“Just how mad are you?” the DEA agent asked as soon as Joanna picked up her phone.
“Mad?” she repeated. “Why would I be mad?”
“D.C. went over my head on this one,” he said. “I couldn’t help it. It’s all gone down since I talked to you this morning. I tried to call you about it the minute it happened, but you weren’t available, and it was too complicated-”
“Adam,” she interrupted. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Freon deal. We’ve been in touch with the guy you ‘old me about, the one in Bisbee.”
“Jim Hobbs?”
“Right. He’s agreed to make the buy. Somebody was sup-posed to meet him in Benson just a little while ago to give him a briefcase full of marked bills.”
“Wait a minute,” Joanna fumed. “Are you telling nee that you people are initiating a sting operation in my jurisdiction without anyone letting my department know beforehand?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Joanna, I’m sorry. As I said, I did try calling you earlier to let you know. If you had a damn cell phone, maybe I could get through to you once in a while. Ever since that one attempt, I’ve been shut up in meetings. This case is all coming together so fast-”
“What case?” Joanna interrupted. “With Air Conditioning Enterprises, you mean?”
Adam York stopped in mid-sentence. “What did you say?”
“With Air Conditioning Enterprises,” Joanna repeated, reading from the card Maggie Hastings had given her. “Stephan J. Marcovich, President.”
“How the hell did you do that?” Adam York demanded. “This was supposed to be totally hush-hush. Nobody is supposed…”
The undisguised shock in Adam’s voice told Joanna that she had indeed made the right connection. Stephan Marcovich did have something to do with the DEA’s Freon deal. “It’s like you told me the other day, Adam,” she reminded him, not worrying if she sounded a little smug. “Little fish lead to big fish, remember?”
“But what…?”
“Hush-hush or not, maybe it’s time we traded info,” Joanna informed him. “I’ve got a homicide case down here-a young girl, eighteen years old, who was murdered and dumped off the side of a cliff out in the Peloncillos east of Douglas some-time over the weekend. We didn’t get a positive ID until late last night. My public information officer has been dealing with the press about it all morning, so it’ll probably be headlines statewide by late this afternoon.”
“Why?” Adam York asked. “What makes a weekend homicide in Cochise County headline news all over Arizona?”
“Because the girl’s name is O’Brien.”
“So?”
“And her parents, David and Katherine O’Brien, are good friends of the Hickmans-as in Wally and Abby.”
“I don’t think I want to hear this.” Adam groaned. “You mean as in Governor Wallace Hickman?”
“One and the same.”
“Damn!”
“And I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised,” Joanna continued, “if we don’t find out that Mr. Stephan J. Marcovich wasn’t part of the governor’s circle of acquaintances as well.”
Adam York sighed. “We already know he is. A major contributor besides. That’s why we’re trying to keep this thing quiet. What’s his connection to the O’Briens?”
“Marcovich’s cousin is a man named Alf Hastings, who hap pens to work for David O’Brien. You remember Alf Listings, don’t you?”
“Remind me.”
“He used to be a deputy sheriff over in Yuma County. He got drummed out of the corps on a charge of police brutality. Now this same Alf Hastings is David O’Brien’s chief of opera Lions. Translation: junkyard dog/bodyguard. According to Hastings’s wife, Maggie, Alf’s cousin-Stevie, as she called him-arranged for the job when Alf couldn’t get work any where else. The dead girl’s Hispanic boyfriend went out to the O’Brien place hoping to catch sight of his missing girlfriend. Instead, Alf Hastings beat him up. We’re investigating it as an assault case, but he could develop into a suspect in our homicide and into a possibility for your smuggling case as well.”
“Have you talked to this All guy?”
“Not yet. He’s not at work today,” Joanna told hint. “According to his boss, he won’t be at work tomorrow, either. And nobody-his wife included-seems to know where he is. But let me tell you something about the O’Brien place, Adam. It’s called Green Brush Ranch, and it’s situated smack on top of the Mexican border. In fact, the property line runs along the border for miles, from Naco west all the way to the San Pedro River. Over the past couple years, under the guise of reestablishing the grassland, the owner has turned the whole place into an armed camp, complete with razor wire all the way around the perimeter and with ATV-mounted guards and guard dogs patrolling the property line.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “In other words, what you’re telling me is that no law enforcement folks have been allowed inside.”
“That’s right.”
“Which would make for an ideal smuggling operation.”
“Right again.” Joanna agreed.
Ever since she had read the words on Stephan Marcovich’s business card, the same ugly theory had been germinating inside Joanna’s head. Now that she had confirmation from Adam York that Marcovich was indeed the air-conditioning contractor in question, she was almost sure of it. The seed of the idea was there, but she had yet to voice it aloud. She felt self-conscious at the idea of laying it out in front of Adam York. Would the DEA agent find it as chillingly believable as she did, or would he simply toss it aside?
“Let me run this past you, Adam. If either David O’Brien and/or his wife is involved in this smuggling deal, what do you think the chances are that one of them had something to do with their daughter’s death?”
“What makes you think that?” Adam responded at once.
Relieved that he didn’t laugh outright at her theory, Joanna continued. “I had a chance to look through the girl’s diary,” she said. “Through one of them, anyway. Brianna O’Brien was one of those faithful diarists. She’s been keeping a journal for several years now. The last entry stuck with me. ‘My mother is a liar,’ it said. My guess is that both her parents are liars, not just her mother.
“When Ernie and I were out at the house earlier today, I saw the father writing what looked like a suicide note. The mother is pissed as hell-at the father. Not only that, she said something that I’ve been thinking about ever since. She said her husband has never lived with the consequences of his actions. The way she said it set off all my alarms.”
Again the telephone line went quiet. Joanna suffered through the silence, expecting the DEA agent to tell her she had a far too vivid imagination.
“The liar comment is the very last entry in the journal?” Adam asked at last. “The final one the girl made before she died?”
“No. It was the last entry in the next-to-last volume. It was written months ago. The problem is, the volume Brianna O’Brien has been writing in since then-the one that might contain any telling details-is missing. It isn’t in her room. It wasn’t at the crime scene, either.”
“As in maybe somebody got rid of it,” Adam York muttered.
“The same thought that occurred to me,” Joanna said.
“Unfortunately,” Adam continued, “this Freon thing is a multimillion-dollar business. If our suspicions are correct, Stevie Marcovich, otherwise known as Marco, runs an operation that will be right up there with the six- million-dollar bust we made in Florida a year ago. If the O’Briens are involved and their own daughter was expendable, I’d say Sam Nettleton up in Benson i5 in way over his head. So is Jim Hobbs, for that matter.”
“What do we do about it?” Joanna asked.
“For one thing,” Adam said, “I’m canceling the sting operation as of right now. How soon can your detectives be in Benson?”
Joanna glanced at her watch. One forty-five. “Ernie Carpenter is probably still up the canyon at the coroner’s office. With luck I can possibly have him there by two-thirty. The same thing goes for Jaime Carbajal. Why? What do you have in mind?”
