Exit Wounds jb-11

by J. A. Jance

  For a moment Joanna had nothing to say.

  “If I didn’t have this job, Sheriff Brady, I’d be one, too,” Jeannine added softly.

  “In fact, I guess I am one. It’s just that I don’t take the animals here to my own place. It’s why I do what I do, Sheriff Brady. But it’s important for me to know that you think I do a good job anyway, and I wanted to say thank you.”

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  “You’re welcome, Jeannine,” Joanna murmured as she put down the phone.

  “Who was that?” Butch asked. “Not an emergency, I hope.”

  “No,” Joanna said. “Believe it or not, it was someone calling to say thank you.”

  Joanna and Butch went to bed early that night. Butch went right to sleep. Joanna lay awake for a long time, thinking about what Jeannine Phillips had said and what she had left unspoken.

  Having been saved from the thunder and lightning by Butch, Lady was ready to switch her loyalties. For the first time the dog curled up on Butch’s side of the bed rather than on Joanna’s, which made it easier the next morning when it was time for Joanna’s daily hand-over-mouth race to the bathroom.

  “Didn’t take as long this morning,” Butch observed when she came into the kitchen for her single cup of tea.

  “Maybe I’m getting used to it,” Joanna returned.

  After breakfast, Butch and Joanna stopped by Cassie’s house to pick Jenny up and take her along to church. On the way into town Joanna was amazed to notice that less than twenty-four hours after that first drenching downpour, the long-bare stalks of ocotillo were already showing a hint of green as a new crop of round leaves poked out of what, for months, had seemed to be nothing more than a bundle of dried thorn-covered sticks. In another day, six-inch-long clumps of red tube-shaped flowers-the kind of flowers hummingbirds loved-would pop out along the top of each of those newly leafed branches.

  “That’s why I love ocotillos so much,” Joanna said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because it takes so little rain and time for them to spring back to life. It always seems like a miracle to me.”

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  “I feel the same way about you,” Butch said.

  She smiled, took his hand, and squeezed it.

  When they stepped out of the Subaru in the parking lot at Tombstone Canyon United Methodist Church, the sky overhead was a brilliant washed-clean azure with a few puffy white clouds perched on top of the surrounding red-and-gray hills. But with the onset of the rainy season, the humidity was also on the rise-so much for Arizona’s supposedly dry heat.

  Church that morning was warm and awkward, too. Marliss Shackleford was there, front and center, along with her fiance, Richard Voland, a man who had once been Joanna Brady’s chief deputy and whose resignation she had been forced to engineer and accept.

  Out of law enforcement, he now worked as one of Cochise County’s few private investigators.

  Marliss Shackleford and Richard Voland had been engaged for some period of time with no hint of whether or when they would take the plunge and marry. During the time of sharing, however, Marliss ended all speculation by standing up and announcing that they had recited their marriage vows in a private ceremony on Saturday of the previous week and that the wedding cake to be served during the social hour after church would be part of an informal reception.

  Sitting several pews back, Joanna was stunned by this news. Her ongoing difficulties with Marliss and the complications surrounding Richard Voland’s resignation made her relationship with the bridal couple strained, to say the least. She resented the idea that she was being coerced into attending a surprise wedding reception.

  All through Marianne Maculyea’s sermon, Joanna stewed about the upcoming social hour and made up her mind to leave as soon as the last hymn was sung. That plan was 227

  foiled by Jenny’s disappearing into the basement for cake and punch before Joanna had a chance to stop her.

  Taking Butch’s arm, she allowed herself to be led into the social hall with about as much enthusiasm as a prisoner being led to execution. A beaming Marliss, with Richard Voland at her side, waited at the door, greeting each new arrival.

  As Joanna approached, Marliss leaned over and whispered in Joanna’s ear, “Love is lovelier the second time around-but then I guess you and Eleanor already figured that out.”

  Marliss’s first husband and high school sweetheart, Bradley Shackleford, had been out of the picture almost as long as Joanna could remember. Under her cloud of unruly and newly frosted curls, Marliss looked so undeniably happy that Joanna couldn’t help but soften a little.

