Skeleton Canyon Read online

  “It’s just curiosity more than anything,” Joanna assured her quickly. “Obviously, your husband has made a good deal of money over the years…”

  “He was in real estate,” Katherine returned. “Real estate and construction both. He was a major player in the development of Paradise Valley up in Phoenix. Over the years, he diversified enough so that when it was time to sell out and come down here, he was able to make a good deal of money-funds that are still coming in, by the way. If you’re asking me whether or not my husband hangs out with lowlifes who would do this kind of thing-a kidnapping, I mean-I’ll tell you right here and now that he doesn’t. David O’Brien may be a little overbearing at times, even unreasonable occasionally. But my husband is a highly principled man. If you don’t believe me, there are any number of people you could ask. Wally, for instance.”

  “Wally?”

  “Wally Hickman,” Katherine O’Brien said. “Years ago, before Wally went into politics, he and my husband were business partners.”

  Joanna took a deep breath. “You mean Governor Hickman,” she asked.

  Katherine O’Brien nodded. “You know him., don’t you?”

  “Not personally.”

  “Well, I do, and so does David. Wally and his wife, Abby, are good friends of ours.”

  Sheriff Joanna Brady suddenly had visions of this tragic but seemingly obscure little incident in the Peloncillos taking on statewide proportions. I’ll have to get hold of Frank Montoya and bring him up to speed, she told herself in a mental note. Montoya, her chief deputy for administration, also doubled as her department’s public information officer. Not if but when the case turned into yet another media hot potato, Frank would be the one who had to handle it.

  Joanna decided to back away from the kidnapping line of inquiry. “You said a moment ago that your husband can be unreasonable at times. If you’ll pardon my saying so, I did happen to notice some evidence of that yesterday when Detective Carpenter and I were at the house talking to you.”

  “So?” Katherine asked defensively. “There are lots of unreasonable people in the world. If you think of all that’s happened to David over the years, I believe he has more grounds than most for being difficult.”

  “He made that quite clear himself,” Joanna said. “But considering his attitude toward Hispanics, what do you think he would have done had he known his daughter was secretly involved with someone like Ignacio Ybarra?”

  “What any right-thinking parent of a rebellious teenager would have done, Sheriff Brady. He would have grounded her for the rest of her life.”

  Before Joanna could think of another question, George Winfield appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. O’Brien?” he said. “You can come in now.”

  Taking Katherine by the arm, he led the two women into a spotless lab. “I must apologize for having to show you your daughter in her current condition, but…”

  Katherine swallowed hard. “That’s all right,” she said. “I understand.”

  Having been away from the awful smell of decaying flesh long enough to clear her nostrils and lungs, Joanna once again had to fight to keep from gagging. The basket was gone. The hotly bag lay on a gurney. The bag was unzipped only far enough to allow an unobstructed view of the terribly mangled face.

  Katherine walked forward far enough to glimpse it, then she stopped. Sagging against Doc Winfield, she nodded. “It’s her,” she whispered.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I recognize the birthmark on her neck.”

  “Very well.” Winfield went to the head of the table and covered the bag with a clean white sheet. “Wait,” Katherine said. “What about her jewelry? Along with the truck, her fa-Ihn’r gave her a diamond ring for her eighteenth birthday. I’m mire he’ll want to have that back, and her class ring as well.”

  Winfield pulled out a form and consulted it. “I’ve inventoried both of those items on the personal effects form,” he said. “Along with her purse, wallet, watch, and the earring as well, hill for the time being, I’ll have to hold on to all of them. The watch we’ll most likely have to keep indefinitely.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “It might prove helpful in setting the time of death. Everything else you’ll get back, of course, once the investigation is complete, but-”

  “What kind of earring?” Katherine interrupted.

  “It’s a single pearl,” Winfield answered. “Looks to be of pretty good quality. The other one must have fallen off somewhere. The only reason this one wasn’t lost as well was that the post was smashed flat.”

