J.A. Jance - Dead Wrong

“You’ve already collected prints from down in Douglas?” Joanna asked.

Casey nodded. “And it was just like Ernie and Jaime predicted it would be. I found lots of the victim’s prints and a few that belong to his landlady. If there’s been anyone else in Mr. Evans’s apartment at some time in the distant past, it’s long enough ago that they left no trace or else they wore gloves.”

“What’s the program here?” Joanna inquired.

“I talked it over with the Double Cs,” Casey said. “The game plan is for me to go over the outside first, but I don’t think that’s going to be particularly helpful.”

“Why not?”

“The truck has been sitting on that vacant lot for a number of days. Some of the prints may belong to whoever came by and looked at the truck thinking they might want to buy it. It could take a very long time, if it’s even possible, to eliminate the ones that aren’t connected to the crime. Once I finish on the outside, Dave Hollicker will pop the lock. Then he and I will go through the interior together, dusting for prints and collecting whatever trace evidence there is to be found.”

“With any luck there should be some,” Joanna said. “I’m pretty certain that the last person who drove this vehicle wasn’t Bradley Evans.”

Back in her office, Joanna tried to focus on the paperwork littering her desk, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of malaise that had crept over her during lunch. Finally, late in the afternoon, she called her best friend and pastor, the Reverend Marianne Maculyea.

“Are you okay?” Marianne asked. “You sound a little down.”

Joanna and Marianne’s friendship went all the way back to seventh grade. There was very little they didn’t know about each other’s lives.

“Prenatal blues, I guess,” Joanna admitted.

“That’s to be expected,” Marianne said. “I was a complete fruitcake the week before Jeffy was born. I almost drove Jeff crazy. What’s going on?”

“Jeffy was perfect,” Joanna said. “He is perfect. But what if he hadn’t been?”

Marianne took a deep breath. “Has Dr. Lee said there might be a problem? Did something show up in an ultrasound?”

“No. It’s not that. It’s just that…”

“It’s just what?”

“Butch’s parents are here,” Joanna said.

“You mentioned that yesterday at church,” Marianne said. “And it explains a lot. Margaret Dixon won’t win any Ms. Congeniality awards. What’s she up to now?”

“She told Jenny that Lucky should have been put out of his misery, and at lunch, you should have seen her with Junior. What if the baby’s born with some serious problem?”

Marianne Maculyea had more than a little experience in that regard. After years of trying to conceive, she and her husband, Jeff Daniels, had adopted twin baby girls from China-Esther Elaine and Ruth Rachel. Ruth was now a lively first grader, but Esther had been born with a congenital heart defect and had died within days of receiving a heart transplant.

“You cope,” Marianne said simply. “You do the best you can, and you cope. You ignore the people who choose not to be in your corner, including your bitchy mother-in-law.”

Her outspoken comment made Joanna laugh. “But you have no strong opinions about Margaret Dixon.”

“Some people require strong opinions,” Marianne returned. “When do you see Dr. Lee again?”

“Tomorrow,” Joanna said. “That’s my last scheduled prenatal exam.”

“He’s the one you should talk to about this,” Marianne advised. “Not me, not Butch, and certainly not Margaret Dixon.”

“Will do,” Joanna said. She hung up the phone feeling infinitely better.

Late in the afternoon Joanna went back out to the impound lot, where both Casey Ledford and Dave Hollicker were still hard at work. “Finding anything?” she asked.

“Look at this,” Dave said. He held up an evidence bag. Peering through it, Joanna was able to see a single thread.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I found it hung up on the tailgate latch,” Dave said. “I won’t know until I do my analysis, but I’m guessing it’ll be from the tarp I already have in the lab, the one Bradley Evans’s body was wrapped in. I noticed there was a tear in it when I did my preliminary exam. But the big thing is the Luminol.”

“You got a hit?”

“You bet,” Dave said. “Take a look at this.” He switched off the overhead light. Peering under the camper shell, Joanna saw several thin lines of bright blue in the bed of the truck.

“Someone made a real effort to clean up the mess, but they didn’t do a good enough job in the cracks where the sections join together. Without more tests, I can’t say for sure that what we found in those cracks is blood, or if it’s human blood or even if it’s Bradley Evans’s blood. We’ll find that out later.”

“But you’re saying that the back of the truck might actually turn out to be the crime scene?” Joanna asked.

“It’s possible,” Dave replied. “Or maybe not. It all depends. I didn’t find any visible spatter patterns, but it’s conceivable the killer managed to wash them away. I think it’s likely that the truck was only used for transporting the body.”

“Did you find anything else?” Joanna asked.

Dave grinned. “As a matter of fact, we did,” he boasted.

“Look at this.” He produced another evidence bag. Inside Joanna saw a small yellow-and-black disposable camera with a coating of black fingerprint powder clinging to it.

“This was wedged in under the passenger’s side of the seat. There are twenty-four shots per camera. Only sixteen of them have been exposed. Casey lifted plenty of prints. Her preliminary determination is that the prints on the camera belong to the victim.”

“Which may mean Bradley Evans is the only person who used it,” Joanna theorized.

Dave nodded. “And he stuffed it under the seat in hopes of making sure no one saw either the camera or what it was he was taking pictures of. I talked to Jaime a little while ago. He’s still out in Huachuca City trying to find out exactly when the pickup showed up on the lot and who may have put it there. The Double Cs are sending Debbie Howell here to pick up the camera. She’s going to take it to that One Hour Photo Shop out in Sierra Vista.”

Obviously Debbie Howell was spending her first day in Homicide as Jaime and Ernie’s gofer-in-chief.

“Good,” Joanna said. “The sooner we see what’s on those photos, the better.”

Wanting to spell Butch, Joanna left work early that afternoon. When she got home, though, the house was quiet. Butch was seated at the kitchen table with his laptop open in front of him while tantalizing cooking aromas wafted around him.

“Where is everybody?” Joanna asked, kissing the smooth top of his bald head.

“Jenny and the dogs are hiding out in her room, and I don’t blame them a bit,” Butch said. “If I thought I could get away with it, I’d be there, too. As for my parents? They’re out in the RV watching Fox News.”

“In the RV?” Joanna asked. “Why not in the living room?”

“Because Dad likes watching on his flat-screen TV and he prefers using his own clicker.”

“But what kind of reception do they get?”

“Didn’t you notice the satellite TV antenna up on top of their rig? I went out earlier today and watched Dad locate the satellite. And don’t think I’m not grateful. It gave me a couple of hours of peace and quiet. God knows I was ready for some of that. Believe it or not, I even managed to get some work done. I couldn’t very well work in front of them. Somehow I never picked up on how much my mother despises mysteries. Did you know that about her?”