Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(35)

“If I happen to find this robe,” Ernie asked, “what do you want me to do with it?”

“If somebody’s already run it through the laundry, you don’t need to do anything. If they haven’t, take it into evidence and bring it back to Casey. Tell her I want her to look for cast-off GSR on the insides of both sleeves.”

“Will do,” Ernie replied. “And I’ll let you know how it’s going.”

“Good,” Joanna said. When she emerged from the bedroom, she didn’t exactly mention her conversation with Ernie to Butch. Maybe Butch was right and Joanna was jumping to conclusions, but that didn’t mean she was ready to call it quits. It also didn’t mean she was prepared to discuss it.

As Joanna loaded up a pair of traveling thermal coffee cups, Butch loaded the kids and their gear into the car. With him going on tour, they had transferred Sage’s car seat from his Subaru to Joanna’s more spacious Enclave, and that’s what they drove that day. They left the house at ten, dropped Denny off at Jeff and Marianne’s, and were having lunch at a Burger King in Tucson on the far north end of Oracle Road by a quarter to twelve.

At the signing Sage behaved perfectly. She snoozed through her father’s literary presentation without making so much as a peep. When Butch introduced his wife and daughter to the audience, the crowd responded with enthusiastic applause. Later, during the signing itself, Joanna discovered that Butch had been on the money about the way his many retiree fans would feel about Sage’s presence—they absolutely loved it! When it came time for selfies, there were lots of people who wanted Sage and Butch in the photo with them, but there were more than a few who had zero interest in having Butch’s face included. Their selfies featured Sage as the star attraction. Fortunately, she responded way better to the attention from all those cell-phone-wielding, silver-haired grandma types than she had to being photographed with Santa a few weeks earlier.

Their next stop was at the hospital. They had already discussed that Butch and Sage would hang out in the lobby while Joanna went up to Armando’s room. What they didn’t expect was to run into the two DPS detectives who were on their way out the front entrance as they were entering.

“What are you doing here?” Newton asked, while looking disapprovingly at each of them in turn.

“I’m here to visit my deputy,” Joanna replied. “This is my husband, Butch Dixon, and my daughter, Sage. Butch, these are Detectives Dave Newton and Liam Jackson of the Department of Public Safety.”

Butch obligingly offered his hand. While both detectives accepted the greeting, Newton’s gaze returned almost immediately to Sage.

“I would have thought your baby would be much older by now,” he said with a frown.

“The baby you’re thinking of is older,” Joanna replied. “His name is Dennis, and he’s seven. Sage is baby number two.”

Detective Newton appeared to be nonplussed at that, as though he couldn’t quite deal with the idea that Sheriff Joanna Brady had not one but two young children. Overcoming his momentary confusion, the DPS officer quickly reverted to form.

“Well,” he growled, “what I said yesterday still goes. We’ve interviewed Deputy Ruiz, but if you speak to him today, you are to make no references to the shooting investigation. Is that clear, Sheriff Brady?”

“Oh, it’s clear all right, Detective Newton,” she told him. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

“Soccer Ball Guy must not have kids of his own,” Butch muttered once the others were out of earshot. “He doesn’t seem to be up to speed when it comes to child development.”

“You’re probably right about that,” Joanna said. “And any kids he didn’t have should count themselves lucky.”

At the desk in the lobby, Butch and Joanna learned that Armando had been moved from the ICU to a regular room. While Butch and Sage hung out in the hospital lobby, Joanna went upstairs to a room that was awash in flowers and overflowing with people. Amy and her three boys were front and center, as were her parents, Glenn and Suzanne Harper, while a soft-spoken Hispanic woman hovered in the background. When it was time for introductions, the latter turned out to be Consuelo Ruiz, Armando’s mother, who seemed beyond pleased to learn that the sheriff herself had come to visit.

It was easy to see that the crush of visitors was more than Armando could handle. As the Harpers gathered up the three boys to head back to Sierra Vista, Joanna turned to Amy. Her coloring was bad. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked as though she was weary beyond bearing.

“How are you doing?” Joanna asked kindly.

“All right, I guess,” Amy answered faintly, although she sounded anything but all right.

“How’s he doing?” Joanna asked.

“Better,” Amy said, “and far better than his doctors expected. There’s no sign of an infection, but he’s tired right now, especially after those other investigators were here. Talking to them really wore him out.”

“Yes,” Joanna said. “I ran into the DPS guys on my way in.”

Amy frowned. “The older one isn’t very nice, is he?”

“Not very,” Joanna agreed, “but he has a job to do.”

“He acted as though he thinks Armando somehow provoked Leon Hogan into shooting at him—as though all of this is Armando’s fault.”