Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(75)
“Because they feel sorry for us,” Kendall explained, “because of Daddy.”
“Is that what people do when someone dies?”
“I guess,” Kendall said.
She was sorry about Daddy, too, but she was glad to have the food. Today, at least, they wouldn’t go hungry.
Chapter 33
By midafternoon Joanna was back in her office at the Justice Center and feeling as though she’d accomplished at least one small good deed for the day. The meeting with Rusty Miller had gone as she’d anticipated it would. Once he knew the full story, he simply nodded.
“Sounds like these folks really want him back,” Rusty said. “They’ve already lost their son. No reason they have to lose their son’s dog, too.”
After that he called Coon over, put him on a lead, and loaded him into the backseat of Joanna’s Interceptor.
“He’s a good dog,” Rusty told her once the dog was in the SUV. “He’s well behaved, housebroke, knows all about walking on a lead, and is great with kids. If the Hogans end up deciding they don’t want him after all, I’d take him back in a heartbeat.”
Joanna had driven the dog uptown, where a completely unruffled Coon walked into the lobby of the Copper Queen as if he owned the place. Joanna asked the desk clerk to call upstairs and let the Hogans know they had visitors. A few minutes later, when Lyn and Izzy Hogan stepped off the elevator, Coon went absolutely nuts. He broke free of Joanna’s loose hold on the leash and raced over to give an ecstatic greeting to the new arrivals. Then, with his tail a-wag, he stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on Izzy’s shoulders, and planted a wet tongue on her cheek.
“Why, Coonie!” Izzy exclaimed, laughing. “You funny old dog, you haven’t forgotten me after all.”
An embarrassed Joanna came racing to collect the lead, but Lyn beat her to it and waved her off. “It’s okay,” he said. “This guy was the runt of the litter. The breeder was going to get rid of him, but I talked him into giving him to me. Izzy brought him up, and then I trained him before we ever handed him over to Leon. I wasn’t about to send an untrained dog to a family with a couple of little kids.”
“That’s the wonderful thing about dogs,” Joanna said. “They don’t forget the people who look out for them, and that’s clearly the case with Coon.”
While the Hogans set off on a shopping expedition to get a dog bed, food, and dishes for their newly retrieved animal, Joanna went back to the office. She was just settling in when Kristin called to say that Dick Voland was in the outer office.
Joanna’s history with her former chief deputy was complicated. First there’d been their rivalry in that initial election, followed by her politically expedient move of appointing both her former rivals as co-seconds-in-command in her administration. Dick’s tenure had ended abruptly when it became apparent that he had developed a crush on Joanna. Once she put the kibosh on that, Dick had left the department. His later entanglement and subsequent breakup with Marliss Shackleford hadn’t helped matters. With all those complexities in the background, Joanna was grateful Kristin had given her a moment to put on her game face before ushering the man into the room.
She greeted him cordially. “Hey, Dick,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“I’ve got something I think you’ll want to see,” he said. Taking a seat in one of her visitor chairs, he pulled a small white vial out of his coat pocket and placed it on Joanna’s desk. “In fact,” he added, “you may want to ask Casey Ledford to run an analysis of the contents.”
Joanna had seen a vial just like that once before—in an evidence bag of items collected from Leon Hogan’s living room. With a nod she reached for her phone.
“Hey, Casey,” she said. “Can you stop by for a minute?” Then she turned to Dick. “Assuming this is what we both think it is, where did it come from?”
“Let’s just say I happen to know that Leon Hogan had been dosed with scopolamine and was completely out of his head when he was gunned down,” he said. “How’s Armando, by the way?”
Joanna didn’t like hearing that the officer-involved shooting investigation had sprung a leak, but Dick had so many friends inside the department she let it go. It could have been anyone, and for right now she was better off not knowing who the leaker was.
“Armando’s doing better than expected,” she answered. “We’re hoping he’ll be released sometime next week, but when he comes back to work, it’ll be desk duty only for the foreseeable future.”
“Too bad,” Dick muttered.
Joanna nodded. “Tell me about it, but if this turns out to be scopolamine, I need to know where it came from.”
“And I need to protect my sources,” Dick replied, “but here’s a hint. You might want to take a long, hard look at Floyd Barco, the nighttime bartender at the Nite Owl. There’s a lot that goes on in that joint that isn’t exactly kosher. He sells these out of the glove box of his car as needed.”
Joanna nodded. “I’ve heard about the Nite Owl,” she said. “It sounds like a real hot spot, and not in a good way.
Just then Casey popped her head in the door. “Hey, hi, Dick,” she said when she spotted him. “Good to see you.” Then to Joanna she added, “You wanted to see me?”