“Unfortunately that situation is one some of you may encounter during the course of your careers in law enforcement—the critical decision to pull the trigger or not pull the trigger, and I pray that if and when one of those incidents comes to pass, each of you will make the right decision.
“In our family, Jennifer is actually third-generation law enforcement. Her grandfather, my father—D.H. Lathrop—served as the sheriff of Cochise County long before I was elected. Andrew Brady, Jenny’s late father, was a deputy sheriff in that same jurisdiction, before being killed in the line of duty. Now I’m the sheriff. However, the situation on the ground has changed drastically since my father’s day.
“Back then and even at the beginning of my years in office, the Cochise County Jail was populated by short-timers—nonviolent offenders who were incarcerated there for a matter of days or weeks rather than for months or years. But that’s not how things are now. Often we’re forced to deal with violent offenders who, with no way to be bonded out, have to be held in our facility for extended periods of time while awaiting trial.
“The most dangerous inmate currently housed in the Cochise County Jail, my jail, is a human trafficker who crashed a speeding vehicle loaded with twenty-three undocumented individuals. Nine of the twenty-three perished—five at the scene and four more after being transported by EMS. The offender is now being held without bond while awaiting trial on nine counts of felony vehicular homicide.Having waived his right to a speedy trial, there’s no telling how long he’ll be there. The problem is, he’s also a violent member of the Sinaloa Cartel and poses a constant danger not only to my jail personnel, but also to his fellow inmates.
“Still, human trafficking is only a small part of the problems that currently plague us. We all know about the death and destruction being visited on grieving families all over the country by drug addictions due to the uncountable doses of fentanyl and heroin that are currently pouring into our country. This may not be a traditional war zone, but it’s a war zone nonetheless. By raising your hand and swearing to serve and protect in any given jurisdiction in the state of Arizona, you’ll also be putting yourself on the front line of that war zone—the thin blue line that is now this country’s first line of defense.
“So thank you for being here today. Thank you for stepping up and agreeing to do this necessary, incredibly challenging but also incredibly rewarding job. And today, please accept both my congratulations along with my profound gratitude to each and every one of you. Well done!”
Finished, Joanna picked up her phone and then returned to her chair to a round of enthusiastic applause. After that, Wilson rolled his chair forward. One at a time, he began calling the official representatives of the various agencies to come forward where they individually swore in that jurisdiction’s graduates. After each new officer repeated his or her oath of office, shiny new badges were pinned on the chests of their impeccably pressed uniforms.
When Pima County Sheriff Brian Fellows wheeled his own chair up the ramp onto the podium, he and Leonard Wilson exchanged small nods of acknowledgment. Then, taking his place center stage, Sheriff Fellows motioned for Joanna to join him. She stood at attention while Jenny and two other recruits, including a guy named Rory Adcock, were called to the podium to swear their oaths of office. When it came time to pin on her daughter’s badge, Joanna’s hands trembled so hard that she barely managed to fasten it. Although shedid her best to put on a brave front, as she returned to her seat, she found herself wiping away tears. She tried to pretend she’d just gotten a speck of dust in her eye, but she doubted anyone in the room was fooled.
Like many others gathered there that day, Joanna Brady was now the parent of a rookie police officer. Soon her own beloved child’s life would be on the line right along with everyone else’s.
Chapter 3
Fertile, Minnesota
1958–1961
Once Steve and his mother moved in with Gramps, amiracle happened. From first grade on, Steve was an excellent reader—always in the blue bird reading group rather than red or yellow. When Gramps saw the A+s in reading on Steve’s report cards, he didn’t seem at all surprised.
“You must take after your grandma Joan,” Gramps said. “That woman never had a spare moment when she didn’t have her nose buried in a book.”
As far as Steve knew, Grandma Lucille never read anything—not even the newspaper. A few months after moving into Gramps’s house, when Steve went up to the attic to bring down the Christmas decorations, he discovered a large box filled with books—twenty or so. At dinner that night, after lugging the decorations downstairs, he asked about the books.
