by J. A. Jance
Later, Joanna told herself. Not right now.
Resuming her seat, Eleanor continued to play hostess throughout the remainder of the meal, keeping conversation at her table on a lively but even keel. Deft questions aimed at the Colemans elicited interesting bits of information from the artist and his wife, both of whom told snippets about their lives before and after their move to Sedona. Sheri Coleman, a classy, blond former flight attendant with a wicked sense of humor, was seated between Butch and Jeff Daniels and kept both of them laughing with occasional wry comments.
Dinner was a leisurely affair. Myron and his staff had outdone themselves. The prime rib with all the trimmings, including Yorkshire pudding, was perfectly cooked and perfectly served. As dinner progressed, however, Joanna noticed that Eleanor was becoming increasingly tight lipped and anxious. Finally, as the waitstaff began delivering trays of crème brûlée, Joanna went over to her mother’s chair.
“I’m going to go powder my nose,” Joanna said. “Care to join me?”
A flush of gratitude suffused Eleanor’s face. “What a good idea,” she said. Excusing herself, she rose to her feet, and they set off across the dining room, threading their way between tables and dodging waiters carrying loaded dessert trays and pots of coffee.
“What’s the matter?” Joanna asked. “You look upset.”
“I don’t know what’s become of Maggie,” Eleanor complained. “She said she was going outside for a smoke and asked me to look after the Colemans during dinner, but that was hours ago. I was happy to make the initial introductions and host the dinner, but I thought for sure she’d be back for the start of the auction.”
“Maybe she was taken ill,” Joanna suggested. “Would you like me to go take a look?”
“Please,” Eleanor said. “She’s probably in her car.”
“What kind of vehicle?”
“A Lincoln Mark Eight,” Eleanor said. “A maroon Lincoln Mark Eight.”
“What do you want me to tell her when I find her?”
“That the auction’s about to start.”
“Is there a chance she had too much to drink?” Joanna asked.
Eleanor considered for a moment and then nodded. “It’s possible.”
Back at the table, Joanna collected Butch. “Mind if we get some fresh air?”
He gave her a quizzical look, but took the hint. “Sure thing,” he said, excusing himself from a quiet conversation with Sheri Coleman.
Joanna felt a tiny twinge of jealousy. “It looked like the two of you were having an interesting chat,” Joanna observed as they made their way toward the lobby.
“We were,” Butch said without going into any further detail.
Once outside, they found that the desert’s “fresh” air was more than fresh. It was downright chilly. When Butch felt the goose bumps forming on Joanna’s bare arms, he shed his tux jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“We’re looking for Maggie Oliphant,” Joanna explained. “She’s supposed to be running this show. Mom’s worried that she’s gone AWOL.”
“Where do you think we’ll find her?”
“According to Mom, she drives a maroon Lincoln Mark Eight. From what George was telling me earlier, there’s a good chance she had a bit too much to drink and is passed out cold.”
With Joanna clinging to Butch’s steadying arm, they made slow work of covering the vehicle-crowded parking lot. Butch was the one who spotted the Mark VIII, parked some distance away from the other cars, at the far end of the gravel lot.
“There it is,” he said, pointing. “If she came out here to have a quiet tipple, she parked far enough away from everyone else so people couldn’t see what she was up to.”
As they neared the vehicle, Joanna could see in the pale moonlight that someone was slumped behind the steering wheel. Tottering on high heels ill equipped for dealing with gravel, Joanna hurried over to the driver’s side and rapped sharply on the window.
“Maggie,” she demanded. “Are you all right?”
There was no response. Thinking the woman had probably passed out, Joanna tried the door handle. It wasn’t locked. Once she wrenched the door open, a foul odor, mingled with years of stale cigarette smoke, erupted from the vehicle. A moment later, as the dim light from the open car door illuminated the car’s interior, Joanna’s eyes verified what her nose already knew—Maggie Oliphant wasn’t just passed out in her Lincoln Mark VIII. She was dead. From the length of bloodied wire that was still twisted around her throat, Joanna knew that her death couldn’t be anything other than murder.
