Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(52)

“The protection order?” Joanna asked, glancing in Casey’s direction.

The CSI nodded. “Keep looking,” she said.

The next three photos were all of the same thing—the tipped-over coffee cup at the far end of the table—and each was somewhat larger than the previous one. It wasn’t until Joanna was studying the final photo that she saw what Casey had wanted her to see in the first place—a dark smudge of lipstick along the rim of the cup.

“So the cup with the lipstick on it must be Madison’s.”

Casey nodded again.

“Did you happen to collect samples from this one?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Casey said regretfully, “but I doubt that it had been tampered with. No one at the scene indicated that Madison was impaired in any way. Hysterical and out of control yes, but not drugged up.”

“You passed this information along to Dave Newton?”

“Absolutely,” Casey said. “And if he asks me, I’m planning on telling him that I showed it to you, too.”

“So she goes there and doses poor Leon with scopolamine in hopes of taking him out. Then, when Leon gets hold of her gun, she runs from the house, and he comes out shooting at her, so confused and doped up that he probably has no idea what he’s doing.”

Casey nodded. “The fact that he actually hit Armando was nothing but sheer bad luck.”

“And utterly senseless,” Joanna added, handing the photos back to Casey. “Thanks for letting me see these.”

Casey took the photos and left. Forty-five minutes later, while Joanna was working her way through that day’s incoming mail, Kristin reached out to her over the intercom.

“Detective Liam Jackson to see you, Sheriff Brady.”

Joanna had to smile. Her office door was almost always open, and most people simply walked inside. Kristin was clearly putting on airs for this out-of-town, Department of Public Safety interloper.

“Sure,” Joanna said. “Send him right in.”

“Good morning, ma’am,” Liam said.

Joanna couldn’t help but like the guy. She had developed a BS filter that enabled her to separate phony politeness from the real thing. This was definitely the latter.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“Dave wanted me to let you know that we’re pulling up stakes and heading back to the barn.”

“You mean you’ve finished your investigation?”

Liam nodded. “We just had a meeting with your county attorney and showed him what we had so far. Mr. Jones told us that in light of additional evidence that surfaced overnight, it’s reasonable to assume Leon Hogan was under the influence of scopolamine at the time of the shooting. Mr. Jones’s determination is that in returning fire, Deputy Ruiz was acting in self-defense and that his use of deadly force was justified.”

Saying nothing, Joanna sat very still for a moment, allowing a wave of relief to wash over her. Armando was in the clear as far as charges were concerned. Of course, it was typical of Dave Newton that he wasn’t man enough to show up and admit his defeat to Joanna in person.

“Thank you so much, Liam,” she murmured at last. “I appreciate your letting me know, although I suspect that your partner was hoping for a somewhat different outcome.”

Liam nodded, giving her a noncommittal shrug accompanied by a wry grin. “Sometimes you eat the bear,” he said. “Sometimes the bear eats you.”

And sometimes when you eat bear meat, you end up with trichinosis, Joanna thought, but she didn’t say so aloud.

“Does that mean that when Deputy Ruiz recovers, I won’t need to keep him on administrative leave?”

“That’s correct.”

“Does anyone else know?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Liam replied. “Only you.”

As soon as Liam departed, Joanna hurried to Tom Hadlock’s door and stuck her head in the office. “Arlee Jones has spoken,” she said. “He’s ruled Leon Hogan’s death as justifiable homicide. No charges will be filed. I’d like you to hold a presser and let people know.”

“Where are you going?”

“Tucson,” she said. “This is news Armando and Amy Ruiz need to hear in person.”

“Do you want me to send out a departmentwide announcement?” Tom asked.

Kristin had created and maintained a special-distribution list so that in case of some dire emergency a notification could go out to the cell-phone numbers of every member of Joanna’s department at the press of a button. In this case, however, it would be sending out good news rather than bad.

“Yes,” Joanna said, “make it short and sweet, something like ‘An independent investigation by the Arizona Department of Public Safety has determined that Cochise County Deputy Armando Ruiz was acting in self-defense in the shooting death of Whetstone resident Leon Hogan.’ That’ll just about do it.”

Hadlock gave his boss a sly grin. “Are you sure you don’t want me to add a ‘Neener, neener, Detective Newton!’ on the bottom of that message?”

The fact that Tom was beginning to develop a sense of humor came as something of a shock to Joanna, and she burst out laughing.

“No, thanks,” she said. “Let’s go with understated elegance, but remember: Don’t send out the text until I give you the go-ahead. I want to let Amy and Armando know before anyone else does.”