interviews conducted immediately, properly witnessed and recorded.
Understand?”
“Got it, boss,” Ernie replied. “What’s Jaime up to right now?”
“As far as I know, he’s waiting for Edith Mossman to wake up from her nap so he can finish doing her second interview. Maybe you can squeeze in talks with Braxton and Calhoun before that happens.”
Ernie nodded. “We’ll get right on it,” he said.
As Ernie rose to do her bidding, it occurred to Joanna that she owed this man, some twenty-five years her senior, the courtesy of personally informing him about what was going on.
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“By the way, Ernie,” she said, “I’ll probably have Frank put out an official bulletin, but there’s something I need to tell you.”
“About the baby, you mean?” he asked.
Joanna nodded.
“Not to worry. Rose read me the article from the paper this morning. I should have mentioned it earlier. I guess congratulations are in order.”
Marliss strikes again, Joanna thought.
“Thank you,” she said.
Ernie frowned. “You’re not planning on quitting, are you?”
“No. Definitely not.”
A slow smile crossed Ernie Carpenter’s broad face. “Good,” he said. “Glad to hear it. I’m just getting used to working with you. It’d be a shame to lose you now.”
As soon as Ernie left her office, Joanna picked up her phone. “Frank,” she said, “I think we should send out a special department-wide bulletin as soon as possible.
We need to let people know what’s going on vis-a-vis my pregnancy.”
“I’m on it,” Frank told her. “I’ve got a rough draft almost ready to go.”
“You’re a mind reader,” Joanna said. “I’m free whenever you are.”
She was working on her never-ending pile of paperwork several minutes later when David Hollicker came rushing through her door. “What’s up?” she asked.
“You’re not going to believe it.”
“What?”
“NIBIN just got a hit on the Mossman casings.”
It took a moment for Joanna’s brain to sort the acronym into actual words-the National Integrated Ballistics Information
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Network. Once the ballistics information was entered into the computer, it didn’t matter where the weapon was used next. A match was a match.
“Where?” Joanna demanded.
“In a double homicide near Road Forks,” Hollicker said. “In Hidalgo County, New Mexico.”
“What do you know so far?” Joanna asked.
“Just that there’s a match. When it comes to talking to other departments, I thought it might be better if someone other than a lowly CSI made the call.”
In less than a minute, Joanna was on the phone with Sheriff Randy Trotter in Lordsburg, New Mexico.
“I understand we have a joint ballistics hit,” Joanna said.
“So I hear,” Sheriff Trotter returned. “I was about to call you.”
“What’s the deal?” Joanna asked.
“Two Jane Does,” he told her. “One a white female, early forties, maybe. The other could be Hispanic. Mid-to- late twenties. They were found late yesterday afternoon, stripped naked and shot to death off the road between Road Forks and Rodeo.”
“Any possibility that the guy who reported it is the killer?” Joanna asked.
“I doubt it. He’s a history professor from the University of New Mexico. He’s devoting his summer to riding a bike to historical sites all over the state. The Circle Ranch is about ten miles north of Rodeo. There’s a well there along with a stock tank and a couple of trees. The professor had written permission from the rancher allowing him to camp there. He set up camp and then went off toward a stand of yucca, looking for a place to … well, relieve himself. He found the bodies about twenty 130
yards from the stock tank and called 911 from his cell phone. From the looks of the victims, they’d been out there for a while-a day or so, anyway.”
“What about autopsies?” Joanna asked.
“With tomorrow being the Fourth,” Trotter said, “we probably won’t have those before Monday at the earliest.”
