“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. Hogan. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Rex Hogan’s face crumpled. “Not Dena. There’s been some kind of an accident, hasn’t there! Please, God, don’t tell me something’s happened to Dena. I couldn’t stand it. She’s not hurt, is she? Not dead?”
“Your wife’s not dead,” Joanna said quietly. “She’s under arrest.”
“Arrest? Did you say under arrest? For what? You can’t be serious. This has to be some kind of joke.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Hogan, it’s no joke. Your wife is under arrest on suspicion of murder-for the murder of a woman named Alice Rogers. There may be other charges as well, but for right now, that’s how things stand. She’s waived the right to an attorney and insists she wants to represent herself.”
Rex Hogan staggered backward and rested against the fender of Joanna’s Blazer. For the space of almost a minute he seemed to be hyperventilating, and Joanna was afraid an ambulance would have to be summoned to care for him next. Eventually, though, he settled. “This can’t be,” he gasped when he was finally able to speak. “It’s utterly impossible. Preposterous. Where is she? Let me talk to her.”
“She’s in that car over there, Mr. Hogan. If you want to, I suppose you could exchange a word or two, but once we take her away, you won’t be able to talk to her again until after she’s been questioned and booked into the Cochise County Jail. At that point, you’ll be able to speak with the jail commander and make arrangements for visitation.”
Taking Rex by the arm, Joanna led him to Frank’s Crown Victoria. Frank unlocked the front door and got inside. By then Joanna and Rex were close enough to the vehicle that they could see Dena Hogan through the Civvy’s tinted glass windows. Frank said something to the woman and was answered with a decisive shake of the head. Frank spoke again and was answered with another head shake. Finally, the chief deputy stepped back out into the street.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hogan,” he said. “Your wife refuses to speak to you.”
Rex walked up to the car, bent down, and put his face directly in front of the window. “Please,” he mouthed. His plea was answered by another adamantly negative response.
“Why?” Rex asked. He turned back to Joanna. His face screwed up and his eyes threatened to fill with tears. “What have I done? Why’s she so mad at me?”
“I don’t think she’s mad at you,” Joanna said softly. “I think she’s mad at herself.”
“But I don’t understand,” Rex Hogan said. “I don’t understand at all. You said Dena murdered someone-someone I’ve never even heard of. How can that be? Won’t someone please tell me what’s going on?”
Joanna looked at the broken hulk that was Rex Hogan and felt her heart swell with pity. If his and Dena’s marriage had been as loveless as Ross Jenkins had claimed, it had been a very one-sided lovelessness. Rex Hogan obviously adored his wife, but Joanna suspected that there was a lot he didn’t know about Dena. Joanna had done her official duty in telling Rex what legal charges were pending against his wife. She refused to tell him the rest of it. If the poor man knew nothing of his wife’s liaison with Ross Jenkins, he wasn’t going to learn about it from Joanna Brady. Dena Hogan was going to have to do that much of her own dirty work.
“You’ll have to ask your wife,” Joanna said quietly. “Maybe she can explain what’s happened to you. Now is there anyone who can come be here with you tonight, Mr. Hogan? You probably shouldn’t be here alone.”
“I can call my daughter, I suppose,” he said. “She’s married and lives up in Tucson, but I’m sure she’ll come down.”
“I hope so, Mr. Hogan. Come on, Frank,” Joanna added. “We need to get going.”
She didn’t mention that one of the reasons she needed to leave right then was that she couldn’t bear being around Rex Hogan’s pain for even a moment longer. Gratefully Joanna observed that Frank and Deputy Lance Pakin had finished fixing her flat tire and had duct-taped a piece of clear plastic sheeting over the bullet hole and the accompanying cobweb of cracks that crisscrossed the rider’s side of the Blazer’s windshield. Joanna climbed into the truck and shifted it into gear. She was barely back on Highway 92 when her cell phone rang.
“What is it now?” she asked wearily, expecting the caller to be Tica Romero.
“It’s me,” Butch said. “I came by your office a few minutes ago and found out all hell has broken loose. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I’m not so sure I’m proud to be a member of the human race at this point, but I am alive.”
“And lucky to be so, from what I’ve heard,” Butch said grimly.
“Yes,” Joanna agreed. “Very lucky. But the good news is, we’ve caught ourselves two killers.”
“I don’t believe there was any we involved,” Butch said. “People tell me you took it all on yourself-single-handed. Are you-”
“Butch, please. I did the best I could, and I kept two murderers from getting away. I’m not hurt, although I must say my clothes have seen better days. So let’s not fight. Let’s just be grateful that we’re both alive. Is that why you called me? To chew me out? Or to tell me that you love me?”
“Well, not exactly. I do love you, of course, but that’s not why I called.”
“Why did you then?”
“Ellen Dowdle,” Butch replied.
“Who?”
“Dowdle,” Butch said, then he spelled out the name. “D-O-W-D-L-E.”
“Who’s that?” Joanna asked.
“Junior’s mother,” Butch said. “She lives in a nursing home in Rapid City, South Dakota.”
“So Frank found her!” Joanna exclaimed. “We’ve both been so busy with this other deal that we haven’t had a moment to talk about it.”
“Frank, nothing,” Butch said irritably. “He may have called a few law enforcement agencies looking for a missing person, but no one back there knew Junior was missing because no one had bothered to report it. I’m the one who found her, and I demand full credit.”
“You did?” Joanna asked in amazement. “That’s wonderful. How did you do it?”
“I called the Special Olympics headquarters in Yankton. They keep track of special athletes by both first and last names. Once I got hooked up to their database, I had what I needed in less than sixty seconds.”
“But how did you even know to look there? Did Junior tell you about Special Olympics?”
“Well,” Butch said reluctantly, “I suppose I have to give some credit where it’s due. Jim Bob and Jenny came by this morning to give me a break and take Junior off my hands for a little while-which I appreciated, by the way. Anyway, Jim Bob asked if I had any other picture books they could take along, since Junior clearly got such a hoot out of that copy of America the Beautiful. All I had to offer were some old photo albums. I didn’t think anything of it, but it turns out there were some pictures of me in there with some of the Roundhouse’s Special Olympics teams from over the years. And once again, as soon as Junior saw something he recognized, he went ballistic. When that happened, Jim Bob called me, and the rest you know.”
“So have you talked to her?” Joanna asked. “Or has Junior? How soon can we make arrangements for him to go back there?”
“We can’t,” Butch said.
“What do you mean, we can’t? Maybe Junior isn’t capable of flying home by himself, but one of us could travel with him.”
“He doesn’t have a home,” Butch said.
“How can that be? You just said-”