Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [31]
“I thought you were going to leave her at home this afternoon.”
“So did I,” Joanna said ruefully. “But as soon as she saw Butch she started jumping and bucking so hard, I could barely hold on to her leash. With him there, I would have had to bodily drag her into the house, so I ended up leaving her in the garage all through lunch. Jeannine Phillips warned me that the dog doesn’t like men, but this is more than not liking. You should have seen her, Kristin. The poor thing was scared to death.”
“What are you going to do?” Kristin asked. “Take her back to the pound?”
“I offered to, but Butch said no. He says he’ll figure out a way around her, but he thought it would be better for everybody concerned if I brought her back to work this afternoon. So I did. Obviously the dog is fine with you, Kristin, but you should probably let Frank, Jaime, and Ernie know she’s here so they don’t barge in unexpectedly.”
“I’ll tell them,” Kristin said. “By the way, Tom Hadlock said to tell you that the guy from Anchor called. They’ve hired Sammy Cotton’s crew to come work on the air-conditioning. They’ll be here by three this afternoon.”
“Good enough,” Joanna said. “Sounds like a win-win situation to me.”
She hurried outside. She and Chief Deputy Montoya watched as the prisoners were allowed out of their cells and into the sun-drenched, razor-wire-surrounded rec yard, which, at this time of day, was at least partially shaded from direct sunlight by the jail itself. The inmates, apparently grateful to be allowed out of their ovenlike cells, helped themselves to paper cups of ice water and then moved in an orderly fashion into the long narrow sliver of shade beside the building or sat on the covered concrete picnic tables that lined the yard.
“The prisoners will be fine,” Joanna said. “They have some shade. It’s the detention officers and extra deputies I feel sorry for. None of them have any shade at all. Let’s make sure they have plenty of water, too. I’d hate to protect the prisoners and lose one of our deputies to heatstroke.”
“I’ll have Tom Hadlock take care of it right away.”
It wasn’t long before the blazing sun drove Joanna herself back into the relative cool of her office. With the dog curled contentedly at her feet, Joanna spent the next two hours dealing with routine paperwork. At three-thirty, her phone rang.
“Detectives Carbajal and Carpenter are here,” Kristin announced. “I told them you’d see them in the conference room.”
“Right. By the way, any sign of the air-conditioning crew?”
“They’ve been here for almost an hour now,” Kristin said.
“Great,” Joanna replied. “Sometimes it pays to be the squeaky wheel.”
Ernie Carpenter and Jaime Carbajal were already in the conference room. Frank Montoya arrived at the same time Joanna did. “Okay, guys,” Joanna said. “What do we have so far?”
“Doc Winfield says Carol Mossman was struck by two bullets—one in the gut and one in the shoulder. The wound to the midsection was the one that actually killed her. She bled to death,” Ernie Carpenter added. “No surprises there. All the shots, including the ones that missed the victim, were fired into the back door of her mobile home. The door was locked at the time from the inside, with her and all of her dogs…all but one of her dogs,” he corrected, “inside the house with her.”
“Why were they inside?”
“That I can’t say. There were food bowls everywhere. The victim may have brought them into the house to feed them, but there was no food in any of the dishes. Either the dogs ate it or she hadn’t finished feeding them before the killer arrived. We don’t believe her assailant ever gained access to the house. After being shot, Carol Mossman managed to drag herself as far as the living room. We think she was trying to reach the phone, but she passed out and died a few feet shy of it.”
“Wait a minute,” Joanna said. “I thought someone told me last night the electricity was turned off at the Mossman place. Now you’re saying the phone was still working. How’s that possible?”
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