Skeleton Canyon

by J. A. Jance

  “No, that’s all right,” Joanna said. “I’m sure this will be fine.”

  Fumbling through her purse, she found her departmental telephone credit card and began punching numbers into the phone while a tearful girl about Jenny’s age came edging her way past the partially opened door. With a badly scraped knee, she was in need of both sympathy and a little first aid.

  “Sheriff Brady here,” Joanna said when someone picked up the phone at the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department, more than a hundred miles away. “I had a message to call in. What’s happening?”

  “Dick Voland said if you called to put you straight through to him,” the desk clerk said. “Hang on.”

  With a severe budget crunch looming, Chief Deputy Richard Voland wasn’t supposed to be in the office on Saturday. “What are you doing going to work on your day off, lobbying for comp-time?” she asked as soon as Voland came on the phone. “You haven’t moved out of your apartment and back into your office, have you?”

  “I got called in,” he said, ignoring the jibe. “We’ve got a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “A missing person.”

  “A missing person?” Joanna echoed. “You’ve gone in to work on Saturday and you’re calling all over God’s creation looking for me on account of a missing person?”

  “Wait until I tell you which one is missing,” Voland replied.

  The seriousness in his tone was unmistakably convincing. “Go ahead, then,” Joanna said impatiently. “Who is it?”

  “Roxanne O’Brien,” Dick Voland answered. “David and

  “Katherine O’Brien’s daughter.”

  “Bree O’Brien? You’re kidding.”

  Joanna’s response was as reflexive as it was illogical. Of course, Dick Voland wasn’t kidding. The possible disappearance of the only daughter of one of the county’s most prominent couples was hardly a joking matter.

  “When?” Joanna asked, not giving her chief deputy time to take offense. “And how? What happened?”

  “She left home yesterday afternoon to drive to Playas, New Mexico. She was supposed to spend the weekend with a friend of hers, Crystal Phillips,” Dick Voland said. “The problem is, she never made it. Katherine O’Brien called over there this morning to verify what time she’d be home tomorrow after-noon, but according to Ed Phillips, Crystal ’s daddy, Bree never showed up there. Not only that, she wasn’t expected.”

  “Not expected? That sounds bad.”

  “Just wait,” Voland continued. “You haven’t heard anything yet. It gets worse. According to Katherine O’Brien, Bree has made three weekend trips to visit Crystal Phillips in the last three months-this one included. Crystal and Bree plan to be roommates at the University of Arizona this fall. As far as the O’Briens are concerned, the two girls have been getting together on weekends to make plans about that-about dorms and clothes and curtains and whatever else girls have to sort out before they can live together. But Ed Phillips and his wife, Lorraine, claim they’ve never laid eyes on her these last three months. They both say that the last time they saw Bree O’Brien was before they left Bisbee to move to Playas over a year ago.”

  As sheriff of Cochise County, Joanna Lathrop Brady had learned to make the necessarily swift and sometimes painful shifts from being a mother to being a law enforcement officer. AI first those instant role changes had given her the mental equivalent of the bends. Now she was more accustomed to them.

  “What are we doing about it, Dick? Have you been in touch with Randy Trotter over in New Mexico?”

  “I tried,” Voland returned. “Sheriff Trotter is on vacation. He’s camping up in the White Mountains and isn’t due back until a week from tomorrow. I have been in touch with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department, however. The under-sheriff there has deputies looking for Bree O’Brien on his side of the state line. I’ve got cars looking for her on this side as well, ours and Department of Public Safety both.”

  “On Highway 80 and on Geronimo Trail?”

  “Right,” Dick Voland replied. “Deputy Hollicker took the initial call from the O’Briens. I sent Detective Carbajal out to see them, but that didn’t work.”

  “What do you mean, it didn’t work?”

  “Old man O’Brien wouldn’t talk to him. In fact, he ordered Jaime off the place and then called in here raising hell and asking what were we thinking of sending a kid out to investigate his daughter’s disappearance. A kid and a Mexican to boot.”

  Joanna was stunned. “He actually said that?” she demanded. “The Mexican part?”

  “Not in those exact words, but believe me, I caught his drift.”

