“We’ll keep things under control, Sheriff Brady,” Ernie Carpenter assured her, standing up. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
The two detectives were almost to the door when Joanna called Jaime Carbajal back. “What happened at Pepe’s game last night?” she asked.
A wide grin suffused her young detective’s face. “I made it to the field in time for the last two innings, including Pepe’s third home run of the season.”
“And Delcia didn’t kill you?”
“Not yet,” Jaime answered, “but there’s another game tonight.”
“Get out of here,” Joanna said.
Once the two detectives were gone, Joanna and her chief deputy turned their attention to the stack of incident reports. Forty-five minutes later, Joanna was back in her office and dialing Sheriff Bill Forsythe’s number up in Pima County.
“What can I do for you, Sheriff Brady?” he asked.
“We have a murder down here in Cochise County with possible links to one of yours—the Melanie Goodson death out on South Old Spanish Trail.”
“What kind of links?”
“One of Melanie Goodson’s neighbors saw her driving her Lexus with another woman in the vehicle. Two hours later, our homicide victim was spotted with that same Lexus near a campground in the Dragoon Mountains down here in Cochise County. The next morning, Melanie Goodson called your office and reported the Lexus stolen, even though she herself was the last person seen driving it.” Joanna paused for breath. “It seems to me that, based on all that, there should be enough connections to justify the sharing of information.”
“That remains to be seen.” Bill Forsythe replied. “I take it the officers in question are the same ones who were making nuisances of themselves out at our crime scene yesterday afternoon?”
“My detectives were doing their jobs,” Joanna answered evenly. “They were asking questions. They had an early-afternoon appointment to speak with Melanie Goodson at her office. When she stood them up, it was for the very good reason that she was dead. Wouldn’t you find that a coincidence worthy of asking questions, one of which has to be: ‘Who didn’t want Melanie talking to my investigators?’ “
“Give me the name of the neighbor who talked to your guys,” Forsythe said. “The one who claimed to have seen Melanie Goodson driving her car. Once my dicks talk to him or her, I’ll see what I can do.”
“What you’re saying is, none of your ‘dicks,’ as you call them, have yet spoken to Melanie Goodson’s neighbors.”
“We’re still very early in the investigation—”
“Can it, Sheriff Forsythe. You want your department to piggyback on my detectives’ work and then you may or may not decide to share information with us. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Not in so many words.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
“Sheriff Brady, you don’t have to get hysterical about it.”
Hysterical? The word buzzed in Joanna’s ear like an angry wasp.
Her voice dropped to the bare whisper that people who knew Joanna Brady well also knew as a warning to duck for cover. “Believe me, Sheriff Forsythe,” she told him icily, “I’m a long way from hysterical. I am pointing out, however, that our two departments have a long-standing mutual-aid agreement—one that predates your election, and mine as well. I expect both of our departments to live up to the terms of that agreement.”
“Right,” Sheriff Bill Forsythe responded. “When pigs fly!” With that he slammed the receiver down in her ear.
A stunned Joanna Brady was still sitting with the phone in her hand when Kristin came into her office moments later carrying that day’s stack of mail.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were still on the phone.”
“I’m not. That rotten SOB hung up on me. He had the gall to say I was hysterical. Do you believe it?”
“Well,” said Kristin guardedly, “you do look a tiny bit upset—”
“Upset?” Joanna repeated, as flame rose in her cheeks. “I’ll say I’m upset! First I’m going to solve these two damned cases—his and mine both—with no help from him or from those arrogant jerks he mistakenly calls detectives. And then, after that—”
Joanna paused in mid-sentence while a faraway look crossed her face and a slight smile curved her lips.
“What now?” Kristin asked. “What’s so funny?”
“This,” Joanna replied. “When Butch and I go to that Arizona Sheriffs’ Conference meeting in Page the last week in May, maybe I can lure Sheriff Bill Forsythe into a late-night poker game and whip his ass.”
“You can do that?” Kristin stared at Joanna in wide-eyed amazement. “I didn’t know you knew how to play poker.”
“Neither does Sheriff Bill Forsythe,” Joanna said grimly. “But with any kind of luck, the man’s sure as hell going to find out.”