Dead Wrong (25 page)

“I didn’t mean to delay you,”
Joanna said, rising to her feet. “I was just
leaving.”

“How can you?” Rory asked. “On
foot?”

“My initial ride was summoned to another
incident,” Joanna explained. “I’ve called for a
deputy to come from Sierra Vista to pick me up. He should be here
any minute.”

“But why are you here to begin with?”
Rory asked.

“She came to talk to Mother about the
photographs,” Leslie put in quickly. “Obviously,
considering Mom’s condition, that isn’t going to work.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, Sheriff Brady, I guess I need to go
change.”

As she hurried out the front door, Joanna caught
sight of a departmental SUV pulling up in front of the gate,
followed by a Dodge Ram pickup truck. A gray-haired Hispanic woman
emerged from the pickup and hurried into the house. “Sorry
I’m late, Mr. Markham,” she said.

She glanced in Joanna’s direction.
“This is Dolores Mattias, Sheriff Brady,” Rory
explained. “She’s one of Aileen’s caregivers.
Nurses from Hospice will start next week.”

With a nod in Joanna’s direction, Dolores
disappeared down a hallway toward a bedroom. Before the door
clicked shut behind Dolores, Joanna caught the briefest glimpse of
what appeared to be one end of a hospital bed.

“Hospice?” Joanna asked. “You
mean Ms. Houlihan is dying?”

Rory Markham nodded. “Yes,” he said.
“And in her condition, I can’t imagine why you’d
think she’d be able to shed any light on the man who took
those photos.”

“It was an outside chance,” Joanna
admitted, “but I was really hoping to talk to her.”

“That’s not possible.”

Rory Markham was just as adamant as Leslie had
been. Short of fighting her way past them and forcing her way into
Aileen Houlihan’s room, there was no way Joanna was going to
speak to the woman. Since that avenue seemed closed, Joanna chose
to make nice instead.

“Your wife is impressive, Mr. Markham,”
she said. “Considering it’s entirely possible that
she’ll suffer the same fate as her mother, it’s brave
of her to shoulder the burden of her mother’s
care the way she does. A lot of people in similar
circumstances wouldn’t.”

Rory nodded. “You’re right.
Huntington’s disease is a terrible scourge, and dealing with
Aileen’s condition is anything but easy. I’m not sure
how Leslie copes sometimes, either, but for the most part,
she’s a very sensible girl.”

Joanna bridled at Markham’s condescension
toward his wife’s daunting endeavor.
Sensible and a long way from poverty-stricken,
Joanna thought, but when she replied, she was careful to keep her
tone even and nonconfrontational. “Leslie gives you a lot of
credit for helping out.”

“Oh, that,” Rory returned with a
dismissive shrug. “I do what I can.”

They stood uneasily, looking at each other across a
dim expanse of room. Finally, realizing that he wasn’t going
to add any more, Joanna picked up her briefcase. “I’ll
get out of here then, so you can be on your way.”

At the end of the sidewalk, a Chevrolet Yukon
emblazoned with the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department logo
sat idling outside the gate. Deputy Rick Thomas reached over and
pushed open the passenger door as she approached.

“Sorry it took a while for me to get here,
Sheriff Brady,” he apologized. “I was already involved
in a traffic stop when the call came in.”

“Don’t worry,” she told him.
“You arrived in plenty of time.”

“Where to?”

“Do you know where the Target store is in
Sierra Vista?”

“Sure,” Deputy Thomas said. “No
problem. Why?”

“I want you to take me there,” she
said. “And let’s hope that our bad guy was dumb enough
to use a credit card.”

O
nce
the Yukon was under way, Joanna took out her cell phone and turned
it on. There were five missed calls, all of them from Frank. Rather
than bothering to check voice mail, Joanna simply called him
back.

“What’s up?”

“You’re not going to believe it,”
Frank returned. “Our one gunshot victim has turned into
three.”

“Three!” Joanna exclaimed.

“That’s right. We’ve tentatively
identified the female found in the yard at Roostercomb Ranch. She
turns out to be Lupe Melendez, Tony Zavala’s presumably
ex-girlfriend.”

“Her identification was on her?” Joanna
asked.

