Devil’s Claw

CHAPTER 11

Nine o’clock Monday morning found a bleary-eyed Sheriff Brady in her office and trying hard to concentrate on work. She had barely made her way through the first two letters by the time Chief Deputy Frank Montoya showed up for his morning briefing.

“How’s the bride?” he asked cheerfully, popping his head in the door. “And how was the shower?”

“The shower was fine,” Joanna replied, rubbing her eyes. “As for the bride, she’s not doing all that well at the moment. Butch and I had a hell of a fight last night. Since I have yet to hear from him this morning, I have to assume we’re still not exactly on speaking terms.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Frank said, setting a stack of incident reports down on the corner of Joanna’s desk before easing himself into one of her two captain’s chairs. “Pre-wedding jitters, I assume?”

“Some people would call it that, I suppose,” Joanna replied.

The previous evening the oven had been sparkling clean and she and Butch had tackled cleaning grout on the kitchen counter when she had happened to mention Dick Voland’s visit at the end of the shower.

Butch’s reaction to the news had been instantaneous and in hindsight, quite predictable. “You can’t be serious!” he had exclaimed. “You mean you’re actually going to cooperate with that jerk?”

“Of course I’m going to cooperate,” Joanna replied. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Ignore him.”

“Butch, I can’t do that,” an exasperated Joanna had explained. “I’ve got nothing to hide. Besides, if I refuse to give him what he needs, it’ll make matters that much worse.”

“I don’t see how. I think he’s got a hell of a lot of nerve-”

“Dick Voland stopped by Daisy’s to let me know what was going down,” Joanna said. “It was quite nice of him, considering.”

“And you’re so naive, you fell for it.”

“Fell for what?”

“The nice-guy routine,” Butch growled. “Dick Voland wasn’t being nice. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. He’s a disgruntled ex-employee who came by to let you know that he’s about to stab you in the back. And while he’s at it, he wanted to ask you if you’d mind giving him a hand.”

“That’s not how it was,” Joanna said.

“Right.”

“Butch, I happen to know Dick Voland better than you do.”

“I’m sure that‘s true.”

That was where the conversation had ended, and the evening, too. A few minutes later, Butch had stalked out of the house and left for home. Energized by anger, Joanna had kept on cleaning right up until midnight. She was angry with Butch for flying off the handle and angry with herself for not managing the issue in a more diplomatic fashion. The last thing she had wanted to do the week before her wedding was quarrel with Butch over Dick Voland. But the more she scrubbed and cleaned and the more she thought about it, the more she began to wonder if perhaps Butch was right. Joanna had assumed a mutual respect existed between her and her former colleague. Was it possible that respect was totally one-sided?

Finally, worn out by work and worry both, she had gone to bed but not to sleep. In fact, she had tossed and turned until almost time for her alarm to sound.

Frank took a sip of his coffee. “Don’t your new in-laws arrive today? I’ve heard rumors that they’re always good for at least one fight.”

“This has nothing to do with Butch’s family,” Joanna said. “The beef was over Dick Voland.”

“Dick Voland? I would have thought Butch had moved beyond worrying about Dick Voland a long time ago. That’s all water under the bridge.”

“New water, new bridge,” Joanna said. “Dick showed up at the shower yesterday afternoon.”

“He was there?” Frank demanded. “How come? Who invited him?”

“He wasn’t invited. He stopped by afterward to tell me that Clayton Rhodes’ daughter, Reba Singleton, is on the warpath. She believes one way or another that I’m responsible for her father’s death. She’s hired Dick and wants him to gather enough evidence to bring the situation to the attention of the FBI.”

At that juncture, Frank actually choked as a sip of steaming coffee caught in his throat. “Why, for God’s sake, would she-”

“Because Clayton left me his place in his will.”

“His place?” Frank blinked. “You mean Rhodes Ranch-the land, house, and everything?”

“All three hundred and twenty acres,” Joanna replied. “Reba is of the opinion that the prospect of receiving the ranch sooner rather than later was inducement enough for me to knock her father off. Never mind the fact that I had no idea about the contents of Clayton’s will until yesterday morning, when Burton Kimball called to tell me what was happening.”

“So Dick gets to sic the FBI on you,” Frank grumbled. “And he had the gall to come by and gloat about it. That jackass-”

“He didn’t come by to gloat,” Joanna interrupted. “He came to warn me, Frank. To let me know what was happening. He’s coming here to the department sometime this morning-probably any minute now-to pick up fingerprint information on me. I expect our people to give him their full cooperation, and courtesy, too,” she added. “If he needs help collecting latent prints at the scene, he’s welcome to request Casey Ledford’s services. He shouldn’t have a problem with that. As far as I know, at this point Doc Winfield and I are the only ones accused of any complicity. I don’t believe anyone else in the department is under suspicion.”

