J.A. Jance: Dead Wrong

Joanna couldn’t help laughing. “So how’s the conference?” she asked.

“Weird. Turns out Hawthorn put a bound galley of Serve and Protect in the goody bags they hand out to each of the conference attendees. I had dinner with Carole Ann last night. According to her, handing out bound galleys like that is good. It shows the publisher is putting some horses behind this book-and that’s not all that common for a first-time author.”

“It’s a good book,” Joanna said. “But what makes the conference weird?”

“For one thing, it means that people see my name badge and then they want me to sign their books, so I’m already signing autographs even though my book isn’t actually published yet. One of my fellow newbies-a lady named Christina Hanson-is on the same panel I am. Her book is due out in June. At the pre-conference cocktail party she made it abundantly clear that she’s more than a little annoyed that I have bound galleys here and she doesn’t. I’m worried that later on today when we do the panel, the sparks will fly.”

“Are you saying even mystery writing is political?” Joanna asked.

Butch laughed. “Evidently. Now, how are you?”

“Woke up early with my usual backache. And the baby’s a busy little bee today. I’ve been doing paperwork, but it’s about time to shower and go in to work.”

“You don’t have to work until the last minute,” Butch said.

“I want to work,” Joanna said. “If I stayed home, I’d sit around and worry. Besides, Marianne and I are supposed to have lunch at Daisy’s today. If I don’t go to work, I won’t have an excuse to go out to lunch.”

Marianne Maculyea, the Reverend Marianne Maculyea, had been Joanna’s best friend since junior high. She was also the pastor of Tombstone Canyon United Methodist Church, where Joanna and Butch were members.

“Wish I could join you,” Butch said. “I don’t think lunch here will be that much fun.”

Joanna’s call-waiting buzzed in her ear. Caller ID told her it was Dispatch. “Got to go,” Joanna said. “I’ve got another call. Have fun. I love you.”

“Good morning, Sheriff Brady,” Tica Romero said. “I hope it’s not too early to call.”

“It’s not,” Joanna said. “I’ve been up working for a while. What’s going on?”

“We’ve got a homicide,” Tica responded. “Halfway between Bisbee Junction and Paul’s Spur.”

Joanna’s initial election to office had been in the immediate aftermath of her first husband’s murder. Andy had been running for sheriff at the time, and Joanna’s subsequent election had been regarded more as a gesture of community sympathy than anything else. Once in office, however, she had been determined to function as a real sheriff rather than sheriff in name only. Through the years she had done her best to show up on the scene of every homicide that happened within her jurisdiction. Now was no time to stop.

“How long ago did it happen?” she asked.

“A border patrol officer called it in just a few minutes ago,” Tica answered. “Detectives Carbajal and Carpenter are already on their way. So’s Dave Hollicker.”

Dave was Joanna’s senior crime scene investigator. Jaime Carbajal and Ernie Carpenter, sometimes-known as the Double Cs, comprised Joanna’s single team of homicide detectives. All three officers were tremendously overworked. Joanna had planned on adding another CSI, and she had wanted to promote two patrol unit deputies to detectives, so Ernie and Jaime could have worked with the new guys while they learned the ropes. Unfortunately the War on Terror had intervened. So many of Joanna’s experienced deputies had been called up for National Guard duty that she couldn’t afford to deplete the patrol roster further. Her homicide investigation team was overworked, and overworked it would remain.

Joanna glanced at her watch. If she showered and went to the scene with her hair still wet, she could probably be there within half an hour. “An illegal?” she asked.

It was a reasonable assumption. Border Road was called that because it ran for miles right along the sagging remains of a barbed-wire fence that constituted the official dividing line between the United States and Mexico. The unimpeded flood of illegal crossers pouring over that line posed a constant drain on Joanna’s officers and her budget.

“The Border Patrol guy says it’s not,” Tica replied. “The victim is wrapped in a tarp, but from what the officer could see, he’s male, balding, and with light-colored hair and fair skin.”

“Which means he’s probably some poor Anglo dummy who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. A coyote probably got him.”

Joanna’s coyote reference had nothing to do with the four-legged fur-bearing kind. In the parlance of Southwest law enforcement officers, coyotes were smugglers who trafficked in bringing illegal entrants across the border from Mexico into the United States. Often operating in stolen vehicles and with zero concern for the welfare of their human cargo, human coyotes had become a particularly dangerous category of criminal. Speeding vehicles, wrecking and spilling their hapless passengers, were almost everyday occurrences.

On one occasion, fifty-eight men had been crammed in the back of an eighteen-wheeler when the truck hauling them had broken down. The driver had abandoned the locked vehicle on the side of the road at high noon on a hot August afternoon. When someone finally pried open the locked cargo door, all but one of the men were dead, and he had perished on his way to the hospital.

“That would be my first guess,” Tica agreed.

“All right,” Joanna said. “It’s going to take a little time for me to get there. I’m not dressed, but tell the Double Cs I’ll show up as soon as I can.”

“Show up where?” Jenny asked from the doorway.

She came into Joanna’s office fully dressed and sipping coffee from one of the white oversize diner-style mugs Butch preferred. Jenny was drinking a whole lot more coffee than Joanna had originally envisioned, but she let it go.

“At a crime scene,” Joanna said as she shut down her computer and began stowing it into her briefcase.

“Oh,” Jenny said. “I was hoping you’d give me a ride to school. The bus takes so long, and it’s so boring!”

As far as Joanna was concerned, when it came to teenagers, boring was the best of all possible worlds. “Can’t, sweetie,” she replied. “It’s in the wrong direction. I can give you a ride to the bus stop, but that’s about it.”

“I can hardly wait until I’m old enough to get my driver’s license,” Jenny said. “It’s just a little over a year and a half before I’ll be old enough to get my learner’s permit.”

This wasn’t a fact Joanna enjoyed pondering. She wasn’t ready for her daughter to be old enough to learn to drive a car. One of the biggest concerns with the idea of Jenny’s turning fifteen had to do with its being a mere two years away from seventeen, which is how old Joanna had been when she herself got pregnant with Jenny-pregnant and unmarried.

“Did you feed the dogs?” she asked.

Jenny gave her mother an exasperated look. “I fed the dogs and Kiddo and the cattle and chickens, too,” she said. Kiddo was Jenny’s sorrel gelding. “I told Butch I’d take care of all that while he was gone so you wouldn’t have to.”

“Thank you,” Joanna said. If Jenny was old enough to do all that without having to be asked, maybe having that mugful of coffee wasn’t out of line after all.

“I have to hit the shower,” she said. “Can you be ready to go in fifteen?”

“I guess,” Jenny said. When she left her mother’s office this time, Tigger and Lucky followed. Lady stayed where she was.