Skeleton Canyon

by J. A. Jance

  Joanna gave her chief deputy a sidelong glance. “I’m surprised to hear you say that, Mr. Voland,” she told him. “Aren’t you the same guy who was out on the stump during the election, trying to get people to vote against me?”

  Voland ducked his head and shrugged self-consciously. “Maybe I changed my mind,” he said while his ears glowed bright red.

  It was Saturday night. Knowing small-town gossipmongers might read far more into this casual dinnertime meeting than it merited, Joanna picked up her ticket and slid off her stool.

  “I’d better be going,” she said. “See you Monday.”

  “Right,” Dick returned. “See you then.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Joanna went out to the Crown Victoria and drove north toward the traffic circle where Jim Hobbs’s auto repair shop was located. Remembering Moe Maxwell’s advice that she put the Eagle in the shop for repairs as soon as possible, she glanced off in that direction. To her surprise, even after nine o’clock on a Saturday night, the lights were still on at Jim’s Auto Repair. One of the two garage bay doors was still open.

  Instead of heading out toward the ranch, Joanna drove on around the circle and pulled in beside Jim’s cherished 1956 Chevy BelAir. Jim himself was hanging over the front fender of a Honda Civic. He straightened up when he heard Joanna’s car stop and sauntered out of the garage, wiping his greasy hands on a rag.

  “It’s you, Sheriff Brady,” he said, grinning when he recognized Joanna. “1 thought it would be Margo come to tell me to get the hell home. But since I’m working on my mother-in-law’s car, I don’t figure I’ll be in too much trouble. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s the air-conditioning on my Eagle,’’ Joanna began. “It went out on the way to Tucson today. Moe Maxwell says I’ll need to get in line for an appointment, so I thought I’d check.”

  The congenial grin disappeared from Jim’s face. “It’s a setup deal, isn’t it? A sting. As soon as I got the call, I figured it would be something like this. Sorry, Sheriff Brady. I’m all booked up for air-conditioning work. I won’t be able to get around to you for a month or so, maybe even longer.”

  “A month?” Joanna echoed. “That long? Right in the middle of the summer?”

  “Too bad, isn’t it,” Jim returned coldly. “But like I said, it might even be longer than that.” Then, as if dismissing her, he turned and headed back into the garage.

  For several moments Joanna sat there wavering in confusion. Jim Hobbs had done lots of work for her over the years. She had no idea what had provoked him or why she would de-serve such an abrupt dismissal. Something was wrong. Not wanting to leave the misunderstanding hanging, Joanna climbed out of the Crown Victoria and followed him into the garage.

  Jim’s Auto Repair had arisen from the ruins of a defunct gas station, one that had become a permanent casualty in the EPA’s ongoing war against leaky gasoline tanks. Anyone walking into the orderly but run-down building would have known at once where Jim Hobbs’s priorities lay. The grungy cinder block walls, the fly-specked dirty glass, and the cracked cement flooring might have all been seventy-year-old original construction, but there was nothing old or lacking in the gleaming tools and up-to-date equipment lining the walls.

  Walking inside, Joanna stood for a long time watching Jim in silence while he studiously ignored her. “All right, Jim,” she said at last, trailing him over to a metal tool chest where he slammed a wrench into one of the drawers. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” he growled, turning on her and poking the air between them with one of his stubby fingers. “That weasely Sam Nettleton character over in Benson gives me a call this afternoon and tells me he’s got a cool deal on some really cheap Freon if I want to go in with him on it. Well, here’s the real scoop, Sheriff Brady. I didn’t bite, so you can call off your dogs and forget it. I’ve got twenty thousand bucks tied up in legally approved equipment to do air-conditioning work the right way. The reason I’m as busy as a one-armed paperhanger right now is that hardly anyone else in the county has bothered to invest in that new equipment-including Mr. Sleazeball Sam Nettleton. If you think you’re going to waltz in here and find me using illegal Freon-”

  “Wait a minute, Jim,” Joanna said. “Hold on. I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I stopped in here to see about getting my Eagle fixed because I almost roasted to death driving Jenny up to Mount Lemmon today.”