“Doc Winfield?” Frank repeated. “What did he do?”

“Clayton’s autopsy, for one thing,” Joanna answered. “But since George Winfield is also my stepfather, Reba Singleton is claiming conflict of interest. She’s asking for a second-opinion autopsy. She’s going before a judge to get a court order.”

“Doc Winfield’s gonna love that,” Frank said.

Joanna continued. “I assume they’ll ask the ME up in Pima County for assistance. The problem is, we’ve done so much work with them lately, that, for all I know, they might be considered contaminated as well.”

Frank Montoya shook his head. “I can’t believe it, Joanna. You’re really going to help Dick Voland open this can of worms?”

“The can’s already open,” Joanna said firmly. “And everybody in this office is going to cooperate with Dick’s investigation. I’ve got nothing to hide or apologize for, and neither does George Winfield. The sooner we get this mess handled, the less outside interference we’ll have to deal with. And now,” she added, reaching for the stack of incident reports, “what all went on yesterday?”

“Do you want to read all those?” Frank asked.

“Not especially. Give me the Reader’s Digest condensed version.”

“In descending order, fifteen UDAs held for the INS, and four DWIs. Two each motor-vehicle accidents and domestic-violence incidents-no fatalities and no serious injuries in any of them. One of the inmates in the jail suffered a seizure of some kind and had to be transported down to the county hospital in Douglas. He’s still there, under guard. In other words, all pretty much routine stuff.”

“What about the Sandra Ridder investigation?”

“We had a team from the crime lab out at the scene-at the two scenes-pretty much all day yesterday. They picked up some trace evidence-threads, hair, that kind of thing-but there’s no way to tell whether or not it has anything to do with what happened.

“Jaime and I picked up Catherine Yates and brought her in to George’s office yesterday afternoon. She IDed the dead woman from the culvert as her daughter, Sandra Ridder. No surprises there, since we’d already pretty much figured that out on our own. According to the doc, he was scheduling the autopsy for sometime this morning. Still no sign of that missing Lexus.”

“What about Lucinda Ridder?”

“She’s still missing, too. Deputy Gregovich and Spike worked the problem all day yesterday. They had no trouble following her after she left the house. She stuck to the road for half a mile or so, then the trail disappeared. They lost her.”

“So she either got in a vehicle or took off on her bike. Since the bike is missing, I’m betting on the latter. Can Spike follow a trail left by a bike?”

“Not as well as he can follow one left by a pair of human feet. On a hunch, I had him check out the crime-scene area over by Cochise Stronghold. They hit a jackpot there and picked up Lucy’s scent again. She spent some time concealed in a dry creek bed, with her bike hidden nearby. She came out of hiding long enough to go over by the sign, then she disappeared into thin air again, same as she did before, when she left Catherine Yates’ house.”

“If she was at the crime scene when her mother was,” Joanna mused, “she might have seen what happened.”

“Or she might have been involved in what happened.”

“You’re still thinking Lucy might have had something to do with what happened to Sandra?”

Frank nodded. “It’s possible,” he said. “According to Catherine Yates, Lucy is desperately unhappy that her mother is getting out of jail. Embarrassed, probably, more than unhappy. It’s like I said the other night. She sneaks up on her mother armed with a gun that she knows how to use. Maybe she goes to the sign for the same reason her mother did-looking for whatever was in that damned Tupperware bowl. Maybe she’s still there when her mother arrives. That could just be a coincidence, or maybe Lucy knew that’s where her mother would go the first moment she had a chance.

“One way or the other, regardless of what Catherine Yates told us about Lucy refusing to have anything to do with her mother, I think she was wrong. I’m pretty sure Lucy and Sandra did meet up that night.”

“Why’s that?”

“Remember the necklace Sandra Ridder was wearing when she was found?”

Joanna nodded. She hadn’t seen the necklace, but she remembered hearing it described by Hal Witter. “The devil’s-claw necklace?”

“Right. Well, guess what. According to Catherine Yates, that necklace actually belongs to her granddaughter. Lucinda Ridder was wearing it the last time Catherine saw her.”

Joanna followed that line of reasoning for several long moments. “Maybe the whole thing was set up,” she suggested at last. “Suppose Sandra Ridder contacted her daughter without Catherine Yates’ knowledge and arranged for Lucy to meet her at the Cochise Stronghold in the middle of the night.”

