“You’re just going to wait for her to turn up then?” Frank asked.
“No,” Joanna replied. “We’ll send Terry Gregovich and Spike out to find her. That’s why we have a canine team, but when you dispatch them, let Terry know that I expect both of them—man and dog—to be wearing their Kevlar vests at all times. I don’t want to lose either one of them.”
Terry Gregovich and his eighty-five-pound German shepherd Spike constituted the Cochise County Sheriff Department’s first-ever K-9 team. Both man and dog were relative new-hires. Terry, a Gulf War veteran, had come over from Search and Rescue. With the help of drug-enforcement monies, Spike had been purchased directly from a breeder who specialized in police dogs. After months of training and working together, Spike and Terry had evolved into an inseparable and valuable team. Six weeks earlier, a Phoenix-area K-9 dog had been shot to death by a pair of fleeing bank robbers. In the aftermath of that incident, Joanna had managed to find room in her budget to purchase a canine-fitted Kevlar vest for Spike’s protection.
“Do you want them to start looking tonight?” Frank asked.
Joanna thought about that. “Tomorrow will be soon enough. Catherine Yates asked to be left alone tonight. We can give her that much of a break.”
“Are you going to go for a search warrant?”
“With what?”
“Good question,” Frank said.
Just then a call came in over the radio. “What’s up, Larry?” Joanna asked.
“Detective Carbajal called in a few minutes ago. He wants you back up at the entrance to Cochise Stronghold pronto. He says he’s found something but he isn’t sure what.”
Frank flipped on both lights and siren. As he floorboarded the gas pedal, the rough surface of the road seemed to smooth out. Joanna knew, however, that that was a dangerous illusion. The ride was smooth only because the tires were spending so little time in contact with the roadway. After several nerve-racking minutes, Joanna was more than slightly relieved when they stopped on the outskirts of a group of emergency vehicles parked around the carved redwood forest service sign that marked the entrance to Cochise Stronghold. The sign was illuminated by Jaime Carbajal’s trouble light. The detective himself, on hands and knees, appeared to be crawling through a scattered field of rocks.
“What’s up, Detective Carbajal?” Joanna asked.
Jaime rose to meet her. “After what Deputy Pakin told us, I decided to come up here and take a look around. Over there are signs of what appears to be a serious struggle, including what looks to me like blood spatter.” He pointed to a spot just to the right of the sign where a ten-foot-square area had been marked off with a border of yellow tape. “We’ll be able to tell more tomorrow in the daylight. In the meantime, take a look at this.”
He held up a bag that contained what looked like a small plastic soup bowl. Even through the glassine bag, Joanna could see that the outside of the once white bowl was yellowed with age and covered with a coating of grime.
“What’s this?” Joanna asked. “The leavings from somebody’s long-ago picnic?”
“I don’t think so,” Jaime replied. “Remember, Deputy Pakin’s witness said the woman he saw was messing around with the rocks at the base of the sign, so I decided to come check. The cover was loose inside the hole, but the bowl itself was embedded in the dirt at the bottom of the hole.”
Joanna took the bag and examined the bowl more closely. On the bottom, accentuated by clinging dirt, was a still recognizable Tupperware trademark.
“I tried selling Tupperware years ago, when Andy and I were first married,” she told her astonished deputies. “The stuff’s supposed to be airtight, waterproof, and capable of lasting forever. This looks as though it’s been here for a long time. What’s in it?”
“Nothing now,” Jaime replied. “It was empty when I found it, but I’ll bet it wasn’t empty when the woman in the white car came looking for it.”
Joanna walked over to the sign and the pile of disturbed rocks beneath it. With the help of a flashlight, she peered down in among them to where the outline of the bowl was still clearly visible in the soft, fine, insect-sifted dirt under the rocks.
“Assuming Sandra Ridder is the one who hid it, that would mean the bowl has been here for eight years at least,” Joanna stated. “That’s how long she’s been in prison. What could be so valuable that, after all this time, she would risk stealing a vehicle her first night out of the slammer in order to come get it?”
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t very big,” Frank offered.