CHAPTER 17
BUTCH, A FEW FEET BEHIND JOANNA, WAS FAR ENOUGH AWAY THAT the smell didn’t hit him. “Is she okay?” he asked.
Joanna checked for a pulse, just to be sure. The woman’s clothing didn’t appear to be in any disarray, as one might have expected had this been an attempted rape, although there was a small triangular tear in the bodice of her dress where her skin showed through.
“She’s not okay,” Joanna answered, stepping away from the vehicle. “She’s dead.”
Instinctively, Joanna reached for her phone, but it wasn’t there.
“I’ll need your phone,” she said.
Without a word, Butch pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket and handed it over.
“There’s a flashlight in the glove compartment of the Outback, isn’t there?”
Butch nodded.
“I’ll need that, too. Then I want you to go inside and tell my mother that she’s going to have to handle the auction, that Maggie isn’t up to helping out. Whatever you do, don’t tell Mom that Maggie is dead. If we do that, the auction is history, and Maggie and Mom will have done all that work for nothing.”
“Got it,” Butch said, “but if you don’t come back inside, what am I supposed to tell your mother?”
“Tell her the truth—that I’m staying with Maggie for the time being.”
“Do you need anything else?”
Joanna considered for a moment. “I’m going to contact the department. Jaime’s on call tonight. I’ll get my forensics people out here, but I’ll also need the M.E., who, as it turns out, is here for the gala. Do you know him?”
“I’ve met Dr. Machett a time or two,” Butch said. “I can find him, if you want.”
“Good. Tell him I need to speak to him—that it’s urgent.”
Butch trotted away on the first of his several errands, leaving Joanna alone with the body. For a moment she stood where she was, peering into the car, acutely aware that she was tramping around a crime scene in her high heels. Any footprints would already have been obliterated by her stilettos, and because she hadn’t been wearing gloves when she wrenched open the door, the crime scene had already been altered.
Moving away from the Lincoln but leaving the driver’s door ajar and the light on, Joanna put Butch’s phone to her ear. With her own phone all the numbers she needed would have been instantly accessible in her contacts list. With Butch’s phone, she opted for calling 911. The emergency operator patched her through to her chief deputy.
“Hey, boss,” Tom Hadlock said. “Not to worry. I’ve got everything under control.”
“Unfortunately, you don’t,” Joanna replied. “I’ve got another homicide here in the parking lot at Rob Roy Links. I need Jaime Carbajal and Dave and Casey ASAP. I’ll want a couple of uniforms as well. Have whichever deputy is closest to my place on High Lonesome stop by on his way here. I’ve got a complete set of crime-scene-appropriate clothing in an overnight bag in the back of my Yukon. I’ll need someone to pick that up and bring it here. Doing a crime scene investigation in a silk evening gown and high heels isn’t going to cut it.”
“I’m on it,” Tom said.
“Jenny is home babysitting. I’ll have her put the bag out on the slab in front of the garage. Tell whoever you send to just pick it up from there. I don’t want people stopping by and ringing the doorbell when Butch and I aren’t
there.”
“Check,” Tom Hadlock replied. “Bring the bag; don’t ring the bell.”
Butch trotted up just then and handed over the flashlight. As he started back toward the building, Joanna tried to hand him his jacket.
“Keep it,” he said. “You need it a lot more than I do right now. I’ll send Machett out once I find him.”
As Butch hurried away again, Joanna called home. While she waited for Jenny to answer, she switched on the flashlight and sent the beam roaming around the dead woman’s vehicle. A few feet from the open door something sparkled on the ground, reflecting back the light, but by then Jenny had answered.
“Dad,” Jenny grumbled without waiting to hear who was on the phone, “Denny’s in bed asleep. We’re okay. You don’t need to call and check on us.”
