Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 6:30 a.m.

71º Fahrenheit

Armed with the licensing information, it didn’t take long for Records to come up with Jonathan Southard’s silver Dodge Grand Caravan minivan and an address in Thousand Oaks, California. Mildred Harrison had called it gray, but the DMV said silver.

“Can you get me a phone number on that?” Brian asked.

That took a little longer. While Brian waited, he considered his options.

Under most circumstances, he would have called the other jurisdiction and involved them in the process. But for right then, the easiest thing to do was to call the house directly and find out if the guy was at home. If he was, that would mean someone else was driving Southard’s car, which, at this point, had not been reported stolen. If he wasn’t home or if his wife had no idea where he was, then that would be the time to call for reinforcements.

The Records clerk came back on the line and gave Brian a number in Thousand Oaks. He wondered briefly if it was too early to call, but then he realized this was summer. That meant California and Arizona were on the same time zone. The phone rang four times. Just when Brian was convinced the call was going to go to voice mail, someone-a woman-picked up.

“Hello,” Brian said. “Is Jonathan Southard there?”

“Who’s calling, please?” the woman asked.

Brian didn’t want to go into all that if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, but the woman wasn’t leaving him a lot of wiggle room.

“Just tell me,” Brian said irritably. “Is he there or not?”

“This is Detective Alexandra Mumford with the Thousand Oaks Police Department,” she said frostily. “Maybe you’d like to tell me what your business is with Mr. Southard.”

Brian was taken aback. “It turns out I’m a detective, too,” he said. “Detective Brian Fellows with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona. I’m investigating a quadruple homicide that occurred in our jurisdiction some time last evening. Four people were gunned down. A vehicle matching the description of Mr. Southard’s had been spotted in the vicinity of one of the victims’ homes-”

“What victims?” Detective Mumford interjected.

“One of them, Abby Tennant, is apparently Mr. Southard’s mother.”

“Crap!”

“What does that mean?” Brian asked.

“I’ve spent most of the night in Mr. Southard’s home in Thousand Oaks,” Alex Mumford told him. “We had a call from his wife’s sister down in San Diego last night. She was concerned that she hadn’t heard from her sister, Esther, in several days. A couple of uniforms were dispatched to the Southards’ residence to do a welfare check. They’re the ones who found the bodies.”

“Bodies?” Brian repeated. “What bodies? How many?”

“Three in all. One adult female and two children, a boy and a girl. Oh, and also the family dog. The dead woman’s sister drove up from San Diego and gave us a positive identification on the mother.”

Brian was stunned. “So we’re up to seven victims now? Crap is right! If Southard has murdered his wife and kids and his mother and stepfather, who else is left?”

“That would be his father,” Alex told him. “He lives somewhere in Ohio. Let me see what I can find out about that, and I’ll call you back. Does this number work for you?”

“Yes.”

Detective Mumford was all business. “I’ll see about getting a court order to go after Southard’s cell phone records. We may be able to get a line on him that way. I’ll get back to you.”

“Good,” Brian said.

When she hung up, Brian didn’t bother closing his phone. Instead, he called Kath. “I won’t be at church,” he said. “The victim count just went up, three in California and four here.”

“That’s the problem with the cartels,” Kath said. “They’re mobile.”

“This is worse than a cartel,” Brian said. “It’s personal. It’s some asshole who’s decided to target his whole family. He’s taken out his wife, kids, and mother so far, plus his stepfather and two innocent bystanders. We think he may be on his way to Ohio to take out his father as well unless we can get a line on him first.”

Brian heard his wife’s sharp intake of breath. “You’re right,” she said. “That’s far worse than cartels. Where are you now?”

“On my way in to the office.”

“Be safe then,” Kath said. “See you whenever you get here.”

Sells, Tohono O’odham Nation, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 9:00 a.m.

71º Fahrenheit

For a long time after Delia left, Lani sat there thinking, wondering what was the best thing to do about Angie, the right thing to do.

She knew that even offering to foster the child could well mean long-term heartbreak for both of them. Yes, Delia had said that both sets of grandparents had already indicated that they weren’t interested in caring for Angie and that the father was a nonstarter in that regard. But what would happen to Lani and to Angie if they formed a bond only to have some other person, a closer relation than a mere second cousin, come forward to claim the child? What then?

And what if that other person could offer Angie a home where she would have the benefit of both a mother and a father? Lani understood full well that she would be taking on child rearing as a single parent, one who came with odd working hours and a very demanding job. Or what if the father threw a wrench in the works by refusing to sign over his parental rights? Lani knew from dealings with child welfare folks in Denver that they were always predisposed to return children to their natural parents, even when said parents had very little going for them.

But not being able to offer Angie a home with both a mother and a father was no excuse for Lani to refuse to take her in. As far as she could see, even when Delphina was alive, Angie hadn’t had the benefit of a father figure in her life. Donald Rios might have been able to offer her that, but Donald Rios was dead.

Lani was tempted to pick up the phone and call her brother or her parents to ask for their opinions and advice, but she didn’t. Davy was dealing with his own difficult family issues right now. It wasn’t fair to involve him. As for asking her parents? Lani glanced at her watch. She had no doubt that her father would be up by now, probably making his Sunday-morning breakfast special of blueberry muffins and a spinach frittata. She knew where his feelings would lie. Lani understood better than anyone that Brandon Walker’s supposedly gruff demeanor did little to conceal his notoriously soft heart.

Take Damsel, for example. Lani had been away at school that Thanksgiving morning when someone had abandoned a bedraggled, starving puppy on her parents’ doorstep. Diana had found the dog and would have called Animal Control to come get it. Brandon was the one who had lobbied to keep the poor animal. He was also the one who had come up with the name, Damsel. And much as he might grumble about “that damn dog,” Lani knew how much he cared about her and how often he slipped her supposedly forbidden treats.

Lani smiled now, thinking about how Brandon had done the same for her, both when she was little and later on as well. When she was going to school and later during her residency, a note from her dad, usually one sent for no particular occasion, could always be counted on to have a stray hundred-dollar bill tucked inside it, along with a written admonition not to spend it all in one place.

Lani knew without asking that her parents would accept Angie as their own. If Lani brought the child into the family, Angie would instantly have two loving grandparents, which was apparently two more than she had at the moment. But the real question to be answered was whether saying yes to Delia’s proposition was the right thing to do.