“Seems far-fetched,” Frank said, “but I suppose it could have happened that way.”

“And,” Joanna continued, “if Spike and Terry can’t pick up Lucy’s trail after that, it probably means that Lucy left the scene on her bike or in a vehicle of some kind. The first question that comes to mind, then, is whether Lucy Ridder is a suspect or a fellow victim in this case. If she took a ride, was it voluntary or not? Did whoever drove off in the missing Lexus take Lucinda and Big Red and the missing bicycle along with him?”

“What would a UDA want with Lucinda Ridder and her red-tailed hawk?”

“Nothing good,” Joanna answered with a slight shiver. “Not every illegal who comes across the line looking for work is a fine upstanding citizen.”

“No,” Frank agreed, “especially when you take into consideration the fact that Sandra Ridder was shot in cold blood.”

“Getting back to the necklace,” Joanna said. “Did you take a look at it?”

Frank nodded. “Doc Winfield showed it to Ernie and me before he returned Sandra’s personal effects to her mother. That’s when Catherine told us the necklace really belonged to Lucy-that Catherine’s mother, Lucy’s great-grandmother-had commissioned it made for Lucy’s tenth birthday. It’s a pretty little thing-two silver prongs that seem to be growing out of a tiny turquoise bead. Beautiful workmanship, and signed, too.”

“Signed?”

“Catherine said it was made by a friend of her mother’s-someone who lives over in Gallup, New Mexico. The signature was too small for me to read with the naked eye, but the doc had checked it out under the microscope. Vega is the name of the guy who made it. L. Vega.”

“Valuable, do you think?” Joanna asked.

“Maybe,” Frank responded. “Depends on the reputation of whoever made it.”

“Try to find out,” Joanna said. “I’d like to know more about the artist who made it and also about how much it cost. But more than that, I want to know why it’s still here.”

Frank wrote himself a reminder. “You mean why didn’t whoever killed Sandra Ridder take the necklace at the same time they took the car?”

Joanna nodded. “Exactly. It stands to reason they would, if robbery was part of the equation.”

“What if they only wanted the car?”

Joanna shook her head. “I’ve never yet met a car thief who wouldn’t steal something else as well if the opportunity presented itself. By the way, what are Jaime and Ernie doing today?”

Detectives Jaime Carbajal and Ernie Carpenter, the Double Cs, as they were sometimes called, constituted the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department entire Detective Division.

“Jaime was supposed to sit in on Sandra Ridder’s autopsy this morning, but Doc Winfield had a conflict. So now they’re both heading out to the valley. They’ll most likely stop by and see Catherine Yates again, then they plan on going to Elfrida to interview Lucinda Ridder’s friends and classmates. Jaime thinks that if Lucy had plans, she might have confided them to someone out there at the high school. After that, Jaime will go on up to Tucson. He has an early-afternoon appointment to see Melanie Goodson. He also plans on going out to Old Spanish Trail. He wants to nose around Mrs. Goodson’s neighborhood to see if anyone there saw something out of line. Ernie will be coming back to Bisbee to sit in on the autopsy.”

Joanna nodded. “Sounds as though that’s all moving forward as well as can be expected.” She pulled her desk calendar over in front of her. “On another front, what’s coming up at the Board of Supervisors meeting this morning?”

“Routine stuff, as far as I can see,” Frank told her. “Nothing major, as far as the department is concerned.”

Months earlier, one of the sheriff department’s previous investigations had uncovered a trail of graft and corruption, which had resulted in the abrupt resignation of a member of the board. Since then, Joanna had tried to maintain a low profile at Board of Supervisors meetings. Whenever possible, she sent Frank Montoya in her place.

“Nothing you can’t handle?”

“Right.” Frank pursed his lips. “What about the press, Joanna? I’ve already had a couple of calls from reporters this morning. I haven’t returned any of the calls. I’m assuming they’ll be asking questions about Clayton Rhodes, and about Sandra Ridder as well. How do you want me to handle this?”

“Refer all Clayton Rhodes inquiries to George Winfield’s office. For the time being, his natural-causes ruling dictates our official handling of the case. Sandra Ridder’s next of kin have been notified, so there’s no need to hold back on her identification. For right now, we’ll say that the victim’s unnamed daughter, a juvenile, is missing and is considered a person of interest in the investigation of Sandra Ridder’s death.”

“What about Reba Singleton’s accusations as well as Dick Voland’s so-called investigation? How do you want those handled-containment?”

