Paradise Lost jb-9

by J. A. Jance

  “Where am I?” she demanded. Using one other clubbed lists, she brushed her lank brown hair out of her face. “What happened to my hands, and who the hell are you?”

  Joanna looked at her passenger in surprise. “I’m Joanna Brady,” she said. “I’m the sheriff in Cochise County. Don’t you remember my coming to the house?”

  “I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Maggie answered. “And if you’re a cop, am I under arrest, or what? I demand to talk to my lawyer.” She squinted at an approaching overhead freeway sign. “Cortaro Road!” she exclaimed. “That’s in Tucson, tier God’s sake. Where the hell are you taking me? Let me out of this car!”

  She reached for the door handle. With the car speeding down the road at seventy-five, it was fortunate that the door was locked. As Maggie struggled to unlock it with her clumsy, bandaged hands, Joanna switched on her emergency lights, pulled over to the shoul­der, and slowed to a stop.

  “Ms. MacFerson, please,” she said reassuringly. “You’re not under arrest. Don’t you remember anything?”

  “I remember going to Connie’s house and waiting for that son of a bitch of a brother-in-law of mine. I listened to the messages, talked to Ken Wilson, and after that . . . nothing.” She stopped struggling with the door and turned to look at Joanna. “Wait a minute. Is this about Connie?”

  Joanna’s mind reeled. She had gone through Constance Haskell’s next-of-kin notification once, but it evidently hadn’t taken. Maggie MacFerson remembered none of it. Joanna had heard of alcoholic blackouts, but this was the first time she had ever dealt with someone who had been functioning in one. Maggie MacFerson may have been able to walk and talk. She had seemed aware of what was going on around her, kit apparently her brain had been switched off. For all she remembered, Maggie might as well have been asleep.

  Joanna took a deep breath. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” she said. “A woman’s body was found in Apache Pass last night. This morning my officers found a broken medical identifica­tion bracelet nearby, a bracelet with your sister’s name and address on it. I came by your sister’s house this afternoon and found you there. I told you what had happened, and you agreed to come with me to identify your sister’s body. That’s what we’re doing now. We’re on our way to Bisbee.”

  Maggie turned and stared at Joanna, who waited for an outburst that never came.

  “Then what are we doing sitting here talking about it?” Maggie demanded at last. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Joanna nodded. Checking in the mirror for a break in traffic, she eased the idling Crown Victoria back onto the roadway. Once they reached highway speed, she switched off the flashing lights.

  “You still haven’t told me what happened to my hands,” Maggie said. “Did I get in a fight and punch somebody’s lights out?”

  “You broke a glass,” Joanna told her. “A crystal glass. The ER folks at Saint Joe’s took out as much glass as they could find and stitched up the worst of the cuts. You’re supposed to go see your own doctor next week to have the bandages and stitches removed. The doctor also said there’s a good chance he may have missed some of the glass. The pieces were small and difficult to see.” Joanna paused. “How are you feeling?” she added.

  “Hungover as hell,” Maggie admitted. “But I’ve had worse. I’m thirsty. My mouth tastes like the bottom of a birdcage. Can’t we stop and get something to drink?”

  “As in a soda?” Joanna asked. “Or as in something stronger?”

  “A Coke will be tine,” Maggie MacFerson said. “Hell, I’d even drink straight water if I had to.” And then, after all that, she started to cry.

  CHAPTER SIX

  After stopping at a Burger King long enough to get a pair of Cokes, Joanna once again headed down the freeway. then Maggie MacFerson had stopped weeping. She sat up straight and wiped her nose on the back of one of her bandaged hands and sipped her soda through a straw.

  “I’m sure you told me all of this before,” she said, stifling a hiccup, “but I don’t remember any of it. Tell me again, please. From the beginning.”

  Joanna did. When she finished, Maggie continued to stare out through the windshield in utter silence. “You said earlier you thought your brother-in-law was responsible,” Joanna added at last. “Any particular reason?”

