Damage Control (21 page)

“How long did you know your wife’s parents?” she asked.

“Only fifteen years or so,” Larry said. “This is Sandy’s second marriage. My third. Believe me, I can’t say a bad thing about Al and Martha.”

“You had a good relationship with them?”

“Absolutely. No one could have asked for better in-laws. They were great, and I cared about them a lot. It hurt to see them failing, of course, and they were failing. Al especially was clearly losing ground.”

“Losing ground mentally?” Deb asked. “Physically?”

“I’d say both. When I first met them, Al was sharp as could be, but not lately.”

“Did that upset him?”

“I’m not sure if you know that Alfred’s mother had Alzheimer’s, even though he didn’t talk about it much. And I’m sure Alfred was bright enough to figure out it was probably coming for him, too. Because Martha was so dependent on him, we hinted around to them that they should probably consider assisted living. Alfred was adamant that wasn’t for him; said he’d rather die first.”

“He actually said that?” Deb asked. “That he’d rather die?”

Larry frowned. “I’m sure he did. I don’t remember exactly where or when.”

“Did his not wanting to go into assisted living have anything to do with money?” Deb asked.

“No,” Larry declared. “Not at all. The two of them had enough dough socked away that they could have afforded the best care money could buy. Alfred simply didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to give up his independence. I think he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. He did, too,” Larry added admiringly. “You gotta respect him for that. Like that old Paul Anka song says—Alfred did it his way.”

“Is that how your wife feels about it, too?” Joanna asked. “That her father did it his way?”

Larry had been staring at Deb while he answered her questions. Now he turned to face Joanna. “Probably not,” he said with a shrug. “They were her parents, after all. As I tried to explain to her when we first got the news, that’s what happens to people our age. We lose our parents. They get old and die on us. It’ll happen to us, too, eventually. One of these days we’ll just keel over and drop dead. The fat lady’ll sing, and it’ll all be over.

“I know, I know,” he added. “You probably think I’m some kind of heartless bastard, but I’m not. I’m a realist, and I know how it feels. I understand exactly what Sandy’s going through right now because I lost my parents, too—just last year. My mother died of congestive heart failure in a nursing home. She had been ill for years, but once she died, my father was gone within weeks. He just went home, went to bed, and gave up the fight. Not nearly as spectacular as the stunt Alfred pulled, but I think, in his own way, Dad made the same decision. He didn’t
want to go on without my mother. That’s what they call true love, right?”

“Your parents sound like nice people,” Joanna said. “Midwesterners?”

“Missouri,” he said. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Joanna told him.

Larry glanced as his watch. “Look,” he said. “We’re always shorthanded at lunchtime. If there’s nothing else, I should get back to the floor.”

“When’s the last time you saw Alfred and Martha?” Deb asked.

He sighed. “Last Thursday evening. Thursday is my usual day off. I like to play golf, but I’m not golf-crazy enough to try to play here in Tucson in this killer heat. So I drove down to Palominas. I played a twilight round out at the Rob Roy, then I drove to Bisbee and stopped by to see them on my way home.”

“Thursday,” Deb mused. “That would be the night before it happened. How did they seem?”

Larry frowned. “Alfred seemed a little out of it. Spacey, even. I asked Martha about him, but she said to pay no attention, that he’d be fine in the morning. I figured she knew him better than anyone. If she said he was fine, he was probably fine.”

“Did they make any mention of their plans?”

“No. None at all. If they had, I swear I would have moved heaven and earth to stop them.”

“About your wife’s sister,” Deb began. “Can you tell us anything about her?”

Larry shook his head. “Not a thing, other than the fact that she’s a complete nut job.”

“You don’t get along with her?”

“How could I? I don’t even know her. Sandy and I have been together for fifteen years. Until yesterday I had never met her sister. Now that I have, I’ll be happy to have another fifteen years pass me by before I have to deal with her again. But that’s the other reason I took off like a shot yesterday afternoon and didn’t hang around long enough to talk to you. Sandy and her Sammy.” Using his fingers, he mimed quotation marks around the diminutive name. “The two of them may be all hunky-dory at the moment, but I’m not. Last Saturday night Samantha Edwards tried to beat the crap out of my wife, and I have no intention of forgetting it or letting bygones be bygones. Once we make it through this funeral business, that woman is out of our lives. I don’t want to have anything more to do with her ever again.”

