by J. A. Jance
For the next twenty minutes Frank drove while Joanna rode in utter silence. As appalling as it was to consider, what Frank had said sounded all too plausible. A juvenile offender could dodge any kind of criminal behavior tin- more easily than he could escape being ordered to pay child support. Joanna knew there were plenty of deadbeat dads out there who didn’t pay their court-ordered support money, but it was disturbing to think that the justice system was more eager to order teenagers to pay uncollectible child support than it was to hold them accountable for other far more serious offenses.
Whatever happened to motherhood, apple pie, and the American way? she wondered. One case at a time Joanna Brady was learning that what her father had always told her was true. In the criminal justice system, there was always far more gray than there was either black or white.
They hit I-10 just north of Cochise and turned east. They exited at Bowie and followed the directions on a billboard advertising Quartzite East that said: TURN SOUTH ON APACHE PASS ROAD.
Seeing that sign sent a shiver of apprehension down the back of Joanna’s neck. In some way she didn’t as yet understand, the dots between the mysterious Alice Miller and the location of Connie Haskell’s body seemed somehow to be connected.
“I didn’t realize Apache Pass Road came all the way into Bowie” was all she said.
“Oh, sure,” Frank agreed. “I knew that, but then I grew up in Wilcox. You didn’t.”
When they reached the entrance to Quartzite East, it had the look of a family farm turned RV park. The building marked OFFICE was actually an old tin-roofed house that looked as though it dated from the 1880s. Around it grew stately old cottonwoods. A checkerboard of orchards surrounded the house. Laid out among the carefully tended orchards were fifty or so concrete slabs complete with utility hookups. This was early June, so while the trees were laden with green fruit, most of the slabs were empty. By March or April at the latest, most Arizona snowbirds had usually returned home for the summer. As fir as Quartzite Last was concerned, however, several had evidently decided to summer over, since a number of spaces were still occupied.
Frank pulled up next to the farmhouse and parked in a place that was designated REGISTRATION ONLY. Just to the right of the house was a clubhouse and swimming pool area surrounded by a tall adobe wall. As soon as Joanna stepped out of the car and closed the door, a man appeared on the far side of the fence. He was wearing overalls and carrying a paintbrush.
“Just a second,” he called. “I’ll be right there as soon as I finish cleaning my brush. You might want to go up on the porch and wait for me there.”
Nodding, Joanna and Frank did as directed. A screened-in porch covered the front of the house. Outside the screen, swags of wisteria dripped clusters of dead and dying blooms. Inside the screen sat a line of wooden rocking chairs.
“Take a load off,” Frank said, pushing one of the chairs in Joanna’s direction. They both sat and waited. Several minutes passed before the man from the swimming pool reappeared. He was tall and good-looking, tanned and fit. His paint-spattered clothing had been replaced by a monogrammed golf shirt, a pair of well-worn Dockers, and scuffed loafers. He held out a work-callused hand. “The name’s Brent Hardy,” he said.
“Sheriff Joanna Brady,” she responded. “This is Frank Montoya, my chief deputy”
“You’ve found her, haven’t you?” Brent said, easing into a rocking chair of his own.
“Found who?” Joanna asked.
“Irma,” he said. “Irma Sorenson. Tom and I have been arguing about it ever since Saturday—about whether or not we should call and report her missing. When I saw the cop car pull up, I thought maybe he’d finally come to his senses and called in the cavalry.”
“Who’s Toni?” Frank asked.
“Tom Lowrey’s my partner,” Brent replied. “We run this place together. Irma is one of our guests.”
“And she’s missing?”
“I happen to think she’s missing,” Brent replied. “Tommy’s of the opinion that I’m pushing panic buttons, but then Tom didn’t talk to her on Saturday, and I did. She didn’t sound right on the phone. Something about it was off. Of course, Tom does have a point. Some of our guests are a bit elderly, and a few of them get somewhat confused now and then. Toni thinks Irma called to tell us where she was going, but once she got on the phone, she forgot what she meant to say—that she was going off to visit friends or relatives or something. I say that if she was that confused, maybe she was sick and landed in a hospital. I thought we should report her missing and let the cops find her. Have you?” he asked. “Found her, that is?”
