Devil's ClawJ

by J. A. Jance

  Joanna knew enough about domestic violence in families to realize that children—the innocent bystanders to those knock-down, drag-out battles—often end up choosing sides, and the sides they choose aren’t necessarily the ones outsiders might expect. And, for a child coming from that kind of troubled background, it wasn’t at all out of the question to think Lucy Ridder herself might have resorted to a violent solution to what she deemed an overwhelming problem.

  But still, Joanna reasoned as she sped past the Triple-T Truck Stop on her way into Tucson, that’s no excuse.

  Just because the Bible talked about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth didn’t mean that the offending eye or tooth were there for anyone’s taking. If Lucy Ridder had avenged her father’s death by killing her mother, then fifteen years old or not, she would have to answer for that crime in a court of law.

  Regardless of whether or not Lucy Ridder agreed with the judge’s sentence, her mother had paid for her crime by spending eight years of her life in prison. Joanna could feel empathy for Lucy Ridder, but the bottom line was if Sandra Ridder’s daughter turned out to be a killer, too, then the justice system would have to decide on an appropriate punishment—once Joanna’s department delivered Lucy into their hands and assuming some wily defense attorney didn’t figure out a way to get her off scot-free.

  CHAPTER 14

  Quick Custom Metals on Romero Road was in a light-industrial complex near I-10 and Prince. Driving up to it, Joanna saw a glass-topped brick building that looked for all the world like an airport control tower, only there was no airport. Around the building was an expanse of green lawn.

  When Joanna stepped out of the car, she was surprised by the difference in temperature between Bisbee and Tucson. Here, at a far lower elevation, the sun blazed down with an intensity that felt more like a Cochise County June day than a late-March afternoon. When she stepped into the company’s front office, she was grateful to find it was fully air-conditioned.

  A counter ran the length of the room. In front of it, an elderly silver-haired woman was engaged in a serious low-voiced conversation with a middle-aged man who stood behind the counter. It was clear from what was being said that the woman was in the process of having a sheet-metal custom-made coffin designed to hold the earthly remains of her beloved cat. The woman wanted to ascertain that the dimensions of the box would be large enough to accommodate her pet in a comfortable resting position without being crowded.

  “Some cats like to curl up in a little ball, you know,” she was saying. “But not my Sidney. He always preferred to stretch out flat on the cool tiles in the kitchen, more like a dog than a cat. So that’s why I want to be sure this will be big enough. I don’t want the poor thing to be scrunched up for all eternity.”

  It may have sounded like a bizarre request, but the man behind the counter seemed unfazed by it. “In that case, Mrs. Dearborn,” he said, “you’d better bring us Sidney’s exact measurements so there’s no mistake. Where is Sidney now?”

  “Still at the vet’s,” Mrs. Dearborn replied. “They’re keeping him on ice there until I can come back with the coffin.”

  The man gave the woman an understanding smile. “Well, if you’ll have the vet call me with the correct measurements, I’ll have one of my men get right on it. And be sure that they measure him laid out just the way you want him. Once we have the dimensions, you’ll have the box—the coffin—within twenty-four hours.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Quick,” Mrs. Dearborn murmured. “You are quick, too,” she added. “Just living up to your name, I suppose, but you have no idea how much this means to me. I expect you’ll be hearing from my vet, Dr. Winston, within the hour.”

  With that she gathered her purse from the counter, collected a crystal-knobbed cane, and hobbled her way toward the door. Joanna hurried ahead of her and held it open long enough for the woman to make her way out.

  “Thank you, young lady,” Mrs. Dearborn said. “That’s a big help.”

  “Thanks from me, too,” the man behind the counter said when Joanna turned back in his direction. “Sorry to keep you waiting. We’re a little short-handed in the office today. Can I help you?”

  “You are Mr. Quick, then?” Joanna ascertained.

  “That’s me,” he said with a nod.

  Joanna reached into her purse, extracted her badge and ID, and held them up. “Sheriff Joanna Brady,” she told him. “Is this a good time to talk?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Just a minute.” He pulled open a door that led into a cavernous shop area. Sharp metallic-smelling smoke from a burning welding torch wafted into the office. “Hey, Leon,” he called. “Kathy’s still at lunch. Could you come watch the front counter for a few minutes?”

  A few seconds later, a young man in a pair of faded blue coveralls riddled with burned spots came sauntering into the office. Once he arrived, Jay Quick ushered Joanna into his private office. His desk was a serviceable, battleship-gray metal one. The top of the desk, made of gray linoleum, matched not only the front and sides of the desk but the floor and walls as well. The whole room, from file cabinets to door, was covered with that same dull, unremitting gray. The effect might have been impossibly depressing if it hadn’t been for the collection of copper-framed art prints that covered almost every available inch of wall surface. There were some Old Masters scattered here and there, but mostly the prints were colorful renditions of well-known Impressionists—Monet, Degas, and Renoir.

  “Nice art,” Joanna said, admiring the collection.

