by J. A. Jance
She caught sight of Maggie several blocks away, trudging determinedly downhill. The white bandages on her hands caught in the beams of passing headlights and glowed like moving, iridescent balloons. Joanna pulled up beside the walking woman and rolled down her window. “Where are you headed?” she asked.
Maggie MacFerson stopped walking and turned to glare at Joanna through the open window. “I didn’t see any watering holes as we came into town. I figure if I go downhill far enough, I’m bound to run into something.”
“Get in,” Joanna urged. “I’ll give you a lift.”
“No lectures?”
“No lectures.”
Joanna got out, went around the car, and let Maggie in. Then she fastened her seat belt.
“Thanks,” Maggie said grudgingly. “That was a bitch!”
Joanna knew Maggie didn’t mean getting in and out of the car. She was talking about the ordeal of identifying a murdered loved one. “Yes,” Joanna said. “I know”
“Do you?” Maggie asked sharply.
Joanna nodded. “You interviewed me when I was elected, after my first husband was shot and killed, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right,” Maggie said as the anger drained from her voice. “I forgot. Sorry.” She fell silent then as Joanna struggled to ignore her own rampaging emotions while she drove the narrow winding thoroughfare called Tombstone Canyon. That one exchange had been enough to catapult Joanna back into the unimaginable pain she had lived with immediately after Andy’s murder. She knew too well how much that kind of violent death hurt and the kind of impact it had on the people left behind. Andy’s murder was now three years in the past, but Joanna doubted the pain of it would ever go away entirely.
Maggie ducked her head to look up at the glowing lights from houses perched on the steep hillsides on either side of the street. “The people who live in those places must be half mountain goat,” she said.
Grateful for Maggie’s attempt to defuse the stricken silence, Joanna responded in kind. “If I were you,” she said, “I wouldn’t bother challenging any of them to a stair-climbing contest.”
Coming into the downtown area, Joanna drove straight to the Copper Queen Hotel and pulled up into the loading zone out front. Once again, she went around the car and opened both the door and the seat belt to let Maggie out.
“The bar’s right over there,” Joanna said, nodding her head toward the outside entrance to the hotel’s lounge. “Why don’t you go on inside. I need to check on something.”
While Maggie headed toward the bar, Joanna hurried to the desk. “Do you have any vacancies tonight?” she asked the young woman behind the counter.
“We sure do. What kind of a room?”
“Single. Nonsmoking.”
“For just one night?”
Joanna nodded. The clerk pushed a registration form across the counter. Joanna filled it out with Maggie’s name, and paid for the room with her own credit card. Once she had the key her hand she went into the bar, where Maggie was sitting in front of a glass filled with amber liquid. Out of deference to her bandaged hands, the bartender had put a long straw in the cocktail glass.
“Something’s happened at home,” Joanna said, settling on the stool next to Maggie. “I’m going to have to spend some time with my daughter. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve booked a room lilt you here at the Copper Queen, courtesy of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. Here’s the key. Tomorrow morning, First thing, I’ll take you back to Phoenix. I hope that’s all right.”
“Can’t you put me on a bus?”
“There isn’t a bus.”
“A taxi, then?”
“There isn’t one that’ll take you as far as Phoenix.”
“Well, then, I guess it’ll have to be all right, won’t it?” Maggie replied after slurping a long swallow through the straw. “Was it something I said, or are you just opposed to riding around with drunks in your car?”
Joanna ignored the gibe. “Here’s my hone phone number,” she added. Next to the key on the counter, Joanna placed a business card on which she had scribbled her number at High Lonesome Ranch. Maggie peered at the card but made no effort to collect it or the key. When Maggie said nothing more, Joanna left the lounge, stopping back by the front desk on her way out.
“Maggie MacFerson, the guest in room nineteen, is in the bar,” she told the desk clerk. “You’ll recognize her right away. She’s got bandages on both hands and probably won’t be able to manage a key. It’s probably not going to take much Scotch to put her back under, either. Would you please be sure she makes it to her room safely?”
“Sure thing, Sheriff Brady,” the desk clerk said. “I’ll be glad to. Does she need help with her luggage?”