“Tell me about Irma Sorenson,” Joanna said. “When was it you talked to her on the phone?”
“Saturday morning. Sometime around mid-morning, I suppose,” Brent replied. “And her voice sounded funny to me. Shaky. Just not herself. But if you haven’t found her, what’s all this about?”
“We’re actually looking for a woman named Alice Miller,” Joanna said. “She placed a 911 call in Tucson from the same pay phone that was used to call here a few minutes later. We were wondering if there’s a chance Alice Miller and Irma Sorenson are one and the same.”
Brent Hardy shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he said.
“When Irma called, what exactly did she say?” Joanna asked.
“That’s the thing. She didn’t say much. She said, ‘Oh, Brent, I’m so glad to hear your voice. I just wanted to tell you . . .’ And then she just stopped. Then, after a moment or two, I heard her say, ‘Oh, never mind.’ Then she mumbled something about a wrong number, but I couldn’t quite make it out. She hung up. That’s all there was to it. As I told you, I tried to convince Tom that it wasn’t right, but he said not to worry. He said she’d turn up sooner or later. She always does.”
“So you haven’t reported her missing.”
“We really don’t have any right,” Brent said. “She isn’t a relative, and this is an RV park, not a jail. Our guests come and go. So many of them have two vehicles—their motor home and then something smaller so they can get around more easily and take short trips without having to move their big rigs. Not that Irma would move hers. Her husband parked it. Once he died, Irma said she wasn’t driving that thing another foot.”
“Her husband died?”
Brent Hardy nodded. “Last December. About three weeks after they arrived. They turned up the last week in November. Originally they planned to stay through the middle of March. But then, when Kurt—that’s Irma’s husband—died of a massive heart attack, Irma asked Tom and me if she could stay on permanently. She said Kurt had sold their farm in South Dakota to buy that ‘damned motor home,’ as she put it. She said he was the one who was supposed to drive it and she didn’t have anyplace else she wanted to go. I guess their son lives somewhere around here, but I’m not sure where.
“This son,” Joanna said. “Have you ever met him? Do you know his name?”
Brent Hardy shook his head. “I’ve never seen him. She talked about going to see him a time or two, but I don’t know it she did or not. As far as I know, he never came here.”
Brent paused and looked from Joanna to Frank. “It’s hot as blue blazes today,” he said. “I need something to drink after working on that pool. Could I get you something?” he asked. “Iced tea, lemonade, sodas?”
“Iced tea would be wonderful,” Joanna said. “No sugar, but lemon if you have it.”
“I’ll have the same,” Frank said.
Brent disappeared into the house. “I think we’ve found our Alice Miller,” Frank said.
Joanna nodded, but before she could say anything more, a late-model Cadillac drove into the yard and stopped next to Frank Montoya’s Crown Victoria. A silver-haired man in his early to mid-sixties stepped out of the car. He hurried up the walkway and onto the porch.
“That’s a police car out there,” he announced. “Is something wrong? Has something happened to Brent?”
“Brent’s fine,�
�� Joanna said, standing up. “He went inside to get something to drink. I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady, and this is my chief deputy, Frank Montoya. We’re here asking some questions about a woman who may be a guest here. Who are you?”
“Tom Lowrey,” the man returned. “My partner and I own this place. What guest?” he added. “And what’s going on?”
Just then Brent came out through the front door carrying a wooden tray on which was a hastily assembled collection of glasses and spoons, a plateful of lemon slices, and a full pitcher of iced tea.
“Tom,” he said upon seeing the new arrival. “I’m glad you’re back. These officers are here asking about Irma. Do you know her son’s name?”
Tom Lowrey shook his head. “All I know is that whenever she talked about him she called him Bobby.”
“Bobby Sorenson?”
“No. I think Sorenson was Irma’s name, but not his,” Tom Lowrey replied. “As I understand it, Bobby was from her first marriage. In talking to her, I’ve gathered Kurt and the son didn’t get along very well. In fact, after the funeral, I remember Irma’s feelings were hurt because her son didn’t bother to come to the service.
