Skeleton Canyon

by J. A. Jance

  “So you’re saying Burton Kimball had already been alerted to some coming legal difficulty long before you and Jaime showed up at Ignacio’s house?”

  “You bet. Mr. Ybarra may have put on an Academy Award-worthy performance when we told him Brianna O’Brien was dead, but it isn’t going to wash with mc. And neither is his cock and-bull story about some guy he didn’t know beating the crap out of him.”

  “What do you think did happen?” Joanna asked.

  “My guess is that he and Brianna got into some kind of beef. II turned physical. He ended up killing her, but with her giving almost as good as she got. Then, realizing what he’d done, he decided to run the truck off the cliff and try to make it look like an accident.”

  “Without any clothes on?” Joanna raised an eyebrow. “Do you have anything at all to substantiate that theory, Ernie?”

  “Not so far,” he grunted, “but I’m working on it.”

  The door to Joanna’s office opened and both Burton Kimball and a subdued Ignacio Ybarra walked into the reception room. “We’re ready now,” the attorney announced. “Where are we going to do this? One of the interview rooms?”

  “How about right here?” Joanna suggested. “It’s certainly noire comfortable than anywhere else, and bigger, too.”

  They settled into places, with Ignacio and Burton Kimball pearling themselves in the two matching captain’s chairs. Ernie assumed the love seat, while Joanna leaned against the front of her secretary’s desk.

  Ernie didn’t waste any time. “All right, Mr. Ybarra. May I call you Iggy?”

  Ignacio shrugged. “I like Nacio better, but Iggy’s okay.”

  “Very well, Nacio. Why don’t you tell us in your own words exactly what your relationship was to the dead woman.”

  Ignacio Ybarra winced at the words. His face paled. “We were in love,” he said softly. “We wanted to get married someday.’’

  “Did Brianna’s parents know anything about that?” Ernie asked.

  “Probably not,” Nacio said.

  “Why’s that?”

  Ignacio’s eyes met and held Ernie’s. “Because we didn’t tell them. They wouldn’t have approved,” Nacio said.

  “Because Mr. O’Brien doesn’t like Mexicans?”

  “I guess,” Nacio said quietly. “But I’m an American. I was born in Douglas.”

  “All right,” Ernie said. “Now, why don’t you tell us what happened last Friday?”

  “Bree and I were supposed to go away together,” Nacio said. “To the Peloncillos, but when she came by to meet me, I told her my aunt got sick and ended up in the hospital in Tucson. I was going to have to work Friday night and Saturday morning both. I thought Bree would just go back home. Instead, she decided to go on up to the mountains by herself to wait for me. That way, she said, she could reserve our camping place, and I could come up on Saturday whenever I got off. That’s the last I saw her.”

  “And you let her go? Just like that?”

  “Bree did what she wanted,” Nacio said. “I didn’t have any choice.”

  “So tell us about Saturday,” Ernie continued. “Did you go to the mountains to meet her?”

  “Yes,” Nacio said. “I went where Bree was supposed to be, but she wasn’t there. She had been, but she must have left.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I found part of her earring. It was lying in the dirt.”

  Joanna had been standing quietly to one side, listening. Mention of the earring jarred her out of her self-imposed silence. “What kind of earring?”

  “A pearl,” Nacio said as tears suddenly welled in both eyes. “The earrings were a graduation present to her from me.”

  Remembering Katherine O’Brien’s surprising response upon hearing about the existence of that one earring, Joanna thought she understood it better now. It wasn’t just a matter of David O’Brien’s being offended by pierced ears. It had as much or more to do with who had given Bree the pearl earrings in the first place.

  “Where is it now?” Joanna asked.

  “I lost it again.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know,” Nacio murmured.

  There wasn’t a person in the room who didn’t believe Ignacio Ybarra’s barely audible answer was a lie. Ernie Carpenter bounced on it at once. “You expect us to swallow that?” he demanded. “You know exactly where you found it but you can’t tell us where you lost it again?”

