J. Jance - Devil’s Claw

“Neither does Sheriff Bill Forsythe,” Joanna said grimly. “But with any kind of luck, the man’s sure as hell going to find out.”

An hour later, at lunch with Butch, Joanna told him about the personality clash with her neighboring sheriff. “So basically, you’re mad because you regard yourself as a woman scorned,” Butch philosophized. “Professionally scorned, but scorned nonetheless.”

“Forsythe wouldn’t have talked to me that way if I were a man,” Joanna declared. “Men get mad; women get hysterical. Men are aggressive; women are pushy.”

“Isn’t there a chance you’re being overly sensitive about this?”

Joanna thought about it. “Maybe,” she finally admitted reluctantly, “but what do you suggest I do?”

Butch shrugged. “Seems to me like you already have a handle on that.” He grinned back at her. “Solve the two murders and then whip Forsythe’s ass at poker. What could be better than that?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing at all.”

Joanna was back from lunch and hard at work early that afternoon when Frank popped his head in her office. “What’s happening?” she asked.

“Nothing much.” Frank shut the door and came on into the office, settling into one of the chairs. “I faxed what information we had on the Tom Ridder murder weapon to the Department of Public Safety firearms expert at the lab up in Tucson. I just now got off the phone with the guy.”

“What did he say?”

“That it’s possible to get a match, but he won’t be able to tell for sure unless he can put both bullets under the microscope.”

“What are the chances of that happening?” Joanna asked.

Frank Montoya shrugged. “That depends on whether or not Tucson PD kept a bullet from that long ago. And, if the bullet does exist, stashed away in their evidence room, it further depends on whether or not anyone can lay hands on it for us in a timely fashion. I have someone up there looking for it, but she wasn’t very encouraging. She said she’d get back to me, but she wanted to know if I understood that working on a closed ten-year-old case takes a backseat to working on something current. I tried convincing her that ours is a current case, but I don’t know how successful I was. We’ll have to wait and see.”

He paused before continuing. “How’d you do with Bill Forsythe?” he added.

Joanna shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“That good,” Frank mused.

“He wanted us to give him whatever we had, including the name and address of that neighbor of Melanie Goodson’s, the one Jaime and Ernie talked to yesterday afternoon. Once we tell him everything we know, Forsythe will decide whether or not in his opinion we’re worthy of having his department’s cooperation.”

“That’s certainly big of him.”

“Right,” Joanna said. “That’s what I thought. I guess we’ll have to do this without him.”

Just then Joanna’s intercom buzzed. “Sheriff Brady,” Kristin said. “There’s someone out here to see you. Her name is Sister Celeste. I know she doesn’t have an appointment, but she says she’s driven down from Tucson to see you.”

Joanna took her finger away from the intercom, muting her side of the conversation. “What do you think?” Joanna asked Frank.

“Is this the disappearing nun the Double Cs have been trying to make an appointment with for at least two days?” Frank asked.

Joanna nodded. “She’s the one.”

“How about if I scoot out the back door,” Frank suggested, nodding toward Joanna’s private entrance. “That way you can see her alone.”

“That’s not necessary, Frank,” Joanna said. “Stay. We’ll hear what she has to say together.”

Seconds later, Kristin opened the door and ushered a tall, spare, horse-faced woman into the room. Wearing jeans, sweatshirt, and hiking boots, the woman looked as though she might have been an extremely physically fit phys-ed teacher in her late fifties or early sixties. She held out a strong, lean-fingered hand and shook Joanna’s, pumping it forcefully.

“Sheriff Brady,” she announced. “As your secretary told you, I’m Sister Celeste. I’m afraid I was a bit abrupt with you on the phone the other day, and I apologize. I was on my way into a faculty meeting that afternoon, and I didn’t want to be late. But the truth is, in addition to being late, I also didn’t want to speak to you right then.”

“This is Frank Montoya, my chief deputy,” Joanna said, motioning toward the chairs. “Won’t you have a seat?”

Sister Celeste smiled. “I suppose when you heard a nun was outside, you expected someone in a habit. I do wear mine at work during the school week, but now that habits are optional, the rest of the nuns at Santa Theresa’s and I have taken to having dress-down days occasionally. Sort of like casual-dress Fridays in the rest of the world. And the truth is, there are times when jeans and sweatshirts make a lot more sense.”

“Yes, there are,” Joanna agreed.

Sister Celeste appeared to be on edge about something, and Joanna was content to let her babble on about the weather and what a nice drive she had had without further interruption. Finally, pausing in the middle of her verbal torrent, the nun took a deep breath. “I suppose you’d like me to tell you why I’m here,” she said.

Joanna nodded. “That would be helpful. I’m assuming it has something to do with Lucy Ridder’s Saturday-morning phone call.”

“Yes,” Sister Celeste admitted. “Lucy did call me that morning.”

“And you spoke to her for some time,” Joanna prompted.

“That, too. About fifteen minutes or so, I’d say. She was very upset.”

Perhaps she had just shot her mother, Joanna thought. “Where is Lucy now?” she asked.

“I know, but I can’t say,” Sister Celeste returned. “Or rather, I won’t say. There’s a difference.”

Joanna’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, there certainly is a difference. Sister Celeste, I must tell you that Lucy Ridder is wanted for questioning in regard to the death of her mother, Sandra Ridder. Are you aware that interfering with a homicide investigation and harboring a criminal are both serious felony offenses?”

Sister Celeste leaned back in her chair. “I am aware of that,” she said. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“Why?”

Sister Celeste merely shrugged and said nothing.

“If you can’t or won’t say, why are you here?” Joanna demanded.

Sister Celeste leaned down and opened the large, satchel-like purse she had placed on the floor next to her chair. Rummaging through it, she pulled out a three-and-a-quarter-inch computer floppy disk. “I came to give you this,” she said, handing the small blue diskette over to Joanna. “I’m hoping it will provide all of us with some much-needed answers.”

“What’s on it?” Joanna asked.

“I have no idea. According to Lucy, this is the reason her mother died. I tried looking at it myself on my computer at school, but it didn’t work. I can see there are files. In fact, I tried using my disk utilities program on the thing. It told me that the disk is full, but I wasn’t able to open any of the files, and I wasn’t able to view them, either.”

Joanna passed the disk along to Frank Montoya. “Mr. Montoya happens to be my department’s resident nerd,” she said with a smile. “Do you mind if he tries taking a look at it?”

“Not at all,” Sister Celeste said. “I hope he has better luck with it than I did.”

Taking the disk, Frank left Joanna’s office for his own, leaving the two women alone together. They sat in silence for the better part of a minute, regarding one another, each sizing up the other.