Downfall

by J. A. Jance

  “On the off chance that Jeremy might have been driving his patrol vehicle, I asked Tica Romero to use our fleet management system to locate his Tahoe. Just before I came into the conference room, she told me that the vehicle is currently parked at the base of Geronimo, the scene of both the Susan Nelson and Desirée Wilburton homicides. Tica has also been able to activate the system’s theft deterrent. As of right now, Jeremy’s vehicle has been rendered nonfunctional. If he attempts to leave the area, he’ll be doing so on foot.”

  Hadlock paused and looked around the room. “I’m operating under the assumption that most of you are familiar with Geronimo.”

  There were knowing nods all around the room. “In case you’re not, here’s a visual.” He fiddled with a laptop, and a few moments later, a satellite view of Geronimo showed on a screen behind him. From his spot at the back of the room, it was difficult for Butch to make out the details as the chief deputy moved a cursor arrow around on the screen.

  “This shows the west side of Geronimo, which sits east and a little to the north of the eastern edge of Warren. According to the GPS, the Tahoe is parked right here on the near side of this dark spot, which is actually a clump of trees surrounding the water hole at the base of the peak. This is the area where Desirée Wilburton was camped before she was killed. The spot where the two victims’ bodies came to rest is right here, halfway down from the top.” Again the cursor moved on the screen.

  “As you can see,” Hadlock continued, “this is an extremely isolated location. Any effort to approach it in vehicles is entirely out of the question. Jeremy would see us as soon as we left town and moved in that direction. We have a horse-mounted search and rescue team, but that’s made up of volunteers rather than sworn officers. In addition, it would take too much time to assemble and deploy them—time we don’t have.

  “At the moment we have no idea of Jeremy’s intentions, but given that he’s most likely responsible for what happened to the two earlier homicide victims as well as the slaughter of his own family, we have to assume the worst—that he intends to murder Sheriff Brady, too. If we’re going to effect Sheriff Brady’s rescue, it will have to be done the old-fashioned way—on foot—and in a hell of a hurry.”

  Listening to the briefing, Butch was impressed. All the while Joanna had patiently been helping Tom Hadlock grow into the job of chief deputy, Butch had been one of the man’s most unrelenting critics. In this roomful of people, all of them listening to the chief deputy’s every word with rapt attention, he could understand, for the first time, what Joanna had seen in the man. Tom Hadlock had a commanding presence about him, and Butch had no doubt that the officers involved in this dicey operation would follow his every order to the letter.

  “This is a potentially dangerous situation, but time is of the essence,” Hadlock continued. “Do I have any volunteers?”

  Hands shot up all around the room—twenty people in all, among them jail personnel who had been pulled away from their usual duties. Hadlock looked around the room, pointing as he went, focusing first on the younger and fitter officers, including the guys from the jail. “You, you, you, and you—you’re to go with Detective Carbajal. I want you to approach Geronimo from the backside by way of the rifle range and take up defensive positions around the base. Do not attempt to climb the mountain. If Jeremy has the high ground and a rifle, he’ll be able to pick you off with the greatest of ease. It’s imperative that you wait for him to come to you.

  “When you see him, avoid using weapons if at all possible. There will be too many friendlies on the ground out there to risk a shooting war. Jeremy has been operating in the dark long enough for his eyes to have adjusted to the lack of light. Once he’s in range, shine your Maglites straight in his eyes. With any kind of luck, that should momentarily blind him.

  “Everybody else? You’re with me. Because Jeremy has his own radio capability, this entire operation is to be conducted with zero radio communication. I’ll lead the group approaching from the front and take up a position near his parked vehicle. When we come up over the top of Yuma Trail, I’ll leave my headlights on. Everyone else should douse theirs. I don’t want Jeremy looking off over the valley and seeing a whole parade of arriving vehicles. That’ll be a dead giveaway.

