“Did it ever occur to you that, if you were planning on becoming a sheriff, maybe you should have been studying up on the United States Constitution as opposed to hawking Girl Scout cookies?”
Joanna bristled at his condescension, but she kept her voice steady. “By that I’m assuming you’re referring to a person’s right to remain silent and to have an attorney present during the course of police questioning?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m well aware of both of those, Mr. Whitmer,” she said. “Now, if you’ll be so kind as to join me in my office, there’s something I’d like you to see.” She led him into her office and asked him to be seated in one of the visitors’ chairs on the far side of her desk.
Body cams had been a long time coming to her department, but once they were there, Joanna had made it her business to learn how to access individual files so she’d be able to play them back and make her own assessment about whatever had gone on. When someone was threatening a lawsuit claiming police brutality, it was really helpful to be able to know for certain if the accusation had any merit.
She had no difficulty locating Burt Peterson’s footage from the night before and queuing it up to a 4:30 a.m. time frame. She found the point where Burt’s motion-activated camera came online as he left the jail’s administration office. At that point, she turned her desktop’s monitor around so it faced the other way. By the time she was seated next to Whitmer, Burt’s body cam indicated he waswalking down a corridor with barred cells on either side. In the background someone could be heard yelling indecipherable words and banging on the bars of a cell.
“What are you showing me?” Whitmer asked, although the answer should have been obvious.
“This is footage taken in my jail early this morning. Just be patient.”
Burt came to a stop in front of a particular cell. “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Roper?” he asked.
At that point the banging and yelling ceased. “I already told you. I want to see Sheriff Brady, and I want to see her now.”
“Sheriff Brady isn’t here at the moment. When she comes in, I’ll be sure to let her know that you’re anxious to speak to her.”
“Anxious, my ass!” Roper exclaimed. “You get that bitch on the phone and tell her that I’m willing to give her a full confession right now, but only to her, only if she brings my cigar box, and only if it happens before my asshole attorney shows up in town later today.”
“All right,” Burt said. “Let me see what I can do.”
Joanna turned to Whitmer. “Does that sound like a forced confession to you?” she asked.
Whitmer said nothing, so Joanna rose from her chair and returned to her keyboard on the far side of her desk. “If you’d like, I can also access the footage of my interview with him during which he confessed to six different homicides. Where, as you’ll be able to see, I begin by repeating his Miranda warning. Would you like me to start there?”
“Screw it!” Whitmer muttered, rising to his feet. “I’m done here.”
“Yes, you certainly are,” Joanna agreed with a smile. “I trust you can find your way out.”
Chapter 47
Bisbee, Arizona
Saturday, December 9, 2023
Settled at her desk, Joanna was reaching for herphone to call Anna Rae Green when it rang. “Sheriff Brady,” she answered.
“Craig Witherspoon here. I hear you’ve been busy, and apparently you didn’t need that arrest warrant. I understand Stephen Roper is in custody, so if I’m going to be in court for an arraignment hearing bright and early on Monday morning, I’m going to need to do some catching up, and not just on the cases here in Cochise County. I’ll need some insight into all those other cases as well.”
“You’re right,” Joanna said. “A lot has happened, and some of those other cases aren’t just suspected. They may not yet be proved, but they’re confirmed.”
“What do you mean ‘confirmed’?” Craig asked.
She quickly brought him up-to-date as far as Roper’s confession was concerned as well as the fact that he had most likely fired his defense attorney.
“All right,” Craig said when she finished. “I’m going to need to talk to all your investigators to see where we are. After that, I intend to watch every minute of that interview.”
“How soon will you be here,” Joanna asked.
“Twenty minutes to half an hour.”
“Okay, I’ll put everybody on notice.”
As she set down the phone, Joanna heard Tom Hadlock’s voice, coming from the office next to hers. She went to his door and poked her head inside, waiting while he finished a phone call. Clearly he was finalizing arrangements for shipping the next batch of jail inmates to Saguaro Hills. With everything else going on, that detail had completely slipped her mind.
