Dead Wrong

Chapter 20

Knowing there was no way she’d be able to dodge in and out of the Justice Center without being photographed, Joanna took time enough to do what she could with her hair and makeup before she left the house. And she was right. As soon as she drove into the complex, a group of reporters began following her. Rather than leading them to the relative privacy of her backdoor entrance, she stopped directly in front of the building and marched through the throng to the spot near the front entrance where Frank, holding a wiggly pit bull puppy, was doing his best to carry on a press briefing.

He looked at her gratefully. “And here’s Sheriff Brady right now,” he said.

As Joanna stepped to the collection of microphones, Frank took the opportunity to duck inside and divest himself of the puppy. Prepared for a grilling about the fate of the unfortunate animals Millicent Ross had found it necessary to euthanize, Joanna was astonished to find no one was the least bit interested in those. Everyone wanted to know about the puppies. How long would they be in her jail? Who had come up with the idea? Did the inmates mind? Did the guards? Was it true that a benefactor was providing the money to pay for this so it wasn’t coming out of public funds?

When Frank reemerged minus the wiggling puppy, Joanna was happy to turn the briefing back over to him. “With this mob to handle, I can see you’re not going anywhere,” she said. “What about Debbie or Jaime?”

“They’re back up at San Simon,” he said. “But Ernie’s here.”

“Ernie!” Joanna exclaimed. “I thought he was off on medical leave.”

“So did I,” Frank said. “But he turned up first thing this morning itching to go back to work.”

“Where is he?”

“At his desk reading up on everything he’s missed.”

Joanna went inside and found Ernie in his cubicle. “Are you sure you should be working?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t talk if I were you,” he returned. “But yes, I need to be here. Rose said either I came to work or she was getting a divorce. Besides, Frank said you might need some help.”

“It’s the Bradley Evans case. As I recall, you weren’t too thrilled about working it last week.”

“That was before I was stuck at home for what felt like forever. I’ll work whatever needs working. Where are we going and what car do we take?”

Joanna handed him her keys. “We’ll take mine,” she said. “It’s parked out front, but there’s no way I’m going back through that crowd of reporters to get it.”

Minutes later, Ernie drove the Crown Victoria up to Joanna’s private entrance. They left the Cochise Justice Center complex without fanfare.

“Where to?”

“It’s Sunday afternoon,” Joanna said, glancing at her watch. “Prime real estate time. Let’s see if Mr. Markham happens to be in his office.”

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist told Joanna when she called. “He’s not in. Some kind of family emergency. Can I take a message?”

“Never mind,” Joanna said without leaving her name. “Maybe I can catch him at home.”

“To the Triple H, then?” Ernie asked.

Joanna nodded. On the way she told Ernie as much as she could remember about what they had uncovered concerning Lisa Marie and Bradley Evans and about Rory and Leslie Markham as well. Ernie was appalled.

“You’re telling me Rory Markham once had an affair with the grandmother of the woman who’s now his wife? What is he, some kind of pervert?”

“The presumed grandmother,” Joanna corrected. “And no, I don’t think Rory’s necessarily a pervert. He’s a cagey operator who’s also very dangerous. I’m almost certain that he must have had some involvement with whatever happened to Lisa Marie back in 1978. Having Bradley show up unexpectedly on his doorstep after all these years and start asking about Lisa must have thrown Markham for a loop. He couldn’t afford to have his possible involvement come to light. He opted for damage control and got rid of Bradley. I’m sure he was convinced there’d be no way to link the crime back to him and that would be the end of it.”

“This is all gut instinct, though,” Ernie grumbled. “Gut instinct and theory. We’ve got no solid evidence to back any of this up.”

“You’re right,” Joanna said. “But by the time we finish talking to him, maybe we will have.”

“You take the lead, then,” Ernie said. “I can’t see how this is going to pull together.”

Joanna wasn’t sure she did either, but she spent the next part of the drive thinking about the entry in her father’s diary-about how he felt that sending Bradley Evans to prison for his young wife’s murder was “dead wrong.” Other than Bradley, no other possible suspects had ever been named or even mentioned.

