She looked a bit surprised when she realized a cop car with flashing lights and a blaring siren was aimed right at her, but instead of stopping or returning to the parking lot, she kept right on coming, motioning for us to move over and get out of her way. Somehow Joanna managed to do exactly that, tucking the Blazer into an almost nonexistent wide spot.
“For God’s sake!” I demanded. “Isn’t this a one-way street?”
“For everyone but the tourists!” Joanna muttered. The woman in the Pontiac edged past us, waving cheerfully and smiling as she went. “Lights and sirens must not mean the same thing in Nebraska.”
“Sheriff Brady,” the dispatcher called, interrupting Joanna in midgripe.
Not wanting her to take her eyes off the road, I picked up the mike. “Beaumont here. What is it?”
“City of Bisbee wants to know what’s going on, so I told them. They’re sending backup for you. And I have that address on Youngblood Hill for you now.”
Joanna Brady didn’t look as though she needed to be told where she was going, and right that minute I was too busy hanging on for dear life to take notes.
“As long as the Haz-Mat guys have it,” I said. “I think we’re fine.”
We came to a real wide spot in the road where several cars were parked at haphazard angles around the perimeter. Joanna threw the Blazer into “Park” and jammed on the emergency brake. She paused long enough to retrieve a pair of worn tennis shoes from the floor of the backseat. After changing shoes, she leaped out of the car and started down a winding street that was even steeper than the one we’d been on before. The posted sign here said “Youngblood Hill.” Glad to be ignorant of the street name’s origin, I tagged after her.
The pockmarked, broken pavement was scattered with loose gravel. The surface was an open invitation for broken legs. Or ankles. It was all I could do to keep from falling ass over teakettle.
Halfway down the hill was a blind curve. I expected Youngblood Hill to be a one-way street. No such luck. Rounding the curve, we came face-to-face with a city of Bisbee patrol car nosing its way uphill. About that time Joanna Brady turned left, darted under an archway, through a wrought-iron gate, and up an impossibly narrow concrete stairway. I went after her. Taking both age and altitude into consideration, I didn’t even try to keep up. The best I hoped for was not to die in the process.
Hearing footsteps behind me, I looked back. Right on my heels came a beefy young man in a blue uniform. The Bisbee City cop had left his idling patrol car sitting in the middle of the street and charged after us. He outweighed me by forty pounds, but by the time we reached a small terrace of a yard, he was only a step or two behind me. My chest was about to burst open. He hadn’t broken a sweat.
The new arrival was Officer Frank Rojas. I stood aside long enough to let him hurtle past me and catch up with Sheriff Brady. Since we were obviously inside city boundaries, I expected an immediate outbreak of jurisdictional warfare. I’ve seen it happen often enough. I know of numerous occasions in the Seattle area where bad guys have gotten away because cops from neighboring suburbs weren’t necessarily on speaking terms. In Bisbee, Arizona, that was evidently not the case.
“What do you need, Sheriff Brady?” Rojas asked.
“To secure the residence,” she gasped. That made me feel a little better. At least I wasn’t the only one having trouble breathing.
“Anyone inside?”
Joanna glanced at two men who stood together in the far corner of the tiny front yard – a rangy African-American in a T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes, and a white man in full Sunday go-to-meeting attire – gray suit, white shirt, and tie. His once highly polished shoes now sported a layer of red dust. I assumed the guy in the suit to be the attorney, Burton Kimball. That meant the other one was Bobo Jenkins, Latisha Wall’s boyfriend.
The man was big and tough, and I wondered how he felt about being called Bobo. Someone tried to pin that handle on me once when I was in fifth grade. I creamed the guy. I hoped Mr. Jenkins didn’t mind. Despite Archie’s description of Bobo as a sort of gentle giant, Mr. Jenkins looked as though he was more than capable of taking care of himself when it came to physical combat.
“No,” Joanna told Rojas. “As far as I know, no one’s inside.”
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Dangerous chemicals,” she answered. “We’ve called for the Haz-Mat team from Tucson. You take the back of the house, Frankie. Make sure no one enters. And whatever you do, don’t go near the dryer vent.”
Frank Rojas didn’t question her orders. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. Without another word, off he went.
Seventeen
ABOUT THEN THE MAN IN THE SUIT charged across the yard to meet us. From the irate expression on the attorney’s face I doubted Burton Kimball would be nearly as tractable as Officer Rojas had been.
“All right, Sheriff Brady,” Kimball snapped. “As you can see, we did what you said. We’re out of the house. Now how about telling us what this is about? If the white powder in the box isn’t a drug, what is it?”
Joanna took one more deep breath before she answered. “I’m guessing it’ll turn out to be sodium azide,” she answered. “It’s a deadly poison. We have reason to believe Latisha Wall died as a result of sodium azide poisoning.”
“Never heard of it,” Kimball grunted.
“Not many people have,” Joanna agreed.
“What is it?”
“It’s the propellant used to deploy air bags in vehicles,” she explained. “Sodium azide is more toxic than cyanide. It has no known antidote.”
Bobo Jenkins spoke for the first time. “Did you say Shelley was poisoned?” he croaked. “How’s that possible?”
“We believe the fatal dose was placed in something she drank,” Joanna answered. “Most likely in her iced tea.”
“But how…” Bobo began. Then his face changed as he put it together. “The sweetener packets!” he exclaimed.
Joanna gave him a searching look. Finally, she nodded.
As I said, Bobo Jenkins was a big man. His arms and legs bulged with muscles. As the awfulness of the situation sank in, his knees seemed to buckle. He staggered unsteadily over to the porch steps and dropped down onto the topmost one.
“But I’m the one who put the sweetener in her tea,” he blurted out. “Two packets. That’s what Shelley always took in her iced tea. Two packets. Never any more; never any less. Does that mean I’m the one who killed her?”
“Enough, Bobo,” Burton Kimball interjected. “Don’t say anything more. Not another word.”
If Kimball’s stunned client heard his attorney’s objection, he paid no attention.
“And that’s what you think is here in my house right now, in the box in my laundry room?” Jenkins continued. “You think it’s the same thing? The same poison?”
By then, Kimball was practically beside himself. “Mr. Jenkins, please. No more. Sheriff Brady, you haven’t informed my client of his rights. I must ask that you refrain from asking any more questions, the answers to which may be prejudicial…”
Ignoring the lawyer, Joanna sat down on the porch step next to Bobo Jenkins. “Tell me about today,” she said quietly.
“Today?” He gave her an anguished look, as though not quite comprehending the question.
“Tell me everything that happened,” she urged. “Everything that led up to your finding the box.”