Dead Wrong

“I didn’t mean to imply…” Newton began.

“Yes, you did,” Joa

“Sure, Sheriff Brady,” Detective Unger put in quickly. “If we need anything else, we’ll call.”

“You do that.”

“This doesn’t mean our investigation is over,” Detective Newton growled.

“It is for tonight,” she told him. She knew she had nailed the man with her soccer-ball comment and she had not the slightest doubt that, if push came to shove, she could outshoot him.

Getting to her feet, Joa

“What’s that all about?”

“He’s the manager of the Target in Sierra Vista.”

Still rankled by Newton‘s remarks, Joa

“I told you he called earlier and said the primer had been purchased with cash.”

“Yes, I remember that, too.”

“He evidently spent all afternoon worrying about it until he finally realized something. Even though there was no credit-card trail, he did have the product numbers. He decided to try going through cash-register records to see if he could find out exactly when the purchase was made. And he did. He wants us to come look at the store security tapes. He believes he has photos of a woman making the actual purchase.”

Suddenly Joa

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Frank added, as they headed back to the freeway. “I’ve got some other good news. Tom Hadlock and Millicent Ross have been talking. He’s gone through the jail and talked to the inmates and ended up with four more volunteers than he had puppies. He and I talked it over. He’s going to use four trustees as a work group to help with all the extra dogs that will be staying at the pound right now while we’re so short-handed. And Millicent has tracked down some deep-pockets pitbull-rescue guy who’s agreed to underwrite whatever equipment or additional expenses we have to run up in order to make this thing work.

“Millicent says she’ll stow as many dogs and puppies as she can at her clinic tonight. Tomorrow morning she’ll go to Tucson armed with the guy’s credit-card number and purchase whatever equipment we need-beds, dishes, puppy food, toys, bowls, collars, leashes. We’ll bring the dogs to the jail tomorrow afternoon after she gets back.”

“Leashes?” Joa

“We can’t have the dogs there without leashes,” Frank said. “There wouldn’t be any way to control them. And I think it’s going to work. According to Tom, the inmates are so excited you’d think it was Christmas.”

When Frank and Joa

“I’m so glad to meet you,” he said. “Right this way.”

They followed him through a door marked “Employees Only,” up a narrow set of stairs, past what was clearly an employee breakroom and into a warren of offices that lined one whole end of the store. Beyond a door marked “Security,” they squeezed themselves into a room that included one wall lined with monitors and another lined with recording equipment. Manfred Oxhill introduced them to the lone operator in the room, then gave the man a piece of paper covered with a series of handwritten scribbles. Within a matter of minutes, Joa

“There!” Manfred Oxhill said, pointing at one of the monitors. “That’s register sixteen and this should be the right time- two fifty-two p.m. on 02:25:2005.”

Joa

“I’ll be damned,” Joa

“Who is it?” Frank asked.

“Dolores Mattias,” she said. “I met her this morning.” Joa

“Of course,” he said. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll bring a new tape from downstairs.”

“What does this mean?” Frank asked.

They had been so caught up with other events and concerns all afternoon and evening that Joa

“Aileen Houlihan may be bedridden with Huntington’s disease,” Joa

Chapter 19

With their copy of the security tape in hand, Joa

“According to Leslie, Dolores and her husband have been living on the Triple H since about the time Leslie was born.”

“Do you think Dolores may have some knowledge about what went on between Aileen Houlihan and Lisa Marie Evans back in 1978?” Frank asked.

“Maybe,” Joa

“What about Leslie herself?” Frank asked. “Does she have any idea that Aileen may not be her biological mother?”

“I certainly haven’t told her,” Joa

“Are you going to tell her?” Frank asked.

Joa

“You must be getting older,” Frank said.

“What do you mean by that?” Joa

“You’re sure as hell getting wiser. So do we need backup to go see Dolores Mattias, or are we doing this on our own?”

“Between the two of us, I think we can probably handle Dolores Mattias,” Joa

“Where to, then?” Frank asked, turning the key in the ignition.

“The Triple H. Dolores and Joaquin have a place on Triple H Ranch Road.”

The Mattias place was easy enough to find. It had apparently started out as a double-wide mobile home, but with the addition of a screened front porch and a covered back patio, there was no longer anything mobile about it. The Dodge Ram Joa