Damage Control

by J. A. Jance

  “Do you have something for us?” Joanna asked.

  Casey nodded. “I managed to get only one decent print from the bloody ones we found on the scene last night. I’ve sent that off to the M.E. in Texas.”

  “Good work,” Joanna said as her team members nodded in somber agreement.

  “But that’s not all,” Casey added. “There’s something more.”

  “What?”

  “Late last night I finally found one usable partial on the duct tape from Wanda Mappin’s plastic bags,” she said. “I was in the process of enhancing it when all hell broke loose last night. I finished it just now. As soon as I put the print into AFIS, it came back with a hit.”

  “Whose is it?” Joanna asked.

  “His name’s Carmichael,” Casey said. “Billy Carmichael. He’s currently being held in the Pima County Jail, where he’s doing six months for breaking and entering.”

  Any other time having an AFIS hit in an unsolved homicide would have been cause for celebration and high fives all around.

  Not today, Joanna thought.

  “Excellent,” she said. “But what’s Carmichael’s connection to Wanda?”

  “No way to tell from this,” Casey said. She stood up and distributed a set of papers that contained Billy Carmichael’s rap sheet. “You can see he’s been in and out of trouble for a long time—drug possession charges, petty theft, and possession of stolen goods. Most of the time he’s gotten away with slaps on the wrist. This is his first stint of doing any real jail time.”

  “Want me to go have a talk with him?” Jaime offered.

  Wanda Mappin’s case had been Jaime’s originally. Ordinarily doing follow-up interviews would have fallen to him automatically, but Joanna thought the intensity with which Jaime asked the question made it sound like he’d just as soon beat the crap out of anyone who got in his way. Joanna was surprised Jaime had shown up for the briefing and doubted if he should be on duty. In his current condition, turning him loose to interrogate a suspect was completely out of the question.

  “No,” Joanna told him. “Deb’s on her way to Tucson to take the food to the crime lab. She can stop off at the Pima County Jail and handle the preliminary interview with Carmichael. You’ve got plenty to do around here.”

  “What?” Jaime demanded. “We already know Larry Wolfe is dead. Surely you don’t expect me to sit around doing stupid paperwork that nobody’s going to worry about—”

  “I said Deb will handle it,” Joanna said firmly.

  Jaime was pissed but he stifled his anger. “Whatever you say,” he muttered.

  “Anything else?” Joanna asked.

  Frank raised his hand. “I’ve had a call from Samantha Edwards. She expects to be released from the county hospital later on this morning after her doctor does rounds. She says she’s okay. Once she gets out, she’ll need transportation back to her vehicle so she can drive up to Tucson. I gave her an overview of what happened last night and let her know that Sandra is in TMC.”

  “She knows Larry is dead?” Joanna asked.

  Frank nodded. “I told her. She said she’d tell Sandra about it. Samantha is also calling the mortuary to put the Beasleys’ memorial service on hold until Sandra gets back on her feet.”

  “Where’s Samantha’s car?” Joanna asked.

  “Where she left it yesterday morning,” Frank said. “Still parked outside her parents’ house up Tombstone Canyon.”

  “Can you take care of having someone pick her up?” Joanna asked.

  Frank nodded. “Will do.”

  A few minutes later, with the rest of the agenda items cleared, everyone stood to go, but Joanna beat Jaime to the door and kept him from leaving.

  “What?” he asked sarcastically. “Shouldn’t I be getting started on all that life-and-death paperwork?”

  “How are you doing, Jaime?” Joanna asked. “How are you doing really?”

  Grimacing, he didn’t meet her gaze. “Not so hot, I guess,” he admitted ruefully.

  “You saw Sunny?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “I saw her, and it hurt like hell. She was glad to know the guy who most likely did it was dead, but I don’t see why I had to be the one…”

  “It’s going to hurt like hell for a very long time,” Joanna interrupted. “It’s going to hurt you and it’s going to hurt Sunny, but I want you to handle that end of it for us, Jaime. I want you to be the official liaison between our department and Deputy Sloan’s family.”

