Downfall by J. A. Jance Page A

suit.
    Once that was done, Joanna leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes, and actually dozed off for a moment while the GPS inDeb’s dash guided them to the address for Holy Redeemer Chapel on Busby Drive. When the car came to a stop, Joanna started awake and saw that they had pulled up next to a solitary streetlight standing in a bare dirt parking lot. A humble three-foot-tall wooden sign, painted white with black letters, said HOLY REDEEMER CHAPEL . In much smaller letters in the bottom right hand corner were the words visitors welcome . Behind it sat a fourteen-by-seventy mobile home—a single-wide. How that functioned as a place of worship was more than Joanna could imagine.
    Two unmarked Sierra Vista cop cars pulled up silently beside them. Frank Montoya exited one and came over to knock on the passenger window of Deb’s marked Tahoe. Joanna buzzed down the window.
    â€œSorry to hear about your folks,” Frank said. “Should you even be working?”
    Joanna sighed. “Thank you,” she said, “and yes, I should be working. I’m pretty sure that given the circumstances, you would be, too.”
    Frank thought about that for a moment before he nodded. “Okay, then. We’ll lead you over to the house. Since Reverend Nelson knows Ian, we’ll have him knock on the door and introduce you. After that, it’s up to you.”
    â€œDeb has already done one notification tonight, so I’ll handle this one,” Joanna said. “It’s only fair.”
    When the other two vehicles pulled out, Deb’s Tahoe fell into line behind them. Joanna couldn’t help but notice, somewhat enviously, that both Sierra Vista PD vehicles were sleek, almost new, all-wheel-drive Ford Interceptors. Deb’s aging Tahoe was almost an antique by comparison, but then the sheriff’s departmentwasn’t nearly as flush with cash, and Joanna’s people had to deal with far more rugged terrain.
    They drove to the far end of the lot and then onto a narrow dirt track that led to a house. It was a small wooden affair, long and narrow, and painted white. It was about the same proportions as the church itself, only this one sat on a permanent foundation. As headlights lit up the house, Joanna noted the old-fashioned windows and doors, realizing that the reasonably well-maintained house, sitting in the middle of a mostly empty block, probably predated the city by decades. Joanna suspected that the structure had been part of the local landscape during the lean years some sixty years earlier when Fort Huachuca had been a shuttered derelict and the sleepy town next door had been called Fry rather than the sprawling bustle of current-day Sierra Vista.
    Once the three pairs of headlights shut down, it was clear there were no lights visible inside the house. “If Reverend Nelson is sitting up worrying about his missing wife,” Deb observed dryly, “he’s doing so in the dark.”
    The sarcasm in the remark was obvious. “Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind,” Joanna replied.
    Deb shrugged. “He’s the husband,” she said. “It’s always the husband. Shall we?”
    They got out of the Tahoe together, slamming their doors in unison. At once a window toward the back of the house lit up. By the time Joanna and Deb followed Detective Waters up onto the small front porch, lights had come on in what, through gauzy sheer curtains, was clearly the living room. Detective Waters barely had time to tap once on the door before the porch light next to it flashed on and the door flew open.
    â€œDid you find her, Detective Waters?” demanded a man dressed in a pair of blue-and-white pajamas.
    â€œSorry to disturb you,” Ian said respectfully. “These are Sheriff Joanna Brady and Detective Deb Howell with the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. And this is Frank Montoya, Sierra Vista’s chief of police. May we come