J. Jance - Dead to Rights

“Pretty much.”

“What’s your game plan for the day?”

Frank checked his watch. “I’ve got a press conference in half an hour. After that I’ll most likely spend the rest of the day working on those budget figures. I’ll probably still be working on them when hell freezes over. What about you?”

Joanna looked at the several separate stacks that covered nost of the surface of her desk. “First I have to deal with a mountain of paper. That’ll probably eat up most of the morning. At noon there’s the annual women’s club luncheon. This is the meeting when they present the department with the framed photo of yours truly for our little photo display out in the lobby. I’m expected to give a speech.”

“That should be fun,” Frank said. “Especially with all this Buckwalter business just hitting the fan.”

“It’s not that. Mother made it a point of coming back from D.C. in time so she could be in attendance at the luncheon. I adore those kinds of events where I get to do double duty-laughter and sheriff at one and the same time.”

Frank chuckled and headed for the door. “Good luck with that,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

Joanna was determined to infuse a little bit of humor into in otherwise grim morning. “It’s just as well,” she said. ‘You’d look pretty funny in two-and-a-quarter-inch heels.”

Once she was alone, Joanna dutifully turned to the stack of correspondence Kristin had indicated was most urgent. Even as she filled out the registration form for the Arizona Sheriff’s Association meeting in Lake Havasu City in two weeks’ time, her eyes kept being drawn to the plain manila folder Frank Montoya had dropped on her desk. Finally, with the form half completed, she pushed it aside and opened the folder.

The first article was a straightforward fatality accident account-who, where, when:

A pedestrian struck by a speeding pickup in a downtown crosswalk has become Phoenix ’s fifth traffic fatality of the new year.

Bonnie Genevieve Morgan, fifty-two, a Wickenburg resident, was run down and killed last night at nine-thirty when a pickup crashed into a pair of pedestrians at the intersection of Third Street and Van Buren. Ms. Morgan and her husband, Halford William Morgan, also of Wickenburg, were returning to their hotel room after attending a movie. Ms. Morgan was pronounced dead at the scene while her husband was uninjured.

The driver of the vehicle, Dr. Amos Buckwalter of Bisbee, was treated for cuts and bruises at Good Samaritan Hospital before being booked into the Maricopa County Jail on suspicion of vehicular homicide. Buckwalter was reportedly in Phoenix to attend the annual meeting of Arizona State Veterinarians’ Association being held at the Phoenix Convention Center.

Investigators at the scene say that the incident is most likely alcohol-related.

Shaking her head, Joanna put clown that page and picked up the next one. Here there was very little text, only a picture of a street sign with a bunch of balloons on st rings tied to it. “Balloons, a bouquet of roses, and a single candle mark the corner of the intersection where Wickenburg resident Bonnie Genevieve Morgan died last night in the Phoenix area’s fifth fatality traffic accident of the year.”

The third page contained the text of the article that accompanied the picture:

In honor of their nineteenth wedding anniversary, fifty-six-year-old Hal Morgan of Wickenburg presented his wife, Bonnie, with a bouquet of nineteen balloons, a dozen long-stemmed yellow roses, and a weeknight’s stay in the honeymoon suite of the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

Morgan spent his anniversary night alone. His wife, Bonnie Genevieve Morgan, the victim of an allegedly drunk driver, died in a crosswalk less than two blocks from their hotel.

Today, balloons and roses as well as a number of candles form part of an impromptu memorial gracing the corner of Third and Van Buren where Bonnie Morgan became the fifth traffic fatality on Phoenix area streets so far this year.

Joanna could stand to read no further. Her eyes blurring with tears, she looked again at the picture. Bonnie Morgan had died on the night of her wedding anniversary. Andrew Roy Brady had died on his wedding anniversary, too. Joanna had been sitting at home-waiting for him and steamed that he was late for their tenth anniversary getaway-when he was gunned down by the drug dealer’s hired hit man. Andy hadn’t died that very night. In fait, he hadn’t died) until the afternoon of the next day, but as far as Joanna was concerned, he had died on their anniversary, when he spoke to her for the last time.

“JoJo,” he had whispered, calling her by the pet name only he had used. “JoJo. Help me.” That was before the ambulance arrived, before the helicopter ride to Tucson and be-fore the killer paid one final visit to finish his deadly work. But for Joanna Andy’s life had ended in the bloodied sand of the wash, and the date that had once marked one of the happiest days of her life now commemorated her worst night-mare rather than her wedding.

For the space of several minutes Joanna stared at the picture with unseeing eyes, letting the events surrounding Andy’s death play themselves out one more time. What if she had gone looking for him earlier? What if she hadn’t left the hospital waiting room when she did? What if? What if? These were questions that still haunted her months later. The only difference was, usually they assailed her in the middle of the night when she was alone in her bed and attempting to fall into some kind of fitful sleep. This time, thrown into an emotional relapse by the eerie similarity between Bonnie Morgan’s death and Andy’s, Joanna found herself sitting at her desk with unchecked tears streaming down her face.

“Sheriff Brady…” Unannounced, Joanna’s secretary burst into the room. Kristin stopped short when she caught a glimpse of Joanna’s face. “Excuse me,” she said in confusion. “I didn’t know… Is something the matter?”

“It’s all right,” Joanna said, quickly wiping at her eyes. “Every once in a while, things just get to me. I end up all weepy with no real warning or reason. Just ignore it. Eventually it goes away.”

Kristin was already backing out of the room. “I’ll come back later,” she said. “When you’re feeling better.”

“No,” Joanna insisted. “Come back now. What’s up?”

“Detective Carpenter just came in. He’s on his way to Sunizona again, but he wanted to talk to you for a few minutes before he leaves.”

“Sunizona,” Joanna repeated. “Why’s he going back there?”

Kristin shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

Joanna sighed. “Give me a minute to fix my face,” she said. “Then send him in.”

Reaching for her purse, she dug inside until she located her compact and lipstick. She had pretty well repaired the damages by the time Ernie let himself into her office.

“Sunizona again?” Joanna asked. “Did somebody else fall off a fence up there?”

She had thought a wry comment might help them both, but a somber Detective Carpenter seemed unmoved. “That’s the whole problem,” he grunted, sinking into a chair. “Nobody fell off a fence-not even Reed Carruthers.”

“But I thought…”

“So did I,” Ernie answered. “But I’ve just come from Dr. Winfield’s office. Reed Carruthers didn’t die of a single blow to the head from falling on a rock. According to the doc, he suffered from blunt-instrument head trauma-multiples of same. In other words, somebody literally beat his fucking brains in, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

It was the first time Ernie Carpenter had ever used the F-word in Joanna’s presence. It was an indication of how distressed he was over missing something he now thought should have been obvious.