“Okay, okay,” Jim said, realizing she was teasing him. “We’ll get it done a little sooner than that. Come on into the office. I’ll have to check the book.”
Back in her Crown Victoria Joanna headed east on Highway 80, but again, instead of going straight on out to the ranch, she turned off at the Cochise County Justice Complex. After all, no one was waiting for her at home. Is that why I’m finding a hundred reasons not to go there? she wondered.
After a few seconds of reflection, Joanna shoved that unwelcome thought aside, convincing herself, instead, that the real reason she was stopping off at the office was because some-thing Jim Hobbs had said was still niggling at her. Joanna realized that what Hobbs had suggested about drug smugglers switching over to Freon was indeed true. As head of law enforcement for a county with eighty miles of international border inside her jurisdictional boundaries, Sheriff Brady was a member of the MJF-the Multi-Jurisdiction Force-an organization designed specifically to combat border area criminal activities. As such, she was well aware that, after heroin and cocaine, Freon had now moved to number three on the DEA’s list of illegal substance smuggling headaches.
Bearing that in mind, Joanna felt obliged to share whatever information she had gleaned with other members of the MJF. Before opening her mouth, however, she wanted to know more specifics. She pulled into the lot at the back of the building, parked in her reserved spot, and then let herself into the office through a private door outfitted with a keypad lock. Once inside, she settled down at her desk, turned on the computer, and logged onto the MJF web site.
As soon as she typed in the word Freon, she hit pay dirt. For the next twenty minutes she learned more about the lucrative trade in illicit R-12 smuggling than she ever would have thought possible, including the fact that the Drug Enforcement Agency was now working jointly with the U.S. Customs Service to put a stop to it. When she finished, she picked up the phone and dialed a Tucson number for Adam York, the DEA’s local agent in charge, who had become both a colleague and a friend.
“So where are you this time?” Joanna asked when he answered. York’s job took him all over the state and even all over the country at times, but through the magic of call-forwarding, his Tucson number always seemed to work.
“Believe it or not,” he said, “I’m just sitting here by the pool with a drink in one hand savoring the idea of a Saturday night at home. How about you? You’re not in Tucson, are you?”
“I wish,” Joanna said. “I’m busy, reading up on Freon.”
“Freon. How come?”
“There’s a possibility I may have stumbled onto a smuggling operation down here.”
Joanna heard Adam York’s glass hit a table. The sound of it told her she had the man’s undivided attention. “Who?” he asked urgently. “Where?”
“I heard tonight that some guy up in Benson was about to pick up a big load of cut-rate Freon. I thought you might he interested.”
“You bet I am. Who is he?”
“His name’s Sam Nettleton. Runs a place called Sam’s Easy Towing and Wrecking in Benson. I just ran a copy of his rap sheet. Everything from drunk and disorderly to assault. He’s also had a number of consumer complaints for exorbitant towing charges. Does this sound like somebody you’d be interested in?”
Over the next few minutes, Joanna gave Adam York a complete rundown on the situation, including Sam’s offer to bring Jim Hobbs in on buying what was evidently an illegal shipment of coolant. York listened all the way through.
“This Nettleton guy sounds like a pretty small fish,” the DEA agent said when she finished. “But small fish often lead to bigger fish. We’ve been investigating a big air-conditioning contractor up in Phoenix for months now. So far we haven’t been able to put together anything solid. It’s not likely the two cases are related, but that’s always a possibility. Let me do some checking and get back to you. Is Monday soon enough?”
“Monday will be fine, I guess,” Joanna said. “But it may be too late. Remember, that’s when the alleged shipment-whatever it is-is supposed to arrive. Nettleton told Jim Hobbs he had to have the cash by noon on Monday in order to pay for it.”
“I’ll get back to you on this tomorrow, then,” Adam promised. “If not in the morning, then tomorrow afternoon for sure. If I can manage it, I’ll figure out a way to put this guy under surveillance. What about the fellow who told you about him? What’s his name again?”
“Jim Hobbs,” Joanna told him. “He runs an auto repair shop here in Bisbee.”
“Do you think he’d mind talking to one of my investigators?”
‘‘Are yon kidding? He’s so pissed about what Sam Nettleton is pulling, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t willing to take out an ad in the paper.”
Joanna gave Adam York Jim Hobbs’s telephone numbers. While the DEA agent’s moving pencil made scribbling sounds over the phone, she added, “Sorry about screwing up your peaceful weekend at home.”
“Don’t worry about it,” York said. “Happens all the time. Besides, look who’s talking,” he added. “It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night, and here you are calling me from the office.”
“Don’t tell me,” Joanna said. “Caller ID. Right?”
“It would have to be,” Adam York said with a chuckle. “I’m sure as hell no psychic.”
When Joanna left the office an hour or so after she arrived, she found that the outside temperature had dropped some. Turning off on Double Adobe Road, she noticed that, off to the southeast, at the southernmost corner of the vast Sulphur Springs Valley, there were a few muted flickers of light on the distant horizon. Lightning. The first storms of the summer monsoon season were trying to make their way up into the Arizona desert from the Gulf of California.
Traditionally, summer rains always arrived just in time to throw a wet blanket on Bisbee’s Fourth of July fireworks celebration. But Independence Day was still more than two weeks away. In the meantime, Joanna expected there would be more days of scorching summer temperatures accompanied by the added complication of gradually increasing humidity.
She had barely turned off onto the High Lonesome’s dirt track of a road when Tigger, a clownish golden retriever/pit bull mix-and Sadie, a leggy bluetick hound-bounded into the moving glow of headlights to greet the car and race the Crown Victoria back to the house. When Joanna parked and opened her door, the dogs raced around to the far side of the vehicle in a frenzied but futile search for Jenny.
“Too bad, guys,” Joanna told them. “No Jenny tonight. Sad to say, you two are going to have to make do with just me for the next little while.”
Out of habit, Joanna had switched off the cooler when she had left for Green Brush Ranch late that afternoon. Now, at ten o’clock at night, the inside of the house felt overheated, especially when compared to the far more moderate temperatures outdoors. Once Joanna turned on the old swamp cooler, she knew it would take an hour or more for it to work its magic. In the meantime, she stripped off her work clothes in favor of shorts and an old T-shirt. Then, pausing only long enough to take messages off the machine, she collected her new cordless phone, a tablet, and a pen and went outside onto the front porch. Settling into the swing, she began returning calls.
Eva Lou Brady, Joanna’s mother-in-law, had called early in the afternoon to invite Joanna to come to dinner after church on Sunday. One of the organizers of the Fourth of July parade had called to see if Sheriff Brady would be willing to step in as grand marshal now that Bisbee’s mayor, Agnes Pratt, had been sidelined with an emergency appendectomy. There were also two separate calls from Joanna’s friend Angie Kellogg-one from home and one from work.