“You really think so?” Jenny asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“What about Chris? Do you think he’s the one who killed her?”
“It could be,” Joanna said. “At this point in the investigation, anything is possible.”
There was a knock on Joanna’s private entrance. “Is that them?” Jenny asked. “Mr. Kimball and Dora’s mother?”
“Probably.”
“I don’t want to see them,” Jenny said urgently.
“Of course you don’t,” Joanna said. “Come on. You can wait outside in the lobby with Kristin. Butch will be here in a few minutes to pick you up.”
Still clutching her book, Jenny retreated, closing the lobby door behind her, while Joanna went to open the outside door. Through the security peephole Joanna saw Burton Kimball, overdressed as usual in his customary suit and tie. With him was a desperately thin woman who must have been about Joanna’s age but who looked much older. Sally Matthews was gaunt and looked worn in her bottom-of-the-barrel thrift-store clothing. A loose-fitting baggy dress two sizes too large covered her bony, emaciated frame. On her feet was a pair of old flip-flops. Bedraggled, ill cut brown hair dangled around a thin face that was mostly obscured by a huge pair of sunglasses. In one knotted fist she clutched a soggy hanky.
“Good morning, Sheriff Brady,” Burton Kimball said when Joanna opened the door. “May we come in?”
Joanna held the door open and beckoned them inside. By the time she returned to her desk, she found that Sally Matthews had shed her sunglasses to reveal a haggard, homely, and entirely makeup-free face.
“You can go ahead and put me under arrest if you want,” Sally said, in a harsh voice that trembled with suppressed emotion. “I don’t give a damn what happens to me. All I know is, your department took charge of my daughter, and now Dora is dead. Who’s responsible for that, Joanna Brady? Are you the one?”
As she spoke, the agitated Sally Matthews had leaned so far forward in her chair that, for a moment, Joanna was afraid she was going to clamber across the expanse of desk that separated them. It must have seemed that way to Burton Kimball as well. He laid a restraining hand on his client’s arm. “Easy,” he said. “Take it easy.”
“I won’t take it easy,” Sally Matthews hissed, shrugging away his hand. “I want to know who killed my daughter.”
“So do I,” Joanna breathed. “Believe me, so do I.”
She punched the intercom button. “Kristin,” she said when her secretary answered. “Would you please have Chief Deputy Montoya come to my office?”
When she looked back at Sally Matthews, the woman had dissolved into tears, sobbing into a large men’s handkerchief that had most likely come from Burton Kimball’s pocket. From the way Jaime Carbajal had described the Matthews’s home, Joanna knew Sally wouldn’t have won any Mother of the Year awards. Still, there was no denying that the woman was overwhelmed by grief at the loss of her only daughter.
Before Joanna could say anything to comfort Silly, there was a sharp knock at her door. Turning, Joanna expected to sere Frank Montoya. Instead, Kristin stood in the doorway, beckoning frantically to Joanna.
“It you’ll excuse me for a moment,” Joanna said. She got up and walked over to the door. Kristin drew her into the lobby and then closed the door after them.
“What’s the matter?” Joanna said.
“You’d better go out front,” Kristin said, speaking in an urgent whisper. “All hell’s broken loose out there.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“From what I can tell, right after Frank’s news conference, one of those photographers from the Arizona Reporter tried to jump in and get a picture of Jenny as Butch was leading her out of the building. I think Butch grabbed the camera out of the guy’s hands and lobbed it into the parking lot. He and Jenny are both in Frank’s office.”
Joanna could barely believe her ears. “They’re not hurt, are they?” she demanded.
“No, they’re fine,” Kristin answered quickly. “But the photographer is out in the public lobby raising hell. He wants somebody to arrest Butch for assault and battery. And then there’s Ron Haskell. He’s here waiting ...”
Joanna looked across the room and saw Ron Haskell sitting forlornly on the lobby loveseat. Stifling her own roiling emotions, she walked across the room to him and shook hands. “Thank you for conning, Mr. Haskell. As you can see, there’s a bit of an emergency going on right now. If you don’t mind, I’ll have my secretary here take you back to speak to one of our evidence technicians.”
Joanna turned back to Kristin. “Take him to see Casey Ledford,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady. “She’ll need to take fingerprints from him. We’ll need to collect DNA samples as well.”
With that, Joanna Brady headed for her chief deputy’s office, where, with the public brawl now over, her husband and daughter were waiting.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
By early afternoon, Joanna was in her office and elbow-deep in paperwork. Kristin Gregovich had gone out for an early lunch and had returned with a tuna sandwich for Joanna, the half-eaten remains of which lingered on her correspondence littered desk. With two separate murder investigations under way, it was difficult for Joanna to stay focused on the routine administrative matters that had to be handled—duty rosters to approve and vacation schedules to be juggled, as well as making shift-coverage arrangements around Yolanda Cañedo’s extended sick leave.
Looking over the schedule, Joanna was reminded of her stop at University Medical Center. Picking up her phone, Joanna dialed Frank’s number. “All the inmates and all the jail employees made and signed get-well cards for Yolanda Cañedo,” she said. “Have the deputies done anything similar?”
“Not that I know of,” Frank replied.
“Is Deputy Galloway on duty?”
“He should be. Why?”
“If you can track him down, let him know I need to see him.”
Deputy Kenneth W. Galloway was one of Joanna’s problem children. He was the nephew and namesake of another Cochise County deputy, Ken Galloway. Ken Galloway the elder had been part of the corrupt administration that had preceded Joanna’s. He had died as a result of injuries suffered in a car accident during a high-speed car chase. A coroner’s inquest had ruled his death accidental, but years later, many members of the Galloway clan still held Joanna Brady personally responsible for his death.
At the time of his uncle’s death, Ken W, as he was called, was fresh out of the academy. He was still far too young and naive to have been involved in any of his uncle’s underhanded dealings. After her election, Joanna had allowed Ken W. to stay on with the department. He had been a capable enough deputy, but he had never made any pretense of loyalty to Joanna or her administration. His obvious antipathy to Joanna made him a natural for membership in and eventual leadership of Local 83 of the National Federation of Deputy Sheriffs, where he had recently been elected president.
Months earlier, one of Joanna’s decisions had resulted in saving Deputy Galloway’s life, but if she had thought that would make her relationship with the union leader any smoother, she had soon been disabused of the notion. More than half hoping Frank wouldn’t find the man, Joanna returned to the morass on her desk.
One whole stack was devoted to requests for civic appearances: Rotary and Kiwanis meetings where she was asked to be the guest speaker; a call-in talk show on a radio station in Sierra Vista, where she would be joined on the air by a group of Latino activists who were concerned about racial profiling by various members of the law enforcement community, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department included; and Elfrida High School, which wanted to know it she would be the main speaker at its career-day program.