  “Yes, we did, Marliss,” Joanna agreed. “Congratulations to both of you.”

  Wandering through the social hall with paper cups of punch in their hands, Joanna and Butch were the recipients of their own greetings and well-wishes. Regardless of how they had learned of Joanna’s pregnancy, everyone there made some comment about the news. Finished with her punch, Joanna was standing to one side of the room and waiting for Butch to finish a conversation with Jeff Daniels when Richard Voland sidled up next to her.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  Joanna looked at him warily. Everyone knew that, in the aftermath of his divorce, Voland had fallen victim to drinking too much, but no one other than Butch knew that the real reason behind Richard Voland’s resignation from the sheriff’s department had been his unrequited crush on Joanna Brady. She had seen him occasionally since then in social settings. Basking

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  in this new romance with Marliss, Voland appeared to have overcome his personal demons and his feelings about Joanna, too, but she was nonetheless leery of spending too much time in his presence.

  ‘All right,” she said. “And you?”

  “Couldn’t be better,” he replied. “Business is picking up a little, and you know Marliss. She keeps me hopping.”

  “Yes,” Joanna agreed. “I’m sure she does.”

  “There is one thing we don’t agree about, though,” Voland added.

  “What’s that?”

  “You.”

  “Richard …” Joanna began as a blush started forming at the base of her neck. “Really, I-“

  ‘About the election,” Voland added quickly. “Marliss is anything but unbiased when it comes to Ken Junior, and I think she’s wrong. Pregnant or not, you really are the best man for the job.”

  Across the room, Marliss noticed Joanna and Richard Voland standing together. Tossing her mane of curls, she caught her husband’s eye and summoned him with a come-hither finger. Joanna’s blush, which had started for one reason, finished for another.

  “Thank you, Richard,” she said. “I really appreciate that.”

  Butch appeared at her side half a minute later. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Joanna said gratefully. “More than ready.”

  ‘And what was that all about-the thing with Richard Voland?”

  “I’m not sure,” she replied, “but I think he just gave me one of the biggest compliments of my life.”

  Once Joanna and Butch had retrieved Jenny from the puzzle 229

  and-game corner where she’d been involved in a killer game of Chinese checkers, they headed for Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady’s duplex on Oliver Circle. As Jim Bob welcomed them inside, the whole house was filled with the delectable aroma of Eva Lou’s old-fashioned meat loaf.

  Butch and Joanna’s former father-in-law went out to Jim Bob’s workshop to discuss one of the older man’s woodworking projects, while Joanna and Jenny ventured into Eva Lou’s undisputed domain, the kitchen. “Anything I can do to help?”

  Her face red with exertion, Eva Lou was energetically mashing potatoes. “Not a thing.

  Joanna, you sit down and relax. Jenny, do you mind setting the table?”

  Without argument, both mother and daughter did as they were told. While Jenny pulled out plates and silverware and carried them into the dining room, Joanna sat at the kitchen table an
d gratefully kicked off her high-heeled shoes. She sighed with relief as she wiggled her liberated toes.

  “What does your mother have to say about all this?” Eva Lou asked.

  “She’s not exactly thrilled,” Joanna allowed.

  Eva Lou laughed. “No, I don’t suppose she is, but what about you?”

  “I’m thrilled, and so is Butch.”

  “That’s all that matters then, isn’t it?” Eva Lou asked. “I learned a long time ago that if you spend your whole life worrying about what other people think, you’re not going to get anywhere.”

  Just like Eleanor, Joanna thought. Worrying about other people’s opinions and not doing anything on her own.

  “How come I can’t have you for a mother?” she asked.

  Eva Lou looked at her and smiled. “Well, you do,” she said.

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  “I’m just another mother. Now when exactly is this baby due? You and Butch aren’t the only ones with plans to make. Jim Bob and I have some things we want to do, too.”