  Jim looked suddenly abashed. “You mean Sam Nettleton didn’t try to sic you on me?”

  “The person who sent me here is Moe Maxwell. I saw him in Daisy’s just a few minutes ago, and he said you had fixed the air-conditioning on his GMC. I don’t even know Sam Nettleton. From the sounds of it, though, maybe I should. Care to tell me about him?”

  Now Jim looked downright embarrassed. “I shouldn’t,” he said. “But the whole deal makes me so damned mad.” “What deal?”

  “Years ago, the tree huggers in Washington, D.C., got all hot and bothered about holes in the ozone. They fixed it so Congress passed some laws designed to fix ‘em. The holes, I mean, not the tree huggers. The first guys the feds went after for chlorofluorocarbon use were the big industries. Now they’re coming after us-the little guys. It turns out that Freon is bad for the ozone, and Freon just happens to be what makes most pre-1995 air conditioners run. The U.S. isn’t producing R-12 Freon anymore. Newer cars use R-134A. Dealers have to have proper, EPA-approved equipment to work on that or on any other R-12 substitute.

  “Some of those supposed substitutes are so bad the cars blow up. Like the two little old ladies who burned to death up on I-40 last summer. Some shyster mechanic over in Gallup had filled up their compressor with something that was more butane than it was anything else.”

  “Let’s get back to Sam Nettleton,” Joanna urged. “Who is he? What does he do?”

  “He runs an outfit called Sam’s Easy Towing and Wrecking up in Benson. He’s the kind of guy who gives every other mechanic in the universe a bad name.”

  “And what’s his connection to Freon?”

  “Like I said, the U.S. is out of the R-12 business, but other countries are still making it. If they can figure out a way to ship it here, there’s a ready black market. Arizona has lots of pre-1995 automobiles that are still on the road. Here in the desert, air-conditioning is a necessity rather than an option. A thirty-pound container of Freon that would have cost thirty bucks a few years ago now sells for nine hundred.”

  Joanna whistled. “No wonder there’s a black market.”

  Jim nodded. “No wonder.”

  “Why did Nettleton call you?”

  “Who knows? My guess is he needed someone to go in with him on it, someone who could bring along some cash. I’ve got a reputation for doing more automotive air-conditioning work than anyone else in the county, so he probably figured I could use it. If I bought it at his price and charged the usual markup for the real stuff, it would be a regular gold mine-for a while anyway. Until somebody got wise. But like I told Nettleton on the phone, if the EPA inspectors come in and find me using illegal Freon, I’m out of business, just like that. I’m not going to risk it. And I’ve been standing here all night, working and stewing about it.”

  “When’s Nettleton’s cut-rate Freon supposed to be here?” Joanna asked.

  “Sometime soon, I guess,” Jim said. “He told me he’s got to have the money by Monday noon at the latest.”

  “He didn’t say where the shipment was coming from?”

  Hobbs shook his head. “No, but you can pretty much figure it out. It’s gotta be Mexico. Maybe all the old drug dealers have switched over and are carrying Freon these days instead of heroin and cocaine.” He paused for a moment. “So do you still want me to work on your car?” he asked somewhat sheepishly.

  Joanna grinned at him. “As a matter of fact, I do. It’s like you said, we’re talking necessity here.”

  “What do you think happened to it?”

  “It so
unded to me as though the compressor died.”

  “You want it retrofitted to run on R-134A?”

  “That must be the stuff Moe Maxwell calls R2D2. Is that what you did to his GMC-retrofitted it?”

  Jim Hobbs nodded.

  “Well,” Joanna said, “if it’s good enough for Daisy Maxwell’s beehive, it’s good enough for me. When can you do it? I’d like to have it sooner than a month or two if that’s possible.”

  “Okay, okay,” Jim said, realizing she was teasing him. “We’ll get it done a little sooner than that. Come on into the office. I’ll have to check the book.”

  Back in her Crown Victoria Joanna headed east on Highway 80, but again, instead of going straight on out to the ranch, she turned off at the Cochise County Justice Complex. After all, no one was waiting for her at home. Is that why I’m finding a hundred reasons not to go there? she wondered.

