Judgment Call

The news that Deb trusted the man enough to let Ben go ATVing with him alone struck Joanna as significant, but she didn’t make any comment to that effect.

“What’s going on?” Deb asked. “Larry said something about your finding a body.”

“I didn’t find it; Jenny did,” Joanna replied, “and it’s not just any body. It’s Debra Highsmith, the missing high school principal. Jenny found her near the third wash, which is about two miles north of your current location.”

“The high school principal?” Deb asked.

“That’s the one. So this will be a joint investigation,” Joanna explained. “Chief of Police Bernard is sending Matt Keller, his only detective. Due to budget cuts, the city had to lay off all their forensics folks. Fortunately, we’ve still got ours. So we’ll be handling all the crime scene and forensic lines of inquiry. And since you’re the first to arrive, you’ll be lead investigator.”

Deb was the greenest of Joanna’s three detectives. With a high-profile school principal involved, Debra Highsmith’s murder was bound to garner plenty of publicity. Someone else might have opted for a more senior investigator, but Joanna thought that leading the charge on this one might help give Deb some much-needed street cred. In order for Detective Howell to carry her weight inside the department, people on the outside needed to know that she was capable of doing the job. This case was her chance to prove it.

“The tow truck’s here,” Deb reported.

“Crap,” Joanna said. “I was hoping Casey Ledford would show up first. Ask the driver to hold off until Casey has a chance to dust the doors and door handles as well as the steering wheel, gearshift, and emergency-brake handle for prints.”

Deb was off the line for a moment. In the background Joanna could hear her negotiating with the tow truck driver. Eventually she came back on the phone.

“He’s not happy about it, but I told him this is a homicide investigation. He’ll wait. I didn’t exactly give him a choice.”

“Good,” Joanna said. As far as Sheriff Brady was concerned, in dealing with the tow truck driver, Detective Howell had just passed her first test in being lead investigator.

“While you’re waiting, you might have a look around the general area,” Joanna said.

“Isn’t this still a long way from the actual crime scene?”

“Yes, but it looked to me like whoever was driving the Passat spent some time and effort trying to get it out of the sand. While he was concentrating on that, he might have inadvertently dropped something that would help us identify him.”

“You believe the killer was leaving the scene when the car got hung up?”

“Yes,” Joanna replied.

“Where’d he go from here and how did he do it—on foot?”

Joanna didn’t bother pointing out Deb’s sexist assumption that the killer was male, because she shared the same opinion.

“Terry Gregovich and Spike are on their way,” Joanna said. “If he did walk away, I’m hoping Spike and Terry will be able to pick up the scent.”

“Your place is the closest one to where the car is,” Deb said. “Do you think he might have gone there?”

“I doubt it. At least I hope not,” Joanna said. “Still, you might have a uniformed deputy stop by Carol Sunderson’s place and ours and take a look around the outbuildings just in case he did head there and hunker down for the night.” The idea that an unsuspecting Jenny could have walked into the tack room that morning and come face-to-face with a killer was chilling.

“I’ll get right on it,” Deb said. “Casey just showed up. And the M.E. I need to go.”

“I’m almost there,” Joanna said. “I can see the tow truck.”

By the time she finished that last sentence, Detective Howell was long gone. Joanna trudged on. It was only a little past eight, but she felt as if she’d been up for hours. This was April, and the Arizona sun was giving a clear warning that summer was coming. She was hot, dusty, sweaty, and thirsty. She had a bottle of water in the back of her Yukon. Right at that moment, Joanna needed the water bottle in her hand, not in her vehicle.

She crossed the wash in time to hear Guy Machett berating Deb Howell.

“How long is this going to take? You mean we can’t even get near the body until she finishes taking fingerprints?”

“The body is a good two miles from here,” Deb responded. “If you want to walk that far, fine. Otherwise we’ll have to wait until Casey finishes lifting whatever prints she can find.”

“This is ridiculous,” Machett replied. “You can’t expect me to stand around here twiddling my thumbs and doing nothing for who knows how long. Where’s Sheriff Brady?”

“I’m right here, Dr. Machett,” Joanna said, slipping through the knot of investigators. “And Detective Howell is simply following my orders. We believe this vehicle was driven by the killer, and we need to make every effort to gather any available information before the vehicle is moved.”

“That could take hours.”

“No,” Joanna said. “Ms. Ledford won’t be dusting the entire vehicle. She’ll work on the parts that might be disturbed by the process of getting the Passat pulled out of the sand and loaded onto the tow truck. The remaining investigation will be conducted in the garage at the county’s impound facility.”

“It’s still damned inconvenient to expect me to show up and wait.”

Joanna felt like saying that he was getting paid for waiting, but she didn’t. There were too many people around. She didn’t want to provoke a firefight that might become fodder for public consumption. A year earlier, Joanna’s rivalry with the head of the county health department had made a splash in the local media. She didn’t need a similar situation between her department and the M.E.’s office showing up on the evening news.

“As Detective Howell told you, the body’s about two miles north of here,” she said. “I just walked it. If you want to go on ahead and start the process, we can bring your vehicle and equipment along once the road is clear.”

Given a choice between walking or waiting, Guy Machett didn’t take long to make up his mind. “I’ll wait,” he said. “Who is this person again?”

“I believe her name is Debra Highsmith. She’s the principal at the high school. The high school secretary reported her missing yesterday morning.”

“Married?”

“Not that I know of,” Joanna answered.

“I suppose I should call the school district office and try to get a handle on next of kin.”

Joanna was pretty sure Deb Howell had already made a call like that, but she let the M.E. make his own. Guy Machett was touchy enough under the best of circumstances. He would no doubt go ballistic if he thought someone was making investigative inroads inside the boundaries of what he considered his bureaucratic territory.

By the time the remaining members of Joanna’s team were assembled, Casey Ledford had finished lifting the prints that were in danger of being disturbed by the towing process. At the tow truck driver’s request, she shifted the Passat into neutral. There was no need to release the emergency brake. It hadn’t been set. Then they all stood and watched as the Passat was winched out of the wash and loaded onto a flatbed truck.

Once the roadway was cleared, however, the wash still wasn’t passable. Not wanting to risk having another vehicle stuck in the torn-up sand, Joanna had Dave Hollicker lay down two tracks of interlocking plastic pavers that created a solid enough surface across the churned sand that even the M.E.’s front-wheel-drive minivan could cross the wash with no difficulty. In the meantime, Terry Gregovich and his German shepherd, Spike, had been searching the surrounding area in ever-widening circles.

“Hey, boss,” Terry called. “Come look. I think we found something. I’ve got a set of footprints heading that way.”

Unfortunately, the direction in which he was pointing was also the same direction they had all come from—down High Lonesome Road and directly past the ranch.

Clearly reading the concerned expression on Joanna’s face, Deb offered welcome reassurance. “I’ve already got uniformed deputies on their way to check out all the outbuildings at your place and at Carol Sunderson’s.”

“Thank you.”

Joanna stared down at the faint remains of a shoe print left in a patch of dust along the shoulder of the road. “Good spotting,” she told Terry. “When Dave is done with the pavers, I’ll have him come check it out. This one doesn’t look well-enough defined for a plaster cast to work, but he can at least take some measurements.”

“You want us to try following the trail?” Terry asked.

“Please,” Joanna said. “If you come across any better prints, let Dave know so he can try to get plaster casts.”

As Joanna turned back north toward the wash and the collection of vehicles, she spotted a vulture drifting in ever narrowing circles on the air currents far above them. There was little question about the carrion eater’s target.