by J. A. Jance
“That’s ridiculous. I’m telling you she’s fine.”
Isabel Gonzales appeared behind Amy Baxter in the corridor. “The phone’s for you, Mr. Rogers,” she said. “Burton Kimball.”
Amy nodded to Rex. “You take care of that; I’ll handle this.”
Rex Rogers dodged out of the room, leaving the three women there together. For some time, the only sound was the creaking of Holly’s rocker on the polished hardwood floor.
“Is she being held here against her will?” Joanna asked suddenly.
“Against her will? Of course not! What kind of preposterous idea is that?”
Joanna bent her head close to Holly’s. “Look at your hands,” she said kindly. “You’ve hurt your self. Don’t you think you ought to see a doctor about them?”
She held Holly’s limp hands up in the air. In the dim light, Holly examined them as though they were strange appendages having nothing at all to do with her own body.
“How did I hurt my hands, Amy?” Holly asked in a strangely disembodied voice. “Do you know?”
“You fell, Holly,” Amy answered firmly. “You fell down outside, just a little while ago.”
“Why can’t I remember then?” Holly asked, still studying her hands. “It’s weird not to be able to remember.”
“Maybe you hit your head when you fell, and that’s why you can’t remember,” Joanna suggested. “The hospital is only a few blocks away. It wouldn’t be any trouble at all for me to take you there and have a doctor take a look at you.”
“Oh, go if you want to,” Amy said with sudden irritation. “I won’t stand in your way.”
“No,” Holly said, doubtfully at first but then with stronger conviction. “I think I’m okay. It’s okay. I’ll just stay here.”
Amy Baxter smiled at Joanna in triumph. “See there?” she said.
Joanna reached in the pocket of her blazer and located a business card, one of her old ones from the Davis Insurance Agency. On the back of it, she scrawled her home phone number as well as the word “sheriff.”
“Feel free to call me anytime,” she said.
Holly Patterson took the card but dropped it into her lap without even glancing at it.
“Is that all, Sheriff Brady?” Amy Baxter prompted.
Joanna nodded. “Yes,” she said. “For the time being.”
“Good,” Amy said, settling onto the edge of Holly’s bed. “Mrs. Gonzales can show you out.”
Isabel, waiting in the hall, led the way down the stairs. “What’s going on up there?” Joanna asked.
The Hispanic woman shook her head. “I don’t know. If it had been up to me, I would have let her go. She only wanted to see what was up on the dump. She’s been sitting in her room staring at it and worrying herself sick about it for days. She was already that far. What would it have hurt to let her go the rest of the way?”
“Holly wanted to see what was on top of the dump?” Joanna asked. “Why?”
“Who knows? She keeps on asking me about it. What’s up there? What’s it like? I told her I didn’t know.”
“But she climbed up it?”
“Yes.”
By then they were outside the house. “Where?”
Isabel walked far enough to see the dump around the corner of the house. “There,” she said, pointing. “She was almost up at the top, just above that little mesquite halfway up.”
Joanna shaded her eyes, but she saw nothing.
The dump was a dangerous and barren wasteland that had barely changed for as long as she could remember. Why would Holly Patterson want to climb it?
“What’s wrong with her, Isabel?” Joanna asked.
Isabel Gonzales shook her head. “She’s been bad all along, ever since she’s been here; not eating very much; barely sleeping. All she does is sit in that chair of hers, rocking and rocking. But she’s been worse these last few days, ever since her dad came to see her.”
“Harold Patterson came here?” Joanna demanded. “When?”
“Tuesday afternoon,” Isabel answered. “He got here just before I left to go vote.”
Joanna instantly recognized the discrepancy.
Holly’s lawyer had claimed she tried to kill Burton because he had talked Harold out of settling and out of keeping the scheduled appointment with Holly. But the old man had kept that appointment after all.
“Did Ernie Carpenter ever talk to you about that? Does he know Harold Patterson stopped by here that day?”
“Nobody’s talked to me about it at all.”
