Outlaw Mountain : A Joanna Brady Mystery (9780061748806)

by Jance, Judith A.

  “As far as I’m concerned, have a ball,” Ernie said. “Jaime and I already have more than enough to do.”

  Avoiding looking at the burgeoning stack of mail Kristin had piled on her desk, Joanna added Dena Hogan’s name to her To-Do list.

  “Anything else?” Joanna asked.

  “Not from us,” Ernie said.

  “All right then, you and Jaime go ahead and get with the program.”

  The two detectives stood up as one. “Wait a minute,” Jaime Carbajal said. “What about that weird guy from Saint David, the one who was with you last night when you stopped by Alice Rogers’ place? Whatever happened to him? Did you locate his family?”

  “What guy?” Dick Voland asked.

  Caught being less than candid with her subordinates, Joanna blushed to the roots of her bright red hair. She had thought about mentioning Junior’s situation to the briefing as a whole but had decided against it—right up until Jaime’s awkward question brought the issue out into the open.

  “I guess I just haven’t gotten around to telling you,” Joanna replied. “His name is Junior. He’s developmentally disabled. His family evidently drove off and left him behind when they finished up with the Holy Trinity Arts and Crafts Fair over in Saint David.”

  “Where’s this Junior now?” Voland demanded. “You didn’t take him home with you, did you?”

  “No,” Joanna replied. “I didn’t. He’s staying with a friend of mine, someone who’s had experience with people like Junior.”

  “Whoever he is, he’d better have experience,” Voland growled. “If anything happens to that guy while he’s in our custody, our ass will be grass. His family may not have wanted him last Sunday, but if he croaks out while we’re in charge of him, you can bet they’ll hit us with a million-dollar lawsuit so fast it’ll make our heads spin.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to him,” Joanna declared firmly.

  “Who says, and how are you going to go about finding his family?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Joanna admitted. “I still haven’t decided.”

  “Let me remind you, Sheriff Brady,” Voland said. “We’re in the business of law enforcement, not social service. Considering what’s gone on around here the last few days, we’ve got our hands plenty full playing cops and robbers without going out of our way to collect lost retards and drag them home.”

  Joanna sent her chief deputy a frosty glance. She was accustomed to that kind of comment from Voland. In the privacy of the morning briefing, where only she and Frank Montoya were present, she cut the man some slack. In front of her two homicide detectives, it was absolutely unacceptable.

  “The proper term is developmentally disabled, Chief Deputy Voland, not retard,” Joanna told him. “We’re not calling Junior that in this office—not to his face and not behind his back, either. And don’t think for a minute this is some kind of mindless acquiescence to political correctness. It’s called common decency. Is that clear?”

  Voland backed down. “It’s clear all right,” he said.

  Joanna turned back to the detectives. “You go on now. If we need your help on the Junior situation, I’ll let you know.”

  As soon as the two detectives let themselves out of the office, Joanna zeroed in on Voland once again. “Don’t pull that kind of stunt again, Dick. Understand?”

  He nodded glumly. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “And now,” Joanna continued, “do either of you have any bright ideas about how to locate Junior’s family?”

  “Not me,” Voland said.

  “Frank?”

  “You’ve checked his clothing for ID?”

  “Right,” Joanna said, “and found nothing. It looks suspiciously as though all the labels have been deliberately removed.”

  “So you’re suggesting that whoever left him in Saint David did it on purpose, that they don’t want to be found.”

  “Right.”

  Frank tapped a thoughtful finger on his forehead. “Maybe we should take a lesson from that television show, ‘America’s Most Wanted.’ Let’s try to spread the word on this. Maybe we could even hit the wire services. We’ll show Junior’s picture, tell where he was found, and all that. If we make a big enough splash, maybe someone will recognize him.”

  “That might work,” Joanna concluded after a moment’s thought. “Any ideas about how to go about it?”

  “This is human-interest stuff. I think it’s the kind of story Marliss Shackleford could really sink her teeth into.”

