Devil's ClawJ

by J. A. Jance

  While Catherine Yates disappeared into the back of the house, Joanna stood in the middle of the living room and looked around. The carpeting on the floor was threadbare but clean. The same could be said for the collection of old-fashioned but still serviceable leather furniture. On the wall, over a long sofa, two gold-framed pictures broke the monotony of cheap oak paneling. One was the photo of a smiling Korean War–era GI standing with one foot resting on the bumper of a 1952 Mercury convertible.

  The other photo—in faded sepia tones—depicted a man who appeared to be a full-blooded Indian standing proudly at attention and staring, solemn-eyed, into the lens of the camera. He wore some kind of uniform—one that was unfamiliar to Joanna.

  “The one on the right is Carter, my husband. The one on the left is my great-grandfather,” Catherine Yates said, returning silently to the living room. “His name is Eskiminzin. Ever heard of him?”

  Joanna shook her head.

  “You should have. He was an Arivaipa Apache. He was also a chief, just like Cochise or Geronimo. Except he wasn’t a warrior. He was a man who wanted to get along with the whites. Even after most of his first family was murdered in the Camp Grant Massacre, he still tried to make peace. My great-grandmother, my mother’s grandmother, was his second wife.”

  Joanna knew enough about Arizona history to have a nodding acquaintance with the Camp Grant Massacre. What history books called the “Apache Wars” would, in the modern vernacular, have been termed “ethnic cleansing.” Operating under the philosophy of “Manifest Destiny,” the United States Government had engaged the Apaches in a war of eradication designed to remove them from their ancient lands and make way for Anglo settlers.

  Worn down by years of fighting, in 1871 several separate Apache bands had surrendered to the commanding officer at Old Camp Grant and sued for peace. Having been told that they could camp outside the fort under the protection of the United States Cavalry, the Apaches stayed there for the next two months while peace negotiations took place. Meanwhile, several Tucson-area merchants—Anglos every one—rounded up an expeditionary force made up of Mexicans and Tohono O’othham who had their own long-held grudges against marauding Apaches.

  This band of mercenaries attacked the sleeping Apaches under the dark of night. Many of the younger men managed to escape into the hills, but women and children, along with the old and sick and helpless, were slaughtered where they slept.

  “It was about this time of year,” Catherine said softly. “April thirtieth.”

  Obviously, for Catherine Yates and her family, the Camp Grant Massacre wasn’t some distant, dusty footnote to history. It was still a hauntingly vivid and painful part of her family’s past.

  “But the uniform . . .” Joanna began.

  “After his family was killed, Eskiminzin still wanted peace. He became one of the first members of the tribal police on San Carlos. That’s him in his policeman’s uniform. Later on, he took his second family, left the reservation, and started his own ranch. Then there was another Apache uprising. Since he was a chief, he was suspected of being involved. His ranch was taken from him, and he was shipped off to Oklahoma.”

  “How do you know all this?” Joanna asked.

  “A friend of his wrote it down,” Catherine Yates explained. “John Clum was an Anglo who was superintendent of the San Carlos early on. Eskiminzin worked for him. Clum wrote a paper for the Arizona Historical Review. My mother, Christina Bagwell, was ten years old when he sent her mother, Eskiminzin’s daughter, a copy of what he’d written, along with that picture—the one you see there on the wall. Otherwise it all would have been forgotten long ago.”

  Joanna had become so caught up in the story that she had almost forgotten her own purpose for being inside Catherine Yates’ house until Catherine handed her two photos—two eight-by-ten school pictures in matching gold frames. Joanna took them and spent several long seconds examining them. From the hairstyles, it was easy to recognize that the two photographs came from different eras. Nonetheless, even the most casual observer would have noticed the striking family resemblance between Sandra Ridder and her daughter, Lucy.

  Just as Joanna handed the two pictures back and was about to speak, Frank Montoya tapped lightly on the front door and let himself into the room. “Sorry to interrupt, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “This just came in.”

  Frank made his way across the room without meeting Catherine Yates’ anxiously inquiring gaze. As he handed Joanna the piece of paper he carried, he gave the slightest shake of his head. “It looks like she’s the one,” he said softly.

  “Who?” Catherine asked.

  Joanna looked down at the picture in her hand. In the mug shot, the woman in one picture appeared to have aged ten or fifteen years. “You’re sure?” Joanna asked.

  Frank nodded. “I’m sure,” he said. “It’s Sandra, all right.”

  Joanna turned to Catherine. “It’s about your daughter, Mrs. Yates,” she said. “I’m afraid we have some bad news. We’re fairly sure that your daughter stole a vehicle last night, and now there’s a good chance that she may be a homicide victim as well.”

  Nodding and moving in slow motion, Catherine sank down on the couch and wrapped her arms around her body. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew when you kept asking me about Sandy instead of Lucy that it had to be something to do with her. What is it? What’s happened?”

  “This afternoon a woman was found in a culvert along the road between Cochise Stronghold and Pearce. She’d been shot. Unfortunately, she died while being airlifted to a hospital in Tucson. I didn’t want to say anything to you about it until after we had more information.”