  “Connie met Ron Haskell during our mother’s final illness,” Maggie answered quietly. “He was a CPA working for the accounting firm that handled our parents’ affairs, Peabody and Peabody. Connie had Mother’s power of attorney so she could handle finances, pay bills and all that. Ron Haskell knew everything about Mother’s affairs, right down to the last penny. I think he saw that my sister was a vulnerable old maid who would even­tually be well-to-do. He set out on a single-minded quest to grab Connie’s half of our mother’s estate. I don’t know what the hell Ron did with the money, but according to Ken Wilson, it’s gone. Ron closed all the accounts and then disappeared. If Connie’s dead, it’s probably a good thing. Finding out that Ron had stolen the money would have killed her. For her, being dead is probably preferable to being betrayed, cast off, and dirt-poor besides, or, even worse, having to come crawling to me for help.”

  “At the house, you said something about a message from your sister’s husband, one that was on the machine. Something about him wanting to meet your sister in paradise.”

  Maggie nodded. “Right,” she said. “Something like that. I was off work. I’m afraid I’d already had a couple of drinks before I got there. Ron said, ‘Meet me in paradise. Join me in paradise.’ Something like that. I don’t remember exactly, but it sounded to me like he meant for her to be dead. Maybe he was planning one of those homicide/suicide stunts. Connie was so stuck on the guy that she would have done whatever he asked, even if it killed her.”

  After that, it was painfully quiet in the car. The sun had set com­pletely. Once they exited the freeway at Benson, traffic grew sparse. “I wish I still smoked,” Maggie said. “I could sure use a cigarette about now, and something a whole lot stronger than soda.”

  “Sorry about that,” Joanna said. “Cop cars aren’t meant to be cocktail lounges.”

  “I suppose not,” Maggie said.

  When they came through the tunnel at the top of the Divide, Joanna was surprised to see the flashing glow of emergency lights just to the right of the highway. They danced and flickered off the steep mountainsides, making the whole canyon look as it had had caught fire. From the number of lights visible, there were clearly lots of emergency vehicles at the scene. Something big had happened at the top end of Old Bisbee. Joanna reached over and switched on her radio.

  “Hey, Tica,” she said, when Tica Romero, the night shift dispatcher, came on the air. “Any idea what’s happening at the upper end of Tombstone Canyon?”

  “That would be the Department of Public Safety’s Haz-Mat team,” Tica advised her. “Bisbee PD called DPS in to clean up a meth lab they found in a house just above the highway. Since it’s inside the city limits and not our jurisdiction, I didn’t bother with all the details. Want me to find out for you?”

  “No, never mind,” Joanna told her. “I have a possible relative of the presumed Apache Pass victim with me. We’re meeting with Doc Winfield for an ID. When we finish with that, I’ll most likely go back to Phoenix.”

  “So Chief Deputy Montoya is still in charge?” Tica asked.

  “That’s right. Ever since Dick Voland left, Frank’s been itching to run an investigation. Looks to me like he’s doing a good job of it.”

  Minutes later, Joanna wheeled the Civvie in under the portico of the office of the Cochise County Medical Examiner. The building, a former grocery store turned mortuary turned morgue, still bore a strong resemblance to its short-lived and unsuccessful mortuary incarnation, a connection Maggie recognized at once.

  “They’ve already sent Connie to a funeral home?” she asked. “You told me we were going to the morgue.”

  “This is the morgue. It used to be
a funeral home,” Joanna explained, pulling in and parking under the covered driveway. “A company called Dearest Departures went out of business several years ago. Some bright-eyed county bureaucrat, intent on saving the local taxpayers a bundle of money, bought the building out of bankruptcy and remodeled it into a new facility for our incoming medical examiner. His name is George Winfield, by the way,” she added. “Dr. George Winfield.”

  Joanna got out of the car. Then, remembering Maggie’s ban­daged hands wouldn’t allow her to operate the door handle, Joanna hurried around the Crown Victoria to let her passenger out. Once on her feet, Maggie leaned briefly against the side of the car, as if she wasn’t quite capable of standing on her own. Concerned, Joanna reached out and offered to take Maggie’s arm. “Are you all right, Ms. MacFerson?” she asked.