  “But—”

  “This isn’t optional,” Joanna said. “It’s an order. I’m guessing you were closer to Danny than anyone else in the department. That means you’re also closer to Sunny. I need you to help us coordinate whatever funeral arrangements she needs to make, so we can help out by doing whatever she wants us to do. Afterward, I want you to stay in touch with her. If she needs help filling out claim forms or filing for Social Security or whatever, I want you in on it. Danny was one of our own. That means Sunny is, too. Understood?”

  “Yes,” Jaime said. “I see what you mean.” He reached for the door handle, but Joanna stopped him.

  “How’s Luis?” she asked.

  “Okay, I guess,” Jaime said with a shrug. “He’s at the house with Delcia and Pepe.”

  “Has he heard from his mom?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Keep me posted on that, too,” Joanna said.

  Jaime nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “Before the day is out, you’re to go see Father Rowan; not for Sunny—for you.”

  He nodded again. “All right, boss,” he said softly. “I will.”

  This time when he reached for the door handle, Joanna let him go. She returned to her office and tried to get a start returning phone calls—not only the ones that had come in earlier but also the additional stack that had come in while she was off in the break room and conducting the briefing. The most interesting call was from Detective Rebecca Ramsey of Tucson PD. Joanna returned that one first.

  “So sorry to hear about your deputy,” Becky said, once Joanna had identified herself. Dan Sloan’s death was right at the top of that day’s news cycle, and Joanna knew some variation of that theme would be the beginning of every telephone conversation for days to come.

  “Thank you,” Joanna said. “It’s pretty tough times around here at the moment. Do you have anything for me?”

  “I went to pay a call on your friend Donald Dietrich at Flannigan Foundation,” Becky said with a laugh. “You must have made quite an impression on the man. He wasn’t thrilled to see me to begin with, and when I mentioned your name, my chilly reception turned downright frigid.”

  “Not surprised,” Joanna said, because she wasn’t.

  “So I told him I’d been assigned to follow up on a missing person who had disappeared from one of his facilities. When I told him I needed Wayne Leroy Hamm’s dental records to put into our missing persons database, he went into a whole song and dance about how he couldn’t possibly give them to me due to client confidentiality concerns. When I threatened to go public with his deliberately stalling the search for one of his missing clients, he folded. He says he’ll make the dental records available as soon as he can locate them.”

  Folded, Joanna thought, wondering if it was possible Detective Ramsey played poker, as did Joanna. An all-girl, all law-enforcement poker game might be fun sometime, but she let that idea pass.

  “As soon as he can locate them?” Joanna asked. “I suppose that means sometime in the far distant future.”

  “No,” Becky said. “I gave him twenty-four hours to produce them or I go to the media. Flannigan has a reputation to protect in this town. I don’t think Dietrich’ll risk having his money-raising capability damaged.”

  Definitely a poker player, Joanna thought.

  “I’ll let you know if anything comes of it,” Becky continued.

  Joanna stayed on in the office until almost one, but by then she could no longer hold her head
up. “I’m going home for a nap,” she told Kristin on her way out. “If you need me, call.”

  Once at the house, she stripped off her clothes and fell into bed. Then she surprised herself by falling into a deep sleep. Hours later, a loud clap of thunder brought her wide awake. If the noise hadn’t awakened her, Lady would have. Joanna’s spooky little Australian shepherd was terrified of thunderstorms. She vaulted onto the bed and then burrowed, shivering, under the covers to cuddle up next to Joanna. For the next few minutes, while the worst of the storm blew over, Joanna lay there comforting the frightened dog as rain pelted down outside. Finally, with the thunder receding, Joanna booted Lady out of the bed and got up herself.

  Wrapping her robe around her, she went out to the kitchen, drawn there by the sound of voices and the smell of burned bread. There she found Butch at the table plugging a ravenous Dennis full of rice cereal while Jenny, spatula in hand, presided over the stove. On the counter next to the stove top was a platter containing several grilled cheese sandwiches, some of them more than slightly charred.