  “No,” Catherine whispered. “I can’t believe it! I just can’t.”

  “I’m so sorry—“ Joanna began, but Catherine cut her off.

  “How could she?”

  “As I said, the victim, she was shot. We didn’t find a weapon, so we’re currently treating this as a homicide. The vehicle she was thought to be driving is missing, and it’s possible one or more UDAs—illegal immigrants—were involved in what happened.”

  “You’re just saying that,” Catherine said. “You’re telling me that because you don’t want to tell me the truth.”

  “What truth is that?”

  “If Sandy is dead, I know who killed her, and so do you—Lucy! It has to be her. She’s missing, isn’t she, and so is my gun. I should have known. She as good as told me, but I never thought . . . Couldn’t even imagine that she’d do such a thing!” Moaning softly, Catherine doubled over on the couch, rocking back and forth.

  “You mustn’t jump to conclusions,” Joanna said carefully, even though she herself had made much the same kind of leap. “As I said, we did find some evidence that suggests UDAs may have been involved, and there may be some other explanation entirely. At this point, other than the fact that your granddaughter is missing, we have nothing to indicate that she’s involved in what happened to her mother.”

  “You’ll find it,” Catherine said sadly. With that she leaned back against the couch and covered her eyes with one hand. After a full minute of silence she added in a hoarse whisper, “I can’t do this again. I just can’t.”

  “Do what?” Joanna asked.

  “Go through all this.” Catherine took her hand away from her face. The sorrowful eyes she focused on Joanna were smoldering coals. “This has probably never happened to you, has it,” she added accusingly. “I’ll bet no one you love has ever been arrested and sent to prison for killing someone else.”

  “No,” Joanna admitted. “You’re right.”

  “I thought so,” Catherine Yates said. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  “But we’ll need to make arrangements to have you come to Bisbee and do an official identification. My detectives will need to talk to you . . .”

  “Tomorrow will be time enough for that,” Catherine Yates replied. “Right now, all I want is to be left alone!”

  “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”
Joanna asked.

  “I won’t be all right,” Catherine said. “I’ve lost my daughter, and my granddaughter, too. I’m sure I’ll never be all right again. But I’m a tough old bird, and I’ll live. So go now, please.”

  Joanna started to say something, to warn Catherine about not going into Lucy’s room or disturbing anything, but in the end she said nothing. The all-pervasive grief that distorted Catherine Yates’ previously placid face, screwed up her mouth, and wrung a steady stream of tears from her eyes made any such cautions seem rude and unnecessary.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Yates. Really I am.”

  Catherine nodded. “I know,” she croaked brokenly. “So am I.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “It’s interesting that Catherine Yates immediately came to almost the same conclusion we did,” Frank said, as they started back toward Joanna’s Blazer.

  “It’s not interesting,” she countered. “It’s sad. With all the UDA debris there in the culvert, we could be totally off-base even suggesting it. Still, Catherine knows Lucy Ridder better than anyone else in the world—including Lucy’s own mother. If Catherine thinks her granddaughter is capable of murder, then the rest of us had better pay attention. Call Mike Wilson and cancel that Search and Rescue call for tomorrow morning. We’re not going to send an unarmed S and R team out looking for someone whose own grandmother thinks she could be armed and dangerous.”

  “You’re just going to wait for her to turn up then?” Frank asked.

  “No,” Joanna replied. “We’ll send Terry Gregovich and Spike out to find her. That’s why we have a canine team, but when you dispatch them, let Terry know that I expect both of them—man and dog—to be wearing their Kevlar vests at all times. I don’t want to lose either one of them.”

  Terry Gregovich and his eighty-five-pound German shepherd Spike constituted the Cochise County Sheriff Department’s first-ever K-9 team. Both man and dog were relative new-hires. Terry, a Gulf War veteran, had come over from Search and Rescue. With the help of drug-enforcement monies, Spike had been purchased directly from a breeder who specialized in police dogs. After months of training and working together, Spike and Terry had evolved into an inseparable and valuable team. Six weeks earlier, a Phoenix-area K-9 dog had been shot to death by a pair of fleeing bank robbers. In the aftermath of that incident, Joanna had managed to find room in her budget to purchase a canine-fitted Kevlar vest for Spike’s protection.

  “Do you want them to start looking tonight?” Frank asked.

  Joanna thought about that. “Tomorrow will be soon enough. Catherine Yates asked to be left alone tonight. We can give her that much of a break.”

  “Are you going to go for a search warrant?”

  “With what?”

  “Good question,” Frank said.

  Just then a call came in over the radio. “What’s up, Larry?” Joanna asked.

  “Detective Carbajal called in a few minutes ago. He wants you back up at the entrance to Cochise Stronghold pronto. He says he’s found something but he isn’t sure what.”

