Downfall

by J. A. Jance

  “Hey, Terry,” Joanna shouted, up the hill. “Sheriff Brady and FBI agent Robin Watkins are down here below where you are. What did Spike find?”

  “Wait a minute,” Terry called back. “I’ll go check, but stand back from the side of the mountain. The footing up here is really uncertain. I don’t want to send a rockslide raining down on your heads.”

  Joanna and Robin retreated back down the way they had come. Moments later, a scatter of rocks and gravel tumbled down the face of the cliff and came to rest precisely where they had been standing earlier.

  “Spike found a shoe,” Terry shouted. “Looks like Susan Nelson’s missing tennis shoe. Remember, we only found one of them last night. Hang tight. There’s a rock outcropping up ahead. Let me check that out.”

  “Is there any way for us to get up there?” Robin asked Joanna.

  “I know how, but I’m not attempting it without my own hiking boots. I’ve got an extra pair still in the Yukon. Wait here.”

  Joanna hurried back to the SUV, switched into her extra hiking boots, and then went back, bringing along three bottles of water. “This way,” she said, passing one of the bottles to Robin and heading toward the peak’s northern flank. “The ascent there is a little more gradual.”

  “This is supposedly gradual?” Robin panted as they started up the vestigial trail. “It doesn’t seem gradual to me.” Eventually they passed a spot where a faded and decaying wooden cross stood semi-upright in a cairn.

  “What’s that?” Robin asked, huffing to catch her breath.

  “It’s a memorial to a kid named Michael Grady. He fell and died here in the early 1940s. His parents erected the cross here, hoping it would deter other kids from making the same mistake. I can tell you from personal experience that it didn’t work.”

  “The early forties?” Robin remarked. “That’s a long time ago, but the cross is still here? How’s that even possible?”

  “It’s not the original cross,” Joanna said. “It’s sort of like George Washington’s ax. It has a new handle and a new head, but everyone still claims it’s George Washington’s ax. When the cross gets too bad, someone comes along and replaces it, but nobody ever forgets Michael’s name, because it’s right here, chiseled on some of the rocks.”

  She paused and examined the rocks, then moved some of them around until they were arranged like puzzle pieces in proper order and read MICHAEL GRADY, B. 3/29/29, DIED 7/4/41. RIP.

  “Even walking past this wasn’t enough to keep kids from coming here?” Robin asked.

  “Nope,” Joanna answered. “We all climbed the mountain anyway, but seeing that cross as we passed meant that we were thinking about poor Michael Grady all the way up and all the way down.”

  Walking carefully, with Joanna in the lead, they slowed as the climb turned steeper. It wasn’t until after they topped the first rise, something that had seemed like little more than a foothill from a distance, that they finally caught sight of the other officers. The two men and the dog were scrambling southward, slowly negotiating their way across the mountain’s front face toward what looked like a crease at the very center. Terry and Spike seemed to be doing fine in the rough terrain, while a less fit Dave Hollicker was clearly struggling.

  “I’m pretty sure we’ve found it,” Terry called again. “They must have gone off right here. Judging by the evidence markers, it’s almost a straight shot from here down to where they landed.”

  “Hold on,” Joanna said. “We’re coming.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?”

  “I tried to tell you earlier. The FBI has joined the investigation,” she told him. “Agent Watkins is here with me.”

  There was no reply to that, not from Terry Gregovich and not from Dave Hollicker, either. Joanna suspected their lack of response indicated a certain lack of enthusiasm. Local cops are often less than happy when federal officers horn in on cases where help isn’t necessarily needed or wanted.

  For the next few minutes, Joanna and Robin climbed steadily before finally drawing even with the others. The two men as well as the dog were huddled together, positioned on a small flat outcrop that seemed no larger than a regular-sized mattress. A double, yes, but not a queen and definitely not a king!

