Devil's ClawJ

by J. A. Jance

  Thank you, Fran Daly, Joanna thought as she bit back the temptation to make some snide comment in return. “As you may have gathered,” she said aloud, “I’m out of the office right now. So are my detectives. If you would call back down to my department and speak to my chief deputy, Frank Montoya, I’ll direct him to give you whatever assistance you need.

  “So,” she added, testing the water, “do your detectives have any theories so far?”

  Bill Forsythe paused momentarily. “Melanie Goodson has a real estate investment partner by the name of Edward Masters. My detectives have been trying to locate him for the better part of two days. No success so far, I’m afraid.”

  At that juncture, Joanna Brady might have volunteered the fact that she was about to interview Lucy Ridder, but she didn’t. Sheriff Bill Forsythe had left her hanging earlier. What goes around comes around, she thought as she ended the call. Immediately afterward she dialed Frank’s number. He didn’t answer, but she left word on his voice mail about Sheriff Forsythe’s sudden change of heart. Then, putting the phone away, Joanna started toward the river.

  The groomed path that led from the church to the riverbank was an immaculately maintained mini nature trail complete with homemade hand-etched signs and arrows identifying the various plants along the way. Halfway to the river, Joanna caught sight of a huge shadow sweeping across the sky overhead. It was only after spotting the shadow that she caught sight of Big Red himself. Watching the magnificent hawk glide gracefully through the air, Joanna was stunned by the bird’s tawny beauty and grace. She was still watching in transfixed wonder when the bird launched himself into a steep dive.

  After plummeting for several seconds he disappeared from view, flying beak-down into a stand of tall, winter-dried grass. Joanna waited for the sound of a crash and the accompanying explosion of feathers. Neither came. Moments after disappearing, the hawk reappeared, holding in his powerful talons the squirming, writhing figure of some living creature—a field mouse, perhaps, or maybe a baby rabbit. Whatever prize Big Red had bagged, it was heavy enough to interfere with the big bird’s complex aerodynamics. Coming up out of the tall grass, he had to struggle to become airborne once more. Flapping awkwardly, he disappeared into the lower branches of one of those age-old cottonwoods.

  From his hidden perch he let out a blood-curdling screech—a cry of triumph, most likely—one that pronounced to all concerned a successful end to his hunt. That sound alone was enough to raise the hackles on the back of Joanna’s neck, but then his cry was followed almost immediately by an answering screech that sounded so much like the first as to be almost indistinguishable. This one came from far closer to Joanna, and from the ground rather than from the sky or a sheltering tree branch. Searching for the source, Joanna spotted a young woman sitting on a tumbled boulder in the middle of the sandy, bone-dry riverbed.

  In the spot where Joanna stood, the bank was some eight feet high. Climbing gingerly, Joanna scrambled down, cringing as the powder-dry dirt gave way beneath her every step. Once on flat ground, Joanna trudged over to where the girl was sitting and sank down nearby on a neighboring boulder. Lucy Ridder, sitting cross-legged with her chin raised, didn’t even glance in Joanna’s direction. Instead, she continued to stare through her thick glasses up into the tree branches where Big Red had disappeared.

  “How’d you learn to do that?” Joanna asked.

  “Do what?” Lucy asked.

  “The bird call,” Joanna answered. “You and he sounded just alike.”

  “Big Red taught me,” Lucy said. She grimaced and then turned her face toward Joanna. “I guess you’re the sheriff.”

  Joanna nodded. “Sheriff Brady,” she said. “Joanna Brady.”

  Lucy sighed. “Father Mulligan told me about you. He likes you and says I should talk to you, tell you what happened.”

  “It would be nice if you did,” Joanna agreed.

  Two enormous tears leaked out from under the thick lenses of Lucy Ridder’s glasses. They slipped down her cheeks and then dripped, unchecked, onto a worn blue flannel shirt that was several sizes too large for her.

  “My mother’s dead,” Lucy said. “For years I hoped she would die in prison so I’d never have to see her again. But now that she really is dead, I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish I’d had a chance to talk to her, to ask her the reason. Why did she have to do it?”

  “Why did she do what?” Joanna asked.

  “Why did she have to kill my father?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that,” Joanna said. “But it’s why I’m here. To find out.”

  Lucy blinked. “About my father?”

  “About both of them,” Joanna said. “During the last few days, I’ve become convinced that what happened to your father years ago is related to what happened to your mother last week. And I think you know that as well.”

  Lucy Ridder nodded once. “Yes,” she said with a ragged sigh, and then she began to cry.

  CHAPTER 23

  Several minutes later, when Lucy Ridder finally stopped sobbing and turned to face Joanna, the full force of the afternoon sun struck a shiny knot of silver dangling on a chain at the base of the girl’s throat.

  “That’s a beautiful necklace you’re wearing,” Joanna said. “What is it?”

  Unconsciously, one of Lucy’s hands strayed gracefully to her throat and clasped shut around the necklace. “Grandma Bagwell, my grandmother’s mother, gave it to me before she died,” Lucy said. “It’s a devil’s claw.”

