Skeleton Canyon Page 4

  Hacker had lived alone in the wilderness for so long that he was comfortable with the animal-punctuated silence that surrounded him. He had just settled into a sound sleep when something startled him awake. The unusual noise was gone before he was fully conscious, but he could tell from the total silence around him that the animals had heard it as well. They, too, were hushed and listening.

  Swinging down to the rag rug-covered linoleum floor, he opened the door and stepped out onto the wooden step. Under a star studded sky, the Peloncillos were dead silent. After a minute or two, a coyote finally howled in the distance. The coyote’s plaintive yelp seemed to settle Dennis Hacker’s jangled nerves. Closing and locking both the metal door and the wooden screen door, he climbed back into bed and soon was fast asleep once more.

  Long after Jenny’s bedroom light went out, Joanna lay sleepless in her own room. Over the months since Andy’s death, she had learned to sleep in the dead middle of the bed. It blurred the lines between his side and hers, making the bed seem smaller and not quite so lonely.

  For a change, Sheriff Brady wasn’t worried about something at work. For the past two weeks all of Cochise County had been amazingly quiet. Other than rounding up the usual quota of undocumented aliens there had been no murders, no ugly domestic violence cases, no fatal traffic accidents, and only a few drunk drivers. The lack of new incidents had allowed her two detectives, Ernie Carpenter and Jaime Carbajal, to go back over a few old and still-unsolved cases to see if there was anything new that could be brought to bear.

  For one thing, the county had recently installed an Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Usually the AFIS technician was so busy entering new prints into the system that there was no opportunity to do anything about cold cases. Already the extra effort was paying off. A perpetrator in a two-year-old Huachuca Mountains burglary case had been found in the Pima County jail in Tucson.

  So, instead of worrying about work, Joanna was anticipating the next two weeks with a certain amount of dread. Jenny would be away at Camp Whispering Pines all that time. Although Joanna was confident Jenny would be fine, she wasn’t so sure how she herself would fare. High Lonesome Ranch had seemed decidedly well-named in the months since Andy’s death. With both Jenny and Andy gone, Joanna wasn’t convinced she’d be able to handle it.

  Turning over on her side, trying to find a more comfortable position, Joanna forced herself to think about something else-about the solo shopping trip she had planned for herself in Tucson after she dropped Jenny off up on Mount Lemmon.

  It was summer, and the simmering heat required a change of wardrobe. She needed some lightweight work clothes, ones that would be reasonably cool, look professional, and also be built in a fashion that would accommodate the soft body armor she wore each day when she went to work. There were times when she looked at some of her female officers and felt almost envious of their uniforms. At least they didn’t have to go to their closets every morning and decide what to wear.

  Joanna wasn’t wild about shopping. She didn’t usually look forward to fighting her way in and out of malls jammed to the gills with mothers out shopping for early back-to-school bargains. Nonetheless, buying clothes was something that had to be done-a necessary evil. Then, when she came back from Tucson Saturday evening, she needed to see her mother.

  Lately, both Joanna and her mother, Eleanor Lathrop, had been so busy they had barely seen each other. Not only that, there had been an alarming drop in the number of Eleanor’s phone calls.

  Time to do your daughterly duty, Joanna told herself. Besides, if she showed up to see her mother wearing one of the new outfits she had purchased earlier in the afternoon, she was bound to get an instant evaluation. There was comfort in knowing that, Joanna decided as she drifted off to sleep. Eleanor Lathrop had never been one to soft-pedal her opinions. She would take one look at whatever her daughter was wearing and say exactly what she thought.

  Good, bad, or indifferent, at least I’ll know what she thinks.

  “I’m too hot,” Jenny grumbled to her mother in an irritating whine. “Can’t we stop and get something to drink?”

  Joanna Brady was hot, too. Twenty miles earlier, just outside Tombstone, the air-conditioner in her Eagle had finally given up the ghost. For weeks now, she had heard an ominous howl in the AC’s compressor, but she had hoped to nurse it along for a while longer-at least long enough to drive Jenny to camp. Naturally, it had quit working completely on the tip to Mount Lemmon and on what promised to be a record-breaking scorcher of a June day.