  To reach the spot, Joanna realized that she and Robin would have to do the same thing—work their way across the steep face of the mountain in a place where, without a path, they would be risking life and limb at every step. The direct approach might have been shorter, but it was littered with treacherous loose hunks of limestone and low-growing scrub brush that offered no guarantee of solid footing or even a handhold should one be needed.

  “We can try to make it over there,” Joanna said, “or we can wait until they come to us.”

  “I say wait,” Robin said, sounding relieved. “But while we do, what say we go on up to the top. It doesn’t look very far from here.”

  Agent Watkins was most likely a year or two younger than Joanna, and she certainly wasn’t pregnant, but if she was game, Joanna had to be, too. With a shrug of her shoulders, she led the way. Nearing the top, she reached out to use a rock ledge to pull herself up and startled a dozing horned toad in the process. It scooted downhill in a hurry, shooting past both Joanna and Robin.

  “What the hell was that?” Robin demanded, dodging out of the way and almost falling backward in the process.

  “A horned toad.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  “To flies and bugs maybe.”

  “I thought they were poisonous.”

  “You’re probably confusing horned toads with Gila monsters. Those are poisonous, but they’re totally different creatures. You should pay a visit to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and learn the difference.”

  “I’ll do that,” Robin said. “As soon as I have a chance, and assuming I can get down from here without breaking my neck.”

  By then, Joanna had already resumed her upward climb. Once they topped out onto relatively flat ground at the top of the knoll, both women were panting and sweating. It was midafternoon by then, well into the nineties with very low humidity. There was a slight breeze blowing across the mountaintop, and they reveled in it as they paused long enough to drink some water and look around.

  “I have to admit you were right,” Robin observed, turning a full 360 degrees to take in the entire panorama. “It’s a pretty spectacular view.”

  “Yes,” Joanna agreed. “And that’s why generations of kids from Bisbee have climbed this mountain, dangerous or not. They do it because it’s here and to savor a view that can’t be had anywhere else.”

  After that, they stood in silence for a few moments. Robin might have been enjoying the view, but Joanna was remembering the last time she had stood in this place. She had come with Andy, shortly after the doctor—one who also happened to be her mother’s doctor—had given her the bad news: Joanna Lee Lathrop was pregnant. She had opted for going to the doctor’s office rather than getting a test kit for the drugstore where everyone knew exactly who she was.

  She and Andy had been standing together in almost this exact place when she had shared the daunting news about her unexpected pregnancy. She had told him about it, not knowing what he would think or how he would react. Andy had stood there for a long quiet moment, looking out across the valley toward town. Then he had turned to her with one of his most engaging grins and said, “Well, then, Carrot Top, I guess you and me had better get hitched, and we’d better do it sooner than later.”

  She’d usually hated it when he had called her Carrot Top, but she hadn’t hated it that time.

  Joanna had looked down the mountain. She was standing in a small depression between the two rounded bumps that formed the peak’s pinnacle. There was a natural cleft between them formed by a rocky wash that dropped straight down the front of the mountain and seemed to come to an end in a small grove of scrub oak halfway down.

  “I’ll marry you,” she had called to Andy over her shoulder, “but you’ll have to
catch me first.” With that she had dropped onto her butt and slid down the wash, using it like a gigantic amusement-park slide. Naturally Andy had followed her. Their downhill movement came to an end in the grove of oak, where an on-again/off-again spring provided much-needed moisture.

  That was where Andy had finally caught up with her—in the grove of trees. Laughing, he had grabbed her and kissed her. Later they’d gone skinny-dipping in the water hole. Then, under the sheltering oak, they’d made love, with Joanna’s body cushioned by nothing more than layers of dried leaves and a pile of their abandoned clothing.

  “After all,” Andy had said, just before they did the deed, “what does it matter? We’re already pregnant.”

  Joanna was pulled out of her momentary reverie by Agent Watkins’s voice. “It’s not very big up here, is it,” she remarked.

  Joanna looked around. She had to agree that the slightly rounded top of the mountain, divided in half by that distinctive dip, was surprisingly small—not more than fifteen yards long and no more than ten across. Here and there, scattered across that tiny bit of landscape, were small clumps of what Joanna now knew to be hedgehog cactus.

