No Honor Among Thieves: An Ali Reynolds Novella (Kindle Single) Read Free Page B

Border Patrol uniform stood leaning against the front bumper of Bill’s marked SUV.
    Border Patrol was a booming business in southern Arizona these days. Back when Joanna’s father, D. H. Lathrop, had been the sheriff of Cochise County, he would have known all the local Border Patrol guys, the names of their wives, and probably the names of their kids, too. Now, however, with agents cycling in and out of the Tucson sector with astonishing regularity, Joanna knew no more than a handful on sight or by name, and Agent Bill Cannon was one she had never met.
    Approaching the two men, she held out her hand. “Sheriff Joanna Brady,” she said, introducing herself. “I understand you’ve been a big help here tonight.”
    Agent Cannon, with dark stains on the shirt of his uniform, turned out to be a young guy, not more than twenty-five or so. He was short and stocky and wore his blond hair in a crew cut. “Glad to meet you, ma’am,” he said. “I wish I could have done more. I was just up the river a ways, walking the bank, trying to spot footprints, when I heard gunfire. I made tracks back to my vehicle and was almost there when I heard the crash. Tearing through that guardrail made a hell of a racket.”
    “How long between the gunfire and the crash?”
    Agent Cannon thought about that for a moment before he answered. “Twenty seconds or maybe thirty at the most. When I came up the riverbed, I spotted the truck right away because the headlights were still on. The truck must have gone end over end a couple of times, because it came to rest a long way from the base of the embankment. And for the cargo box to split apart the way it did when it hit the tree trunk, the driver had to be going way over the speed limit when he hit the guardrail.”
    Detective Carbajal nodded. “Deputy Ruiz tells me there aren’t any skid marks up above. I’m wondering if maybe the guy was already dead. His foot could have been deadweight on the gas pedal at the time it went off the road.”
    Nodding, Joanna stood for a minute examining the wreckage. The truck had evidently been airborne as it plunged off the embankment. It landed nose down in the dirt and then flipped over at least twice before the bed of the truck slammed into the trunk of one of San Pedro’s venerable old cottonwood trees. The blow was forceful enough to split the cargo box in half and send an eruption of cellophane-covered LEGO boxes exploding in every direction. The delivery truck turned out to be larger than Joanna had envisioned, making her wonder if the single U-Haul truck she had ordered would be big enough to contain this unconventional cargo spill.
    Joanna turned her attention back to the conversation in time to hear Jaime Carbajal say, “We’ll need you to leave your vehicle here until we’re finished processing the crime scene.”
    “Okay,” Cannon agreed. “Let me know when you’re done. In the meantime, I’ll let my supervisor know that I need someone to come give me a ride so I can go home and clean up.”
    For the first time, Joanna realized that the stains on Agent Cannon’s uniform were most likely bloodstains. Since he had been the first one the scene, that made sense, Joanna supposed, but still . . . The person who called in a homicide often had something to do with it.
    “And you’ll stop by the department later today to give an official statement?” Jaime continued.
    “Sure thing,” Agent Cannon said. “My shift ends at eight A.M. Give me a call after that and let me know what time is convenient.”
    “Will do.”
    Joanna watched Cannon walk away. “He’s the one who called it in,” she said quietly. “You don’t think he’s involved, do you?”
    “I doubt it,” Jaime responded, “although, just in case, I asked Deb to request a copy of his radio transmissions from Border Patrol.”
    “We won’t have those anytime soon,” Joanna observed.
    She got along fine with the local Border Patrol folks, but relations between her and