J.A. Jance - Dead Wrong

“That’s all you needed to do.”

“But I’m not sure they believed me. Especially the part about you shooting him under the car.”

“Maybe they’ll like it better if they hear the same thing from me,” Joanna said.

Newton and Unger were waiting for Joanna inside a small interview room. For the better part of an hour they shot one question after another in her direction. Most of the questions were straightforward enough: How had the incident begun? When had Deputy Thomas taken up the chase? As Thomas had warned, everything moved along smoothly until they reached the part about the shooting incident itself. When Joanna explained how that had gone down, Detective Newton’s disbelief was clear.

“You and Deputy Thomas expect us to believe that you supposedly jumped out of his vehicle, threw yourself flat on the ground, and then shot the suspect by aiming under the parked Dodge Caravan?” Newton asked.

“Yes. That’s what happened.”

“That would have taken a hell of a good shot.”

“I am a good shot,” Joanna returned.

“In your condition?”

Joanna felt her temper rising. In the present situation, that wasn’t a good thing. “What do you mean, ”my condition‘? You mean because I’m pregnant, Detective Newton? Are you under the impression that pregnant women are incapable of“ shooting, or are you objecting to my being able to shoot from a prone position?”

“Well, yes,” Newton admitted sheepishly “That does seem highly unlikely.”

“I’ll tell you what, Detective Newton,” she said quietly. “Let’s you and I take a trip out to your target range. We’ll both use semiautomatic rifles. I’ll lie on my stomach. You lie on a soccer ball. We’ll see which one of us can hit a moving target. Twice.”

“I didn’t mean to imply…” Newton began.

“Yes, you did,” Joanna returned sharply. “I’ve been patient. I’ve answered all your questions. I’m assuming Deputy Thomas’s story and mine jibe, because that’s what happened. Now, unless you have something substantial to add, I’m done. All things considered, it’s been a pretty big day-for someone in my condition.”

“Sure, Sheriff Brady,” Detective Unger put in quickly. “If we need anything else, we’ll call.”

“You do that.”

“This doesn’t mean our investigation is over,” Detective Newton growled.

“It is for tonight,” she told him. She knew she had nailed the man with her soccer-ball comment and she had not the slightest doubt that, if push came to shove, she could outshoot him.

Getting to her feet, Joanna stalked from the room. In the lobby, Frank was talking on his cell phone, pacing back and forth. “Oh, wait,” he said. “Here she is. If we leave right now, we can be there in a little over an hour, Mr. Oxhill. You’re sure that won’t be too late? Okay. Fine.”

“What’s that all about?”

“He’s the manager of the Target in Sierra Vista.”

Still rankled by Newton‘s remarks, Joanna answered impatiently as they headed for Frank’s car. “I remember who he is. What does he want?”

“I told you he called earlier and said the primer had been purchased with cash.”

“Yes, I remember that, too.”

“He evidently spent all afternoon worrying about it until he finally realized something. Even though there was no credit-card trail, he did have the product numbers. He decided to try going through cash-register records to see if he could find out exactly when the purchase was made. And he did. He wants us to come look at the store security tapes. He believes he has photos of a woman making the actual purchase.”

Suddenly Joanna’s annoyance with Detective Newton dissipated and she was no longer the least bit tired. “Let’s go then,” she said, scrambling into Frank’s Crown Victoria. “Let’s not just stand around jawing about it.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Frank added, as they headed back to the freeway. “I’ve got some other good news. Tom Hadlock and Millicent Ross have been talking. He’s gone through the jail and talked to the inmates and ended up with four more volunteers than he had puppies. He and I talked it over. He’s going to use four trustees as a work group to help with all the extra dogs that will be staying at the pound right now while we’re so short-handed. And Millicent has tracked down some deep-pockets pitbull-rescue guy who’s agreed to underwrite whatever equipment or additional expenses we have to run up in order to make this thing work.

“Millicent says she’ll stow as many dogs and puppies as she can at her clinic tonight. Tomorrow morning she’ll go to Tucson armed with the guy’s credit-card number and purchase whatever equipment we need-beds, dishes, puppy food, toys, bowls, collars, leashes. We’ll bring the dogs to the jail tomorrow afternoon after she gets back.”

“Leashes?” Joanna asked. “Did you say leashes? We just had a major fight at the jail last week-a fight with homemade weapons. Are you telling me that now we’re going to issue leashes to our inmates?”

“We can’t have the dogs there without leashes,” Frank said. “There wouldn’t be any way to control them. And I think it’s going to work. According to Tom, the inmates are so excited you’d think it was Christmas.”

When Frank and Joanna arrived at the Target store in Sierra Vista, Manfred Oxhill was waiting just inside the front door. He turned out to be a tall African-American man with a ready smile and an accent that suggested a Caribbean heritage.

“I’m so glad to meet you,” he said. “Right this way.”

They followed him through a door marked “Employees Only,” up a narrow set of stairs, past what was clearly an employee breakroom and into a warren of offices that lined one whole end of the store. Beyond a door marked “Security,” they squeezed themselves into a room that included one wall lined with monitors and another lined with recording equipment. Manfred Oxhill introduced them to the lone operator in the room, then gave the man a piece of paper covered with a series of handwritten scribbles. Within a matter of minutes, Joanna was staring at a screen where customers, totally oblivious to the watching cameras panning back and forth across the scene, casually went about their business.

“There!” Manfred Oxhill said, pointing at one of the monitors. “That’s register sixteen and this should be the right time- two fifty-two p.m. on 02:25:2005.”

Joanna stepped closer to the monitor. At first all she could see was a back view of a woman standing in front of the cash register. Only when she turned and looked nervously from side to side did Joanna recognize her-Dolores Mattias, Aileen Houlihan’s caregiver. Joanna’s heartbeat quickened in her breast as she watched the cashier put one can of primer after another into a series of plastic bags and then hand them over.

“I’ll be damned,” Joanna exclaimed.

“Who is it?” Frank asked.

“Dolores Mattias,” she said. “I met her this morning.” Joanna turned to Manfred Oxhill. “Can we have a copy of this tape?”

“Of course,” he said. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll bring a new tape from downstairs.”

“What does this mean?” Frank asked.

They had been so caught up with other events and concerns all afternoon and evening that Joanna hadn’t had either the time or the energy to tell Frank what she had learned during her earlier trip to the Triple H.

“Aileen Houlihan may be bedridden with Huntington’s disease,” Joanna said, “but I’m betting she’s still calling the shots.”

With their copy of the security tape in hand, Joanna and Frank sat in his car in the Target parking lot and discussed what to do next. “I think we should go talk to her,” Joanna said. “Do we know anything else about Dolores Mattias other than the fact that she purchased the primer?” Frank asked. “How do we know that was the primer used on Evans’s vehicle?”