by J. A. Jance
“In that case,” Joanna said, “would you like me to meet you there-at Denny and Stella’s house?”
“You bet,” Ernie Carpenter returned. “I thought you’d never ask.”
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By the time Joanna returned to the far end of Arizona Street, it was dark. Due to a Ponytail League softball game, the glowing ballpark lights cast that whole part of town in a strange half-twilight. Cars were parked everywhere, but all the drivers had observed the hand-stenciled No Parking signs that had been placed on both posts of the footbridge leading to Stella and Denny Adams’s front gate.
Other than the hazy glow of a TV set somewhere deep inside the house, there was no sign of life. The driveway was still empty, and Joanna saw no trace of Ernie Carpenter’s Econoline van. She opened the car windows, turned off the engine, and settled in to wait. Across the street, a cheer went up from the crowd, and over the top of the fence Joanna saw someone use a long stick to change one of the numbers on the green and white Scoreboard.
It seemed odd to be sitting there dealing with a possible triple 328
murderer while across the street carefree fans munched popcorn, sipped sodas, and cheered their respective teams. How could both things be happening in such close proximity at the same time? One was so normal and everyday, while the other was so …
Joanna glanced at the clock on the dash. The digital readout said 9:10. Ernie had called from the far side of Tombstone. Joanna had left the house immediately after the call, pausing only long enough to retrieve her weapons and her vest. Even so, Ernie and Denny should be close at hand by now. How many hours ago was it since Joanna had stopped by this house the first time? Then, she had been coming to warn Stella Adams that her father, Ed Mossman, might be dangerous-that he might pose a danger to his surviving children.
In the space of a few hours’ time, that whole situation had changed. Now Stella was the one who seemed to pose the danger and it was her son, Nathan, who would need protection-maybe not from his mother but from the awful truth of his own squalid heritage. Who would break that ugly news to him? Probably Denny Adams-the only father Nathan had ever known.
The radio crackled to life. “Sheriff Brady?”
Joanna picked up the mike and thumbed it. “I’m here, Tica,” she said. “What is it?”
“City of Bisbee has reported finding Ed Mossman’s Taurus.”
“Where?”
“Up at the far end of Tombstone Canyon, where the old road goes up over the Divide.”
‘Any sign of Mossman?” Joanna asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Tica replied. “The officer reported what looked like blood dripping from the trunk. They popped it and found the body of a white male, fifty to sixty years of age, shot in
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the chest at close range. Mossman’s driver’s license was in the guy’s wallet, so we’re assuming that’s who it is. Bisbee PD is wondering if we have anyone who could do a positive ID.”
Stella strikes again, Joanna thought. She started to say, “I suppose I could, but-“
But Tica continued. “They also found two trash bags filled with what appears to be women’s bloodstained clothing.”
“Most likely Pam Davis and Carmen Ortega’s,” Joanna breathed.
“That’s what City of Bisbee is assuming.”
“All right, then,” Joanna said. “I’m waiting for Ernie Carpenter, but as soon as-“
She broke off in mid sentence as a yellow Dodge Ram pickup with a matching yellow camper shell drove slowly past the place where Joanna was parked. The driver peered out at Joanna through a half-open window. If it hadn’t been for the ballpark lights across the street, Joanna never would have been able to make out enough details to recognize Stella Adams’s face.
When Joanna’s eyes met Stella’s, an electric charge of recognition passed between the two women. With a squeal of tires that left a layer of rubber on the pavement, the Dodge sped off, heading south out of town, past what had once been the bus barn and on up the hill. Joanna dropped the mike, turned on the engine, and pulled a U-turn that sent the rear end of the Crown Victoria skidding back and forth across the street.
Only when the in-grille lights were flashing and her siren blaring did Joanna retrieve the mike.
“I’ve spotted suspect Stella Adams,” Joanna reported into the phone. “She’s headed south toward Bisbee Junction in a yellow Dodge Ram pickup with a camper shell. I’m in pursuit, but I’m going to need backup from whoever can get here.”
