Exit Wounds (8 page)

Going strictly by the rule book, Joanna had no excuse for taking the puppy. But Lucky was by no means part of the Carol Mossman homicide, and the animal was far too small to be shipped off to a pound. That opinion was underscored when, a few minutes later, she found herself wandering through a maze of dog runs searching for Jeannine Phillips. Joanna’s passage set off a cacophony of barking. She found it difficult to look at the sad collection of animals, their muzzles pressed hopefully up against the chain-link gates, watching as Joanna walked by. One in particular caught her eye—a blue-eyed Australian shepherd bitch.

Joanna finally located Jeannine Phillips. Hose in hand, she was cleaning out an empty run. Joanna didn’t want to consider what had happened to the previous occupant. The Animal Control officer nodded in greeting when Joanna walked up, but continued hosing down the concrete-floored run.

“What can I do for you, Sheriff Brady?” she asked finally after turning off the hose. “I suppose you’re here to bitch me out for lodging the complaint?”

“Not exactly,” Joanna said. “Although I did come to talk to you about that.” She paused. “I guess it never occurred to me that saving one puppy’s life was a breach of procedure.”

“If it had been a child,” Jeannine said brusquely, “you would have turned it over to Child Protective Services.”

“But there were all those other dead dogs,” Joanna objected. “Seventeen dead dogs.”

“Right,” Jeannine agreed. “What’s the big deal about seventeen dead dogs? We put away that many every week. And by the time we get through with the Fourth of July weekend—with all the dogs that get scared and run away from home because of firecrackers and are never reclaimed—we’ll do double that next week.”

Joanna felt sickened. “That’s outrageous!” she exclaimed. “We euthanize that many? I had no idea.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Jeannine Phillips said. “But don’t feel bad. Nobody else knows, either. Since puppies don’t eat much, we can keep them a little longer. And we could probably have placed
your
puppy. It’s a different story with older dogs. For one thing, they aren’t that cute, and they eat too much. When the board of supervisors dished out the budget cuts, our unit took a ten percent hit right along with everyone else, Sheriff Brady. But so far I haven’t been able to convince any of the dogs that they should eat ten percent less.”

As the morning sun climbed higher in the sky, the temperatures in the unair-conditioned kennel area was heating up as well. Joanna followed Jeannine back through the kennel, the woman stopping here and there to turn on big industrial fans.

“They help some,” she said. “If nothing else, they keep the air circulating.”

Inside the building, Joanna and Jeannine walked through a hallway lined with cat cages. Most of those were full as well. Animal Control’s ramshackle office was furnished with discarded, mismatched furniture that had seen better days. Joanna soon realized the office wasn’t air-conditioned, either. An old swamp cooler halfheartedly blew tepid air and the odor of mildew into the room as Jeannine sat down behind a scarred wooden desk.

“We should have two full-time kennel attendants,” she told Joanna. “Since we only have one, Manny and I end up doing kennel duty when we should be out on patrol. If somebody actually wants to adopt a dog, we have to be paged so we can come back and handle the paperwork. It’s no surprise that so few dogs get adopted.

“Before she left, Donna Merrick had all kinds of bright ideas. She had met with several local veterinarians and was hoping to get the county to contract with them for low-cost spaying and neutering. Donna thought we’d have better luck finding homes for animals if we brought the animals to the people instead of waiting for people to come to us. She had even talked to some of the local store managers about having adoption clinics on Saturday mornings. Donna wanted to pay for a dog groomer so the animals would be cleaned up and looking good the mornings of the clinics.”

“Sounds good to me,” Joanna said. “What happened?”

“Donna talked the idea up and the Wal-Mart managers in Douglas and Sierra Vista were all for it. So was the manager of the Safeway store here in town. But when the board of supervisors heard about it, they wouldn’t even consider it. Said that running adoption clinics went beyond our ‘legal mandate’ and that the taxpayers would think it a waste of money. And, once Donna went up against the board, the next thing we knew, she was gone. Now we’re part of the sheriff’s department, and we’re even more shorthanded than before.”

“So I guess we need to do something about this,” Joanna said when she finished.

Jeannine nodded. “Yes, we do,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced that anything would change.

