Skeleton Canyon

by J. A. Jance

  “The lawyer? No,” Kristin answered. “He’s here alone.”

  “Ybarra,” Dick Voland said, glancing down and scanning his briefing sheet. “Isn’t he the prime suspect in the O’Brien case’?” Joanna nodded, and Voland rose to his feel. “If you want me to, Sheriff Brady, I can handle this for you…”

  “He asked to speak to me, Dick,” Joanna said firmly. “I’ll talk to him myself.”

  “Without Ernie?”

  “You heard Kristin. Mr. Ybarra asked for me. He didn’t ask for you or Detective Carpenter or even for Detective Carbajal.”

  “But-” Voland began.

  Joanna cut him off. “I’m quite capable of passing along whatever information is given to me, Dick. Now, if it’s all right with you two, we’ll continue our briefing in the conference room as soon as I finish up with Mr. Ybarra.”

  The two chief deputies left immediately after that, although Dick Voland was still grumbling about it under his breath as he walked out the door. Joanna punched the intercom button once more. “All right, Kristin,” she said. “You can send him in now.”

  Ignacio Ybarra entered the room looking awful. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. His coloring was gray. Dark circles under his eyes said he hadn’t slept. Once through the doorway, he paused and glanced warily around the room as if expecting to see other people.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Ybarra,” Joanna said. “And relax. There’s no one else here but us-no hidden microphones, no nothing. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to have your attorney present when you speak to me?”

  Ignacio shook his head and eased himself onto a chair, grimacing with pain as he did so. “No,” he said. “This is all right.”

  ‘‘What can I do for you, then?” Joanna asked.

  Nacio took a deep breath. “I come to talk to you about Bree’s earring.”

  “The one you found and then lost again?”

  The young man nodded. “I only found part of it,” he said. “The pearl.”

  “What about it?” Joanna asked.

  “You know something about that earring, don’t you, Sheriff Brady?”

  Once again, Joanna thought back to Katherine O’Brien’s surprising reaction to the one remaining earring-to the fact that the dead girl’s mother wanted to have nothing to do with it. Nodding, Joanna kept quiet and waited for Ignacio Ybarra to speak again. Instead, he sat in an uncomfortable and lengthening silence, staring down at his hands.

  Joanna wasn’t quite sure what to do next. Here was a murder suspect who had willingly walked into her office. He must have come there with the intention of volunteering some bit of information he hadn’t been prepared to share earlier in the presence of his attorney. Now, though, he had frozen up. He seemed unable to say anything at all much less what he had come to say.

  Sitting there, Joanna Brady regretted that she wasn’t more experienced at interrogating suspects. What she had done in-stead, however, was live on the High Lonesome long enough to recognize the sometime necessity of priming a pump. In order to elicit any information from this obviously guarded and wary young man, she would have to share some bit of intelligence herself.

  “I know her parents didn’t approve of them,” she said quietly.

  Ignacio’s troubled brown eyes met hers. The pained hurt in that look-the all-consuming grief-was almost more than Joanna could bear. Katherine O’Brien’s way of grieving had been far more decorous and controlled-grief under glass, almost. Ignacio’s pain was much closer to the surface and written over every inch of him. Joanna Brady had been through her own terrible loss. She recognized there was no fakery in Ignacio Ybarra’s hurt, no pretense. Regardless of how Brianna O’Brien had died-at her lover’s hands or someone else’s-that Monday morning, Ignacio was suffering. His heart was broken.

  “They told you that?” he asked at last.

  “Mrs. O’Brien did,” Joanna replied. “She said her husband disapproved of Brianna’s wearing earrings.”

  “Bid she tell you how much they didn’t like them?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. O’Brien hit Bree,” Ignacio said quickly. “Did her mother tell you about that, too?”

  Joanna shook her head. “No,” she said.

  “Well, he did,” Ignacio declared, rushing on. “He caught her wearing the earrings in the house and told her to take them off. She told him they were her ears, that she should he able to decide what she would and wouldn’t wear on them. That’s when he slapped her-hard, right across the face. It happened the week before graduation. She had to wear makeup all week to keep the bruise from showing.”

