Partner In Crime

Nine

FOR THE NEXT TWO AND A HALF HOURS, Joanna waited impatiently for the Bobo Jenkins interview to come to an end. During that time, she would have welcomed Kristin’s waddling into her office to pile another load of correspondence onto her desk. Unfortunately, an hour into the process, her jungle of paperwork was entirely cleared away. All e-mails had been answered, all memos duly signed off on. Desperate to keep herself occupied, Joanna rummaged through a stack of previously unread issues of Law Enforcement Digest and the Arizona Sheriffs’ Association Newsletter, where she actually scanned several of the articles. By twelve-thirty she had been reduced to the rarely performed task of cleaning her desk.

When someone knocked on the doorjamb a while later, Joanna looked up eagerly, hoping for Jaime Carbajal or Frank Montoya. Instead, Lupe Alvarez, one of the public lobby receptionists, stood in the doorway.

“Yes?” Joanna said.

“There’s someone to see you, Sheriff Brady. Do you want me to bring him back?”

“Who is it?”

“He gave his name and showed me a badge. He’s Special Investigator Beaumont, J.P. Beaumont, from Seattle, Washington.”

So, she thought, Mr. J.P. Bird Dog has arrived.

No doubt the big-city cop who was here to screw up her investigation and look down his nose at her department would expect to find a small-town sheriff in a squalid office with her shirtsleeves rolled up and her feet planted on her desk. She was glad to be in uniform that day and grateful that her office was, for a change, in pristine order.

“Thanks, Lupe,” she said. “I’ll come out and get him myself.”

Lupe disappeared. Joanna checked her makeup and hair in the mirror before venturing into the lobby. As she stepped through the secured door, she glanced around the room. The only visible visitor was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a gray crew cut and a loose-fitting sport coat. He stood at the far end of the room, examining a glass case that contained a display of black-and-white photos of the current sheriff of Cochise County along with all of her male predecessors.

The photos of the men were all formal portraits. Most of them had posed in Western garb that included visible weaponry. Their faces were set in serious, unapproachable expressions. Joanna’s picture stood in stark contrast to the rest. The informal snapshot, taken by her father, showed her as a grinning Brownie Scout pulling a Radio Flyer wagon loaded front-to-back with stacked boxes of Girl Scout cookies.

As Joanna’s uninvited visitor lingered in front of the display case, Joanna wished for the first time that she had knuckled under to one of Eleanor Lathrop Winfield’s never-ending bits of motherly advice. Eleanor had tried to convince Joanna that she should do what the previous sheriffs had done and use her official, professionally done campaign photo in the display. She realized now that it wouldn’t be easy for her to be taken seriously by this unwelcome emissary from the Washington State Attorney General’s Office if his first impression of Sheriff Joanna Brady was as a carefree eight-year-old out selling Girl Scout cookies.

“Mr. Beaumont?” she asked, holding out her hand and straining to sound more cordial than she felt. She wasn’t especially interested in making him feel welcome, since he was anything but. As he turned toward her, she realized he stood well over six feet. Naturally, at five feet four, she felt dwarfed beside him. She held herself erect, hoping to appear taller.

“I’m Sheriff Brady,” she said.

As he returned her handshake, Joanna realized J.P. Beaumont wasn’t a particularly handsome man. Despite herself, though, she was drawn to the pattern of smile lines that crinkled around his eyes. At least smiling isn’t an entirely foreign activity, she thought.

“Glad to meet you,” he said, pumping her small hand with his much larger one. “I’m Beaumont – Special Investigator J.P. Beaumont. Most people call me Beau.”

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I believe we need to talk,” he replied.

“In that case,” she said, “we’d better go to my office.”

I HAD BEEN WAITING for Sheriff Brady for several minutes, but she surprised me when she walked up behind me without making a sound. Her bright red hair was cut short. The emerald-green eyes that studied me could have sparked fire. She wore a dark olive-green uniform, which looked exceptionally good on her since she filled it out in all the right places. If it hadn’t been for the forbidding frown on her face, she might have been pretty. Instead, she looked as if she had just bitten into an apple and discovered half a worm. In other words, she wasn’t glad to see me.

I followed Sheriff Brady from the public lobby into her private office, realizing as I did so that I hadn’t expected her to be so short, in every sense of the word. She waited until she had closed the door behind us before she really turned on me. “What exactly do you want?” she demanded.

I know how, as a detective, I used to hate having outside interference in one of my cases, so I didn’t expect her to welcome me with open arms. But I hadn’t foreseen outright hostility, either.

“We have a case to solve,” I began.

“We?” she returned sarcastically. “I have a case to solve. My department has a case to solve. There’s no we about it.”

