“What difference?” Joanna asked.
“They’re two different types,” Casey responded. “Which means they came from two different people.”
“So maybe some of it is from the killer and some from the victim?” Joanna suggested.
Casey Ledford nodded. “Possibly,” she said. “The evidence we found in the trunk is consistent with a body having been transported in it. The DPS crime lab is going over that for trace evidence.”
“Good,” Joanna agreed with a nod.
“I picked up a whole bunch of fingerprints,” Casey continued, “some of which belong to the deceased and some that don’t. I’m in the process of enhancing the ones I’ve found. So far I have no way of knowing whether or not AFIS will come up with a match, but I did find something odd.”
“What’s that?” Joanna asked.
Casey opened the folder and handed around pieces of paper. Each contained a typed transcript of the 911 call reporting the location of Connie Haskell’s vehicle. It seemed straightforward enough. A woman, giving her name as Alice Miller and her address as 2472 East Grant Road, had reported that on her way to Minnesota to visit her daughter in Duluth she had parked next to a vehicle at the Tucson airport, a Lincoln Town Car with what looked like bloodstains on the car door.
Joanna read through the transcript. “So?” she inquired.
“Don’t you see anything that doesn’t fit?” Casey Ledford asked.
Joanna reread the transcript. “I still don’t see anything,” she said. “What’s the deal?”
“If, as Mrs. Miller claimed, she was on her way to Duluth, Minnesota, at ten o’clock on Saturday morning, why did her 911 call originate from a pay phone on North First Avenue?” Casey asked. “Look at the address for the phone. When I saw it, I smelled a rat. If the woman who called really was on her way out of town by plane, wouldn’t she have called in the report either from the airport or from her daughter’s home in Minnesota once she got there? That struck me as odd, so just to be on the safe side, I drove past the address of the phone booth. It turns out to be inside a Target store on North First. Then I checked out the address she gave as her home address, the one on East Grant Road. It’s a vacant lot. Alice Miller doesn’t live there, and neither does anybody else.”
“Way to go,” Joanna breathed. “You wouldn’t be interested in putting in for detective, would you?”
“No, thanks,” Casey Ledford replied with a grin. “I’m perfectly happy being an AFIS tech. I have zero interest in watching autopsies. But there is one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Doc Winfield sent over Dora Matthews’s clothes. I found something interesting in the pocket of her shorts, something the Doc evidently missed.”
“What’s that?”
“A cash receipt from Walgreens in Sierra Vista. It was dated Sunday and contains two items—a Snickers bar and one Know Now Kit.”
“So?” Ernie Carpenter asked with a frown.
“Ever heard of Know Now?” she asked.
“Never,” he replied.
“It’s a home pregnancy test,” she said. “Gives you results in three minutes.”
“In our day, Rose had to go to the doctor to find out whether or not she was pregnant,” Ernie said.
Casey Ledford shook her head. “That may have been true in the good old days,” she told him with a laugh, “but not anymore.”
“Doc Winfield already told us she was pregnant,” Ernie said. “All that receipt means is Dora must have known, too.”
“It was dated Sunday?” Joanna asked.
Casey nodded.
“It gives us something else,” Joanna says. “It gives us one more bit of information about what happened after she left High Lonesome Ranch.”
Ernie nodded. “We’ll check into it,” he said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“So this Alice Miller must know something,” Joanna said to the others after Casey Ledford had returned to her lab and the group’s attention had veered away from pregnancy testing kits in favor of the mysterious 911 call.
“If that’s even the woman’s real name,” Ernie Carpenter grumbled. “After all, if she gave a phony address in making the report, what makes you think she’d give the 911 operator her real name?”
“Point taken. So how do we flush her out?”
“How about checking with the phone company and seeing if any other phone calls were made from that same pay phone about the same time?” Jaime Carbajal suggested. “Maybe she made more than just that single call. If we find any other numbers dialed right around then, they might give us a lead as to who she is.”
“Good thinking,” Joanna said.
She glanced in her chief deputy’s direction. Frank Montoya was the department’s designated hitter when it came to dealing with telephone company inquiries. Joanna was grateful to see that he was already making a note to follow up on it.
“What about this cabin at Pathway to Paradise where you say Ron Haskell was in isolation from Thursday afternoon on?” Ernie added. “Just how remote is it?”
“Pretty,” Joanna replied.
“But you said no one saw him from Thursday on. Isn’t there a chance he could have slipped away from the cabin, done one murder or maybe even two, and then come back again to his cozy little isolation booth without anyone at Pathway being the wiser?” the detective asked. “There may be an armed guard posted at the gate, but who’s to say someone coming and going on foot would have had to go anywhere near the gate?”
Joanna could tell Ernie was reluctant to drop Ron Haskell from his position as prime suspect in his wife’s murder investigation. Joanna didn’t blame Detective Carpenter for his reluctance. She didn’t want to drop Ron Haskell from prime suspect status, either. Without him, the investigation into who had killed Connie Haskell was still stuck at the starting gate.
“I suppose you’re right,” Joanna conceded. “It is possible that Haskell could have come and gone without being noticed, but don’t forget—he’s due in here this morning to allow us to collect DNA samples.”
“If he actually shows up, that is,” Ernie returned. “I wouldn’t bet money on it.”
“All right. Let’s go back to the Dora Matthews situation for a moment,” Joanna suggested. “What’s happening there?”
“I talked to the foster mother in Sierra Vista a few minutes ago,” Jaime Carbajal said. “She called to say one of the kids in the neighborhood reported seeing a girl in shorts getting into a car around midnight Sunday night. I have the kid’s name. We’ll interview him ASAP and see if he can give us a description of the car. I’ll also make it a point to check out that Walgreens store to see il anybody remembers seeing Dora Matthews there, either alone or with someone. If I were a drugstore clerk, I’d remember if a thirteen year-old kid stopped by to pick up a pregnancy test kit.”
“While I’m dealing with the phone factory,” Frank Montoya said, “I’ll check incoming and outgoing calls from the foster home as well.”
“Good call,” Joanna said. “Now, what about Dora’s mother?”
“Still no trace of her,” Jaime answered. “None at all.”
Joanna aimed her next question at her chief deputy. “What’s happening on the media front?”
“Because we can’t locate and notify Sally Matthews, we’re still not releasing Dora’s name to the press,” Frank replied. “The problem is, I don’t know how long that line will hold. Word of Dora’s death has already spread all over town. Sooner or later some reporter is going to pick up on it and publish it. As you know, Jenny’s and Dora’s names have already been in the papers in connection with finding Connie Haskell’s body. Once the reporters find out Dora is dead as well, they’re going to go to press without giving a damn as to whether or not Sally gets news of her daughter’s death from us or from the media.”