In the desert, a circling buzzard carries its own ominous message of death and dying. Sighting in on the bottom of the bird’s lazy circle, Joanna found herself staring at a small concrete complex carrying an identifying sign that said, TOMBSTONE MUNICIPAL SWIMMING POOL. Joanna made her way toward the pool, suspecting in advance what she might find there.
The fully clothed body of a man lay sprawled face-down on the bottom of the deep end of an empty swimming pool. There was no question about whether or not he was dead. Joanna could tell from the rag-doll way his head canted off to one side that his neck had been broken.
“Ernie,” Joanna yelled over her shoulder. “Come here. Quick!”
Moments later, the detective came huffing down the hill. “What is it?” he demanded as he caught up with her. “What’s going on?”
“Call Dispatch and cancel Search and Rescue. I’m pretty sure we’ve found Clete Rogers.”
For Joanna, the next part of the scenario was achingly familiar. George Winfield had to be summoned. The crime scene investigation team had to be called out once more. As curious onlookers gathered around and as the screen of crime scene tape went up, Joanna sat in her Blazer and waited for the wheels of bureaucracy to grind. Watching all the activity, she felt terribly sad.
Alice Rogers was dead and now so was her son. What does it take, Joanna wondered, for a son to kill his mother? How much money could stimulate that much greed? And after the deed was done, how much regret would cause a remorseful killer to take his ownlife?
Silting in the Blazer, Joanna realized that answers to some of those questions were well within her reach. All she had to do was talk to Dena Hogan, the attorney who had handled the writing of Alice Rogers’ will. Dena Hogan most likely would know the general amounts of money and other assets that were part of Alice Rogers’ estate. Glancing at her watch, Joanna saw there was still plenty of time to make it to Sierra Vista for her tentative appointment with Dena Hogan.
Joanna’s purpose in making the appointment had been to discuss the Mark Childers’ case-to see if any of the financial records subpoenaed in Monica Foster’s divorce case would shed light on what had happened at Oak Vista Estates. But since Dena Hogan was connected to both investigations, one excuse for seeing her was as good as another. Besides, with the two homicide detectives already at the scene of Clete Rogers’ apparent suicide, there was no need for Joanna to hang around.
“I’m leaving,” Joanna told Ernie Carpenter. “I’m going to go out to Sierra Vista and see Dena Hogan. While I’m at it, I may even pay a call on Karen Brainard.”
“Do you want some backup on that?”
Joanna thought about it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “For right now, I think what I have to say to Karen Brainard is best said in private.”
Ernie looked at her and shook his head. “You go on ahead,” he said, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
By two o’clock Joanna was out of her tennies, back in her heels, and standing in front of the receptionist’s desk in Dena Hogan’s office on Fry Boulevard in Sierra Vista. The receptionist was young and vague.
“She’s not in,” Joanna was told when she announced her name.
“Not in,” Joanna echoed. “I called this morning. I made an appointment.”
“Ms. Hogan went home sick at lunchtime. She said she may not be back before Monday,” the receptionist added. “I probably should have tried to call, but I didn’t know where to reach you.”
“You might have tried the sheriff’s department,” Joanna said icily. “I did give my name as Sheriff Joanna Brady. That’s usually where sheriffs hang out.”
Steamed, Joanna made her way out of Dena Hogan’s office. Standing in the cold but sunny November afternoon, she decided to disregard Ernie’s advice and go see Karen Brainard after all. If nothing else, the drive from Sierra Vista to Huachuca City would give Joanna a chance to cool off.
It turned out that Karen Brainard didn’t live in Huachuca City proper. The Brainard place was on Sands Ranch Road in the foothills of the Whetstones. Her house was a sprawling adobe affair-new construction with carefully contrived landscaping that made it look far older and more well-established than it was. A FOR SALE sign sat next to the mailbox.
The silver-haired woman who answered the door resembled Karen Brainard. “I’m Sheriff Brady,” Joanna said. “I’m looking for Karen.”
“She isn’t here right now,” the woman said uneasily. “I don’t know when she’ll be back.”
The wary way the woman responded put Joanna on guard. “And you are?” she asked.
“I’m Maureen,” the woman said. “Maureen Edgeworth. Karen’s mother.” She opened the door wider. “Won’t you come in?”
Stepping inside, Joanna was surprised to see that the house was almost entirely devoid of furniture. All that was left in the living room was a single end table with a lamp. “There are chairs in the kitchen,” Maureen explained. “If you don’t mind sitting there.”
Following Maureen Edgeworth through the house, Joanna could see shadows on the walls where paintings had once hung. It looked as though someone was in the process of moving out. The kitchen, too, was missing artwork, although a table and chairs remained. Maureen Edgeworth motioned Joanna into one of those.
“You say you don’t know when your daughter will return? You are aware that with the ongoing investigations into Lewis Flores’ and Mark Childers’ deaths, your daughter was told not to leave town.”
“But she had to,” Maureen Edgeworth replied. “She didn’t have a choice.”
“Where is she?”
Maureen Edgeworth bit her lip. “I don’t want to tell you,” she said. “She hasn’t gone far, and she will be back eventually. I promise. Her father and I are taking care of Derek and the house in the meantime.”
“Who’s Derek?” Joanna asked.
“Karen’s son. Our grandson,” Maureen said. “He’s only sixteen, you see. This has all been awful for him. It was all I could do to get him to go to school today. He didn’t want to, and I don’t blame him. He’s embarrassed. I feel the same way when I have to go to the grocery store. I don’t know what I’ll do when Sunday comes around and I have to go to church. That’s the most difficult thing-seeing people you know and knowing they know. It’s so hard-so very, very hard.”
“Where is your daughter?” Joanna persisted.
“In Tucson.”
“Where in Tucson?”
“Ed drove her there. Ed’s my husband-Karen’s father. He’s checking her into a treatment center-a drug treatment center. We knew some of this when Paul left. Paul’s our son-in-law, you see. When he moved out, he tried to tell us what was going on-that Karen was mixed up in some pretty wild stuff. But Ed and I didn’t want to believe it. Not Karen. Not our own daughter.
“But when she called last night and told us what had happened and that she’d had to resign from the board of supervisors, there wasn’t any choice. We had to believe her then. And Ed did the only thing that made sense. He made arrangements to check her into the center first thing this morning. She’ll be there for six weeks. We’ve talked to Paul-we’re on very good terms with him, you see-but he’s doing a consulting job and is out of the country for the next three weeks at least. Ed and I assured Paul that we’ll look after Derek at least until he gets back.”
Maureen Edgeworth stopped speaking and seemed to become aware that her hospitality was somehow lacking. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you,” Joanna told her. “I just had lunch.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll fix some for myself.”
As Maureen moved around the kitchen, Joanna wrestled with her conscience. The poor woman was clearly devastated by what was going on with her daughter. She needed someone to talk to right then, and Sheriff Joanna Brady was the only person who happened to be there.