“The Washington State Attorney General’s Office has a vested interest in your solving this case,” I said.

“So I’ve heard,” she responded, crossing her arms and drilling into me with those amazingly green eyes.

In that moment Sheriff Joanna Brady reminded me eerily of Miss Edith Heard, a young, fearsomely outspoken geometry teacher from my days at Seattle’s Ballard High School. At the time I was in her class, Miss Heard must have been only a few years older than her students, but she brooked no nonsense. After suffering through two semesters of geometry that I barely managed to pass, I had fled in terror from any further ventures into higher math.

Like Joanna Brady, Miss Heard had been short, red-haired, and green-eyed, and she had scared the hell out of me. But a lot of time had passed since then. I wasn’t nearly as terrified by Joanna Brady as I was annoyed. And it wasn’t lost on me that she hadn’t offered me a chair.

“Look,” I said impatiently, “today happens to be my birthday. There are any number of ways I’d rather be spending it than being hassled by you. So how about if we cut the crap and get our jobs done so I can go back home.”

She never even blinked. “Your going home sounds good,” she said. “Now, if the Washington State Attorney General is so vitally interested in this case-”

“The AG’s name is Connors,” I interjected. “Mr. Ross Connors. He’s my boss.”

“If Mr. Connors is so vitally interested in this case, why can’t I get any information about Latisha Wall out of his office?”

I set my briefcase down on a nearby conference table and flicked open the lid. “You can,” I said, extracting Latisha Wall’s file from my briefcase. “That’s why I’m here.” I handed it over to her. She took it. Then, without opening the file or even glancing at it, she walked over to her desk and put it down.

“I’m delighted to know that Mr. Connors’s office has the financial wherewithal to have files hand-delivered by personally authorized couriers. It seems to me it would have made more sense for him to fax it. All we needed were straight answers to a few questions. Instead, we got stonewalled, Mr. Beaumont. And now we have you,” she added. “When you get around to it, you might let Mr. Connors know that the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department doesn’t require the assistance of one of his personal emissaries.”

The lady was getting under my skin. I pulled out a business card and handed it to her.

“I’m not an emissary,” I said. “As you can see, I’m an investigator – a special investigator – working for the attorney general. Latisha Wall was in our witness protection program. Mr. Connors needs to know whether or not her death is related to her being in that program. If not, fine. What happened is on your turf. It’s your problem and not ours. But if it is related,” I added, “if Latisha Wall died because someone wanted to keep her from giving potentially damaging testimony in a court of law, then it’s our problem as much as it is yours. Whoever killed her should never have been able to find her in the first place.”

“In other words, your witness protection program has a leak, and you’re the plumber sent here to plug it,” Sheriff Brady returned.

“Exactly,” I said.

She recrossed her arms. “Tell me about Latisha Wall,” she said.

I had read through the file several times by then. I didn’t need to consult it as I related the story. “After graduating from high school, Latisha Wall did two stints in the Marines where she worked primarily as an MP. Once she got out of the service, she went to work for an outfit from Chicago called UPPI. Ever heard of them?”

“I know all of that,” Sheriff Brady said.

“You do?”

She smiled. “We only look like we live in the sticks, Mr. Beaumont. Have you ever heard of the Internet? My chief deputy, Frank Montoya, was able to glean that much information from newspaper articles. What else?”

Score one for Joanna Brady.

“Mind if I sit down?”

“Please do,” she said. She motioned me into a chair and then sat behind a huge desk that was so impossibly clean it was frightening. I worry about people with oppressively clean desks.

“So in the nineties,” I continued, “United Private Prisons, Incorporated, saw coming what they thought was a long-term prisoner-incarceration boom. They set out to corner themselves a piece of that market. The state of Washington went for them in a big way, and when it came to picking up one of those lucrative state contracts, it didn’t hurt to have an African-American female on board to help deal with all those pesky EEOC considerations.

“UPPI won the bid to build and run a boot-camp juvenile facility near the town of Aberdeen in southwestern Washington. Once the Aberdeen Juvenile Detention Center opened, UPPI appointed Latisha Wall to be its first director. On the surface of it, I’m sure putting an African-American female who was also an ex-Marine MP in charge of a place like that must have seemed like a good choice all around.”

“What went wrong?” Joanna asked.

“According to subsequent investigations, UPPI had cut some serious corners in order to get costs low enough to win the contract. Some of those cut corners were in basic building materials. Only the cheapest and shoddiest materials were used during the construction phase. Subsequent investigations show that basics like insulation and wiring didn’t even meet code, but they somehow had passed all required building inspections. Consequently, the deficiencies came to light only after the building was occupied, at which point they were passed off as the fledgling director’s fault.”

“We had a few jail-construction problems of our own,” Sheriff Brady said thoughtfully. “So they turned her into a fall guy.”