  “Well,” Joanna said, “if he’s that down on Hispanics, it’s not too smart of him to be living smack on the Mexican border.”

  Dick Voland chuckled. “That probably has more to do with where his granddaddy settled than it does with David O’Briens personal preferences.”

  “In the meantime, what else is there to do?” Joanna asked.

  “I told Mr. O’Brien that the only detective we have, other than Jaime Carbajal, is off duty today. According to Rose Carpenter, Ernie’s out in Sierra Vista having some work done on his car. We paged him, but he’s apparently in the middle of a brake job and can’t get back here any sooner than another hour at the very earliest. O’Brien said that was fine. That the extra hour’s wait would be worth it as long as he gets to talk to a real detective.”

  Had Joanna been on the scene herself, she might have insisted on Detective Carbajal’s taking charge of the case and then been there to back him up. A little enforced respect might have been good for whatever unreasoning prejudices ailed Mr. David O’Brien. But right then, Sheriff Brady herself was more Than a hundred miles away from the problem. There was no point in her causing trouble by countermanding Dick Voland’s orders.

  “I guess that’ll work. In the meantime, what’s your take on the situation, Dick?”

  “I think the girl’s a runaway,” he answered at once. “Her folks bought her a cute little bright-red Toyota truck, one of those Tacoma four-by-fours, for graduation. She’s evidently got a purse full of credit cards and probably a good deal of cash as well. Once she starts using plastic for gas or food, it won’t take long to get a line on her.”

  Joanna was quiet for a moment, thinking about what she knew about Brianna O’Brien, most of it second- or third-hand. Barely three weeks earlier, the young woman’s high school senior portrait had graced the front page of the local paper, the Bisbee Bee. During graduation ceremonies, she had been honored as class valedictorian. In addition to that, Joanna knew she had also served as a cheerleader and as student body vice president. Bree was popular, good-looking, and her family had plenty of money. Why would someone like that-someone with brains and looks and money-be a runaway?

  Once again, Joanna kept that opinion to herself. Right then, standing in the director’s office at Camp Whispering Pines, was no time to discuss any of those case-specific details. At least two nose-ringed young women-counselors or campers, Joanna couldn’t tell which-were lined up in Andrea Petty’s office. Seeming to hang on Joanna’s every word and glancing pointedly at their watches, they were evidently waiting none too patiently for their turn to use the camp director’s phone.

  “Look,” Joanna told Dick, “I just dropped Jenny off at camp. I’m still up on Mount Lemmon at the moment. Once I leave here, it’ll take me the better part of three hours to get back home to Bisbee. I’ll stop by the department on my way out to the ranch to see if there have been any new developments.”

  Putting down the phone, Joanna left Andrea Petty’s office. Except for a few stragglers, the dining hall was almost deserted. Near the door, Joanna caught sight of Lisa Christman.

  “I’m going to have to leave now,” Joanna said. “You’re sure I can’t see Jenny just long enough to tell her good-bye?”

  Lisa shook her head. “It’s not a good idea,” she said. “Jenny’s already up in her cabin. I’ve introdu
ced her to the other girls, and they’re starting to get settled in and acquainted. The afternoon nature hike starts in ten minutes. If you were to see Jenny now, it would disrupt the whole process.”

  Here was another jarring transition-in the opposite direction this time-from cop to mother. It hadn’t occurred to Joanna earlier as she watched Jenny walk away, lugging her bedroll, that she wouldn’t be permitted to give her child a more formal good-bye.

  For most people, that might not have been such a big deal. To Joanna, it was. One month shy of her thirtieth birthday, Joanna had already been a widow for most of a year. Her husband, Deputy Andrew Roy Brady, had died without her ever having a chance to tell him good-bye. She and Andy had exchanged angry words that last morning as he left for work-words Joanna ached to take back or put right somehow. That last quarrel had left her painfully aware-far more so than most people her age that life doesn’t last forever. She had learned to her sorrow that each good-bye, however mundane or normal it might seem, had the potential of being a last one.

  “But, I just… ” she began.