  After a few seconds of reflection, Joanna shoved that unwelcome thought aside, convincing herself, instead, that the real reason she was stopping off at the office was because some-thing Jim Hobbs had said was still niggling at her. Joanna realized that what Hobbs had suggested about drug smugglers switching over to Freon was indeed true. As head of law enforcement for a county with eighty miles of international border inside her jurisdictional boundaries, Sheriff Brady was a member of the MJF-the Multi-Jurisdiction Force-an organization designed specifically to combat border area criminal activities. As such, she was well aware that, after heroin and cocaine, Freon had now moved to number three on the DEA’s list of illegal substance smuggling headaches.

  Bearing that in mind, Joanna felt obliged to share whatever information she had gleaned with other members of the MJF. Before opening her mouth, however, she wanted to know more specifics. She pulled into the lot at the back of the building, parked in her reserved spot, and then let herself into the office through a private door outfitted with a keypad lock. Once inside, she settled down at her desk, turned on the computer, and logged onto the MJF web site.

  As soon as she typed in the word Freon, she hit pay dirt. For the next twenty minutes she learned more about the lucrative trade in illicit R-12 smuggling than she ever would have thought possible, including the fact that the Drug Enforcement Agency was now working jointly with the U.S. Customs Service to put a stop to it. When she finished, she picked up the phone and dialed a Tucson number for Adam York, the DEA’s local agent in charge, who had become both a colleague and a friend.

  “So where are you this time?” Joanna asked when he answered. York’s job took him all over the state and even all over the country at times, but through the magic of call-forwarding, his Tucson number always seemed to work.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “I’m just sitting here by the pool with a drink in one hand savoring the idea of a Saturday night at home. How about you? You’re not in Tucson, are you?”

  “I wish,” Joanna said. “I’m busy, reading up on Freon.”

  “Freon. How come?”

  “There’s a possibility I may have stumbled onto a smuggling operation down here.”

  Joanna heard Adam York’s glass hit a table. The sound of it told her she had the man’s undivided attention. “Who?” he asked urgently. “Where?”

  “I heard tonight that some guy up in Benson was about to pick up a big load of cut-rate Freon. I thought you might he interested.”

  “You bet I am. Who is he?”

  “His name’s Sam Nettleton. Runs a place called Sam’s Easy Towing and Wrecking in Benson. I just ran a copy of his rap sheet. Everything from drunk and disorderly to assault. He’s also had a number of consumer complaints for exorbitant towing charges. Does this sound like somebody you’d be interested in?”

  Over the next few minutes, Joanna gave Adam York a complete rundown on the situation, including Sam’s offer to bring Jim Hobbs in on buying what was evidently an illegal shipment of coolant. York listened all the way through.

  “This Nettleton guy sounds like a pretty small fish,” the DEA agent said when she finished. “But small fish often lead to bigger fish. We’ve been investigating a big air-conditioning contractor up in Phoenix for months now. So far we haven’t been able to put together anything solid. It’s not likely the two cases are related, but that’s always a possibility. Let me do some checking and get back to you. Is Monday soon enough?”

  “Monday will be fine, I guess,” Joanna said. “But it may be too late. Remember, that’s when the alleged shipment-whatever it is-is supposed to arrive. Nettleton told Jim Hobbs he had to have the cash by noon on Monday in order to pay for it.”

  “I’ll get back to you on this tomorrow, then,” Adam promised. “If not in the morning, then tomorrow afternoon for sure. If I can manage it, I’ll figure out a way to put this guy under surveillance. What about the fellow who told you about him? What’s his name again?”

  “Jim Hobbs,” Joanna told him. “He runs an auto repair shop here in Bisbee.”

  “Do you think he’d mind talking to one of my investigators?”

  ‘‘Are yon kidding? He’s so pissed about what Sam Nettleton is pulling, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t willing to take out an ad in the paper.”

  Joanna gave Adam York Jim Hobbs’s telephone numbers. While the DEA agent’s moving pencil made scribbling sounds over the phone, she added, “Sorry about screwing up your peaceful weekend at home.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” York said. “Happens all the time. Besides, look who’s talking,” he added. “It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night, and here you are calling me from the office.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Joanna said. “Caller ID. Right?”

