Dead to Rights

by J. A. Jance

  It took six hands to lift the unconscious man clear of the trunk and carry him back behind the Blazer and far enough around the curve to be out of harm’s way. Next Deputy Hollicker shoved the Blazer into reverse and moved it as well. And just in time, too. With a terrifying whoosh, the Buick’s gas tank exploded.

  Joanna, gasping for breath and coughing her lungs out, fell to her hands and knees. When the Buick went up, she heard it go and felt the sudden burst of heat, but she didn’t see it. Then there were hands on her shoulders, pulling her up.

  “Are you all right, Joanna?” Dick Voland asked.

  “I’m fine,” she choked. “It’s just the smoke…”

  He took her firmly by the arm. “Come on. We’ve called for the rangers. They’re bringing fire-fighting equipment, so we’d better get out of the way.”

  Back at the Blazer, Joanna stood for a moment looking up at the burning car. “We’ve loaded Morgan into the rear of your vehicle,” Voland said. “Can you drive, or do you want me to?”

  “Morgan?” Joanna asked, not quite understanding. “Hal Morgan? You mean you found him, too?”

  Voland looked down at her. “Didn’t you see him? He was the guy we pulled out of the trunk.”

  All Joanna could do was shake her head. And when she reached for the door handle, there was no strength left in her hands. Voland opened the door for her. “I’ll get in on the other side,” she said. “You’d better drive.”

  Helping her along as though she were an invalid, Voland led her around the vehicle and lifted her into the passenger seat. Then he jogged back and jumped into the driver’s seat.

  “You realize that if you’d been even thirty seconds later, Morgan would have bought it. How the hell did you manage to get that damned trunk open?”

  Joanna looked across the seat. Against an orange backdrop, her chief deputy’s face stood out in sharp relief. Even through the choking coughs, Joanna could see the concern and compassion written there. She had also heard the pride in his voice. It was easy to see how someone like Ruth Voland might read something into that look that wasn’t there.

  “I don’t know,” Joanna returned, then lapsed into yet another fit of shuddering coughs.

  She turned around and looked at Hal Morgan. His legs were still tied, but his hands were free. Part of a duct-tape gag was still stuck to his face. He, too, was coughing and choking, trying to clear the bitter, chemical-laced smoke out of his lungs. There were dozens of questions she wanted to ask, but those would have to wait—until they both stopped coughing.

  Fortunately, the single tree that had caught fire was far enough from its neighbors that no other trees burned with it. That was partially due to the fact that the fire truck and rangers were there within minutes and were able to keep the flames from spreading. Directed by the rangers, a contingent of deputies helped deal with the fire. Once it was out, they settled down to await the arrival of the canine unit. Meanwhile, at a turnoff two miles back down the road, Joanna Brady and Dick Voland finally had a chance to interview Hal Morgan. He was bruised and battered from being knocked around in the trunk, but other than that, he seemed fine.

  “How did it happen?” she asked.

  Morgan shook his head. “I’m not sure. Stupidity, I guess. I spent the afternoon in my room working on my laptop. Ever since Bonnie died, I’ve been keeping a journal, thinking that someday I might want to try having it published. I was expecting Father McCrady around seven or so. He was seeing friends earlier. We were going to go have a late dinner together, but time got away from me. That happens sometimes when I’m writing. When I realized how late it was, I dashed into the shower. I was in the bathroom just finishing putting on my clothes when someone came bursting into the room.”

  “Into the bathroom?” Joanna asked.

  “That’s right,” Hal said. “It caught me completely off guard. The door hit me square on the shoulder and pitched me all the way into the tub. Headfirst. It’s a wonder I didn’t break my neck. Before I had a chance to get my legs back on the floor, something jabbed me in the butt. That’s the last I remember.”

  “Jabbed you. Like a needle, you mean?”

  Hal nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “It felt like a bee sting. Whatever it was, it knocked me for a loop. I don’t remember a thing after that until a little while ago, when I woke up in the trunk smelling smoke. You had a guard on me, Sheriff Brady. How did this guy get past the deputy?”

