Now, in addition to her law enforcement duties, Sheriff Brady was responsible for running the local pound as well. Fortunately, the core members of the Animal Control unit had stayed on when their supervisor left. Joanna may have been less than thrilled with her additional responsibilities, but at least she was supervising a group of people who knew what they were doing.
“What is it, Manny?” she asked when Animal Control Officer Ruiz came on the line.
“Sorry to bother you, Sheriff Brady,” Ruiz said. “I’m out off the Charleston Road.
You know, where Graveyard Gulch runs into the San Pedro? I came out to check on that hoarder, Carol
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Mossman. You remember her, don’t you? The one with all those dogs? I gave her a citation two weeks ago. But they’re dead, Sheriff Brady. All dead.”
Manuel Ruiz was usually a very slow talker, known for a ponderous delivery that tended to hold back far more information than it passed along. This time his words tumbled over themselves in a rush.
Joanna did indeed remember Carol Mossman. In the last six months, thirty-seven rabid skunks and three rabid coyotes had been found inside the boundaries of Cochise and Santa Cruz counties. As a result a rabies quarantine was now in effect in those two adjoining southern Arizona jurisdictions. Carol Mossman had come to the attention of Animal Control due to complaints that her loose dogs had been chasing some of her neighbor’s horses.
Two weeks earlier, Manny Ruiz had driven out to the Mossman place expecting to find one or two unlicensed and unvaccinated dogs. Instead he had discovered a total of eighteen, most of them confined to a dog-crate-lined straw-bale shed out behind a rundown mobile home. The crates had been shaded by a makeshift roof constructed of discarded lumber and delaminating cast-off doors. When Carol Mossman had been unable to produce valid vaccination records for any of her animals, Officer Ruiz had issued a citation. Yesterday had marked the end of her two-week compliance period.
Today he had returned to see if the animals had now been properly licensed.
“The dogs are all dead?” Joanna asked, trying to clarify what Manny Ruiz had said.
“Are you telling me she chose euthanasia over licensing?”
“I don’t think she chose anything,” Manny replied. “I think 17
she’s inside the trailer along with all her dogs. I looked in through one of the living room windows. There are dead dogs everywhere and no sign of movement. The door’s locked from the inside, and there’s a bunch of waist- high bullet holes punched through the back door. In the living room I can see a foot sticking out from behind the couch, but I can’t tell if whoever’s there is alive or not. Should I break in to check on her, or what?”
Joanna closed her eyes. If Carol Mossman was already dead, then it was important not to disturb the crime scene. If, however, there was the smallest chance the woman was still alive, saving an injured woman’s life automatically took precedence over preserving evidence.
“Is there another door?” Joanna asked.
“Yeah, the front door. I already checked. It’s locked, too.”
“Open it if you can,” Joanna said. “Break it down if you have to. If Carol Mossman’s still alive, call for an ambulance. If she’s dead, don’t touch anything.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Manny Ruiz said.
“Call right back and let me know what you find out,” Joanna added. “I’ll wait here until I hear from you.”
As soon as she ended the call, Joanna dredged her calendar out of her purse. She had been scheduled to meet Karen Oldsby at the Tribune office on Fry Boulevard at 7 p.m. Whether or not Carol Mossman was dead, what had happened at her mobile home constituted a more compelling demand on Sheriff Joanna Brady’s time than a newspaper interview.
Joanna dialed the phone number she had scrawled in the calendar next to Karen Oldsby’s name. When a canned, computer-generated voice mail announcement came on, it gave the dialed
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telephone number only. There was no way for Joanna to tell whether she had dialed the reporter’s home or office number. She left a brief message anyway.
“Karen. Sheriff Brady here. There’s been a possible homicide out near the San Pedro.
I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to make our appointment this evening. Please call my office tomorrow and reschedule.”
Ducking into the coat closet just inside her back door, Joanna ditched her heels and changed into jeans, a T- shirt, white socks, and tennis shoes. She was finishing tying the second shoelace when the phone rang again.
“She’s dead,” Manuel Ruiz announced flatly when Joanna answered. “Shot in the belly.”
“And the dogs?”
“They’re all dead, too,” he replied. “I counted seventeen in all. The place was like a goddamned oven. No air- conditioning. The windows were open, but the mobile was sitting in direct sun most of the day. Must be at least a hundred and twenty inside.
I’m sure that’s what killed the dogs. Heat prostration. Dogs can’t take it, you know.
Coop ‘em up inside a hot building like that or in a car, and it kills ‘em every time.”
The dead woman may have been Joanna’s problem, but the dead dogs were Manny Ruiz’s primary concern.
“Are you back in your vehicle?” Joanna asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