  “I don’t want it,” Katherine said at once. “The earring or the watch. Just give me the two rings. Those are all I care about.”

  “But, Mrs. O’Brien-”

  “The watch is a cheap Timex. It’s of no consequence whatever. The earring is different. Brianna had her ears pierced just a few weeks before school was out,” Katherine said. “It caused a good deal of heartache in our home because her father disapproves of pierced ears. On anyone, but most especially on his daughter. He forbade her to wear the earrings in the house. In fact, he gave her strict orders to get rid of them. It would hurt him terribly to learn that she had disobeyed him. His heart will be broken as it is.”

  “You don’t understand, Mrs. O’Brien,” Winfield interjected. “once personal effects are no longer required for evidentiary reasons, I’m required to turn them over to victims’ families. If I were to keep any items that had appeared on inventory sheets, I would be in clear violation. If it was reported, I’d be out of a job.”

  “Very well,” Katherine said. “If that’s the case, when the time comes, I’ll make sure I’m the one who collects Bree’s things. That way I can take care of it myself. You won’t have to have anything at all to do with it.” She backed toward the door. “Is that all? Can I go now?”

  “Yes,” George said. ‘‘Thank you so much for your help. Please accept my condolences and extend them to your husband as well.”

  Katherine nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “I will.”

  Joanna followed Katherine from the lab as far as the outside door. “Mrs. O’Brien?”

  “Yes.” Katherine O’Brien stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “You’ll have to forgive me, Sheriff Brady,” she said. “I can’t answer any more questions, not right now. Since it’s confirmed, I must go home and tell my husband.”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “I understand. Later on this evening, when Detective Carpenter gets back to town, he and I may need to come back out to the house to see you and Mr. O’Brien.”

  “‘That’ll be fine,” Katherine said. “We’ll be home.”

  She left then. Joanna turned back to the lab. Inside, the discarded bag lay on the floor and George Winfield was in the process of draping a sheet over the naked body. He looked up at Joanna. “Is there something else?” he asked.

  “What do you think about her?” Joanna asked, nodding toward the door.

  “You mean about Katherine O’Brien?”

  Joanna nodded. “She may have been a nurse once, but how could she be so cool, so calculating?”

  “Shock affects different people different ways,” George replied. “Some people collapse in hysterics. For others, it’s just the opposite.”

  “Oh,” Joanna said. Instead of leaving, though, she stood there lost in thought, considering the many mystifying faces of Katherine O’Brien. Was her surprising reaction to her daughter’s death shock, as George suggested, or was it something else entirely?

  “Is that all?” George asked at last as if impatient to be rid of Joanna so he could go on with his work.

  The question startled Joanna out of her contemplation and back into the present. “When you do the autopsy, be sure you check to see whether or not Brianna was raped.”

  Winfield nodded. “That’s all part of the autopsy protocol-looking for semen, hairs, and other evidence of rape.” The coroner paused. “You think she might have been?” he asked. “Of course, given the fact she w
as naked, it’s certainly possible.”

  Joanna nodded.

  “And if she was,” George added wearily, “I suppose her father won’t want to know about that any more than he would about the earring.”

  “You’re right,” Joanna said, closing the door behind her and leaving George Winfield to deal with his grisly tasks. “I don’t suppose he would.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Joanna left the coroner’s office at five. The rain had finally let up by then, but when she got to High Lonesome Ranch, the creek beds were still running too deep for her to risk crossing them even with four-wheel drive. Instead, famished now and feeling filthy as well, she headed back to town.

  She considered going to her mother’s place but quickly decided against it. She wasn’t yet ready to walk into Eleanor Lathrop’s house and encounter George Winfield’s shaving kit on the bathroom counter. And she wasn’t ready to discuss it, either. Instead, she drove to her in-laws’ duplex on Oliver Circle, where she could be relatively sure of her welcome.