  “We’ll park at the end of Black Knob on the near side of the cattle guard and walk in from there. If we all rumble across the cattle guard, one vehicle after another, noise from that might travel far enough for Jeremy to hear us coming.

  “Once you reach the mountain itself, deploy yourselves around the base of it with several people remaining in the vicinity of the disabled vehicle. We all know the Tahoe isn’t drivable at the moment, but Jeremy doesn’t. In other words, since that’s his most likely means of escape, that’s where he’ll go. Let me repeat what I said earlier: no one is to go up the mountain looking for him. We wait below and let him come to us—with one exception.”

  As if needing to collect his thoughts, Chief Deputy Hadlock paused long enough to take a drink of water before turning his attention on the K9 unit. Terry Gregovich was seated on the last seat in the front row with Spike blocking the aisle beside him. The dog lay on the carpeted floor with his ears pricked forward and his grizzled gray and white muzzle resting on his front paws, as if taking it all in.

  “Up to now, everything I’ve mentioned is all about catching Jeremy and successfully taking him into custody while he’s trying to get away, but the real point of this exercise is to nail the suspect before he has a chance to carry out whatever it is he intends to do to Sheriff Brady. And that, Deputy Gregovich is where you and Spike come in.

  “I know that the two of you were all over Geronimo the other day helping Dave Hollicker gather evidence. Tonight we need you to go up there again. Once we reach the Tahoe, I want you to give Spike a whiff of Jeremy’s scent and send him off on the hunt. Does the dog have a silent mode?”

  “Yes, sir,” Terry answered.

  “In this case, silence is golden.”

  “The problem is, sir,” Terry objected, “Spike can get up the mountain a lot faster than I can.”

  “Is he capable of taking down a suspect on his own without your actually being present?”

  “Yes, sir,” Terry said. “Totally, but it’s likely that the suspect will suffer worse injuries if I’m not there to call Spike off.”

  “What do you know!” Chief Hadlock said. “Now, wouldn’t that just be too damned bad! Happy hunting, Spike. Go get him. As for everybody else? Hit it, people. Wear your vests and take along plenty of water. Be safe out there, but let’s go get our old girl back,” he added. “We need her.”

  Because they were nearest the door, Butch and Robin were the first ones out of the room and into the corridor. Without any discussion, they headed for the front lobby and set out across the parking lot.

  “Do they call Joanna ‘old girl’ to her face? I wonder,” Butch asked. “After all, Joanna’s a hell of a lot younger than Chief Deputy Hadlock.”

  “Believe me,” Agent Watkins assured him, “in cop-shop parlance, ‘old girl’ is a term of endearment.”

  When they reached the end of the Justice Center parking lot, the front entrance remained blocked by the idling patrol car. Marliss Shackleford was still very much in evidence, as were two additional people Butch immediately suspected of being reporters.

  “Great,” he muttered. “What’s going to happen to this supposedly silent operation if a band of reporters gets in line behind the patrol cars?”

  Just then, the first of a string of several vehicles approached the entrance and stopped facing the barrier patrol car. A moment later, the SUV’s door opened and the hulking figure of Chief Deputy Hadlock stepped out into the otherworldly glow cast by the collection of flashing emergency lights. Once on the ground, Hadlock marched directly toward the deputy and the trio of reporters.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said, loudly enough so everyone on the ground heard him. “At the moment we’ve got a serious hostage situ
ation on our hands. In order to resolve it, we need to move quickly and under the cover of darkness. I’ll be holding a press briefing once the operation is concluded and the crisis successfully averted. In the meantime, if any one of you makes any effort to follow my people or to interfere with this operation in any way, I’m warning you, there will be serious consequences.”

  “What are you going to do,” Marliss chirped, “put us in jail? You can’t do that. What about freedom of the press?”

  “What about it?” Hadlock returned. “Lives are at stake here, Ms. Shackleford. So let me say this one more time—there will be consequences. Anyone who interferes with this operation in any fashion will be automatically barred from attending all future departmental press briefings. Is that clear?”