He should have, Joanna thought. “But go on with your story,” she said.
“Well, this morning I thought things were better. Miss Patterson even came down to the kitchen for coffee. But as soon as she saw the paper, she fell all to pieces. I thought for a minute she was having a heart attack. It scared me to death. You saw her. Now she’s back to rocking again.”
“You said something about a paper,” Joanna said. “What paper?”
“Today’s Bisbee Bee,” Isabel answered.
“What happened then?”
Isabel shrugged. “She looked at the paper, and then she went all weird. After a minute, she went running back upstairs. I thought she was fine. I went back to work. A few minutes later, Mr. Rogers and Miss Baxter came back from lunch. I told Miss Baxter what happened. She went up to talk to Miss Patterson. A few minutes later, I heard the commotion outside. I saw it all from the kitchen window. Miss Patterson was up on the dump, and Miss Baxter was trying to get her to come down.
That’s when she fell. I was afraid she’d break her neck, but I guess she only skinned her hands.”
“Where exactly did she fall?”
“When she was climbing back down the dump. A rock must have slipped out from under her foot.”
“She fell on the dump, not the terraces?”
“She wasn’t anywhere near the terraces.”
Joanna felt the skin prickle on the back of her neck. For a long moment, she stood looking at the somber brown facade of Cosa Viejo. Linda Kimball was right. Something was definitely wrong inside those brown stuccoed walls, and Holly Patterson was in danger.
“Isabel,” Joanna said, “I need to drive out of here because they’re expecting me to leave. But if I came back on foot, could you let me in and get me up to Holly’s room without anyone seeing me?”
“Sure,” Isabel answered. “Why don’t you park down by my house? Take that little dirt road just outside the gate. It goes around the wall to the back. Park down there and then come up the stairs through the terraces. That’s the way I come to work. I’ll meet you at the basement door and take you up the inside back stairway.”
Joanna nodded. “Good,” she said. “I’ll be right back. Don’t tell anyone I’m coming.”
“Oh, no,” Isabel Gonzales agreed. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
By THE time Joanna parked the Blazer on the far side of the Cosa Viejo caretaker’s cottage, she had reached only one firm decision-she would attempt to lure Holly Patterson out of the house so she could talk to her. If Holly was in mortal danger, as she had hinted to Linda Kimball, then the source of that danger had to be the people who were there in the house with her.
Other than the fact they were liars, Joanna had no other concrete charges to lay at the door of either Amy Baxter or Rex Rogers, but Rex’s lie about Holly falling off the terrace had been a direct falsehood.
Amy’s was more subtle. She had simply gone along with the idea that Harold Patterson had never showed up for his scheduled appointment with Holly when in fact he had. Both times. Holly’s attempt at vehicular manslaughter-regardless of whether or not the city of Bisbee called it negligent driving-had been based on that erroneous premise, Holly’s mistaken belief that her father had once again let her down.
Halfway up the cracked flagstone steps that led through the terraced backyard, Joanna pulled off her pumps and stuck them in the pockets of her blazer. Within three steps, she felt the distinctive crackle of a run tha
t started at the back of her heel and stopped somewhere midthigh. So much for the brand-new pair of panty hose she had put on that morning.
She could see now the very real wisdom behind Ernie Carpenter’s system of stashing a selection of extra clothing wherever it might be needed. As soon as she had a chance and as soon as she had that many extra clothes-she’d have to follow his example with a suitcase of her own.
When Joanna reached the highest level of terraces, she saw Isabel standing beside what was evidently a basement door, beckoning her to hurry. “This way,” she mouthed.
“They’re in the front room talking,” she whispered, as soon as Joanna was close enough. “Arguing, really. If we go up this back way, they won’t hear a thing.”
The back stairs were long, steep, and uncarpeted. They had to walk close to the ends of the risers in order to keep the boards from squeaking noisily underfoot. At the second landing, Isabel paused to catch her breath. In the otherwise-silent house, the only sound was an eerie rhythmic creaking, a sound Joanna eventually recognized as coming from Holly’s rocking chair. It was there in the background, like the steady but annoying dripping of a constantly leaking faucet.
