officer that he had yet to establish the kind of rapport Frank Montoya had enjoyed with some of the local newsfolk.
“I’ll do my best,” he agreed. “All their contact information is on the computer in my Crown Victoria, but before you go inside, you’d best prepare yourself. It’s pretty bad.”
The brochure photos may have looked lovely, but the conditions inside Caring Friends weren’t just bad; they were appalling. Detective Howell met Joanna at the door to give her the tour.
Stepping inside one room, Joanna found her nostrils assailed by a sour, all-pervading odor. “What’s that awful smell?” she asked.
Debra nodded toward the bed, where a tangled mess of soiled bedclothes indicated someone had been left lying in her own filth. “This is the one with the bedsores,” the detective added grimly. “As far as I’m concerned, this seems way more serious than simple neglect,” she said. “More like reckless endangerment. Animal Control takes better care of the stray animals they have locked up in the pound.”
And it was true. There were six rooms in all. Each contained a bed, a single chair, and a small bedside dresser. The bedding in the other occupied rooms was also disgustingly filthy. The bed in the empty room was clean and made up and awaiting the arrival of another resident.
Another victim, Joanna thought.
In one of the rooms a set of cut-through Flex Cuffs lay near the legs of a chair. Whoever had been bound to the chair had been left there long enough that she had soiled herself.
“The woman in this room was still confined to her chair when deputies arrived,” Debra said. “The EMTs cut her loose. Ms. Brinson was evidently in a chair, too, but she somehow managed to walk it over to the dresser and found a nail clipper. That’s what she used to cut her own restraints.”
“Smart lady,” Joanna said.
Deb nodded. “Smarter than they thought.”
“We’ll need to document all of this.”
The detective nodded again. “I know,” she said. “I’ve already put in a call for Dave Hollicker to come here and bring his camera.”
“Good,” Joanna said. “Have him inventory and photograph everything.”
“What the hell’s going on?” someone demanded behind them.
Standing in the narrow hallway, Joanna turned in time to see a tall dark-haired woman in a turquoise-colored brushed-silk pantsuit come storming toward them. She was clearly angry. Only when she reached them did Joanna recognize the woman from her photo on the brochure. This had to be Alma DeLong.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked, looking from Joanna to Debra and then back again. “This is private property. What do you think you’re doing here?” She was spoiling for a fight.
Trying to defuse the situation, Joanna stepped forward and identified herself. “I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady, Ms. DeLong,” she said, holding out her hand. “Please calm down. My people and I are here in response to a missing persons report. One of the patients here has gone missing.”
Ignoring the proffered handshake, Alma continued her tirade. “I have no intention of calming down!” she replied. “I happen to own this place, every inch of it. Now, where are my residents? What have you done with them? You can’t come waltzing in here without a search warrant.”
Alma’s right hand strayed toward the pocket of her jacket, and Joanna’s heart skipped a beat. The previous summer, one of her newer deputies, Dan Sloan, had been shot to death with his own weapon while trying to apprehend a homicide suspect. That life-ending tragedy had set Joanna off on a one-woman campaign to arm her officers-herself included-with effective but nonlethal Tasers. It hadn’t been easy to make that kind of department- wide change in the face of falling revenues. Buying new equipment and making sure she and her officers knew how to use it had been an expensive proposition, but Joanna had managed to convince the Board of Supervisors that using Tasers was a cost-effective alternative to handguns or batons in many combat situations.
Her biggest selling point had been the proposition that Tasers would improve the bottom line when it came to preventing line-of-duty deaths and injuries. Officers sometimes hesitated before deploying a lethal weapon, and it was often that single moment of hesitation-those bare seconds when a cop asks himself whether or not he should pull the trigger-that proved fatal. And if the criminal managed to get control of the officer’s weapon-as had happened in Danny Sloan’s case-the officer might well end up on the ground after being Tased, but at least he or she wouldn’t be dead.
Tasers were now Joanna’s officers’ first line of defense. That was the case for Joanna as well. She still carried her Glock, but she also wore a Taser X26 along with her Kevlar vest. She didn’t leave home without them, not even tonight on what had seemed to be nothing more than a simple missing persons call-out. That’s what happened when you were a cop. You could never tell in advance what might happen. Better to be safe than sorry. And she drew her Taser now, but before she could fire it, Alma’s hand emerged from her pocket holding a cell phone rather than a weapon.
Focused solely on her cell phone, Alma seemed oblivious to what had just happened. Instead, she flipped open the phone. Then, turning her back on both Joanna and Deb Howell, she punched in a series of numbers. “I’m calling my attorney, by the way,” she announced over her shoulder. “Believe me, Don Foster will be happy to set you straight.”
“You’ll have to talk to him outside,” Joanna said as she prepared to return her Taser to its holster. “Get her out of here, Detective Howell. Let’s secure the scene.”
The truth was, Tom Hadlock should have handled that. Joanna was disappointed that he hadn’t.
Obeying Joanna’s order, Debra approached the woman. “Excuse me, Ms. DeLong,” she said calmly. “If you wouldn’t mind coming with me-”
“I most certainly would mind.” Alma’s answer was close to a snarl. “I already told you. I own this place, and I’m not leaving. You’re the ones who need to step outside. If you know what’s good for you, you’d better have a properly drawn search warrant. You can’t come charging onto my property without one of those.”
Joanna was in no mood for a lecture on police procedures from someone like Alma DeLong. “We don’t need a search warrant when lives are at stake,” she explained. “Several of your ‘residents,’ as you call them, appear to be in dire need of adequate medical care. They have all been transported to hospitals for treatment, except for the one who apparently walked away from this facility on her own earlier today.”
“Someone walked away?” Alma echoed. “That’s not possible. Our residents aren’t allowed outside unaccompanied.”
“I’m sure they’re not,” Joanna replied.
But Alma didn’t appear to be listening. Since there was evidently no answer at the first number, she immediately ended that call and punched in the numbers for another one.
“I believe the incident occurred late this afternoon,” Joanna continued. “At a time when your facility was left unstaffed for several hours.”
“Unstaffed?” Alma repeated in disbelief, holding the phone at arm’s length without punching the “send” button. “That’s utterly preposterous! There’s supposed to be someone here at all times. If my people weren’t here when they were scheduled to be, I’ll fire every single one of them. As for you, get out.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” Joanna said. “This is a crime scene now, and it’s a serious matter. You’re welcome to make your phone calls, but please do as Detective Howell suggested. Make them from outside.”
Defiantly, Alma pressed “send.” “And as I already told you, I’m not leaving. Crime scene or not, this is my property, and you can’t force me to leave.”
“Yes, we can,” Deb Howell insisted firmly. “Come along now, Ms. DeLong. Let’s go.”
Furious, Alma snatched her arm away from Debra, then spoke into the phone. “Don, it’s Alma. Please call me as soon as you get this message. You’re not going to believe what’s happened. Some moron cops have taken over one of my homes, the one down in Palominas. They’ve invaded it! It’s utterly outrageous, and they’ve taken my clients away-kidnapped them. You’ve got to do something about this.”
“I said, ‘Let’s go,’” Deb repeated. “As Sheriff Brady said, you can finish your phone calls outside.”
“Don’t you understand?” Alma raged. “I’m talking to my lawyer. Now get your hands off me, you stupid bitch!”
Brandishing her phone, she took a single swipe at Deb’s face. It was an ineffectual blow which the detective easily dodged. For a long moment the two women stood staring at each other.
“That’s enough now, Ms. DeLong,” Joanna warned. “Either you go with Detective Howell or you risk being
