Page 52 of The Girl from Devil’s Lake (Joanna Brady Mysteries #21)

Bisbee, Arizona

By the time Joanna got back to the Justice Center, she wasn’t surprised to see the parking lot teeming with TV vans and carloads of reporters.

A dead kid from Mexico hadn’t been enough to bring them out of the woodwork, but the death of an erstwhile reporter and the simultaneous arrest of a pillar of the community was enough for the piranhas to show up.

Kristin must have had her ear to the ground for the sound of Joanna’s private door opening and closing. She showed up holding a handful of additional missed-call slips while Joanna was still putting her purse away.

“Glad everyone’s okay,” Kristin said. She was talking about members of the department, but something in the expression on Joanna’s face must have given her pause. “Except for Marliss, that is,” she added. “What happened to her is terrible.”

“Yes,” Joanna agreed with a nod. “It certainly is. Now, what’s happened here while I’ve been gone?”

“It’s been pretty hectic,” Kristin said. “I’ve been checking your office email. The arrest warrant from North Dakota came in just a little while ago, but with Roper already under arrest, I guess you don’t really need it.”

“I’ll be happy to serve it all the same,” Joanna said grimly. “And I have a feeling the North Dakota Highway Patrol isn’t the only law enforcement agency that’s going to want a piece of him. What else?”

“Garth and Deb were able to locate Marliss’s next of kin, her mother—Dianne Borison—in San Diego. Officers from San Diego PD will be doing the notification.”

“And?” Joanna prodded.

“Dave Hollicker is in charge of the CSI examination of the crime scene in Naco. Casey is going through items that were removed from Mr. Roper’s vehicle.”

“Like what?” Joanna asked.

“She mentioned something about a blue duffel bag and a cigar box, but I don’t know any details.

You have several more calls from the BOLO.

Those are here in your stack of missed calls.

And Tom Hadlock wants to know if, with all those reporters outside, you want to hold the press conference or should he? ”

“I’ll talk to him,” she said.

She walked to his office next door and entered without knocking.

“Tough day,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

She sank into a nearby chair. “I’ll say,” she said.

“And Marliss is really dead?”

Joanna nodded.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Me, too,” she said, “but I’ll handle the press conference. Please schedule it for 6 p.m. Can you notify the usual suspects?”

“Will do,” Tom said, “but most of them are already here. Anything else?”

“Nope,” Joanna said. “That’ll do it.”

With that, Joanna returned to her office to call Butch and let him know she wouldn’t be home in time for dinner.

“Did you get him?” Butch asked as soon as he answered her call.

“We did,” Joanna answered. “He’s behind bars.”

“That’s great!” Butch exclaimed. “And Dennis was delighted to get out of school early, but you sound a little off. What’s wrong?”

Joanna loved the fact that he could see into her soul even when they were miles apart. She spent the next several minutes telling him about everything that had happened, including her encounter with Ignacio Ybarra.

“We were just dating at the time,” Butch said, “but I remember that case. It affected you almost as much as this one has.”

Joanna thought about that for a moment before agreeing with him. “You may be right about that.”

“And I’m right about this, too,” Butch added. “After today, you’re going to need some comfort food, so as of now I’m making green chili casserole. It’ll be warm in the oven regardless of what time you get home.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Love you.”

“Love you back.”

After leaving her office, Joanna’s first stop was the bullpen. Detective Howell was there. Detective Raymond wasn’t. “Where’s Garth?” she asked.

“On his way to Tucson to deliver Roper’s phone and computer to the DPS crime lab,” Deb replied. “They have the technical resources to crack them. We don’t.”

“Good plan,” Joanna said. “What else?”

Instead of answering, Deb burst into tears.

“It was awful,” she said, once her crying jag quieted enough that she could speak.

“Marliss told me she was scared and asked if I’d hold her hand.

The thing is, I was already holding her hand, and she couldn’t tell.

Then medics showed up and the next instant she was gone.

I didn’t even like the woman. She could be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but still.

..We had the search warrant. We should have just gone in instead of waiting for her to leave. Maybe we could have stopped it.”

“What happened to Marliss isn’t your fault,” Joanna said. “If anybody’s at fault, it’s me, because I’m the one who ordered you and Garth to wait until she left before executing the warrant. But right now, we both have to focus on our jobs. Where do we stand?”

Deb took a deep breath. “Roper’s lawyered up, so we can’t talk to him,” she said.

“No surprise there,” Joanna remarked.