But here was Rory Markham caught up in the middle of it. And not, as Lawrence Tazewell had so readily assumed, as Aileen’s sometime boyfriend, but as Ruth’s. And who was Ruth? Someone cold-blooded enough to want her daughter to abort a child rather than give birth to one at risk of developing Huntington’s disease.

“What if Aileen never knew about any of it?” Joanna said aloud.

“Never knew what?”

“That Ruth and Rory had somehow arranged to substitute Lisa Marie’s baby for Aileen’s? According to Leslie, Aileen was eager for Leslie to be married so that if and when she did develop HD, she’d have someone to take care of her. But if Aileen had known about the switch, then she’d also have known that there was no reason for her to worry about the possibility of Leslie developing Huntington‘s.”

Ernie wasn’t buying it. “Women usually know when they have babies. Rose sure as hell did. How’s that possible?”

“Leslie told me she was born at home-on the ranch-the same day Lisa Marie Evans disappeared. Aileen’s mother was a nurse. Maybe she exchanged one baby for another without Aileen’s knowledge. Who knows? But when Ruth arrived at the hospital later on that day with a newborn baby and with a woman who had clearly just given birth in tow, no one would have thought to question whether or not the baby was really hers.”

“So when Bradley Evans turns up claiming Leslie Markham is his daughter, it’s news to everybody.”

“News to everybody except Rory,” Joanna said. “And because he was involved with whatever went on back then, Rory couldn’t afford to have Bradley waving Lisa’s picture around and asking too many questions.”

“You’re right,” Ernie agreed. “That scenario provides some motive, but I still don’t think it’s possible. How could Rory and the grandmother pull it off? Someone had to lure Lisa away from the dry cleaner’s. Someone else had to deal with Bradley Evans. And then there’s the question of being there at the ranch when Aileen gave birth. How could Ruth and Rory manage all of that by themselves?”

“Maybe they didn’t,” Joanna said suddenly. “Maybe they had help.”

“Who?”

“What about Joaquin Mattias?”

“The guy whose wife reported him missing this morning?” Ernie asked.

Joanna nodded. “The same guy whose wife bought the paint primer that was used to camouflage Bradley Evans’s truck.”

“But what makes you think…?”

“A hunch,” Joanna said. “Based on something Dolores Mattias said to me last night.”

Ernie emitted a long-suffering sigh. “I always hate it when you go off on one of these ‘woman’s intuition’ routines,” he said. “It’s not professional.”

“But it sometimes gets results,” Joanna countered.

A few minutes later, when they pulled into the yard at the Mattias place, Dolores hurried out to meet them as they exited the car. “He’s not here,” she said.

Joanna sent a meaningful glance in Ernie’s direction. In a missing-persons case, that was the wrong thing for a family member to say. “Did you find him?” Yes. “Has something happened?” Yes. “Is he hurt?” Yes. “He’s not here?” Definitely a no-no.

“This is Detective Ernie Carpenter,” Joanna said easily. “This is Mrs. Mattias, Ernie. We’d like to ask you a few more questions.”

“I’m busy right now,” Dolores objected. “Couldn’t we do this later?”

“It won’t take long,” Joanna said. “I want to go over something you told us last night-about how once, a long time ago, your husband had a girlfriend.”

Dolores Mattias stood absolutely still. She seemed to be holding her breath. “Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, he did.”

“Who was she?” Joanna asked.

“I don’t see how that can matter now,” Dolores said. “It’s over. She’s dead.”

“Was Joaquin’s lover Ruth Houlihan?” Joanna asked.

Dolores’s mouth dropped open, then she closed it again and said nothing.

“Was she?” Joanna demanded.

“What if she was?” Dolores said finally. “I never told anyone. Certainly not Senor Houlihan, and not Aileen either. Joaquin told me it was over, and there was no reason to carry tales. It would have been too hurtful. It would have killed Senor Houlihan to know his wife had been unfaithful, and it would have embarrassed Aileen. Why bring it up?”

