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She s a good friend of mine. We went to school together. Anyway, luckily for
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me, the divorce wasn t final yet, which means that now the company passes to
me right along with the ongoing projects, Oak Vista included. Believe me, I
intend to make it work. I m also going to meet those deadlines if it kills me.
The first models are due to be open by the middle of January. I intend to see
to it that they are.
Mrs. Childers, Joanna began.
Call me Monica Foster, the other woman corrected. I m done with being
Monica Childers. I ve decided to go back to using my maiden name.
Ms. Foster then, Joanna corrected. I can see why you d be eager to get the
Oak Vista project back under way, but there are certain investigative steps
that must be taken. Fur-thermore, I m not sure you re aware of what all
happened out at the construction site in the past few days. There were
protesters
I know all about the protesters, Monica interjected. They won t be back.
I don t know how you can be sure of that. Just because your husband your
former husband is dead doesn t mean the protesters won t make trouble for
you.
They ll stop all right, Monica Foster said confidently. I just won t pay
them anymore. Not one of them is so committed to saving the world that he ll
show up for nothing.
Wait a minute, Joanna said. You mean you re the one who was paying them?
Who else? Monica returned. I was prepared to do anything that would make
Mark s life miserable. Having protest-ers screw up and delay his project was
the least I could do. Now that it s my project, however, protesters are no
longer necessary and delays aren t acceptable.
Joanna crossed her arms. What s unacceptable is faking protests and
deliberately creating situations where my officers could have been in danger,
Joanna shot back. My depart-ment had to pull patrol officers away from other
sectors in order to deal with what was going on at Oak Vista. That left whole
areas of the county without any law enforcement coverage at all. Not only
that, your husband s attorney called yesterday and said they would be suing my
department for negligence due to the damage caused by the alleged protesters.
Things did get a little out of hand, Monica Childers ad-mitted. Some of my
hired help may have been a bit too enthu-siastic. But believe me, there won t
be any lawsuit. All I want to know is when my crew will be able to go back to
work.
The plain answer is, I don t know, Joanna said. And I m not about to give
you the go-ahead without checking with my detectives first. And speaking of
your work crew, that reminds me. I was out at your job site the other day and
had a run-in with one of your workers a fellow by the name of Rob Evans. He
came to work armed. In fact, I m holding his twenty-two revolver right here in
my desk. I told him he can have it back as soon as he shows up with either a
holster to carry it in or else a concealed-weapons permit. So far he hasn t
turned up with either one.
I wouldn t hold my breath if I were you, Monica ob-served. For him to come
pick it up, I mean.
Why not?
Because he s long gone. I fired his ass. First thing yesterday morning. In
fact, that was my first official duty upon as assuming command. I can t tell
you how much pleasure it gave me.
Why? Joanna asked.
Why did I fire him or why did it give me such pleasure?
Both, Joanna said.
Rob was a jerk, Monica replied, and no more of a construction foreman than
my Aunt Betsy. He never should have been given that job in the first place.
Why was he?
Probably as a favor to one of Mark s drug-dealing cronies. That would be my
first guess anyway.
So you knew about the drugs?
I knew about all of it, Monica returned darkly. I made it my business to
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find out. That worm thought he was just going to dump me and walk away whole,
taking the con-tracting company and the development companies with him. He
thought Sierra Vista was a small enough town that I d just shut up, go
quietly, and spare myself the humiliation. He thought I d be too embarrassed
to stand up and fight. When he found out otherwise, it must have come as a bit
of a shock.
How did you do that?
Fight him? Monica shrugged. My attorney hired a PI to get the goods on him
and his collection of heroin-sniffing hon-eys. And she subpoenaed all his
financial records. By the time we were scheduled to go to court, Dena swore
she would know more about Mark s financial dealings than he did himself.
Joanna was still trying to listen, but she found herself hung up on one
particular word. Did you say heroin-sniffing? she asked.
Monica gave a short, mirthless laugh. You don t think Mark would inject the
filthy stuff, do you? Into his beautiful body? None of them do. They re all
far too good-looking for that. And too upstanding. They re all part of the
country-club set. They may party like hell on Friday and Saturday, but they
shape up and go to church on Sundays, attend Rotary on Tues-days, and show up
for their Chamber of Commerce meeting first thing Wednesday mornings. Needle
tracks wouldn t go over very well with the Chamber of Commerce. So they import
top-quality Mexican heroin pure stuff and sniff it the way some people used to
sniff cocaine. It look me a long line to figure out that a big chunk of our
money was going straight up Mark s nose. Call me a slow learner, but I finally
wised up.
When Monica Foster fell silent, Joanna Brady stayed that way. She had been in
several filthy and impoverished crack houses. She had donned Haz-Mat gear to
walk through the moldering ruins of a mobile home turned meth-lab. For her,
drug addicts existed in a lawless, shadowy, and poverty-stricken world. She
didn t want to hear that Cochise County harbored an invisible collection of
high-flying, well-connected heroin users. That unwelcome news was enough to
leave her shaken.
Can you give me names? Joanna asked at last.
I can t, Monica answered. I wasn t part of the gang. Karen Brainard was.
You re saying Karen Brainard uses heroin?
Why don t you ask her? In fact, I m tempted to ask her myself. Poor baby. She
and Mark were an item for a good six months. I d guess she s pretty broken up
about now.
Which you re not, Joanna observed.
Monica Foster s bright blue eyes hardened to flint. No, I m not, she agreed.
I did my grieving a long time ago before I filed for a divorce. Back then I
kept hoping something would happen so I wouldn t have to go through with it.
Maybe Mark would die, or else I would. And now that he s dead, I don t feel
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