“You mean Katherine wasn’t off doing medical mission work when she told Brianna that’s what she was doing?”

“Right.”

“Where was she, then?”

“I don’t know,” Ignacio replied. “If Bree ever found out, she never told me.”

Joanna recognized the wary reluctance in Ignacio’s voice. “She did find out something, though, didn’t she?” Joanna prodded. “What?”

“That her mother couldn’t have gone off on any medical missions. She wasn’t a nurse anymore. She didn’t have a license.” “Thank you, Ignacio,” Joanna told him. “That’s all I need to know.”

Minutes after talking to Ignacio Ybarra, Joanna had Kristin Marsten fax an official inquiry to the Arizona State Department of Licensing. The reply returned with an alacrity that Joanna found astonishing. Katherine V. Ross had lost her right to be a nurse at the request of her former employer-Good Samaritan Hospital. Her license had been permanently revoked.

She had been implicated in the wrongful death of a patient-one Ricardo Montano Diaz-who had died as a result of an accidental overdose of medication. The hospital had settled the resultant legal suit by making a sizable monetary payment to the dead man’s family. There was no mention of criminal charges being brought against the nurse. However, as her part of the settlement with the Diaz family, she had agreed to give up the practice of nursing. Just to make sure, however, the hospital had gone to the extraordinary measure of making sure her license was revoked.

Having gleaned that much information from the first page of the multipage fax, Joanna almost put it aside without glancing at any of the subsequent pages. Halfway down the second page, though, the words dust storm leaped off the page.

Mr. Diaz, it turned out, had been critically burned in a fiery, dust storm-related accident on Interstate 10 when the loaded semi he was driving had plowed into another vehicle, trapping and killing a woman and two children. David O’Brien’s first wife and his first two children.

Outside her window, a long fork of lightning streaked across the darkening sky, followed immediately by the crack and rumble of nearby thunder. Joanna barely noticed. She turned loose the pages of the fax and let them flutter onto her desk.

“My mother is a liar,” she said to herself. And probably much worse besides.

The words wrongful death could conceal a multitude of everything from involuntary manslaughter to aggravated first-degree murder. How had this death happened? Joanna wondered. And who was ultimately responsible?

The hospital had paid the claim, or at least the hospital insurer had. Katherine O’Brien, nee Ross, had lost her nursing license as a result of what had happened, so presumably she had been held primarily accountable. Had she acted alone? What about David O’Brien, her future husband, who most likely had been a patient in the same hospital at the time of Mr. Diaz’s death?

While Joanna stared off into space, her mind kept posing questions. What if, after all these years, while trying to figure out where to send her mother’s birthday card, Brianna O’Brien had somehow stumbled across the same information? What if she had confronted her parents about the roles they had both played in the other man’s death?

With a storm in her heart that very nearly matched the one blowing up outside her window, Joanna sat at her desk and considered. To everyone who knew them, Katherine and David O’Brien appeared to be a fine, upstanding couple. Supposing Bree, having discovered bits and pieces of their darker past, had threatened to expose them. Would they have killed their own daughter to keep that secret from becoming public knowledge?

After all, if the simple disobedient gesture of wearing a forbidden pair of earrings had merited a slap in the face, how would David O’Brien have responded to something much more serious?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sitting there thinking the unthinkable and wondering whether or not the O’Briens were capable of murdering their own daughter, Joanna was startled out of her terrible reverie a few minutes later when the intercom buzzed once more. “Detective Capenter is on the line,” Kristin announced.

“What gives?” Joanna asked, picking up the phone. “Are you bringing Nettleton in?”

“Sending him,” Carpenter replied. “Nettleton, that is. Detective Carbajal picked him up for transport just a while ago. We arrested him on suspicion of possession of stolen property.”

“Stolen property?” Joanna echoed.

“That’s right. We found a ‘92 Honda that was reported stolen two days ago in Tucson. It was hidden in a shed at the very back of his lot. It hadn’t quite made it through his on-prem chop shop. Once we get around to tracking VINs on some of the other pieces of vehicles we found out on Sam’s back forty, there may be more besides.”

“Wait a minute,” Joanna interrupted. “You’re talking Vehicle Identification Numbers? I thought this was about Freon. What’s going on, Ernie? Why is Jaime bringing in the suspect instead of you?”

“Because I’m on my way to Willcox,” Ernie answered. “Along with the boys from DEA. Adam York is going to meet us there.”

“Willcox?”

“The DEA guys put the fear of God in Nettleton. He gave us a name,” Ernie explained. “Aaron Meadows.”

“Who’s he?” Joanna asked.

“He’s the guy who’s supposedly selling the stuff to Nettleton. He’s an ex-con lately out of Florence. He grew up just outside Willcox. You probably don’t remember this. It’s before your time, but his grandparents once ran a combination gas station/cattle rest east of there.”

“What’s Meadows’s connection to all this?”

“He went to prison for smuggling years ago. Drugs back then. Chances are, that’s what he’s doing again-smuggling, only now the payload is Freon rather than drugs. I’m in the process of having Dick Voland issue an APB. Meadows drives an ‘89 Suburban. With any luck, he shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Joanna considered for a moment. With Ernie Carpenter to-tally focused on the Freon situation, it seemed like a bad time to bring up anything more about the O’Briens. Mentioning an almost-twenty-year old wrongful death case in Phoenix would simply muddy the waters for an officer who was already neck-deep in a complicated joint operation. There would be plenty of time to discuss the Diaz case with Ernie once the dust had settled and the damned Freon situation had finally come to a head.

“Keep me posted,” Joanna said at last. “What about deputies? Will you need more?”

“That’s handled. Dick Voland’s already put out the word for all uncommitted deputies to head for Willcox. With them and the guys from the DEA we should have a full contingent.”

“Be careful,” Joanna warned. “You’re wearing body armor?”

Ernie laughed. “Are you kidding? After what we paid for this outfit, Rose won’t let me out the front door without it. She’s determined we’re going to get our money’s worth.”

“If nagging is all it takes to get you to wear it, good for Rose,” Joanna returned.

She put down the phone and looked outside just as a storm-spawned dust devil tore through the parking lot. Wind-driven rain came moments later, slanting down to the ground with such ferocity that for a few minutes even Joanna’s Crown Victoria, parked right outside the window, was totally obscured from view.

Ernie was right. If the storm lasted for very long, it would indeed be another gully-washer. All her life, Joanna had delighted in these spectacular downpours. But as sheriff, she couldn’t help seeing them through the nagging prism of her fiscal and budgetary responsibilities. What had once been a welcome summertime diversion now meant nothing more than another hit in the overtime department. She didn’t have to be a fortune-teller to gaze into the next morning’s briefing and see exactly what would happen. Both her chief deputies would be there, and Frank Montoya would be pitching his usual fit.