  “Butch is teaching me to cook,” Jenny said happily when her mother appeared in the doorway. “I let the pans get a little too hot.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Butch assured her. “Cooking takes practice.” He turned to Joanna. “How are things?” When Joanna had come home earlier, she had been too tired to talk. While she had been asleep, Deputy Sloan’s death was out of her head. Now she could think of nothing else.

  She walked over to the fridge and went looking for something to drink, settling on the pitcher of iced tea she found there.

  “It was a rough day and it’s going to be a rough week,” she said. “After we eat, I should probably get dressed and go back in for a while.”

  “No,” Butch said, using the spoon to scrape some escaping food from Dennis’s chin as the baby greeted his mother with a toothless grin. “It’s been raining for the better part of an hour and the washes are already running. You’ll have to wait until the water goes down again.”

  Running several simultaneous murder investigations in the middle of the monsoon season was complicated.

  “Here, Mom,” Jenny said. “Try this.” She dropped one of the sandwiches, pretty-side-up, on a plate and set it in front of her mother. “I hope it’s okay,” she added nervously.

  It was more than okay. For one thing, the grilled cheeses were made to Butch’s specifications. That meant there was enough chopped jalapeño to more than offset the taste of charred toast. And since Joanna had eaten nothing since that taste of tamale much earlier in the break room, she quickly scarfed down one whole sandwich and willingly accepted another half.

  Jenny put a sandwich-laden plate in front of Butch, then sat down with one of her own. “Are you going to tell her?” Jenny asked.

  “Tell me what?” Joanna wanted to know.

  “About Mrs. Sunderson,” Jenny said.

  Butch shot his stepdaughter a warning look.

  “What about her?” Joanna asked.

  “I talked to my editor this morning,” Butch replied. “She called as soon as they opened up on the East Coast. She told me that in order to set up any kind of tour appearances, she had to have an answer today. So I talked to Marianne. She brought Mrs. Sunderson down here for an interview just before noon. I hired her on the spot.”

  Joanna was dumbstruck and more than slightly offended. “You hired her?” she demanded. “Just like that?”

  “Yes, just like that,” Butch replied. “She worked in preschools for years before her husband got so sick that she had to stay home with him. She’s not exactly inexperienced as far as taking care of kids is concerned. I like her. Jenny likes her. She’s thrilled that she’ll be able to rent our old house—”

  “You did all this without consulting me?” Joanna asked.

  “Maybe not this morning, Joey, but I did consult you. Remember?” Butch said. “The last I heard, you said you wanted me to go on tour. I had to give New York a yes-or-no answer today. With everything you were dealing with at work, I didn’t think you were in any condition to have a long heart-to-heart discussion about it or to schedule an interview.”

  Joanna had to admit that much was inarguable. She had been up to her neck in work-related issues. There wouldn’t have been time for her to deal with a domestic crisis as well.

  “I really do like Mrs. Sunderson,” Jenny put in. “And just think, this way there’ll be some kids living right next door.”

  Now that the news had been broken, Butch hurried on with outlining arrangements. “Mrs. S. and the boys will stay at the motel until the middle of next week. Even with a full crew, that’s the soonest I’ll be able to complete the fix-up on the other house. Marianne said that will give her time to gather up some donated furniture for them to use. Once they get moved in, she’ll start working for us right away while the boys are still out of school for the summer. That way, by the time the tour rolls around, she’ll be familiar with our routines, know where things go, and so forth.”

  “But—” Joanna began.

  “Look,” Butch said, “you hire the best people you can find to do your job, and I’m doing the same thing. Having her here will help her because it’ll be a job she can do without having to worry about day care for her boys. It’ll help me because I’ll have some time for writing when I’m here and I won’t need to worry about how things are being handled when I’m gone.”

  Jenny stood up abruptly. “There’s no sense in sitting around here if all you two are going to do is fight,” she declared. “Want me to burp him?” she asked Butch, reaching for Dennis.

