Paradise Lost (28 page)

“Mr. Haskell is outside,” Casey told Joanna. “Kristin suggested I bring him back by here so one of the detectives could interview him.”

“That would be great except for one small glitch,” Joanna replied. “At the moment we’re fresh out of detectives.”

“What should I do with him then?”

“Let me talk to him.”

Ron Haskell looked up when Joanna entered the lobby. “Both my detectives are busy this afternoon,” she told him. “Are you planning on going back out to Pathway to Paradise?”

Haskell shook his head. “Amos Parker gave me the boot. He said that since I had violated Pathway rules and was insisting on leaving again without completing my course of treatment, that he’s keeping my money, but I’m not welcome to return. He had me pack up my stuff before I left this morning. I drove into Bisbee on my own.”

“Will you be staying here then?”

Page 140

Again Ron Haskell shook his head. “I just heard that Connie’s sister, Maggie, is still in town.

She’s saying all kinds of wild things about me and making lots of unfounded allegations. I think it’s a bad idea for me to be here when she is. Not only that,” he added, as his eyes filled with tears, “I guess I need to plan Connie’s funeral.”

Knowing Maggie MacFerson’s penchant for carrying loaded weapons, Joanna Brady heartily concurred with Ron Haskell’s decision to leave town. “That’s probably wise,” she said. “Your going home, that is.”

“From what I’ve heard, Maggie seems to think I’m responsible for what happened to Connie,”

Ron added. “And she’s right there, you know. Iam responsible even if I didn’t kill her myself.

I’m the one who made the phone call and asked her to come down to Paradise to see me. If it hadn’t been for that, she’d most likely still be at home—safe and alive. But Connie was my wife, Sheriff Brady. I loved her.” His voice cracked with emotion.

While Ron Haskell struggled with his ragged emotions, Joanna thought about how difficult it would be for her already over-worked detectives to schedule an interview with him once he had returned to Phoenix, two hundred miles away.

Time to make like the Little Red Hen and do it myself,she thought.

“I expected my homicide investigators to be here this afternoon, but they were called to Tucson this morning,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go ahead and ask you a few questions myself.”

“Sure,” Haskell said. “I guess that would be fine. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Do you want an attorney to be present?”

“I don’t really need one. I didn’t kill my wife, if that’s what you mean.”

“All right, but I’ll need to record our interview and have another officer present when I do it,”

Joanna told him.

“Fine,” Ron Haskell said.

Joanna went out of her office and knocked on Frank Montoya’s door. “Care to join me playing detective?” she asked. “Ron Haskell is here and ready to be questioned, except Ernie and Jaime are both in Tucson.”

“Where should we do it?” Frank asked.

“The interview room is still busy with the Sally Matthews bunch. I guess it’ll have to be in my office.”

When Joanna reentered the room, Ron Haskell was standing by the large open window and staring up at the expanse of ocotillo-dotted limestone cliffs that formed the background to the Cochise County Justice Center.

“I really did love Connie, you know,” he said softly, as Joanna returned to her desk. “I never
Page 141

intended to do that—love her, you see. And I didn’t at first. Maggie must have figured that out.

She didn’t like me the moment she first laid eyes on me. She said right off the bat that all I was after was Connie’s money, and to begin with, moneywas all I wanted. Why not? I’d had to struggle all my life. I went to school on scholarships and had to fight and work for everything I got while Connie was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Other than taking care of her folks when they got old and sick, she never had to work a day in her life. When we got married, she had money—enough, I suppose, so the two of us would have been comfortable as long as we didn’t do anything too wild or crazy.

“But then she made it too easy for inc. She gave me free rein with running the finances—turned them over to me completely. About that time is when I came up with the bright idea that I could turn that tidy little sum of hers into a real fortune for both of us.”

“I take it that didn’t work?” Joanna asked dryly.

Ron nodded miserably in agreement. “I got hooked into day-trading—tech stocks and IPOs mostly. I figured it was just a matter of time before I’d hit it big, but I ended up taking a bath.

Connie’s money slipped through my fingers like melted butter. And that only made me try harder and lose more. It turned into a kind of sickness.”

“Which is how you ended up at Pathway?”

“Yes.”