“In fact,” Deb added, “the attorney himself called me just a little while ago—a Mr. Ralph Whitmer of Los Angeles, California.”

“A lawyer from out of state?” Joanna asked.

“Make that a big-time defense attorney from out of state,” Deb replied.

“I just googled him. In the last few years he’s gotten three different killers off on insanity pleas, and from what I’m seeing online, he charges big bucks to do so.

According to him, he’ll be flying into Sierra Vista Municipal Airport by private jet tomorrow morning so he can confer with his client. ”

“Where’s Roper going to get that kind of money?”

“Ask Casey. While she was searching the contents of Roper’s car she evidently found bundles of cash in a bag inside his suitcase.”

“Casey’s my next stop,” Joanna said. “Anything else?”

“I’m in the process of writing up what went down at Roper’s residence today. We have it on our body cams, but Tom said that since a death was involved, Garth and I should provide written statements as well.”

“Probably a good idea,” Joanna said, “but when you finish doing that, go home and get some rest, and tell Garth to do the same. Today’s been rough and tomorrow’s not going to be any easier.

Whether or not we can interview Stephen Roper, that’s the day we’ll finally begin unraveling the life and times of a serial killer, starting with obtaining a search warrant for his banking and credit card records.

I’m going to need all my detectives at the top of their game. ”

“We will be,” Deb assured her, “every single one of us.”

Joanna’s next stop was the lab where a glove-clad Casey Ledford was hunched over her desk, using a pair of tweezers to pull apart what appeared to be a tangled web of shoelaces. At some point they had probably all been white, but now most of them were a grubby shade of gray.

“You found his trophy case?” Joanna asked.

“Sure did,” Casey replied, nodding in the direction of the old cigar box at her elbow. “There it is.”

“And that’s all that was in it, a bunch of shoelaces?”

Just then, Casey managed to extract one of the laces, an especially white one, from the tangle. Once the lace was loose, she held it up to her nose and sniffed. “Try this,” she said.

Following suit, Joanna got a whiff of something familiar. “Bleach?” she asked.

Casey nodded. “I doubt the others got the bleach treatment, so this one is probably Xavier’s.”

“What else?” Joanna asked.

“Everything’s bagged and tagged,” Casey said, turning her attention back to the remaining tangle of shoelaces. “It’s all over there on the counter.”

Joanna walked over to the stainless steel counter where a collection of sealed evidence bags was laid out in neat rows.

The first one that caught her eye held a turquoise squash blossom necklace.

Seeing it, Joanna took a breath. “This necklace belonged to Inez Johnson,” she said aloud, “a girl from Bylas, Arizona, on the San Carlos.”

Casey’s chair was shoved back. A moment later she was standing next to Joanna.

“I swabbed that,” Casey said. “I found some particles of dried blood on the turquoise under some of the silver prongs, but how on earth do you already know the name of the victim?”

“From the BOLO Anna Rae Green had sent out last night, asking for information on unsolved homicides with certain commonalities. The response has been amazing. Calls have been coming in all day long.” She picked up a bag containing a red bandanna.

“This belonged to Michael Young, a young Navajo who was murdered near Shiprock, New Mexico. And this ivory-handled switchblade? That’s from Amanda Hudson, a Lakota girl from Grand Forks, North Dakota. ”

“I’m planning on swabbing that, too,” Casey said, “but I’ll have to take it apart first. The blade looks clean, but just like the necklace, there’s a good chance I’ll find dried blood on the inside hinge.”

That’s when Joanna spotted the gold wedding band.

“I’m guessing that belonged to Stephen Roper’s step-grandmother, Lucille Hawkins.

Earlier today I spoke to Dan Hogan, a former sheriff from Polk County, Minnesota, where Roper grew up.

Dan was a relatively new deputy when he responded to an emergency call to a family farm where Lucille was reported to have fallen off her front steps.

Her death was ruled accidental, but the deputy who eventually became sheriff always thought the kid who called it in was somehow involved. ”

“And that kid just happened to be Stephen Roper?”

“Yup,” Joanna replied. “You’ve got it.”

“How old was he at the time?”

“Eleven,” Joanna said.

“That young?” Casey groaned.

Joanna nodded.

“I don’t know if this is any help,” Casey added, “but there’s an engraving inside the ring. It looks like the initials LJ and OH with a heart between them.”

“That fits,” Joanna said. “I’m pretty sure Dan Hogan told me Roper’s grandfather’s name was Orson Hawkins, and I think Lucille’s maiden name started with a J.”