by J. A. Jance
“I hope you don’t mind the kids being here,” Rebecca added quickly. “I’m homeschooling them, and we’ve been doing a unit on community service. When I heard what happened, I told the kids to get their butts out of bed because we were coming down to help. I don’t know Moe and Daisy well, but we live just up the street from them. It seemed like the right thing to do.”
Marianne stepped into the conversation and handed Joanna a cup of coffee. “Good morning, Rebecca,” she said cordially. “So glad you and the kids could make it.”
Rebecca nodded. “I’d better go help,” she said, backing away.
“You know her?” Joanna asked as Rebecca melted into the refreshment crowd.
“I met them at Safeway shortly after they arrived in town,” Marianne said. “They’ve only been here a few months. Rebecca is divorced. Moved here from someplace in New Mexico with a boyfriend who disappeared almost as soon as they got to town.”
“What does she do for a living?” Joanna asked.
Marianne shrugged. “I’m not sure, but she’s homeschooling the two kids, which strikes me as a full-time job all its own. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be any good at homeschooling, and neither would Jeff.” Jeff Daniels was Marianne’s husband.
Joanna nodded. “The same goes for me,” she agreed. “I’ve never been teacher material.”
They stood for a moment, sipping their respective cups of coffee in the early morning cool and appreciating the quiet comfort of an enduring friendship that had started in junior high. Bisbee may not have boasted an official Welcome Wagon organization, but Reverend Maculyea filled the bill anyway. When it came to newcomers in town, you could count on Marianne to have a handle on them—where they came from, what they were about, and whether or not they needed any kind of assistance. Other people lived their lives by drawing circles in the sand designed to keep people out. Marianne’s whole purpose in life was to draw circles that pulled people in.
“You got here fast,” Joanna observed as another pair of cars nosed into the lot and parked where Father Rowan indicated. “I’m the sheriff. How come you got the call before I did?”
To anyone else, it might have sounded like a dig, but Marianne didn’t take offense. “I wasn’t called,” she explained. “I heard it from Jeff. He went out for an early morning run up the canyon and came across Moe Maxwell, who was already out looking for Junior on his own. Jeff convinced Moe that he needed to call the cops, then came straight home and told me.”
“You’re the one who summoned all the ladies?” Joanna asked, nodding toward the gathering of women who were bustling around setting out tables and folding chairs.
Marianne grinned. “I didn’t have to summon all of them,” she replied. “All I had to do was call the first two people on my list. Each of those called two more. It’s the first time we’ve used CCT,” she added. “It worked like a charm.”
For months, Marianne had been spearheading a team of local pastors and parishioners who had established something they called Christ’s Crisis Tree, a phone tree organization that used a combination of text messages and landline calls to mobilize members of various churches to respond quickly to community emergencies, where they provided refreshments to all those involved, first responders and volunteers alike.
Marianne’s grin faded as quickly as it had come. Joanna turned in time to see Daisy Maxwell, disheveled and distraught, coming toward them. Marianne hurried forward to embrace the woman.
“So sorry,” Marianne said. “I’m sure they’ll find him soon.”
Daisy nodded numbly. “I hope so,” she agreed. Then she turned to Joanna. “That guy from your department was up at the house, the one with the dog.”
“Terry Gregovich,” Joanna told her.
“Before I left, I gave him some of Junior’s clothing so the dog would have his scent. I hope and pray it works. That’s why Chief Bernard had everyone else, including these wonderful volunteers, meet here at the church instead of at our place. He didn’t want people disrupting the scent and interfering with the dog.”
“Spike’s good at his job,” Joanna said reassuringly. “Would you like some coffee, Daisy? Something to eat?”
That was what people did in difficult times—they offered food and drink. Daisy rejected both with a firm shake of her head, all the while gazing in wonder at the bustling parking lot.
“Where did all these people come from and how did they get here so fast?” she asked. “It’s only a little past six. How did they even know what had happened?”
“They care about you,” Marianne said, “and they care about Junior, too. Let’s go sit down for a while.”