“You never told anyone?”

“No. Joaquin told me it had happened, and I could see why. Senora Ruth was a very beautiful woman. But when he said it was over and begged my forgiveness, I forgave him, and we moved on.”

“Did you know Ruth Houlihan was thought to be having an affair with Rory Markham at the same time?”

Dolores Mattias seemed to be astonished by that news. “No,” she said. “Rory was Aileen’s friend, not her mother’s.”

While Joanna engaged Dolores in conversation, Ernie Carpenter had edged away from the Crown Victoria. Stealthily crossing the yard, he approached the double door on an attached garage. With his Colt.45 in one hand, he wrenched open one of the two hinged doors with the other. Inside the garage was Joaquin Mattias’s Dodge Ram pickup, but no Joaquin.

Ernie reholstered his gun and returned to where Joanna and Dolores were standing. “There’s no one there, but the back of the truck is full of luggage, Sheriff Brady,” he said.

“Where is he, Mrs. Mattias?” Joanna asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

“You have to tell us,” Joanna insisted. “Your husband is a person of interest in at least one homicide and maybe more. We need to find him.”

“He’s afraid,” Dolores said. “Someone is after him.”

“Besides us, you mean?”

Dolores nodded.

“Then let us protect him. Where is he?”

Tipping her head, Dolores gestured toward the mountains. “Up there,” she said.

“In the Whetstones?” Joanna asked. “What’s he doing up there, hiding?”

“No,” Dolores said. “I wanted to leave two hours ago, but he said there was something he had to do first-some kind of unfinished business.”

“And where are you going?”

“Back to Mexico,” Dolores said. “None of Joaquin’s people are there anymore, but I thought if we once crossed the border, maybe no one would know where to look for us.”

“What’s Joaquin doing in the mountains?” Ernie asked.

“I already told you, I don’t know,” Dolores replied. “He wouldn’t tell me. Just something he had to do.”

“Is he armed?”

“Maybe.”

“Can you tell us how to get where he is?” Ernie asked.

“No,” Dolores said. “But I can take you there. I dropped him off and came back here to finish packing. I’m to pick him up at four o’clock.”

Joanna heard the distinctive pop, pop, pop of gunfire. Echoes reverberated off one canyon wall after another as three separate gunshots bounced down the mountain.

Dolores looked stricken. She turned and started for the garage and the pickup. Ernie caught her arm and pulled her back. “No,” he said.

“But I’ve got to go,” she pleaded. “Didn’t you hear that?”

“Tell us how to get there,” Joanna said.

“It’s too complicated. You’ll never find it. Please, let me go.”

“Get in the back of the Crown Victoria, Mrs. Mattias,” Joanna said. “Ernie will drive. You can direct us until we’re close enough to find the way.”

“But the road’s too rough,” Dolores objected. “You’ll never make it without four-wheel drive.”

“We’ll make it as far as we can and then we’ll walk.”

Without further objection, Dolores allowed herself to be ushered into the Crown Victoria. Once Joanna was inside, she belted herself in and grabbed for the radio.

“Shots fired,” she said. “On the Triple H. We need backup.”

“Whereabouts?” Tica Romero asked. “That ranch is a big place.”

“We don’t know exactly,” Joanna said. “We’ll leave roadside flares along the way wherever we turn off. That’s the best we can do.”

At the point where the main road continued on to the ranch house, Dolores directed them off to the left and onto a much smaller dirt track. Ernie got out and collected the Crown Victoria’s supply of flares. He lit one and left it in the middle of the road they were following, then he returned to the driver’s seat and turned the remaining flares over to Joanna.

“Dispatch has three cars on the way,” she said. “I’ve given them verbal instructions as well.”

Half a mile later, Dolores directed them to the right along a dry creek bed and into a narrow canyon. This time Joanna was the one who got out and lit the flare. The road ahead was rough and steep. “How much farther?” she asked once she was back in the car.