  That afternoon, Eva Lou’s down-home cooking hit the spot-meat loaf, mashed potatoes, fried okra, and freshly made biscuits, followed by fresh peach pie. As soon as dinner was over, Jenny retreated to the spare bedroom which was her special domain at the Brady household. As Butch, Eva Lou, and Jim Bob sipped their coffee, conversation turned to work.

  Before Andy’s death, Jim Bob Brady had always expressed more than a passing interest in whatever cases his son, the deputy sheriff, had been involved in. Now that same curiosity was focused on Joanna’s cases, and she was happy to oblige. She had found that sometimes, in the process of explaining a case to a law enforcement outsider, she was able to gain a new perspective on it herself.

  With regard to the Mossman/Ortega/Davis murders, Jim Bob homed in on the ammunition.

  “The casings all come with the same stamp?” he asked.

  Joanna nodded. “Initial for Springfield, Massachusetts, and ‘seventeen’ for 1917.

  So we know where it came from, and obviously it still works. The question is, where has it been all this time?”

  Jim Bob frowned. A faraway look came into his eyes. “I wonder,” he said.

  “Wonder what?”

  “You know what was going on around here in 1917, don’t you?”

  “World War One?” Joanna offered tentatively.

  Jim Bob shook his head. “No, that was over in Europe. Around here, the big news that year was the Bisbee Deportation.”

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  “I remember now,” Joanna said. “Something about union activists being run out of town on a rail.”

  “In boxcars, actually,” Jim Bob corrected. ‘A bunch of company-organized vigilantes rousted over a thousand men out of bed at gunpoint, marched them down to the Warren Ballpark, and then loaded them into boxcars that left the men standing for hours ankle-deep in manure. After some back-andforthing, they finally dropped them off in the desert near Columbus, New Mexico, before the U.S. Cavalry finally showed up to take charge of them. Some came back eventually, but others never did.”

  “You seem to know a lot about this,” Butch observed.

  “Sure thing,” Jim Bob said, nodding sagely. “When I went to work in the mines after the Korean War, the Deportation was still big news around here. Back then, considering whatever company you were keeping, if you came down on the wrong side of the Deportation, you were likely to get your ass kicked.”

  “Jim Bob,” Eva Lou admonished, “watch your language. Jenny might hear.”

  Joanna could picture Jenny lying on the floor, with her eyes closed and the earphones to her Walkman clapped to her ears.

  There’s a good chance the language on the CD is a lot worse than that, Joanna thought.

  Joanna had heard pieces of the story all her life. Butch, hearing about the Bisbee Deportation for the first time, listened with avid interest. “So if the vigilantes were company men …”

  “Deputized by Sheriff Wheeler,” Jim Bob interjected.

  “… who were the deportees?”

  “Where’s that book of mine?” Jim Bob asked. “Bisbee Seventeen, it’s called. That tells the whole thing.”

  “It’s out in the garage,” Eva Lou replied. “Along with all the 232

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  other books you boxed up because you were going to build a new bookshelf, remember?”

  Jim Bob grimaced. “Wobblies,” he said, in answer to Butch’s question. “The IWW. International Workers of the World. They called a strike in July of 1917. According to the company honchos, they were undermining the war effort. The real problem was, the IWW recruited minority members. Back then, Mexicans weren’t allowed to work underground, and they received less pay. Same goes for the European immigrants. They were allowed to work underground, but they were limited to lower-paying jobs. Now it sounds like the IWW

  had the right idea, but back then what they were proposing must have been pretty outrageous.”

  He stopped then and slammed his open palm on the table with enough force to make the cups and saucers rattle. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “I’m sure it is.”

  “What’s it?” Joanna asked.

  “The ammunition. The weapons. All of the vigilantes were armed with guns the company bought and paid for. In fact, a couple of people were actually shot and killed in the process of the roundup, but afterward everybody turned their weapons back in, and most of ‘em ended up stored in a safe up in the old General Office in Bisbee.”

  “The ammunition, too?” Joanna asked.

