“What do you mean, where am I? I’m at a crime scene. There’s been a murder out by the San Pedro.”
“What about your interview with Karen Oldsby?” Butch responded. “She called here a few minutes ago, mad as a wet hen and wondering where you were. She’s been sitting in her office for over an hour waiting for you to show up. I told her I’d try to track you down if I could and have you call her back right away.”
“Butch, I did call Karen Oldsby,” Joanna interjected. “I called even before I left the office to come here. I said in the message that I’d been called to investigate a possible homicide and that she’d need to call tomorrow to set up another appointment.”
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“The mood she’s in right now, I suspect that wouldn’t be such a good idea. If Karen Oldsby does the interview at all, she’s likely to tear you to pieces.”
“Give me her number again,” Joanna said. “I’ll call and explain.”
Karen Oldsby answered after only one ring. “Oldsby here.”
“Karen, this is Joanna Brady. I’m so sorry about the misunderstanding-“
“There wasn’t any misunderstanding. The appointment was for seven o’clock, right here in my office. I couldn’t have been more specific about that.”
Joanna could tell from the reporter’s tone of voice that Butch was right. Karen Oldsby was pissed.
“As I told you in my message,” Joanna said, “something came up. There’s been another homicide and-“
“I didn’t get any message,” Karen interrupted.
“But I called and left one,” Joanna said. “I left it on voice mail.”
“Not here, you didn’t,” the reporter replied, sounding less than mollified. “Or if you did, it isn’t here now. Where did you leave it? Was it on this number or the one at home?”
Joanna had been carrying her purse with her the whole time she’d been at the scene.
Now, holding the tiny phone against her left shoulder, she struggled to reclaim her calendar from the depths of the bag. Once she’d dug it out, she had to walk all the way back to the Blazer and turn on the reading light before she could make out the numbers she had scribbled down next to Karen Oldsby’s name. She read them into the phone.
“That’s not my number,” Karen announced brusquely when she heard it. “You reversed two of the numbers.”
“I’m so sorry about this,” Joanna said. “Things have been 45
really hectic. I must have been suffering from momentary dyslexia and written them down wrong, but I have my calendar right here with me. If we could go ahead and reset-“
“I’ll let you know,” Karen Oldsby interrupted. “My week is pretty hectic, too. If it looks like I’ll have time to schedule another interview, Sheriff Brady, I’ll be in touch. But since we’ve already missed this week’s deadline, I don’t know when we’ll be able to squeeze you in.”
With that, Karen Oldsby hung up. Brimming with indignation, Joanna stuffed her calendar back into her purse. Then she walked far enough away to be out of Edith Mossman’s earshot before she redialed her home number.
“Oldsby just hung up on me,” Joanna told Butch when he answered. “I evidently wrote her number down wrong, so when I called and left my message, she didn’t get it. I tried to apologize, but the woman acted like I committed a federal offense.”
“Don’t worry about it, Joey,” he said. “She’ll get over it eventually, but tell me.
Who’s dead?”
“A woman named Carol Mossman. Her place is out here by the river, just off the Charleston Road. George is inside. The victim’s grandmother and I are waiting for him to bring the body out so she can make the formal ID. After that, I’ll need to drop her off at her assisted-living facility in Sierra Vista on my way home.”
“Can’t someone else drop her off?” Butch asked. “Think about it, Joey. It’s late.
You’ve already put in a full day at the office. When are you going to give yourself a break?”
“When Edith let her cab go, I told her I’d see to it that she got home,” Joanna told him. “And I will. It won’t take that long.”
“Suit yourself,” Butch said. “I’ll see you when you get here.” Then he, too, hung up.
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Exasperated by what felt distinctly like two separate dressing-downs, Joanna turned her phone’s ringer on “silent” and stuck it in her pocket. If anyone else called, she didn’t want to talk to them. They could damn well talk to her machine.
After all, Carol Mossman had been murdered. Finding her killer was far more important than chatting on a cell phone.
47
While Joanna had been juggling phone calls, Deputy Raymond had removed a gurney from the back of George Winfield’s van. Now, unfolded, it sat outside the front door of the mobile home waiting to be taken inside and loaded.
“They’ll be bringing the victim out soon and taking her over to the ME’s van,” Joanna told Edith Mossman. “Do you think you could walk that far, or should I have them bring her over here?”
“I may have to use a walker, but I’m not helpless,” Edith said. “I’m perfectly capable of walking from here to there.”
As Joanna and Edith started their slow progress toward George Winfield’s minivan, Deputy Raymond pushed the gurney into the house. By the time Joanna had guided Edith to the back of the van, Matt Raymond and Debra Howell had rolled the gurney back out through the front door and eased it down the wooden steps. They headed for the van with the medical
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examiner close on their heels. Once the gurney came to a stop, George Winfield stepped forward and held out his hand to Edith.
“I’m Dr. George Winfield,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“My name’s Edith,” she answered. “Edith Mossman. Carol’s my granddaughter.”
“If you don’t want to do this here …” he began. “No. There’s no sense in putting it off,” Edith replied. “I need to know for sure, and so do you.”
“Deputy Raymond,” George said, “would you please bring one of the trouble lights out here?”
Nodding, Matt Raymond hurried into the trailer. Back beside the gurney, he held the light aloft while George unzipped the body bag, immediately letting loose the foul stench of rapidly decomposing human flesh.
Joanna knew what to expect. She looked warily at Edith Mossman, worried that the awful odor, combined with seeing her granddaughter’s dead face, might cause the woman to faint again, but she didn’t. Leaning on her walker, Edith studied the face for a moment. Then she nodded.
“It’s her,” she said. “It’s Carol.” With that, she turned to Joanna. “If that’s all you need, Sheriff Brady, I’d like to go home now. There are people I’ll need to call.”
After helping Edith Mossman into the Blazer, Joanna hurried back to the mobile home.
Not wanting to have to go through the booties routine, she called Detective Carpenter over to the door and gave him a rundown of the information she had gleaned from talking to Edith.
“Did deputy Raymond tell you he found several pieces of .45-caliber brass in the backyard?”
“No,” Joanna said. “He didn’t tell me, but I’m glad to hear it.”
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“Me, too,” Ernie Carpenter said. “It’s a start, but he and Debbie Howell didn’t have time to do a complete foreign-object search. We’ll have to continue that tomorrow.”
Joanna nodded. “You’ll leave someone here to secure the scene when you go?”
“You can count on it,” Ernie said.
Joanna and Edith Mossman drove into Sierra Vista in virtually unbroken silence. The day’s trauma had exhausted the old woman’s energy, leaving her devoid of speech.
Twice Joanna glanced at her passenger, thinking she might be asleep, but Edith was wide awake, staring straight ahead into the beams of oncoming headlights.
By the time they arrived at the Ferndale Retirement Center, Lucky was eager to extricate himself from the confines of Joanna’s shirt. In his eagerness to escape, his tiny sharp claws left long trails of scratches in the skin of Joanna’s chest. After Edith had limped off down the open breezeway to her unit, Joanna took the puppy out, gave him a drink of water, and let him relieve himself once more. She was grateful that he made no effort to run away.