Random Acts Read online

  Stepping into the light, Joanna joined a busy group of ­people, hard at work on their appointed tasks. Dr. Kendra Baldwin, the ME, was on her knees next to a what looked like a heap of bloodied clothing but that, on closer examination, proved to be something barely recognizable as two intertwined human forms. Detective Carpenter hovered in the background, keeping an eye on everything, while Dave Hollicker—­the male member of Joanna’s two-­person CSI unit—­snapped an unending series of crime-­scene photos.

  “Evening, Joanna,” Kendra said, rising to her feet and coming forward to greet the newcomers while stripping off a pair of latex gloves. She was a tall, spare African American woman with a ready smile and a down-­to-­earth way about her. “So sorry to hear about your mom and George,” she added. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  Joanna nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m here to do the job. What have we got?”

  “Two females,” Kendra replied, looking back at the bloody tangle of victims. “One, Desirée Wilburton, is age twenty-­seven. The other probably is mid thirties or maybe a little younger. Rigor suggests they’ve been dead for twenty hours or so, but I’ll be able to give you a more definitive time frame once I have them back at the lab. The stage of decomp suggests that both victims died at about the same time. Desirée wore a watch, which is still running, by the way. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but the other one was. Probably the easiest way to sort out who she is would be to check missing-­persons reports.”

  Joanna nodded. “You mentioned a name—­Desirée Wilburton. You already have a positive ID on her, then?”

  “Tentative,” Kendra corrected. “ID was found in a purse inside the tent back at the campsite. In addition to her driver’s license, she was carrying ID that identifies her as a teaching assistant for the University of Arizona. Detective Carbajal is in the process of contacting the campus cops there to see what, if anything, they can tell us. So far we have no information at all on the other victim.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Initially, I’d have to say multiple blunt-­force trauma to the head for both of them.”

  “From being hit with something?”

  Kendra shook her head. “No, the injuries I’m seeing so far are all consistent with a fall. No visible gunshot or stab wounds that would indicate the use of a weapon.”

  Joanna nodded, thinking about how, once George had been extricated from the tangled wreckage of the RV, the immediate assumption had been that his injuries had been caused by the wreck itself. Only Eleanor’s insistence on the presence of a “red dot” had convinced Joanna that George Winfield had been shot by someone using a laser sight, and a subsequent autopsy had proven that to be true. Perhaps something similar would occur here, and further investigation of the remains would reveal the use of a weapon of some kind.

  Joanna stood in silence, studying the distorted heap of tangled limbs and clothing. Years earlier, encountering sights and smells like this would have sent her racing for the nearest restroom, retching her guts out. Tonight, though, she stood her ground. Carrion eaters and insects had been hard at work devouring the remains for what seemed to be the better part of forty-­eight hours. Remnants of clothing revealed that one of the victims—­the one on top—­was apparently dressed in sturdy hiking boots, jeans, and a long-­sleeved khaki shirt. The one on the bottom wore a pair of shorts, a tank top, and a single lightweight tennis shoe. One was dressed to be outdoors roughing it; the other was not.

  Jaime Carbajal entered the circle of light, descending from somewhere on the hillside and pocketing his cell phone as he came.

  “Had to gain some elevation before I could get a signal,” he explained. “According to the U of A, Wilburton is a Ph.D. candidate in microbiology. She’s originally from Louisiana. She came to Arizona first as an undergrad and stayed on to earn a master’s and is close to finishing up her doctorate. The guy I spoke to says he’ll get back to me later with whatever next-­of-­kin information they have on file, but probably not before tomorrow morning.”

  “Thanks, Jaime,” Joanna said before turning her attention to Ernie. “Any theories, Detective Carpenter?” she asked.

  “I’m coming down on the side of murder/suicide,” he replied. “From the looks of things, I’d say Desirée had been camping here for a while—­a day or two at least and possibly more. The other victim, her girlfriend maybe, drops by. They get into some kind of argument—­a lovers’ quarrel perhaps. One thing leads to another, and they both end up dead.”

  “Is there any way to figure out exactly where they were when they fell?”

  Jaime shook his head. “Before that rainstorm there might have been physical evidence—­maybe even footprints—­that would help us determine that. As it stands, we’ve got nothing.” He glanced back at the cliff face rising straight up behind him and then at the ground below. “The thing is, when you’re dealing with such hard-­packed, rocky terrain, you don’t have to fall very far to end up with this kind of catastrophic outcome.”

  “What about the boys?” Joanna asked. “Is it possible they were involved in some way?”

  Ernie shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “The kids look like innocent bystanders to me,” he said. “Because they took shelter in the Jeep during the storm, we went ahead and took their prints for elimination purposes. Just to be sure, Casey ran them through AFIS. Not surprisingly, nothing turned up on either of them.”

