by J. A. Jance
Hadlock had been aware of much of the underhanded dealings going on back then. Although he hadn’t been part of any of it, he hadn’t had nerve enough to come out publicly against it, either. When Deputy Andrew Roy Brady had decided to go up against their mutual boss, Hadlock had quietly supported Andy’s attempt to oust McFadden from office and had been left heartsick by Andy’s untimely and brutal murder.
Even so, when people started broaching the idea of asking Andy’s widow to run for office in her murdered husband’s place, Hadlock had considered that to be a bridge too far. Just because Joanna’s father had been a sheriff and her husband had been a deputy running for the office of sheriff, this didn’t mean that Joanna herself was qualified to do the job. In that original three-way contest, Tom had actually backed and voted for another candidate, Cochise County deputy, Frank Montoya. Then, when Joanna won, Tom, as the newly appointed jail commander, had sat back on the sidelines watching and waiting for her to fail—something that hadn’t happened.
Most of the people who’d voted against Joanna and even some of her supporters had expected Andy Brady’s widow to function as sheriff in name only—as a placeholder rather than as a real officer of the law. Almost no one had expected that she would transform herself into a consummate professional. People both inside and outside the department had been surprised and gratified when she took the time and effort to put herself through the rigors of police-academy training, and they were amazed by the seriousness with which she conducted herself on the job.
She brought the rank and file around by running her department in an open, honest, and evenhanded fashion. The fact that she had taken her two opponents—deputies Dick Voland and Frank Montoya—and made both of them her co–chief deputies had settled the hash for many of the folks who’d originally supported them. She won over hearts and minds by being a hard worker and putting herself on the line. She wasn’t someone who sat at her desk and phoned the job in. When something happened, Joanna was present and accounted for. Cochise County was a vast square, almost eighty miles wide by eighty miles long. If a homicide occurred somewhere within those jurisdictional boundaries, Sheriff Brady’s officers went, and so did she.
And that was why on this bright Saturday morning in mid-November, rather than sleeping in or watching golf on TV, Acting Sheriff Hadlock, standing in for Joanna, was on his way to the crime scene, too.
The vehicles formed up on the shoulder of Geronimo Trail, just east of the Douglas city limits and waited for Detective Howell to arrive on the scene. When she did so, Tom was surprised to note there were three passengers riding along with her rather than the expected two. As soon as the Tahoe came to a stop, the front passenger door swung open and a man stepped out. As he strode over to where Tom was parked, there was enough of a family resemblance for Tom to realize this had to be Jack Carver’s father.
He was approaching in such a purposeful fashion that it seemed reasonable to expect there would be some kind of hell to pay. Not one to dodge a confrontation, Tom emerged from his own vehicle and stepped forward to meet whatever was coming. Rather than throwing a punch, the new arrival surprised Tom by extending his hand.
“Chief Deputy Hadlock?” he asked.
“That’s me,” Tom said, returning the proffered handshake.
“I’m Nathan Carver,” the man said, “Jack’s dad. I wanted to meet you before we got started.”
In the old days, Tom would have known most of the Border Patrol guys in the county on sight and probably on a first-name basis as well, but that was no longer true. Border enforcement was a growth industry in Cochise County, and Nathan Carver was a complete stranger.
“Glad to meet you, too,” Tom replied.
“Thanks for giving my boy a break,” Nathan added. “You didn’t have to do that, and I appreciate it.”
Tom couldn’t help but chuckle. “Turns out I didn’t have a choice. That wife of yours pretty much painted me into a corner.”
“She’s a pistol, isn’t she?” Nathan said with a wry grin.
“She is that,” Tom agreed. “Shall we get started?”
