“I did—do,” Joanna said. “How’s it going?”
“Not too bad, considering. I guess Frank told you that we missed the boat when it came to talking to Melanie Goodson. And the nun you wanted us to talk to, the one who’s the principal at Santa Theresa’s . . .”
“Sister Celeste,” Joanna supplied.
“Right. We didn’t see her, either. She was out sick today, but we did have one bit of luck.”
“What’s that?”
“Not surprisingly, the Pima County homicide detectives weren’t too thrilled when we showed up hot on their heels. Since they wouldn’t let us anywhere near their crime scene, Ernie and I were stuck just sort of milling around down on Old Spanish Trail at Melanie Goodson’s turnoff, which, by the way, seems to be paved from there all the way to her house. That had to have cost a fortune. Anyway, we were left cooling our heels there, and since people are just naturally curious when they see a couple of stopped police vehicles, we did manage to talk to some of Melanie’s neighbors.”
“Jaime, could you stop stringing me along and try getting to the good part?”
“We ended up talking to a lady named Karen Gustafson who lives just up the street, if you could call it that. It’s a road, really. Anyway, she told us that she and her husband were coming home from Webb’s Steak House on Friday night about ten when they saw Melanie Goodson’s Lexus coming down the road. Karen said she was sitting in the car while her husband went over to the mailbox to pick up their mail. She said that when the car came by, she saw there were two people in it—Melanie Goodson and some other woman. The thing is, until we started asking her questions, she didn’t even know Melanie’s car had been stolen.”
“Good grief!” Joanna exclaimed. “Pima County’s supposedly investigating that case. What did they do, drop the ball?”
“I don’t think they ever bothered to pick it up. Grand-theft auto evidently isn’t a very high priority around here. In most cases they don’t do much more than take the report over the phone. I believe Melanie Goodson got an in-person officer visit because of who she was and what she did for a living. Of course, now that she’s dead, a possible homicide case is gathering a lot more attention than her stolen car did.”
“Could it be that Melanie Goodson and Sandra Ridder both went to Cochise Stronghold that night?”
“That’s how it sounds to Ernie and me,” Jaime answered.
“But why would she go along?” Joanna asked.
“I don’t know,” said Jaime, “but my guess is, once we have an answer to the first question, we’ll also know how come she’s dead. She was Sandra Ridder’s attorney, right?” Jaime asked.
“Right.”
“And Ridder went to prison on a plea bargain. That means there was never any trial in regard to Tom Ridder’s death, so maybe there wasn’t much of an investigation, either,” Jaime continued. “The detectives probably figured they had a slam-dunk domestic-violence case. Frank told us Tom Ridder got thrown out of the army for assaulting one of the brass. And since Sandra was willing to stand up in front of a judge and accept full responsibility for plugging her husband, the detectives on the shooting case probably figured, why waste any more time digging any deeper? She goes to prison. The detectives clear one case and go on to the next.”
Joanna considered the possibility. “So you’re thinking the same way I am—that all this has to have something to do with Tom Ridder’s death?”
“It’s the only tie-in Ernie and I can think of.”
“Me, too, Jaime,” Joanna said. “And maybe we’re on to something. Melanie Goodson told me that Sandra was planning to buy some new clothes, have her hair done, and pretty much get herself fixed up before she went on home to the Dragoons to see her mother and daughter. She also said she didn’t have any money worries about her upcoming makeover and shopping spree. We need to find out whether or not Catherine Yates sent Sandra get-out-of-jail money or if she had savings from her prison wages. If neither of those options pans out, maybe she was expecting to collect some cash somewhere else. What if somebody else killed Tom Ridder and Sandra stepped up to the plate and took the rap for it? What if she knew who really did do it? Then, after all these years, she gets out of jail and decides to collect on that old debt. What would happen then?”
“Whoever she was trying to put the squeeze on might prefer some other medium of exchange—say a hot bullet in place of cold cash.”
“Exactly,” Joanna said. “And since Melanie Goodson was Sandra Ridder’s attorney back then, she may have known about the connection as well. So where do we go from here?”