  Maggie bit her lip. “Maybe it won’t be her after all,” she said, as tears welled in her eyes. “Connie’s only forty-three, for God’s sake. She turned forty-three in March. That’s too young.”

  “You’re right,” Joanna said gently. “It’s far too young. Will you be all right with this?”

  As she watched, Maggie MacFerson nodded, straightened her shoulders, and drew away from both the car and Joanna’s proffered assistance. “I’m a reporter,” she said determinedly. “This isn’t the first dead body I’ve ever seen, and it won’t be the last.”

  Joanna led the way to the door. Because George Winfield’s Dodge Caravan was parked in its designated spot, she knew her stepfather was already there. She also knew that after hours, when George worked alone, he usually kept the outside door locked, buzzing visitors in only after they rang the bell and identified themselves over an intercom.

  Joanna did so. George Winfield came to the door looking capa­ble and handsome in his white lab coat. “Good evening, Sheriff Brady,” he said.

  By mutual agreement, when meeting in a work setting, Joanna and her stepfather addressed each other by their formal titles. Maintaining a strictly business approach made it simpler for all concerned.

  Joanna nodded in return. “This is Maggie MacFerson,” she said. “And this is Cochise County’s medical examiner, Dr. George Winfield.”

  George held out his hand in a solicitous, gentlemanly fashion, then, noticing the bandages on Maggie’s hands, he withdrew it at once. “Connie is ... was my sister.” She faltered.

  “I’m so sorry—” George began, but Maggie pulled herself together and cut him off in mid-sentence.

  “Don’t,” she said, holding up one hand in protest. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Of course,” he said. “This way, please.”

  He led the two women into a side room that must have once served as a small chapel. George had had a window installed along one wall. Opening a curtain on that allowed grieving family members to view their loved ones without having to venture into the brightly lit, sterile chill of the morgue itself. Joanna and Maggie MacFerson waited for several minutes in a silence softened only by the muted whisper of an air-conditioning fan.

  Eventually George pulled the curtain open, revealing the loaded gurney that he had rolled up beside the window. Winfield reap geared on the other side of the window after he had pulled aside the curtain. Maggie stood up and leaned against the double-paned window. Slowly George Winfield drew back a corner of-the sheet, revealing a stark-white face.

  Standing next to Maggie, Joanna felt the woman’s body sullen and heard her sharp intake of breath. “It’s her,” she whispered. “It’s Connie.”

  With that, Maggie turned and fled the room. Joanna stayed long enough to nod in George’s direction, then she followed Maggie out into the reception area, where she had dropped into a chair.

  “Are you all right?” Joanna asked.

  “What on earth did he do to her? Dying’s too good for the son of a bitch!” Maggie growled. “Now take me someplace where I can have a drink.”

  Joanna understood at once that this time a Burger King soda would hardly suffice. “Really, Ms. MacFerson,” Joanna began. “Don’t you think—”

  “I think I need a drink,” Maggie interrupted. “If you won’t take me to get one, then I’ll find one myself.” With that, she got up and marched out the door. George Winfield entered the reception room just in time to hear the last of that exchange.

  “What was that all about?” he asked.

  “Maggie wants a drink,” Joanna explained. “Which, if you ask me, is the last thing she needs about now. She was so drunk earlier this afternoon that she didn’t remember my telling her that her sis­ter was dead, and she didn’t remember cutting her hands with pieces from a broken glass, either.”

  “She was functioning in a blackout?” George asked.

  “Must have been,” Joanna replied. “That’s the only thing I can figure.”

  “How long has it been since she’s had a drink?”

  “A couple of hours,” Joanna replied with a shrug. “Several, actually.”

  “If I were you, then,” George said, “I’d get her the drink she wants right away. If she’s enough of a problem drinker that she’s suffering blackouts, I’d advise not cutting off her supply of alcohol. She could go into DTs and die on you.”

  Joanna was stunned. “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. Her body is most likely accustomed to functioning with a certain level of booze in it. If you take the alcohol away suddenly, without her being under a doctor’s care, you risk triggering a case of DTs that could possibly kill her.”