They loaded up again and headed out, this time driving east on a rough dirt track that skirted the Mexican border. With each of the vehicles billowing rooster tails of dust, it was necessary to maintain a fair amount of distance between them. They drove through the San Bernardino Valley in a forest of winter-bare mesquite, past the turnoff to John Slaughter’s ranch, and past Silver Creek as well. Finally, just beyond Sycamore Creek, Deb turned off onto a primitive forest service road that ran into the foothills of the Peloncillos toward Paramore Crater before eventually hooking up with Skeleton Canyon Road. It was rugged terrain. The high-profile all-wheel vehicles were fine, but Tom could see that the poor guy driving the morgue’s low-ground-clearance minivan had his work cut out for him.
Eventually Deb pulled over and stopped once more. She and her three passengers piled out of the Tahoe and stood waiting until the trailing vehicles caught up. Once they did, Jack set off toward the north, heading into a sea of brittle yellow grass and low-lying brush, with the others trailing along behind. On the way they passed more than one NO HUNTING sign. A hundred yards or so from the road, a startled covey of quail shot into the air and flew off to the west. Tom Hadlock couldn’t help but smile at that. If Jack and his shotgun-wielding buddy had been better hunters, those birds probably wouldn’t be here right now.
It was no mystery why this would be a good place for birds. When Anglos first arrived on the scene, the wide valleys in what would eventually become southern Arizona—the San Pedro, Sulphur Springs, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz, and San Simon Valleys—had consisted of lush grasslands. Overgrazing cattle soon depleted the grass. When that was gone, hungry stock had foraged on low-hanging mesquite. Over time, digested and fully fertilized mesquite beans had performed their own kind of magic. Unfortunately, where mesquite trees flourish, grass does not. Thirsty mesquite roots sucked all the moisture out of the surrounding soil, turning lush valleys into hard-packed desert dotted with mesquite.
Over the past twenty years, some of the cattle ranchers in the foothills of the Peloncillos had banded together to get rid of the mesquite and bring back the native grasses by chopping down and removing hundreds of long-entrenched trees. When the grass returned, other things came back as well, including a now much-photographed jaguar—long thought to be extinct in the United States—along with a thriving population of deer, birds, and other wildlife.
As they topped a small rise, a single bird—an immense vulture—spread his massive wings and vaulted into the air, circling briefly above them before soaring away. The presence of the buzzard sent a chill message to Tom Hadlock and to almost everyone else in the group. Up ahead of them, something was dead.
Jack, seemingly unaware of the bird, continued to press forward. Then, a few steps later, he stumbled to a stop and dropped to the ground. By the time Tom reached the stricken boy, he was on his hands and knees, heaving his guts out, and the distinctive odor of death was all around them.
Jack had stopped on the lip of a dry creek bed. Lying in the sandy wash below them was the bloody mess of what had to be a partially consumed human being. There was no clothing present and there was nothing recognizable in the damaged face, but the long black hair fanning out across the sand suggested that the victim was a woman who had been left in the desert, face-up and naked. Her legs were folded under her in an unnatural pose that made her look as though she’d been kneeling at the time of her death and had remained locked in that same position.
Based on his finding of that desiccated skull, Jack Carver’s story had led Tom to believe that they would come upon a collection of sun-bleached, ancient bones, but there was nothing ancient about the body. This was a relatively fresh kill.
It was time for the acting sheriff to take charge. “Everyone stop right where you are,” he said, reaching down to help an ashen-faced Jack Carver to his feet. “Are you all right?” Tom asked the boy.
�
�I guess,” Jack mumbled, but he was swaying so dangerously that Tom beckoned for Nathan to step forward to help keep his son upright.
“Can you show me approximately where you found the skull?”
“Over there,” Jack said, pointing a trembling hand in the direction of a clump of scrub oak on the far side of the wash. “It was hot that day. I was going over there to sit in the shade, and that’s where I found the skull—twenty yards or so on this side of that grove of trees.”
“Okay, then,” Tom said. “This is now an active crime scene. Mr. and Mrs. Carver, we can’t have unauthorized civilians interfering with our investigation. I’m going to ask Detective Howell to take you and Jack here back home. If we need anything else from you, we’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you,” Jack said in a strangled whisper, backing away from the grisly scene.
“Go home and take care,” Tom told him. “Thanks for your help.”
