“Stolen?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” Mel said. “Brad was checking statewide for any 4-Runners that showed up in police reports around the time Marina disappeared. He found one with Arizona plates that had been parked with the hazard lights on and the keys still inside at an abandoned weigh station on I-90 east of Issaquah.”
That sounded about right to me. “When was it found?” I asked.
“In the early morning hours of November 9.”
“That would fit,” I said. “That’s right in line with the time Marina disappeared.”
Mel nodded in agreement. “When the vehicle was found it was in good running order,” she continued. “The keys were in it and it still had gas in the tank. When a Washington State Patrol officer ran the plates, he found out that the registered owner was a woman named Frances Dennison, who lives in Tucson. She told him that the previous summer she had decided that the 4-Runner was getting to be too much for her. She wanted something smaller, but since the dealer wouldn’t give her what she thought her vehicle was worth in trade, she had sold it herself.”
“When was this?”
“Back in July. She listed it in something called the
“Which, of course, she didn’t do.”
“Right.”
“Does the woman in Tucson have a bill of sale?”
“Yes,” Mel answered. “Brad asked her to look at it, and she did. Evidently the buyer’s signature is an illegible scribble.”
“Why am I not surprised?” I asked. “What happened to the car?”
“Brad says there was no sign of foul play in the car. No blood; no nothing, including no fingerprints. The steering wheel and door handles had all been wiped clean, which was suspicious, but since Frances was still the registered owner of the vehicle, they returned it to her. Her grandson flew up, paid the impound fees, and drove it back to Tucson.”
“Is the grandson still driving it?” I asked.
“As far as we know.”
“There might still be forensic evidence inside,” I said.
“Right,” Mel said. “Brad’s already working on that.”
That’s one of the good things about working for S.H.I.T. We’re all on the same team and usually on the same page, and we all pull in the same direction. I don’t get the feeling that there’s someone waiting in the woods to undermine me. Ross Connors is the state attorney general, but he’s someone who engenders a lot of personal loyalty. Yes, he’s a politician who has a bit of a problem with demon rum, but he’s also the best boss I’ve ever had. He’s a straight shooter who doesn’t stand on ceremony. He always backs up his people, and he gets as good as he gives.
Nursing a case of pre-party jitters, Joanna came home to find what they had come to call the “Gang of Four”-Jenny and Dennis and Carol Sunderson’s two grandsons, Rick and Danny-playing in the side yard, where she and Butch had installed a redwood kiddie gym set, complete with a minifort, slide, teeter-totter, and swing.
It was a busy scene. Dennis was strapped into the toddler seat on the swing, with Danny, Carol’s younger grandson, pushing him to what Joanna considered breathtaking heights. Rick, the older boy, was practicing pitching tennis balls into the far distance, with three of their collection of dogs-Jenny’s Tigger and Lucky along with the Sundersons’ sheltie, Scamp-racing to retrieve them. Joanna’s more dignified Australian shepherd, Lady, was content to look on from the sidelines while Jenny practiced her lassoing technique on the handle of the teeter-totter.
Joanna parked in the garage. Not ready to face the house, she left her briefcase on the car seat and went to see the kids.
Over the months, she had found plenty of reasons to be grateful for the tragedy that had brought Carol and her two boys into the picture. After a fierce trailer fire left Carol’s husband dead and her and the two boys homeless, it had been Joanna’s mother, Eleanor, who had come up with the idea of letting Carol and the grandsons live in Joanna’s old house on High Lonesome Ranch in exchange for helping manage Joanna and Butch’s sometimes chaotic household. The arrangement gave Carol a job that came with a stable place for her and the children to live. Within weeks of Carol’s arrival on the scene neither Butch nor Joanna could imagine how they had functioned without her.
The Gang of Four was a natural outgrowth of that arrangement. Over the months the four kids had become pretty much inseparable. Despite the age differences, they seemed to get along fine. Jenny had taken it upon herself to teach Rick and Danny both how to ride her sorrel quarter horse, Kiddo. And all three of the older kids were tremendously patient with Dennis, whom they regarded alternately as either an annoying pest or else a beloved mascot.
Hearing Dennis’s gleeful squawk, Joanna realized this had to be one of the mascot days.
“Hey, Mom,” Jenny said. She caught the handlebar with her rope, shook it off, and then recoiled it to throw it again. “Butch and Carol threw us out. They’re setting up for the party and said no kids or dogs allowed.”
All of which made good sense.
“But we get to have pizza for dinner,” Danny added. “Pepperoni. Wanna come?”
“She can’t,” Jenny told him. “She’s got to go to the party.”
Joanna had grown up as an only child. She had been an adult when she finally met her older brother, who had been given up for adoption long before her parents married. Jenny, too, had spent most of her young life as an only child. With that kind of background, Joanna had been amazed to see how the four kids managed to cope with one another. Sometimes the four were all the best of friends; sometimes they weren’t. Joanna often found herself wondering if that wasn’t how real sisters and brothers functioned.
There was a redwood picnic table next to the gym, and Joanna eased herself onto one of the benches. “I think I’d rather have pizza,” she said.
Jenny gave her mother a questioning look and then came over to sit down beside her. Jenny was about to turn fifteen, but she was already a good five inches taller than her mother and still growing.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Jenny asked. “Are you okay?”
“The best man seems to be having a case of nerves,” Joanna admitted. “I’ve never been to a bachelor party, much less hosted one.”
“I don’t know why you’re worried about it,” Jenny told her. “You should be used to doing weird things by now. You’ll be fine.”
Joanna couldn’t help laughing at that bit of reassurance. That one word-weird-pretty well said it all. In Jenny’s book, having her mother be sheriff or “best man” was pretty much one and the same.
Danny let Dennis out of the swing and he came racing toward Joanna at a toddler’s broken-field dead run. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” he squealed gleefully, hurtling himself into her lap. “Denny swing! Denny swing.”
“I saw you,” she said, gathering him into her arms. “What a big boy you are.”
She hung out with the kids for a while, but before long Carol emerged from the house. “All right, kids,” she said. “Time to gather up and head out. We’ll keep the dogs at our house tonight. Except for Lady, of course.”
Scamp and the kids piled into Carol’s station wagon and she drove away, with Lucky and Tigger trailing behind. Meanwhile Lady shadowed Joanna as she closed the garage door, collected her briefcase, and went inside.
“What can I do to help?” she asked.
Glancing at his watch, Butch came over to kiss her hello. “Not a thing,” he said. “Carol and I have it all under control. The rented card tables and chairs are all set up, the food and drinks are in the fridge, chips and dips are out. All you need to do is get dressed. And you’d better hurry. People will be here soon.”
Joanna disappeared into the bedroom and stripped out of her uniform. She had bought a bright green blouse to wear with her jeans that night, along with a pair of boots that she had inherited from Jenny when her daughter outgrew them. As for Jenny appropriating some of her mother’s clothing? Jenny’s last sustained growth spurt made that no longer an issue.
With her hair combed and her makeup retouched, Joanna headed out to the living room to play hostess just as the first guest arrived. In terms of food, Butch and Carol had clearly outdone themselves. They had assembled an
