Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [74]
“Does the production team pay for interviews?” Joanna asked.
“Pay?” Trotter repeated.
“You know,” Joanna said. “Like the tabloids do. Do they buy exclusive rights to people’s stories?”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Trotter replied, “but the brother might.”
“What time is Diego Ortega due in Lordsburg?” Joanna asked.
“Sometime around two,” Sheriff Trotter said. “Why?”
Joanna looked at her watch and considered her options.
“Tell you what,” she said. “My investigators are all up to their ears in work this morning, but all I’m doing is clearing paperwork. If I leave right now, I should be able to be in Lordsburg by the time Mr. Ortega arrives.”
“Thought you might want to have someone on hand to talk to him,” Trotter agreed. “I sure as hell would if I were in your shoes.”
As soon as she got off the phone with Sheriff Trotter, Joanna left word with Lupe Alvarez about where she was going. After stopping at the Motor Pool long enough to gas up, she headed out of the Justice Center compound. Demonstrators still milled in the parking lot and a few of them rapped on the windows of her Civvie as she drove past.
Peaceful, all right, she thought as she goosed the Crown Victoria forward and left the demonstrators behind. Two miles down Highway 80, she realized that the ratty clothing that had been inappropriate for her newspaper photo wasn’t going to work any better for a next-of-kin interview, either. Rather than driving by the Double Adobe turnoff, she headed home to High Lonesome Ranch to change.
Butch was sitting at the kitchen counter with his laptop open in front of him when Joanna walked in the back door. “You’re home early,” he remarked. “What happened?”
“I need a change of clothes,” she explained. “I’m on my way to Lordsburg to interview a next of kin. My in-office grubbies aren’t going to hack it.” She disappeared into the bedroom and emerged minutes later wearing a summer-weight khaki uniform. “The dress one has to go to the cleaners,” she told Butch. “Lucky peed on it.”
“Great,” Butch said. “Whose next of kin?”
“Randy Trotter has a tentative ID on the two women killed north of Rodeo. The brother of one of them is flying into Lordsburg this afternoon.”
“When will you be back?” Butch asked.
“Five or six. Why?”
“Just wondering. By the way, Eva Lou invited us over for meat loaf after church tomorrow. I told her I’d check with you first. I said I didn’t know if your tummy would tolerate meat loaf.”
“Sounds good right now,” Joanna said. “Where’s Jenny?”
“Off riding Kiddo,” Butch answered. “This afternoon she’s going swimming with Cassie, and she’s planning on spending the night.”
Cassie Parks, Jenny’s best friend, lived a few miles away in a former KOA campground that her parents had rehabbed into a private RV park. The park, catering mostly to winter visitors, was underutilized in the summer, giving Cassie and Jenny a clear shot at the park’s swimming pool.
“So it’ll be just be the two of us for dinner tonight?” Joanna asked.
“That’s right. I might make something special then,” Butch added. “We haven’t exactly celebrated our new addition. Drive carefully, but don’t be late. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m not starting dinner until I see the whites of your eyes.”
From High Lonesome Ranch, the most direct route to Lordsburg, New Mexico, was on Highway 80 through Douglas, Rodeo, and Road Forks. It also meant returning to Silver Creek. If time hadn’t been an issue, Joanna might have been tempted to drive the long way around, just to avoid revisiting the site of the deadly accident, but her dread proved to be mostly unfounded. By the time she arrived, few signs remained of the previous day’s horrors. The Highway Department had already sent out a crew to reposition the displaced Jersey barriers. A few scraps of yellow crime scene tape still lingered here and there, marking spots where the bodies of dead and injured had come to rest.
There may have been little to see, but, driving alone in her Crown Victoria,