“I’m glad someone is helping Miss Patterson Isabel Gonzales gasped between breaths. “I feel sorry for her.”
“Why?”
The older woman shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s like something is weighing her down and crushing the life out of her.”
“Maybe it is,” Joanna replied.
They climbed on then, coming out through a door in the upper corridor just across from Holly Patterson’s room. “I can handle it from here,” Joanna said.
“You go on back downstairs. Hope fully, they won’t know you helped me.”
Isabel nodded and started back down at once.
She didn’t care much for either Rex Rogers or Amy Baxter, but it would be a shame if she and Jaime lost their jobs with that nice Mr. Enders.
Cosa Viejo provided them both with a living wage as well as a free place to live. In a one-horse town like Bisbee, where mining had disappeared and jobs were scarce as hen’s teeth, that wasn’t some thing to throw away lightly.
Unsure how Holly would react to her sudden reappearance, Joanna waited several minutes before she emerged from the landing and crossed the hallway. She wanted to give Isabel plenty of time to distance herself from any difficulty that might arise.
And all the time she stood there waiting, the eerie rocking continued.
Finally, after checking the corridor, Joanna darted across the hallway. To her surprise, when she tried turning the knob, she found the door was locked. That gave some validity to the theory that Holly Patterson was indeed being held against her will.
A skeleton key lay on a nearby oak hall table.
Joanna tried it, and the door swung open, revealing a room in which nothing had changed. Joanna’s business card still lay exactly where it had fallen. Holly hadn’t moved at all. Her two scraped hands still lay hopelessly in her lap, while her Vacant eyes stared through the small opening in the otherwise-drawn drapes.
“Holly,” Joanna said softly, her voice barely rising above the incessant racket of the rocker.
Slowly, like a television camera doing a gradual pan around a room, Holly Patterson’s face and eyes swung away from the window. Her questioning gaze settled on Joanna’s face with a puzzled frown. “Who are you?” she asked.
The question startled Joanna. She had been in that very room scant minutes earlier, speaking to this same woman, asking her questions. But now Holly obviously had no memory of it. Joanna was as much a stranger as if she had never laid eyes on her. Joanna felt with rising certainty that chemicals of some kind were responsible for Holly Patterson’s faulty memory.
“I’m Joanna Brady,” she answered, speaking calmly, trying to instill confidence. “I’m the new sheriff. I came to talk to you, to see if there was anything I could do to help. Would you like to go for a walk?”
“A walk? No!” Holly shook her head vigorously. “Amy wouldn’t want me to do that. She doesn’t like it when I go for walks.”
“Amy wouldn’t have to know,” Joanna said conspiratorially. “We could just walk down the back stairs and out the door. She wouldn’t have any idea we were gone.”
“No, I’d better not. I’d get in trouble.”
Holly’s voice was plaintive, like that of a child who, while already being punished for one misdeed, fears the additional retribution of another.
As Joanna watched, two tears squeezed out of the corners of Holly Patterson’s eyes and ran down her sunken cheeks. There is something seriously out of whack here, Joanna told herself, but she still couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
There were no visible restraints on the rocking chair, but there could just as well have been. Holly refused to budge, but her tearful refusal did nothing but strengthen Joanna’s determination to somehow entice Holly out of the house.
Suddenly, she remembered what Isabel had told her earlier, about Holly wanting to see the top of the dump. Maybe that would serve as enough of a temptation. “Would you like to go up on the dump?” Joanna asked.
Joanna’s educated guess was right on the money. Holly’s rocking ceased abruptly. A look of heartbreaking eagerness settled over her face.
“You could take me up there? Really?”
“Yes. And you wouldn’t have to climb, either,” Joanna answered quickly. “That’s too dangerous. I could take you in my car, in my Blazer. I’m sure, if I called ahead and asked, the P.D. watchman would give us a tour.”