“Or girl,” I suggested.

Sheriff Brady didn’t return my smile. “Whatever,” she said.

“UPPI’s corner-cutting at the facility didn’t stop with construction of the physical plant. UPPI budgets expected to provide for food, medical care, bedding, and personnel were too low to sustain a livable environment. Even with a boot-camp-style existence, the available monies and feeding the inmates nutrition loaf three meals a day, seven days a week, wouldn’t have stretched far enough.

“The state had situated the facility in an economically depressed part of southwestern Washington in hopes of creating living-wage jobs for people after the lumber industry pretty much disappeared. Only UPPI didn’t budget for living wages, either. Nor did they make any effort to turn new employees into trained correction officers. As a result, people who ended up working there weren’t necessarily the best or the brightest. That caused real problems, too, in terms of lack of discipline, inappropriate sexual interactions, gang activity, drug and alcohol abuse – all the things a boot-camp environment is supposed to prevent.

“Aberdeen Juvenile Detention Center opened in the spring three years ago and was operating at full capacity within three months. By the time fall came along and the rains started, the walls began weeping moisture and forming mold. Latisha Wall immediately reported the facility’s shortcomings to her supervisor. When inmates complained that the food they were given was full of bugs and wasn’t fit to eat, she passed that information along as well. Nothing happened. No corrective measures were taken, and no additional expenditures were allowed. Finally, Latisha was told that dealing with the ongoing difficulties was her problem. At that point, she went to her supervisor’s supervisor, with the same result.

“The final straw came when Ms. Wall discovered that her assistant – her second in command – had been routinely covering up prisoner complaints of misconduct on the part of a number of guards. The inmates were troubled kids who had been put in her charge in hopes of straightening them out. Rather than getting help, they were being abused both sexually and physically. When Latisha tried to fire the guards involved, along with the guy responsible for the cover-up, UPPI cut her off at the knees. They told her she wasn’t allowed to fire anybody. That’s when she finally figured out that not only had she been suckered but so had the state of Washington.

“Latisha Wall was underqualified for the position she held and was being very well paid to do it. UPPI expected her to take her money, go with the flow, and keep her mouth shut. Instead, Ms. Wall went to Ross Connors’s office and told her story there. She resigned. The facility was shut down completely a few months later.”

“She was a whistle-blower, then.”

“Right,” I answered. “What wasn’t in the papers – what Ross Connors did his best to keep out of the media – was that once the scandal went public, Latisha Wall was subjected to numerous death threats. None of them could be traced back to UPPI Headquarters in Chicago, but that’s where the AG theorized they came from. Latisha Wall thought so, too.”

“So your boss put her in a witness protection program and shipped her here, to Bisbee, under the name of Rochelle Baxter.”

“Right,” I told her.

“And you think someone from UPPI came here to kill her?”

“That’s certainly a possibility,” I said.

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“Because there’s a civil trial coming up in Olympia in a little more than a month. Based on lack of performance at the Aberdeen facility, Washington State has terminated all contracts with UPPI, and they’re suing for breach of contract. Latisha Wall was scheduled to be the state’s star witness. Without her, UPPI may walk away with a bundle.”

Finished with my recitation, I paused. “So what’s the deal, then?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What have your guys found out?” I asked. “We need to know – the attorney general’s office needs to know – what’s going on.”

“My ‘guys,’ as you call them – my investigations unit,” she corrected stiffly, “which isn’t all male, by the way – has been working the problem. As far as your need to know or your boss’s need to know, Mr. Beaumont, that’s up to me.”

I could see that I had stepped in it big time without really knowing how. Sheriff Brady had been chilly when she had first escorted me into her office. Now she was downright frosty.

“Please, Sheriff Brady, I don’t want you to think I’m taking anything away from your people-”

“Oh?” she said, cutting me off. “Is that so? You could have fooled me. I thought that’s exactly what this is about. What you’ve told me just now is what your office could and should have told me two days ago. Right this moment, Special Investigator Beaumont, I can’t think of a single compelling reason to tell you any of what my people have learned so far. Not until that information is in some kind of reasonable order. Give me a day or two to think it over.”

She smiled coolly, then added, “Actually, two days sounds just about right. Let me know where you’ll be staying. I’ll give you a call, say Monday or Tuesday, and let you know what’s happening. After all, that’s how long it took you to get to us. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m somewhat busy.”

In other words, “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” And I did mind. I minded very much, but there didn’t seem to be much point arguing about it. I heard people’s voices out in the hall. The way her green eyes darted toward the door, I could tell Joanna Brady was far more interested in what was going on outside than she was in talking to me. There are times when pushing works and times when it doesn’t. I had a feeling that Sheriff Joanna Brady would react badly to pushing. I took the hint, stood up, and headed for the door.