“That was held here in Bowie?” Joanna asked.
Lowrey shook his head. “Oh, no. The funeral was in South Dakota. I forget the name of the town. We took Irma into Tucson so she could fly home for the funeral. When she came back, we picked her up and brought her home. That’s when she asked if she could stay on permanently. That’s not as uncommon as you might think. The men buy the big RVs so they can see the USA. Then, when they croak out, the women are left with three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of something they’re scared to death to drive, but they can’t get their money back, either. That’s hers over there, by the way,” he added, pointing. “The big bronze-and-black Marathon jobby. I didn’t blame Irma in the least for not wanting to drive it herself, so we told her she could stay.”
“What about the other rigs?” Joanna asked. “Are they occupied, too?”
Brent Hardy shook his head. “The owners decided to leave them parked rather than drive them back and forth. Irma’s our only guest in residence at the moment.”
“And you have no idea where her son lives or works?” Both men shook their heads.
“So she has the motor home. Is that her only vehicle?” Joanna asked.
“No, she also drives a Nissan Sentra,” ‘limn said. “Light pink. Irma told us she won it as a prize for selling Mary Kay cosmetics.”
“A pink Nissan Sentra,” Joanna said, writing it down. “With South Dakota plates?”
“No,” Tom answered. He pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket, extracted one, lit it, and blew a plume of smoke into the air. “Her plates expired sometime in the last month or two. Since she was staying on here, she got Arizona plates.”
“I know exactly when it was,” Brent offered. “April fifteenth, remember? She was bent out of shape because everything came due at the same time. She had to get new plates, get her new driver’s license, and pay off Uncle Sam all on the same day.”
Tom Lowrey laughed. “If I was her, I would have kept the South Dakota plates and license. That way, at least, she wouldn’t have to pay Arizona income tax. But she said, no, she was starting her new life. She wanted all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. There’s just no fixing some people.”
Frank Montoya got to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go check with the Department of Motor Vehicles and see if the son is listed on the licensing records as her next of kin.”
Joanna nodded, and he hurried off the porch. “You said Irma’s husband died?”
“Kurt. It was totally unexpected,” Brent Hardy offered. “The guy looked like he was in fine shape. He wasn’t overweight or any thing like that. He’d been a farmer and had worked hard all his life. One night they were sitting watching TV—they have one of thou little satellite dishes. He fell asleep in front of the set. When the news was over, Irma tried waking hint up and couldn’t. She came running up here, screaming for help. We called the volunteer lire department, and we tried CPR until the EMTs got here, but there was nothing they could do. She wanted them to airlift him into Tucson, but they told her it was no use—that she should save her money.”
“You said he died in December, but you still haven’t seen her son?”
Brent shook his head. “Not much of a son, right? But Tom and I are looking after her. We make sure her water and propane tanks get filled regularly, and we make sure her waste-water tanks get emptied as well.” He grinned. “And then there was the skunk that took up residence under her RV. We had to hire a guy to come in and trap him and take him away. I guess we’re a little more full-service than we planned to be, but Irma’s a nice lady and I don’t mind keeping an eye on her.”
There was a pause in the conversation, and Joanna wasn’t sure what to ask next. “This is a nice place you’ve got here,” she said, changing the subject slightly. “And I’m sure Irma Sorenson appreciates your full-service service. How long have you had it, by the way—Quartzite East, that is?”
Brent Hardy shrugged. “The farm itself has been in my family for years. My mother left it to me when she died three years ago. Tom and I sold our place in Santa Cruz and came here to retire, but we didn’t much like being retired, and neither one of us was any good at farming, either. So we decided to do something else. This is the end of our second year. Some of our clients are straight, of course, like Kurt and Irma. But a lot of them aren’t. We keep the welcome mat out for both.”
Joanna nodded. She had already surmised that Brent Hardy and Torn Lowrey were a couple, but she was a little taken aback to find them living and running a business in redneck Bowie. “So how are the locals treating you?” she asked.
