Random Acts Read online

  “Who are you?”

  “Sheriff Joanna Brady from Cochise County,” she said. “George Winfield was my stepfather. Eleanor was my mother.”

  “Eleanor of the red dot?”

  “That would be the one.”

  “I won’t have any information until after the first of the autopsies is completed. In addition to which, since this is part of an ongoing investigation . . .”

  “Save your breath, Detective Holman. I know the drill, but I also know a little about extending professional courtesy to fellow officers. And since I voluntarily came forward with important information in this matter . . .”

  “Possibly important information,” he responded.

  Joanna drew herself up to her full five-­foot-­four, which was a good nine to ten inches shorter than the detective. “Are you a gambling man, Detective Holman?”

  “I suppose. Why do you ask?”

  “You go right on in there and observe Dr. Turner’s autopsy, but if it turns out I’m right and my stepfather was shot to death, then I expect some respect from you and some consideration as well.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Detective Holman said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  He disappeared through the door.

  When Joanna looked back at her husband, Butch was grinning. “Obviously not a poker player,” he commented.

  “At least he hasn’t played poker with me,” Joanna replied, smiling in spite of herself.

  Knowing they were stuck in the waiting room for an hour at least, Joanna picked up her phone and began returning calls. By now Marliss Shackleford had left three separate messages, so Joanna started there, wanting to start by getting the worst of the bunch out of the way.

  “I’m so glad you finally got back to me.”

  The word “finally” grated. “As you can well imagine, Marliss,” Joanna said carefully, “this has not been my best day for returning phone calls.”

  “Is it true both George and Eleanor are gone?”

  “Yes,” Joanna answered, “both of them. George died at the scene of an accident on I–17. My mother passed away in the OR at St. Gregory’s Hospital in Phoenix earlier this morning.”

  “Have the next-­of-­kin notifications been done so we can go ahead and run the story?”

  That stopped Joanna cold. Marliss had always purported to be such a great friend of Eleanor’s, but now the truth was out. She didn’t even have the decency to express her condolences. Friendship or not, for her this was now all about the story.

  “My mother’s side of the family may have been notified,” Joanna said. “But I don’t have any idea about George’s. I’d hold off on the story if I were you.”

  “But we have a deadline . . .”

  Joanna cut Marliss off in mid-­objection. “Oops, sorry. I have another call.” The truth was, she did have another call, one with a number she didn’t recognize. Right then, talking to an aluminum siding pitchman was preferable to dealing with Marliss. She switched over to the other line.

  “Joanna?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Ali—­Ali Reynolds. I just heard about your folks. One of our employees, Stu Ramey keeps one ear glued to a police scanner day in and day out. When your name was mentioned in regard to a roll-­over that occurred on I–17 last night, Cami, Stu’s assistant, recognized it and called me right away. Is there anything at all I can do to help?”

  Months earlier, Joanna and Ali, a retired television news anchor now living in Sedona who was also a partner in her husband’s cyber security company, High Noon Enterprises, had been thrown together into the investigation of a hijacking operation involving stolen LEGOs. The situation had devolved into a whole series of homicides as the gang of hapless crooks had turned on one another. In the process, Cami had very nearly lost her life when one the hulking thugs had literally yanked her out of a borrowed cop car through an open window.

  “I’m surprised my name came up over the radio,” Joanna said. “But yes, the two victims are my mother and stepfather. George Winfield died at the scene. My mother passed away at a hospital in Phoenix earlier this morning.”

  “That’s appalling,” Ali breathed. “You must be in shock. If you’re coming this way for any reason and need a place to stay, please know that you’re welcome to come here.”

  “Thank you,” Joanna said, “what a generous offer. Butch and I are in Prescott right now awaiting the results of the first autopsy. I doubt my mother’s remains have made it as far as the morgue.”

  “Dr. Turner is good,” Ali told her without prompting. “He’s a careful guy who’ll do things right.”

  Joanna knew that Ali had worked for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s office at one time, so it wasn’t surprising that she would know the ME. Could she maybe also give Joanna the inside scoop on Detective Holman?

  “You wouldn’t happen to know a homicide detective named Dave Holman, would you?”

  Joanna was surprised when Ali laughed aloud. “As a matter of fact, I do. Dave and I were actually an item back in the day, but we both got over it and married other ­people. How do you know Dave Holman?”

  “He just went into the morgue to witness my stepfather’s autopsy.”

  “He’s a homicide detective,” Ali objected. “Why would he be involved in an MVA?”

  “Because it may not have been an accident,” Joanna told her. “I believe it’s possible that George was shot. With all the carnage on the scene, first responders may not have recognized the entry wound for what it was.”

  “But what brought you to that conclusion?” Ali wanted to know.

  “Because of my mother,” Joanna answered. “She came to just as she was being wheeled into the OR and was babbling about a red dot and wanting the surgeon to promise that he’d tell me about it.”

  “A laser sight?” Ali asked.

  “That’s what I think.”

  “What does Dave think?”