  Still, none of that was sufficient reason for Jenny to dispense with the niceties.

  “Is there a please hiding in there somewhere?” Joanna asked. “I didn’t hear one.”

  “Pretty please,” Jenny said.

  Joanna nodded. “All right then,” she agreed. “We’ll stop in Benson for lunch.”

  “At Burger King?”

  “I suppose.”

  As they drove down Benson’s almost-deserted main drag, the thermometer on the bank read 105 degrees. Joanna shook her head, letting the hot wind from the open window blow over her face. If it was already this hot in Benson, what would it be like when they dropped farther down into the valley?

  “Why couldn’t we bring the other car?” jenny had asked when the air-conditioning vents started blowing nothing but hot air.

  Jenny was referring to the county-owned Crown Victoria Sheriff Joanna Brady now drove for work. The Blazer she would have preferred to use as an official vehicle was out of commission after being too near an unexpected blast of dynamite. Since the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department was currently long on Crown Victorias and short on Blazers, Sheriff Joanna Brady was stuck with one of the former.

  “Taking you to camp at Mount Lemmon on my day off hardly qualifies as county business,” Joanna replied. “And since I’m trying to discourage unauthorized private use of official vehicles, that would be setting a pretty poor example.”

  “I know,” Jenny said glumly. “But at least the air conditioner works.”

  “I’m sure I can get this one fixed.”

  “Before you come back to bring me home?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Fifteen minutes later, armed with the remains of two large Cokes and in somewhat better spirits, Joanna and Jenny hooded north on 1-10. The seventy-mile-an-hour speed limit on the interstate chewed up miles so fast that there was still some Coke left by the time they turned off the freeway onto Houghton Road. Using that and Old Spanish Trail, Joanna was aide to make it to the Mount Lemmon Highway without ever having to endure central Tucson’s heavier traffic.

  Had Joanna been willing to get up at four A.M. and drive to Tucson, it would have been possible for Jenny to ride up to ramp on a chartered bus that had left for Camp Whispering Pines from Tucson ’s Park Mall at six o’clock that morning. However, knowing that weekend nights often resulted in late night calls, Joanna had opted instead to drive Jenny up to camp on her own. Joanna had used the too-early hour as a handy excuse. Although her rationale might have sounded reasonable enough to anyone else, Joanna herself knew that getting up at the crack of dawn was only part of her reluctance. The truth was that even today she was still having a hard time dealing with the idea of Jenny’s going off to camp on her own lift two whole weeks. After all, with Andy dead, Jennifer Ann Brady was all Joanna had left.

  As soon as the General Hitchcock Highway began climbing tip) out of the desert floor into the Catalina Mountains, the temperature began to fall. Halfway up the mountain, Jenny screeched with excitement when she spotted a multicolored Gila monster lumbering across the two-lane road. By the time they reached the turnoff to the camp, near Mount Lemmon ’s 9,100-foot summit, the breeze blowing in the windows felt pleasantly cool. Somewhere in the high eighties, Joanna estimated. But the improved comfort in the car did nothing to lessen her concern about saying good-bye to her daughter.

  “You’re sure you packed everything on the list?”

  Yes, Mom,”
Jenny said resignedly.

  “Everything? Even the insect repellent?”

  “Even that,” Jenny replied with a scowl. “It was on the list, too. I checked everything off as I put it in the bag. You sound just like Grandma Lathrop, you know,” she added.

  Unfortunately, Joanna realized at once that Jenny’s criticism was right on the money. Eleanor Matthews Lathrop was forever firing off barrages of blistering questions. To Joanna, who was usually on the receiving end, those questions always felt more like an attack than anything else. Now Joanna found herself wondering if her mother’s unending grilling hadn’t served to disguise what was really going on. Maybe Eleanor had been just as concerned about her daughter as Joanna was about hers. Maybe firing off all those questions had served as a substitute for the motherly concern Eleanor never seemed to know quite how to express.

  Hoping to do better than that, Joanna sighed. “I’m going to miss you, sweetie,” she said.