“It’s not as though I’m an outlander,” Brent replied with yet another grin. “My mother, Henrietta, taught at Bowie High School for thirty-five years, just as her mother, Geraldine Howard, my grandmother, did before that. Between them, they pretty well fixed it so I can do no wrong. At least, forty years later, I can do no wrong. When I was in high school here, that was another matter. Now I’m back and I’m plugging money into the local economy. That makes me all right. And, since Tommy’s with me, he’s all right, too. Not that people say much of anything about us. It’s pretty much don’t ask/don’t tell, which, for Bowie, is progress.”
A car door slammed and Joanna caught sight of Frank Montoya sprinting back up the walkway. “I’ve got it,” he announced as he stepped onto the porch. “Irma’s son’s name is Whipple, Robert Whipple.”
Joanna frowned. “Wait a minute. Wasn’t that the name of the guard at Pathway to Paradise?”
Frank nodded. “That’s the one.”
“Pathway to Paradise,” Brent said. “Now that you mention it, I do remember Irma saying something about that once, only she just called it Pathway, I think. I got the distinct feeling she thought it was some kind of cult. Is it?”
“Not exactly,” Joanna replied. “But close enough.” She stood up and joined Frank on the steps. “We should be going then,” she added. “Thanks so much for the tea and the information. And if you should happen to hear anything from Irma Sorenson, please contact me or my department right away.” Taking a business card out of her pocket, she handed it over to Brent Hardy.
He looked at it and frowned. “Do you think something’s happened to her or not?” he asked.
That was precisely what Joanna was thinking—that something terrible had happened to Irma Sorenson—but she didn’t want to say so. Not necessarily,” she hedged, but Brent Hardy wasn’t so easily put off.
“When you first got here, you said Irma’s phone call was placed right after a 911 call. What was that all about?”
“There was a call to Tucson’s emergency communications center about a bloodied vehicle found at Tucson International Airport. That vehicle, a Lincoln Town Car, belonged to a woman named Connie Haskell, who was found murdered in Apache Pass last Friday night.”
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“What color Lincoln Town Car?” Tom Lowrey asked suddenly. “And what year?”
“A 1994,” Frank Montoya answered before Joanna had a chance to. “A dark metallic blue.”
“I saw that car,” Tom Lowrey said. “Or at least one like it. I never noticed when it drove up. All I know is there was a dark blue Lincoln Town Car parked right behind Irma’s Nissan early Saturday morning when I headed into Tucson to get groceries. I didn’t think all that much about it. I saw it and figured Irma must have been entertaining overnight guests. When I came back home around noon, it was gone, of course. So was the Nissan.”
“Are you saying Irma Sorenson is somehow mixed up in this murder thing?” Brent asked. “That’s ridiculous. Preposterous.”
The pieces were tumbling into place in Joanna’s head. It didn’t seem at all preposterous to her. Irma Sorenson was mixed up in it all right, and so was her son. Had Rob Whipple been on guard when Connie Haskell tried to gain admittance to Pathway to Paradise to see her husband? Had that been Connie’s fatal mistake—speaking to the armed guard stationed in the shack outside the gates of Amos Parker’s treatment center?
“She may be involved,” Joanna said carefully after a momentary pause. “It’s also possible that she may be either an unwitting or an unwilling participant. The woman who called herself Alice Miller—the one who made that 91 I call – obviously wanted the car to be frond. From what Mr. Hardy his told ns about his abortive conversation with Irma a few minutes later, I believe she may have been interrupted and wasn’t able to finish saying whatever it was she had intended to say when she called here.”
“So she’s most likely in danger,” Toni Lowrey concluded.
If she’s not already dead, Joanna thought. “Possibly,” Joanna said with a sigh.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Brent asked.
“You’ve already helped more than you know,” Joanna told them. “Whether Connie Haskell’s killer turns out to be Irma’s son or someone else altogether, there’s obviously some connection between your Irma Sorenson and the dead woman’s car. So if you hear anything from her or her son or if she turns up, please call us immediately. I don’t suppose I need to add that these people should be considered dangerous. Whatever you do, make no attempt to detain either of them on your own.”