“It’s me,” Joanna said. “I’m using Dad’s phone right now. I need you to get my bag of crime scene clothing out of the back of the Yukon and leave it outside the garage door. Someone should be by in a few minutes to pick it up.”
“Your crime scene clothes? How come? I thought you were going to some kind of fancy dinner.”
“I don’t have time to go into it,” Joanna said. “Sorry. Just set the bag out, please.”
Ending the call, Joanna stepped closer to what she had seen on the ground. Part of the reflection was due to what looked like a scattering of tiny pieces of shattered glass along with something metallic. Closer examination revealed that this was the back of some kind of brooch, complete with a broken hinge where the pin had once been.
Butch had found a green silk pocket square that matched Joanna’s dress. Pulling the piece of silk from his jacket pocket, Joanna used that to retrieve the damaged brooch. It turned out to be a lapel watch, a tiny Lady Elgin attached to a diamond-studded fleur-de-lis. The front of the timepiece had been smashed to pieces, and the hands, broken and bent, were frozen in place at 7:35.
At the sound of approaching footsteps, Joanna looked up. “What’s going on?” Guy Machett demanded. “Can’t a guy have at least a moment’s peace?”
Joanna motioned to the open car door. “Take a look,” she said, “and then you tell me. I’ve got my people coming. You’d better call yours.”
Machett bent down and peered inside the vehicle. “Crap,” he said. “Two murders in two days? Are you kidding me? What the hell is going on around here?”
He straightened back up. “Any idea how long she’s been here?”
“I saw her talking with my mother early on during the cocktail hour,” Joanna said, “but look at this.” Cradling the watch in the pocket square, she held it out and shined the light on the mother-of-pearl face so he could see the stilled hands.
Machett looked at the watch and frowned. “Gives us a reasonable idea about the time of death, then,” he said. “Must have happened after everyone went inside. That’s why no one noticed.”
“Yes,” Joanna agreed. “That’s about the time my mother was making her opening remarks. I’m not sure we should accept this at face value. It looks like she was strangled from behind, inside the car. She was wearing the watch on her dress; why would it be broken and outside the vehicle? What if the killer reset it to deliberately mislead us as to the time of death?”
Machett glowered at her. “Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?” Then he plucked his phone out of his pocket. As he began summoning reinforcements, Joanna heard the first siren announcing the arrival of one of her patrol cars. She hurried to meet the vehicle as best she could, beckoning the car in the right direction and signaling for the deputy to cut the lights and siren. For right now, at least, she was hoping to keep news of the tragedy from spreading to the people who were supposed to be inside spending money.
Deputy Armando Ruiz, who usually patrolled the outskirts of Sierra Vista, was the first deputy to arrive. After pointing out where she had found the broken watch, Joanna left Deputy Ruiz to help Machett and to maintain what remained of the integrity of the crime scene while she herself headed back into the building, uttering evil imprecations to her high heels every step of the way.
She went looking for Myron Thomas. When she didn’t catch sight of him in the dining room, she tracked him down in his steamy kitchen. Wiping his mouth with a napkin, he hurried toward her with an anxious expression on his face.
“Can I help you?” he asked. “Is something amiss out in the dining room?”
“The problem is in the parking lot,” she said.
“What?”
Joanna shook her head and didn’t answer. “I noticed a security camera over the front door,” she said. “How many others do you have?”
“The system comes with ten cameras in all,” he answered. “We have one on the front door, one on the back, and one in the lobby. The rest are focused on the course itself, on the first and tenth tees so we can see who has teed off. The others are scattered around the course so we can send out people to move golfers along if we’ve got slowpokes. Why?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to get a look at tonight’s video, both the front and the back door,” Joanna said, “from say six thirty until nine or so.”
“No problem,” Myron said. “The computer and the video DVR are in my office, but what’s going on?”
“There’s been a homicide,” she explained. “We just found Maggie Oliphant’s body in the driver’s seat of her car out in the parking lot.”
“Maggie?” he repeated unbelievingly. “Are you sure?”
Joanna nodded.
