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“Sergeant Lowe here, from the Chandler Police Department.”
Immediately conjuring up the image of Francesca sitting in Investigator Finch’s cubicle, scratched and bruised from her confrontation with Vaughn, he stiffened. “Is anything wrong?”
“No, Ms. Moretti is fine, but…I thought you should know…someone cut her phone line tonight.”
Shoving his stool away from the table, Jonah got to his feet. “Someone?”
“I’m afraid we can’t say who. Ms. Moretti definitely has her suspicions, but we canvassed the yard and there wasn’t anyone lurking around. The good news is that we didn’t see any evidence that whoever cut the line tried to enter the house.”
There wouldn’t be evidence. Butch Vaughn had a key. “How’d you find out about the phone line?”
“Officer Burcell was sitting in front of the house when Ms. Moretti came running into the street, clearly upset. He checked out her claims and she was right.”
Jonah felt Dr. Price’s attention but ignored it. “Can I talk to her?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to go by the house. It’ll take some time for the telephone company to fix the line, and I’m calling from the station.”
“What about the officer who’s out there—Officer Burcell? He’s got to have a phone.”
“Burcell is currently responding to another call.”
Jonah curled his free hand into an agitated fist. “You’re telling me she’s all by herself?”
Taking exception to his tone, the sergeant grew brisk. “We’ll continue to drive by periodically, but we can’t camp out there all night. There was no apparent threat—”
“No threat? Her phone line was cut!”
“That could’ve been a prank by some teenage boy. We have a whole community to protect, Mr. Young, not just this one woman,” he said, and hung up.
As Jonah put away his phone, he gazed at all the cracked skulls and jawbones around him. Because teeth followed predictable maturation patterns, they were a fairly reliable indicator of certain biological characteristics, such as age. They could also help in identifying an unknown victim via dental records. Jonah couldn’t wait for these bones to be connected with names, which could then turn into leads pointing to Vaughn—or someone else. He wanted to keep pushing forward here with Dr. Price so he’d have something to run with. He hated to pull out until the job was done.
But he wasn’t about to leave Francesca vulnerable while he measured femurs. He’d seen the glitter in Vaughn’s eyes when he’d been questioned about April Bonner. Maybe Francesca had screwed up and called a mannequin a body, but she claimed Vaughn was the last man to see April alive. It was entirely possible that he’d killed her.
Picking up the tibia he’d recently measured, Jonah turned it over in his hands, noting a fine-line fracture. Maybe Butch was responsible for the death of this poor woman, too.
Purposely avoiding Dr. Price’s curious stare, he raised his eyes to take in the entire room full of bones. Maybe Butch was responsible for all of them. And now that Francesca had drawn his attention, she might be next on his list.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, and jogged out to the car he’d rented when he arrived in Arizona.
CHAPTER 6
Jonah found Francesca sitting on her front porch with a butcher knife in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Judging by the weariness that hung on her like an oversize coat and her general dishevelment, she hadn’t slept—or showered. But it was early, only five-thirty. The sun was just creeping over the horizon. None of her neighbors were up, so the windows around them remained dark, the street quiet. The one other person Jonah had spotted so far was the newspaper man.
“You look like hell,” he said while he carried her paper across the lawn. That was a bit harsh as greetings went. But he had to compensate for the sudden jolt the sight of her, so skimpily dressed, gave his system. She wasn’t wearing a bra beneath that baggy T-shirt. He’d clued into that at first glance. Then there were the short cutoffs that made her legs look like they went on forever….
Her eyes narrowed as he reached her. He half expected her to use that knife to chase him off her property. Lord knew he deserved nothing less. But Finch and Hunsacker were so pissed off about the way everything had gone down yesterday, he was her only ally when it came to Vaughn, and she must’ve realized it because she dropped the knife on the round table beside her and took a sip of coffee.
“Rough night, huh?”
She swallowed before answering. “He thinks he can get away with terrorizing me.”
Sitting in the chair across from her, he examined the pepper spray on the table between them. “You’re sure it was Butch?”
“Who else would it be?”
The faint purple of a bruise blossomed on her right knee, and her lip was still swollen, but even at her worst Francesca was classically beautiful. That hadn’t changed. “Are you saying you did or didn’t get a glimpse of him?”
“It was dark and he wasn’t that close to the window. But I saw someone the same size and shape as Butch, no question. After he cut the phone line so I couldn’t call for help, he sat at the pool throwing rocks at my window.”