  “Not Marliss!” Joanna objected, setting her jaw. “After all, she’s not even a reporter anymore. She’s a columnist.”

  “Yes, but I bet she’d jump on this one, especially if it gives her a crack at national exposure.”

  Of all the people involved in the local news media, Marliss was Joanna’s hands-down least favorite. However, if this really was the only way to help Junior get back home, Joanna knew she’d have to do it.

  “All right,” she agreed. “When you finish up with the Oak Vista Estates press conference, see if Marliss will play ball. Speaking of Oak Vista, what do you plan to tell the press?”

  During the meeting Frank had continually thumbed through the sheaf of incident reports. “My usual media soft shoe, I suppose.” He grinned. “What do you think they’ll want to know?”

  “Whether or not the county is under attack by a bunch of outside environmentalists who are going to try to bring the current building boom to a screeching halt. They’re going to want to know the same things we do—where the protesters come from, what they’re doing here, and who’s behind them. Tell the reporters that when we have some answers, so will they.”

  Recovered from Joanna’s reprimand, Voland took them through the other routine reports from the day before. Afterward, he pushed his chair back and heaved himself out of it. “I have real work to do,” he announced. Even so, he paused at the door long enough to glower at Joanna one last time.

  “I still think you’d better provide full documentation concerning anything and everything to do with your friend Junior since you took charge of him,” he said. “That’s the only way to go on a deal like that, otherwise you can pretty much count on the incident coming back and biting us in the butt.”

  “Dick,” Joanna assured him. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Mumbling under his breath, Voland left Joanna’s office and slammed the door behind him. “He is right about that, you know,” Frank said.

  “About Junior?” Joanna asked.

  “About the full documentation bit. Are you sure the person Junior’s staying with is absolutely trustworthy?”

  “I can tell you this,” Joanna said. “Junior’s a hell of a lot better off with somebody like Butch Dixon than he would be in a cell out back in the jail which, at the time, was my only other option.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Frank agreed.

  They both fell silent. There wasn’t much more to add. “So what are you going to do now?” Joanna asked finally. “Handle the press conference here and then head back to Tombstone?”

  Frank nodded. “That’s right. Back to my home away from home. What about you?”

  “I plan to take a crack at the correspondence. When I finish up with that, I’m going to head out to Sierra Vista to talk with Alice Rogers’ attorney.”

  “While you’re out that way,” Frank suggested, “you might consider stopping by to see Mark Childers.”

  Frank Montoya may have been a latecomer to the Oak Vista crisis, but already he had some helpful suggestions for handling the situation.

  “How come?” Joanna asked.

  “You do know who his girlfriend is, don’t you?”

  “No, who?”

  “Karen Brainard.”

  Joanna was stunned. “As in Karen Brainard, member of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors?” she asked.

  “None other. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard rumors here and there that Childers backed her to the hilt, that he even helped bankr
oll her campaign.”

  “And now, miraculously, he’s gotten permission from the board of supervisors for a controversial construction project lots of other people around here hate.”

  “Have you looked it over?” Frank asked.

  Joanna shook her head. “I haven’t had time.”

  “Maybe the tree-huggers are up at arms for a good reason. I’ve never been much of an environmentalist myself, but I hate to see another section of the Huachucas get chewed up by uncontrolled development.”

  “Your opinion and mine notwithstanding,” Joanna said, “if the supervisors have already given Childers the go-ahead, what’s the point of my going to see him?”

  “If he’s somebody who can make or break a member of the board of supervisors, he could also make or break a sheriff—if he sets his mind to it, that is.”

  Joanna thought about that for a moment. “So you’re advising me to do a little political fence-mending.”

  Frank nodded. “It couldn’t hurt.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll think about it, but I’m not making any promises.”

  After Frank left, Joanna sat alone in her office staring at the pile of mail on her desk. From the moment she had been sworn into office, there seemed to have been an unending avalanche of the stuff. It drifted in mountainous heaps from Kristin’s desk to hers and back again. Joanna took the topmost sheet off the stack. Then, for the next five minutes, lost in thought, she stared uncomprehendingly at the piece of paper in her hand without the words ever sorting themselves into meaningful sentences.

