“Who is it?”
“We have no idea at the moment. The man who found her was walking by and happened to see her lying in a ditch. He doesn’t look or sound like a suspect. In fact, if it wasn’t for him, she probably would be dead by now.”
Jenny emerged from the barn leading her sorrel gelding. She led Kiddo over to where Butch stood holding the new saddle blanket at the ready. Joanna turned away from them and walked several steps toward the house as she spoke into the phone.
“Where and when did this happen?”
“Near the entrance to Cochise Stronghold,” Frank Montoya replied. “Not inside the monument itself, but between there and Pearce.”
Cochise Stronghold, in the Dragoon Mountains, was an easily defended cliff-bound hideaway where the Apache chieftain Cochise had often retreated with his wandering band of followers. It was now a national monument. In the winter these days Cochise Stronghold was stocked with a new population of wanderers—an ever-changing assortment of RV-driving retirees. In the summer the demographics changed as retirees were replaced by campers with school-aged children who pulled into the camping area and stayed as long as the law allowed.
“Since I was already in the neighborhood assisting a deputy on a runaway call,” Frank continued, “it only took a matter of minutes for Lance Pakin and me to get here as well. In fact, we got to the scene before the EMTs did. Lance and I applied as much first aid as we could, but I’m afraid the EMTs are right in saying that the victim isn’t going to make it.”
“What happened to her?”
“It looks as though she was shot in the lower back. She was hit once at least and maybe more. She appears to have lost a good deal of blood and was hanging by a thread as they loaded her into the Med-evac helicopter.”
Joanna sighed as she lost all hope of being able to stay home and spend a quiet evening with Butch and Jenny. “You mentioned something about a runaway? What’s that all about?” Joanna asked.
“A fifteen-year-old Elfrida high school girl named Lucinda Ridder disappeared from her grandmother’s house sometime overnight last night, along with her pet hawk. When the grandmother got up this morning, both the girl and the bird were gone. The grandmother, Catherine Yates, made such a fuss with the emergency operators that I finally went over to her place on Middlemarch Road myself. According to Grandma, Lucy’s mother is due home today or tomorrow. Mrs. Yates is frantic that we find Lucy and have her back home by the time her mother arrives. I was at the Yates’ place—the grandmother’s place—trying to explain why we have a twenty-four-hour waiting period on missing-persons reports when the second call came in. I decided to come straight here and check just in case the gunshot victim and Lucy turned out to be one and the same.”
“And was she?”
“No. As I said Lucy Ridder is fifteen years old. I’d guess the shooting victim is somewhere in her mid-to-late thirties.”
“Wait just a minute, Joanna,” Frank said. “There’s a call coming in on the radio.”
While her chief deputy was off the line, Joanna turned back to Butch, Jenny, and the horse. By then Butch had heaved the new saddle onto Kiddo’s back, and Jenny was busy cinching it up. Watching the two of them talking and laughing together, Joanna felt a pang of jealousy. They were having fun while she could feel herself being sucked back into the world of work. It wasn’t fair.
“Joanna?” Frank’s voice came back on the line.
“I’m here. What’s happening?”
“That was the pilot of the Med-evac helicopter. He says the EMTs lost her. She flat-lined on them and they couldn’t bring her back. The pilot wants to know what he should do, continue on into Tucson or head back to Bisbee.”
“Bisbee, I guess,” Joanna said. “That way we only have to pay for one transport instead of two. Have Dispatch let Dr. Winfield know so he can meet the helicopter and pick up the body.”
“You don’t think you should call him yourself?” Montoya asked.
“Are you kidding?” Joanna returned. “If I do that, my mother will hold me personally responsible for wrecking whatever plans she had for this afternoon or evening. Better you should do it, Frank. What have you done about calling detectives?”
Ernie Carpenter and Jaime Carbajal were her department’s two homicide detectives. Ernie was an old hand—a burly veteran with more than twenty years under his belt. Jaime, in his early thirties, had been promoted from deputy to detective early on during Joanna’s administration.
“Ernie’s out of town this weekend, so Jaime’s up. He was in the middle of coaching his son’s T-ball game when I paged him, but he’s on his way.”
“If Jaime’s on his way,” Joanna said, “I’d better be, too.”