“If you ask me”-Eleanor sniffed-”it’s the same thing.” Fortunately, the intercom buzzed again just then, saving the conversation from deteriorating any further. “Adam York is on line one,” Kristin announced.
“Sorry, Mother,” Joanna said. “There’s another call. I’ve got to go.” She picked up the other receiver. “Hello, Adam. What’s up?”
“What kind of trading mood are you in?” he asked.
“Trading? What do you mean?”
“I just got off the phone with Arlee Jones…” Adam began.
“The Cochise County Attorney?” Joanna demanded. “What are you doing talking to him? You two didn’t make some kind of deal on Aaron Meadows, did you?”
“Settle down, Joanna,” Adam soothed. “Arlee told me I couldn’t do any kind of horse trading unless you agreed up front.”
“Are you talking plea bargain here? If you are-”
“All the man wants is a guarantee that Jones won’t seek an aggravated first-degree murder conviction, that we most likely wouldn’t be able to win anyway. If you’ll agree to that, I’m pretty sure I can get Meadows to give us a signed confession. In addition, he’ll turn state’s evidence. From what he’s said so far, I’m betting that, with his help, I’ll be able to put Marco Marcovich away for a long time. We’ll both come up winners, Joanna. Your two homicide cases will be cleared. So will my Freon problem.”
Sitting there, staring out the window at the sunny parking lot, Joanna thought again about what she had said to Dick Voland the night before-about how, in the course of being sheriff, she had been forced to become a pragmatist. How she was in favor of whatever worked.
“That’s the only thing we’ll be conceding here-we won’t ask for the death penalty?”
“The only thing.”
“And what does Arlee Jones say?”
“That whatever you say goes.”
“Get the confession,” Joanna said, wearily. “Fax me a copy as soon as you have one. I’ll need to go talk to the girl’s parents and let them know what’s happened.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
About four o’clock in the afternoon, still watching the clock and waiting for the fax to come in, Joanna finished her paperwork and made her way down the hall to the evidence room.
“I believe Ernie Carpenter or Jaime brought in another journal either last night or this morning,” she told Buddy Richards. “It’ll be one similar to the one I looked at yesterday. It’s part of the Aaron Meadows investigation.”
“What about it?” Buddy asked.
“I’d like to take a look at it.”
Shaking his head in disapproval and mumbling objections under his breath, Buddy found the journal. He handed it over only after making doubly sure the paperwork was properly signed and documented.
Back in her office, Joanna opened the book to the last page:
The journal ended in mid-sentence, leaving Joanna with the bittersweet knowledge that Brianna O’Brien had been interrupted then and had died in the act of declaring once again her unrepentant love for the young man her family had deemed entirely unsuitable.
Fighting back tears and swallowing the lump in her throat, Joanna went on to read the entire book, scanning from back to front. She expected to stumble upon some reference to Brianna O’Brien’s discovery that her parents were involved in Marco Marcovich’s smuggling game, but she found nothing at all like that. What Joanna found instead was Brianna O’Brien’s shock and outrage that her father had slapped her face-for wearing the forbidden earrings.
As she worked her way backward through the journal, though, Joanna found more and more references to something bad-something Bree had discovered. Over and over she had wrestled in her journal with whether or not she should tell “Nacio what was really going on,” but there was hardly any information at all to say what that awful secret was. Finally, at the very beginning of the book, Joanna found what she was looking for. In an investigation that almost paralleled Joanna’s, Brianna O’Brien had come to the same damning conclusion Joanna had-that Katherine O’Brien had murdered Ricardo Montano Diaz-the man responsible for the deaths of David O’Brien’s family-his previous wife and his firstborn children.
Closing the book, Joanna stared off into space. What was her responsibility here? Katherine and David O’Brien had already suffered an incredible loss. Of course, there was no statute of limitations on murder, but would justice he served by re-opening that ancient wound?
By then the confession arrived. In it, Aaron Meadows admitted to not one but two separate murders. He claimed that Bree’s death had been little more than an accident. The camping place she and Ignacio had frequented happened to be the same spot where Aaron was supposed to meet Luis, his mule, bringing Marco’s next load of Freon north from Juarez. Afraid she would be able to identify him, he had simply run her to ground and killed her. End of story.
On the other hand, he claimed that Alf Hastings’s murder had been self-defense. Afraid of being caught in connection with the girl’s murder, he had given Marco his notice. What he didn’t know was that one of the reasons Stephan Marcovich ran such a successful smuggling business was that he never left any loose ends. His runners weren’t allowed to quit. One way or another, they disappeared. Aaron Meadows claimed it was only sheer luck that, in the process of fighting back, he had managed to kill his would-be dispatcher. Reading that, Joanna wondered how long Alf Hastings had been his cousin’s Mr. Fixit Man and how many times, before his attempted hit on Aaron Meadows, Alf had been only too happy to do Marco’s dirty work. With no one around to tell the tale, they would probably never find out.
At nine o’clock on Tuesday night, burdened by all she had learned, Sheriff Joanna Brady once again headed for Green Brush Ranch. On the way to deliver the news that Brianna O’Brien’s killer had signed a confession, Joanna had yet to reach a decision on that other case-on something that, for more than twenty years, had been officially labeled a wrongful death even though Joanna wondered now if it hadn’t actually been a homicide. By the time she pulled up to the locked, electronically controlled gate, she was still uncertain about what to do.
The gate opened without her having to reach out and push the button. At the house, Olga Vorevkin, her eyes red with weeping, opened the door.
“I’ve come to see Mr. O’Brien,” Joanna said. “I believe he’s expecting me.”
Nodding, Mrs. Vorevkin led Joanna as far as the entrance to the darkened living room. It surprised Joanna to see that there were no votive candles burning on the rosewood prie-dieu at the end of the passageway. The open Bible and the onyx rosary were also missing, as was the marble statue of the Madonna and Child from the artfully lit but empty alcove in the wall.
Turning from there to the darkened living room, Joanna’s first impression was that the place was empty. “I’m over here, Sheriff Brady,” David O’Brien said from the far corner. “By the window. I hope you don’t mind sitting in the dark. I was studying the stars. It’s easier to see them when all the lights are off.”
Joanna bumped into a single chair on her way across the room, but by the time she arrived in the far corner, her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dim light. She peered out the window, too. For a space of time, she didn’t speak and neither did David O’Brien.
A match flared as he lit a cigarette. “That’s one of the few good things I still remember from when I was a child here,” he said at last, blowing a cloud of smoke. “The stars in Bisbee always seemed to burn with a peculiar intensity.” He paused then and took another thoughtful drag before changing the subject. “I take it from your call that you have news?”
Joanna looked around and hesitated. “If you don’t mind, Mr. O’Brien, I’d prefer to share this information with both you and your wife at the same time…”