  What if what Frank had said was true? What if there was a far too cozy relationship between Karen Brainard and Mark Childers? She thought about what Dick Voland had said concerning the previous day’s board of supervisors meeting. She couldn’t help wondering if, besides chewing up a pristine desert landscape, Childers and his lady accomplice weren’t also destroying someone else’s life and career in the process.

  “Kristin,” Joanna said, picking up her phone. “Get Lewis Flores on the phone for me, would you? He’s the head of Planning and Zoning. No, I don’t know his number.”

  She put down the phone and then waited for it to ring again, which it did—a minute or so later.

  “I talked to Linda, the secretary at Planning and Zoning,” Kristin said. “She told me Mr. Flores is out sick today.”

  I’ll just bet he is, Joanna thought grimly. If I were in his shoes, I probably would be, too.

  Nine

  AFTER DOING what she could about reaching Lewis Flores, Joanna returned to the correspondence. She was making good progress when, after a light tap on the door, Marliss Shackleford let herself into Joanna’s office. Marliss was a stout woman in her mid-forties with a mop of frosted hair that looked as though it had been permed with the help of a jolt of electricity.

  “This is a first,” the columnist said, casting an appraising glance around the room. “I’ve never been admitted to the inner sanctum before.” She stopped in front of Joanna’s oversized desk and ran a scarlet-enameled fingernail across the smooth grain of the polished cherry. “Very nice,” she added.

  “Thanks,” Joanna said brusquely. “It’s a hand-me-down. This desk used to belong to Walter McFadden. So did the rest of the furniture.”

  “But not that adorable picture of Jenny, I’ll bet.”

  “No,” Joanna agreed. “Not that. Come on, Marliss. Let’s get down to business. I’m sure Frank already briefed you on the situation. What more can I tell you?”

  “My, my. No time for polite chitchat around here. Just wham-bam, thank you, ma’am.”

  Joanna’s jaws clenched. “I’m busy, Marliss,” she said evenly. “If that’s how you want to put it, yes.”

  “I’m looking for a personal angle,” Marliss said. She sat down in one of the captain’s chairs, dug around in her purse, and pulled out a small spiral notebook. “Frank tells me this young man…”

  “He isn’t young,” Joanna corrected. “His name is Junior, and he’s somewhere in his mid-forties to mid-fifties.”

  “Junior was left—well, abandoned, if you will—at the Holy Trinity Arts and Crafts Fair over in Saint David. That ended on Sunday. Why are we just now hearing about it for the first time?”

  “Because my department wasn’t notified about the situation until late yesterday afternoon,” Joanna said. “That’s when Father Mulligan first contacted us.”

  “And where is he…What’s his name again?”

  “He calls himself Junior. No last name. If he knows what it is, so far he hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “And where exactly is he staying? Deputy Montoya didn’t say, but I take it you have him in custody of some sort?”

  “He’s not a criminal, Marliss,” Joanna said with as much forbearance as she could muster. “He’s developmentally disabled. So he’s not in custody of any kind. He’s staying with a friend of mine—with Butch Dixon, over in Saginaw. Of course, that is not for publication.”

  “Of course not,” Marliss agreed. With a pen poised above her notebook, the columnist frowned in concentration. “But is it safe to have him loose in a neighborhood like that? Lowell School can’t be more than a few blocks away. What if he was left unsupervised and ended up doing harm to one of the children? Would you ever be able to forgive yourself?”

  Joanna’s heart hardened even as her resolve melted away. Frank seemed to think that a drippy human-interest story from Marliss Shackleford was Junior’s ticket home. As far as Joanna was concerned, dealing with the columnist made the price of that ticket far too high.

  Pointing at her watch, Joanna stood up. “I’m sorry, Marliss. I can see this was a bad idea. It isn’t going to work. I have another appointment. I have to get going.”

  “But wait,” Marliss objected in dismay. “You can’t just throw me out with nothing. I was led to believe that I’d have an exclusive from you on this. I’m sure that’s what Chief Deputy Montoya said.”

