“She certainly did,” Joanna replied. “A girl from Devil’s Lake helped bring down a monster.”
Joanna’s next call was to Marvin Begay at his home, telling him about finding Michael Young’s red bandanna. She also left a message on Sheriff Ed Cox’s answering machine in Fulton, Missouri, letting him know that several sneaker shoelaces had been found to be in Stephen Roper’s possession, one of which might well belong to Lucianne Highsmith.
After that a totally drained Sheriff Brady went home where she downed not one, but two helpings of Butch’s still-warm green chili casserole. Over that, bit by bit, she told him the story of her day—all of it, with no holdbacks. He listened gravely, nodding as she went but saying very little. The last things she mentioned were the heartbreaking phone calls she’d made before heading home.
“That’s it?” Butch asked finally.
She nodded.
“What a hell of a day!”
Joanna nodded again.
“You did good work, though,” he added. “You caught the bastard. He’s sleeping behind bars tonight.”
“But Marliss is dead,” Joanna retorted, “and it’s my fault! If I hadn’t told Garth and Deb to wait for her to leave Roper’s place before executing that warrant...”
“Marliss put herself in that position,” Butch countered. “And your not sending the detectives in with a search warrant while an innocent civilian was present was not only the right thing to do, it was also the responsible thing to do. For all you know, there’s a good chance that Marliss could have been pushed into that crawlspace long before Garth and Deb arrived on the scene. If that were the case, no telling how long it would have taken to find her.”
“You’re saying that no matter what I did or didn’t do, she probably would have died anyway?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Butch replied, taking Joanna’s hand in his. “Do you have any idea why she went there in the first place?”
“Because of her cleaning lady,” Joanna answered. “She told Deb that the cleaning lady’s brother-in-law mentioned that people were looking at Señor Santa Claus in regard to the Delgado homicide.”
“So Marliss’s informant wasn’t from inside your department after all.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Joanna agreed.
“The thing you need to remember, Joey, is that Marliss Shackleford sealed her own fate the moment she stepped inside Stephen Roper’s front door.”
Joanna thought about that for a moment before responding. “Thank you for that,” she said. “Maybe now I’ll be able to sleep.”
Chapter 45
Bisbee, Arizona
Saturday, December 9, 2023
Joanna was sound asleep several hours later whenher cell phone jarred her awake at 4:15 a.m. Groaning, Butch turned over and pulled a pillow over his head, while Joanna, knowing this was work, padded into the bathroom and shut the door to take the call.
“Sheriff Brady,” she said.
“Burt Peterson,” the caller said. “Sorry to disturb you.”
Burt was the graveyard jail supervisor.
“No problem,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Stephen Roper is raising all kinds of hell,” Burt replied. “He’s demanding to speak to you right now.”
“In the middle of the night?” Joanna objected. “Can’t this wait until morning?”
“He says not. He claims he’s willing to give a full confession, but only to you, only if you bring his cigar box along—whatever that means, and only if it happens before his lawyer shows up in town sometime later on this morning.”
“Why me?” Joanna asked. “Why not the detectives?”
“No idea,” Burt said. “I’m just passing along what he said, but if he’s willing to give you a confession, I thought you’d want to talk to him.”