As the Carvers and Detective Howell took off, Tom turned back to the others. “Okay, folks,” he said. “I’m guessing you all know what needs to be done. Let’s secure the scene. Keep a sharp eye out for any kind of evidence, especially footprints or tire tracks.”
Tom knew as he said the words that looking for tracks of any kind was useless. The cars parked along the shoulder of the road would have obliterated any visible tire tracks, and the simple act of having that group of people tramp through the desert would have done the same to any footprints that might have been left behind.
While Dr. Baldwin sent Whetson to retrieve both her bag and a gurney, Tom Hadlock pressed the button on his shoulder radio in an attempt to summon Tica Romero in Dispatch. Unsurprisingly, this far from civilization, the first transmission didn’t go through.
“Okay, guys,” he announced. “Radios don’t work out here. I’m going to have to go to the car and call this in, either on the car radio or on the satphone. I’ll be right back.”
He walked out to where the cars were parked accompanying Ralph Whetson.
Once in the Yukon, Tom punched the mic button on the car’s radio. Nothing happened. In the far-flung corners of Cochise County, communications problems were an ongoing, mostly budgetary issue. In outlying areas where low-band radios didn’t work, deputies were assigned satellite phones. Joanna usually kept one in her own vehicle as well, but it was always the least reliable of the current crop and the one next in line for replacement.
That was the phone Tom was using now. When he dialed into Dispatch, he was relieved to hear Tica’s voice coming through loud and clear.
“We’ve got a homicide out here in the Peloncillos,” he told her. “Get hold of the Double C’s for me,” he said, referring to detectives Ernie Carpenter and Jaime Carbajal. “It’s urgent. The crime scene is off Geronimo Trail—first road to the left after Sycamore Creek, on the way to Paramore Crater. I need everybody on deck. Tell them to get their asses to Douglas ASAP so they can meet up with Deb Howell. That way she can guide them back to where we are. Got it?”
“Copy that,” Tica replied. “I’ll get right on it.”
When it was time to return to the others, Tom took a slightly different route, twenty or so yards to the east of where they’d walked earlier. On the way in, he’d kept an eye out for any additional bones and had seen nothing. The same was true this time, too, until he was beyond the creek bed and heading for the scrub oak. There he hit pay dirt. The remains of a human rib cage, picked clean and bleached white, lay half hidden in the grass.
“Hey, Dave,” he called to the CSI. “I’ve got something over here. I’ll need an evidence marker—” He broke off in midsentence when he spotted another skull. “Make that two evidence markers,” he said. “Looks like we’re up to at least three separate bodies.”
As Tom waited for Dave to show up, the grim reality finally dawned. This was most likely a dump site—a place where a serial killer had come to dispose of his dead prey.
At that point Tom reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. The gesture was done strictly out of force of habit. It was also completely pointless. This far out in the wilderness, the satellite phone worked, but there was no cell service of any kind. As for the satphone? Because it was having trouble holding a charge, he had left it plugged in in the Yukon.
Dave Hollicker showed up and started laying down a series of evidence markers. “I need to go back to the car and call Sheriff Brady,” Tom said as he hurried past. “She may be on maternity leave, but this is a big deal, and she needs to know what we’re up against.”
Chapter 9
LATISHA’S EYES OPENED IN THE GRAY GLOOM THAT MEANT THE SUN was shining outside. In the days since she’d been alone—and she wasn’t sure how many there had been—she began each one with a prayer, not one of Granny Lou’s hellfire-and-brimstone prayers but a variation on the ones she’d learned secondhand when she was a reluctant student at Christ the King.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. God bless Sandra Ruth Locke, Sadie Kaitlyn Jennings, and Amelia Diaz Salazar. Take them home with you and grant them peace, now and forever, amen.”
Saying that simple prayer aloud somehow made Latisha feel less alone, although she was alone—absolutely alone. If you were in prison, she realized, this was what solitary confinement had to be like, except in prison there would be guards and someone coming by during the day and passing you trays of food. Obviously this was far worse than prison.