“Not exactly,” Frank returned.

“How did you identify her then?”

“She was naked. We found her ID inside the
O’Dwyers’ house, in a bedroom along with the second
victim, who’s evidently one of the O’Dwyers—the
one with the scar on his neck.”

“That would be Clarence,” Joanna said.
“He’s dead, too?”

“It looks like he took a bullet in the middle
of the forehead while he was sound asleep.”

“So Lupe hooked up with Clarence, and Tony
Zavala took exception?” Joanna asked.

“That’s a likely scenario,” Frank
replied. “And our crime scene folks just got here to work the
yard and the ranch house.”

“What about Billy?”

“Unfortunately, we found him a little while
ago,” Frank answered. “He’s dead, too, but not
here at the ranch. It looks like he took off through the desert,
trying to get away. Someone chased him down and shot him off his
ATV just over the state line in New Mexico. We found a disabled
Toyota RAV abandoned a mile or so from where we found Billy
O’Dwyer’s body. In chasing after the ATV, the shooter
evidently broke the Toyota’s front axle.”

“Who’s it registered to?”

“The Toyota? Amelia Zavala, Tony’s
mother.”

“We’re assuming he’s the shooter
and he’s on foot then?” Joanna asked.

“For the moment.”

“Have you called in the K-9 unit?”

“Like I said, Billy O’Dwyer’s
body was found just across the state line,” Frank explained.
“The Toyota was found a mile or so beyond that. So Sheriff
Trotter is organizing the ground search. He’s called for the
Hidalgo County K-9 unit, although the last I heard, they had yet to
arrive.”

“Are there visible tracks?” Joanna
asked.

“Not really,” Frank answered.
“It’s pretty rocky terrain.”

“There’s no guarantee that just because
Zavala started out in New Mexico he ended up staying there,”
Joanna said. “He could
easily have
retraced his steps and come back this way. I want Terry and Spike
working the scene.”

Terry Gregovich and his German shepherd Spike made
up Joanna’s K-9 unit.

“I’ll call them,” Frank said,
“but speaking of dogs…We do have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“A potential PR disaster. The O’Dwyers
were running a pit bull breeding kennel here, if you can call it a
kennel. Puppy mill is more like it. But Clarence and Billy are both
dead, so we can’t leave the dogs here.”

“How bad is it?” Joanna asked.

“Bad,” Frank replied. “Bad enough
to make me think it was probably a good thing someone took a gun to
those two yahoos. There are at least ten dogs chained in the
yard—fighting dogs so vicious that our officers can’t
get anywhere near them without being torn to pieces. They’ll
all have to be tranquilized before we can unchain them in order to
move them. Then we’ve got a bunch of starving bitches with
batches of starving puppies locked in filthy runs. Seventy-five
dogs in all, by my count.”

Joanna was aghast. “That many?”

“That many,” Frank repeated.
“What the hell are we going to do with seventy-five dogs,
Joanna? Even if we had room for them at the shelter, which we
don’t, we don’t have the manpower to care for them.
Some of them are in really bad physical shape. With the owners
dead, we can’t leave them here, and we can’t just put
them down, either—not if you intend to stand for reelection
anywhere in Arizona ever again.”

Great!
Joanna thought.
Another dog disaster!

Ever since Animal Control had been moved into the
sheriff’s
department on a temporary
basis, Joanna had been faced with one AC crisis after another.

“Where’s Manny?” Joanna
asked.

“Out at Animal Control. He’s shifting
animals around and doubling them up wherever possible to create
more room. Once he’s finished with that, he’ll be
coming here to start picking up dogs.”

“What about Randy Trotter? Can he help us out
with any of the AC issues?”

“Hidalgo County Animal Control has offered
help, but only with transportation,” Frank replied.
“And I believe two of their AC trucks and officers are
already en route, but since the dogs are all physically located on
our side of the line…”

“I get it. I get it,” Joanna said.
“They’ll help all right, but only up to a point because
dealing with starving or abused animals is political suicide.
Everybody else is going to pass the buck on this, so we’re
stuck with it.”

“That’s right,” Frank said.

