“Dave Thompson left Chandler because, as a danger to women, he was an embarrassment to his chain of command. He could not have gone from disgrace there to directing the APOA program without the full knowledge and complicity of his former superiors,” Daviddottir said.
With Thompson now dead, Daviddottir said, her organization is considering filing suit to see to it that those people, whoever they are, should be held accountable for injuries Leann Jessup suffered in the incident with Thompson.
Lorelie Jessup, mother of the injured woman, ex-pressed dismay that her daughter, a lesbian, had been singled out for attack due to her sexual persuasion. “That won’t stop her,” Mrs. Jessup said. “It might slow her down for a little while, but all Leann ever wanted was to be a police officer. She won’t give up.”
“How do we look?” Jenny asked, as she and Ceci paraded out of the bathroom in their suits. “You look fine.”
“Grandpa said for us to call when we were ready. He says he’ll watch us.”
“Good. Go ahead then.”
As soon as the girls left the room, Joanna returned to the newspaper. Or at least she intended to, but her eyes stopped on two words in the article’s third paragraph: “partially clad.” Carol Strong had said that, except for the pair of pantyhose that had been used to bind her hands and feet, Leann Jessup had been nude. Since when did hand and foot restraints qualify as being partially clad? But the words sounded familiar—strangely familiar and that bothered her.
Putting down the newspaper, Joanna picked the television remote control off the coffee table where Jenny had left it and switched on the VCR. Joanna wasn’t nearly as handy with the remote as her daughter was, but after a few minutes of fumbling and running the tape back and forth, she managed to turn the VCR to the very beginning of the taped newscast.
Once again the anchor was saying, “. . . longtime’ ASU economics professor Dean R. Norton was arraigned this afternoon, charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of his estranged wife, Rhonda Weaver Norton. Her partially clad body was found near a power-line construction project southwest of Carefree late last week.”
Thoughtfully, Joanna switched off the tape and rewound it. Then, for several long seconds, she sat staring at the screen with the fuzzy figure of the news anchor poised once more to begin the ten o’clock news broadcast. Even though she no longer had Juanita Grijalva’s envelope of clippings, Joanna had studied the articles so thoroughly that she had nearly committed them to memory.
She was almost positive one of the early articles dealing with finding Serena Grijalva’s body had made reference to her being “partially clad.” Of Purse, in that case, that particular media euphemism had spared Serena’s children from having to endure embarrassing publicity about their dead mother’s nakedness. And the words used no doubt reflected the information disseminated to reporters on that case since, according to Detective Strong, the exact condition of the body—including the pantyhose restraints—had been one of her official holdbacks.
Once again Joanna switched on the tape. The anchor smiled and came back to life. “... Rhonda Weaver Norton. Her partially clad body was found near a power-line construction project southwest of Carefree late last week.”
Joanna turned off the machine. What did the words partially clad mean when they were applied to Rhonda Weaver? Was it possible they meant the same thing? If Carol Strong had resisted embarrassing two orphaned Hispanic children, what was the likelihood that another investigator might do the same thing in order to spare a grieving mother who was also a well-known, nationally acclaimed artist?
It was only a vague hunch. Certainly there was nothing definitive enough about the niggling question in Joanna’s head to justify dragging Carol Strong into the discussion. At this point, the possible connection between this new case and the others was dubious at best. But if Joanna could coin up with a solid link between them .. .
Purposefully, Joanna hurried across the room and retrieved the telephone book from the nightstand drawer. Her experience at the jail on Monday, where she had fought her way up through the chain of command, had convinced her there was no point in starting at the bottom. She called the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department and asked to speak with the sheriff himself.
“Sheriff Austin is on the other line,” the receptionist said. “Can I take a message?”
“This is Sheriff Joanna Brady,” Joanna answered “From Cochise County. If you don’t mind, I’ll hold.”
Wilbur Austin came on the line a few moments later. “Well, hello, Sheriff Brady. Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, but I’m sure we’ll run into one another at the association meeting in Lake Havasu in February. I hear you’ve been having all kinds of problems with this session at the APOA. Someone mentioned it today at lunch. I just heard about it’ this afternoon. It’s a damn shame, too. Dave Thompson was a helluva nice guy once upon a time. Went a little haywire, I guess, from the sound of things.”
A little haywire? Joanna thought. I’ll say! But she made no verbal comment. Wilbur Austin’s stream-of-consciousness talk button required very little input from anyone else.
“I heard, too, that you visited my jail here the other night. Hope my people gave you whatever assistance you needed. Always glad to oblige a fellow officer of the law. Had a few dealings with poor old Walter McFadden from time to time.... “
Austin’s voice trailed off into nothing. Joanna waited, letting the awkward silence linger for some time without making any effort to fill it. Her father had taught her that trick.
“If you run into a nonstop talker and you need something from that person,” Big Hank Lathrop had advised her once, “just let ‘em go ahead and talk until they run out of steam. People like that gab away all the time because they’re afraid of the silence that happens if they ever shut the hell up. If you’re quiet long enough before you ask somebody like that for something, they’ll break their damn necks saying yes.”
The heavy silence in the telephone receiver settled in until it was almost thick enough to slice. “What can I do for you, Sheriff Brady?” Wilbur Austin asked finally.
“I’d like to speak to the lead investigator on the Rhonda Weaver Norton homicide,” Joanna said.
It worked just the way Big Hank had told his daughter it would, although Austin was cagey. “This wouldn’t happen to have any connection with your visit to my jail the other night, would it?” he asked.
“It’s too soon to tell,” Joanna admitted. “But it might.”
“Well, that’ll be Detective Sutton,” Wilbur Austin said. “Neil Sutton. Hang on for a minute, I’ll give you his direct number.”
“Thanks,” Joanna said.
Moments later, after she dialed the other number, Detective Sutton came on the line.
“Neil Sutton here,” he said.
“This is Joanna Brady,” she returned. “I’m the new sheriff down in Cochise County. Sheriff Austin told me to give you a call.”
“Oh, yeah,” Neil Sutton said. “Now that you mention it, I guess I have heard your name. Or maybe I’ve read it in the newspaper. What can I do for you, Sheriff Brady?”
“I need some information on the Rhonda Weaver Norton murder.”
“You might try reading the papers,” he suggested, attempting to ditch her in the time-honored fashion of homicide cops everywhere. Longtime detectives usually have a very low regard for meddlesome outsiders who show up asking too many questions about a current pet case.