  “May I see it?” Joanna asked.

  Shrugging, Lucy’s hands went to the clasp. Within seconds Joanna was cradling the gleaming silver-and-turquoise amulet in her own hand. The two tiny pronged horns of the devil’s claw seemed to grow out of an equally tiny turquoise bead. She hadn’t seen the necklace George Winfield had given to Catherine Yates along with Sandra Ridder’s other personal effects, but she was sure this one was similar, if not an exact copy. The two necklaces were so alike that even Catherine Yates had been fooled into believing the one Sandra had been wearing actually belonged to her daughter.

  “It’s lovely,” Joanna said. “What does it mean?”

  “Indians use devil’s claw to weave in the patterns when they make baskets.”

  “I know,” Joanna said. “I’ve seen them before.”

  “Grandma Bagwell, my great-grandmother, used to say that people can make baskets without using devil’s claw, but that’s what they need to make the basket interesting, to make it tell a story. When she gave me the necklace, she told me it was because she thought I was interesting, too.”

  “Did you know your mother had a necklace just like this—one that’s almost identical?” Joanna asked after a pause. “She was wearing it when she died. When your grandmother saw it, she thought it was yours.”

  Once again Lucy’s eyes clouded over with tears. “No,” she whispered. “I didn’t know that. Grandma Bagwell must have given her one at the same time. But why? I thought when Grandma Bagwell gave this one to me it meant I was special, but I guess I was wrong.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Joanna offered. “Maybe she thought you were both special. That in your own way you both had interesting stories to tell.”

  “No,” Lucy Ridder said, shaking her head.

  Still holding the silver necklace in her hand, Joanna studied Lucy Ridder as the blustery late-March wind sifted through her light brown hair. Of the Native Americans Joanna had met, most had black, straight hair very unlike Lucy Ridder’s, which was both light brown and wavy. Behind the girl’s glasses her eyes were a striking gold-flecked hazel rather than deep brown. If this anguished young woman really was the great-great granddaughter of a famed Apache chief, it certainly didn’t show in her features. But there could be little doubt that many of Lucy Ridder’s ancestral instincts were still alive and well. After all, she had somehow summoned both the patience and skill to befriend, tame, and train a wild red-tailed hawk.

  “My job is studying patterns,”
Joanna said quietly, as she handed the necklace back to Lucy, who gazed at it as though it were no longer the treasure she had always assumed it to be. “Not the devil’s-claw patterns woven into baskets,” Joanna continued. “As sheriff, it’s my job to study the patterns left behind when people die—when they’re murdered.”

  “Like my father and my mother,” Lucy murmured.

  Joanna nodded. “Let me ask you something, Lucy. When a basketmaker weaves patterns with devil’s claw, do they always mean the same thing?”

  “Not always.”

  “But they may be connected, right? One may be different from the next one—from the one before it—but they’re still related.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think something similar has happened here,” Joanna said. “I think what’s happened in the past few days with your mother may be related to what happened to your father years ago. And now someone else is dead as well.”

  “My grandmother?” Lucy asked.

  “No. The latest victim is Melanie Goodson.”

  “My mother’s attorney?” Joanna nodded.

  Lucy shuddered. “She’s dead because I called her,” Lucy wailed, shaking her head and rocking back and forth. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble for her, too. I didn’t mean for her to be killed. I just knew I needed help, and I didn’t know who to ask.”

  “Please, Lucy,” Joanna said, trying to console the girl. “Don’t blame yourself. Melanie Goodson was your mother’s attorney when your father was killed. That makes her part of the pattern, too. Before I can make sense of what’s happening now, I need to learn everything I can about what happened back then. As far as I can see, you’re the only one left who can tell me what I need to know. If you will, that is,” she added.

  For several long seconds Lucy Ridder made no reply. She sat gazing intently into the concealing branches where Big Red had disappeared. Finally she turned away from the tree and focused her penetrating hazel-eyed gaze back on Joanna.

  “Why should I?” she asked hopelessly. “What good will it do? My father’s dead. Nothing I can tell you will bring him back.”

  “Or your mother, either,” Joanna added. “Lucy, listen to me. My father died when I was just a year younger than you are now. My daughter, Jenny, was seven when her father was killed—the same age you were when you lost your father. Not knowing the answers about why those things happened to my father and to my husband could have haunted Jenny and me for the rest of our lives. Finding out and knowing the truth about what happened to my dad and my husband didn’t bring either one of them back, but it did make it possible to go on.

  “You’re right. What we learn now won’t bring either one of your parents back. They’re gone. But they say the truth will set you free, and I believe that’s the case. Finding out what really happened to Sandra and Tom Ridder is the only way you—Lucy—will be able to put these awful things behind you. It’s the only thing that will allow you to move forward. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck, and you’re too young and have far too much potential to let that happen.”

  “What potential?” Lucy asked despairingly. “I’m nobody. I’m nothing.”