“How long have you worked here?” Joanna asked.

“Eight years.”

“And Manny?”

“Six.”

Joanna nodded. “So what do you want me to do about the puppy? Should I bring him back here? I offered him to Carol Mossman’s mother, but she didn’t want him. The place where she lives doesn’t allow pets.”

“Manny said you’d already named him,” Jeannine said.

“I thought he was lucky, so that’s what I named him—Lucky.”

“Go ahead and keep him,” Jeannine said in exasperation. “Since he’s already got a home, there’s not much sense bringing him back here. You’re supposed to have him properly licensed, once he has his shots, and he’ll need to be neutered.”

“Right,” Joanna said. “We’ll take care of it.”

“Good enough,” Jeannine said.

Joanna stood and started toward the door. Then she stopped and turned back. “How long has that little Australian shepherd been here?” she asked. “The one in that last bunch of kennels.”

“Oh,” Jeannine said. “You mean Little Blue Eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Three days,” Jeannine replied. “She’ll be gone tomorrow.”

“Gone as in adopted?” Joanna asked.

“No,” Jeannine said. “Gone as in gone.”

Sheriff Joanna Brady thought about that, but not for long.
Butch won’t mind
, she thought. “My husband and I live on a ranch out on High Lonesome Road,” she said. “There’s plenty of room for dogs.”

Jeannine Phillips’s sullen expression brightened slightly. “You mean you’d like to take her?”

“Yes,” Joanna said. “I think I would.”

“She’ll need to have her shots, too, and be licensed.”

“And spayed,” Joanna added.

“No,” Jeannine said, “you won’t have to worry about that. She’s already been fixed. But you should know, she doesn’t like men much—not even Manny, and he’s a real sweetheart when it comes to dogs.”

“That’s all right,” Joanna said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to manage.”

For the first time in Joanna’s memory, the grim set of Jeannine Phillips’s face was replaced by a tentative smile. “Great, Sheriff Brady,” she said. “I’ll get started on the paperwork right away.”

And I’ll go back to the office,
Joanna thought,
and see how much progress we’re making in catching Carol Mossman’s killer.

Four

H alf an hour later, using a bright red disposable leash, Joanna led her new dog out of Jeannine Phillips’s office. The Australian shepherd walked in a demure, ladylike fashion. Clearly someone somewhere had taken the time to give her a bit of obedience training. By the time the dog hopped in through the Civvie’s back door and settled gracefully into the backseat, Joanna was ready to give her a new name.

“Little Blue Eyes doesn’t suit you,” she said aloud. “But we’ll see what Butch and Jenny want to call you.”

On the way back to the Justice Center, Joanna stopped off at Dr. Millicent Ross’s veterinary clinic. Joanna emerged from the clinic half an hour later with a properly vaccinated dog and accompanying documentation that would allow her to license an Australian shepherd still officially known as Blue Eyes. Once inside Joanna’s office, the dog disappeared into the cavelike knee-hole under the desk. Joanna left her there and went looking for a dish and some water. Her search took her to the lab, where her latent fingerprint tech, Casey Ledford, liberated an aluminum pie plate that would work temporarily for dog-drinking purposes.

Joanna peered around the lab. “What are you up to?”

“I’ve processed the prints I took from Carol Mossman’s back door. The ones I have don’t match the victim.”

“Have you run them through AFIS?” Joanna asked, referring to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

“Sure did,” Casey replied. “No hits so far.”

“What about Dave?” Joanna asked, peering around the lab shared by Casey and the crime scene investigator. “Is he back out at the scene?”

“No,” Casey said. “I’m pretty sure he’s down the hall on his computer. He’s working on the brass they found yesterday.”

Taking the pie plate with her, Joanna went to the doorway to the crime scene investigator’s cubicle, where she found him staring closely at his CRT. “What’s up?” she asked.

“Take a look at this, Sheriff Brady,” Dave said, moving aside and allowing her access to his computer. “It’s really interesting.”

On his screen was a large circle with a much smaller one inside it. Two straight lines went from the outside of the smaller circle to the edge of the larger circle, dividing the larger one in half. At the top of the larger circle was the initial
S.
At the bottom, the number 17.