“Those belonged to your grandma Joan,” Gramps explained. “When Grandma Lucille moved in, she didn’t approve of having them in the living room, so she boxed ’em up and stored them in the attic.”
“Would it be okay if I brought them down to read them?” Steve asked.
“Sure,” Gramps said. “Why not? All they’re doing now is sitting around in the attic gathering dust.”
Once Steve carried the box downstairs, he found a treasure trove of twenty-six books in all—a dozen Ellery Queens, thirteen Agatha Christies, and a thick one calledThe Complete Compendium of Sherlock Holmes. On the inside cover of each book, Steve found an inscription that said either Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday to Joanie, Love, Ori. Gramps’s first name was Orson, and that’s what most people called him, including Grandma Lucille, but for Grandma Joan, he’d been Ori, and she’d been Joanie. Reading those inscriptions made Steve feel as though he’d just uncovered a long-hidden family secret.
Of course, Steve read more than just the inscriptions. Using a flashlight under his bedding at night, before Christmas vacation was over, Steve had raced through them all. When school started up again, he did an oral book report onMurder in the Calais Coach. Miss Beach, his seventh-grade teacher, gave him an A, but she took Steve aside and quietly explained the correct pronunciation of Hercule Poirot’s last name.
With all the books, though, and especially with the Sherlock Holmes stories, Steve concentrated on the details, poring over the tiny mistakes killers made that ended up giving them away and helping them get caught. As someone who had gotten away with murder once, not getting caught was Steve’s first priority.
As far as he could tell, most killers were caught because they murdered people they knew—lovers, spouses, family members, or business associates. That meant that, in order to solve the crime, all the investigators had to do was go through the victim’s circle of acquaintances to find the murderer. Given that, it didn’t take long for Steve to realize that he’d been extremely lucky to get away with taking out Grandma Lucille.
More often than not, the person who found the body and reported it turned out to be the one responsible. He was the one who had called the cops about Grandma Lucille’s body, but the fact thathe’d been eleven at the time had worked in his favor. No one could imagine that a kid that young could possibly be a cold-blooded killer. The other thing going for Steve was the fact that there were absolutely no witnesses to the crime and no physical evidence, either. If the fishing line had cut into her skin, things might have gone differently, but the string that tripped her had caught on the top of her boot, and no one had ever found the fishing string in the bottom of the burning barrel primarily because no one ever went looking.
While Steve studied the murder textbooks that had come to him by way of Grandma Joan’s book box, he continued to listen to his voices. They had all applauded what he’d done in getting rid of Grandma Lucille, but for the time being they seemed to be of the opinion that, although he had started down the path to his destiny at a very young age, for right now he needed to bide his time. So that’s exactly what he did—he waited.
In 1961, when Steve turned sixteen, Gramps handedhis 1956 GMC pickup over to his grandson and bought a new vehicle for himself. For the first time in his life, Steve Roper was free as a bird. He no longer had to depend on his bicycle, his friends, his mother, or Gramps to get around. He could go wherever he wanted completely on his own, and that suited him just fine.
In August of that summer, Steve went to the opening day of the Polk County Fair. He knew it was a hunting expedition, but he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He showed up in the middle of the afternoon and hung out around the midway. While there, he saw a few of the kids he knew from high school, but he didn’t really mingle with any of them.
As evening came on and it started to cool off a little, the midway got more and more crowded. Eventually Steve saw what he wanted—a little kid, probably seven or eight, dressed in a Cub Scout uniform. He was standing alone by the merry-go-round, crying his eyes out.
“Is something the matter?” Steve asked.
“I had to go to the bathroom,” the kid said. “When I came back everyone was gone—my den leader and everybody. I don’t know where they are.”
“Come on,” Steve said kindly, taking the kid’s hand. “Let me help you find them.”