She got up and hobbled to the bathroom. There was no longer any need to ask if anyone else was already there and no danger of crossing chains with anyone else and creating a tangle. She used the toilet. While she was sitting there, she touched her leg. It felt hot and feverish. So when she filled her cup the first time, she sat back down and ran water across the wound, hoping to clean it. What would happen if it got worse? Granny Lou had told her that was how she’d lost her legs—with sores that wouldn’t heal and that had turned into gangrene.
With all four girls there, they’d had to be stingy about using too much toilet paper, because there was always a worry about running out. Now, though, left on her own, Latisha wrapped layers of toilet paper around the shackle on her leg to provide some cushioning and maybe give the wound a chance to heal. She already knew that the Boss didn’t tolerate imperfection. If he came back and noticed the sore, Latisha worried that might be the end of things—that he’d get rid of her the same way he’d gotten rid of the others, but for a different reason.
Latisha suspected that the other three had all been pregnant at the time they disappeared—first Sandra, then Sadie, and finally Amelia. When Trayvon had come to pick Latisha up after her second abortion, the doctor at Planned Parenthood warned them that she’d suffered some internal damage as a result of the procedure and that it was unlikely she’d ever be able to have children. And now the fact that she’d gotten rid of that baby and the one before it—both mortal sins, she was sure—was the thing that was sparing her life, or at least keeping her alive at the moment. Not that being alive was any favor.
Walking back from the toilet with her cup of water, Latisha discovered that the makeshift bandage she’d made actually helped. The clamp didn’t chafe quite as much. On her mattress again, she set the cup of water beside her and groped around until she located the food dish. The kibble was easier to swallow if you had water to wash it down.
With the others gone, Latisha had appropriated their three blankets and their food containers as well. She had rolled up one blanket and used that as a pillow and appreciated the warmth those other two layers of blanket offered. She didn’t think Sandra and Sadie and Amelia would have minded. After all, the three of them had been her friends, and she was sure they would have been glad to share.
But even with extra rations added into the mix, Latisha found the level of kibble in the container alarmingly low. For the first time, she wondered what would happen if the Boss was gone and wasn’t coming back—not ever.
“That was the worst part,” Sa
ndra had told them one day. “The first time he went off and left me here by myself, I worried about what would happen if he never came back. I’d be lying here dead and no one would ever find me. No one would ever notice.”
“Do you think anyone is looking for us?” Latisha had asked.
“I doubt it,” Sadie had said with a laugh. “We’re your basic no-deposit, no-return kind of girls.”
Sadie was always cracking jokes that Latisha didn’t quite get. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“In Oregon, on some pop bottles, you have to pay a deposit, which you get back when you return the empty bottles to the store. There are other bottles that are marked ‘no deposit, no return.’ ”
Latisha didn’t like being compared to a pop bottle, but it made sense. Trayvon wouldn’t have gone out of his way to look for her. He’d just go out and find himself some other stupid girl. As for her parents? No, Lou Ann and Lyle for sure would have given up on her long ago.
But that brought Latisha to the core problem. What if the Boss didn’t come back? What if he was gone for good? How long would her food last? She had water to drink, but the toilet made that strange sound when you flushed it—as if there was what sounded like an electric motor inside it. What if the Boss didn’t come back and somebody turned off the water and the electricity because he wasn’t paying the bills? What would happen to Latisha then?
And of course there was the chain clamped to her ankle. What about that? She remembered hearing of animals with their legs caught in traps who had gnawed through their own limbs in order to escape. That wasn’t possible here. Latisha could barely touch her head to her knee.
And then she remembered the book. What was the name of it again? Something about a rock and a hard place. She’d done a book report on it once and had gotten a good grade, too, even though she’d never actually read the book. She had never read any books. One of the boys at University City High School had shown her how to look up book titles on the Internet and then write book reports based on what the Internet said about them. Once she knew about that, her grades in English had improved remarkably.