“No idea. We just turned into the pullout. Do you want us to go back and tell her to get lost?”
Garth spoke again, saying something indecipherable. “Really?” Deb asked.
“What?” Joanna asked.
“It’s too late to send her packing. Roper’s truck is just now turning onto Country Club.”
Joanna could barely believe what she was hearing. There was no way her department could initiate a search warrant with an innocent civilian on the premises.
“Okay,” she said. “Everybody’s on standby here. Let us know the moment Marliss is out of the way, so we can send backup.”
“Will do,” Deb said, “but what on earth is Marliss doing there?”
“I don’t know,” Joanna replied. “But I can tell you this, I’m sure as hell going to be gunning for that leaker!”
As soon as the call with Deb ended, Joanna got up and stalked out of her office.
“Where are you going?” Kristin asked as she marched past.
“Dispatch,” Joanna asked. “All hell is about to break loose. I may not be able to bewherethe action is, but I’m sure as hell going to berunning it!”
Chapter 40
Naco, Arizona
Friday, December 8, 2023
With a chloroform-soaked dish towel in hand, Stephenleft the kitchen and approached Marliss from behind, catching her totally unawares. Once the chloroform did its job, he zip-tied both her arms and legs and tied a gag around her mouth. Much as the voices would have liked him to strangle her on the spot, he didn’t. There wasn’t time.
His first thought was to put Marliss in the back of his car and then dump the body someplace else, but he knew instantly that was a nonstarter. Remembering how difficult it had been to move Xavier Delgado’s much smaller body, Stephen knew that his gimpy arm and shoulder would never stand up to carrying a full-grown woman. But getting rid of her was paramount, and since it seemed likely no one knew she was here, and since he had no intention of ever coming back, leaving her here in the house seemed like his best option.
With that in mind, he dragged her into the bathroom and opened the trapdoor. The distance from there to the floor of the crawl space was probably a seven-foot drop. If half that distance had been enough to do in Grandma Lucille, twice the height should be more than enough to get the job done.
Before shoving her headfirst into the hole, Stephen went through her pockets. That’s when he found her car keys. He immediatelyrealized that taking her car made more sense than using his own. After all, Sheriff Brady’s crew would be looking for his vehicle, but he doubted anyone would be looking for Marliss Shackleford’s RAV4.
With Marliss’s key fob stowed in his pocket, he gave his victim a shove and then listened for the dull thud as she landed on the concrete slab below. The voices were ecstatic about that, but Stephen ignored them. If he was going to make the best of this very bad bargain, it was essential that he remain totally calm and completely focused.
With that in mind, Stephen hurried into his bedroom to pack. As he stuffed his shaving kit and medications into his suitcase, he worried about those. Getting refills might be an issue, but he’d tackle that problem farther down the road. The contents he’d already retrieved from the safe—the bag of money and the cigar box—went on the bottom layer of his suitcase. The clothing he grabbed was mostly casual stuff—slacks and golf shirts. None of the pink cancer survivor T-shirts made the cut, and neither did any of his golf hats. At the first opportunity, he planned to shave off the rest of his hair and be completely bald.
Twenty minutes after dropping Marliss to what he supposed was an instant death he brought his loaded suitcase into the living room. That’s when he spotted her belongings. Her purse still sat beside the easy chair exactly where she’d left it. Her laptop had fallen to the floor in the course of their brief struggle.
He still had one last duffel sitting unused in the coat closet next to the front door. He tore that out of its plastic wrapper and then stuffed the wrapper into the duffel bag along with the laptop and purse. Then he took a final look around the room. Nothing was in disarray. There were no knocked-over pieces of furniture or broken knickknacks to indicate that a struggle had occurred in the room.
Gathering up his two pieces of luggage, Stephen headed out. On the porch, he paused long enough to close and lock the door. He had lived here for the better part of fifty years, but he felt no particularsadness about leaving this place behind, just as he’d had no regrets about leaving Fertile all those years earlier. To prove it, once the door was locked, he literally threw the key away, tossing it into the thicket of prickly pear that was part of his xeriscaped front yard.
Then, as casually as if he were going away on a weekend outing, Stephen Roper walked over to Marliss’s RAV4 and loaded his luggage. After adjusting the seat and mirrors, he started the engine, pulled a U-ie, and drove away without a backward glance. The battered SUV wasn’t much of a drive compared to his Mercedes sedan, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Chapter 41
Bisbee, Arizona
Friday, December 8, 2023
Sheriff Brady counted on her dispatchers to be theheart of her department, but she generally spent very little time in that room, so when she showed up, Tica Romero was surprised to see her.
“What’s going on?” Tica asked, removing her headphones.
“All hell is about to break loose, and I’ll need to be able to hear everything that’s going on. Can you make that happen?”