  Nacio shook his head. Ernie’s glower proclaimed he was unconvinced, but Nacio said nothing more.

  “So,” Ernie continued a moment later, “you went up to the mountains. When Brianna wasn’t there, what did you think?”

  Nacio shrugged. “I thought maybe she was mad at me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was so late. I thought maybe she got tired of waiting and just went home.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I went back home, too. I went to work, actually. I kept thinking she’d come by and see me there, but she didn’t.”

  “Let’s go back to the camping bit. Where was that, the spot where you usually stayed?”

  “Up in the Peloncillos,” Nacio said. “Along the creek.”

  “In Skeleton Canyon?”

  “I’m not sure which canyon is which out there. They all sort of run together, but where we camped is in a little clearing. It’s just off the road, but hidden from the road. Easy to get to but hard to see.”

  “You didn’t have to go four-wheeling it to get there?”

  “No,” Nacio said. “Not at all.”

  Standing outside the fray as the questions droned on and on, Joanna’s attention began to wander. She was going more by her impressions of how Nacio answered-of his manner in doing so-rather than by his specific replies. Joanna had the sense that, for the most part, Ignacio Ybarra was telling the truth-that he had loved Brianna O’Brien and was devastated by her loss. He spoke of her with the bewildered pain of someone who can’t quite come to terms with what has happened, of someone who wants nothing more than to awaken and discover what he thought had happened was nothing but a bad dream.

  “When you went sneaking around on these camping trips,” Jaime was saying when Joanna tuned back into the conversation, “where exactly did you sleep?”

  “Usually in the back of Bree’s pickup on an air mattress.”

  “With a bedroll?”

  “Two,” Nacio said. “One on top and one on the bottom. We zipped them together.”

  “But we found only one bedroll at the scene today,” Jaime said casually. “Where do you suppose the other one went?”

  “I have no idea. Someone must have taken it.”

  “They took it, all right,” Jaime said. “They took it because it was soaked in blood. We’re convinced Brianna’s killer used that other bedroll to wrap up the body and move her around.”

  Jaime reached into his pocket and pilled out one of the evidence bags. “See this?” he said, handing it over to Nacio. “We found that stuck on a clump of brush near where Brianna’s truck went over the edge of the cliff. What does it look like to you?”

  Nacio looked at it. Then, as his face took on a deathly pallor, he let the bag drop to the floor. Groaning, he buried his hands in his face and began to sob, his shoulders heaving. By then, Burton Kimball was on his feet.

  “All right, you guys. That’s enough of this. No more questions. Either book my client or let him go, but there’ll be no more questions tonight.” Bristling with anger, he bent down and retrieved the bag. “What the hell is this?” he demanded, handing it back to Jaime.

  “It’s a piece of material,” Jaime returned. “We found it snagged on a clump of cat claw at just about the same spot where Brianna’s truck went off the cliff. It looks like it could he from the inside lining of a bedroll. Not only that, I wouldn’t he surprised if that spot on it didn’t turn out to be a splotch of blood matching the victim’s.”

  Burton Kimball’s jaw clenched with anger.
“You had no business showing him that,” he snarled at Jaime. Then Burton wheeled on Ernie as well. “Let’s cut to the chase, Detective Carpenter. Are you arresting my client or not?”

  “Not at this time,” Ernie returned mildly. “But he’s not to leave the area. We’re going to be questioning all his associates. If Mr. Ybarra knows what’s good for him, he’ll have a sudden flash in the memory banks about what exactly happened to his face and ribs. If he wants us to believe that he didn’t get those injuries as a result of a physical confrontation with Brianna O’Brien, then he’d better come up with some other plausible answer, along with some witnesses to back it up.”

  “Come on, Ignacio,” Burton Kimball said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m free to go then?” Nacio asked. He sounded dazed, as though he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

  “Evidently,” Burton said. “For the time being at least.”

  Taking his young client by the arm, Kimball exited the room. The reception area was quiet for some time after they left.