  “Those are the Fendler’s hedgehogs,” she explained. “The ones Desirée Wilburton was out here researching.”

  “Which means those are the hedgehogs that got her killed,” Robin responded. “If you ask me, they don’t look like much, and I doubt any of them were worth dying for.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “HEY, SHERIFF BRADY,” DAVE CALLED. “WHERE ARE YOU?”

  Joanna and Robin sidled over to the edge and peered down to where the two men and the dog were still visible, only now their positions were reversed, with the women at the top of the peak and the two men and dog well below.

  “Up here,” Joanna called back, waving. “Did you find anything?”

  “This is the spot for sure,” Dave replied, his voice flowing up to them with almost no distortion, as if carried and amplified by the breeze blowing against the rock face from the west.

  “Anything besides the shoe?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Okay, then,” Joanna told him. “We’ll meet you back at the cars.”

  Joanna’s phone rang, letting out its unmistakable rooster crow.

  “What the hell is that?” Robin demanded.

  “Sorry,” Joanna said, tugging the phone out of her pocket. “Hello.”

  “We’ve got the car,” Casey Ledford said, “and maybe part of the crime scene.”

  “What do you mean?” Joanna asked.

  “Let’s just say there’s lots of biological evidence in that backseat. I think it functioned as Susan’s private no-tell motel, and not just once, either. It’s on its way to the impound lot as we speak. Once it’s here, we’ll need to swab it for DNA and dust it for prints.”

  “Good,” Joanna said. “We’re up on Geronimo. Dave seems to have found some additional pieces of evidence, including Susan Nelson’s missing shoe. We won’t know what else is there until we meet up with him down at the bottom.”

  “You said ‘we’?” Casey inquired

  “I’m here with Agent Watkins. Dave is working with Terry and Spike.”

  “So I’m assuming it’s okay to clock in some additional overtime on this?” Casey asked.

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “For right now we’ll all need to do whatever needs to be done. See you back at the office.”

  “How did you end up with a rooster ring tone?” Robin asked when Joanna ended the call.

  “I like it,” Joanna said. “Nobody else has one like it.”

  “I wonder why,” Robin grumbled.

  They made their way back down the mountain. It was too hot to wait in the car, so they sheltered under the scrub oak until Dave, Terry, and the dog reappeared half an hour later.

  “What did you find?” Joanna asked, after introducing Agent Watkins to the others.

  One at a time and brimming with pride, Dave began pulling evidence bags out of the many pockets of his safari-style vest. “One shoe,” he said. “Size eight and a half; found just below what we now believe to be the drop-off point.”

  Dave withdrew another bag and handed it to Joanna. “This one contains one tiny piece of blue fuzz.”

  “Blue fuzz?”

  “There’s a partial path from the cliff back over to the main route up and down the mountain,” Dave explained. “I found the fuzz caught on a creosote branch on the way back down. I’m thinking the guy was in a hell of a hurry and didn’t notice his clothing had gotten hung up on something.”

  “You think it’s from the hoodie?” Joanna asked.

  “That’s certainly a possibility,” Dave said with a nod. “I believe the SVSSE school colors are blue and white.”

  He pulled out another bag. “Here’s my current favorite.”

  Joanna peered at the bag. It took a moment before she finally caught sight of a single strand of brown hair, approximately eight inches in length, trapped between the two layers of clear plastic.

  “I believe Desirée Wilburton was described as having shoulder-length light brown hair,” Dave said.

  Joanna nodded. “I believe so, too. Good work—good work, all of you,” she added, reaching down to rub Spike’s pointed black ears. “Casey tells me Susan’s Honda is on its way to the impound lot. Let’s go back to the department, reconvene in the conference room for a few moments, and sort out where we are.”

  They were back in the Yukon and bouncing toward town when Robin broached a painful subject. “I’m guessing you’ll be having to take time off for funerals later this week?”

