Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(22)
Amy’s beeper buzzed just after four. She leaped up like a frightened rabbit and started to clear the table. “You go,” Joanna said. “I’ll take care of this.”
Joanna was heading for the hospital elevator when a call came through from Arlee Jones. “Who the hell does Dave Newton think he is, coming into my county and telling me what I can and can’t do?” Cochise County’s chief prosecutor demanded.
Joanna’s first encounter with Newton had been in Pima County as opposed to Cochise, so it hadn’t fallen under Arlee Jones’s aegis.
“He is a bit of a jerk,” Joanna replied. She could have said a whole lot more, but she didn’t.
“He’s way more than ‘a bit,’” Arlee countered. “And he was walking around dissing Dave and Casey, acting as though our people don’t have any idea what they’re doing.”
He was dissing their boss, too. That’s what Joanna thought, but she didn’t say it aloud.
“What’s the deal with the fingerprints on the table knife?” Arlee asked. “Casey said you wanted them.”
Joanna took a breath and launched into an explanation. “Garth Raymond said that according to at least one of the Hogan kids they were playing in the bedroom when Armando showed up with the protection order. After the doorbell rang, someone—they didn’t see who—locked them inside the bedroom. After that they heard sounds of a struggle, followed by gunshots. At least I believe that’s the correct chronology. And so I’m curious. Who locked them in the bedroom, their father or their mother? Since Madison Hogan swore out the protection order just yesterday, how come she was stark naked at her husband’s residence early this morning?”
“She was naked because they had just gotten out of bed,” Arlee replied.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I asked her,” Arlee replied. “When I got tired of watching Detective Newton strutting around the crime scene like some puffed-up peacock, I took myself to the hospital and talked to the wife. Madison told me she called Mr. Hogan to ask for Christmas money for the kids. He said he’d give her some, but only if she and the kids came out to his place in Whetstone to spend the night. She decided that since the protection order hadn’t been delivered, her going there wouldn’t be a problem. I can’t help but feel sorry for the poor guy. He probably thought he’d get a piece of tail for his trouble. Instead he ended up with a bullet in his chest.”
Arlee Jones wasn’t exactly a font of political correctness.
“Frank Montoya told me that while the Hogans were still together and living in Sierra Vista, his department had responded to several domestic-violence incidents at their residence. In all those cases, Madison was deemed to be the aggressor. So where did the gun come from? Whose was it? What kind?”
“A Glock 17,” Arlee answered. “Dave Hollicker found a bunch of spent casings around the front door of the mobile home near where we found Leon Hogan’s body. They also found a single casing in the living room of the trailer, along with a bullet hole and a bullet in the living-room ceiling.”
“That coincides with what the little girl told Deputy Raymond—that the fight started inside the house and then moved outside, where, presumably, Leon Hogan was firing his weapon as he approached Deputy Ruiz.”
“That’s how it looks to me,” Arlee agreed. “Leon Hogan came out firing, and both Deputy Ruiz and Madison Hogan took cover behind the door of his vehicle. Hogan fired several shots. There was plenty of brass on the pouch and several slugs hit Armando’s vehicle, but only one bullet actually hit the door.”
“The one that hit him?”
“That’s right. It shattered the driver’s-side window and then ricocheted off the frame before striking Armando in the gut. I don’t think Hogan could shoot for beans, and the fact that Armando got hit was more of a fluke than anything else. How is he, by the way?”
“Just out of surgery,” Joanna said. “He’s in Recovery right now, so there’s no word on his condition. Amy, his wife, is with him.”
“Good to hear he made it through surgery,” Arlee said. “Now I just wish someone could take Newton down a peg or two. From what I saw, Armando Ruiz acted in self-defense, but that doesn’t mean those guys from DPS can’t drag out the investigation, making Armando’s life as miserable as possible for as long as possible—make yours miserable, too, for that matter.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Joanna said, “but think about those poor Hogan kids. Their lives are pretty miserable at the moment, too. There’s a good chance one of them saw their naked mother screaming over the body of their dead father.”
“Unfortunately, that’s something they’ll never be able to unsee,” Arlee Jones observed sadly.
For the first time ever, Joanna felt a real human connection to the crusty old prosecutor.
“Where are they right now?” she asked.
“The Hogan kids?” Arlee asked.
“Yes.”
“Back with their mother, I suppose,” Arlee replied. “Madison was hysterical when the EMTs brought her to the hospital in Sierra Vista. The doctors there gave her something to calm her down and take the edge off, but they were getting ready to release her about the time I was leaving. CPS was right to remove the kids from the crime scene, but I can’t see any reason for them not to be returned to their mother’s custody.”