Exit Wounds (3 page)

Joanna dialed the phone number she had scrawled in the calendar next to Karen Oldsby’s name. When a canned, computer-generated voice mail announcement came on, it gave the dialed telephone number only. There was no way for Joanna to tell whether she had dialed the reporter’s home or office number. She left a brief message anyway.

“Karen. Sheriff Brady here. There’s been a possible homicide out near the San Pedro. I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to make our appointment this evening. Please call my office tomorrow and reschedule.”

Ducking into the coat closet just inside her back door, Joanna ditched her heels and changed into jeans, a T-shirt, white socks, and tennis shoes. She was finishing tying the second shoelace when the phone rang again.

“She’s dead,” Manuel Ruiz announced flatly when Joanna answered. “Shot in the belly.”

“And the dogs?”

“They’re all dead, too,” he replied. “I counted seventeen in all. The place was like a goddamned oven. No air-conditioning. The windows were open, but the mobile was sitting in direct sun most of the day. Must be at least a hundred and twenty inside. I’m sure that’s what killed the dogs. Heat prostration. Dogs can’t take it, you know. Coop ’em up inside a hot building like that or in a car, and it kills ’em every time.”

The dead woman may have been Joanna’s problem, but the dead dogs were Manny Ruiz’s primary concern.

“Are you back in your vehicle?” Joanna asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Wait right there,” Joanna told him. “I’m on my way.”

After putting the phone down, Joanna stared at it for an indecisive moment, then picked it back up and dialed Tica’s number.

“Officer Ruiz told you what’s up?” Joanna asked.

“Yes.”

“So who all’s heading to the scene?”

“Detective Carpenter’s on call tonight,” Tica replied, naming Joanna’s lead homicide detective. “Dave Hollicker’s on his way. So is Casey Ledford.”

With her investigative team—a detective, her crime scene investigator, and her latent fingerprint tech—all en route, Joanna nodded. “What about Doc Winfield?” she asked.

“The ME will be heading out in a couple of minutes,” Tica replied.

“Good,” Sheriff Brady said. “So am I.”

Grabbing her purse, Joanna hurried outside. As she stepped through the door, late-afternoon heat hit her like a physical blow. Her shiny Crown Victoria was parked in a shaded spot right outside her private back-door entrance, but knowing she was headed for a less than perfect road, Joanna bypassed that vehicle. Instead, she vaulted into her much dented but entirely trustworthy four-wheel-drive Blazer. As soon as she started the engine, she turned on the air-conditioning as well, although for the first several minutes the only thing blowing through the vents was nothing but more overheated air.

Pausing for traffic at the entrance to the Justice Center, Joanna searched the sky for some sign of the few stray clouds that had poked their puny tops over the edge of the horizon earlier in the day. Now those wisps of cloud had disappeared entirely, leaving behind not so much as a single drop of moisture. Cochise County old-timers swore the rainy season always started on the Fourth of July, usually just in time to drown out the municipal fireworks display. If that was going to be the case this year, weather conditions would have to change drastically in the course of the next few days. Joanna Brady didn’t hold out much hope. The summer monsoon rains would come when they were damned good and ready and not a day before.

Convinced she’d encounter less traffic by going through Tombstone, Joanna headed in that direction. As she drove, her mind began sifting through the officers at her disposal and considered what additional assets she’d need at the crime scene. She clicked on her radio.

“Which deputies from Patrol are en route to the crime scene?”

“Raymond and Howell,” Tica Romero replied.

“According to Manny, we’ve got seventeen dead dogs to handle,” Joanna said. “That being the case, we’d better call out Jeannine Phillips, too.”

Jeannine Phillips was Joanna’s second full-time Animal Control officer. “We’re going to need another pair of hands. Tell her to bring along the Animal Control equivalent of body bags. We’ll need a bunch of those.”

Joanna dreaded what would happen when word of the canine fatalities leaked out. Arizona was a state where it was legal for unrestrained children to ride as passengers in the back of moving pickup trucks, but it was against the law to have an unrestrained dog riding there. Obviously the dog lobby was far more powerful than whoever was supposed to be looking out for little kids. Joanna was convinced that the deaths of seventeen dogs would create far more outrage than Carol Mossman’s apparent murder. And, since the deaths had occurred in Joanna’s jurisdiction and on her watch, she suspected that any public outrage would be aimed squarely in her direction.