  Jay Quick nodded. “I have my mother to thank for that,” he said. “She may have come from a place most people think of as a backwater, but she maintained that living in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was no excuse for not knowing about the world outside the city limits—fine art and music included.”

  “She sounds like an unusual woman,” Joanna said.

  Jay nodded. “She was,” he said. “I still miss her. But let’s get down to business, Sheriff Brady. I’m sure you’re not here to admire my framed art or discuss my mother. I’ll be glad to give you whatever help I can, but I’m not all that sure what I can tell you.”

  “First, if you will, try to remember exactly what Lucy Ridder said to you on the phone.”

  “Not all that much. She did identify herself, of course. Said she was Lucy Ridder and that she was looking for Mrs. Quick. At first I didn’t recognize the name and thought she wanted to speak to my wife. Finally, though, I figured out who she was and that she was trying to reach my mother. She said she wanted to talk to her—that she needed to talk to her. She made it sound important, like it was some kind of dire emergency.”

  “She didn’t say what that emergency was?”

  “No. Not even a hint.”

  “Do you have any idea why she would call your mother?” Joanna asked. “Were they close?”

  “I don’t know if ‘close’ is the right word,” Jay said. “I know Lucy made a big impression on my mom—a favorable impression. And maybe that went both ways. I know Mother talked about Lucy for years afterward, always hoping that, wherever she was, she was all right.”

  “You told me on the phone that your mother was Lucy’s teacher?”

  “Not a real teacher, like at school. Mother was Lucy’s ballet instructor at the Lohse YMCA. You see, all her life, Mom lived and breathed dancing. Even after she retired, she could never quite get it out of her system. When she came out here to visit us that one year, she heard that the Lohse YMCA downtown had lost its ballet instructor on a temporary basis. The woman had had a premature baby and was on extended maternity leave. The Y was strapped enough for funds that they couldn’t handle having one person on maternity leave and, at the same time, pay to hire a replacement. Rather than see ballet lessons canceled for several months in a row, Mother volunteered to fill in. She worked at it that whole winter.

  “I remember her telling me, a week or so after she started, about a little girl who came to her class, a little girl wearing thick glasses. When Mothe
r asked her what she wanted, she said she wanted to be Maria Tallchief. Mother said, ‘Oh, so you want to be an Indian?’ The little girl said, ‘I already am an Indian. I want to be a ballerina.’

  “According to Mother, one of the nuns from Lucy’s school had evidently given her a book to read about a young Native American woman who had gone on to become a world-class ballerina. Lucy couldn’t have been very old at the time, only second grade or so, and the story made a big impression on her. So that’s how Mother and Lucinda Ridder met. Once Lucy was in the program, she loved it. She came every day after school, either to take lessons or to practice. As I remember, she attended a Catholic school somewhere near downtown, and came to the Y on the bus.”

  “The school,” Joanna interjected. “Was it Santa Theresa?”

  Jay frowned. “Could be,” he said. “I don’t really remember. Anyway, she rode the bus from school to the Y every afternoon. Then, when the lessons were over, her dad would come downtown to pick her up.”

  “Her father,” Joanna put in. “Not her mother.”

  Jay nodded. “Right. I believe her mother worked out of town—at Fort Huachuca, as I recall. Anyway, Lucy’s mother came to pick her up just that once. As far as I know, it was the last time Lucy Ridder ever came to the Y.”

  “When was that?”

  “The day of the murder,” Jay answered. “That night was the night Lucy’s father was shot and killed. Mother had told me about it even before we saw the news the next day and realized what must have happened.”

  “It was so unusual for Sandra Ridder to show up that your mother actually told you about it?” Joanna asked.

  “It wasn’t just that she showed up. It was how she looked when she got there. You see, Mother wasn’t the violent type, and she lived a pretty sheltered life,” Jay Quick explained. “Seeing something like that really shook her up.”

  “Something like what?” Joanna asked.

  “The way Sandra Ridder looked that day. Her lip was cut and bleeding. There were cuts and bruises on her face. Her eyes were black and blue. One of them was almost swollen shut. She came barreling into the gym right after Mother’s lesson had started, dripping blood on the floor and interrupting the whole class. Sandra ordered Lucy to go get her clothes on because they were leaving right then. Mother tried to tell Sandra that she shouldn’t be doing that, that she shouldn’t be driving. She tried to convince Sandra that she needed to be driven to a doctor or else to an emergency room, but Sandra wasn’t having any of it. She just told Lucy again to come on. Now.

  “Mother agonized about it for years afterward. She always wondered if she had shut down her class and insisted on taking Sandra to see a doctor, maybe none of it would have happened—maybe Tom Ridder wouldn’t have died. Mother felt responsible, you see—felt as though there should have been something she could have done to prevent it. She blamed herself, and it haunted her. I don’t think she ever quite got over it.”