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Tica said, “Just a minute.”
Driving and unconsciously holding her breath, Joanna felt as though far more than a minute had passed before Tica’s voice returned.
“City of Bisbee has two cars en route. Ernie Carpenter is just coming around the Traffic Circle. Do you have the suspect in view?” Tica asked.
“No, she went up and over the hill while I was turning around. I’m just topping the hill now. No, I still can’t see her. When I saw her last she must have been going close to …”
As the road jogged slightly to the right, Joanna drove into a cloud of dust. When she came out the far side, a pair of glowing headlights slanted up into the air through the dust off to the right of the road.
“Hang on, Tica. I think she rolled it. The pickup is off the road.”
‘Any sign of the driver?”
Joanna peered through the dust. It was clearing enough that she could make out the truck sitting upside down on a berm, its wheels still spinning furiously. Joanna manhandled the Civvie’s spotlight into position and aimed it at the wreckage. The front driver’s door had disappeared completely. The draped remains of a deflated air bag and a seat belt spilled out through the opening and dangled, still swaying, in midair. But there was no sign of life inside the battered cab. Stella had either been thrown free or clambered out once the truck came to rest.
Joanna swung the circle of light back and forth across the ground. She searched with such total concentration that it took her a moment to tune back in to Tica Romero’s voice.
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“Sheriff Brady!” Tica demanded urgently. ‘Are you there? Please respond.”
“I’m here, Tica. I’m okay.”
‘Any sign of the driver?”
“None. That’s what I’m looking for.”
Behind her a series of vehicles alive with lights and sirens came screeching over the crest of the hill and through the still-drifting haze of dust. Two uniformed City of Bisbee patrol officers trotted off and began putting lighted flares down the middle of the road. Seconds later Ernie Carpenter appeared at Joanna’s window.
‘Are you all right?”
Joanna nodded. “I’m fine, but Stella’s gone. She got away.”
Ernie looked back at the debris field. “She can’t be far,” he said. “It’s a helluva wreck. The driver’s door is gone completely. She might have been thrown clear at the same time the door flew off. I’m guessing that when we find the door, we’ll find her, too.”
A second man appeared behind Ernie. Tall and bony, he was in his late twenties and wore an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball cap along with a loose-fitting T-shirt. In the eerie glow of headlights and flashers, his face was deadly pale.
“Did you find her, Detective Carpenter?” he asked.
“Not yet, Dennis,” Ernie said kindly. “We’re looking for her.”
As soon as Joanna knew who the man was, she let go of the handle on the spotlight and stepped out of the Crown Victoria. “I’m Sheriff Brady, Mr. Adams,” she told him.
“I was the first person on the scene. And, as Detective Carpenter told you, so far there’s no sign of your wife.”
Denny nodded mutely. Joanna could see that he was trembling as if from the cold and struggling to hold back tears.
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“I can’t believe any of this … It’s all so … so…” His voice faded into a croak that was half sob, half hiccup. Suddenly he blinked and straightened his shoulders. When he spoke again, his
voice was surprisingly steady.
“Do you want me to try to talk to her?”
Joanna thought about that and then shook her head. “You’d better go back to the house and be with Nathan.”
“When you find her, will you let me know?” Dennis asked.
“Yes,” Joanna said. “Of course we will.”
Adams nodded. “All right then,” he said. With that, he turned and walked away.
Another emergency vehicle showed up, this one an ambulance dispatched by the Bisbee Fire Department. Across the desert, Joanna heard a shout. “Hey,” someone yelled.
“The door is over here.”
Without a word, Ernie Carpenter loped away in that direction. Joanna reached back into the Ciwie and collected the mike. “Tica,” she ordered, “call out the K-9 unit.
Everyone else thinks Stella Adams is lying around here dead someplace, but I’m thinking she did the same thing the Silver Creek driver did and walked away.”
Fortunately, Terry and Kristin Gregovich’s rented house was on Black Knob, the last street on. the southernmost part of town. The K-9 officer and Spike were at the scene in less than ten minutes.