  Lisa, clearly as practiced at handling distressed parents as she was homesick campers, shook her head. “No, Mrs. Brady,” she said adamantly. “Really. It’ll be far harder on Jenny if she sees you again right now than it will be if you just leave. Remember, it’s only two weeks.”

  Joanna wanted to argue. Still, she knew the counselor was right. “Right,” she said. “Only two weeks. Thanks for the use of the phone.”

  With that, she headed back toward the Eagle. Around her were squeals and laughter-the sounds of girls at play. In the background from high in the trees she heard the soft sifting of wind through pine needles-the whispering pines that had given the camp its name.

  You’re being stupid, Joanna told herself, biting back tears. Lisa is right. Two weeks isn’t forever.

  She was in the car and about to put her key in the ignition when the thought came to her. I wonder if David and Katherine O’Brien had a chance to tell Brianna good-bye.

  Sheriff Joanna Brady was known for her common sense. She had the reputation of having both feet firmly on the ground. I lad someone asked her straight out right then whether or not she believed in ESP, she would have told them definitely not.

  And yet, in that moment, a glimmer of absolute knowledge came to her from somewhere else-from something or some-one outside herself. From that moment on, despite all rational arguments to the contrary, Joanna lived with a terrible premonition, one that shook her to the very depths of her soul. Roxanne Brianna O’Brien was dead. She wouldn’t he coming home again. Not then. Not ever.

  Not only that, halfway down the mountain, Joanna saw the Gila monster again-or, rather, what was left of him. He had been squashed flat by oncoming traffic. The bloody, multicolored remains struck her as an omen and made her feel that much worse.

  While the sudden five-thousand-foot drop in altitude sent the Eagle’s interior temperature soaring, Joanna’s initial out-rage at David O’Brien’s refusal to deal with Detective Carbajal was soon tempered by thoughts about what would happen to the man if his daughter really was dead. Losing a spouse was bad enough, but the pain of losing a child-any child, but especially one filled with so much promise-had to be hell on earth.

  Emotional turmoil-not only reliving her own hurt but also anticipating what soon might be happening with the O’Briens-made it difficult for Joanna to keep her attention focused on the road. Today David O’Brien could still afford to exercise his petty little prejudices. Tomorrow, though, if his daughter really was dead, that would be a different story. Plunged into a nightmare world from which there would be no waking, David O’Brien would no longer care that Detective Jaime Carbajal was Hispanic. Joanna knew from personal experience that in the aftermath and desolation of a loved one’s death, things that had seemed to be of earth-shattering importance before-hand suddenly faded into total insignificance.

  Because of the heat, Joanna had dressed in shorts and an old Cochise County Fair T-shirt to drive Jenny to camp. Now, though, she wondered how that kind of casual dress might affect and offend the O’Briens. She worried that they might think Sheriff Joanna Brady wasn’t paying attention; wasn’t according their family’s crisis the kind of respect it deserved.

  Taking that into consideration, she changed her mind about skipping off at the department first thing. Instead, she drove straight home to High Lonesome Ranch. Barely pausing to greet the two dogs, Tigger and Sadie, Joanna hurried inside to shower, put on fresh makeup, and change into civilized work clothes-her most lightweight business suit, a blouse, heels, and hose.

  If Bree is dead, I probably won’t be able to do a damned thing to help those poor people, she told her image in the mirror as she gave her short red hair one last shot of hair spray. If nothing else, though, at least I’ll look competent. That may be the best I can do.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Finished dressing, Joanna rushed out to her waiting Crown Victoria. Late afternoon sun had turned the interior into a fiery oven. Barely able to stand touching the steering wheel, Joanna turned on the air-conditioning full blast. By the time she made it out to the highway, the car was beginning to cool off some. The difference between her Eagle and the air-conditioned Ford was astonishing. I will have to get the AC fixed this week, Joanna told herself. Definitely before I go back to pick Jenny up from camp, not after.