  “He thinks I’m full of it.”

  “Well, if Dave is wrong, he’ll be the first to admit it. But if this is a homicide, why would George . . . ?”

  “Winfield,” Joanna supplied.

  “Why would he and your mother have been targeted? What does George do?”

  “He retired several years ago. Before that, he served as the ME in Cochise County. My mother was a housewife. And I don’t think this is a matter of someone deliberately targeting them. They were snowbirds on a return trip to Arizona from Minnesota. I can’t imagine how anyone would have known where or when they’d be passing through Camp Verde. Even I didn’t know they were coming home by way of the North Rim until this morning, after it had happened.”

  “So you’re thinking it’s random then?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “Like that shooter who held Phoenix freeways hostage last summer.”

  Over the summer Phoenix freeways had been plagued with a series of random shootings. No one had died in any of those attacks, and a suspect was currently in custody.

  “Could be a copycat,” Ali suggested.

  “That’s what I’m thinking, too,” Joanna said.

  “If you’re at the morgue now, where are you going after that?”

  “Depending on the autopsy, we’ll either go visit the crime scene or head home.”

  “Remember,” Ali said, “if you need a place to stay, all you need to do is call.”

  “Will do,” Joanna answered. “But once we visit the crime scene we’ll probably hit the road.”

  She hung up, marveling at the difference between this relative stranger’s concern and generous offer to help compared to Marliss Shackleford’s callous treatment of the death of her supposedly “best friend.”

  Joanna’s phone rang again immediately. This time it was Burton Kimball, Joanna and Butch’s attorney as well as Eleanor and George’s. “I’m so sorry
about all this. Butch just called and let me know about what happened. I told him that Higgins was George and Eleanor’s mortuary of choice.”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “Butch told me.”

  “Were you aware that George and your mother had new wills drawn up just before they left town last spring?”

  “I’m sure they mentioned it, but I didn’t really pay much attention.”

  “Both named the other as sole heir in the event one of them preceded the other in death. With both of them gone, however, and other than a small bequest to one of George’s nephews, you’re their sole heir. Where are you, by the way?”

  The fact that Bob had been left out of the equation seemed odd, but now wasn’t the time to question it.

  “I’m in Prescott right now, awaiting autopsy results on George. I still need to pass the mortuary information along to the ME. If you happen to have contact information for the nephew, I’ll need that, too, so the ME can take care of the next-­of-­kin notification.”

  “Fax or e-­mail?” Burton asked.

  “E-­mail,” Joanna answered. “I have no idea where to find a fax machine up here.”

  For more than an hour, Joanna responded to one condolence call after another. She spent fifteen minutes on the phone with Chief Deputy Hadlock, making sure everything at the department was in order. Finally the inner door opened, and Detective Holman stepped into the lobby, stopping directly in front of Joanna. “You called that shot,” he said.

  “I was right?”

  “Dr. Winfield suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. In addition, he had multiple other injuries. Those were so substantial, and there was so much blood loss, that first responders failed to locate the entry wound. Since he was declared dead at the scene, they didn’t look any closer before initiating transport.”

  “An entry wound but no exit wound?” Joanna asked.

  The door opened again and a gentleman wearing a lab coat and horn-­rimmed glasses entered the room.

  “I’m Dr. Turner,” he said. “And you are?”

  “I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady. I’m also George Winfield’s stepdaughter.”

  “I knew George, by the way,” Dr. Turner said. “We’d met at conferences here and there. But what you said about there being no exit wound is exactly correct.”

  “You found the bullet?”

  Turner nodded. “A .223,” he said.

  “That suggests an AR–15 style weapon?” Joanna asked.

  “Indeed it does,” Turner said, giving Joanna an appraising look. “The bullet entered just below his collarbone and lodged against his left hip.”

  “He was shot from above then?”

  “Yes, the trajectory angle suggests that the shooter may have been on the overpass itself. By the way,” Dr. Turner added. “George spoke of you often, Sheriff Brady, and with a good deal of fondness.”

  “That fondness was a two-­way street,” Joanna said. “I’m going to miss him terribly.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  Off to the side, Detective Holman cleared his throat. “I’m heading back to the crime scene to reexamine it in light of this new information.”

  “Can we come along?” Butch asked.

  “Who exactly are you?” Holman asked.

  “I’m Butch Dixon, Sheriff Brady’s husband.”

  Holman sighed. “I just got my marching orders from Sheriff Maxwell. He says she’s good to go, so I suppose you are, too. Come on. Do you want to ride with me, or do you have your own wheels?”

  “We have our own. Lead the way,” Butch said.

  Joanna could tell from the set of his jaw that Detective Holman wasn’t the least bit happy about their tagging along, but he had been given orders to include them, and he was following those orders to the letter.