  Casey Ledford was the other member of Joanna’s CSI team—­her resident fingerprint expert. With newly upgraded computer capability installed on all the patrol cars, it didn’t surprise Joanna to hear that the fingerprints of both boys had already been run through the national Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

  “What about the vics’?” Joanna asked.

  “Considering the decomp, those may or may not be retrievable. In any case, Dr. Baldwin prefers to take prints once she has the bodies back at the morgue.”

  “Her job, her rules,” Joanna conceded.

  “Hey, how about somebody giving us a hand here?” Ralph Whetson asked, coming into view while lugging a metal-­framed stretcher designed to transport bodies.

  Ralph was Dr. Baldwin’s morgue assistant and a constant complainer. He dropped his load just inside the circle of light, as if carrying it another step was more than he could manage. Seconds later, someone else appeared behind him. The newcomer was Deputy Stock, also loaded down with a stretcher.

  “Hey, Jeremy,” Ernie called out, his tone stern and thunderous. “I thought I told you to take those boys back home to their mother.”

  “You did,” the deputy agreed. “I was on my way to do that very thing when I ran into Ralph here and Detective Howell. I could see that Ralph needed a hand. He was trying to carry both stretchers by himself and wasn’t making much progress. Deb offered to take charge of the boys so I could help Ralph with the stretchers.”

  Deb Howell was Joanna’s third homicide detective. She hadn’t been on call that night, but Joanna knew she was a self-­starter. It was hardly surprising that she would turn up at the scene on her own.

  Ernie Carpenter, on the other hand, tended to be a bit of a grouch on occasion. From his point of view, orders weren’t something that could be casually handed off to someone else. Given that he was close to the top of the department’s pecking order, his grumbly bear persona meant that he wasn’t always on the best of terms with Joanna’s patrol deputies. Knowing this, she stepped in to smooth things over.

  “Good thinking,” she said. “Carrying those stretchers may be challenging now when they’re empty, but it’ll be a whole lot more difficult once they’re loaded. Seems to me we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  Ernie favored her with a grudging nod. “Okay,” he said.

  Dr. Baldwin moved away from the bodies. “Glad you’re here, Ralph,” she said
. “I think we’re ready to rock and roll. Let’s load ’em up and head ’em out.”

  About the Author

  J. A. JANCE is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, and five interrelated thrillers about the Walker Family, as well as a volume of poetry. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

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  By J. A. Jance

  J. P. Beaumont Mysteries

  Until Proven Guilty

  Injustice for All

  Trial by Fury

  Taking the Fifth

  Improbable Cause

  A More Perfect Union

  Dismissed with Prejudice

  Minor in Possession

  Payment in Kind

  Without Due Process

  Failure to Appear

  Lying in Wait

  Name Withheld

  Breach of Duty

  Birds of Prey

  Partner in Crime

  Long Time Gone

  Justice Denied

  Fire and Ice

  Betrayal of Trust

  Ring in the Dead: A J. P. Beaumont Novella

  Second Watch

  Stand Down: A J. P. Beaumont Novella

  Joanna Brady Mysteries

  Desert Heat

  Tombstone Courage

  Shoot/Don’t Shoot

  Dead to Rights

  Skeleton Canyon

  Rattlesnake Crossing

  Outlaw Mountain

  Devil’s Claw

  Paradise Lost

  Partner in Crime

  Exit Wounds

  Dead Wrong

  Damage Control

  Fire and Ice

  Judgment Call

  The Old Blue Line: A Joanna Brady Novella

  Remains of Innocence

  Random Acts: A Joanna Brady and Ali Reynolds Novella

  Walker Family Novels

  Hour of the Hunter

  Kiss of the Bees

  Day of the Dead

  Queen of the Night

  Dance of the Bones: A J.P. Beaumont and Brandon Walker Novel

  Ali Reynolds Novels

  Edge of Evil

  Web of Evil

  Hand of Evil

  Cruel Intent

  Trial by Fire

  Fatal Error

  Left for Dead

  Deadly Stakes

  Moving Target

  A Last Goodbye: An Ali Reynolds Novella

  Cold Betrayal

  No Honor Among Thieves: An Ali Reynolds/Joanna Brady Novella

  Clawback

  Poetry

  After the Fire

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Excerpt from Downfall copyright © 2016 by J. A. Jance.

  RANDOM ACTS. Copyright © 2016 by J. A. Jance. All rights reserved under International and Pan-­American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-­book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-­engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of Harper­Collins e-­books. For information, address Harper­Collins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

  EPub Edition JULY 2016 ISBN: 9780062499042

  Print Edition ISBN: 9780062499059

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