Inside Joanna’s breast pocket the tape recorder gave a tiny lurch and a click as it came to the end of the tape. She held her breath wondering if Larry had heard or noticed, but he hadn’t.

“That’s all I have,” Deb said. “Can you think of anything else?” she asked.

Joanna shook her head. “I think we have everything we need. Thanks so much for sparing us the time.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “After all, it isn’t often a guy like me gets a chance to be locked in the boss’s office with a pair of attractive young ladies.”

And there was no question at all about the look he gave them on his way out. That one really was a leer.

“I told you Larry Wolfe is a jerk,” Deb said.

“Yes, you did,” Joanna agreed. “He is that—in spades.”

“And if he liked his in-laws as much as he claimed, what’s he doing back at work today? Why isn’t he in Bisbee with his wife?”

“Good question,” Joanna said.

Her phone was ringing before they ever made it back through the store. Detective Rebecca Ramsey was on the phone, and she was outraged.

“I think Rick Maldonado buried this case,” she railed. “I don’t think he ever lifted a finger about it. I don’t think he did any interviews or tracked down any leads. This case landed on his desk and died. Between the time I talked to you before and now, I’ve done more work on it than Rick ever did.”

“And?”

“I’m not sure what Wayne Hamm was doing in Arizona or how he ended up at a Flannigan Foundation care facility. He’s from California originally, but he’s a ward of that state.”

By then Joanna and Deb had made their way back to the Crown Vic. They were inside it now, with the engine idling and the air-conditioning running full blast. Instead of pulling out, Deb sat waiting for marching orders.

“No relatives?” Joanna asked.

“Not that I can find. And that’s probably why Rick didn’t have a problem letting Wayne’s investigation die on the vine. Unlike me with Wanda, Detective Maldonado didn’t have Wayne’s frantic mother calling him every week or so to see what was happening.”

“So how long was he here in Arizona?”

“A couple of years.”

“All of it at the place out on South Swan?”

“That’s the interesting part,” Becky said. “Wayne got moved to Warwick House off South Swan on March eleven. Prior to that he was at a place called Blythe House—where do the Flannigan people get these names?—at 3031 East Hedrick.”

“So?” Joanna said.

“You don’t know Tucson geography,” Becky told her. “If you did, you’d know that East Hedrick is only a few blocks from East Copper. In other words, Blythe House and Holbrook House are only a matter of blocks apart.”

“You’re saying he and Wanda really might have known each other.”

“Yup,” Becky replied, “but once he got transferred all the way across town, they wouldn’t have been able to see each other.”

“Which squares with what Wanda told Lucinda.”

“But if Wayne existed, why did everyone at Flannigan claim Wanda had made him up?”

Joanna remembered something Donald Dietrich had said earlier about why they didn’t have coed facilities. “What if Wanda and Wayne’s relationship was starting to morph from friendship to something else?” she asked. “Could Flannigan Foundation have been held liable if she had turned up pregnant while under their care and supervision?”

“That’s an interesting idea,” Becky said. “They probably could have been.”

“If that’s the case, if Flannigan had uncovered the fact that Wayne and Wanda were carrying on, they might have tried to squelch any kind of sexual entanglement by simply separating them—by moving Wayne out of what they thought was harm’s way,” Joanna said thoughtfully. “Now Wanda’s dead, and Wayne is still missing.”

“A neat little coincidence,” Becky said. “I don’t like coincidences much. What do you think the chances are that Wayne Hamm is every bit as dead as Wanda Mappin? The only difference is, so far no one’s found his body, and maybe we never will.”

That was Joanna’s expectation as well. Wayne Hamm was developmentally disabled. He wouldn’t have had the mental capability to engineer a complete escape from his keepers. If he had fallen off the edge of the earth, it was likely someone else helped him do it.

“For starters,” Joanna said, “we need to ascertain whether or not Wayne and Wanda were acquainted. The way we do that is to go after Flannigan Foundation records.”

“I already told you,” Becky Ramsey said. “When I came looking for information, they clammed up completely.”