“What’s up, Sheriff Brady?” Terry asked, after leaping out of an idling Blazer he had parked directly behind Joanna’s Crown Victoria.
Joanna pointed toward the wrecked pickup. “The driver’s missing,” Joanna said. “I want you to find her.”
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Terry nodded. “Will do,” he said.
Taking Spike, he walked down the embankment and over to the wrecked vehicle. Joanna was relieved to see that Spike was wearing his new custom-fitted Kevlar bulletproof vest. Joanna watched while Deputy Gregovich reached inside and removed something from the tangled interior. Hurrying behind him, Joanna was astonished to see Terry was holding a single tennis shoe up to the dog’s nostrils.
“Where did that come from?” Joanna asked.
“It was wedged up under the dash. And that’s the good news,” Terry said. “If she took off with either one or both shoes missing, she’s not going to be that hard to track down.” Then, keeping a tight hold on Spike’s leash, he gave the order. “Find it!”
For the next few minutes the dog, with his nose to the ground, went round and round in ever-widening circles. Ernie Carpenter reappeared at Joanna’s side.
“Still no luck,” he said. “We’re looking on the ground, but if she was airborne, it’s possible she could have been tossed up into one of these clumps of mesquite.”
Suddenly Spike stopped circling. He stood stock-still, ears up, tail straight out behind him, sniffing the air. Then he dashed off to the west, with Terry Gregovich galloping along behind him.
“They need backup,” Joanna said.
Ernie nodded and headed for Terry’s Blazer. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll drive.”
Joanna was barely in the passenger seat when Ernie flung the SUV into gear and they bounced away. Fifty feet from the wreck, Terry Gregovich and Spike paused briefly at a barbed-wire fence posted with an official-looking No Trespassing sign. They delayed
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for only a moment before Spike crouched and slid under it while Terry clambered up and over the top. Spike and Terry were well beyond the fence when Ernie stopped in front of it.
“What’s the word, boss?” he asked. “Do you want to go look for a gate?”
“Are you kidding? Go through the damned thing!” she ordered. “We can always fix the fence later.”
Ernie backed up a few feet. After putting the Blazer in four-wheel drive, he roared forward. For a time the wire seemed to stretch, then it broke, sending fence posts and coils of wire spiraling into the air as the Blazer rushed through.
“Cut the lights,” Joanna ordered when they once again had Terry and the dog in view.
“Now that we’re away from the ballpark, there’s enough moonlight tonight that, once our eyes get accustomed to it, we should be able to see just fine. If we keep our lights on, we’re liable to blind them.”
And let Stella know they’re coming, she thought.
Without a word, Ernie cut the lights. It took only a moment before their eyes adjusted to the dark. Soon, though, the silvery light cast by a wedge of moon was enough to allow them to make out the movements of both the officer and his dog as they traversed a ghostly landscape.
Off to the left lay what looked like a pale layer of white earth. That was a long-abandoned tailings dam-waste left over from the copper-milling process-that covered acres of desert with a relatively flat layer of debris. To the right was the mound of steep hills that formed a backdrop to the neighborhood of Warren. The tops of the hills, tipped with silver, gleamed against the sky with the reflected glow from the ballpark lights where the softball game was still in full swing.
And straight ahead of them, at the base of those hills, 335
crouching in shadow, lay broken hulks of buildings that had once, long ago, been a state-of-the-art ore crusher. Joanna remembered that she and her father had once spent hours exploring the ruin. The machinery and equipment that had been used to grind copper ore to dust had disappeared right along with the men who had once operated it. But Joanna knew that the concrete shells of those long empty buildings would offer shelter for a fleeing Stella Adams-shelter and cover.
“She has to be headed for the old crusher,” Joanna said.
Concentrating on driving, Ernie could only nod in agreement. Joanna reached for the radio mike and barked into it.