  “I figured showing him the cloth would provoke some kind of reaction,” Jaime said. “Did I go too far?”

  Rubbing his forehead, Ernie shook his head. “You were pushing it, maybe, but you did get a reaction. What do you think?”

  Jaime shrugged. “Maybe she was trying to break up with him. Maybe they got in a fight over that.”

  “Maybe. How about you, Sheriff Brady?” Ernie said, turning to Joanna. “What’s your opinion?”

  “I wish we had that missing journal,” she said. “If we could read that, we’d have a better idea of what was really going on.

  “We’ll find it all right,” Ernie said grimly. “I’ll bet we find that missing bedroll, too.”

  “You want me to go to work on getting a search warrant?” Jaime asked.

  “Not tonight,” Ernie replied. “Tomorrow’s another day.” “Right,” Jaime said. “I’ll get after it first thing in the morning.”

  Ernie turned again to Joanna. “What about the O’Briens?” he asked. “Should we drive out to Green Brush Ranch and talk to them tonight?”

  Wearily, Joanna shook her head. “As you said, Ernie, its late. Tomorrow’s another day.”

  They all left the department a few minutes later. On the drive home, Joanna found she was so exhausted that she had trouble staying awake. Corning through the cuts on Highway 80, she was dismayed to see orange emergency lights flashing at the intersection of High Lonesome Road and the Double Adobe cutoff.

  “What now?” she muttered. “Not an accident, I hope.”

  When she reached the lights, however, she discovered not one but two utility crews. “What’s going on?” she asked, rolling down her window.

  “We’ve got a fried transformer here,” the foreman told her. “It melted some wires as well. None of the people up High Lonesome have power right now, but we should have it back on within a couple of hours.”

  “Great,” Joanna said. “The perfect ending to a perfect day.”

  The dogs met her, as usual, halfway up the drive. The water had drained out of both creek beds, leaving both crossings rocky and muddy and devoid of the usual tracks, but passable nonetheless. It was eerie, though, driving into the yard without having the motion detector turn on the floodlights. Joanna wasn’t looking forward to the silence, either.

  It’s going to be quiet, she thought. Way too quiet.

  But when she stepped out of the Eagle, she was assailed by the noise of what sounded like the bleating of a herd of a thousand sheep. Colorado River toads, she realized with a smile of relief. The night wasn’t going to be quiet after all.

  The frogs’ noisy squawking was one of the sounds of summer. That first rainstorm always awakened hordes of hibernating toads and set them on their brief but frenetic mating trail.

  Their raucous racket never failed to cheer Joanna. It meant that after months of dry days and endless blue skies, the rains had returned, bringing with them the promise of life begun anew.

  Joanna knew that once she went inside, the walls of the house would cut off the toads’ welcome, cheery song. That settles it, she told herself, making up her mind. I’m sleeping out on the porch again tonight.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Standing in front of her closet on Monday morning, Joanna was faced with the usual problem of what to wear. Had she managed to go shopping on Saturday afternoon, she might have had a few more choices. As it was, she settled on a three-piece hunter green pantsuit that was coming up on the end of its useful life. It was an old standby that dated from her previous career in the insurance business. She had worn it until she was tired of it. Most likely so was everyone around her.

  The phone in the outer office was ringing as she walked in the door to hers. “It’s Adam York,” Kristin Marsten, her secretary, announced over the intercom once Joanna made it as far as her desk. “Do you want me to put him through?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Hello, Adam,” she added a moment later. “You’re certainly up and at ‘em bright and early this morning.”

  “You call this bright and early? What do you mean?” Adam replied. “I’ve been working all weekend-ever since you called on Saturday. In fact, I tried like hell to reach you yesterday evening. The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. Your machine never picked up, either.”

  “Sorry about that,” Joanna apologized. “I was out all day in a car with no radio. Then, last night, a storm came through and knocked out a transformer just up the road, shutting off the electricity for several hours. It also seems to have put a permanent glitch in my answering machine. Even with the power back on this morning, I couldn’t make the thing play back messages or record a new one.”