  Stopping the Eagle in front of the Bradys’ walkway, she stepped out into the cool, rain-freshened air and realized that the smell of deteriorating flesh was still with her-still clinging to her hair and clothing and to the car’s upholstery as well. Hoping time and open windows would help, she rolled them all down before going inside. When Sadie had gotten into a skunk once, Andy had used one of his mother’s time-honored remedies-he had washed the dog in tomato juice. Maybe Eva Lou will have to do the same thing to me, Joanna thought grimly, climbing the steps.

  If Joanna’s mother-in-law noticed the odor, it wasn’t apparent in Eva Lou’s greeting when she opened the door. “Why, Joanna,” she said, her face beaming in welcome. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Hoping to bum a meal, a shower, and use of your washer,” Joanna said sheepishly. “I’ve spent all day at a crime scene. I’m a mess and need a shower in the worst way. I tried to go home to clean up, but the washes out at the ranch are still running. So I came here to throw myself on your mercy.”

  “Why, of course,” Eva Lou agreed. “You come on inside and make yourself at home. I saved you some leftovers, and it won’t take any time at all to run those clothes of yours through the wash. You can wear my robe in the meantime.”

  By the time Joanna was out of the shower, the washer was running full steam and a plate of microwaved chicken dinner was waiting for her on the kitchen table. Beside it sat a platter stacked with mouthwatering slices of ruby-red tomatoes fresh from Jim Bob’s garden.

  “The gravy came out a little too thick today for some reason,” Eva Lou apologized, hovering as Joanna took her first bite of mashed potatoes.

  “The gravy,” Joanna declared, savoring that first mouthful, “is absolutely scrumptious.”

  Jim Bob poured himself a cup of decaf and wandered over to the table. “Did I hear you say you’ve spent all day on a crime scene?”

  When Andy had signed on as a Cochise County deputy sheriff, his father had taken on the unofficial role of the department’s Monday morning quarterback. Retired from his job as a foreman in Bisbee’s copper mines, Jim Bob Brady had enjoyed backstopping his son’s handling of various cases, analyzing what had worked and what had gone wrong, making suggestions that were based on common sense rather than proper police procedures. Now that his widowed daughter-in-law had assumed the job of sheriff, Jim Bob was at it again.

  Had Joanna’s mother been the one asking those kinds of probing questions, Joanna most likely would have felt Eleanor was prying. With Jim Bob, though, it was… well, different.

  “A possible crime scene,” Joanna corrected. “In Skeleton Canyon. At this point it could still go either way-as an accident or as a homicide.”

  “Anybody we know?” Jim Bob asked.

  Katherine O’Brien had already positively identified her daughter’s body. There was no need to withhold information pending notification of next of kin. “You may know her,” Joanna answered. “The victim’s name is Brianna O’Brien.”

  Eva Lou paled visibly upon hearing the name. “Not that nice girl who was valedictorian of the senior class!” she exclaimed.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “What happened?” Jim Bob asked.

  “Brianna was evidently out in the Peloncillos east of Douglas four-wheeling it. Sometime over the weekend, she went off a chit. It turns out my friend Angie Kellogg was out there, too, hiking and bird-watching with a friend of hers. The friend is the one who actually discovered the body. In the process of notifying us, though, Angie herself got lost. When Doc Winfield and I left the mountains to bring the body back to town, Search and Rescue was still looking for Angie.”

  “You mean to tell me that poor girl was out there all by herself, walking around in that awful storm’?” Jim Bob asked. “I have two-point-six inches showing in my rain gauge right here in the yard. No telling what it was like in the mountains. Some places around are reporting more than that-up to three inches in Sierra Vista. And it said on the news a little while ago that Tucson is a mess, too, with flooded streets and power outages all over town.”

  Jim Bob’s unwelcome weather report went straight to the heart of Joanna’s own guilt where Angie was concerned. And Jenny, too, for that matter, staying up on Mount Lemmon in Camp Whispering Pines’ canvas-topped cabins. Joanna pushed her chair back and started for the phone. “I should probably call the department and check in. Hopefully they’ve found Angie by now. I’ve been driving the Eagle all day, so I’ve been without a radio.”