  “Chief Deputy Montoya was mistaken, Marliss. The interview with me is over. Good morning.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Good-bye, Marliss. But let me warn you, if you go anywhere near Butch Dixon’s house, you’ll have me to deal with.”

  Marliss Shackleford’s dismay turned to anger. “Wait just a minute, Sheriff Brady. Are you threatening a member of the Fourth Estate? This is a free country, you know. We have a Constitution that guarantees freedom of the press. You can’t get away with telling me what I can and can’t do.”

  “Maybe not,” Joanna agreed. “But in addition to freedom of the press, this country also makes allowances for private property. If you go where you’re not welcome—and I can pretty well promise that you won’t be welcome at Butch Dixon’s house—then you can count on being arrested for trespassing.”

  “See there!” Marliss shrilled. “Another threat.”

  “No, it’s not,” Joanna said. “Not as long as you stay where you belong.”

  Slamming her notebook back into her purse, Marliss Shackleford rose from her chair and swept regally from Joanna’s office. As soon as she was gone, Joanna picked up the phone and dialed Butch’s number.

  “How are things?” she asked.

  Butch sighed. “If I’d known how much trouble it was going to cause, I would never have given you back your badge last night. Junior wants it—and he wants it bad. He’s been searching all over the house for it, ever since he woke up.”

  “I’ll find him another one,” Joanna promised. “I’ll come by later and drop one off. Right now, I’m calling to give you a storm warning.”

  “A storm? Are you kidding? I’m looking out the kitchen window right now. It’s clear as a bell outside.”

  “Not that kind of storm,” Joanna told him. “Remember Marliss Shackleford?”

  “The Bisbee Bee’s intrepid columnist?”

  “None other,” Joanna said grimly.

  “What about her?”

  “Frank Montoya suggested Marliss write a human-interest sto
ry about Junior in hopes that, if it was distributed widely enough, it might lead us to Junior’s family.”

  “I suppose it could work,” Butch said.

  “It could but it won’t,” Joanna replied. “She came in to interview me about him and I ended up throwing her out of my office. In Marliss Shackleford’s book, developmentally disabled and pedophile/pervert are all one and the same. She’s afraid you’ll turn Junior loose and he’ll go attack some little kid from Lowell School.”

  “Are you kidding? I don’t believe Junior would hurt a fly, not on purpose.”

  “You know that,” Joanna said. “And I know that, but try convincing Marliss.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” Butch asked.

  “Fill the moat and raise the drawbridge. If she comes by the house and tries talking to Junior, don’t let her near him. Period.”

  “With pleasure,” Butch said. “I can hardly wait to see her try.”

  Reassured that Marliss wouldn’t be hassling Junior, Joanna spent the next half hour concentrating on the correspondence. Then, when she had worked her way through the worst of it, she dropped a completed stack off on Kristin’s desk for filing, duplicating, typing envelopes, and mailing.

  “I’ll be out of the office for the next little bit,” she told Kristin. “Probably until late afternoon. I’m heading out to Sierra Vista to check on things.”

  “Will you be seeing Deputy Gregovich?” Kristin asked.

  “Probably,” Joanna said. “Why?”

  Kristin sighed. “He’s so cute,” she said dreamily.

  Cute? That was hardly the term Joanna herself would have used to describe Deputy Gregovich. He was tall, gangly, and moved with the loose-jointed jerkiness of a drunken marionette. There was nothing about the man that was remotely cute.

  Frowning, Joanna studied her secretary. At twenty-four, Kristin Marsten was probably six or seven years younger than Deputy Gregovich. She was a good-looking, leggy, natural blonde who favored skirts with hemlines several inches above the knee. Although Kristin had never lived anywhere but in Bisbee proper, she was forever putting on airs of being worldly and sophisticated. Terry Gregovich came across as something of a small-town hick, even though he had done two separate tours with the Marine Corps, including time overseas and in the Gulf War, where he had served as an MP.