  Since this was a joint investigation, Joanna considered it to be a fair question. “Funeral, not funerals,” she answered. “One only. Friday morning at eleven. I’ll probably take all day Friday off, but I expect to work the rest of the time.”

  “Were you and your mother close?”

  “Not really,” Joanna said. “It’s a very long story.”

  “And none of my business,” Robin said.

  And then, because Robin hadn’t asked, Joanna told her anyway. Because talking about Eleanor with a complete stranger was easier than talking about her with someone who happened to know where all the bodies were buried. Even so, Joanna didn’t tell all of it—there wasn’t time—but she hit the high spots.

  “In my family, my mother’s fine,” Robin said when Joanna finished. “It’s my father who’s the pain in the butt. He’s FBI, too. It’s sort of the family business. My brother chose to join the Secret Service, which sent my father into a tizzy. And my signing up to follow in Dad’s footsteps was the last thing he wanted. Sounds like your mother and my dad would have been birds of a feather.”

  “But what about your brother?” Joanna asked. “Is all forgiven now? Is he still the fair-haired boy?”

  “Absolutely,” Robin said. “Ray’s a good guy, and we get along fine when the folks aren’t around, but Dad never lets me forget for one minute that I come in a very distant second.”

  “What are you doing for dinner tonight?” Joanna asked.

  “Dinner? I’ll eat at the hotel, I suppose. Why?”

  “Because my brother and his wife flew in from Manassas today. My husband, Butch, invited them to dinner. I’ve had a hell of a day, and I’m not up to having some big family conflab tonight. There’s enough on my plate right now, and before I deal with whatever I need to deal with as far as Bob and Marcie are concerned, I also need a good night’s sleep.”

  “Is Butch a good cook?” Robin asked.

  “He’s a great cook,” Joanna answered.

  “And you’re inviting me to dinner so I can function as a human shield?”

  “Yes,” Joanna admitted. “I suppose that’s about the size of it.”

  “Let’s see,” Robin said. “Go to a hotel and eat by myself in a strange dining room or go somewhere else and have a home-cooked meal for a change while I help someone I like deal with an older brother who may or may not be too full of himself? W
hich sounds like a better deal to you?”

  Joanna smiled as she swung into the parking lot. “I’ll call Butch and tell him to set another place.”

  CHAPTER 12

  BACK AT HER OFFICE, JOANNA HAD KRISTIN SET UP AN IMPROMPTU video conference call during which everyone, including Ian Waters and Frank Montoya, could be brought up-to-date and, coincidentally, introduced to Agent Watkins.

  For the second time that day, they assembled in the conference room. Jaime Carbajal and Ernie Carpenter had spent most of the day canvassing people from the Warren neighborhood nearest the ranch road, in case someone in that area had seen something. Not surprisingly, the detectives had come up empty.

  With the help of Robin’s boss, the FBI’s agent in charge in Tucson, Frank Montoya had succeeded in obtaining a warrant that allowed investigators to access both victims’ telephone records. Deb Howell had spent most of the day poring over call records from both phones and over text exchanges as well.

  “Anything?” Joanna asked.

  “Nada,” Deb answered. “I can’t find any point of contact between the two victims. Desirée doesn’t seem to have many friends, or a current boyfriend, either, for that matter. Most of her texting is back and forth to her mother. Susan, on the other hand, did a lot of texting to her fellow teachers. She did some texting to the kids who are on her debate team, but nothing out of the ordinary or out of line. Times for coaching sessions; carpooling and busing arrangements for getting back and forth to tournaments; that sort of thing.”

  “No lovey-dovey stuff?” Joanna asked.

  “Nope.”

  “But she’s pregnant with a kid whose father most likely isn’t her husband. That means she’s carrying on an affair with someone, and that means there’s got to be some point of contact somewhere.”

  “Unless she was doing it by code, it’s not in her texting history, which is what I focused on today. Tomorrow I’ll use the reverse directory to track down her most frequently called numbers. That’s most likely where we’ll find the boyfriend.”