  “You stay right where you are,” Eva Lou ordered. “You can call after you finish eating.”

  Obeying Eva Lou’s edict, Joanna settled back onto her chair, but from then on, with Angie foremost in her mind, even Eva Lou’s crisp chicken and Jim Bob’s juicy hand-grown tomatoes had a cardboard taste to them. Whatever had happened to Angie, it was all Joanna’s fault.

  While his daughter-in-law ate, Jim Bob sat quietly nearby thoughtfully sipping his coffee.

  When the food was gone and with her now-clean clothes transferred to the dryer, Joanna helped herself to the Brady’s kitchen wall phone. “What’s the latest?” she asked after identifying herself to the duty clerk.

  “Things are hopping. We’ve got fender benders and road washouts as well as spotty phone and power outages all over the county.”

  “I’m sure. Who’s working Dispatch?”

  “Kendall Evans and Larry Kendrick are both on tonight. Want me to put you through to them?”

  “This is Sheriff Brady,” Joanna said to Kendall a moment later. “I’ve been out of radio contact most of the day. What’s going on?”

  “Where are you?” Kendall asked. “Ernie Carpenter has called in several times looking for you.”

  “I’m at my in-laws’ place here in Warren bumming a meal. I’m sure you have the number displayed on your screen. Where’s Ernie?”

  “He and Detective Carbajal got stuck on the wrong side of a dip east of Douglas. They had to wait until the water went down. They’re in Douglas now, talking to someone. Will you be at the same place for a little while?”

  “It looks that way,” Joanna answered. “I’m having my own version of the same problem. I can’t go home until the creek goes down. I’ll probably be here for another hour at least. When you catch up with Ernie, remind him that his radio currently has big ears. He shouldn’t say anything about the Peloncillo situation that he doesn’t want broadcast nation-wide.”

  “Right,” Kendall said.

  “Next, what’s happening with Search and Rescue?”

  “‘They all went home. They may not be there yet, but they’re on their way.”

  “What did they do?” Joanna asked. “Call off the search on account of weather?”

  “You mean the search for Angie Kellogg? Oh, no. She’s fine.”

  “They found her, then?”

  “Search and Rescue didn’t find her but somebody else did. Here it is. Marianne Maculyea, the report says.”r />
  Joanna breathed a sigh of relief as Kendall Evans continued. “She was found walking along Highway 80. Reverend Maculyea loaded her in the car and hightailed it back to Douglas hoping to beat the worst of the storm. She called from the first available phone booth to let us know Ms. Kellogg was safe.”

  “That’s great,” Joanna breathed.

  “The problem is, Sheriff Brady,” Kendall continued, “we’re real busy right now. There are two other calls coming in. I’ve got to go.”

  “Sure. I’ll be here if you need me.”

  Emptying the dregs of his coffee into the sink, Jim Bob announced he was going into the living room to watch America’s Funniest Home Videos. Even though the dishes were done and put away, Eva Lou, looking troubled, seemed reluctant to leave the kitchen.

  “So young,” she said sadly after her husband disappeared into the living room. “So terribly young. Brianna O’Brien was a smart girl who should have had a whole wonderful future ahead of her. Here she is gone.” When Eva Lou paused, Joanna could see the older woman was struggling to control herself.

  “Not only that,” she added, “I know exactly what her parents are going through right now. I’ll never forget how it was when that first call came in about Andy. I just couldn’t believe it. Hearing about that poor girl and her family brings it all back to me as clearly as if it happened yesterday.”

  Joanna nodded. It was the same for her. Each time she witnessed some new family descending into the hellish pit of losing a loved one, she, too, was sucked along, back into the awful abyss of Andy’s death. Other people’s pain mingled with her own, and neither seemed to lessen that much with time. Joanna didn’t bother explaining any of that to her mother-in-law. She didn’t have to. Eva Lou Brady was dealing with exactly the same thing.

  “Do you know the O’Briens?” Joanna asked, more to make conversation than anything else.