“About another quarter mile,” Dolores answered. “Then there’s a gate.”

Joanna turned to Ernie. “Do you think you can make it?”

“We’ll see.”

Tica’s voice came through on the radio. “It turns out Deputy Raymond is in the area. He’s already turned off onto Triple H Ranch Road. The other two deputies are in Huachuca City and over near Kartchner Caverns. They should arrive soon as well.”

“Good work.”

Several times between there and the gate, the Crown Victoria’s undercarriage scraped across loose boulders and outcrop-pings of rock. Twice, when the creek bed switched back and forth across the road, the Crown Victoria almost mired down in loose sand. Only by maintaining sufficient speed was Ernie able to jolt the vehicle to the far side.

“She’s right, you know,” Ernie grumbled. “Four-wheel drive would be a lot better.”

“This is where I dropped him,” Dolores announced when they reached the gate. Joanna got out to open it, but the track that led beyond the gate was even narrower and rougher than the part they’d just come through. Far below in the distance she heard the faintest sounds of at least two approaching sirens signaling that backup officers were on their way.

Joanna returned to the Crown Victoria. “It looks like we walk from here,” she said to Ernie. “Are you up to it? Your doctor probably wouldn’t call hiking through the desert taking it easy.”

“I can if you can,” he said.

Joanna turned to Dolores Mattias. “You have to stay here in the vehicle.”

“But…”

“Not buts, Mrs. Mattias. We have Kevlar vests. You don’t. It’s for your own safety. You can either give me your word that you’ll stay here, or we lock you in. Which is it?”

“I’ll stay,” Dolores agreed.

“How far is it from here?”

“I don’t know. Joaquin took a shovel with him and went up that path.”

“Did he have a weapon with him?” Joanna asked again.

“Maybe,” Dolores answered. “I don’t know for sure.”

That wasn’t much consolation.

Ernie had gone around to the trunk and retrieved the semiautomatic rifle and twelve-gauge shotgun Joanna kept there. As he handed her the rifle, he stopped short.

“Listen,” he said.

On the far side of the creek, Joanna heard a racket that had to be a fast-moving horse scrabbling over rocks and through the surrounding scrub oak. Joanna and Ernie both ducked for cover behind the Crown Victoria, but the invisible horse kept moving, sending a scatter of rocks down toward the creek bed as it raced by without pausing.

“What if he heads for the gate?” Joanna demanded as the hoofbeats passed out of range. “What if whoever it is goes after Dolores?”

“I’ll go,” Ernie said and was gone.

Alone now, Joanna crept forward. Fifty yards or so beyond the gate the path took a sharp right turn. Another fifty yards beyond that, Joanna caught sight of the charred remains of a crumbling rustic cabin nestled in a small clearing. Winded, she took cover behind a nearby tree. Struggling to steady her breath, she studied the terrain and saw no sign of movement anywhere.

Then, on the far edge of the clearing, something glinting in the sun caught her attention. Sticking to the tree line, Joanna moved closer until she was able to see that sunlight was reflecting off the business end of a shovel that lay to one side of a small mound of freshly dug dirt and what looked like an earth-crusted fruit crate.

Behind Joanna, one of the sirens sputtered to silence. That meant Deputy Raymond must have reached the gate and help was near at hand.

Then she heard it-a low moan that seemed to come from somewhere near the mound of dirt.

“Who is it?” she demanded. “Where are you?”

“Help me,” a weak voice replied. “I’ve been shot.”

Joanna scurried forward. She skirted the box, the mound of dirt, and a small hole. A man lay facedown in the freshly turned dirt of a larger hole, with blood seeping across the back of his denim shirt. A few shovels of dirt had been piled on top of his legs-not enough to bury him alive, but enough to start the job.

“Mr. Mattias?” Joanna asked. “It’s Sheriff Brady. I know I’m not strong enough to get you out of there by myself. I’ve got to go get help.”

“No,” he pleaded. “Don’t go. Stay here with me. It’s too late for help.”