“One of the casings from yesterday’s homicide?” Joanna asked.

Dave nodded.

“Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“An antique, for one thing,” Dave said. “This is a Colt military head stamp. It was used on ammunition manufactured prior to 1921. See that seventeen?” Dave asked, pointing with the tip of his pencil. Joanna nodded. “That’s the year of manufacture—1917. The
S
on top stands for where it was made—Springfield, Massachusetts.”

Joanna was astonished. “You’re telling me Carol Mossman died after being shot by a bullet that’s eighty-six years old?”

“Two shots were fired,” Dave replied. “The one to her lower body is the one that actually killed her. The other went through her shoulder. I dug most of that slug out of the paneling on the wall behind her.”

Joanna Brady was amazed. “I’m surprised ammunition that old still works.”

“I’m not,” Dave said. “I suppose you could expect a certain degree of unreliability, but if the bullets have been kept dry, there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t work.”

“And they did,” Joanna supplied. “But where did they come from, and where have they been all this time?”

“Who knows?” Dave replied. “That’s what I’m trying to find out right now. I can’t just call up Colt and ask for records from way back then.”

“No,” Joanna agreed. “I suppose not.”

“I’ve sent a copy of the firing fingerprint to the NIBIN,” Dave Hollicker continued. “So far there’s no match.”

Joanna was well aware of the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network. Functioning much the same way AFIS does for fingerprints, NIBIN provides a computerized database of weapons signatures collected from crime scenes nationwide. It allows investigators to know when the same weapon is being used to commit crimes in more than one jurisdiction. It also makes instantaneous connections between solved and unsolved crimes that would otherwise be regarded as unrelated incidents. Following the travels of a particular weapon sometimes makes it possible for detectives to track the movements of an individual perpetrator as well.

“You don’t really expect them to come up with a match, do you?” Joanna said. “How many eighty-six-year-old homicides do you think have been entered in the system? As I recall, computers weren’t even a gleam in engineers’ eyes back in 1917.”

“That’s not true,” Dave said.

“It isn’t?”

“And you of all people should know it,” Hollicker told her. “Have you ever heard of Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess Lovelace?”

“Never. Who’s she?”

“Her daddy was a guy named Lord Byron.”

“As in Shelley and Keats—Lord Byron, the poet?”

“Right. She was born the year her parents were divorced, and her father never saw her after that, but she was one smart little girl whose mother saw to it that she was trained in mathematics. At eighteen she went to hear a lecture by Charles Babbage on what he called his ‘difference engine.’ Ada managed to finagle an introduction to the man. When she saw Babbage’s machine itself, she was one of the few people who immediately grasped how it worked and could visualize its long-term potential. She and Babbage went on to become more than friends,” Dave said. “Not only that, from what I heard, she’s the one who created the first punch cards and invented computer programming.”

“When was all this?” Joanna demanded.

“Sometime in the mid-1800s, I think,” Dave Hollicker answered. He was clearly getting a kick out of their sudden reversal of roles.

“And how come you know about this…What’s her name again?” Joanna asked.

“Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess Lovelace.”

“How come you know about her and I don’t?”

“Because when you sent me to CSI school in Quantico, Virginia, one of my instructors, Agent Amanda Blackner, had a real thing about women doing all of the grunt work and getting none of the credit. You’d better believe it. If you didn’t know about Lady Ada in full, essay-answer detail, you didn’t pass Blackner’s class.”

“I might not have taken that class, but I know about Ada Lovelace now. Thanks,” Joanna said and then changed the subject. “Did you pick up anything else from the crime scene last night?”

“Some tire casts,” Dave answered. “And casts of a footprint or two. Hiking boots. Could be either a small man or a large woman.”

“Or a juvenile,” Joanna suggested.

Dave nodded. “That, too,” he said. “In fact, speaking of juveniles, I need to be on my way. Jaime said that the Explorer troop will be on tap at one to help with the foreign-object search. I want to be there when they do it.”

“Good enough,” Joanna said. “And good luck.”

With that she took the pie plate and retreated to her office, pausing long enough at the hallway water fountain to fill it. Then she continued on toward her office, holding the pie plate carefully in both hands to keep the water from spilling.