  “I think so,” Jim Bob replied.

  “So where’s that arms cache now? Is it still there?”

  “No. Somebody opened the safe and found them when Phelps Dodge was shutting down its Bisbee operation in the mid-seventies. They just divvied the stuff up among the people who worked there. Whoever wanted some, gathered up a gun or two and took them home.”

  Joanna’s mind was already blazing on ahead. She had spent 233

  part of the night thinking about what Diego Ortega had said about the bigamy-practicing group called The Brethren, the same group Edith Mossman had mentioned several days earlier with regard to her estranged son, Eddie. It was also the group Pam Davis and Carmen Ortega had been investigating. Was it possible Eddie Mossman had murdered his own daughter in order to keep her from telling her story, whatever it was, in front of a camera?

  Joanna put down her napkin. “Excuse me,” she said. “But I need to go make a phone call.” And she went outside on the Bradys’ front porch to do it.

  At three o’clock in the afternoon, tall columns of cumulus clouds were rising over the hill with its distinctively heart-shaped top that generations of Bisbee kids had called Geronimo. With any luck, there would be another late-afternoon thunderstorm today, and the summer rainy season would be well under way. But right that minute, Joanna’s mind wasn’t on the weather.

  She reached Frank Montoya at his newly purchased home in Old Bisbee. “What’s up, boss?” he asked when he heard Joanna’s voice.

  Briefly she summarized what she had learned from her trip to Lordsburg the day before as well as what she’d just discovered about the Bisbee Deportation from Jim Bob Brady.

  “What do you want me to do?” Frank asked.

  “We need to know whether or not Eddie Mossman had access to any of those weapons.

  If he worked in PD’s General Office, it’s possible he was given some of them.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Frank said dubiously.

  “Twenty-five years, at least,” Joanna agreed.

  “So finding out could be tough. The people who worked there are likely to be in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. It

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  doesn’t sound likely that some old coot in a nursing home would let himself out and then start plugging people with a weapon that’s older than he is.”

  “What about a son or a son-in-law?” Joanna suggested. “Or maybe even a grandson?”


  Frank thought about that. “Still,” he said, “I’d say the odds aren’t good.”

  “How many people would have been working there?” Joanna asked. “Thirty-five? Forty?

  Once we have the names, we’ll at least have a place to start, and it could be, when we start talking to them, one of them might be able to tell us something we need to know.”

  ‘All right,” Frank agreed finally. “I’ll contact PD headquarters in Phoenix first thing tomorrow morning to see if I can track any of this down, but don’t hold your breath.”

  “Do we know if the cops in Obregon had any luck contacting Mr. Mossman about his daughter’s death?”

  “I’ll check on that, too,” Frank said.

  “How did the interviews go in Tucson?” Joanna asked.

  All right, I guess,” Frank replied. At least we have some. Whether what we have will be enough to put the squeeze on the driver, I don’t know.”

  And the little boy’s mother?” Joanna asked.

  “We never had a chance to talk to her,” he said. “She had undergone surgery for a ruptured spleen and other internal injuries. The doctor says that it’s going to be touch-and-go for her for the next several days. She may not make it.”

  “With her baby dead, she may not want to make it,” Joanna observed.

  “That, too,” Frank agreed. “If that’s all, I’ll get on the horn 235

  and see who I should call in the morning when offices open up. It’ll be easier if I know where to start.”

  Jenny popped her head out the door. “Mom, can’t we go home soon?”

  “In a while,” Joanna replied. “But first I want to help Grandma Brady with the dishes.

  What’s the hurry?”

  Joanna made a face. “It’s boring here,” she said. “Besides, Cassie and I want to go riding.”

  At thirteen, Jenny was taller than her mother, although her fast-growing string-bean limbs had yet to fill out. It seemed only days ago when nothing had made Jenny happier than spending a long summer afternoon in the company of her paternal grandparents.

  Those days were gone.

  Joanna glanced at the sky, where the threatening clouds had grown even darker while she had been on the phone.