“For a missing persons case, maybe,” Joanna said. “As I pointed out to Mr. Dietrich, the Flannigan Foundation executive director earlier today, this is now a homicide investigation. Two homicide investigations really—an actual homicide and a possible. That changes the rules of engagement. We will have warrants.”

“Good,” Becky said, sounding relieved. “It’s about time.”

Joanna thought about that. Clearly Detective Ramsey was more than interested in this case. What had happened to Wanda Mappin was personal for her. She might have been thrown off track earlier, but Joanna sensed that wouldn’t happen a second time. Not only that, having local investigators putting pressure on the Flannigan Foundation might be a lot more effective than whatever she could do with her very limited resources from a hundred-plus miles away.

“What about conducting this as a joint operation between Cochise County and Tucson PD?” Joanna suggested. “At this juncture your department and you know a whole lot more about the people involved than we do. You’d be able to move forward while my people are still getting up to speed.”

“A joint op?” Becky repeated. “I like it, but don’t ask me. I’m just a worker bee.”

“If I were going to sell this concept to your brass,” Joanna said, “where would you suggest I start?”

“Assistant Chief Paul Dougherty,” Becky Ramsey said at once. “He’s ex-homicide. He’s also a good guy. Hold on a sec. I’ll get you his direct number.”

While Joanna waited for Becky to come back on the line, her cell phone buzzed twice. She recognized Frank Montoya’s cell phone in the caller ID box, but she didn’t want to hang up on Becky. She was still waiting when Deb Howell’s phone began to ring. She answered, listened briefly, and muttered only a curt “Got it.”

Without another word, Deb activated both the emergency lights and the siren and sent the patrol car hurtling out of its parking place.

“What’s going on?” Joanna demanded.

“That was Chief Deputy Montoya,” she said. “Samantha Edwards has evidently gone off the deep end again. She’s holding her sister hostage and has barricaded herself in the back bedroom of her parents’ house.”

“She’s armed, then?” Joanna asked.

“Evidently,” Deb Howell said grimly. “City of Bisbee PD is requesting our assistance.”

Becky Ramsey came back on the line and delivered Paul Dougherty’s phone number. As soon as that call ended, Joanna dialed Frank back.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “The last time I saw Samantha Edwards, she was overwhelmed with gratitude that she and her sister were friends again. What changed?”

“You tell me,” Frank said. “First we received a call from Ms. Edwards reporting items being stolen from her parents’ home. Next the 911 operator received a call from Sandra Wolfe’s cell phone saying that there was some kind of new altercation with her sister. When the call ended and she didn’t answer the phone again, officers responded. They’re the ones who reported the hostage situation. Unfortunately, the back bedroom of the house is where Alfred Beasley kept his gun collection.”

“I’m a hundred miles away,” Joanna said. “Less than that now. Deb is driving like hell, but why is Bisbee PD calling us? What do they expect us to do that they can’t do for themselves?”

“Bisbee doesn’t have a SWAT team. They also don’t have an official hostage negotiator,” Frank said.

“Do they want to use our SAT guys?”

Inside the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department, the letters SAT had nothing to do with scholastic aptitude testing. The letters referred instead to Joanna’s newly constituted Special Assault Team. It was an elite group of seven officers, her best-qualified deputies. In addition to extensive law enforcement experience, each member of SAT was required to be a crack marksman. They had all undergone a rigorous course of supplemental training that included everything from hostage negotiation to conducting tactical vehicle pursuits.

“Not at this time,” Frank answered. “They’re asking for you.”

“Me?” Joanna echoed. “But I’m not a trained hostage negotiator, either.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Frank said. “The responding officers managed to use the Beasleys’ landline to make contact with the two women. Sandra Wolfe asked for you specifically. She seems to
think you’re the only person on the planet who can reason with her sister.”

“Great,” Joanna said. “So where’s this house?”

“Tombstone Canyon,” Frank said. “Just west of the first exit from Highway 80. We’ve got a perimeter set up around the place. You won’t be able to miss it.”

“All right,” Joanna said. “We’re coming as fast as traffic, lights, and sirens will allow. Is there anything else going on I should know about?”

“According to Jaime, there’s still no sign of Luis Andrade,” Frank said. “None at all.”