  Joanna was gratified to know that professional courtesy counted for something in Yavapai County after all. But it didn’t count for much with the Arizona Department of Transportation. I–17 was closed at the General Crook exits, where traffic was diverted around the overpass and then allowed to reenter the freeway at both the north-­ and southbound entrances. DOT trucks and equipment were parked both on and under the overpass. Most of the workers, all of them wearing orange safety vests, were clustered around the bridge pier on the west end of the overpass. A twisted length of broken guardrail indicated the speeding RV’s path as it careened off the roadway and down the embankment.

  “Doesn’t look good,” Joanna observed as Butch parked the Enclave on the shoulder of eastbound General Crook Trail. “With all this activity, there’s not much chance of finding any trace evidence.”

  Holman came over to the Enclave and signaled for Butch to buzz down the window. “I’ll go talk to whoever’s in charge and see if we can get permission to go up and take a look.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Butch observed as Holman walked away. “When some overpaid grunt from the DOT gets a chance to tell a badge-­carrying cop to take a hike, it’s not going to turn out well.”

  And he was right. Holman returned, shaking his head in resignation. “No unauthorized personnel allowed on the overpass or under it until after the structure has been declared sound and given the official stamp of approval.”

  “But can we look around down here?” Joanna asked.

  Holman shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

  “There were no skid marks?” Joanna asked, getting out of the vehicle. With Holman at her side, she walked as close as possible to the overpass before a worker waved them away.

  “None,” Dave answered. “There was no indication that the driver made any effort to brake, leaving responding officers to believe that the accident might have been the result of some kind of medical emergency. The RV hit the bridge pier with enough force that the body peeled open like a tin can and sent pieces of torn sheet metal flying in every direction.”

  Joanna nodded. “And turned it into shrapnel,” she said. “I know all about that. I saw the damage to my mother’s face and body. No wonder the EMTs missed the bullet wound.”

  Together Joanna, Butch, and Dave Holman paced northbound on the freeway as far as the exit—­the spot where southbound traffic was being diverted—­searching every inch of pavement for signs of braking or skidding.

  “There are no travel ser­vices at this exit,” Butch said as they walked back toward the overpass. “Where does General Crook Trail go?”

  “Nowhere fast,” Dave told them with a laugh. “General Crook was out here battling Indians in the 1870s, and he built a supply road from Payson to Prescott. These days Forest Road 300 generally follows the same route, but there are a few spots along the way where you can see the original roadway.”

  “It’s all dirt?”

  “Yup.”

  “Does anyone live in either direction?”

  “Not permanently,” Dave answered. “At least they’re not supposed to. It’s Forest Ser­vice land. There are some genuine campgrounds scattered here and there along the trail, but it’s possible there are some squatters out there as well, especially at this time of year when it’s hot as hell down in Phoenix.”

  Back at the overpass, they took advantage of the cop directing traffic to cross the frontage road, first in one direction and then the other, walking along both shoulders and looking for signs that someone may have been loitering there and lying in wait. They found nothing of any interest.

  “Who called it in?”

  “A trucker named Ken Slonaker who was hauling a load of carpet from a warehouse in Salt Lake to a warehouse in Phoenix. He said that your folks’ RV passed him about a mile up the road. Their taillights were still in view when he saw them wobble first and then go flying off the road. He stopped at the scene and immediately dialed 911. I took a look at that initial report. He was asked if he saw any vehicles on the road, and he said there was close to a minute before there was a
ny additional oncoming traffic in either direction.”

  “Was he asked about the possibility of someone being up on the overpass?” Joanna asked.

  “The report didn’t say, but I can get his contact number. Let me ask.”

  Just then one of the highway workers came looking for them. “We’ve checked out the overpass and deemed it structurally sound,” he announced. “We’ll be letting traffic back through in a ­couple of minutes. If you want to look around under the overpass or on it, now would be a good time.”

  On the way back, Dave’s phone rang. He listened for a moment. “Great news,” he said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  He put his phone away, quickening his pace and forcing Joanna to hurry to keep up.

  “What?” she asked.

  “That was one of the CSIs up in Prescott. I told them to go out to the impound lot and check the RV wreckage for bullet holes.”

  “And?”

  “They found three. Two were in the particle board partition to the bathroom at the back of the cabin. The third was in the captain’s chair that would have been directly behind the driver’s seat.”

  “So there were four shots in all?” Joanna asked, and Holman nodded.

  “Not much of a marksman,” Butch muttered.

  “But good for us,” Holman said. “The trucker was right there. We know at least four shots were fired . . .”

  “ . . . and the shooter wouldn’t have had time enough to hang around gathering up his brass,” Joanna finished.

  “Exactly,” Detective Holman said. “So let’s go find it.”

  The highway crew, done with their work but glad to have a few more minutes on the clock, joined in the search, one that was entirely successful. Three .223 shell casings were found up on the bridge deck. One was found below, almost hidden from view in an expansion joint.

  By then they’d been hiking around in the noonday sun for the better part of an hour, and the heat was starting to get to Joanna. When one of the highway workers passed out cups of ice water from the orange bucket on the back of his truck, Joanna drank one and poured the other one over her hair.

  Dave looked at her and frowned. “Are you okay?” he asked.