“What’s up?” Frank demanded, following her into the supply room. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a man in my office who says his name is Jerry Reed. He claims he’s a special investigator for the U.S. Attorney General. He comes to us armed with a subpoena and demanding that we hand over Sandra Ridder’s diskette.”
With that, Joanna passed Frank the phone. “I’ve placed a call to the Attorney General’s office in D.C. You talk to whoever answers, and don’t put down the phone until you find out whether or not Special Agent Jerry Reed is legitimate.”
“What are you going to do in the meantime?”
“Give him the disk.” Joanna reached up to a top shelf and pulled down a single computer disk—a blue one—from a box of blanks.
Frank’s eyes widened. “You’re going to give him a phony?”
Joanna nodded. “Why not? What’s he going to do, pop it into my computer to check it out before he ever leaves my office? If it turns out Reed is for real, we’ll tell him I made a mistake, and that our evidence clerk gave me the wrong disk. If he isn’t—”
“Hello,” Frank was saying into the phone. “No, this isn’t Sheriff Brady. I’m her chief deputy, Frank Montoya. We have a serious incident unfolding here that may involve one of your investigators. I probably need to speak to someone in Operations.”
Leaving Frank to sort through the layers of Federal officialdom, Joanna started back toward her office. Outside the door, Kristin flagged Joanna down and handed over the receiver from Kristin’s desk phone. “I know you’re in a hurry, but I think you’re going to want to take this.”
“Hello.”
“Sheriff Brady,” Larry Kendrick said. “Deputy Pakin just arrived at the Yates’ place out in the Dragoons. He says Deputy Galloway’s patrol car is there, but he’s not. Neither is Catherine Yates, although her vehicle is there as well. He says her house looks as though it’s been ransacked, and there are signs of a struggle.”
Like a zoom photo lens shifting into focus, Joanna suddenly felt as though she knew what was going on. “Listen, Larry,” she said urgently. “Call down to Motor Pool. Tell Danny Garner someone’s going to be leaving the department in the next few minutes. I have no idea what kind of a vehicle he’s driving, but before he goes, I want at least one and preferably two sets of spike strips laid down across the entrance to the Justice Complex. If I’m wrong about this and we’ve got the wrong guy, we’ll owe the Feds a new set of tires. If I’m right, we may save several lives.”
“How do we know the guy you want is the only one who’ll run over the strips?”
“We don’t,” Joanna replied. “Depending on how long he takes to leave, we may be buying a whole bunch of people new sets of tires. Just do it.”
Glancing down at the diskette in her hand, Joanna realized something was missing. Returning to her office with a naked computer disk and trying to pass that off as the real one wasn’t going to cut it. She hurried across to the conference-room door, poked her head into the room, and motioned Ernie Carpenter away from the interview.
“What the hell do you want?” the detective demanded irritably once he was outside and had shut the door. “Sheriff Brady, you know better than to interrupt—”
“Shut up and give me an evidence bag,” Joanna said. “And a label, too. Date it yesterday, and sign Frank’s name to it.”
“Me sign Frank’s name? Are you crazy?”
“Hurry, Ernie. There’s not much time. A man’s going to be leaving my office any minute. I want you and Jaime Carbajal out in the parking lot in a car and ready to follow him. Whatever you do, don’t drive out the front entrance. Danny Garner is laying down two sets of tire spikes. When the guy gets out of his vehicle, nab him.”
“On what charges?”
“How about impersonating an officer, for openers?”
“Wait a minute. Are you saying Jaime and I are supposed to quit right in the middle of the interview and go chase after this other guy?” Ernie asked. “Who the hell is he?”
“It’s possible he may be a Federal agent,” Joanna said. “But I don’t think so. Now please, Ernie, just do as I say.”
Exasperated and shaking his head in disapproval, Ernie Carpenter handed over the doctored evidence bag and then headed back into the conference room for Jaime. Joanna dropped the disk into the bag and then hurried back to her office. Inside, after closing the door behind her, she found Jerry Reed standing next to the window studying the birds milling around the outdoor feeder that had been a gift from Angie Kellogg.
“It took you long enough,” Reed said testily.