“One more thing,” I said. If I wasn’t going to be doing anything for Ross Connors for the next two days besides sitting on my butt, I could just as well be doing something for me.

“What’s that?” Joanna Brady asked.

“How long have you lived in Bisbee?”

“All my life. Why?”

“Did you ever know of someone named Anne Rowland?”

It took a moment for Anne Corley’s maiden name to register in Joanna Brady’s mental database, but it did eventually – with visible consequences. “I didn’t know her personally,” the sheriff said guardedly. “I know of her. Why?”

“She was my wife,” I said. “I was hoping maybe I could meet someone who knew her when she was growing up and maybe talk with them for a little while.”

Joanna Brady blinked. “I can’t think of anyone right off,” she said.

“All right.”

“Where will you be staying?” she asked.

“At a place called the Copper Queen Hotel.”

“Good,” Sheriff Brady said distractedly. “If anything comes up, I’ll call you.”

I reached out, took her hand, and shook it. Her handshake was firm, but that was to be expected. Not only was she the sheriff, she was also a politician. I opened the door and let myself out, leaving Joanna Brady standing in what looked for all the world like stunned silence.

ONCE THE DOOR CLOSED BEHIND HIM, Joanna went back to her desk and sat down. Of course she remembered Anne Rowland Corley. Who wouldn’t? People in Bisbee thought about Anne Rowland Corley’s guilt or innocence the way lots of people think about O. J. Simpson’s: She was a killer who had gotten away with it.

It had happened only a year or so before Joanna’s father had been elected sheriff. The saga of the Rowland family’s series of tragedies was one that wouldn’t go away. Anita and Roger Rowland had two daughters, Patricia and Anne. The older girl, Patty, was developmentally disabled and died after an accidental fall in their Warren neighborhood home. Shortly after that, Roger Rowland too was dead of a single gunshot wound to the head. Because both deaths had occurred inside the city limits, the cases had been investigated by the Bisbee Police Department. Joanna remembered her father fussing about that.

“Roger Rowland and Chuck Brannigan have been asshole buddies for years,” Joanna remembered D.H. Lathrop complaining. “If Chief of Police Brannigan were actually smart enough to think his way out of a paper bag, he would have recused himself and let someone else take charge of the investigation.”

But Brannigan hadn’t removed himself from either case, and neither had the then Cochise County Coroner, Bill Woodruff, who was another of Roger Rowland’s cronies. Brannigan and Woodruff were two good old boys working together. Their hasty but official determinations of “accident” and “suicide” had stuck despite the fact that, shortly after Roger Rowland’s funeral, his younger daughter, Anne, had claimed she had fired the shot that had killed her father. That claim had never been investigated. Instead, Anne had been packed off to a private mental institution somewhere in Phoenix.

One of the city detectives from that time, a man named Dan Goodson, had left Bisbee PD shortly thereafter to work for Joanna’s father, Sheriff D.H. Lathrop. He had told his new boss that he had quit Bisbee PD partly out of disgust at the way the Rowland cases had been handled.

“Anne Rowland isn’t crazy,” Joanna’s father had reported an outraged Danny Goodson as saying. “Not a bit of it. She’s a killer, and with Chuck Brannigan’s and Bill Woodruff’s help, she’s getting off scot-free.”

Although rumors about Anne Rowland’s guilt continued to swirl around town, the coroner’s rulings had remained unassailable.

Joanna vaguely remembered hearing or reading that Anne Rowland Corley had died a violent death somewhere out of state several years earlier, but she couldn’t recall any details. Now it turned out that this same woman had once been married to Detective J.P. Beaumont?

Lost in thought, Joanna jumped reflexively when the phone on her desk rang.

“Mom?” a tearful Jenny sobbed into the phone.

“Yes. What’s the matter?”

“It’s Sadie,” Jenny wailed. “Something awful’s wrong with her. I just got home from Cassie’s. Her mom dropped me off. Sadie’s lying on the back porch. She won’t get up.”

“Where’s Butch?” Joanna asked.

“At the other house. He left a note that he’d be back by one, but he isn’t. I need someone here now. She’s real sick, Mom. Is she gonna die?”

Joanna closed her eyes and remembered how, the last few days, Sadie hadn’t been quite herself. How she hadn’t wanted to run home to the ranch. How she hadn’t wanted to eat the Cheer- ios or the green chili casserole. No doubt something was wrong with Sadie. Joanna hadn’t paid enough attention to notice.

“I don’t know, Jen,” she told her daughter. “But you hold tight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

With everything else forgotten, Joanna grabbed her purse and dashed out the back door into the parking lot.