Frank came in then, carrying a tape recorder which he set up on Joanna’s desk. “Tell us about last Thursday,” Joanna said to Ron Haskell, after Mirandizing him and going through the drill of start-ing the recording and identifying the participants.

“I called Connie,” Ron Haskell said. “I went down to the gen-eral store in Portal a little before noon. I called her at home without having Amos Parker’s express permission to do so. Clients at Pathway aren’t allowed to have any contact with their families until Amos gives the go-ahead, but I wanted to talk to her right then. I needed to tell her what had happened and explain what was going on. By then I was sure she had to know the money was gone, but I wanted to see her in person.”

“What money?” Joanna asked.

“Her money,” Ron Haskell said. “The money her parents left her. I had lost it all playing the stock market, and I wanted to tell her about it face-to-face.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. She wasn’t home. I left a message on her machine,” Haskell said. “I asked her to come down to Pathway that evening so I could see her. I planned to slip out to the road and meet her there—to catch her and flag her down before she ever made it to the guard shack. That was my plan.”

“But then you got put in isolation,” Joanna offered.

Haskell shook his head. “No,” he said. “That was what I intended. Icounted on being put in isolation. Otherwise there are chores for clients to do and work sessions to attend. When you’re
Page 142

in isolation, you’re left totally alone. I figured that once it was dark, I’d be able to slip off and meet her without anyone being the wiser.”

“You’re telling us that when you went to make your illicit phone call, you actually planned on being caught?” Joanna asked.

“Absolutely.”

“What happened?”

“It worked out just the way I wanted it to. As soon as it was dark, I made my way out of the isolation cabin and back to the road. I stationed myself in a ditch just the other side of Portal—between Portal and the entrance to Pathway. I waited all night, but Connie never showed up. When she didn’t, I was hurt. I figured that she’d decided not to bother; that she’d found out about the money and had just written me off. When you told me she’d tried to come see me after all, I ...”

Ron Haskell’s voice broke and he lapsed into silence. Joanna’s mind was racing. She had thought his being in isolation had given Haskell an airtight alibi, but she had been wrong. In fact, just as Ernie Carpenter had suggested, it had actually been the opposite. Caroline Parker had told them Haskell had been left alone from Thursday on. That meant he could have been AWOL from Path-way to Paradise for the better part of four days without anyone being the wiser. That would have given him plenty of time to murder his wife and dispose of her body. It also meant that he had no alibi for the night Dora Matthews was murdered, either.

“How long did you stay away from the cabin?’’ Joanna asked.

“I came back just before sunrise Friday morning. I had sat on the ground all night long, so my back was killing me, and I was heartsick that Connie hadn’t shown up. I was sure she loved me enough that she’d come talk to me and at least give me a chance to explain, but by the time I came back to the cabin that morning, I finally had to come face-to-face with the fact that I’d really lost her. That’s why it hurt so much when I found out she had tried to come see me after all. She really did try, after everything I had done.”

“While you were waiting by the road,” Frank said, “did you see any other vehicles?”

“A couple, I guess.”

“Anything distinctive about them? Anything that stands out in your mind?”

“Not really. The cars I saw go by were most likely going on up to Paradise—the village of Paradise, I mean. I’ve been told there are a few cabins up there and one or two B and Bs. One of them did stop at the guard shack for a few minutes, but then whoever it was left again almost right away. I figured whoever it was must have been lost and that they had stopped to ask directions.”

“What about insurance?” Joanna asked.

“Insurance?” Ron Haskell repeated. “We had health insurance, and long-term care—”

“What about life insurance?”

Page 143

“There isn’t much of that,” he said. “Stephen Richardson, Connie’s old man, was the old-fashioned type, not somebody you’d find out pushing for equal rights for women or equal insurance, either. There was a sizable insurance policy on him when he died, but all he carried on Claudia, his wife, was a small five--thousand-dollar paid-up whole-life policy. Connie told me one time that her father had started ten-thousand-dollar policies on each of his daughters, but Maggie cashed hers in as soon as he turned ownership of the policy over to her. Connie still had hers.”

“For ten thousand dollars?” Joanna asked.

Ron Haskell nodded. “Not very much, is it?” he returned.

“But you’re the sole beneficiary?”