  “That would be nice,” Butch said. “But this isn’t fighting. It’s discussing.”

  “It sounds like fighting to me,” Jenny said. She grabbed Dennis up. With all three dogs at her heels, Jenny flounced out of the room.

  Butch picked up his now cold sandwich and munched on it in silence. Sitting there with him, Joanna knew there was a good deal of truth in everything he had said. Butch ran the household without complaint, but the very fact that he’d willingly accepted help from her mother was an indication that he sometimes had difficulty keeping all the balls in the air. And they did want his career to move forward. Both of them wanted that, and for that to happen he needed to go on tour.

  “Can we afford the extra expense of hiring Carol Sunderson to help out around here?” Joanna asked at last.

  “I don’t think we can afford not to have her,” Butch said. “It’ll be tight,” he admitted, “but I’m convinced it’s going to be a good thing for everyone concerned—Jenny and Dennis included.”

  “All right, then,” Joanna said.

  Butch gave her a grateful smile. “So now that you know about my day, how about if you tell me about yours.”

  It turned out to be a very long story, from the time she had left the house overnight until she’d finally dragged herself home in the early afternoon. At that juncture, Joanna and Butch’s conversation was interrupted by the realities of life—of doing the dishes, straightening up the kitchen, getting Dennis put to bed. When things quieted down once more and Joanna resumed her recitation, she was tempted to skip mentioning the part about Suzanne Quayle and Andy. In the end, she didn’t. Butch’s response wasn’t what she had expected.

  “Just because your dad was having an affair doesn’t mean Andy was,” Butch observed when she finished.

  “Wait a minute,” Joanna said. “Now you’re defending Andy? What’s this all about? I suppose it figures that men would stick together.”

  “I’m not defending him,” Butch returned. “But, if you ask me, you’re a long way from having probable cause. You’ve learned that someone Andy worked with was pregnant when he died. Since she didn’t kiss up to you at the funeral and left town shortly thereafter, you’ve developed this whole scenario of what may or may not have happened between them. I think you’re jumping to unwarranted conclusions. This isn’t what I’d call a slam dunk.”

  Joanna bit her lip and said
nothing.

  “What are you going to do?” Butch asked.

  Joanna shrugged. “Look into it, I suppose,” she said.

  “What if you find out it’s true? What if Jenny has a little half brother or sister? What will you do then, tell her or not tell her?”

  “I don’t know,” Joanna admitted. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  “You’d better think about it,” Butch warned her. “As you’ve already figured out this week, those kinds of family secrets have a way of bubbling to the surface at all the wrong times.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by a ringing telephone. For a change, the call was for Butch instead of Joanna.

  “That’s right,” he told Jeff Daniels. “I’ll pick up the tile tomorrow morning in Sierra Vista. If you could get the painting crew started while I’m doing that, it would be a huge help.”

  Butch paused, listening. “Tell Marianne thanks but that we’ve got that covered,” he said. “Eleanor said she’d be here as early as I need her.”

  Jenny’s right, Joanna thought. We are fighting. On the evening of Joanna’s worst day as sheriff, the last thing she needed was to be wrangling with her husband.

  “My mother’s coming over again?” she asked pointedly once Butch got off the phone.

  “Eleanor knows how much work it’s going to be to have the house ready by next week. She said she’d be glad to do whatever she can to help.”

  “Oh,” Joanna said. “With any kind of luck, I’ll be at work by the time she gets here.”

  Except she wasn’t. Eleanor, smiling brightly, was in the kitchen drinking coffee with Butch by the time Joanna got out of the shower the next morning. “Come outside and see my baby,” she told Joanna. “I worried about driving her through the wash for fear we’d get hung up on a rock or something, but we made it okay.”

  Joanna, accompanied by Jenny, followed her mother outside to a spot just beyond the garage, where Eleanor had parked her bright red Mazda Miata.

  “What do you think?” Eleanor wanted to know.

  Joanna didn’t know what to think. “It’s really something,” she said.