Partner In Crime

“Something’s the matter with her?” the man interrupted. “Why? What’s happened?”

George Winfield sighed. This was all wrong. “I’m sorry to have to deliver the news in this fashion,” he said finally. “Over the phone, I mean. But Ms. Baxter is dead. She died last night.”

For a long moment, all George heard was stark silence. Just as the ME was begi

“Damn!” he muttered, sounding for all the world like he meant it.

Two

DRIVING PAST THE Cochise County Justice Center on her way to the Naco, Arizona, crime scene, Joa

She had managed to dodge the obstacles her former chief deputy Dick Voland had rolled into her path. Once he resigned from the department, Joa

Fifteen minutes after leaving High Lonesome Ranch, Joa

“Morning, boss,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought you were with the ME.”

Jaime nodded. “I thought so, too. Then Doc Winfield called to say there would be a slight delay. I had an extra forty minutes, so I thought I’d come see what’s what.” He moved aside and allowed Joa

As Joa

“Thanks,” she said, dabbing some on her upper lip. “Now where?”

“Dave Hollicker is over there in what passes for a bedroom,” Jaime Carbajal said, pointing. “That’s where the EMTs found the victim. She’d been sick as a dog all over her bed and most of the room as well. Casey’s in the kitchen lifting prints.”

“What’s the victim’s name again?”

Jaime checked his notebook. “Rochelle Ida Baxter. Age thirty-five. The EMTs found a purse with a driver’s license and gave the information to Doc Winfield.”

“Any sign of robbery?”

Jaime shook his head. “Negative on that. They found eighty dollars and some change in her purse, along with a full contingent of credit cards. She was wearing two rings when she was taken to the hospital, and nothing around here looks disturbed. No broken glass. It’s not looking good for a robbery motive.”

“Forced entry?” Joa

“That’s a little harder to tell, but I don’t think so,” Jaime said. “Both front and back doors were locked when the ambulance arrived, so the EMTs had to break in. If the lock on the front door was damaged prior to that, there’d be no way to separate EMT damage from any that might have occurred previously. There’s an alarm system that went off like a banshee while the medics were here. I’ve already checked with the alarm company. Their monitoring system shows no disturbance prior to the arrival of the emergency perso

Following Jaime’s directions, and with the smell of vomit no longer actively engaging her gag reflexes, Joa

“How’s it going, Dave?”

He finished bagging the rug and placed it in a stack of similarly full and tightly closed bags before answering. “I’ve taken photographs and bagged everything I could. Once I load this stuff into the van, I’ll come back and start looking for hair and fibers.”

“How’s the print work coming?”

Dave Hollicker shrugged. “Beats me. You’ll have to ask Casey. I’ve been in here most of the time.”

“I’ll go see,” Joa

“Our victim’s an artist then?” Joa

The detective nodded. “Evidently,” he said, “although you couldn’t prove it by what’s here. So far I haven’t found anything but a few sketchbooks and more empty canvases just like the one on the easel. Maybe she was an artist who hadn’t quite gotten around to actually doing any painting.”

Joa

When Joa

“How’s it going?” Joa

Pursing her lips in concentration, Casey smoothed a strip of clear tape onto the powder before she answered. “All right,” she said. “Good morning, Sheriff,” she added.

Carefully peeling it back, Casey smoothed the black-smudged clear tape onto a stiff manila card. After holding the card up and examining it, she put it back down. On the top of the card she jotted a series of notations about where and when the prints had been found. Then she tossed the tagged card into an open briefcase that already held many others just like it.

“From what I’m seeing here,” Casey said, “I’d say our victim had company last night. We found an almost empty glass and a partially emptied beer bottle sitting on the table. Dave bottled up the remaining contents from the glass. He’ll take that back to the lab. I picked up two distinctly different sets of prints from both the bottle and the glass, and from the table, too. Assuming one set belongs to the victim, it’s possible the other one could belong to the perp. We’ll take the glass, the bottle, and whatever else is in the trash back to the department. Together Dave and I will go through it all. I’ll look for prints; he’ll look for anything else. Oh, and at Doc Winfield’s suggestion, we’ll be taking all the foodstuffs from here in the kitchen as well.”

Joa