  Joanna nil let her breath out. I wasn’t wrong, she thought. There was an undercurrent of violence in that compulsively clean house. And in Bree’s room as well.

  “Did her parents know about you?” Joanna asked gently a moment later. “Did they know that’s where the earrings came from?”

  Ignacio shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “She was afraid to tell them.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Bree was afraid of what her father might do if he discovered his daughter was involved with an Hispanic.”

  “Afraid he’d do something to her or to you?” Joanna prompted.

  “Maybe both,” Ignacio replied after a pause.

  “She was afraid he’d hurt you?”

  “He did,” Ignacio said simply.

  Joanna sat bolt upright in her chair. “He did what?”

  “Mr. O’Brien hurt me. At least, one of his men did.”

  Joanna could barely believe her ears. “Wait a minute. You’re telling me that one of David O’Brien’s men beat you up? When? Where?”

  “Saturday night,” Ignacio said haltingly. “It happened right outside the gate to Green Brush Ranch. I went there hoping to catch sight of Bree. I thought if she had gone home, maybe I could spot her truck and know she was all right. I wanted to talk to her-to apologize for being late. I didn’t see her truck, though. All I saw were police cars. I was afraid something had happened to her.”

  Fully alert, Joanna listened with every cell of her body. Ignacio was a homicide suspect. If what he was saying was true-if he had gone to Green Brush Ranch hoping to catch sight of the victim-that would mean he still thought she was alive almost twenty-four hours after Brianna’s shattered Timex had stopped ticking for good at 9:51. On Friday, not Saturday. That would also mean Ignacio Ybarra hadn’t killed her. The question was, however, was he telling the truth?

  “When was this again?” Joanna asked.

  “Saturday. I went there in the late afternoon, after I left the station. I was hiding outside the gate in a clump of mesquite when some guy saw me-one of Mr. O’Brien’s security guards, I guess. He’s the one who beat me up.”

  “You’re saying the man who beat you up came from Green Brush Ranch?” Joanna asked.

  “I le must have,” Ignacio replied. “I didn’t see exactly where he came from. All I know is, he snuck up on me from behind. I didn’t see him until he was on top of me. But that’s where he went afterward-back through the gate to Green Brush Ranch. Another guy on an ATV drove up to the gate. He waited just inside the fence. After the one guy finished with me, he walked across the road and went inside the gate. The two of them rode away together, back up the drive toward where the house roust he.”

  “Where the house must be,” Joanna repeated thoughtfully. “You’ve never been there?”

  Ignacio shook his head. “Bree made me promise that I wouldn’t go. I think she was worried something like this might happen.”

  “Like what?” Joanna asked. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “This guy came up behind me-an older guy.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I couldn’t see him too well in the dark, but he was tall and skinny. Tan. Wearing a cowboy hat.”

  Unbidden, the image of Alf Hastings flashed across Joanna’s mind, but she brushed it aside. “Go on,” she said.

  “Like I said
, it was after dark,” Ignacio said. “1 may have dozed off for a minute. All I know is, out of nowhere I heard someone walk up behind me. I tried to stand up, but I had been in the same position for so long that my legs were asleep. When I tried to stand up, they collapsed under me. I fell forward, right on my face. I had managed to make it as far as my hands and knees when the guy kicked me in the gut. He was wearing pointed cowboy boots, and the toe caught me in the solar plexus. It knocked the wind out of me. I fell down again. The next thing I knew, he had me by the hair, pulling it out by the roots.”

  Ignacio paused, as if remembering the attack were almost as painful as living through it the first time.

  “So?” Joanna urged.

  “I must have blacked out for a minute. When I came to, he was talking to me. ‘You’re a big one for a greaser,’ he was saying. ‘But you know what they say about that. The bigger they come, the harder they fall, right?’ I didn’t answer. I tried to turn around so I could get a better look at him, but he shook me so hard, I was afraid he was going to break my neck. ‘Did you hear me?’ he said again. ‘You’re supposed to answer when somebody speaks to you.’