  “It would have to be,” Adam York said with a chuckle. “I’m sure as hell no psychic.”

  When Joanna left the office an hour or so after she arrived, she found that the outside temperature had dropped some. Turning off on Double Adobe Road, she noticed that, off to the southeast, at the southernmost corner of the vast Sulphur Springs Valley, there were a few muted flickers of light on the distant horizon. Lightning. The first storms of the summer monsoon season were trying to make their way up into the Arizona desert from the Gulf of California.

  Traditionally, summer rains always arrived just in time to throw a wet blanket on Bisbee’s Fourth of July fireworks celebration. But Independence Day was still more than two weeks away. In the meantime, Joanna expected there would be more days of scorching summer temperatures accompanied by the added complication of gradually increasing humidity.

  She had barely turned off onto the High Lonesome’s dirt track of a road when Tigger, a clownish golden retriever/pit bull mix-and Sadie, a leggy bluetick hound-bounded into the moving glow of headlights to greet the car and race the Crown Victoria back to the house. When Joanna parked and opened her door, the dogs raced around to the far side of the vehicle in a frenzied but futile search for Jenny.

  “Too bad, guys,” Joanna told them. “No Jenny tonight. Sad to say, you two are going to have to make do with just me for the next little while.”

  Out of habit, Joanna had switched off the cooler when she had left for Green Brush Ranch late that afternoon. Now, at ten o’clock at night, the inside of the house felt overheated, especially when compared to the far more moderate temperatures outdoors. Once Joanna turned on the old swamp cooler, she knew it would take an hour or more for it to work its magic. In the meantime, she stripped off her work clothes in favor of shorts and an old T-shirt. Then, pausing only long enough to take messages off the machine, she collected her new cordless phone, a tablet, and a pen and went outside onto the front porch. Settling into the swing, she began returning calls.

  Eva Lou Brady, Joanna’s mother-in-law, had called early in the afternoon to invite Joanna to come to dinner after church on Sunday. One of the organizers of the Fourth of July parade had called to see if Sheriff Brady would be willing to step in as grand marshal now that Bisbee’s mayor, Agnes Pratt, had been sidelined with an emergency appendectomy. There were also two separ
ate calls from Joanna’s friend Angie Kellogg-one from home and one from work.

  The parade call couldn’t be returned until Monday, and Angie would be at work until two o’clock in the morning. The call to Joanna’s in-lows was different. Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady usually went to bed right after the local news ended at ten-thirty, so she called them back immediately. Jim Boll Brady answered the phone.

  “How’d it go?” he asked. “You get Jenny dropped off at camp all right?”

  The hours between then and Joanna’s last glimpse of Jenny seemed to melt away. The image of her daughter trudging dejectedly away from the car with her camp counselor caused a sudden tightening in Joanna’s throat. “It was fine,” she managed, speaking around a lump in her throat that made speech almost impossible. “It would have been better if the air-conditioning in the Eagle hadn’t given out on us along the way.”

  “Did you get it fixed?” Jim Bob asked at once. “Is there anything you need me to do?”

  Her in-laws’ unfailing helpfulness and generosity never failed to warm Joanna. “Thanks, Jim Bob,” she said. “I’ve already made an appointment with Jim Hobbs to have it fixed.”

  “Good. What about dinner tomorrow, then?” Jim Bob asked. “Eva Lou doesn’t want you to get too lonely out there all by yourself.”

  “Dinner would be great,” Joanna told him. “What time?”

  “One. One-thirty.”

  “I’ll be there,” Joanna said.

  Ending that call, she dialed the bar in Brewery Gulch. Angie Kellogg answered, speaking over the din of talking people and blaring jukebox music. “Blue Moon. Angie speaking.”

  “It’s Joanna. You called?”

  “Yes,” Angie said. “I wanted to ask a favor, but it doesn’t matter. He’s already here.”

  “Who’s already there?”

  “The parrot guy. He came to take me for a hike tomorrow morning. To see some hummingbirds. I was going to ask you to come along.”

  “No kidding. The parrot guy? The one from the Chircahuas? What was his name? Hacker, isn’t it?”