  “Evelyn Quick didn’t think so,” Joanna said. “That’s not what she told her son. And Sister Celeste doesn’t think so, either. That’s why they’re both worried about you. That’s why Jay Quick called and told us about your phone call. It’s why Sister Celeste came looking for you and brought you here to a place where she believes you’ll be safe.” She paused then, giving her words time to soak in. “Tell me what happened that night, Lucy. Please.”

  “First the one car drove up. My mother got out, went over to the sign, and started moving the rocks. The person who was driving didn’t help her. Whoever it was stayed in the car and I never saw who it was. Then another car drove up. It belonged to a man from the campground—a nice man who stopped and asked my mother if she needed any help. She said no, she was fine. As soon as he left, she went back to moving rocks. That’s when the other man showed up.”

  “Did you know who he was?” Joanna asked. “Had you ever seen him before?”

  Lucy shook her head. “And I didn’t hear him drive up, either. He must have parked far enough down the road that I never heard or saw his car. Mother didn’t hear him either, until it was too late.”

  Lucy’s lip trembled. “I could have warned her,” Lucy said. “I could have told her, but I didn’t. I kept quiet the whole time he was yelling at her and hurting her. He said she had something that belonged to him, something he wanted. But I knew that wasn’t true. He was looking for the disk, and I had that right there in my backpack. If I had come out from where I was hiding and given it to him, maybe he wouldn’t have shot her. Maybe she wouldn’t be dead.”

  “You don’t know that,” Joanna said. “Maybe you’d both be dead. You mustn’t blame yourself.”

  “But I do. Anyway, the next thing I knew, there was the gun. They struggled over it; wrestled over it. Then the gun went off while they were rolling on the ground. Pretty soon the man stood up, but my mother didn’t move after that. The man picked her up—she was limp, like a rag doll. He dragged her over to the car and shoved her into the backseat.”

  “Did you see where the gun came from?” Joanna asked. “Was the man who attacked your mother carrying it?”

  “No,” Lucy said. “I’m sure it was my mother’s gun—the same one she used to kill my father. She hid it there beneath the sign the night she shot him. I saw her do it. It was tiny, and she hid it in a plastic bowl along with that stupid computer disk. When I took the disk, I left the gun where it was. It killed my father, and I didn’t want to touch it.

  “Anyway, after the man threw Mother into the car, he got in, too—in the front seat on the rider’s side. I heard a woman’s voice then—the driver, I guess—say, ‘Now you’ve done it, you stupid bastard!’ And he said, ‘Just shut up and drive. Get us the hell out of here.’ And they left.”

  “Lucy,” Joanna said. “This all happened in the middle of the night. It was freezing cold that night. I was out in it, too. What were you doing out there?”

  “Hiding. Big Red and I wrapped up in a bedroll. He helped me keep warm.”

  “But why did you go there in the first place?”

  “I had to know. Mother said she was coming home. At least, that’s what she told Grandma Yates and that’s what she told me, but I knew all along it was a lie. I don’t think she cared if she ever saw either one of us again. The only reason she came back at all was to get the diskette, just like I knew she would.”

  “And how long were you there waiting?” Joanna asked.

  “I had to wait until Grandma fell asleep before I could sneak out of the house. And it took time to walk and ride there in the dark, but I got there in plenty of time. I was already hidden in the bedroll when they drove up.”

  “The man with your mother,” Joanna said.

  “He wasn’t with my mother. He came later. She was already there, moving the rocks.”

  “Tell me about this man,” Joanna urged. “Had you ever seen him before that night?”

  “No,” Lucy said. “Not that I remember. But I’ve seen him since then.”

  “You have?” Joanna demanded. “When?”

  “The next day. He came to the rest area late Saturday afternoon. Big Red and I had been hiding in among the boulders just above the road. I was coming down to use the pay phone and get a candy bar. That’s when I saw him. He was parked by the phone and stayed there for a long time. As soon as I saw him, I knew he was looking for me—and for the diskette. And I knew he’d kill me if he found me, so I stayed out of sight.”

  “Did you notice what kind of car he was driving?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I don’t know much about cars. It was gray—silver, I mean. And foreign, but that’s all I saw.”

  “Did you tell Sister Celeste about him?”

  “I was afraid to. I was afraid if she knew someone like that was looking for me, she might not help me an
ymore.”

  Joanna paused to get her bearings. “Tell me about this computer diskette. You said it was hidden in the plastic bowl along with your mother’s weapon.”

  “Right,” Lucy said. “She hid them both that night—the night she shot my father.”

  “I know how hard it is to talk about, Lucy,” Joanna prodded gently. “But I need you to tell me about that night—as much as you can remember.”

  Lucy took a deep breath. “Mother came to the YMCA looking for me. We were in the middle of class, but that didn’t matter. She just barged right in. She told me to get dressed, that we had to leave. Her face was all bloody. Her lip was cut. She looked awful. Mrs. Quick tried to tell her that she shouldn’t be driving, that she needed to see a doctor. But she kept yelling at me to come on. And so I did.”