  With that, Tom Hadlock returned to his vehicle. Once the barricade patrol car was removed, the others drove away unimpeded. Marliss was still fuming in outrage as Butch and Robin walked past. When they reached her government-issue Taurus, Robin clicked open the trunk, reached for her vest, and began putting it on.

  “You’re going there?” Butch asked.

  “Damned straight.”

  “Me, too,” Butch said.

  “No,” Robin replied. “Absolutely not. Your son and Jenny already have one parent at risk. Don’t give Jeremy Stock a chance to make it double or nothing.”

  Butch was going to object, but then he didn’t. Agent Watkins had a point. If everything went south, someone needed to be there for the kids.

  “You’re right,” he conceded. “I’ll head home, but please keep me posted, one way or the other. Don’t make me sit around waiting for someone to come knock on the door and give me the bad news.”

  “I’ll need your phone number for that,” Robin said. “And I promise, once this is over, you’ll be the first to know.”

  CHAPTER 36

  STILL STUNNED AND SHAKEN BY THE BLOW TO HER FACE, JOANNA moved forward slowly and unsteadily. Having her hands bound in front of her meant that she was unable to use her arms to help maintain her balance, and that extra twenty ounces on her ankle felt like an anchor.

  Between the Tahoe and the grove of trees, she stumbled and fell three different times. Unable to break her fall, she landed hard each time, adding more scrapes and bruises to her already damaged face and body. After every fall, Jeremy grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her back to her feet. Each time she was terrified that he would somehow spot the weapon concealed under her pant leg and take it away from her.

  Once they entered the grove of trees, sheltering greenery blocked the starlight, leaving them in almost total darkness. Joanna stumbled along upright, occasionally colliding with an invisible tree trunk. Desolate as the surrounding desert may have seemed, this was arid pastureland. Not only did grazing cattle keep the earth denuded of grass, they also pruned the scrub oak as far up as they could reach. At five-four, Joanna was able to walk upright beneath the tree branches, while Jeremy, following behind her, had to duck his way underneath, cursing as he went.

  This angry side of Jeremy Stock was something new, something Joanna had never encountered before today. She understood enough about domestic violence to realize that some abusers were monsters who managed to mask their ugly tempers in public all while venting their fury on loved ones behind closed doors at home. Had that reality been at work with Deputy Stock the whole time he had worked for her? If so, what could she have done to spot it and put a stop it. And if Allison and Travis Stock were dead, as she now feared they were, how much of that was her fault? She and Detective Waters had blithely driven away from the Stock family interview without any idea that they were leaving someone behind to die—make that, leaving two someones behind to die.

  Beyond the water hole and still under the canopy of trees, Joanna tripped over a loose rock and tumbled to the ground. In an unavoidable chain reaction, Jeremy slammed into her and fell on top of her. As he dragged her upright again, her hip hurt like hell where the toe of his boot had hit her body full force, but at least he hadn’t plowed head-on into her stomach. That would have been far worse.

  “I could walk better if you uncuffed my hands,” she said.

  “Stuff it,” Jeremy told her. “Keep walking.”

  “How did you find out about Travis and Susan?” she asked, trying to initiate conversation as they emerged once more into pale starlight.

  “I didn’t,” Jeremy said. “Until you showed up at the house this afternoon, I had no idea he was involved with her.”

  “Then how . . . ?”

  Jeremy grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around until they were face-to-face.

  “Don’t you understand anything?” he demanded furiously, shaking her again. “I thought Susan’s baby was my damned baby! I had no idea anyone else was involved, much less Travis. I wanted her to get rid of it, and she wouldn’t—she absolutely refused. As soon as Travis gave you that swab, I knew it was over and I was toast. I didn’t want Allison and Travis to have to face what was coming, so I ended it for them.”

  “By killing them?”

  He shrugged. “To my way of thinking, I did them a huge favor. That way they didn’t have to live with the consequences of what I’d done.”