“Yes, please,” Holly Patterson said avidly, staggering to her feet and then swaying back and forth as though about to black out from the sudden effort. “I’d like that very much.”
“Then we have to move quickly,” Joanna cautioned. “Down the back stairs. I’ll lead the way.
Follow me, and stay close to the wall so the stairs don’t creak so much.”
Once Holly was out of the room, Joanna relocked the door and returned the key to its place on the table while Holly stood in the middle of the hallway, watching her in a state of confused bewilderment.
“This way,” Joanna said, taking her by the arm. “Hurry.”
As they started down the stairs, Joanna realized the whole house now echoed with sudden, deafening silence. The ever-present sound of the rocker was stilled. In its absence, the creaking floors, many times amplified, seemed to echo off the 4walls and ceilings.
What if we’re caught? Joanna wondered worriedly. It was bad enough to have two of her deputies charged with false arrest in the Kansas Settlement case. It would be far worse to have the new sheriff herself up on similar charges.
When they stepped outside, Joanna was shocked by how cold it seemed. Running up and down the stairs had left her overheated and winded, but she at least had the wool blazer. Holly had been sitting in a very warm room, and she was wearing nothing but loose-fitting sweats and a pair of bedroom slippers. They were barely out the door when Holly shivered and hunched her thin shoulders against the cold.
“Here,” Joanna said, shrugging off her blazer.
“Put this on. The car’s this way.”
But instead of heading in the way Joanna pointed, Holly Patterson set off determinedly in the other direction, winding her way down through the terrace, heading toward the towering dump, gliding along like a sleepwalker, drawn forward by some invisible and inexplicable force. Joanna darted after her. “The car’s over here,” she insisted.
When Holly still ignored her, Joanna grasped her arm and tried to turn her bodily in the right direction. It was no use. Holly Patterson, headed straight for the dump, was as unstoppable as a loaded freight train on rails. She shook off Joanna’s grasp and continued forward with single minded focus.
“Where are you going?” Joanna asked.
“I’ve got to see if he’s up there,” Holly answered with surprising animation. “I’ve got to know.”
“If who’
s up there?” Joanna demanded.
Behind them, a door to the house slammed open, then closed. “Hey!” Amy Baxter shouted. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Come back.”
The sound of that distinctive voice seemed to galvanize Holly Patterson. Her eyes widened. She leaped forward like a startled hare. Joanna was momentarily left behind by Holly’s first sudden burst of speed.
Part of Joanna’s difficulty lay in her bare feet.
Holly Patterson’s house slippers, poor as they were, gave her somewhat better mobility and traction.
Joanna’s feet were cold and bleeding. The rough surface of every bit of gravel cut painfully into her soles. She whimpered with every step.
She considered stopping and giving up, but Holly Patterson was still hurrying forward, and Amy Baxter was coming across the backyard toward them at a dead run.
Joanna turned and limped after Holly. She caught her when they reached the tightly strung fence at the bottom of the dump. Holly stood there, tugging desperately on what seemed to be a bathrobe that had somehow become entangled in the tightly strung wire.
“Go on through,” Joanna urged. “Hurry. If you want the robe, I’ll bring it.”
With the familiarity of a country-raised child, Holly wiggled through the fence. Naturally, one barb caught on Joanna’s blazer and left a jagged rip down the center of the back, but that barely slowed Holly’s forward motion. And as Joanna wormed her way through the fence, she tore her own blouse in the process. As promised, she wrenched the robe loose from the fence and pulled it on over her shoulders, grateful for some covering to ward off the bone-chilling cold.
By the time Joanna reached the bottom of the dump, Holly was already scrambling up the steep incline. Conscious once more of her painful, bleeding feet, Joanna paused, but only for a moment before she, too, began the difficult ascent.
“Holly!” Amy Baxter’s voice commanded from behind them, from the other side of the fence.
“Come back!”
Joanna saw it happen. It was as though an invisible choke chain were being pulled taut around Holly’s neck. She slowed her desperate flight.