“Trying to squelch them isn’t going to work, Frank,” Joanna answered. “You and I both know that Dick and Marliss Shackleford are an item. She’s not going to miss out on a chance to show me in a bad light, especially if she can do it with the help of insider information. She told me yesterday in church that she’s going to be writing Clayton’s obituary.”

“Great,” Frank said. “That should give her ample opportunity for a little gratuitous editorializing.”

Just then Kristin Marsten’s voice came over the intercom. “Sheriff Brady?”

“What is it?”

“I know you don’t like to be interrupted during the briefing, but Casey Ledford is on line one. I told her you were busy, but she said this is important. She says she needs to talk to you right away.”

“Thanks, Kristin. I’ll take the call.”

A year and a half earlier, a windfall of unexpected money had become available for Joanna’s department to create its own Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Casting about for someone to get the system up and running, Joanna had stumbled on Casey, a young college dropout and a single mother supporting her four-month-old baby by waiting tables at the Copper Queen Hotel.

With a tiny baby to support, no college degree, and no law-enforcement training, Casey’s application might well have gone nowhere. The good news was that her unfinished degree was in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the University of Arizona. She was a capable artist who was also savvy with computers. Joanna reasoned that she’d be able to use her artistic skills for the manual augmentation of prints necessary to make the AFIS scans work. What ultimately carried the day, however, was the fact that Casey Ledford was the only candidate who had applied for the job. In the intervening months, she had become a valued member of Joanna’s team. If anyone remembered that the AFIS tech had no Police Science degree, it no longer mattered enough for people to mention it.

Joanna punched down the lit and flashing button that indicated line one. “Good morning, Casey. What’s up?”

“Dick Voland is here and he-”

“He’s asking for a copy of my fingerprints,” Joanna supplied.

“That’s right, and I told him-”

“I want you to give them to him,” Joanna interrupted. “I also want you to give him whatever additional assistance he may deem necessary. If that includes going out to Clayton Rhodes’ place and lifting prints, I want you to do that as well. Is that clear?”

“Yes, but-”

“No buts, Casey. This is important. Mr. Voland is to have your full cooperation. Is that clear?”

“Yes. I’ll get right on it.”

“Wait, Casey. Before you go, I have a question.”

“What’s that?”

“Have you had a chance to lift any prints off the water jugs Jaime Carbajal brought in from the Cochise Stronghold crime scene on Friday?”

“I tried,” Casey replied. “But there weren’t any.”

“Not one? That’s odd.”

“Yes, I thought so, too. I’ve looked at several sets of those water jugs over the months I’ve been here,” Casey said. “I’ve never seen one with no prints on it before. Since when did UDAs start either wearing gloves or wiping their jugs clean?”

“They don’t as far as I know,” Joanna said.

“Right,” Casey said. “It’s something that doesn’t fit. One of the jugs still had some water in it. I’ve taken that down to the lab and asked Ernesto to check on it and see if he can tell where it came from.”

“Probably from a well in Old Mexico or from somebody’s stock tank somewhere between Pearce and the border.”

“But how many towns in Mexico chlorinate and fluoridate their water?” Casey asked back.

“Not many,” Joanna said. And then, seeing where Casey’s line of thought was leading, she added, “Same goes for ranchers and stock tanks between here and the border. Is it possible to get a match on where the water came from?”

“Maybe,” Casey said. “Ernesto’s making some follow-up phone calls on that right now.”

“Good work, Casey. Have him call me with his results. In the meantime, give Dick Voland whatever assistance he needs.”

“Will do,” Casey replied.

Sitting on the far side of Joanna’s desk, Frank Montoya had followed enough of the conversation to know what was going on. “That Casey Ledford has a good head on her shoulders,” he said. “It’s a shame we have to keep her locked up in the print lab.”

“Casey likes the print lab,” Joanna reminded him. “She’s good at what she does, and as long as she’s not afraid to think outside the box from time to time, we have the benefit of her smarts in more than one direction.”

“Sheriff Brady?” Once again Kristin’s disembodied voice came over the intercom. “Is Chief Deputy Montoya still in there?”

“Yes.”

“Would you tell him that Marliss Shackleford is out in the public lobby waiting to speak to him?”

Frank stood up. “Time to go earn my keep,” he said. “Why do you suppose she wants to talk to me?”

“The last I heard, you were still our Media Relations officer,” Joanna said.

“Media Relations!” Frank snorted, heading for the door. “For this I ought to qualify for hazardous-duty pay.”