  “He shook me again-the kind of shake a coyote might give a rabbit in order to break its neck. That’s when I decided a rib was broken. One at least. According to Dr. Lee, it turns out to be three.”

  “Dr. Lee over at the Copper Queen?” Joanna asked. She was taking notes now, writing as fast as she could.

  Ignacio nodded. “He was my doctor last fall when I got hurt up here playing football. And that’s where I went after this happened-to the hospital to see Dr. Lee.”

  “Go on then,” Joanna said.

  “‘What’re you doing here, greaser?’ the guy says. ‘Casing the joint? Trying to figure out how you and your buddies can get inside and steal some of Mr. O’Brien’s stuff?’ I tried to tell him that I didn’t care about the O’Briens’ stuff, but he didn’t believe me. He must’ve thought I was one of the border bandits.”

  “What happened next?” Joanna urged.

  “He let go of my hair. When I fell back down, it hurt so had, I was afraid I might have ruptured a lung. I was still dealing with that when he burned me.”

  Joanna caught her breath. “Burned you?”

  Ignacio nodded. “I heard him strike a match and then I smelled cigar smoke. The next thing I knew, he burned me-right between my shoulder blades. I could smell that my shirt was on fire. I rolled around on the ground, trying to put it out. All the time, he’s talking to me. ‘Just pass the word along to all your thieving friends down there across the line,’ he said. ‘Tell ‘ em Mr. O ’Brien has a few surprises for anyone who comes around here trying to steal his stuff.’ By the time I finally got the fire out, the guy was already crossing the road to where the other guy was waiting on the ATV.”

  Listening to the story, Joanna felt almost physically ill as she recalled some of the almost forgotten details of the Alf Hastings case over in Yuma County. There wasn’t a decent police officer in the state of Arizona who hadn’t been ashamed of what had happened to the young illegals who had fallen into his clutches. They had been beaten and left to die. Now that Ignacio Ybarra mentioned it, Joanna thought she remembered that the young men had also been tortured and burned.

  She stood up. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”

  Ignacio nodded. “Sure,” he said.

  Joanna stalked out into the outer office. She picked up Kristin’s phone and dialed Frank Montoya’s extension. As a recent law enforcement graduate of the University of Arizona, he was also the most computer literate.

  “Does the name Alf Hastings ring a bell?” she asked when he answered.

  “Not right off,” Frank responded. “Should it?”

  “He was the deputy over in Yuma County who was the ringleader in that police brutality case with the four young UDAs. I want you to run Hastings’s name through the computer database. Bring me a copy of everything you get back.”

  “What are you after specifically?” Frank asked.

  “I want to hear from some of the other investigating officers,” Joanna told him. “I’m looking for an MO. I want to know exactly what was done to those kids.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “Alf Hastings is living in Cochise County right now and working for David O’Brien. Unless I’m mistaken, I have one of Hastings’s most recent victims sitting here in my office. My major concern is that there may be others we don’t even know about.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” Frank told her.

  Taking Kristin’s phone book from the shelf behind her desk, Joanna located the number for the Copper Queen Hospital. It was morning office hours at the clinic, so Joanna had to pull rank before she was finally put through to Dr. Lee directly.

  Dr. Thomas Lee was a Taiwanese immigrant in his mid-thirties who had come to Bisbee straight out of medical school. He had initially planned to stay long enough to pay off his school loans. The loans were all gone now-had been for over a year-but still he stayed on.

  “Sheriff Brady,” Dr. Lee said, when he came on the phone. “Can I help you?”

  “I have it young man in my office right now,” Joanna told the doctor. “Ignacio Ybarra. Do you know him?”

  “Nacio? Yes, of course.”

  “I need to ask you a question about him.”

  “Sheriff Brady, you know I can’t reveal-”

  “Please, Dr. Lee. I need to ask just one or two questions. Did you see him this weekend?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was that?”