“Well, let me think about it,” Joanna
told him. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Where are you right now?” Frank
asked.

“Deputy Thomas just picked me up from the
Triple H, where I didn’t get to first base interviewing
Aileen Houlihan. I did talk to Leslie, though, and to
Leslie’s creep of a husband. Now we’re on our way to
the Target in Sierra Vista. I wanted to talk to Mr.
Oxhill.”

“Wasted trip,” Frank said.
“Manfred Oxhill called me a little while ago and told me that
he had tracked down the transaction. The primer was purchased on
Friday afternoon and paid for in cash. We’re not going to
find a paper trail.”

“We’re having a bad week,” Joanna
said.

“That’s what I say,” Frank
agreed.

“Since there’s no sense going to
Target, I’ll have Deputy Thomas bring me there. At least that
way I’ll be able to see firsthand what’s going on. I
seem to remember there was a warrant out on Zavala. Do we have a
current mug shot?”

“Yup,” Frank said. “I’ve
loaded it into the website, and I’ve put out an APB. You
should be able to access it from the computer in Rick’s
Yukon.”

“Great,” Joanna said. “Will
do.”

“All right,” Frank said.
“We’re at the Roostercomb ranch house. See you when you
get here.”

Joanna closed her phone and leaned back in the
seat.
Seventy-five dogs! And with Jeannine
still out, how are my people going to handle that many
animals?

Joanna sat up straight. Then she opened her phone
and scrolled through the incoming-calls section until she found
what she hoped was the one belonging to Millicent Ross. She punched
talk and was relieved to hear the veterinarian answer.

“Dr. Ross.”

“Sheriff Brady here,” Joanna said.
“How are things?”

“Better,” Millicent responded, her
voice sounding lighter than air. “Much better, in fact.
Jeannine’s been moved out of ICU. Dr. Waller says by tomorrow
or the next day, depending on how she’s doing, she may be
ready to come home. Plastic surgery comes later. I don’t know
what I would have done if I’d lost her, Joanna. Thank you so
much for everything you’ve done.”

Clearly Jeannine and Millicent’s relationship
had turned a corner. Whatever the gossipmongers in Bisbee might
have to say, Jeannine Phillips would be coming home to Millicent
Ross’s house in every sense of the word. Pretending to be
simply roommates wasn’t going to cut it any longer.

“In fact,” Dr. Ross continued,
“I’m thinking of running home for a little while this
afternoon to check on things and maybe pick up a change of
clothing. I hadn’t exactly planned to be here this
long.”

It was the opening Joanna had been waiting for.
“Actually,” she said, “I’m calling to ask a
huge favor.” Briefly she explained what had happened at
Roostercomb Ranch.

“So those two assholes are dead?”
Millicent asked. “Good riddance. As far as I’m
concerned, they got what they deserved, but what do you need from
me?”

“Help with their dogs,” Joanna said.
“From what Chief Deputy Montoya told me, some of them are too
dangerous for anyone to approach, and some of the others are
verging on starvation. I need someone—a trained
professional—to go and assess the situation. Save the ones
you think can be saved and—”

“And deal with the others,” Millicent
interrupted.

“Exactly,” Joanna said.
“I’m not sure how much the county will pay you for
this…”

“I’m not doing this for the
county,” Millicent Ross declared. “I’m doing it
for Jeannine. It’s Saturday, so there won’t be any
supply houses open. I’ll stop by several vets I know on the
way and gather what I think I’ll need.”

“Thank you,” Joanna said.

When she finished the phone call, Deputy Thomas was
looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “So where are we
going?” he asked.

“San Simon,” she said. “Once we
get that far, I’ll direct you the rest of the way.”

As they drove toward Benson and the junction with
I-10, Joanna considered her dog-care options. Frank was right.
Euthanizing that many animals would be a public relations
nightmare,
but what were the alternatives? For
form’s sake, she called the Humane Society in Tucson, but it
didn’t take long for the director to disabuse her of looking
there for help.

“We’re already overcrowded. We could
take in five or maybe ten animals at the outside, but none of the
vicious ones.”

“That’s about what I thought,”
Joanna said.