  “Cold-cocked her with a beer bottle,” Dick Voland said gruffly. “You say guy. Did you see your attacker?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know it was a guy?”

  “Because of the way the door hit me. There was real power behind it. Not only that, whoever did it must have lugged me out to the car.”

  Voland nodded. “I see what you mean,” he said. “What about the suicide note?” he added.

  Morgan looked puzzled. “Suicide note? What suicide note?”

  “The one we found on the computer screen in your room.”

  Hal Morgan shook his head. “I never wrote anything of the kind,” he said.

  Joanna turned to Dick Voland. “Who does our composites?”

  “We never do composites.”

  “We’re doing one now,” Joanna said. “Call up to Tucson and check with both Tucson P.D. and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. Find out who does theirs and see what it would cost to have him or her come down tomorrow. We’ll have him go to the hospital and get one from Deputy Long, and then we’ll take him out to Elfrida and get one from the clerk in the gas station and from anyone else who may have seen the man.”

  “You want to do that on Saturday?” Voland objected. “That’ll cost a fortune. I thought there was a budget crunch.”

  “There is,” Joanna said. “Since it’s a kidnapping, we could always call in the Feds…”

  “No, no,” Voland agreed quickly. “I’ll do it.”

  For a moment, the three people shut inside Joanna’s idling Blazer were quiet.

  “It’s a frame, isn’t it,” Hal Morgan said at last. “Whoever killed Bucky Buckwalter figured you’d blame me. When it didn’t work the first time because that girl dragged me out of the barn, the killer decided to try again. This time with a phony suicide note. The only thing that saved me is the fact that the Buick burned oil like it was going out of style.” He looked questioningly at Joanna. “Would you have fallen for it?”

  “I’d like to think my people are better investigators than that,” she said. “Unfortunately, there’s always a chance it might have worked.”

  “Will he try again?”

  Dick Voland was the one who answered that question. “I’d give that one a definite yes. Obviously we can’t take you back to the Rest Inn. Does anyone have a better idea?”

  After some discussion, they finally decided to call on Father McCrady. One of his friends from seminary was the priest at Saint Dominick’s in Old Bisbee. That’s where Father McCrady was staying. One phone call was all it took to make arrangements for Hal Morgan to stay there as well. A few minutes after Dick Voland left to deliver Morgan to the church rectory, Ernie Carpenter parked behind Joanna’s Blazer.

  “So much for my weekend off,” he said. “What’s happening?”

  With that, Joanna launched off into a detailed recitation of the evening’s events.

  The rest of the night, spent mostly in waiting, passed slowly. For the second time in two days, Joanna Brady found herself stamping around in the cold and the dark while the Cochise County departmental canine unit did its stuff—to no avail. It was almost midnight when the search for the missing driver of Hal Morgan’s Buick was finally called off for the night. Rusty, a muscle-bound German shepherd, had led his partner, Mike Cordell, on a trail that went from the charred remains of the Buick to a deserted public campground half a mile back downhill. That was where the scent disappeared.

  “Whoever it was must have had a car parked here to begin with,” Cordell explained later to Joanna. “
Or else there was an accomplice waiting there the whole time.”

  “But wouldn’t Tom Givens have seen them if they came back down the mountain after we were here?”

  Cordell shook his head. “Not necessarily. If whoever was driving was familiar enough with the lay of the land, he might have known that there are a couple of private roads—ranch roads—that he could have taken. Following those, he could have made it all the way back to Elfrida without once touching the highway.”

  “Damn!” Joanna exclaimed. “We had him and I let him get away. Why didn’t I think about checking out the picnic area earlier? I must have driven right past it.”

  Ernie Carpenter was philosophical about the oversight. “I expect you had one or two other things on your mind right about then,” he said. “I know I would have.”

  It was one-thirty when Joanna finally turned onto the road to High Lonesome Ranch. She had been so focused on what was happening with Hal Morgan that, until she drove back into the yard, she hadn’t given Butch Dixon’s presence there a single thought. She was surprised, though, to drive up and find the whole house ablaze with lights.

