“What does that mean?”
Carol shook her head. “If Dave Thompson is the one who did it, what happened to Leann Jessup is my fault.”
“How can that be?”
“Thompson was one of the people at the Roundhouse the night Serena Grijalva was murdered.”
“He was?”
Carol nodded. “His name turned up when we questioned the bartender there. I don’t know Thompson personally. When I transferred back here from California, I did my probation duty, and that was it. I didn’t have to sit through any classes. But half the Peoria force came through Dave Thompson’s program at the APOA. When his name turned up, I didn’t see any connection or any reason to consider him a suspect. Now I can see that I should have. It looks as though Dave Thompson is a very troubled and dangerous man. How did he strike you?”
“As an unreconstituted male chauvinist pig,” Joanna replied. “Leann and I were the only women in the class. He didn’t like having us there, and he made sure we knew it.”
“You mean he was hostile? He picked on you?”
“That’s how it seemed.”
“Did he focus on Leann in particular?”
Joanna thought about that for a moment; then she shook her head. “No. It felt to me as though he was on my case far more than he was on hers, but that could have been an erroneous perception on my part. Leann was a lot more scared of him than I was. If she failed the course, her job was on the line. I’m an elected official. If I flunk, it might make for bad PR, but passing or failing the APOA class doesn’t make that much difference to me.”
“Did he make any off-color suggestions to either one of you?”
“As in sex for grades? No, none of that. Certainly not to me. If he made that kind of an offer to Leann, she never mentioned it to me.”
“Did he threaten either one of you in any way?”
“No, but I know Leann was worried about keeping up. After we attended the vigil on Tuesday, she was worried about falling behind in her reading. That was one of the reasons she didn’t come along to the hotel on Wednesday afternoon.”
“Vigil?” Carol Strong asked. “What vigil?”
“The sponsored by MAVEN down by the capitol. The one for the domestic violence victims. I went because of Serena Grijalva.”
“And Leann went along with you?”
“Not exactly. We went together. She had her own reasons for going. She was the officer who took the missing persons report on the ASU professor’s wife—ex-wife. I can’t remember her name, but they found her body up by Carefree on Monday.”
Carol Strong nodded. “I know which one you mean.”
“It hit Leann hard for some reason. Maybe it was too close to what happened to her own mother. Evidently, there was some problem with domestic violence in Leann’s family as well. Anyway, we went, and then we both ended up on TV. A female reporter was there. She spotted me and did an on‑the-spot interview. When the reporter discovered Leann was a cop, too, she interviewed her as well. Leann’s mother taped the news broadcast. I have a copy if you’d like to see it.”
“Eventually,” Carol said.
The question-and-answer process continued for some time after that. Finally, Carol Strong sighed and looked at her watch.
“No wonder I’m tired. It’s eleven o’clock—six hours after my usual bedtime, and I’m due in at six tonight. Will you be at the Hohokam all weekend if I need to get back to you?”
“Until Sunday.”
“I’ll call you there if I need to ask you anything else. Do you mind if I make a copy of what Butch Dixon wrote for you? It’s not that different from what he told me to begin with, but considering what’s happened, I’d better take a look at everything related to Serena Grijalva’s case and try to see what, if anything, I missed the first time through.”
“Go ahead. I’ll go disconnect Jenny from the VCR.”
Joanna had lost all track of time and was surprised by how much time had passed. When she went into the training room, she was surprised to hear her own voice coming from the VCR. Jenny was watching the tape.
“I just saw Ceci on TV,” Jenny said. “She looked real sad.”
“She was sad, but why are you watching that? I thought you were going to watch E.T.”
“I did. It’s over already. You were gone a long time.”
“I’m sorry, but we’re done now. Come on.”
Jenny expertly ejected the tape from the machine and put it back into the box. “Do you think Ceci got to see herself?”
“I don’t know,” Joanna answered. “You can ask her tomorrow. If not, maybe you can show her the tape.”
Carol Strong met them in the hallway, handed Joanna back her papers, and then showed them out of the building. “That lady isn’t very big to be a detective, is she?” Jenny asked. “With her shoes off, she’s not much bigger than me.”
“Than I,” Joanna corrected. “Am tall is understood. You wouldn’t say me am tall. But detectives use their brains a whole lot more than their muscles.”
“Well, she seems nice,” Jenny said, as they walked down the sidewalk toward the Blazer.
“She does to me, too,” Joanna replied.
But if Jorge Grijalva was innocent of killing Serena, Joanna could see why, tiny or not, he might think of Detective Carol Strong as a witch.
As they left the city parking lot, something was bothering Joanna. She couldn’t remember seeing Leann Jessup’s Ford Fiesta in the parking lot. It was possible that it had been there, parked invisibly among the collection of police vehicles. Just to make sure, Joanna took a detour past the APOA campus. Except for a single patrol car stationed near the gate, the parking lot was completely deserted. Joanna got out of her car long enough to speak to the uniformed officer.
“I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady,” Joanna introduced herself, flipping out both her badge and I.D. “I’m working with Detective Strong on this case. Can you me if there was a bright red Ford Fiesta here this morning when officers first arrived? I’m wondering if it’s missing or if maybe someone ordered it impounded.”
The patrol officer spent several minutes checking back and forth by radio before he finally came up negative.
“You might have Detective Strong add that to her APB on Dave Thompson. The vehicle is probable registered in Leann Jessup’s name. If he’s missing and the car is, too, chances are pretty good that they’ll turn up together.”
Again the officer returned to his radio. “Dispatch says Detective Strong’s gone home to get some sleep. Do you want them to wake her up to give her the message, or should they let her sleep?
“Tell them they can give it to her after she wakes up.”
Joanna returned to her Blazer. “What are we going to do now?” Jenny asked. “I still haven’t been swimming.”
“We have one more stop,” Joanna said. “I want to drop by the hospital just long enough say hello and to find out how Leann is.”
“Do we have to?” Jenny whined.
“Yes,” Joanna answered.
Something in her mother’s voice warned Jenny not to argue. The child sat back in the passenger seat and crossed her arms. “All right,” she said grudgingly. “But I hope it doesn’t take too long.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Shadowed by Jenny, Joanna wandered around the corridors of St. Joseph’s Hospital for some time before she finally located the proper waiting room. There were only two other people in the room when they entered. A woman sat on a couch, weeping quietly into a hanky. A grim-faced man in his late twenties stood nearby. Both people looked up anxiously when the door opened. Seeing a woman and a child, they both looked away