Joanna didn’t recognize the young woman, but by now she was accustomed to the idea that there were lots of people in Cochise County who knew the sheriff by sight—or maybe by credit card—when she had no idea who they were. “She doesn’t have any luggage,” Joanna returned. “But thanks. I appreciate it.”
As Joanna climbed into the Civvie, her cell phone began to ring. She could see her caller was Chief Deputy Montoya. “Hello, Frank,” she said.
Unfortunately Old Bisbee existed in a cleft in the Mule Mountains into which no cell phone signal could penetrate. The only sounds emanating from Joanna’s receiver were unintelligible sputterings. Hanging up in frustration, she reached for the radio.
“Tica,” she said to Dispatch. “Can you patch me through to Chief Deputy Montoya? He tried to call me on the cell phone a minute ago, but I’m up in Old Bisbee in a dead zone.”
Putting the Civvie in gear, she began negotiating the series of one-way streets that would take her back down to Main Street. After several long minutes, Frank’s voice cane through the radio.
“Where are you?” he demanded. “I could hear your voice, but you kept breaking up.”
“I’m just now leaving Old Bisbee,” she told limn. “I’m on my way out to the ranch.”
“How did the ID go?”
“About how you’d expect. I just dropped the victim’s sister off at the Copper Queen Hotel for a medicinal Scotch to calm her nerves. I also rented her a room. I’ve got to go home to see Jenny. I told Maggie MacFerson that I’ll drive her back to Phoenix in the morning. The idea that there aren’t hourly Greyhounds running through Bisbee overnight was news to her.”
“So the ID is positive, then?” Frank asked.
“Yes,” Joanna said. “Constance Haskell is the victim all right. I trust the DMV information from that Encanto address has been broadcast to all units?”
“Absolutely—a Beemer and a Lincoln Town Car. Neither one of them were at the residence in Phoenix, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“Good. I listed them both as possibly stolen and the perp presumed armed and dangerous. That way, if someone spots either one of ‘em, they’ll be pulled over. Where are you headed?”
“Out to the ranch to see Jenny,” Joanna replied.
“So you’ve heard about what happened to Dora then?” Frank asked.
“Some of it,” Joanna returned grimly. “Doc Winfield told me. I think I’ll stop by their house on my way home and wring my mother’s neck.”
“From what Jim Bob told me, I guess Jenny’s really upset about what happened.”
“Tell me,” Joanna urged.
“When Dora figured out what was going on—that we knew what her mother had been up to and that a caseworker was there to put Dora back into foster care—she lit out the back door and tried to make a run for it. The caseworker must have seen it coining. She took off out the front door and caught Dora as she came racing around the house. I mean she literally tackled Dora. They both went down in a heap. Dora fought tooth and nail all the way to the car. She was yelling and crying and screaming that she didn’t want to go, that she’d rather die. I’m sure it was traumatic for everybody concerned. If I’d been there, I’d be upset, too.”
So am I, Jo
anna thought grimly. But right at that moment, powerless to change what had happened, she did the only thing that might help her forge through the emotional maelstrom—she changed the subject. “Anything else happening?”
“Well, I have one small piece of good news,” Frank replied. “I managed to get through to the phone factory. It’s possible the missing message on that answering machine really did say Connie Haskell should meet her husband in Paradise. The call to the house in Phoenix originated from a pay phone outside the general store in Portal, which happens to be only eight miles or so from Paradise—town of, that is. I told Ernie about the Portal connection. He and Detective Carbajal will head over there first thing in the morning and start asking questions.”
Mentally Joanna made some quick geographical calculations. Portal was located on the eastern side of the Chiricahua Mountains at the far southern end of the range. Apache Pass was at the north end and on the western side. To get to Apache Pass from Portal, one would have to go around the Chiricahuas, traveling on either the Arizona or New Mexico side, or else cross over the range itself, using a twisting dirt-and-gravel track that crossed at a low spot called Onion Saddle.
“You’re thinking that when Ron Haskell left his message, he was referring to having Connie meet him in the town of Paradise?”