Taking Daisy by the arm, Marianne led her to a nearby table. Meanwhile, Detective Matt Keller, a Bisbee police officer and Alvin Bernard’s lead investigator, wandered over to the refreshment area and collected a cup of coffee before joining Joanna.
“Making any progress?” she asked.
Matt shook his head. “Not much. I’ve talked to all the people who live on O’Hara, the Maxwells’ street,” he said. “Because it was so warm last night almost all the neighbors had their windows open, but nobody seems to have heard or seen anything out of line, including Jack and Lois Radner, who live right next door. I talked to both of them and to their son, Jason, whose bedroom faces Junior’s. So far I’ve got nothing that would help with timing, not even so much as a barking dog.”
Joanna looked away from the detective in time to see two sheriff’s department patrol vehicles nose into the parking lot. As she walked over to confer with her deputies, her phone rang and Terry Gregovich’s name appeared in her caller ID.
“I could use some help up here,” he said.
“Where are you? Did you find a scent?”
“We found one, all right. The trail from the house led up to the highway above town at milepost 337,” he said. “We’re there now. Spike may be able to follow the trail on the pavement or across the pavement, whichever it turns out to be, but we won’t be able to do either one until we have someone up here to direct traffic.”
“Two patrol deputies just arrived,” Joanna told him. “I’ll send them right up. You said milepost 337?”
“That’s right,” Terry confirmed.
“If somebody up on the highway gave Junior a ride, he could be miles away by now.”
“I know,” Terry said. “If the trail ends in the middle of the pavement, we’ll know that’s probably what happened.”
Joanna hustled over to the two cars just as Deputies Ruiz and Stock stepped out of their vehicles. Deputy Stock’s usual patrol area was on Highway 80 between Tombstone and Benson, while Deputy Ruiz spent most of his time on the stretch of Highway 92, west of Don Luis and out as far as the base of the Huachuca Mountains.
Joanna turned to Deputy Stock. “Did you see anyone walking on the highway as you came over the Divide?” she asked.
Jeremy shook his head. “Not a soul,” he said. “Do we have any idea how long Junior’s been gone?”
“Less than ten hours,” Joanna said. “He took off sometime during the night. Right now, I need both of you up on the highway at milepost 337 to assist the K-9 unit. Spike picked up Junior’s scent and followed it there. Before they can venture onto the pavement, they need someone directing traffic.”
“On our way,” Jeremy said. He turned to head out, but Joanna stopped him.
“No lights or sirens until you get there,” she cautioned. “I don’t want a hundred civilians milling around on the highway. One of them might get killed.”
As the deputies hurried to do her bidding, Joanna went in search of Alvin Bernard. She wanted to tell him she had just heard from Terry Gregovich. To do so, she had to get in line behind one of her least favorite people, Marliss Shackleford, the Bisbee Bee’s intrepid reporter. Marliss may have been Joanna’s mother’s closest chum, but she was also a gossipy busybody and the bane of Joanna’s existence. Knowing that Marliss dished out the same kind of torment to Alvin Bernard made it only slig
htly less irksome to Joanna.
As soon as the reporter caught sight of Joanna, she registered her surprise. “How come you and your people are here, Sheriff Brady?” Marliss demanded abruptly. “My understanding is that Junior disappeared from the Maxwells’ place on O’Hara. That’s well inside the city limits and outside your jurisdiction. Isn’t this whole circus a bit of an overreaction to someone simply wandering off?” She waved dismissively at the crowd of people milling in and out of the parking lot.
“Most of these folks are volunteers,” Joanna told her. “My people are here because Chief Bernard requested my department’s assistance, and we’re happy to oblige. As for its being an overreaction? I doubt that’s how Daisy Maxwell would characterize it. In fact, Daisy is right over there chatting with Marianne. Why don’t you ask her?”
Marliss scurried off in search of Daisy Maxwell. “Thanks for getting rid of her,” Alvin Bernard muttered once the reporter was safely out of earshot. “I was afraid she was going to be on my case all morning long.”