  Adam York laughed. “Sounds like it’s about time to toss out that outdated machine and sign up for something civilized like voice mail.”

  “I’ll look into it,” Joanna told him. “Now, what have you got for me?”

  “Here’s the deal. As I told you the other night, the guys up in Phoenix have been working overtime on a big-time Freon-smuggling case. I checked with them. No one on that case thinks your Benson guy is related to what’s going on in Phoenix. They agree with me that he sounds like more of a small-time, independent operator than a big one. The Phoenix case revolves around a major air-conditioning contractor up there, not some seat-of-the-pants tow truck operator. All the same, as of six o’clock this morning, both Sam Nettleton and Sam’s Easy Towing and Wrecking are under twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

  “Great,” Joanna said. “How’d you manage that?”

  Adam York laughed. “There are a few advantages to being the agent in charge, you know. If we come up with anything concrete, we’ll let you know right away.”

  “I appreciate it,” Joanna said. Glancing out into the reception area, she saw both her chief deputies pacing back and forth, waiting for their early morning briefing. “‘Thanks for keeping me posted, Adam. I have to go. Duty calls. There are people outside waiting for me.”

  “Sure thing,” Adam told her cheerfully. “Rut don’t bother Ilianking me. If this lead turns into something, we should be thanking you. You’re the one helping us, remember?”

  Putting down the phone, Joanna motioned Deputies Voland and Montoya into the room. Wrangling as usual, they assumed their customary chairs. “What’s the deal?” Joanna asked.

  “We took another big hit in the overtime category again this weekend,” Frank Montoya complained. “Nobody around here seems to listen or believe me when I tell them a budget crunch is coming. It’s going to nip us in the butt. We can’t keep squandering our resources this way, day after day, week after week.”

  “You call that squandering? We had a homicide, for one thing,” Voland reminded him. “We also got hit by a record breaking storm-one that played havoc with roads and traffic all over the county. Of course, we had to use overtime. What do you expect?”

  “I’ll tell you what I expect. If we keep splurging on overtime at the
same rate we have been lately, my computer model says payroll will hit empty two weeks prior to the end of the fiscal year. What’s going to happen then?”

  “Nothing much,” Dick Voland said easily. “We’ll have ourselves an old-fashioned SDC with the board of supervisors.”

  “An SDC?” Frank Montoya asked with a frown. “What’s that?”

  “A stare-down contest,” Voland replied with a sardonic grin. “First guy to blink loses.”

  Montoya, chief deputy for administration, was not amused. “That’s no way to run a department,” he said.

  “And neither is this,” Joanna told them firmly. “Quit bickering, both of you. You sound like a wrangling old married couple. Let’s go to work. Yesterday’s overtime charges aren’t Dick’s fault, Frank. He wasn’t even in town when the storm hit. On the other hand, Frank is right about the budget shortfall. Every week he gives me a computer printout that shows where we are and where we’re going. At the moment we’re running six-point-seven days short of being able to meet basic payroll at the end of the fiscal year. That’s a serious problem. Everybody from patrol right through jail staff is going to have to do something to fix it. Now let’s-”

  The intercom buzzed. Shaking her head in annoyance, Joanna pushed the button. “What is it, Kristin?” she demanded. “We’re having a briefing in here. Can’t it wait until-”

  “There’s someone here who insists on seeing you, Sheriff Brady,” Kristin said. “His name’s Ignacio Ybarra.”

  “You mean he’s here to see one of the detectives, don’t you?” Joanna asked.

  “No. He says he wants to see the sheriff. Right away.”

  “Where’s Detective Carpenter?”

  “He still hasn’t come in this morning.”

  “And Detective Carbajal?”

  “He’s on his way up to the courthouse to see Judge Moore about a search warrant.”

  Joanna considered for a moment. “Does Mr. Ybarra have Burton Kimball along with him?”