  “Saturday,” Dr. Lee said. “Saturday night. He came to the emergency room.”

  “You treated him then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a possibility that Ignacio’s injuries had been received the night before?”

  “You mean on Friday instead of Saturday? Absolutely not!” Dr. Lee exclaimed. “He was bleeding. Dirt was still in the wounds.”

  “‘Thank you, Dr. Lee,” Joanna breathed. “That’s all I need to know.”

  “But you must tell me,” Dr. Lee objected. “Why are you asking such questions? Has something happened to Nacio? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “You already have,” Joanna told him. “I thought Ignacio was telling me the truth. Now I know for sure.”

  Putting down the phone, she went back into her office. Ignacio Ybarra was still sitting in the same place with his head lowered, his shoulders bent. Sorrow exuded from every pore.

  Moving with a confidence she hadn’t felt before, Joanna re-hinted to her desk. Ignacio looked up as she came by. Joanna mat down and met his questioning gaze.

  “Nacio,” she said kindly, “why didn’t you tell us any of this last night?”

  The young man ducked his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I was too scared. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

  “So why are you here now?”

  “I’ve thought about the pearl for two nights now. I want it back, Sheriff Brady. I gave it to Bree because I loved her, and I want it back for the same reason. It’s all I’m ever going to have to remember her by.” He broke off, burying his grief-contorted face in his hands.

  Joanna waited several moments while the young man sat there sobbing. “You must have loved her very much,” she said at last.

  Ignacio nodded, but it took several seconds longer before he was under control enough to speak. “Bree and I thought that someday we’d be able to be together. We were going off to school in September. With us in Tucson and with both our families here, how much could they have done to stop us?”

  Plenty, Joanna thought, thinking about how much grinding criticism her disapproving mother had heaped on Joanna’s and Andy’s marriage over the years. For good or ill, Ignacio Ybarra was never going to have to face those kinds of issues with David and Katherine O’Brien.

  “You lost the pearl during the beating, then?” she asked. “Is that what you’re telling me?�
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  “Yes,” Ignacio murmured. “I’m sure that’s when it fell out of my shirt pocket. It’s bound to be there, right across the road from the gate. I’m sure I can find it again, but if I go back on my own to look for it, he’ll send somebody after me again. That’s why I carne here this morning, Sheriff Brady. To ask for help. If I go there with a deputy, no one will bother me.”

  “Do you want to file charges against him?” Joanna asked.

  “Against the man who beat me up?”

  “Yes.”

  Ignacio seemed to consider the possibility. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he admitted. “I just wanted the pearl back, that’s all.”

  “If you have broken ribs, we’re talking about a serious assault here,” she told him. “Whoever did this to you shouldn’t hr allowed to get away with it.”

  “But I barely saw him,” Ignacio objected. “It was dark. I may not be able to identify him.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Joanna said grimly. “I have a pretty good idea of who he is.”

  Before Joanna had a chance to turn back to Ignacio, there was an impatient knock at the door. “Come in,” she called.

  The door burst open and Detective Carpenter strode into the room. “What exactly is going on here?” he demanded, glowering first at Joanna and then at Ignacio. “I thought I was the Detective on-”

  “Good morning, Ernie,” Joanna interrupted. “I’m so glad you could join us. I need you and/or Detective Carbajal to take Mr. Ybarra’s statement. I believe Nacio has been the victim of serious assault at the hands of one of David O’Brien’s employees. Afterward, you’ll need to search the area opposite the outside gate to Green Brush Ranch to see if you can find Brianna O’Brien’s missing pearl earring, which was lost in the course of that attack. I’m sure Mr. Ybarra will be able to show you where it happened. I’m waiting for some information from Yuma County. If what I suspect pans out, sometime early this afternoon you and I should pay a visit to Green Brush Ranch.”

  Ernie started to object, but something in the authoritative way Joanna had spoken stopped him cold.

  “Jaime Carbajal is up at the courthouse trying to obtain a search warrant,” Joanna continued. “Call him off that and have him go with you. Now, get going.”