  Frank flipped on both lights and siren. As he floorboarded the gas pedal, the rough surface of the road seemed to smooth out. Joanna knew, however, that that was a dangerous illusion. The ride was smooth only because the tires were spending so little time in contact with the roadway. After several nerve-racking minutes, Joanna was more than slightly relieved when they stopped on the outskirts of a group of emergency vehicles parked around the carved redwood forest service sign that marked the entrance to Cochise Stronghold. The sign was illuminated by Jaime Carbajal’s trouble light. The detective himself, on hands and knees, appeared to be crawling through a scattered field of rocks.

  “What’s up, Detective Carbajal?” Joanna asked.

  Jaime rose to meet her. “After what Deputy Pakin told us, I decided to come up here and take a look around. Over there are signs of what appears to be a serious struggle, including what looks to me like blood spatter.” He pointed to a spot just to the right of the sign where a ten-foot-square area had been marked off with a border of yellow tape. “We’ll be able to tell more tomorrow in the daylight. In the meantime, take a look at this.”

  He held up a bag that contained what looked like a small plastic soup bowl. Even through the glassine bag, Joanna could see that the outside of the once white bowl was yellowed with age and covered with a coating of grime.

  “What’s this?” Joanna asked. “The leavings from somebody’s long-ago picnic?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jaime replied. “Remember, Deputy Pakin’s witness said the woman he saw was messing around with the rocks at the base of the sign, so I decided to come check. The cover was loose inside the hole, but the bowl itself was embedded in the dirt at the bottom of the hole.”

  Joanna took the bag and examined the bowl more closely. On the bottom, accentuated by clinging dirt, was a still recognizable Tupperware trademark.

  “I tried selling Tupperware years ago, when Andy and I were first married,” she told her astonished deputies. “The stuff’s supposed to be airtight, waterproof, and capable of lasting forever. This looks as though it’s been here for a long time. What’s in it?”

  “Nothing now,” Jaime replied. “It was empty when I found it, but I’ll bet it wasn’t empty when the woman in the white car came looking for it.”

  Joanna walked over to the sign and the pile of disturbed rocks beneath it. With the help of a flashlight, she peered down in among them to where the outline of the bowl was still clearly visible in the soft, fine, insect-sifted dirt under the rocks.

  “Assuming Sandra Ridder is the one who hid it, that would mean the bowl has been here for eight years at least,” Joanna stated. “That’s how long she’s been in prison. What could be so valuable that, after all this time, she would risk stealing a vehicle her first night out of the slammer in order to come get it?”

  “Whatever it was, it wasn’t very big,” Frank offered.

  Joanna studied the container. “And it wasn’t something Sandra wanted her attorney to know about, since she evidently stole Melanie Goodson’s car to come get it. But shouldn’t we ascertain once and for all that the person Lance Pakin’s witness saw here really was Sandra Ridder? What’s his name again, and is he still camped out up there?”

  Jaime consulted his notes. “Mr. Pete Naujokas of Estes Park, Colorado,” he said. “And yes, as far as I know, he’s still up there. Third RV spot on the right inside the campground. But how can he possibly identify her?”

  Frank held up a piece of paper. “The night clerk faxed me a copy of Sandra Ridder’s mug shot.”

  Jaime laughed. “Frank Montoya’s trusty mobile office strikes again.”

  Frank’s technological additions to his Crown Victoria had been the topic of much good-natured ribbing both inside and outside the department. But at times like these, it was easy for Frank to rib back.

  “It’s only a little after nine,” Joanna told her officers. “Even the most dedicated RVer won’t have hit the sack this early. Frank and I will go show Pete Naujokas the picture and see what he says. That way we’ll know for sure whether or not Sandra Ridder is the woman who was digging in the rocks.”

  Leaving Jaime Carbajal to continue his investigation of this new part of the crime scene, Joanna and Frank headed for the campground. The gravel road, little more than a trail in spots, was rough and winding enough to prove something of a challenge to Frank’s Civvie. Once they arrived at the campground and saw some of the big RV rigs parked there, Joanna wondered aloud how they had made it up the road.

  Frank looked at her and grinned. “Most of the guys who drive these are retired,” he told her. “They don’t care how long it takes to get from one camping spot to another. They’re not on a set schedule.”

  Outside the Naujokases’ RV, four people in folding camp chairs were seated around a blazing fire. “Mr. Naujokas?” Joanna asked, exhibiting her ID.

  “That’s me.” A smiling, slightly built man stepped out of the f
irelight. “Most people call me Pete,” he said.

  “I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady, and this is Frank Montoya, my chief deputy. I was wondering if you’d mind taking a look at a picture we have here and telling us whether or not it’s the woman you saw down by the park entrance last night.”

  Frank passed him the faxed mug shot, and Pete Naujokas walked it over to the fire in order to take a closer look. “That’s her,” he said, coming back to return the paper to Frank. “Who is she—or rather, who was she? Some kind of criminal?”

  “Her name is Sandra Ridder. She went to prison for manslaughter eight years ago, after the shooting death of her husband. Her mother lives a few miles away from here off Middlemarch Road.”

  “But what was she doing here?” Pete asked. “At the campground?”

  “We think she came looking for something, maybe something that had been hidden for years.”