“If she’s ready to admit to Alice Rogers, what about Clete? Has she said anything about that?”

“Not so far. If Ross Jenkins took out his brother-in-law, maybe he did that one on his own. I’d better get back in there so I don’t miss something important. Anything else?”

“No,” Joanna said. “That’s all. See you in the morning.” She turned off the phone.

“You sound tired,” George said after a moment. “It’s been a rough week around here, even without getting engaged.”

“Have you done the Clete Rogers autopsy yet?” Joanna asked.

George shook his head. “That’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning.”

“Any initial observations?”

“Yes,” George Winfield said. “Some readily visible contusions. Those are always possible signs of a struggle. Been dead since sometime last night. It sounds to me like you’re thinking that whoever killed Alice also killed her son.”

“That’s the way it looks,” Joanna told him. “Right up until Ross Jenkins tackled me, Clete was our prime suspect in Alice’s death. So now Cletus Rogers is innocent, but he’s also dead.”

“Who stood to benefit most from Alice’s death?”

“Her children,” Joanna said. “Clete and his sister, Susan. There’s also a brand-new husband, if he’s still alive, that is. Farley Adams disappeared sometime Sunday afternoon and hasn’t been heard from since.”

“Her husband!” George exclaimed. “I was under the impression that she was a widow.”

“So was everybody else, including her kids. According to Alice’s sister, Jessie Monroe, Adams and Alice were already married. Jessie even has a wedding picture to prove it. But when Alice talked to her daughter and son-in-law about Adams on Saturday night, she didn’t exactly play straight with them. At that point Alice claimed she was only thinking about marrying the man.”

“Let me get this straight,” George Winfield mused. “If Alice Rogers died prior to marrying again, her two kids would have split the take fifty-fifty. And if Clete had been fingered for Alice’s murder, then Susan and Ross Jenkins would have taken the whole wad.”

“That’s about it,” Joanna agreed.

“Ungrateful kids. Do you think the daughter was in on it?”

“Susan Jenkins?” Joanna thought about it. “Maybe, but it doesn’t seem likely that she’d throw in with her husband and her husband’s mistress in a plot to murder her own mother. Still, stranger things have happened. And this is a strange bunch. I feel like we kicked over a rock and a whole den of vipers came slithering out from underneath. These are people who took bribes, cheated on their spouses, used drugs, and didn’t blink an eye when it came time to kill someone. They’re a dishonorable, despicable lot without a conscience among them. Just knowing that people like that exist makes me sick. Makes me feel dirty.”

George pulled over behind Butch Dixon’s Subaru and switched off the engine. “Look, Joanna,” he said, “the fact that people like that do exist is the reason you have your job and I have mine. If there weren’t any bad people in the world, there wouldn’t be any need for cops, or for medical examiners, either. Now come on. We’re here. Let’s go have dinner.”

Eleanor Lathrop Winfield lived up to her reputation. She was appalled by her daughter’s black eyes and didn’t mince any words in saying so. The fact that Joanna had earned her injuries in the process of apprehending two possible murderers did nothing to mitigate Eleanor’s tongue-clicking disapproval. Jenny thought her mother looked neat-like somebody wearing a Halloween costume. Butch stayed close, held Joanna’s hand and said very little.

Joanna tried to let herself be caught up in the celebration, but it didn’t work. For the first time in his life, Jim Bob Brady had gone out and purchased champagne, although, when it came time for the before-dinner toast, he and Eva Lou joined Jenny and Junior in drinking sparkling cider. Still, even the champagne failed to lift Joanna’s mood.

The things that had happened to her in the past few days-the evil and greed she had seen at work in other people-had changed her somehow, had set Joanna apart. She was no longer sure she could accept anyone at face value. When she walked in the door, Junior had greeted her with effusive de-light. Now his greeting itself was tinged with sadness. After all, Junior was stuck in Bisbee for one reason and one reason only-he, too, had been betrayed by someone who should have been trustworthy and wasn’t.

After dinner, as Jenny passed around slices of Eva Lou’s incomparable pumpkin pie topped with mounds of homemade whipped cream, Joanna’s cell phone rang. Eva Lou looked at it as Joanna dragged it out of her purse. “If I had a rooster that sounded like that,” she said, “he’d be looking to get turned into Sunday dinner.”

Excusing herself, Joanna went into the living room to take the call. “Joanna,” Ernie Carpenter said, “I think we have a problem.”

Not another one. “What now?” Joanna demanded. “Dena Hogan’s starting to go gunny-bags on us.”

“Gunny-bags? What does that mean?”

“I think she’s coming off drugs,” Ernie said. “We found a bag of white powder in her purse that may be heroin. If she’s an addict, we don’t want her going through detox while she’s locked in a cell in the Cochise County jail. What do you suggest?”

Joanna was still haunted by the mentally disturbed woman who had taken her own life in a county jail cell several months earlier. If Dena Hogan was crashing after months of heroin use, she might well be a danger to herself and others. Joanna didn’t know the medical ramifications of heroin detox, and she didn’t want to find out, either-not firsthand.

“We put her in a hospital under guard.”

“Which one?” Ernie asked. “County? The Copper Queen?”

This was one of those situations where Dick Voland would have known exactly what to do, but Dick wasn’t around to ask anymore. This time Joanna Brady was on her own.

“If it’s going to be on the department’s nickel, it better be County,” she decided. “No matter what, it’s going to be expensive. I guess we’d better see if they have a bed available.”

“And what about transportation?” Ernie asked. “Do we send her there by ambulance or have a deputy drive her in a patrol car?”

Damn Dick Voland anyway! Joanna thought. “Look,” she said. “I’m at my in-laws’ house right now. I’ll have somebody give me a ride back over to the department, and I’ll sort all this out from there.”

“Do you want Jaime or me to stay on it?”

“No. You’ve already put in a full day. Did Arlee and Dena strike a deal?”

“Yes. Murder two, immunity from everything else, and she agrees to testify against Ross Jenkins in the Alice Rogers case.”

“What everything else?”

“It sounds like we’ve landed smack in the middle of a whole slew of recreational drug users. Dena says she can give us dealer info, provided she serves her time under an assumed name at an out-of-state facility.”

“I don’t understand,” Joanna said. “She’s a lawyer. Why is she so willing to cop a plea? Why’s she turning state’s evidence?”

“She’s broke,” Ernie said.

“Broke!” Joanna echoed. “How can she be? She drives a Lexus.”

“It’s leased and she’s behind in the payments. Same goes for her house and the rent for her office.”

“What about her husband?”

“I don’t think he has a clue, at least he didn’t before today. She says he’s always turned his paycheck over to her and left her to handle the bills. Sounds like she’s been handling them all right. Her drug habit has been eating up every penny they both made, and then some. The same is true for Ross Jenkins. He’s broke, too. He was looking for a quick influx of cash from Alice’s estate to bail him out of the hole. Then, presumably, he and Dena would have ridden off into the sunset.”

“Nice guy. What about Mark Childers and Karen Brainard? Did Dena tell you anything about them? Were they in a financial bind as well?”