“Makes sense to me, but we don’t have a clue as to where in town he’d he meeting her. I checked with Directory Assistance. I asked for any business listings with a Paradise address. The operator came up with a couple that sounded like bed-and-breakfast type places, and Ron Haskell might well be staying at one of those. The problem is, they all had phones, so I’m a little puzzled as to why he’d be using a pay phone at the general store. The operator hit on something else promising, a place called Pathway to Paradise. I just finished checking out Pathway to Paradise on the Internet. Their web site says it’s a rehab facility that specializes in gambling problems.”
“That fits,” Joanna said. “A severe gambling problem could go a long way toward explaining how Connie Haskell’s money left her bank accounts and disappeared into thin air. You’ve told Ernie and Jaime to check that out as well?”
“Right.”
“Good job. So where are you right now?” Joanna asked.
“Standing across the street from Sally Matthews’s place up in Old Bisbee,” Frank said. “I’ve talked to a couple of the Haz-Mat guys. They said the house is a wreck inside. Aside from the chemical pollution, the house is so filthy that it’s totally uninhabitable. He said he was surprised people were still trying to live there.” Frank paused. “I feel sorry for Dora. She’s been through a really rough time. And don’t be too hard on your mother, either, Boss. The way I see it, compared to where she was living, foster care is probably the best thing that could happen to Dora Matthews.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Joanna said.
“You’re staying overnight then?” Frank asked.
“‘That’s my plan at the moment.”
Signing off, Joanna headed for High Lonesome Ranch, seven miles east of town. On the way, she tried calling Butch once more. It was late enough that she hoped he might have returned from the dinner. This time, when she dialed, she had driven out from behind the signal-eating barrier of the Mule Mountains. But instead of reaching the Conquistador Hotel in Peoria, Joanna heard the recorded voice of a cell phone company operator from across the line in Old Mexico.
With the recent proliferation of cell phone sites across the border, cell phone use in the Bisbee area had become more and more problematic. People attempting to make wireless calls within the sight lines of newly built Mexican cell sites often found themselves sidetracked into the Mexican system. And once a call was answered by the Mexican operator, the hapless U.S. customer could count on being billed a minimum of four dollars for the call despite the fact that it had gone no farther than a less than helpful Spanish-language recorded message.
“Damn!” Joanna muttered, and gave up trying.
When she pulled into the yard at High Lonesome Ranch, Tigger and Sadie came racing out to dance around the car in a gleeful greeting that made it look as though Joanna had been gone for weeks rather than mere days. By the time Joanna finished calming the two ecstatic dogs, Jim Bob Brady was standing next to the Civvie.
“You heard, I guess,” he said.
Nodding, Joanna let herself be drawn into her former father-in-law’s welcoming embrace. She stayed there, imprisoned against Jim Bob Brady’s massive chest, letting herself be comforted for the better part of a minute before she finally pulled away.
“Do you think Jenny’s asleep?” she asked.
“Could he, but I doubt it,” Jim Bob answered gravely. “She was mighty upset when she went to bed. Don’t seem too likely that she’d drop right off.”
Joanna hurried into the house through the back door and went directly to her daughter’s room. She tapped lightly on the closed door. “Jenny,” she said softly. “Are you still awake? May I cone in?”
“It’s open,” Jenny answered. It wasn’t exactly an engraved invitation, but Joanna opened the door and eased herself into the room. Guided by the shadowy glow of a night-light, Joanna crept over to the rocking chair that had once belonged to Butch’s grandmother.
Joanna settled herself in the old rocker, which emitted a loud squeak as she put her weight on it. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly.
“No.” Jenny flopped over on the bed. Even in the dim light, Joanna could see tears glistening on her daughter’s cheeks. “I hate Grandma Lathrop!” Jenny whispered fiercely. “I don’t care it I ever see her again!”
Joanna was taken aback by the ferocity in her daughter’s voice, by the burning anger tears hadn’t begun to extinguish. “I’m mad at her, too,” Joanna said quietly, “but I know Grandma Lathrop didn’t mean any harm. I’m sure she had no idea your friend would he hurt.”
Jenny sat up. “Dora Matthews is not my friend,” she declared. “I don’t even like her, but she doesn’t deserve to be treated like that. That woman grabbed her and threw her into the car. It was like an animal control officer dragging a stray dog of to the pound.”