By the time they reached the junction, the urgent
pressure on Joanna’s bladder could no longer be ignored.
“Sorry,” she told Deputy Thomas. “Being pregnant
is hell. I need a pit stop. While you’re waiting, log on and
download a copy of Antonio Zavala’s mug shot. Now that
we’ve got printers and computers in the patrol cars, we might
as well use ’em.”

She was washing her hands at the rest-room sink
when Deputy Thomas pounded on the door. “Sheriff Brady.
We’ve gotta go!”

“What is it?”

“Carjacking,” he announced as they
hurried back to the Yukon. “It just came in over the radio.
It happened at the Texas Canyon Rest Area a few minutes ago. A
woman was in the process of belting her child into the backseat
when a man—a young Hispanic guy—appeared out of
nowhere, pushed her out of the way, knocked her to the ground,
grabbed her purse and keys and took off with her two kids belted in
the backseat. He’s headed our way with some old guy in an RV
in hot pursuit.”

Deputy Thomas’s words and the presence of two
helpless children made Joanna see red. The rashness and desperation
behind a daylight carjacking done in the presence of witnesses was
all too obvious. And Texas Canyon—the same place where
Jeannine’s abandoned vehicle had been discovered—was a
natural stopping-off place for a ruthless killer fleeing San Simon
and heading back to Tucson.

“The guy who did this has to be Tony
Zavala,” Joanna breathed as she fastened her belt. “Has
to be!”

“The guy in the mug shot?” Deputy
Thomas asked. “The guy suspected of shooting those three
people over by San Simon?”

Joanna turned to look at him and realized with some
dismay that, in this life-and-death situation, she was stuck with
her most inexperienced deputy as her only asset. Thomas had the
Yukon running and was putting it in gear when she demanded,
“Are you wearing your vest?”

“Well, no,” he replied. “I had it
on for the traffic stop, but once Dispatch sent me out to the
Triple H to pick you up, I took it off and put it in
back.”

“Stop the car and put it on,” Joanna
told him.

“But we’re wasting time,” he
began. “Shouldn’t we just—”

“That’s an order, Deputy Thomas!”
Joanna barked. “I said stop the car!”

Thomas jammed on the brakes. Mumbling under his
breath, he exited the car and headed toward the tailgate while
Joanna reached for the radio.

“Sheriff Brady here,” she said.
“Dispatch, what have you got?”

“Red Dodge Grand Caravan with Texas plates
heading westbound on I-10 with two unidentified children in the
back,” Larry Kendrick announced. “Repeat: two children
in the back.”

“Where are they?”

“An RV driver took off after them. He
followed them as far as the second Benson exit, but the
grade’s too steep for him to keep up. He’s falling
behind and says the guy is driving like a bat out of hell. Where
are you?”

“At the third Benson exit,” Joanna
answered. “We’ll wait at the bottom of the exit in case
the guy gets off there. Even if he’s
slow, have the RV keep following and let us know when
he passes the Sierra Vista exit.”

Deputy Thomas slammed the cargo doors shut and
returned to the driver’s seat, fastening his Kevlar vest.
“Where to?”

“Drive as far as the freeway and stop
underneath,” Joanna directed. “If he gets off the
interstate there, we’ll have him. If he goes on by,
we’ll have to catch up. How good are you at pursuit
driving?”

Thomas shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I mean, I
passed that part of my academy exam.”

“What about target shooting?”

“I did all right.”

A bare “all right” wasn’t the
answer Joanna wanted to hear. With two children in mortal danger in
the back of a speeding stolen minivan, “all right”
wasn’t nearly good enough.

“Okay, then,” she said. “Turn on
your lights. You drive. I’ll shoot.”

By then they were parked under the freeway.
“Dispatch,” Joanna said into the radio.
“What’s the word?”

“The RVer still has a visual. According to
him, the ’Van’s approaching your exit right now. Nope.
He’s not stopping. Went right on past.”

“Okay,” Joanna said, nodding in
Thomas’s direction and motioning for him to take off. As they
started up the entrance ramp, the car skidded wildly from side to
side. Eventually, though, Thomas got it back under control and they
sped forward. It wasn’t a performance to instill much
confidence, but still…