  “What about your other son?” Joanna asked. “Don’t you have an older boy who’s away at college?”

  “You mean Thad? As far as I’m concerned, he’s no son of mine. He turned his back on us when he went off to college. He can go to hell for all I care.”

  “And face all of this on his own?” Joanna asked.

  “Yup,” Jeremy said callously. “I guess them’s the breaks.”

  Taken aback by the man’s utter disregard for anyone but himself, Joanna rounded on him. “You’re a coward, Jeremy Stock,” she spat at him, “and a low-down, miserable excuse for a human being. Travis believed Susan’s baby was his. Young as he was, he was willing to face up to the consequences of his actions. He wanted Susan to divorce her husband and marry him, but she evidently gave him the same answer she gave you—that it was her baby and she was keeping it, but I have to give Travis full marks. He didn’t kill her for turning him down. Travis was man enough to take no for an answer. You weren’t.”

  Jeremy said nothing. For a moment neither did she. They were stopped at the place where the game trail Joanna and Agent Watkins had followed veered off toward the left. “Which way?” she asked.

  “Follow that,” he said, gesturing toward the faint path. Joanna was relieved. At least that meant they were taking the side route rather than making a direct ascent.

  “We’re going up, I take it?” she asked.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Why?” she insisted. “What’s the point?”

  “The point is that this all ends at the time and place of my choosing. Grandma Meynard told me once that Grandpa always wished he could have climbed Geronimo on the last day of his life and taken a flying leap off it, instead of being locked up in that damned bed at the Copper Queen Hospital for weeks on end. He said if he’d known what was coming, he would have handled it himself while he was still able. I feel the same way, Sheriff Brady. No friggin’ way I’m going to live out the rest of my days rotting away in prison.”

  “What about me?” Joanna asked.

  “What about you?”

  “Presumably I’m supposed to die, too?”

  “Why not? You started it,” he said. “I told you no DNA sample, and you took one anyway. I’m sick and tired of women not doing as they’re told. Got it? Let’s move.”

  Joanna moved, following the circuitous path as it wound its way up the mountain. The ground began to rise under her feet. As the grade grew steadily steeper, the only sound within hearing came from her and Jeremy’s increasingly heavy breathing. In that noisy silence, she became aware that once again Sage was kicking away, reminding her mother of her presence and of her need and will to live.

  Every forward step took both mother and child nearer to the brink. Joanna realized that she had to act soon. A
moment or two later, she fell again, a faked fall this time rather than a real one, but one that sent her tumbling back down until she came to rest at Jeremy’s feet.

  “I can’t do this,” she pleaded, looking up at him imploringly and making her breathing sound more labored than it was. “Especially if we’re going all the way to the top. It’s too steep. I can’t make it without using both hands. I can’t.”

  For a time, Jeremy simply stared down at her, saying nothing. Finally, when he reached down to help her up, the key to the handcuffs was in his hand. As he bent to unfasten the cuffs, struggling in the dark to operate the lock, Joanna had a few seconds to peer out across the empty desert behind him, hoping against hope to see even the smallest sign that her people had somehow pieced things together and were coming to her aid. But there was nothing to see. The streetlights of Warren winked at her in the far distance, but between Geronimo and town, there was nothing but a pitch-black void.

  When Jeremy straightened up, Joanna could tell from his defensive stance that he was braced for her to launch some kind of counterattack. Since that’s what he expected, she didn’t deliver. Better to lull him into a false sense of security. Better to let him think that he had drained all the fight out of her. Since Jeremy Stock thrived on reveling in his own power, she decided to give him an additional dose.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly, rubbing her abraded wrists. Then she turned back to the mountain and climbed anew, praying as she went—for strength and courage.

  Somewhere during that steady climb upward, a familiar Bible verse came to mind. It was a passage from Deuteronomy that Marianne Maculyea had read aloud during Andy’s funeral service:

  I have set before you the path of living and dying, good and evil. Therefore choose life.