J.A. Jance - Dead Wrong

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.”

Once 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.”