As the miles ticked by, she tried to remember the exact sequence of events in which she had first been made aware of the Mossman situation and what actions she should have or could have taken to prevent this from happening. Manny Ruiz’s initial report had shown up in a mid-June morning briefing.

“What’s a hoarder?” she had asked Chief Deputy Frank Montoya.

“Jeannine tells me they’re people who are a couple of bubbles out of plumb,” Frank replied. “As long as their lives are going along normally, they’re fine, but once they go off the tracks, they start ‘saving’ animals. They usually mean well, but they often end up taking in far more animals than they can care for properly.”

“And they don’t have them vaccinated,” Joanna offered.

“Because they don’t take them to see vets,” Frank added. “With that many dogs, it’s too expensive. Same thing goes for buying decent food.”

Joanna had skimmed down Manny Ruiz’s report. “It says here that the dogs seem to be well cared for.”

Frank nodded. “And when he went by that day, none of the dogs were loose. They were all in their crates in a shed. That’s why Manny issued a citation rather than taking the dogs into custody.”

“And gave her two weeks to comply,” Joanna added.

Which she probably didn’t do
, Joanna thought.

As she left Tombstone on the Charleston Road and headed west, the glare of the setting sun was blinding. Even with the help of her visor and sunglasses, it was almost impossible to see oncoming traffic.

She crossed the spindly bridge across the San Pedro River—the same river Cortés had followed north in search of the Seven Cities of Gold—and turned right. She knew from Manuel Ruiz’s previous report that Carol Mossman’s single-wide mobile home was about half a mile north of the intersection. As soon as she turned off, she could see the clutch of vehicles that meant some, if not all, of her officers had already arrived.

Slowing the Blazer, Joanna steeled herself for what was to come. Crime scene investigation wasn’t one of her favorite things. As sheriff, she certainly wasn’t required to be a part of every homicide investigation. Nonetheless, ever since taking over the helm of the department, she had insisted on being present and accounted for each time a homicide had occurred inside her sixty-four-hundred-square-mile jurisdiction.

Andy, Joanna’s first husband, had been a deputy sheriff campaigning for the office of sheriff when he was gunned down by a drug dealer’s hit man. Despite Joanna’s own lack of law enforcement experience, she had been asked to run for office in his place. To everyone’s surprise, including her own, she had been elected by a wide margin in what her detractors called a “sympathy” vote. Those same naysayers had expected her to confine herself to administrative duties only. Instead, in the course of those first few treacherous months in office, she had sent herself off to take police academy training and had made it her business to be personally involved in the process of fighting crime at its most basic and gut-wrenching level. Her active personal involvement in each of her department’s homicide cases had gone a long way toward winning her the grudging respect and cooperation of the career police officers under her supervision.

She came to the grim task of homicide investigation with the clear knowledge that every murder affected far more than a single victim. The dead were already beyond help. As someone whose husband had died as a result of violent crime, Joanna was focused on helping to bring closure and comfort to those who were left behind. It was far more than just a job for her. It was a mission—and a calling.

When Joanna arrived at the address, she went in through an open gate and then followed a gravel track until she reached a run-down fourteen-by-seventy mobile home baking in the full heat of the late-afternoon sun. A covered wooden porch had been tacked onto the front of the mobile. Off to one side was a lean-to carport with a dark green Datsun 710 station wagon parked under its sagging roof. Whatever else might have happened here, attempted car theft most likely wasn’t part of the program. A chain-link fence separated the mobile and shed from the surrounding desert.

Joanna tucked her Blazer in amid the collection of other official vehicles, identifying each and taking informal attendance. Manny Ruiz’s pickup with its cage-laden bed blocked the opening to the carport. Parked nearby were two Ford Econoline vans belonging to Detective Carpenter and Crime Scene Investigator Dave Hollicker, who was already busily casting tire tracks. Casey Ledford’s aging but dependable Taurus was parked directly behind the vans. The medical examiner’s van was notable by its absence. The only officer visible other than Dave Hollicker was Manny Ruiz. With his head resting on his arms, the Animal Control officer leaned heavily on his pickup’s hood.