  When she walked into the house, the place was dead quiet. Even the dogs, locked in the bedroom with Jenny, didn’t raise a racket. In the living room, Joanna discovered Butch Dixon sound asleep on her couch. His shirt was on the back of the easy chair. His boots and socks were on the floor beside the couch. One of Eva Lou Brady’s afghans covered him from chest to toe. There didn’t seem to be much point in waking the poor guy up just to send him back to his hotel.

  Afraid that turning off the lights might disturb him, Joanna left him as he was while she disappeared into her own room. She set the alarm for seven and then tumbled into bed. Not surprisingly, she was asleep within seconds of putting her head on the pillow.

  She awakened minutes before the alarm to the smell of brewing coffee and the sounds of Jenny laughing. For a moment she thought Andy was back. He had always been up early on weekends to make coffee and cook waffles and to share what he called “Daddy time” with his daughter. But then Joanna heard the unfamiliar cadence of a male voice and she remembered that Butch Dixon was there. He had spent the night on the living room couch.

  Pulling on a robe and taking a stab at flattening her sleep-bent hair, Joanna hurried out of the bedroom. She found Jenny and Butch in the kitchen, where pieces of her vacuum cleaner were spread all over the breakfast nook. Frowning in concentration, Butch was pulling something out of the guts of the machine while Jenny, fascinated, watched over his shoulder.

  “What in the world are you doing?” she asked.

  Butch looked up at her and grinned. “Making myself useful,” he said. “Unless I’m sadly mistaken, once I get all the pieces put back together, this little hummer is going to work better than it has in years. By the way, I’ve fixed the broken handle on your silverware drawer and repaired the living room lamp that was falling apart. Later on today, if you’ll show me where you keep your washers, I’ll tackle that leaky kitchen faucet.”

  Joanna was stunned. How dare he come in here and start fixing things? “Just what exactly…?” she began indignantly.

  “Now, now,” he soothed. “What did you expect me to do, sit around and twiddle my thumbs? You don’t even have decent TV reception. I was bored. How about breakfast? Jenny tells me that on Saturdays, waffles are the order of the day. I make a mean waffle.”

  Jenny appeared at Joanna’s elbow with a freshly poured cup of coffee in her hand. She passed the mug along to her mother. “I told Butch that if he isn’t done with the vacuum cleaner, we can eat in the dining room. I’ll even set the table.”

  “Butch?” Joanna asked.

  “I said it was all right for her to call me that,” Butch said quickly. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Shaking her head and knowing she was licked, Joanna took the coffee and sank down onto the bench. “What’s wrong with the vacuum?” she asked.

  “Part of the problem was all the dog hair hung up on a paper clip in the middle of the hose. I’ve been tinkering with the motor, though, too. You’re going to be amazed when I put it back together.”

  Butch’s high spirits were somehow irresistibly infectious. “I’m sure I will be,” she said with a smile. “Have you two made any other plans while my back’s been turned?”

  “He wants to go on the underground-mine tour,” Jenny said. “And to ride over to Tombstone to see Boothill. Can I go along, Mom? Please?”

  “You could come, too,” Butch offered, looking at Joanna.

  Joanna glanced at the clock over the refrigerator. “I’m afraid not. I’ll probably have to go into the office today, at least for a while.”

  The look of disappointment that crossed Jenny’s face put a hole in Joanna’s heart. “I guess I can’t go,” Jenny said.

  “Wait a minute,” Joanna said. “Just because I can’t go doesn’t mean you can’t. You can take the Eagle.”

  With a sigh of satisfaction, Butch put down the vacuum cleaner motor, stood up, and sauntered over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. “No Eagle,” he said firmly. “Jenny and I’ll wing it.”

  “But…” Joanna’s tentative objection was immediately overruled.

  He grinned at Jenny. “Have helmet and leather jacket. Will travel. But first, you’d better set the table.”

  NINETEEN

  SEEING THAT the waffle-making was in good hands, Joanna abandoned the kitchen for the shower. She was just starting to towel herself dry when Jenny pounded on the door. “Mom,” she said. “Phone. It’s Marianne. They’re home.”

