J. Jance - Devil’s Claw

“Dick Voland? I would have thought Butch had moved beyond worrying about Dick Voland a long time ago. That’s all water under the bridge.”

“New water, new bridge,” Joanna said. “Dick showed up at the shower yesterday afternoon.”

“He was there?” Frank demanded. “How come? Who invited him?”

“He wasn’t invited. He stopped by afterward to tell me that Clayton Rhodes’ daughter, Reba Singleton, is on the warpath. She believes one way or another that I’m responsible for her father’s death. She’s hired Dick and wants him to gather enough evidence to bring the situation to the attention of the FBI.”

At that juncture, Frank actually choked as a sip of steaming coffee caught in his throat. “Why, for God’s sake, would she-”

“Because Clayton left me his place in his will.”

“His place?” Frank blinked. “You mean Rhodes Ranch-the land, house, and everything?”

“All three hundred and twenty acres,” Joanna replied. “Reba is of the opinion that the prospect of receiving the ranch sooner rather than later was inducement enough for me to knock her father off. Never mind the fact that I had no idea about the contents of Clayton’s will until yesterday morning, when Burton Kimball called to tell me what was happening.”

“So Dick gets to sic the FBI on you,” Frank grumbled. “And he had the gall to come by and gloat about it. That jackass-”

“He didn’t come by to gloat,” Joanna interrupted. “He came to warn me, Frank. To let me know what was happening. He’s coming here to the department sometime this morning-probably any minute now-to pick up fingerprint information on me. I expect our people to give him their full cooperation, and courtesy, too,” she added. “If he needs help collecting latent prints at the scene, he’s welcome to request Casey Ledford’s services. He shouldn’t have a problem with that. As far as I know, at this point Doc Winfield and I are the only ones accused of any complicity. I don’t believe anyone else in the department is under suspicion.”

“Doc Winfield?” Frank repeated. “What did he do?”

“Clayton’s autopsy, for one thing,” Joanna answered. “But since George Winfield is also my stepfather, Reba Singleton is claiming conflict of interest. She’s asking for a second-opinion autopsy. She’s going before a judge to get a court order.”

“Doc Winfield’s gonna love that,” Frank said.

Joanna continued. “I assume they’ll ask the ME up in Pima County for assistance. The problem is, we’ve done so much work with them lately, that, for all I know, they might be considered contaminated as well.”

Frank Montoya shook his head. “I can’t believe it, Joanna. You’re really going to help Dick Voland open this can of worms?”

“The can’s already open,” Joanna said firmly. “And everybody in this office is going to cooperate with Dick’s investigation. I’ve got nothing to hide or apologize for, and neither does George Winfield. The sooner we get this mess handled, the less outside interference we’ll have to deal with. And now,” she added, reaching for the stack of incident reports, “what all went on yesterday?”

“Do you want to read all those?” Frank asked.

“Not especially. Give me the Reader’s Digest condensed version.”

“In descending order, fifteen UDAs held for the INS, and four DWIs. Two each motor-vehicle accidents and domestic-violence incidents-no fatalities and no serious injuries in any of them. One of the inmates in the jail suffered a seizure of some kind and had to be transported down to the county hospital in Douglas. He’s still there, under guard. In other words, all pretty much routine stuff.”

“What about the Sandra Ridder investigation?”

“We had a team from the crime lab out at the scene-at the two scenes-pretty much all day yesterday. They picked up some trace evidence-threads, hair, that kind of thing-but there’s no way to tell whether or not it has anything to do with what happened.

“Jaime and I picked up Catherine Yates and brought her in to George’s office yesterday afternoon. She IDed the dead woman from the culvert as her daughter, Sandra Ridder. No surprises there, since we’d already pretty much figured that out on our own. According to the doc, he was scheduling the autopsy for sometime this morning. Still no sign of that missing Lexus.”

“What about Lucinda Ridder?”

“She’s still missing, too. Deputy Gregovich and Spike worked the problem all day yesterday. They had no trouble following her after she left the house. She stuck to the road for half a mile or so, then the trail disappeared. They lost her.”

“So she either got in a vehicle or took off on her bike. Since the bike is missing, I’m betting on the latter. Can Spike follow a trail left by a bike?”

“Not as well as he can follow one left by a pair of human feet. On a hunch, I had him check out the crime-scene area over by Cochise Stronghold. They hit a jackpot there and picked up Lucy’s scent again. She spent some time concealed in a dry creek bed, with her bike hidden nearby. She came out of hiding long enough to go over by the sign, then she disappeared into thin air again, same as she did before, when she left Catherine Yates’ house.”

“If she was at the crime scene when her mother was,” Joanna mused, “she might have seen what happened.”

“Or she might have been involved in what happened.”

“You’re still thinking Lucy might have had something to do with what happened to Sandra?”

Frank nodded. “It’s possible,” he said. “According to Catherine Yates, Lucy is desperately unhappy that her mother is getting out of jail. Embarrassed, probably, more than unhappy. It’s like I said the other night. She sneaks up on her mother armed with a gun that she knows how to use. Maybe she goes to the sign for the same reason her mother did-looking for whatever was in that damned Tupperware bowl. Maybe she’s still there when her mother arrives. That could just be a coincidence, or maybe Lucy knew that’s where her mother would go the first moment she had a chance.

“One way or the other, regardless of what Catherine Yates told us about Lucy refusing to have anything to do with her mother, I think she was wrong. I’m pretty sure Lucy and Sandra did meet up that night.”

“Why’s that?”

“Remember the necklace Sandra Ridder was wearing when she was found?”

Joanna nodded. She hadn’t seen the necklace, but she remembered hearing it described by Hal Witter. “The devil’s-claw necklace?”

“Right. Well, guess what. According to Catherine Yates, that necklace actually belongs to her granddaughter. Lucinda Ridder was wearing it the last time Catherine saw her.”

Joanna followed that line of reasoning for several long moments. “Maybe the whole thing was set up,” she suggested at last. “Suppose Sandra Ridder contacted her daughter without Catherine Yates’ knowledge and arranged for Lucy to meet her at the Cochise Stronghold in the middle of the night.”

“Seems far-fetched,” Frank said, “but I suppose it could have happened that way.”

“And,” Joanna continued, “if Spike and Terry can’t pick up Lucy’s trail after that, it probably means that Lucy left the scene on her bike or in a vehicle of some kind. The first question that comes to mind, then, is whether Lucy Ridder is a suspect or a fellow victim in this case. If she took a ride, was it voluntary or not? Did whoever drove off in the missing Lexus take Lucinda and Big Red and the missing bicycle along with him?”

“What would a UDA want with Lucinda Ridder and her red-tailed hawk?”

“Nothing good,” Joanna answered with a slight shiver. “Not every illegal who comes across the line looking for work is a fine upstanding citizen.”