The phone awakened her at 6:07 a.m. “Sheriff Brady?” a hesitant voice said. “Sorry if I’m calling too early.”
It took Joanna a moment to sort out who was calling. Finally she recognized her caller’s voice. Jeannine Phillips was one of Joanna’s two Animal Control officers. A year earlier, during a series of budgetary cuts, Animal Control had been added to Joanna’s area of responsibility. At first she’d been told it was only a temporary measure, but so far nothing had changed.
“What is it, Jeannine?” Joanna asked groggily.
“I woke you up, didn’t I?” Jeannine apologized.
“It doesn’t matter. What is it?”
“I found another one.”
Joanna didn’t need to ask another what. She knew. Three times in the last month, people had reported finding the badly mauled bodies of dead dogs-all of them pit bulls-along roads in the far northeast corner of the county. At first, Joanna’s Animal Control officers had thought they had tangled with something wild-a coyote or a mountain lion or even one of the far rarer jaguars which had, of late, strayed into southern Arizona from the wilds of northern Mexico. When the third dead animal was found, a microchip dog ID had traced it back to Tucson, where it had once belonged to the nephew of a known drug dealer, a man who had twice before been arrested for running a dog-fighting ring. It seemed likely that a similar operation was now up and running somewhere in Cochise County.
“Where?” Joanna asked.
“San Simon,” Jeannine said. “On 1-10 behind the port of entry. A long-haul truck driver parked his rig and went to take a leak. Found the dog in a trash can, except this one isn’t dead,” Jeannine said. “He was chewed all to hell and bloody all over, but he was still breathing. I was going to put him out of his misery. But when I started to lift him out of the garbage can, he tried to lick my hand, and I just couldn’t do it. Then I thought, If he’s made it this far, what if we could pull him through? Maybe we could use him as evidence when we finally nail these bastards.”
Joanna heard the break in Jeannine Phillips’s voice as she spoke-the hurt, along with an underlying streak of steely determination. “Where is he now?” Joanna asked.
“In my truck.”
“Do you really think he can make it?”
“I don’t know,” Jeannine said. “Like I said, he’s torn up pretty bad, but…”
“Take him to Dr. Ross,” Joanna said after a moment. “Have her call me and let me know whether or not she thinks she can save him and how much it’s going to cost.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jeannine Phillips said. “I’m on my way.”
With Lady on her heels, Joanna went to the kitchen to start water for tea. Then she called Frank Montoya. “What’s going on and why so early?” Frank asked. “Are you on your way to the hospital?”
“Not yet,” she said. “But I have an assignment for you. I just got off the phone with Jeannine Phillips. She thinks we’ve got a dogfight ring operating somewhere around Bowie or San Simon. I want a bunch of enforcement up there this weekend. I want you to pull deputies from Patrol-however many we can spare- and have them look for any kind of suspicious activity.”
“What happened?” Frank asked. “Did she find another dead dog?”
“No,” Joanna answered. “She found a live one for a change- if Dr. Ross can work some of her magic, that is. Jeannine is taking him to the vet’s office even as we speak.”
“Who’s paying?” As chief deputy, one of Frank’s areas of responsibility and expertise was keeping the lid on budgetary considerations.
“The department is paying,” Joanna said. “The dog is evidence, Frank. Once we arrest the guy, seeing a live dog will make a much bigger impression with a judge or jury than seeing pictures of dead ones.”
“But that could end up costing a fortune,” Frank objected.
“I told Jeannine to have Dr. Ross check with me before she begins any course of treatment.”
“With the budget the way it is, you can’t afford to be soft in the head about every stray dog that happens to wander into harm’s way.”
“We’ll find a way to pay for it, Frank,” Joanna said, cutting him off in mid-objection. “Now did you hear from Jaime after our trip to Sierra Vista last night?”
“He called me after he got home.”
“So you know what we came up with last night?”
“That you identified the John Doe?” Frank returned. “Yes, I heard the whole story. I told him I’d send someone up to the old courthouse first thing this morning to see if they can find Bradley Evans’s missing file. And Jaime said he and Ernie would head out to Sierra Vista to see if the dead guy’s ex-mother-in-law has an alibi for the time in question. What about you? Are you coming into the office?”
“For a little while,” Joanna answered. “Jenny’s Girl Scout troop is scheduled to do a car wash up at the traffic circle. Once I drop her off for that, I thought I’d stop by the office and stay until she’s ready to come back home. I just want to be sure everything is in good order before…”
Frank chuckled. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a control freak?”
“No,” Joanna returned. “I’m sure no one has ever mentioned any such thing.”
“Consider yourself told, then,” Frank said. “And remember, you heard it here first.”
Once Joanna got off the phone, she started a load of laundry and then hustled around making a breakfast that she hoped would help put her back in Jenny’s good graces. And it worked. Jenny and the two dogs emerged from her room as soon as the first whiff of pancakes made it to her bedroom door.
“What’s for breakfast?” Jenny asked, pausing in the kitchen door. “I’m starving.”
“Paper-thin pancakes,” Joanna told her. “Cooked just the way you like them.”
By the time breakfast was over, Joanna had more or less worked her way off the “bad” list. When they got to the traffic circle, Joanna stayed long enough to have the girls wash her Crown Victoria.
“You have your cell?” Joanna asked. Having her own cell phone was the one thing Jenny had wanted for Christmas. Butch, over Joanna’s objections of its being extravagant, had seen to it that she got one.
“Yes, Mom,” she said. “I have it right here.”
Joanna was relieved to hear that she had been promoted back to “Mom” status from an all-time low of “Mother.”
“Call me at the office when you’re finished,” Joanna said. “I’ll come get you. Maybe we can have our girls’ night out and eat some Mexican food.”
Joanna stopped by Dr. Ross’s on the way to her office since the veterinary clinic was between the traffic circle and the Justice Center. Jeannine Phillips’s truck was still in the parking lot when Joanna arrived.
Jeannine was sitting in the waiting room thumbing her way through a worn magazine when Joanna entered. “Where’s the patient?” she asked.
Jeannine Phillips was a tough customer who looked as though she could have been comfortable working as a bouncer in a bar. But when Joanna asked the question, she looked down at her feet and blushed to the roots of her hair. “In surgery,” she said.
“In surgery!” Joanna repeated. “I thought I told you to have Dr. Ross call me before she did anything.”
“I’m sorry, Sheriff Brady,” Jeannine muttered. “There wasn’t time. I was afraid we were going to lose him. Besides, I told Dr. Ross that if the department wouldn’t pay I would.”
Well, Joanna thought, taking a nearby seat. At least I’m not the only softheaded one around here. “So what’s the prognosis?” she asked after a pause.
Jeannine shrugged. “She said we’d know more after she got him stitched back up. She’s been working on him for over an hour now.”
For some time the only sound was the small click of an oversize electric clock that hung on the wall behind the reception desk. Jeannine was the one who broke the silence. “I think I know who’s behind the fights,” she said quietly.