Joanna nodded. “Full-immunity packages don’t get passed out by lower-echelon players. I’ll give Adam York a call over at DEA. He may have some idea as to where we should start looking. But here’s my real concern: Why didn’t Catherine Yates bother to tell us any of this earlier?”
“She was afraid to,” Jaime answered. “Sandra had sworn her to secrecy. She told her mother that the other people involved—the people she used to work with—would kill her in a minute if they knew she was spilling the beans. She said that’s what they did to Tom Ridder. He found one of the disks before she had a chance to deliver it. Ridder hid the diskette and threatened to blow the whistle on the entire Fort Huachuca operation. Whoever was running the show tried to get the diskette back, but Ridder wouldn’t tell where he’d hidden it. So they killed him, and convinced Sandra to take the fall for it. They told her that if she didn’t plead guilty to Tom’s death and keep the conspirators’ involvement out of it, they’d kill Lucy the same way they killed Tom Ridder.”
“And she believed them?” Joanna said.
“Evidently. If I’d been in her shoes, I think I would have, too.”
“You’re saying Sandra Ridder spent all those years in prison in order to protect her daughter—to save Lucy’s life?”
“That’s what Catherine Yates told me.”
“Assuming she’s telling the truth now, that is,” Joanna said. “At this point, I’m not sure I’d believe a word she says. What do you think, Ernie? Does any of this relate to what you told us about Sandra Ridder’s civil-service existence being erased from Fort Huachuca records?”
“Possibly,” Ernie Carpenter replied. “It could be part of a witness-protection protocol. I’m not entirely sure how that stuff works.”
“Another question for our source at Justice whenever we manage to find one,” Joanna said. “One other thing keeps bothering me. I know what our pet hacker said about even old encryption codes being valuable. Still, how valuable can they be? Three people are dead right now, and it could easily have been four.
“Melanie Goodson has to have been involved from the get-go. When Lucy placed those three rest-area calls that night, she thought she was calling people who would help her. And two out of the three—Sister Celeste and Jay Quick—did try to help. I’m guessing Melanie Goodson traced the call—possibly through caller ID—and then sent somebody out to the rest area looking for Lucy.”
Jaws dropped all around the conference table. “Are you saying somebody came to Texas Canyon looking for Lucy?” Frank Montoya demanded.
“That’s exactly what I said. And you’ll never guess who it was, folks—the same guy who shot Sandra Ridder the night before. He came there and spent the afternoon hanging around the phone booth. And Sunday morning he came looking for her again. If it hadn’t been for Lucy’s pet hawk calling out a timely warning, we’d have another victim on our hands. I figure there’s only one way an eight-year-old computer disk can still be worth the price of four separate lives. Whatever was happening back then must still be going on.”
“Wait a minute,” Ernie said. “That would mean whoever pulled Sandra Ridder’s records might have had nothing at all to do with the Justice Department and everything to do with keeping suspicion from falling on him.”
“Exactly,” Joanna said. “And someone with that kind of time-in-place shouldn’t be all that difficult to find. My brother, Bob Brundage, has spent the last six years of his life working in the Pentagon. He’s out at the house today cleaning up the mess, but he might be able to point us in some likely directions. One of you might give him a call, or I’ll talk to him when I go out there at lunchtime and see if he has any ideas.”
“What about Sheriff Forsythe?” Frank Montoya asked. “Has he heard any of this?”
“How could he when we’re all hearing it for the first time? We’ll take this morning to track down the leads we have now. Once we do that, interview Lucy Ridder, and have the composite drawing in hand, I’ll call Sheriff Forsythe personally. In the meantime, I don’t see any need to rush. After all, he wasn’t in any hurry to help us. Anything else?”
“Yes,” Ernie Carpenter said. “I want to know about your dogs. How are they?”
Joanna took a deep breath. “I talked to Dr. Ross first thing this morning. When Reba Singleton checked into the Copper Queen Hospital for observation before transport to Tucson, she had a whole collection of pharmaceuticals and designer drugs in her purse—antidepressants, sleeping pills, muscle relaxants, whatever. She told us she slipped the dogs a double dose of her Valium. It knocked them out for the better part of twenty-four hours, but it’s not fatal, and there shouldn’t be any long-term damage. Now that they’ve slept it off, they’re on their feet and ready to come home.”
“That’s a relief,” Ernie said. “And how are you?”