As Joanna approached, Manny straightened up. Joanna noticed at once that he looked uncommonly pale. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’ve seen gut-shot animals before,” he murmured. “But never a person.” He broke off.

You get used to it,
Joanna thought. “It’s pretty bad then?” she asked.

Ruiz nodded. “It’s bad, all right. She must’ve been right in front of the back door when she got hit. There’s blood everywhere and a trail of it through the kitchen and into the living room like she was dragging herself along on her belly. I think she musta been trying to get to the phone to call for help. She never made it.”

Concerned over Manny’s unnatural pallor, Joanna took him by the arm. “Come back and sit with me in the Blazer for a minute,” she said. “You don’t have any animals stuck in your truck, do you?”

Ruiz shook his head. “Nope. This was my first stop of the day. I was afraid I’d be bringing all of Carol Mossman’s dogs back to the pound with me. I wanted to have plenty of room. Even starting out empty, I figured it would still take two trips.”

Once Manny Ruiz was seated in the Blazer, Joanna handed him a bottle of water. He drank half of it without pausing for breath.

“And the dogs?” Joanna asked.

“Heat,” Manny replied. “If the cooler’d been turned on, the dogs would probably be okay. If they got thirsty, they could have drunk water out of the toilet. And if they’d gotten hungry enough, they could’ve…” He left the sentence go unfinished. Joanna saw where he was headed with that bit of speculation. With an effort she managed to prevent her own mind from completing the image.

Manny took another drink. Polishing off the contents of the bottle with his second gulp, he handed the empty back to Joanna. They were sitting in the front seat of her Blazer with the doors open and the radio chattering in the background. The radio was silent for the space of a moment or two. Suddenly, Manny sat up straight. “Did you hear that?” he demanded.

“Hear what?” Joanna asked, thinking she had missed an important radio transmission.

But Manny Ruiz had already vaulted out of the Blazer. Rumbling along with the gait of an upright grizzly bear, he charged past the mobile home and headed for the river. Once Joanna was outside the car, she heard what he had heard—the unmistakably mournful cry of a bereft puppy. Running to keep up, Joanna followed Manny around the trailer to the jury-rigged hut where Carol Mossman had confined her pack of dogs.

The building was exactly as Manuel Ruiz had described it in his initial report. It was approximately the size of a two-car garage. Walls of straw bales covered with a thin veneer of stucco rose from the ground to a height of about ten feet, at which point the builder ran out of money, patience, or both. The roof consisted of a shaky collection of two-by-fours held up by several interior four-by-four upright posts. On top of the skeleton of two-by-fours lay a collection of scavenged lumber and doors, all of which would have toppled down at the first hint of a monsoon-driven wind.

While Joanna paused long enough to examine the exterior of the building, Manny Ruiz disappeared inside. He emerged a moment later cradling a tiny ball of black fluff in one of his massive fists. “Look here,” he announced. “Here’s one little guy that made it.” He passed the whimpering puppy to Joanna. “And I’ll bet he’s starved,” Manny continued. “I’ve got some milk in my thermos. If you’ll hold on to him for a minute, I’ll go get it.”

Joanna was still holding the puppy when Dr. George Winfield, the Cochise County Medical Examiner and Joanna’s relatively new stepfather, showed up behind her. “Looks like a single survivor was pulled from the wreckage,” he observed, peering over her shoulder for a closer look at the squeaking ball of fur still squirming fitfully in Joanna’s hands.

“He wasn’t in the wreckage,” Joanna said. “If he had been, he’d be dead by now, too, right along with the others. Somehow he ended up being left in the shed when all the other dogs went inside the trailer.”

“Lucky for him,” George said.

And for us,
Joanna thought. Crime scenes were usually places of utter desolation, yet here was a little life-affirming miracle, a scrap of hope. She clutched the puppy more tightly and cradled him to her breast.

About then Manny Ruiz showed back up with his thermos. He poured some milk into the cup of the thermos, then he gently removed the puppy from Joanna’s grip and held its nose to the milk, which it lapped up hungrily. The puppy may not have been old enough to be weaned, but with his mother likely numbered among the dead dogs inside the mobile home, he was weaned now.