Partner In Crime

I started to hand the phone back to Joanna, then changed my mind. “Could you check on one more thing?” I asked.

“What’s that?” Frank returned.

“UPPI and the state of Washington are currently involved in some upcoming litigation. How about checking to see if a company named Maddern, Maddern, and Peek is representing in that case.”

“Sure thing,” Frank said. “I’ll see what I can do.” I heard someone speaking to Montoya in the background. When he returned to the radio mike, his voice crackled with new urgency. “Have the Haz-Mat guys left yet?” he demanded.

I looked around. The yard was empty. While we talked, Joanna had evidently followed Ron Workman and his crew back down to the street. “I’m not sure,” I told him. “If they’re not already gone, they’re packing up to leave. Why?”

“Somebody’d better grab them before they do,” Frank Montoya returned. “Casey Ledford just radioed in from Dee Dee Canfield’s house out in Huachuca Terraces. She says there are clear signs of a struggle in the living room, and there are traces of a white powder on the furniture and in the rugs. She’s evacuated the place and is awaiting Haz-Mat assistance.”

Before the call even ended, I was thundering down the stairs, looking for Joanna Brady. Ron Workman was shaking her hand and about to get into his truck when I caught up with them. I gave her Frank’s message, which she immediately passed along to Ron. He took the news of this additional Haz-Mat site with all the eye-rolling good grace of a fifth grader who’s just been told the principal has canceled recess.

“Where’s this one?” he demanded.

“A few miles from here,” Joanna said. “You’ll get there faster if I lead the way.”

With that, Joanna Brady struck off up the street toward the parked Blazer. Since I was currently without wheels of my own, I jogged along. If where we were going was “a few” miles away, I had no intention of walking.

Riding through town, I was struck by the general junkiness of the place. Homes and businesses alike seemed to have collections of old cars, washing machines, refrigerators, and other rusty equipment that defied identification moldering around them. Evidently the city of Bisbee wasn’t big on litter patrol.

The route we took around the traffic circle and out of town was familiar. We’d gone that way the day before when I had followed Joanna’s Crown Vic to Naco. This time, though, we blew straight through that critical intersection. Half a mile later, we turned left into a little subdivision of humble-looking late-fifties bungalows, complete with what looked distinctly like another hazardous material – asbestos siding.

Dee Canfield’s house was the most beat-up place on the block. A seven-foot-tall chicken, made of soldered- together scrap metal and too tall to fit under the low-slung front porch’s overhang, stood sentry in the middle of a weed-clogged front yard.

Joanna parked on the street. While she hurried off to confer with her deputies and the Haz-Mat guys once again, I stayed put. I didn’t have the patience or the inclination to go hang around another crime scene. Playing fifth wheel and staying out of the way of the people who are doing useful work doesn’t suit me.

That’s how come I was still in the car and half-dozing when the radio call came in from Frank Montoya.

“Sheriff Brady,” he asked. “Can you put Beaumont on?”

I picked up the radio. “I’m here,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Maddern, Maddern, and Peek may not be representing UPPI in Washington State, but they are in several other jurisdictions – Missouri, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania, to be exact. The law firm UPPI is using in Washington is actually McRainey and Dobbs. They’re located in a place called Bellevue.”

My heartbeat quickened. It may have been entirely circumstantial, but here was a connection – a real connection – between Latisha Wall’s killer and UPPI. I could hardly wait to tell Ross Connors that I was making progress.

“Thanks, Frank,” I said. “Thanks a lot. I’ll let Sheriff Brady know right away.”

But before I did that, I picked up my cell phone. Without thinking, I dialed the attorney general’s cell phone number, only to discover I had once again been captured by that Spanish-speaking babe from Old Mexico.

“Damn!” I exclaimed, whacking the phone on the dashboard in utter frustration. What’s the point in packing the damned thing if it doesn’t work most of the time?

Climbing out of the car, I went looking for Joanna Brady.

“What now?” she asked when I interrupted her yet again. I was going to ask to borrow her phone, but she looked so harried that I simply passed along what Frank Montoya had told me. “I need to get back up to the hotel,” I added. “I want to call my boss and let him know what’s happened.”

“Sure,” Joanna said. “Go ahead.” With that, she turned once again to her officers.

“But I don’t have a car,” I objected.

Shaking her head, she reached in her pocket and found a set of keys, which she tossed over to me. I caught them in midair. “Go get your Kia,” she said. “Leave my Blazer at the department. You can leave the keys at the front desk.”

“But how will you get back?” I asked.

“Don’t worry. Somebody here will give me a ride when we finish up.” With that Joanna turned away and returned to her huddle with Workman, Hollicker, and the others.

I didn’t fault her for rudeness. Cops working crime scenes don’t have time to observe all the Miss Manners rules of polite behavior. Joanna Brady was working a crime scene and, as it turned out, so was I.

Eighteen

AFTER DROPPING OFF JOANNA’S BLAZER, I took the Kia and headed for the hotel. It was early Sunday evening. With the weekend over, parking was a little less scarce than it had been the day before. I walked down the hill and up the steps in early evening twilight.

Entering the Copper Queen, I was intent on going straight to my room and calling Ross Connors, but Cornelia Lester was in the lobby. She caught my eye and flagged me down before I could make it to the elevator. She sat on one of the deep leather couches before a cup-and-saucer-laden coffee table. Walking toward her, I realized she wasn’t alone. A grim-faced Bobo Jenkins was there, with her, along with a blond-haired woman in a business suit. The blonde appeared to be crying.

“You know Mr. Jenkins, don’t you?” Connie asked.

“Yes, I do.”

Bobo Jenkins and I shook hands.

“And this is Serenity Granger,” Connie continued. “She’s Deidre Canfield’s daughter. Serenity, this is Mr. J.P. Beaumont. He’s a special investigator for the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.”

The other murder victim’s daughter, I realized. No wonder she’s in tears.

Serenity Granger pulled herself together. “Hello,” she said.

“I’m so sorry about your mother,” I said.

She nodded. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“Won’t you sit down?” Cornelia Lester asked.

What I wanted to say was, No, thanks. I have to go up to my room and make some phone calls. But I didn’t want to be rude. Here were three grieving people, two black and one white – all of them bound together by tragedy and loss – who had found the strength of character to offer comfort to one another in a time of trouble.

I understood the kind of limbo they were in. They were stuck between knowing their loved one was gone and being able to deal with it. Their lives had been put on hold by officialdom. There would have to be questions and interviews and autopsies before bodies could be released. Only then would they be free to observe the familiar rituals of funerals and memorial services that precede any kind of return to normalcy.

Under those circumstances, it was impossible for me to walk away no matter how much I might have wanted to. I sat.

Cornelia Lester was clearly in charge. “Can we get you something?” she asked. “Coffee, tea, a drink? The