Quickly Joanna briefed him on the situation with Terry and Spike.
“Should I call off the street search, then?” Chief Bernard asked.
“Not yet,” Joanna replied. “Just because Junior wandered up to the highway doesn’t mean he didn’t come back down into town somewhere else. I sent a pair of uniformed deputies up there to direct traffic. What we don’t need on the scene is a mob of civilians.”
“You’re right about that,” Bernard agreed.
“Why don’t I go see if I can assist my guys?” Joanna told him. “I’ll call you directly if we find any sign of Junior.”
When their conversation was interrupted by questions from someone else, Joanna took the opportunity to slip away. Once in her Yukon, she exited the parking lot, drove back down to Tombstone Canyon, and then headed north to the junction with Highway 80. Merging into the southbound lane, she turned on her light bar and flashers and drove slowly down the highway, scanning the shoulders on both sides of the road as she went. When she reached mileage marker 337, she pulled over to the side of the road and tucked in behind Deputy Stock’s Ford Explorer.
“Where’s Terry?” she asked.
“Up there,” he said, pointing up the steep hillside above the highway. “He and Spike took off up that gully.”
Years earlier, when the new highway bypass was built, the roadway had been carved out of the series of undulating limestone cliffs that covered the hillside. The mounds of cliffs were separated by steep gullies. During rainstorms those washes turned into cascades of fast-running water. Bone dry at the moment, they offered a natural but rough stairway leading up through otherwise impassable terrain. Pulling a pair of binoculars off her belt, Joanna scanned the mountainside.
When Anglos had first arrived in what was now southeastern Arizona, the Mule Mountains had been covered by a forest of scrub oak. The trees had been cut down to provide firewood for home use as well as for smelting the copper being mined underground. As a girl, Joanna had hiked these hills with her father. Back then most of the scrub oak had been little more than overgrown bushes. Decades later those same slow-growing shrubs had matured into genuine trees, growing here and there in dense clusters.
Joanna was still scouring the hillside with her binoculars when Spike and Terry popped out from behind the cover of one of those groves of trees. They remained visible for only a matter of moments before resuming their climb and disappearing into another clump of scrub oak a few yards farther on. Even from this distance Joanna could see that Terry was struggling to keep up with his agile dog. Spike, nose to the ground and intent on his quarry, lunged forward with his brushy tail plumed out behind him.
Joanna knew that Terry Gregovich prided himself on being in top physical condition. If this was proving to be a tough climb for him, how had Junior managed it? The missing man was in his early sixties. He was naturally clumsy and anything but a natural athlete. Joanna was hard-pressed to imagine Junior making the same climb, especially alone and in the dark. Still, she also understood that the trail didn’t lie. Junior’s scent had to be there because that’s what Spike was following.
“Did there happen to be a full moon last night?” Joanna asked.
“Yes, ma’am, there was,” Deputy Stock answered. “Out between here and Tombstone it was almost as bright as day.”
Just then Joanna heard the dog. Spike’s excited, purposeful barks alerted everyone within earshot that he had located his target. Almost a minute later, Terry reappeared, popping out of the second grove of trees. As Deputy Gregovich came into view, Joanna’s phone rang.
“I found him,” Terry said urgently.
“Where?” Joanna asked. “Is he all right?”
“I can’t tell if he’s all right or not,” Terry replied. “I can see him, but I can’t reach him. I called to him, but he didn’t respond. He doesn’t appear to be breathing.”
“Where is he?”
“At the bottom of a glory hole inside a cave of some kind. I always heard rumors about a series of limestone caverns under the mountain, but I never really believed it. The narrow opening that leads into it is hidden in the trees directly behind me.”
Joanna knew that the Mule Mountains were riddled with natural caverns and man-made glory holes—small test holes that had been drilled into the earth by prospectors and left abandoned when no ore was found.
“Which is it?” Joanna asked, “a glory hole or a cave?”