It wasn’t the time to point out to Jenny that animal control officers were only doing their thankless jobs the same way the (;PS caseworker had been doing hers. For once, Joanna managed to keep quiet and let her daughter do the talking.
“Why couldn’t Dora have stayed here with us?” Jenny demanded. “She wasn’t bothering anybody or hurting anything. She did everything the Gs said, like clearing the table and emptying the dishwasher and even making her bed. All she wanted to do was go home and be with her mother, the same way I want to be with you. She said she’s already done the foster-care thing and would rather be dead than go through that again.”
“I don’t doubt that foster care can be pretty miserable at times,” Joanna agreed. “But surely Dora didn’t mean she’d rather be dead. She’ll be fine, Jenny. I promise. Girl Scout’s honor.”
Suddenly Jenny erupted out of her bed. In a single motion, she crossed the space between her bunk bed and the rocking chair. Jenny had shot up more than three inches in the last few months. There wasn’t enough room for Joanna to hold her daughter on her lap. Instead, Jenny knelt in front of the rocker and buried her face in her mother’s lap. For several minutes they stayed that way, with Jenny sobbing and with Joanna caressing her daughter’s tangled hair.
Finally, Jenny drew a ragged breath. “Why did Grandma have to go and do that?” she asked with a shudder. “Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone? We were doing all right. The Gs wouldn’t have let anything bad happen to Dora.”
Joanna had to wait a moment until her own voice steadied before she attempted an answer. “I don’t like what happened either, but there’s a good chance Grandma Lathrop was right,” she said carefully. “Dora’s mother has evidently been running a meth lab out of their house. Do you know what that means?”
Jenny shrugged. “Not really,�
�� she said.
“It means that the house had illegal drugs and potentially dangerous chemicals in it. The people who are up there now, cleaning it up—the DPS Haz-Mat team—arc doing it in full hazardous‑material protective gear. Those chemicals are dangerously explosive, Jenny. II the house had caught lire, for example, Dora and her mother both might have been killed. They shouldn’t have been living in a place like that. It’s irresponsible for a mother to raise a child in such circumstances.
“That’s what society means when they say someone is an unlit mother. Considering what they found in Sally Matthews’s house, I think there’s a good chance that’s exactly what will happen she’ll be declared an unfit mother. She may even go to jail. In other words, Dora Matthews would have ended up in foster care anyway, sooner or later. Grandma Lathrop fixed it so it happened sooner, is all. I’m sorry it had to be tonight, and I’m terribly sorry that you had to be here to see it happen.”
“But even if Dora’s mother is a bad mother, Dora still loves her.”
“That’s right,” Joanna agreed. “And I understand exactly how she feels. When I first heard about Grandma Lathrop calling CPS, I was really upset, too—just like you are. But Eleanor’s still my mother, Jenny, and I still love her.”
“And I love you,” Jenny said.
For the next few minutes, as they sat together, with Jenny resting her head in her mother’s lap, Joanna was glad Jenny couldn’t see her face. If she had, Jenny would have seen that her mother was crying, too.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Joanna and Jenny might have sat there much longer, but Eva Lou knocked on the door. "Could I interest anyone in some cocoa and toast?" she asked.
“How about it?" Joanna asked.
Jenny nodded. "Okay," she said.
On her way to the kitchen, Joanna stopped at the telephone long enough to try calling Butch one more time. Once again, rather than reaching her husband, she found herself connected to the voice-mail system. "Mother called CPS, and they came out to the house and hauled Dora away like she was a criminal being arrested," she told the machine. "Naturally, Jenny is in a state about it, and I don't blame her. I'm out at the house now and planning to spend the night. I'm way too tired to try driving back to Phoenix again tonight. I'll come first thing in the morning. And, oh yes, I almost forgot. The woman I brought down, Maggie MacFerson, did turn out to be the murdered woman's sister after all. So we have our positive ID. Sorry I missed you. Hope you had fun at the dinner. I love you. It’s almost nine o’clock now. Call if you get this by ten or so. Any later, and you’ll wake people up. If I don’t hear from you tonight, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”