word.”

  “Please tell me she isn’t coming here,” Jaime said.

  “No, she isn’t,” Joanna told him. “Her dad and stepmother are with her down in Warren. So’s Father Rowan. Sending him along was a good call.”

  Jaime nodded.

  “What’s going on inside?” Joanna asked, gesturing toward the house.

  “Casey and Dave are still working the crime scene. I told them to take as much time as they need. We want this done right. We don’t need it done fast.”

  Exactly, Joanna thought.

  “You heard about the surveillance tape from the 7-Eleven?”

  Joanna nodded.

  “Finding that was a real stroke of luck.”

  It wasn’t luck, Joanna thought. It was good police work. It happened because Phil Lester knows what’s happening in his jurisdiction. It happened because I took Frank’s advice and Alvin Bernard’s advice and didn’t try going it alone.

  “We’ve had officers out canvassing the neighborhood,” Jaime continued. “They’ve pretty well narrowed down the time of death. Ron Davis, who lives across the street, said he heard what he thought was someone setting off firecrackers just after ten-thirty, about the time Jay Leno was doing his monologue. Maggie Morris, who lives next door, says she heard a vehicle of some kind—a loud vehicle—speed off a little before eleven. That gives us a pretty clear idea on the timing.”

  “Speaking of timing,” Joanna said. “It’s time for me to go in.”

  Jaime shot her a dubious look. “You don’t have to.”

  “Yes, I do, Jaime,” she said. “Deputy Sloan was one of my deputies. I owe him.”

  Joanna leaned against the back wall of the Beasleys’ house long enough to don a pair of paper crime scene booties. The outside screen door had been dusted for fingerprints. It had been propped open to allow for ease of access and also to reduce the amount of handling.

  Careful, she reminded herself. Don’t get that stuff on your clothes.

  Taking a deep breath, Joanna paused for a moment in the open doorway and gathered herself. Finally she moved forward. Just inside the back door, a sprinkle of shattered glass littered the floor—jagged shards of glass with a trail of bloody shoe prints leading through them. The door itself was a Dutch door with a dinner-plate-sized hole broken out of the window section. A chunk of river rock the size of a man’s fist lay on the floor nearby. No doubt that was how the killer had gained entry to the house—by breaking the window. Joanna found herself agreeing with Jaime’s theory that the sound of breaking glass might be what had summoned Dan Sloan to his doom.

  Doing her best to avoid both the glass and the bloodstained footprints, Joanna stepped into Martha Beasley’s old-fashioned kitchen. She stood there, next to an expanse of fern-patterned wallpaper and allowed the awful scene to sear itself into her soul.

  A few feet into the room, Dan Sloan’s body lay sprawled in a horrifying pool of blood. He had been tall—well over six feet. His long lanky frame stretched from one end of the tiny kitchen almost to the other. His right sleeve was soaked in blood, and the back of his head lay tipped up at an odd angle against the broiler drawer of a vintage electric range, while the toes of his polished boots pointed toward the open door of the completely empty refrigerator.

  That was what hit Joanna the hardest—the open refrigerator door. She was convinced that the fridge was where whatever drugs Larry Wolfe had used on Alfred Beasley had been concealed. The killer had come there tonight in hopes of destroying any remaining incriminating evidence. That was why Dan Sloan was dead. Larry Wolfe had been doing damage control.

  Standing stock-still, Joanna forced herself to examine Dan’s body and catalog each gruesome detail. There were at least two wounds, one that had nearly severed the right arm. The other had torn through his abdomen just under Dan’s Kevlar vest. Blood spatter marred the shiny surface of Martha’s knotty-pine cabinets and dotted the garish wallpaper. A shockingly vivid pool of the copper-smelling stuff crept out from under Dan’s uniform and spilled across the faded linoleum of Martha Beasley’s kitchen floor. Joanna knew how much blood there should be in a living human body. Seeing the size of the puddle confirmed for Joanna that she hadn’t told Sunny Sloan the truth—and rightfully so. Dan hadn’t died instantly, and he had suffered, too, lying there alone and helpless as his life’s blood oozed from his body.

  The realization was almost enough to buckle Joanna’s knees. She reached out to catch her balance, but when she spotted blood spatter there, too, she somehow managed to pull herself back together.

  This is how military commanders must feel, she thought. When they issue orders that send troops into an armed engagement, they know this can happen, will happen. People will die.

  George Winfield appeared in the doorway at the far end of the kitchen. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I will be when we catch the son of a bitch who did this,” Joanna declared. “How long did all this take?”

  “For him to die once he was shot?”

  Joanna nodded.

  “Ten, fifteen minutes or so. There’s no sign of any movement in his legs. He stayed exactly where he fell. That means we’ll probably find that the shot that killed him also severed his spinal column. With his right arm useless, he couldn’t turn himself over, much less crawl.”

  “Why didn’t he call for help?”

  Jaime Carbajal, appearing in the kitchen doorway, answered that one. “Maybe he tried to, but whoever did this turned on both the swamp cooler and the television. On the TV they turned the volume as loud as it would go. The two of them made enough racket that even i
f Dan had called for help, the neighbors wouldn’t have heard him. And from the amount of blood loss, he was probably unconscious within a matter of minutes.”

  “What a cold-blooded bastard!” Joanna exclaimed.

  Jaime nodded. “I’ll say,” he agreed.

  It surprised Joanna to realize that she felt no grief right then, only a cold and determined fury.

  “Did you find a weapon?”

  “His reserve Glock is still in his ankle holster,” Jaime said. “He never had a chance to draw it. His service pistol is still missing.”

  There was a muffled gasp from the kitchen doorway. Joanna looked up to see Deb Howell standing there with one hand clasped to her mouth attempting to muffle a sob.

  “It’s my fault,” Deb managed. “I should never have left Dan here on his own. I should have—” Unable to continue, she broke off. Jaime moved as if to comfort her, but Joanna beat him to it. Reaching up, she lay a consoling hand on her grieving detective’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault,” she countered.

  Even though Joanna meant the words—for Deb if not for herself—they still rang hollow.

  “But it is,” Deb responded. “I should have remembered how new he was and how little experience—”

  “Dan Sloan was a trained police officer,” Joanna interrupted. “He knew he was on the lookout for a homicide suspect, didn’t he?”

  Deb nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I told him.”

  “In other words, he knew that if the guy showed up, he could be dangerous. It isn’t your fault that Deputy Sloan went in without calling for backup, Deb. He did that on his own.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” Joanna said firmly. “He knew better but he did it anyway. That’s why they call failure to call for backup ‘tombstone courage’—because officers who do it can die.”

  She turned to Jaime. “And it’s not your fault, either,” she told him. “Understand? Dan wanted this job. He signed on to do it. And if we stand around blaming ourselves, who’s going to be left to go after Dan’s killer?”