“But…”

“No,” he wheezed. “Someone has to hear this so people know what happened. I was digging them up. It’s the best I could do. At least now they’ll have a decent burial. I’m so sorry.”

Joanna looked at the small dirt-covered box. It looked much too small to be a coffin, but that’s what it was. “Aileen’s baby?” she asked quietly.

“She made me help her,” he managed. “She said if I didn’t, she’d tell her husband about us.”

“Ruth, you mean?”

Joaquin tried to raise himself up out of the dirt, but the effort was too much. He fell back into the musty earth, coughing and gasping.

“Ruth,” he managed. “Ruth and Rory She wanted to get rid of Aileen’s baby. I didn’t know about him until it happened and he was helping her. By then it was too late. Tell Dolores… Tell Dolores…”

“Tell Dolores what?” Joanna implored. “Stay with me, Joaquin. Stay with me.”

She heard the sound of a surging engine as a vehicle made its way up the rough dirt track. She turned to see a departmental Yukon materialize on the far side of the clearing. Seconds later, Deputy Matt Raymond pounded up to Joanna, with Ernie hurrying after him.

“Sheriff Brady, what do you…?”

She pointed at the injured man’s prone body. “See if you can lift him out of there,” she said. “Ernie, call for an ambulance.”

Agilely Deputy Raymond dropped into the hole, placing his feet on either side of the injured man, but just then Joaquin Mattias exhaled a single ragged breath.

“It’s too late for an ambulance, Sheriff Brady,” Deputy Raymond said. “I’m pretty sure he’s gone.”

“Leave him then,” Ernie urged. “We’ll come back later. The guy on the horse made it through the gate before I ever got there. He was riding hell-bent-for-leather and didn’t even see Dolores sitting in the car.”

“Rory Markham?” Joanna asked.

“Probably,” Ernie returned. “I diverted the other units,” he added. “I sent them to the house rather than having them come here.”

“All right,” Joanna agreed. “Let’s go.”

Leaving Joaquin’s body where it was, the three officers raced back across the clearing. Joanna and Deputy Raymond climbed into the front of the Yukon while Ernie clambered into the back.

Halfway to the gate, they met Dolores Mattias lurching up the path on foot. When Deputy Raymond stopped the Yukon, Joanna was the first one out.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mattias,” she said, taking the distraught woman by the arm. “You can’t go there.”

Dolores shook off Joanna’s hand. “My husband,” she said. “Where’s my husband?”

By then, Ernie, too, was at the woman’s side. “Like Sheriff Brady said, Mrs. Mattias, you can’t go there. It’s a crime scene.”

“A crime scene?” she repeated. “What kind of crime scene?”

“I hate to tell you this,” Joanna said softly. “It’s a homicide scene. Your husband is dead, Mrs. Mattias. You must come with us. We need to catch the man who did this.”

“Joaquin is dead?” Dolores Mattias said uncomprehendingly.

“Please come with us,” Joanna begged. “It may be too late to help your husband, but it’s not too late to keep his killer from getting away.”

Wordlessly, as her body convulsed into heaving sobs, Dolores Mattias allowed herself to be helped into the Yukon and buckled into her seat.

Tica Romero’s voice, distorted by static, hissed through the radio. “We have two units within sight of the ranch house now. They report there’s a horse tethered to a post on the front porch. Please advise how many people, besides the suspect, are likely to be inside and what you want our guys to do.”

“In addition to the suspect three people are most likely inside,” Joanna answered. “Aileen Houlihan, who’s bedridden; a nurse; and the suspect’s wife, Leslie Markham. Tell our officers to wait,” she added. “We’re coming there as fast as we can.”

At the gate, Ernie Carpenter bailed from the Yukon in order to drive Joanna’s Crown Victoria back down to the scene of the action. In the backseat, Dolores’s sobs had quieted.

“Why?” she asked finally. “Why would Mr. Markham shoot my husband?”

“It’s a very long story Mrs. Mattias,” Joanna said gently. “But I believe it’s because your husband knew too much.”