“Yes,” he said. “At least I think I am. That policy was paid up, so it’s not like we were getting bills for premiums right and left. I know Connie talked about changing the beneficiary designation from her sister over to me right after we got married, but I’m not sure whether or not she ever got around to doing it.”

“And that’s all the insurance there is—just that one policy?” Joanna asked.

Ron Haskell met Joanna’s gaze and held it without wavering. “As far as I know, there was only that one. There’s one on me for Connie’s benefit but not the other way around. I know you’re thinking I killed her for her money,” he said accusingly. “But I didn’t. I didn’thave to. When it came to money, Connie had already given me everything, Sheriff Brady. What was hers was mine. I was doing day-trades and looking for a way to give back what she’d already given me. By the time it was over, I sure as hell wasn’t looking for a way to get more.”

“Did your wife have any enemies?”

“How would she? Connie hardly ever left the house.”

“Do you have any enemies, Mr. Haskell?” Joanna asked. “Someone who might think that by getting to her they could get to you?”

He shook his head. “Not that I know of other than Maggie MacFerson, if you want to count her.”

The room was silent for some time before Ron Haskell once again met Joanna’s gaze. “If you’re asking me all these questions,” he said, “it must mean you still don’t have any idea who killed her.”

Joanna nodded. “It’s true,” she said.

“But last night, when I talked to you out at Pathway, you said something about a series of carjackings. What about those?”

“Nobody died in any of those incidents,” Joanna replied. “In fact, with all of the previous cases there weren’t even any serious injuries.”

Page 144

“And nobody was raped,” Haskell added bleakly.

“That’s right,” Joanna said. “Nobody else was raped.”

“Anything else then?” Ron asked. “Any other questions?”

Joanna glanced in Frank’s direction. He shook his head. “Not that I can think of at the moment,” Joanna said. “But this is just a preliminary session. I’m sure my detectives will have more ques-tions later. When you get back to Phoenix, you’ll be staying at your house?”

“If I can get in,” he said. “There’s always a chance that Connie or Maggie changed the locks, but yes, that’s where I expect to be.” “If you’re not, you’ll let us know?”

“Right,” he said, but he made no effort to rise.

“Is there anything else, Mr. Haskell?”

Ron nodded. “When I came in this morning, I had to fight my way through a whole bunch of reporters, including some that I’m sure were from Maggie’s paper.” He looked longingly at Joanna’s private entrance. “Is there any way you could get me back to my car out in the parking lot without my having to walk through them again?”

“Sure,” Joanna said. “You can go out this way. Chief Deputy Montoya here will give you a ride directly to your car.”

“Thanks,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’d really appreci-ate it.”

After Frank left with Ron Haskell in tow, Joanna sat at her desk, rewinding the tape and mulling over the interview. On the one hand, Connie Haskell’s widowed husband seemed genuinely grief-stricken that his wife was dead, and it didn’t look as though he stood to profit from her death. Ron Haskell may not have said so directly, but he had certainly implied that, considering the amounts of money he had squandered playing the stock market, a ten--thousand-dollar life insurance policy was a mere drop in the bucket and certainly not worth the risk of committing a murder. It also struck Joanna that he obviously held himself responsible for Connie Haskell’s death though all the while claiming that he himself had not been directly involved.

Those items were all on the plus side of the ledger. On the other side was the possibility that Ron Haskell could have had some other motivation besides money for wanting his wife out of the way, like maybe an as yet undiscovered girlfriend who might be impatient and well-heeled besides. Someone like that might make someone like Ron Haskell eager to be rid of a now impoverished wife. Haskell’s once seemingly airtight alibi now leaked like a sieve. He had chosen a course of action—a premeditated course of action—that had placed him in an isolated cabin from which he knew he would be able to sneak away at will and without being detected.

Forced to acknowledge that her original assumption about the isolation cabin had been blown out of the water, Joanna now won-dered if some of her other ideas about Ron Haskell were equally erroneous. He had volunteered to conic in for DNA testing. Joanna had thought of that as an indicator of his innocence that it showed confidence that Ron Haskell knew his genetic markers would have nothing iii common with the rape-kit material collected during Doc Winfield’s autopsy of Connie Haskell. However, what if Ron Haskell had decided to divest himself of his wife by hiring someone else to do his dirty work? In that case, somebody else’s
Page 145