The man Kristin showed into Joanna’s office was tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome. In Bisbee, where most men didn’t bother with suits and ties, Jerry Reed was wearing a perfectly pressed double-breasted suit along with an immaculate white shirt and an understated red-and-blue tie.
“Pleased to meet you, Sheriff Brady,” he said, extending his hand. “My name is Jerry Reed. I’m a special investigator for the Attorney General’s office.”
“Which one?” Joanna asked.
He laughed. “The Attorney General,” he said, reaching into a pocket and extracting his ID. “The U.S. Attorney General.”
Joanna took the proffered leather wallet and examined the picture identification before handing it back to him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked.
Jerry Reed eased himself into one of Joanna’s captain’s chairs. “I’ll cut right to the chase, Sheriff Brady. I believe you have something that belongs to us—to our department, that is—and I’ve been sent to retrieve it.”
Jerry Reed’s tone of voice—his very attitude—put Joanna Brady on edge. She didn’t like the way he had walked into her private office and, without an appointment, had helped himself to a chair. Through the years Joanna had worked several joint operations with any number of exemplary federal and state officers. On occasion, though, she had come to loggerheads with a few individuals. Each time, the conflict had grown out of some visiting fireman’s patronizing and overbearing attitude toward Joanna and her department and out of Joanna’s greatly reduced ability to tolerate same.
“And what would that be?” she asked, leaning back in her own chair and wishing she were wearing something more businesslike and tidy than yesterday’s somewhat grubby clothing.
“Please don’t be coy, Sheriff Brady,” Jerry Reed said. “It doesn’t suit you. I’m talking about the diskette Sandra Ridder promised to give us. I understand from Catherine Yates that it has somehow come to be in your department’s possession. My department wants it back.”
“I’ve been given to believe the diskette contains top-secret military command and control information,” Joanna said. “What makes you think I’ll give it to you?”
Reed seemed stunned to hear that Joanna knew that much about the diskette’s top-secret contents. “How do you know what’s on the disk?” he growled.
“It doesn’t matter how I know,” Joanna returned smoothly. “The point is, I do. Currently, that disk is evidence in one of our ongoing homicide investigations, and I’m certainly not handing it over.”
Reed reached into another inside pocket and pulled out a document. “Before you paint yourself into a corner, Sheriff Brady, you may want to take a look at this. It’s a properly drafted subpoena, signed by a Federal judge, requiring you to produce the diskette and hand it over to me at once.”
He passed the subpoena across the table. Joanna examined it and handed it back. As far as she could tell, it seemed to be in order. “Are you the one that offered Sandra Ridder a ticket into the witness-protection program?” she asked.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“And wasn’t there supposed to be a cash bonus if Sandra Ridder turned the diskette over to you?”
“Really, Sheriff Brady. Our negotiations with Ms. Ridder were and are entirely confidential. They have nothing at all to do with the situation here.”
“That’s not true, Mr. Reed,” Joanna said. “Sandra Ridder is dead, but her daughter—her only heir, Lucy Ridder—is very much alive. If a cash bonus was due Sandra Ridder for turning this mysterious diskette over to you, then the money should be due her daughter as well.”
“Sheriff Brady,” he said, looking somewhat agitated that Joanna was unwilling to capitulate. “Sandra’s daughter isn’t handing it over to me. You are. And I didn’t come here to play “Let’s Make a Deal.” This is a serious matter, and I’m not leaving your office without taking that disk with me.”
Instinct told Joanna something was amiss, but she couldn’t tell what. “Very well,” she said. “Wait here, and I’ll go get it. Since it’s down in the evidence room, that may take some time. Please make yourself comfortable.”
Outside her private office, Joanna pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed 4-1-1.
“U.S. West,” a disembodied voice said. “How can I help you?”
“I want to be connected to the office of the Attorney General of the United States in Washington, D.C. My name is Sheriff Joanna Brady. Please tell whoever answers that this is extremely urgent—a matter of life and death.”
While Joanna waited impatiently for the connection to be made, she poked her head into Frank Montoya’s office and waved frantically for him to follow her. Then she hurried down the long hallway and out toward the public lobby, with her chief deputy padding along behind. She stopped at a locked supply-room door and opened it with her key.