“That’s dreadful! This is her party. How could such a terrible thing happen? But of course you can look at the video.” Myron stopped long enough to call back into the kitchen, “If anyone needs me, I’ll be up in the office.” Then he turned back to Joanna. “Right this way.”
He led her out of the kitchen and then up a staircase that led to a loft-style office with windows that allowed anyone seated at the desk an unobstructed view of both the lobby area and the pro shop. On the opposite side of the room was a desk with a complicated console of computer components as well as an oversize screen. Thomas sat down at the computer table, motioned Joanna into a nearby visitor’s chair, and started punching buttons on a remote. A moment later, the large-screen monitor before her came on with a low-throated thunk.
“What do you want to see first?” he asked.
“Front door,” she said. “Between say seven and nine.”
With Myron expertly using both the keyboard and the remote, it took very little time to fast-forward between the critical time periods on each of the cameras. For one thing, by seven fifteen most of the guests had arrived. There were two couples who were late and who came rushing in at what the time stamp noted to be 7:20. There were several people who came out and stood clustered around the front door where they availed themselves of the ashtray stationed there, but no one in that group looked especially furtive. Joanna and Myron watched clear through until Joanna and Butch emerged just before nine.
“What else?” Myron asked.
Joanna looked at her watch. It was after ten now. The auction was probably in full swing.
“Let’s look earlier,” she suggested. “I saw my mother talking to Maggie earlier, shortly after we got here, which was right at six thirty.”
Again, Myron started operating the remote. At the earlier time frame, because there were so many arriving, it was impossible to fast-forward. At 6:40, Maggie appeared, leaving the building and having to sort her way through arriving guests to do so. She stopped near the ashtray and lit a cigarette.
“It looks like she’s waiting for someone,” Myron said. “See how she keeps looking at that thing on her dress?”
Joanna had noticed that, too. The lapel watch had been pinned to her dress in the same spot where Joanna had noticed that triangular tear in the material.
Eventually, Maggie ground out the butt of her cigarette in the ashtray. A moment later, she left the frame of the video and didn’t reappear.
Myron and Joanna were sti
ll watching when there was a knock on the door. “Someone here is looking for Sheriff Brady. Is she with you?”
“Yes, she is,” Myron answered. “We’ll be right down.”
“Can I have copies of these videos?” Joanna asked.
“Which ones?”
“Front door, lobby, and back door.”
“No problem,” Myron said. “I’ll burn some DVDs and have them ready whenever you want them.”
“You’re probably in for a long night,” Joanna said. “People are going to have to hang around for a while. You might brew up a few more pots of coffee.”
“Will do,” Myron said, and hurried off.
Casey Ledford was waiting for Joanna at the bottom of the stairs, holding Joanna’s overnight bag.
“Jaime’s already here. He and Delcia were having dinner at Ricardo’s, in Hereford. She just dropped him off. He wanted me to let you know that we’ve already had a few people come straggling out of the building asking what’s going on,” she said. “We’ve been passing the situation off as a medical emergency, but once Doc Machett’s meat wagon shows up, that’s not going to wash. Jaime’s hoping we can get statements from all the people who are here from the Plein Air conference. Some of them might know something, and if they’re leaving town tomorrow, we need to know how to get in touch with them.”
Joanna looked longingly at the bag. Her feet were killing her. There was nothing she wanted more than to be out of the silk gown and high heels and into something more comfortable, even if that something was nothing more than a bright orange crime scene jumpsuit.
“How’s the auction going?”
Butch had appeared behind Casey. “When I left the room a few minutes ago, there were only a few more items. Paintings have been selling like gangbusters. It’s a huge success.”
Joanna knew right then that her decision to keep the situation in the parking lot quiet had been one hundred percent correct. What she really wanted to do was slip off the silk gown, morph into her sheriff persona, and go out to the parking lot to help her CSIs. This time, though, she couldn’t do that. At that moment, the one thing Joanna Brady needed to do for the investigation was also what she needed to do for her mother.