“A little of both,” Terry replied. “The cave itself is natural, but there’s a small glory hole inside it that someone must have worked for a while. The tailings outside the entrance are hidden under the trees. If I’d been on my own, I would have missed the opening completely. Fortunately, Spike didn’t. Someone put an iron grate across the entrance to keep people out. Junior evidently crawled under it. So did Spike and I. The glory hole is a few feet inside the cave, and it’s a big drop-off. I can see Junior facedown at the bottom of that, lying on top of a layer of loose rock and boulders where it looks like the side of the hole collapsed. There’s a cat or kitten stuck down there, too. It’s on an outcropping halfway between where I was and where Junior is. I can’t see it, but I can hear it crying. I’ll bet that’s what happened. Junior was following the kitten, and they both fell.”
“Can you get to him?” Joanna asked.
“Not me, not without ropes and a winch.”
“Okay,” Joanna said. “I’m on it. Calling for help right now.”
CHAPTER 2
WITHIN SECONDS OF JOANNA’S 911 CALL, RESCUE NUMBERS 5 AND 6, along with an ambulance, were on their way. She warned the operator that the firefighters needed to arrive with whatever equipment was required to cut through the metal grate that blocked the way into the cavern. Junior, Terry, and Spike may all have been able to slither under the barricade to gain entrance, but if Junior was inside and injured, they’d need an opening wide enough for rescuers to carry him back out.
Joanna’s second call, a terse one, was to Chief Bernard. “I think Terry and Spike found him,” she said.
“Dead or alive?”
“Can’t tell,” Joanna said. “He’s taken a bad fall in a cave up above the highway. Terry says that so far he’s not responding. Until an EMT can reach him and check him out, we won’t know if he’s just unconscious or if it’s something worse. The fire department is dispatching trucks, equipment, and an ambulance. Let’s give them a chance to do their thing before you mention any of this to Moe and Daisy. There’s no point in upsetting them any more than they already are until we know the real score. Besides, the fewer people we have to work around up here, the better.”
“What about traffic?” Chief Bernard asked.
“I sent Jeremy Stock and Armando Ruiz out to shut down highway traffic in both directions and divert it through town. That’s the only way to make it safe for emergency personnel to operate. You know as well as I do that there’s no room to park on the shoulder without having vehicles obstruct the traffic lane
s.”
“Makes sense,” Chief Bernard said gruffly. “Keep me informed.”
By the time Joanna was off the phone, she heard the wail of approaching sirens echoing off the canyon walls. She waited for the crew to scramble out of their vehicles and begin assembling loads of equipment to pack up the mountain. The incident commander, a Bisbee Fire Department lieutenant named Adam Wilson, approached Joanna.
“Morning, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “Where’s the problem?”
She pointed up the gully through the limestone cliffs toward the spot where Terry and Spike had disappeared into the dense grove of trees. “In a cave up there,” she said. “I’ll take you.”
“Any word on the victim?”
“Unresponsive as far as I know,” she said. “To get him out, you’ll have to cut through a metal grate.”
“Right,” Wilson said. “Will do.” He turned back to his crew. “I’ll go up top with Sheriff Brady and bring the K12 saw with me. You guys bring the come-along, ropes, rappelling harnesses, chains, the Stokes basket, blankets, and medical supplies. Oh, and box lights, too. Move it.”
It was a steep climb. Shimmying over rocks and dragging herself up the steep grade hand over hand, Joanna was grateful for the tough khaki of her pants as well as her sturdy hiking boots. There were spots where she worried that her scrabbling along would send a shower of loose rocks and boulders raining back down on Lieutenant Wilson, who was behind and beneath her.
When they finally reached the trees, Joanna was out of breath and panting with exertion. Beads of perspiration rolled down her face, stinging her eyes. It provoked her to realize that Lieutenant Wilson, despite carrying the thirty-pound gas-powered saw on his back, had barely broken a sweat. Then she remembered that he had won the Bisbee Hill Climb the previous two years. With that in mind, she decided she wasn’t doing too badly after all.