  Hastily pulling Andy’s old robe over her dripping body, Joanna took the call in her bedroom. “Hello?”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Marianne Maculyea babbled happily. “There are two of them.”

  “Two of what?”

  “Two babies. Two girls. Ruth and Esther. That’s what we’re calling them. That was what was going on with Jeff—what he couldn’t tell me over the phone or write about, either. And it’s why he needed the extra company. He was afraid one of the officials might take offense and change his mind.”

  Joanna was floored. “You have two?”

  “That’s right. One of the nurses in the orphanage came to Jeff secretly a little over two weeks ago and told him about Esther. Ruth, her sister, was the baby we were supposed to get originally. Esther would have been left behind. The nurse told Jeff that without Ruth sharing her food, she was sure Esther would die—probably would have died already. Once Jeff knew Ruth and Esther were twins, he couldn’t bear to separate them.”

  “Two. Why, Mari, that’s wonderful,” Joanna managed as Marianne Maculyea rushed on.

  “You should see her, Joanna. She’s so tiny—so much smaller than Ruth. It is a wonder she’s still alive. They’re so different in size that you can hardly tell they’re twins. But they are. Ruth is already walking. Esther can’t even sit up by herself.”

  “If they’re twins, how can they be so different?” Joanna asked.

  There was a slight hiccup in Marianne’s happy rush of words. “Esther seems to have some…health challenges. She has a heart murmur of some kind. That’s why they weren’t going to let her go. And that’s the other reason Jeff was determined to take her. Left untreated, she’d be dead within months, maybe even weeks.”

  As she listened, Joanna had dropped into a chair. In all the years she had known Marianne—from junior high on—Joanna had never once heard her friend blither, but that was what Marianne was doing now—blithering. Joanna felt her own eyes brimming with tears of love and concern.

  “How serious a heart murmur?” she asked. “And can it be fixed?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Marianne said. “Maybe, with proper medical care and some nourishment. We have an appointment with a cardiologist in Tucson for early next week. In the meantime, she’s eating like there’s no tomorrow. They both are. As soon as I saw them, I was worried about having only one crib, but Jeff said that’s how th
ey sleep—together. The nurse told him that when they separated them, they were both incon solable. That the only way they could quiet Esther was by putting Ruth in the crib with her. I think that’s why the nurse told him in the first place.

  “Jeff kept the whole thing a secret because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pull it off. He was afraid there’d be some kind of last-minute hitch. He could have called once they got to the airport, but he didn’t. He decided he wanted to surprise me. Isn’t he wonderful?”

  “He’s wonderful all right,” Joanna said.

  “When can you come meet them? Do you want to come for coffee later on this morning?”

  Joanna laughed. “Are you sure you want company?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “We’re about to have breakfast. We’ll stop by around ten, but just for a minute. Long enough to say hello. Most likely a friend of mine from out of town will be with us. If you don’t mind, that is.”

  By the time Joanna got off the phone, breakfast was ready. Over breakfast she told Butch about Jeff and Marianne. Joanna and Butch were drinking coffee when the phone rang again.

  “It’s Sue Espy,” Jenny said, holding her hand over the mouthpiece. “She wants to know if I can spend the night tonight.”

  “Do you want to?” Joanna asked.

  “Well?” Jenny said. Surprisingly enough, she was looking at Butch rather than her mother.

  Butch looked uncomfortable. “Your mother and I haven’t had a chance to discuss it yet.”

  “Discuss what?”

  “I was talking to Jenny earlier about the three of us going out to dinner again tonight, but to a nice place this time.”

  Joanna turned back to her daughter. “It’s up to you, Jenny. If you want to go to Sue’s, that’s fine.”

  Jenny put the phone back to her ear. She listened for a while. Finally she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “But I won’t come over until sometime later on this afternoon.”

  Butch sighed and shook his head. “Stood up again,” he said. “Just my luck. How about you? Would you consider going to dinner with me anyway?”