Slowing the Blazer, Joanna steeled herself for what was to come. Crime scene investigation wasn’t one of her favorite things. As sheriff, she certainly wasn’t required to be a part of every homicide investigation. Nonetheless, ever since taking over the helm of the department, she had insisted on being present and accounted for each time a homicide had occurred inside her sixty-four-hundred-square-mile jurisdiction.
Andy, Joanna’s first husband, had been a deputy sheriff campaigning for the office of sheriff when he was gunned down by a drug dealer’s hit man. Despite Joanna’s own lack of law enforcement experience, she had been asked to run for office in his place.
To everyone’s surprise, including her own, she had been elected by a wide margin in what her detractors called a “sympathy” vote. Those same naysayers had expected her to confine herself to administrative duties only. Instead, in the course of those first few treacherous months in office, she had sent herself off to take police academy training and had made it her business to be personally involved in the process of fighting crime at its most basic and gut-wrenching level. Her active personal involvement in each of her department’s homicide cases had gone a long way toward winning her the grudging respect and cooperation of the career police officers under her supervision.
She came to the grim task of homicide investigation with the clear knowledge that every murder affected far more than a single victim. The dead were already beyond help. As someone whose husband had died as a result of violent crime, Joanna was focused on helping to bring closure and comfort to those who were left behind. It was far more than just a job for her. It was a mission—and a calling.
When Joanna arrived at the address, she went in through an 23
open gate and then followed a gravel track until she reached a rundown fourteen-by-seventy mobile home baking in the full heat of the late-afternoon sun. A covered wooden porch had been tacked onto the front of the mobile. Off to one side was a lean-to carport with a dark green Datsun 710 station wagon parked under its sagging roof. Whatever else might have happened here, attempted car theft most likely wasn’t part of the program. A chain-link fence separated the mobile and shed from the surrounding desert.
Joanna tucked her Blazer in amid the collection of other official vehicles, identifying each and taking informal attendance. Manny Ruiz’s pickup with its cage-laden bed blocked the opening to the carport. Parked nearby were two Ford Econoline vans belonging to Detective Carpenter and Crime Scene Investigator Dave Hollicker, who was already busily casting tire tracks. Casey Ledford’s aging but dependable Taurus was parked directly behind the vans. The medical examiner’s van was notable by its absence.
The only officer visible other than Dave Hollicker was Manny Ruiz. With his head resting on his arms, the Animal Control officer leaned heavily on his pickup’s hood.
As Joanna approached, Manny straightened up. Joanna noticed at once that he looked uncommonly pale. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’ve seen gut-shot animals before,” he murmured. “But never a person.” He broke off.
You get used to it, Joanna thought. “It’s pretty bad then?” she asked.
Ruiz nodded. “It’s bad, all right. She must’ve been right in front of the back door when she got hit. There’s blood everywhere and a trail of it through the kitchen and into the living
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room like she was dragging herself along on her belly. I think she musta been trying to get to the phone to call for help. She never made it.”
Concerned over Manny’s unnatural pallor, Joanna took him by the arm. “Come back and sit with me in the Blazer for a minute,” she said. “You don’t have any animals stuck in your truck, do you?”
Ruiz shook his head. “Nope. This was my first stop of the day. I was afraid I’d be bringing all of Carol Mossman’s dogs back to the pound with me. I wanted to have plenty of room. Even starting out empty, I figured it would still take two trips.”
Once Manny Ruiz was seated in the Blazer, Joanna handed him a bottle of water. He drank half of it without pausing for breath.
“And the dogs?” Joanna asked.
“Heat,” Manny replied. “If the cooler’d been turned on, the dogs would probably be okay. If they got thirsty, they could have drunk water out of the toilet. And if they’d gotten hungry enough, they could’ve …” He left the sentence go unfinished.
Joanna saw where he was headed with that bit of speculation. With an effort she managed to prevent her own mind from completing the image.
Manny took another drink. Polishing off the contents of the bottle with his second gulp, he handed the empty back to Joanna. They were sitting in the front seat of her Blazer with the doors open and the radio chattering in the background. The radio was silent for the space of a moment or two. Suddenly, Manny sat up straight. “Did you hear that?” he demanded.
“Hear what?” Joanna asked, thinking she had missed an important radio transmission.
But Manny Ruiz had already vaulted out of the Blazer.
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Rumbling along with the gait of an upright grizzly bear, he charged past the mobile home and headed for the river. Once Joanna was outside the car, she heard what he had heard—the unmistakably mournful cry of a bereft puppy. Running to keep up, Joanna followed Manny around the trailer to the jury-rigged hut where Carol Mossman had confined her pack of dogs.
The building was exactly as Manuel Ruiz had described it in his initial report. It was approximately the size of a two-car garage. Walls of straw bales covered with a thin veneer of stucco rose from the ground to a height of about ten feet, at which point the builder ran out of money, patience, or both. The roof consisted of a shaky collection of two-by-fours held up by several interior four-by-four upright posts.
On top of the skeleton of two-by-fours lay a collection of scavenged lumber and doors, all of which would have toppled down at the first hint of a monsoon-driven wind.
While Joanna paused long enough to examine the exterior of the building, Manny Ruiz disappeared inside. He emerged a moment later cradling a tiny ball of black fluff in one of his massive fists. “Look here,” he announced.
