“And she believed them?” Joanna said.
“Evidently. If I’d been in her shoes, I think I would have, too.”
“You’re saying Sandra Ridder spent all those years in prison in order to protect her daughter-to save Lucy’s life?”
“That’s what Catherine Yates told me.”
“Assuming she’s telling the truth now, that is,” Joanna said. “At this point, I’m not sure I’d believe a word she says. What do you think, Ernie? Does any of this relate to what you told us about Sandra Ridder’s civil-service existence being erased from Fort Huachuca records?”
“Possibly,” Ernie Carpenter replied. “It could be part of a witness-protection protocol. I’m not entirely sure how that stuff works.”
“Another question for our source at Justice whenever we manage to find one,” Joanna said. “One other thing keeps bothering me. I know what our pet hacker said about even old encryption codes being valuable. Still, how valuable can they be? Three people are dead right now, and it could easily have been four.
“Melanie Goodson has to have been involved from the get-go. When Lucy placed those three rest-area calls that night, she thought she was calling people who would help her. And two out of the three-Sister Celeste and Jay Quick-did try to help. I’m guessing Melanie Goodson traced the call-possibly through caller ID-and then sent somebody out to the rest area looking for Lucy.”
Jaws dropped all around the conference table. “Are you saying somebody came to Texas Canyon looking for Lucy?” Frank Montoya demanded.
“That’s exactly what I said. And you’ll never guess who it was, folks-the same guy who shot Sandra Ridder the night before. He came there and spent the afternoon hanging around the phone booth. And Sunday morning he came looking for her again. If it hadn’t been for Lucy’s pet hawk calling out a timely warning, we’d have another victim on our hands. I figure there’s only one way an eight-year-old computer disk can still be worth the price of four separate lives. Whatever was happening back then must still be going on.”
“Wait a minute,” Ernie said. “That would mean whoever pulled Sandra Ridder’s records might have had nothing at all to do with the Justice Department and everything to do with keeping suspicion from falling on him.”
“Exactly,” Joanna said. “And someone with that kind of time-in-place shouldn’t be all that difficult to find. My brother, Bob Brundage, has spent the last six years of his life working in the Pentagon. He’s out at the house today cleaning up the mess, but he might be able to point us in some likely directions. One of you might give him a call, or I’ll talk to him when I go out there at lunchtime and see if he has any ideas.”
“What about Sheriff Forsythe?” Frank Montoya asked. “Has he heard any of this?”
“How could he when we’re all hearing it for the first time? We’ll take this morning to track down the leads we have now. Once we do that, interview Lucy Ridder, and have the composite drawing in hand, I’ll call Sheriff Forsythe personally. In the meantime, I don’t see any need to rush. After all, he wasn’t in any hurry to help us. Anything else?”
“Yes,” Ernie Carpenter said. “I want to know about your dogs. How are they?”
Joanna took a deep breath. “I talked to Dr. Ross first thing this morning. When Reba Singleton checked into the Copper Queen Hospital for observation before transport to Tucson, she had a whole collection of pharmaceuticals and designer drugs in her purse-antidepressants, sleeping pills, muscle relaxants, whatever. She told us she slipped the dogs a double dose of her Valium. It knocked them out for the better part of twenty-four hours, but it’s not fatal, and there shouldn’t be any long-term damage. Now that they’ve slept it off, they’re on their feet and ready to come home.”
“That’s a relief,” Ernie said. “And how are you?”
Joanna looked from one face to the other. “Grateful,” she said at last. “It could have been so much worse.”
The meeting broke up several minutes later. Back in her office, Joanna found she already had a stack of messages. She was reaching for the phone to return the first one when it rang before she could pick it up.
“Joanna, how are you?” Eleanor Lathrop Winfield asked without preamble. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Mother,” Joanna replied. “I guess I’m a little tired, but otherwise fine. How are you?”
“Busy,” Eleanor replied briskly. “Maggie Dixon, Eva Lou, Marcie, and I just came back from the house.” Marcie Brundage was Joanna’s sister-in-law, the wife of a brother who had been put up for adoption by Joanna’s not-yet-married parents. Only recently, after the death of his adoptive parents, had Bob Brundage sought out his birth family.
“The men are busy as can be,” Eleanor rattled on. “They’ve brought in a Dumpster to clean the mess into. Milo has an insurance adjuster on the scene monitoring everything that’s broken and keeping track of whatever’s being hauled out. That way, in case Reba Singleton doesn’t pay up, you’ll at least be able to file an insurance claim.”
Milo Davis of the Davis Insurance Agency had once been Joanna’s boss. Even now, several years later, he remained her insurance agent.
“Watching all that stuff being thrown out was just too hard on Eva Lou,” Eleanor continued. “She couldn’t bear to watch, since so much of your furniture used to be hers. I’m sure Butch noticed how upset she was. I believe that’s why he suggested we girls run some errands for him. He gave us a list. We’re off to Tucson to see what we can do about it.”
The idea of Joanna’s sister-in-law, her former mother-in-law, her mother-in-law-to-be, and her mother all driving around in the same car together struck terror in Joanna’s very soul. There was no telling what might happen. “What kind of list?” she asked warily.
“Never you mind,” Eleanor replied firmly. “But I do have one piece of wonderful news.”
“What’s that?”
“I talked to a girl from Nordstrom’s. I called their company headquarters up in Seattle, and guess what? Once I told them what had happened, they managed to locate another dress just like your wedding dress-same size, same color, everything. They found it in their store in San Francisco. They’re Fed-Exing it out today-this afternoon. It should arrive here in Bisbee tomorrow. Early afternoon, one-thirty at the latest. What do you think of that?”
The fact that her wedding dress no longer existed had been such a huge stumbling block in Joanna’s mind that she hadn’t even allowed herself to think about it, much less go searching for a solution. Now she didn’t have to. Eleanor had solved the problem for her.
“I can barely believe it, Mom,” Joanna said with a lump in her throat. “In fact, it’s pretty damned wonderful-and so are you.”
“Thank you, Joanna. Now don’t you worry. I’m sure we’ll soon have everything under control.”
After Joanna put down the phone, she buried her face in her hands and allowed herself the luxury of a good cry. It was only when she finished crying and was blowing her nose that she realized one other important thing about that conversation with her mother. For the very first time, in all the months Eleanor Lathrop Winfield had known the man, she had called her future son-in-law Butch instead of Frederick.
It indicated a sea change in her mother’s attitude, and that was pretty damned wonderful, too.
CHAPTER 27
That morning the phone calls and messages that came to Joanna’s office gave telling testimony as to what was right with small-town America. One of the first messages came from Daisy Maxwell, who left word that her husband Moe would be taking enough food to feed a work crew of fifteen out to High Lonesome Ranch at lunchtime. If the crew was larger than that and more food was needed, just give her a call.