  Driving toward David O’Brien’s place, Joanna still thought of it by its old name, Sombra del San Jose -Shadow of San Jose, named after the stately mountain that thrust up out of the Mexican desert a few miles away. That was the name the ranch had been given originally by David O’Brien’s grandfather, back before the turn of the century. When David O’Brien had returned to the family digs from Phoenix several years earlier, he had renamed the place Green Brush Ranch, after the mostly dry wash bed-Green Brush Draw-that bisected the entire spread. The new name was posted above the gale, formed in foot-high, iron letters.

  Despite the sign, the new name hadn’t caught on with most other locals any better than it had with Joanna. They regarded II as change for change’s sake. Now, knowing about David O’Brien’s attitude toward Jaime Carbajal, Joanna saw the name in a whole new light. Considering his attitude toward Mexicans, no wonder David O’Brien had dropped the Spanish language name.

  At the entrance to the ranch, a closed, electronically controlled gate barred her way. On either side of the gate, as far as time eye could see, stretched an eight-foot-tall chain-link fence topped by V-shaped barbed wire with a coiled layer of razor wire resting inside it. The fencing reminded Joanna of the barrier surrounding the inmate exercise yard at the Cochise County jail. It was the same stuff that encircled countless human and auto junkyards all over the country.

  At the time the O’Briens had been having the fencing installed at great expense, they had been considered something of a laughingstock. Old-timers around the county had made fun of the whole concept, calling the fence David’s Folly and referring to the ranch itself as Fort O’Brien. That, however, was before the dawn of the era of “Border Bandits,” roving hands of mostly Sonora-based thieves and thugs who practiced home invasions, burglaries, and armed robbery on people who lived along the U.S. side of the border. Taking the grim presence of those folks into consideration, David O’Brien’s fence no longer seemed foolish.

  Joanna leaned out the driver’s window of the Crown Victoria and punched the talk button on an intercom mounted on a post just outside the gate.

  “Come on in, Sheriff Brady,” a disembodied voice said as the gate slowly began to swing open. “Drive right up to the house. They’re expecting you. Detective Carpenter said you were on your way.”

  Joanna glanced around in surprise. There was no sign of any monitoring video camera, yet there had to be one somewhere. Joanna hadn’t announced her name, yet whoever was in charge of the gate knew who she was and what she was doing there.

  “Thanks,” she said, putting the Crown Victoria back in gear and moving forwar
d. “I’m glad to hear they know I’m coming.”

  Outside the gate, on the county side of the fence, the far western end of Purdy Lane was little more than a dirt track. Inside the fence, however, the private road leading away from the gate was a smooth layer of well-maintained blacktop. Thinking of the rough, rutted track that led through High Lonesome Ranch and of the sometimes sagging barbed-wire fence that surrounded it, Joanna shook her head. The O’Briens must have money to burn, she told herself.

  Following the winding road, Joanna reviewed what little she knew about David and Katherine O’Brien. David, in his early seventies, was a Cochise County native and the only grandson of one of southern Arizona ’s more colorful pioneers. David’s grandfather, Ezra Cooper, had first set foot in what would eventually become the Arizona Territory when, as a young man, he had worked as a surveyor laying out the boundaries of the Gadsden Purchase. Later, after making a fortune working for what would become the Southern Pacific Railroad and also after contracting TB, Cooper had returned to the southern part of the Arizona Territory hoping to regain his health. He had brought with him a young wife and had expected to found a thriving family dynasty on the lush grassland of the lower San Pedro Valley.

  When Ezra Cooper died a few years later, he left behind a widow named Lucille, a six-year-old daughter named Roxanne, and, to his regret, no sons. Lucille’s second husband, a fortune-hunting ne’er-do-well named Richard Lafferty, had so overgrazed the place that when he died of influenza in 1918, what was left of Ezra Cooper’s Sombra del San Jose was little more than a mesquite-punctuated wasteland. Now, with the help of a university trained botanist and liberal applications of money, David O’Brien had gained a good deal of favorable press by systematically removing the water-hoarding stands of mesquite and returning the desert landscape to its original grassy state.

  So much for David O’Brien. Joanna knew that Katherine was David’s second wife. Other than the fact that she was the middle-aged mother of an outstanding daughter, Joanna knew very little about her. Economically and socially, Green Brush Ranch and the High Lonesome were worlds apart.