Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(76)
Joanna picked up the vial and handed it to her. “How long will it take you to tell me if this is scopolamine?”
“Two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” Casey replied. “I’ll let you know as soon as I get the results.”
She departed at once, and Joanna turned back to Dick. “Have you mentioned any of this to Frank Montoya?”
“As a matter of fact, I just did,” Dick said. “I told him there was a lot going on in his bailiwick that didn’t meet the eye and maybe he should look into it.”
“And?”
“He allowed as how he would.”
“Did you tell him anything about a possible connection to the Hogan case?” Joanna asked.
“Not a word,” Dick replied. “Didn’t seem like a good idea to get caught in a crossfire between the two of you.”
“Fair enough,” Joanna said.
“As you know from Jorge Moreno, I was hired to work on Leon’s behalf,” Dick continued. “And that’s how I ended up looking into the Nite Owl—because I learned Leon’s wife and her boyfriend hang out there a lot. Randy can be a real jerk sometimes, and some of the other customers don’t much care for him. The guy who gave me the tip this morning just happens to hate the guy’s guts.”
“A tip to what effect?”
“Randy’s got a chance to buy into an important chunk of the local drug trade for an up-front cost of a hundred thousand dollars.”
“The same amount of money as the expected proceeds from Leon’s group insurance policy,” Joanna murmured.
“You got it,” Dick said. “So according to my source, Randy and Madison showed up at the bar last night and got into a hell of a fight. During the course of a very heated argument, Randy was overheard to say, ‘If you ain’t got the money, you worthless bitch, then we are done!’”
“That’s probably the first he found out that the money he was counting on wasn’t coming.”
“And he wasn’t happy about it either,” Dick said.
“What happened then?”
“Randy left. Madison stayed on until closing time, kept right on drinking, and ended up leaving with somebody else.”
Joanna’s phone rang. “Contents test positive for scopolamine,” Casey said when she came on the line
“Good,” Joanna said. “Thanks.”
“Anything else?” Casey asked.
“I’ll let you know,” Joanna said. She turned back to Dick Voland. “Sounds like I’d better touch bases with Frank,” she said.
He stood up. “Sounds like,” he agreed. “Again, the guy who’s my source is a friend of mine. I’m not naming him. That way when questions start flying, he won’t be singled out, but I’m pretty sure he’ll talk, and so will others. As I said, Randy Williams isn’t exactly Mr. Congeniality around there, and I don’t think there’ll be too many zipped lips.”
“Thanks, Dick,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
“And for the record, Leon Hogan was a good guy who didn’t deserve what he got.”
Joanna nodded. “I’m pretty sure you’re right about that, too.”
Dick walked as far as the doorway and then turned around. “One more thing,” he added as an afterthought. “When you talk to Frank, you might want to mention that Floyd Barco is a convicted felon, currently on parole. He drives a 1994 Chevrolet Suburban that is currently operating with a broken taillight, and he’s known to keep an illegal handgun in his glove box, along with a ready supply of scopolamine. After the bar closes each night, he generally hangs around for a tipple or two after he finishes cleaning up, not that he does much of that.”
“You took a pretty deep dive into the Nite Owl, didn’t you?”
“We aim to please,” Dick replied with a grin.
“Thanks for the background info,” Joanna told him. “Appreciate it.”
Once Dick was gone, she picked up her phone and dialed Frank Montoya’s number. “I think we need to talk about the Nite Owl, Floyd Barco, and Leon Hogan,” she said when he answered, “not necessarily in that order.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “It sounds like we need to do a lot more than just talk.”
Chapter 34
Wanting privacy, Jenny waited until Beth went into the bathroom to get ready for bed before calling her folks to report in.
“So how are things?” her mom wanted to know.
“Better,” Jenny replied. “As we were heading for the interview with the FBI, Beth was still a basket case. I thought for sure she would fall to pieces, but she didn’t. It was actually pretty amazing.”
“What was amazing about it?” Joanna asked.
“The way Agent Norris handled her reminded me of when Jim Carter brought that wild mare to Clayton Rhodes and asked him to fix her. Remember that?”
Joanna did. For decades Clayton had been Cochise County’s premier horse trainer. Because his land abutted the original High Lonesome Ranch, he’d also been Joanna’s nearest neighbor. After Andy’s death he had been a huge help in terms of pitching in with chores.
At some point Jim Carter, Jenny’s 4-H leader, had bought a wild horse at auction that had been culled from one of the herds running loose on Bureau of Land Management pastureland. When Jim couldn’t get anywhere with the animal, he brought it over to Clayton. The old man was in his eighties by then and unwilling to tackle actually breaking the horse, but Jenny had been old enough and interested enough to take a front-row seat at the patient way he’d gentled the terrified animal and brought her around.