THE BALLOONS WERE A HUGE HIT. SO WAS THE PUBLICATION PAYMENT that Joanna had retrieved from Butch’s office and had leaning next to his glass when he sat down at the table. Carol had made up a batch of green-chili casserole for dinner. Denny, thrilled that his daddy was home, spent the entire meal monopolizing the conversation, so until Denny was in bed, there was no opportunity for adult conversation. When Joanna was finally able to recount the deadly turn the Ardmore investigation had taken that day, Butch could only listen and shake his head.
“You’ve got a wounded deputy, a dead suspect, and now you’ve got three more victims. Could things get any worse?”
“I don’t see how,” Joanna told him.
Tom called at ten o’clock as they were getting ready for bed. “Just got home, and I’m beat,” he said, “but I wanted to give you an update.”
“How are things?”
“It was a hell of a tough day for everybody. The guys on the ERT worked their butts off. The M.E. came out and collected the remains of the three new victims, but it turns out she needed help with that from some of our guys because she’s shorthanded now, too. Seems like Ralph Whetson up and quit earlier today, right in the middle of his shift.”
“He quit? Did Dr. Baldwin say why?”
“No, just that he was gone. Anyway, just because we couldn’t see signs of more graves, that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Did you update the Paxtons?”
“Sure did. They’re still here and will be ready to deploy as needed whenever you give the word.”
“Good. By the time we were headed back, it was too late for Ernie to do a presser. That’s scheduled for tomorrow morning at nine. I’m tempted to bar Marliss from attending.”
“Don’t bother,” Joanna told him. “For right now I’m pretty sure she’s lost her inside track.”
“Ralph Whetson?”
“You’ve got it.”
“Fair enough, then,” Tom said. “In the meantime I’m hitting the hay.”
“Do that,” Joanna said. “You’ve more than earned it.”
The answer to Butch’s earlier question came around midnight in the form of a phone call from the Copper Queen Community Hospital. “Sheriff Brady? Dr. Morris here.”
Joanna’s heart went to her throat. “Has Garth taken a turn for the worse?”
“No,” Dr. Morris said. “As far as I know, he’s doing fine. No, I’m calling about Thomas Hadlock. He insisted I call and tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“He showed up about an hour ago. He woke up with chest pains and was afraid he was having a heart attack, so he drove himself to the hospital. The damn fool should have called an ambulance, but it turns out he was right to get himself here in a hell of a hurry. He’s in intensive care right now, but he insisted I call and let you know.”
“But I just talked to him a little while ago. Is he going to be all right?”
“Our cardiologist will give him a full workup tomorrow.”
“What’s going on?” Butch asked when Joanna put down the phone.
“That was Dr. Morris from the ER. Tom Hadlock is in intensive care with a possible heart attack.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I came home early,” Butch said. “It sounds like your maternity leave is officially terminated.”
And it was. Early the next morning, Joanna nursed Sage, turned the baby over to Butch, donned her dress uniform, packed her breast pump, and headed for the Justice Center. It wasn’t yet 8:00 A.M., but the parking lot was already filled to the brim with media vans, some from as far away as Phoenix. Ernie had billed the upcoming press conference as a joint one, with both the sheriff’s department and the medical examiner’s office participating, and Joanna spotted Kendra Baldwin’s Honda CRV parked out front as she drove around back to her reserved parking place.
Once inside, Joanna found Kendra chatting with Kristin, Joanna’s secretary. They both seemed surprised to see her.
“What are you doing here?” Kristin asked. “Where’s Tom?”
“In the ICU,” Joanna answered. “He landed there overnight with chest pains. Drove himself to the ER.”
“I wish I could say I’m surprised,” Kendra said. “It was a hell of a day out there for everyone involved. I hope he’ll be okay.” Even Kendra, a person who was usually completely put together, looked surprisingly bedraggled. “I’ve got three sets of bones laid out on tables and three more sets waiting in boxes. My office is a mess.”
“And Ralph quit,” Joanna said.
Kendra nodded. “He certainly did. Right after I got the call from Tom about finding the graves, I caught him texting someone on his phone. I asked him what he was doing. He said it was private and none of my business. I told him what happens while he’s on the job is most certainly my business. When he handed over his phone, there was a half-written text to Marliss, telling her he was headed to Calhoun to pick up some more bodies. I deleted the text—he hadn’t sent it yet—and I would have deleted him on the spot, but he quit before I had a chance. Good riddance. He probably called Marliss afterward, because she was there waiting along with a bunch of other reporters as we were leaving the crime scene last night. She would have been there much earlier if she’d gotten Ralph’s first message, and I’m sure she’ll be front and center today.”
“And probably more objectionable than ever,” Joanna said, looking around. “But without Ralph feeding her inside info, I think she’ll be less of a problem. By the way, where’s Ernie?”
“Trying to figure out how to shoehorn more chairs into the conference room,” Kristin said. “If the fire department shows up to do a head count, we’ll be in big trouble. In the meantime here are some messages I had for Tom.”
Joanna took the stack of message slips into her office. At the top was one from Ted Whipple, the FBI’s special agent in charge at the Tucson office.
“Good morning, Sheriff Brady,” he said when she returned his call. “I don’t believe you’re the one who contacted me originally, but I understand you folks down there are in need of our assistance.”
“Actually we no longer are,” Joanna said. “Or rather the assistance we needed has already been provided. A friend of a friend pointed us in the direction of Rochelle Powers, an FBI profiler who happened to be in Arizona on vacation. She was able to give us some pointers, and the individual involved has been dealt with.”
“You went around me, then?” he asked, sounding offended. “I was simply following procedures.”
“We didn’t have time for procedures,” Joanna told him. “We were afraid he was holding other victims captive, and without Rochelle’s help he might have gotten away.”
“He’s in custody, then?” Whipple asked, sounding somewhat mollified.
“In a manner of speaking,” Joanna replied. “He’s deceased. He died as a result of an MVA on I-10 in New Mexico late yesterday morning.”
“Fleeing prosecution, was he?”
“Apparently.”
“Well, all right, then. If you need anything else . . .”
“Of course,” Joanna said cordially. “We’ll be sure to give you a call.” Adding under her breath, once the call ended, “Like bloody hell.”
She was shuffling through the slips to see who should be next when a call came in on her cell phone from Randy Trotter.
“I’ve got some news for you,” he said. “Based on the seriousness of the situation, I was able to get the Doña Ana M.E.’s office to move our boy Ardmore to the head of the line. Cause of death is a concussion. Manner of death accidental.”
Joanna was incredulous. “They’ve already done the postmortem?”
“Yup, according to the doc here, Ardmore showed signs of having come in recent contact with the business end of a stun gun. He also had a slow brain bleed from a previous injury, so even the slightest blow to the back of his head would have killed him. When the airbags deployed and slammed his head against the back of the seat, he was done for. Incidentally, his death just happens to have spared Arizona and New Mexico huge amounts of money. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
“Thanks for the info,” Joanna said. “Since we’re about to hold a presser here, let me go pass this along to our Media Relations officer.”
She caught up with Ernie out in the hall, where he was raiding the break room for chairs and hauling them into the conference room off the lobby. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Where’s Tom?”
“He’s in the ICU. Chest pains.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m serious and I’m back,” Joanna told him, “and I’ve got some important info for you from Sheriff Trotter over in Hidalgo County.”