  “In that case,” Joanna said, “I’d best go buy the lady a drink. I’ll have Maggie call you later to give you all the relevant information, date of birth and all that. Before I go, I have to ask. Frank gave me the high points on your autopsy results—that Connie Haskell was beaten, raped, and tortured. Anything else?”

  George Winfield shook his head. “Isn’t that enough? Whoever did this is a real psycho.”

  “DNA evidence?” Joanna asked.

  “Plenty of that. Either the guy didn’t think he’d get caught or else he didn’t care. Whichever the case, he sure as hell didn’t use a condom. And you’d better catch up with him soon,” George added. “If you don’t, I’m guessing he’ll do it again.”

  On that grim note, Joanna started to leave. Before she made it to the door, George stopped her. “There’s something else I need to tell you,” he said. “Not about this,” he added hurriedly. “It’s another matter entirely.”

  “Something about Mother?” Joanna asked.

  “Well, yes,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Look, George,” Joanna said. “I’m in a bit of a hurry here. Could you stop beating around the bush and tell toe what’s going on?”

  “Eleanor called CPS early this afternoon.”

  “She did what?”

  “Ellie called Child Protective Services. She was concerned about Dora being out at the ranch, so she called CPS. An investigator went to Sally Matthews’s house up in Tombstone Canyon. No one was home, but she went nosing around in the backyard, where she saw enough telltale debris to make her suspicious. She tracked down a judge. This evening she cane back with a search warrant and reinforcements.” George paused.

  In her mind’s eye, Joanna once again saw the pulsing emergency lights flashing off the sides of the canyon as she drove through the Bisbee end of the Mule Mountain Tunnel. “Don’t tell me Sally Matthews is dead, too,” Joanna breathed.

  “No, I don’t suppose so,” George said. “Nothing like that. At least not as far as we know.”

  Joanna wanted to shake the man to stop his hemming and haw­ing. “What do we know?” she demanded.

  “It looks like Sally Matthews has been running a meth lab in her house, the old Pommer place up Tombstone Canyon. The Department of Public Safety Haz-Mat guys are up there right now, trying to clean it up.”

  “What about Dora?” Joanna asked.

  “That’s the part I didn’t want to tell you.” George Winfield shook his head sadl
y. “Jim Bob called me a few minutes ago. That same CPS caseworker just showed up out at the ranch and demanded that Jim Bob and Eva Lou hand Dora over to her. Which Jim Bob and Eva Lou did, of course—hand her over, that is. The caseworker told them they didn’t have a choice in the matter. Dora’s headed for a foster home out in Sierra Vista. I guess both Dora and Jenny were pretty upset.”

  “I should think so,” Joanna said. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Yes,” George Winfield admitted. “I’m afraid I would.”

  Joanna turned on her heel and started away. Then she stopped and turned back. “There are times when that wife of yours is a meddlesome—” She bit off the rest of the sentence.

  George Winfield sighed. “I know,” he said. “Believe me, I know.”

  Coming out of George Winfield’s office, Joanna sat in her Civvie for a moment, calming herself and catching her breath. The anger she felt toward her interfering mother left her drained and shaken. She wanted to grab her telephone, call Eleanor up, and rail at her for not minding her own business, but yelling at her mother wouldn’t change a thing. Farther up the canyon, emergency lights still flashed and pulsed off the steep hillsides. Somehow, seeing those lights and knowing that the Haz-Mat team was still at work and probably would be for hours propelled her out of her anger-induced paralysis. It was time to focus on a course of action.

  There was no question about what had to be done. Not only had Jenny found a body, she had also been traumatized by seeing one of her friends—someone who had done no wrong—taken into what must have seemed like police custody. Joanna had to go to Jenny, the sooner the better. If the choice was between comforting her daughter and attending a wedding with Butch, there was no contest.

  But what about Maggie MacFerson? Joanna was the person who had brought Maggie to town, and it was her responsibility to take the woman—drunk or sober—back to Phoenix. The thought of Maggie wandering through a strange town on her own was enough to make Joanna start the engine and put the Crown Victoria in gear.