  Joanna thought back to Clayton Rhodes’ garage. Even now, if she closed her eyes, she could see him sitting there in the smoke, pale and limp, hunched over the steering wheel of his idling pickup. In that moment she knew exactly how Evelyn Quick must have felt. She understood the hopeless, hollow emptiness of thinking there must have been something she could have done. With an effort, she shook off her own nightmare to return to Evelyn Quick’s.

  “What happened then?” Joanna asked.

  “The next day, once we heard what had happened—that Tom Ridder had been shot dead—Mother tried to get in touch with Lucy to see if there was something she could do or at least to offer her condolences. But as far as we could tell, there were no services of any kind held for Tom Ridder, at least not ones that were announced to the public. Mother tried calling the house several times, using the number the YMCA had in their records, but there wasn’t any answer. It wasn’t until months later, when the paper announced that Sandra Ridder was being sent to prison, that Mother learned Lucy had been sent to Pearce to live with relatives.

  “The whole thing was terribly sad—all of it. As I said, Mother mourned about it for a long time. She said Lucy was an unusual girl, a kid with a lot of spunk. She said she was certain Lucy could have amounted to something someday. Maybe not in ballet, but in something.” He paused before adding sadly, “I don’t think this is what she had in mind.”

  “Let’s go back to what you said before,” Joanna interjected. “You mentioned that Tom Ridder was always the one who came to get Lucy at the end of her lessons.”

  Jay Quick nodded. “Always. That’s what Mother said. Regular as clockwork. She said his pickup would be parked right outside the door in a loading zone whenever the lessons were over. I think that was the other thing that bothered my mother—that Tom Ridder had fooled her so completely. She said she never even suspected that someone who seemed so crazy about his little girl—so devoted—could, at the same time, have been so physically abusive with his wife. After the fact, I think Mother was concerned that if he had beaten his wife like that, he might have been doing the same thing to Lucy, although she said she never saw any sign of it. No bruises or cuts or anything like that.”

  “Obviously this whole experience made a big impression on your mother.”

  Jay Quick nodded. “She talked about it for years afterward. Every time she came to Tucson to visit—and she came every winter—she’d get to wondering whatever became of Lucinda Ridder. Once she even talked about taking a drive out to Pearce to try to find her, but we never quite got around to making that trip, and I don’t think Mother ever did anything about it on her own.”

  “So, as far as you know, your mother and Lucy didn’t maintain any contact after that?”

  “Right. Not as far as I know.”

  “Lucy Ridder is fifteen now. Almost sixteen. Do you have any idea why, after all these years, she would try reaching your mother now?”

  Jay shook his head. “None at all,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure that out ever since Saturday morning when she called. I’ve been wondering about it even more today, ever since I heard about this latest mess on the news.”

  “While I was on my way here, I had one of my officers trace the call that came to your house on Saturday morning,” Joanna told him. “You were right about hearing trucks in the background, but Lucy’s call wasn’t placed from a truck stop. It came from a freeway rest area in Texas Canyon on the other side of Benson.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Jay asked.

  “Look for her.”

  “Will you be able to find her?”

  It was Joanna’s turn to shake her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “We’re trying, but the trail is several days old. I’ve just dispatched my canine unit to the rest area to see whether or not they can pick up her trail there.”

  There was a long, heavy pause. “What will happen then?” Jay Quick asked. “Do you think she really did kill her mother?”

  Joanna shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t say for sure at this time, but it is a possibility. Lucy disappeared on the same night her mother was shot. According to Lucy’s grandmother, Lucy and her own mother have been estranged for years—for as long as Sandra Ridder was in prison. We believe Sandra Ridder died of a gunshot wound, and we know from Lucy’s grandmother that Lucy had a handgun with her when she ran away from home. As I told you on the phone, all those things don’t necessarily make her a suspect, but they do make her a person of interest. We need to find her, talk to her, and ask her some questions.”

  Jay sighed. “I hope it’s not true that she’s a killer. But if it is—if it turns out Lucy Ridder really is responsible for her mother’s death—then I’m glad my mother didn’t live long enough to see it. Finding out that one of her favorite students ended up like that would have broken Mother’s heart. I don’t think she could have stood it.”

  Having gleaned as much information as possible, Joanna thanked Jay as he escorted her outside. “I appreciate all your help.”

  He nodded.

/>   Joanna was about to climb into the Blazer when once again the control-tower-looking building caught her attention. “What is that?” she asked. “It looks like it belongs on an airport.”

  “Right,” Jay said. “It does. This complex used to be called Freeway Airport. When they rezoned the land and shut down the runways, the control tower became the only part of the airport they left standing. It’s sort of a memorial, I guess.”

  The sound of a ringing telephone drew Jay Quick back inside while Joanna climbed into her overheated Blazer. Once inside with the air-conditioning running, she used her cell phone to dial information. Seconds later a second call was answered across town at a convent on South Sixth Avenue.

  “Santa Theresa’s,” a woman said. “Sister Emelda speaking.”

  “I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge,” Joanna said uncertainly.

  “That would be Sister Celeste, but she won’t be home until after five.”