“We think Stella Adams is headed for the old crusher on the southwest side of Warren,”
she told Tica. “We need backup officers to come from the west side of town, out past the Juvenile Detention Center, to rendezvous there. The K-9 unit is on the suspect’s trail. Detective Carpenter and I are to the east of the old crusher. I don’t want anybody caught in a cross fire. No weapons are to be fired under any circumstances until we positively locate the suspect and our guys are in the clear. Got that?”
“Got it,” Tica Romero repeated.
“The suspect may be injured, and we believe she may have lost one or more shoes.
But she’s still to be considered armed and dangerous.”
Something cold and wet trickled down Joanna’s neck and into the cleavage of her bra.
The afternoon rainstorm had left the desert surprisingly cool, but the sweat dribbling under Joanna’s clothing had nothing to do with heat and everything to do with fear.
Another fence appeared out of nowhere. Stella Adams wasn’t following a road; neither were Deputy Gregovich and
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Spike. Again, there was no time to go looking for a gate. Once again, Ernie backed off a few feet before gunning the Blazer forward. Around them breaking wires sprang apart with a screeching twang.
“Sounds like God just broke his guitar string,” Joanna said to Ernie. A moment later, although it wasn’t that funny, they were both laughing-laughing and driving and sitting in their own rank, fear-spawned sweat.
That’s when they heard the shot. The single roar of gunfire crackled through the air and echoed off the surrounding hillsides and buildings. Ahead of them, Joanna saw both Terry and Spike dive for cover. At least she hoped they were diving for cover. Hoped that they had fallen of their own volition rather than because Stella Adam’s single, well-aimed shot had found its mark. A moment later Joanna and Ernie, too, were on the ground, scrambling forward.
It probably took them less than a minute to reach the low rise where Terry Gregovich and his dog huddled behind a thick mound of creosote. “Looks like we found her,”
Terry muttered.
“Are you both all right?” Joanna demanded.
“Yes. We’re fine, but this woman is a damned good shot. Watch yourselves.”
“We didn’t see where it came from.” Ernie Carpenter was out of shape and out of breath.
“Did you?”
Terry pointed. “Over there,” he said. “Behind the wall of that first building. What the hell is t
his place?”
Remembering that the manufacturer called her Kevlar vest “bullet-resistant” rather than “bulletproof,” Joanna managed to utter a one-word answer: “Crusher.” Then she pulled herself
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together. “Okay, guys,” she added. “Spread out. We’ll be better off behind the wall than we are out here in the open. We move forward at the same speed. No one gets too far ahead, and no one drops behind.”
“By the way,” Terry said, “she’s bleeding pretty good.” Joanna looked at the ground in front of her and saw the faint reflection of moonlight off droplets of moisture leading them forward. And Deputy Gregovich was right. It was more than mere droplets.
Weapons drawn, the three officers and the accompanying German shepherd inched forward, crawling on their bellies. They reached the relative shelter of the wall with no additional shots being fired.
“Stella,” Joanna called. “We know you’re in there. We also know you’re hurt. Give yourself up. Throw out your weapon. Let us help you.”
“I don’t want help,” Stella called back.
“Good work, boss,” Ernie muttered. “You’ve made contact and got her talking.”
“Think of your son,” Joanna said. “Think of Nathan. He loves you and needs you.”
“He doesn’t. I’ve wrecked his life. It’s spoiled. Everything I tried to do is gone.
And it’s all Carol’s fault. And Andrea’s. How could they do that-to me and to Nathan?
Why couldn’t they leave well enough alone? And why did Carol have to decide to go and open her big mouth?”
Stella’s voice came from only a few feet away, from the other side of the roofless wall. Joanna thanked God for the thick concrete that separated them.
“Maybe she was tired of keeping secrets, Stella,” Joanna said.
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“Secrets like that get to be too heavy over the years. They drag you down.”
“I was doing fine. So was Nathan, but now …”
“Pam Davis and Carmen Ortega thought you were Carol, didn’t they?” Joanna called softly. “They came to Carol’s place for their appointment that morning, but Carol was already dead, wasn’t she? You pretended to be her.”