  Jenny nodded. “I’ll miss you, too,” she replied seriously, sounding altogether too grown-up for Joanna’s taste. “Will you be okay out on the ranch all alone?” Jenny continued.

  Once again, jenny’s innocent remark was so impossibly dead-on that it took Joanna’s breath away. She had to swallow the lump in her throat before she could answer. Joanna held herself back, refusing to blurt out the whole truth about her very real dread of being left alone.

  In her heart of hearts, she knew this separation of mother and daughter was a necessary step for both of them. It offered them an opportunity to move beyond the tragedy of Andy’s death and to find new ways of functioning in the world. That was something Eleanor Lathrop had resisted doing after the death of her husband, Joanna’s father. When D. H. Lathrop died, Eleanor had tried too hard to keep Joanna cocooned with her, creating a kind of hypertogetherness that had done nothing but drive Joanna away. It had been a motherly mistake and probably perfectly understandable under the circumstances, but it was an error in judgment that Eleanor’s daughter was trying desperately not to repeat.

  “I won’t be all alone,” Joanna corrected, hoping to keep her answer light and accompanying the comment with what she trusted was a convincing enough smile. “Not with two dogs, one horse, and ten head of cattle to take care of,” she added.

  “You know what I mean,” Jenny insisted with a frown.

  “Yes,” Joanna conceded. “I do know what you mean. I’ll be fine.”

  “You’ll write to me?”

  “Every day.”

  By then they had threaded their way up the narrow road In the parking lot at Camp Whispering Pines. They stopped next to the sign that said NO MOTOR VEHICLES ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT. Off to the left ahead of them, nestled at the end of a small clearing and backed by a grove of towering pines, sat a low-slung dining hall. Tucked here and there among the trees were large wood-floored canvas tents, each of them large enough to hold eight cots. The place was at once familiar and foreign. Joanna had stayed there herself years earlier. What seemed inconceivable now was that Jenny was already a “Junior” Girl Scout and old enough to stay there on her own.

  Joanna opened the trunk of the Eagle. By the time they had Jenny’s bedroll and duffel bag unloaded, a smiling, shorts-clad, and deeply tanned camp counselor came hurrying down the path in their direction. “Hi,” she said, smiling down at Jenny and holding out her hand. “I’m Lisa Christman. You must be Jenny Brady, and this must be your mother.”

  “How did you know?” Jenny asked, gravely shaking the proffered hand.

  Lisa laughed. “For one thing, you’re the only camper we were missing. For another, ten minutes ago we had a telephone call from someone looking for Sheriff Brady.”

  Joanna flushed with annoyance. She had deliberately left her pager at home, leaving word with Dispatch that this was to be a real day off. She had planned to spend the whole morning with Jenny. In the afternoon there was that much-needed wardrobe rehabilitation expedition. Both Joanna’s chief deputies, Dick Voland and Frank Montoya, had known where she’d be, but she had given strict instructions that, if at all possible, she was to be left off call.

  “There’s a phone in the camp director’s office,” Lisa offered helpfully. “You’re more than welcome to use that. In the meantime, I’ll help Jenny pack her gear up to the cabin. Did you already have lunch?” she asked, addressing Jenny.

  Struck suddenly both subdued and shy, Jenny nodded and backed away.

  Lisa, clearly an old hand at bridging troublesome parental farewells, forged ahead. “You’ll be in Badger,” she continued. “‘That’s just two cabins up the hill from the dining hall. There are some really great girls in there. If you can carry the bedroll, I’ll take the bag. That way, I can help you find your bunk and he there to introduce you when the other girls come back from lunch. Is that all right?”

  For a moment, Jennifer wavered, hovering between wanting lo go with Lisa and wanting to climb back into her mother’s wheezing Eagle. As directed, she reached down and picked up her bedroll, only to drop it again a moment later to throw her arms around Joanna’s waist.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she said tearfully. “I don’t want to stay. I’d rather go back home with you.”

  Had the decision been left to Joanna, she would have simply loaded the bedroll and bag back into the car. Lisa, however, remained unmoved and unperturbed. “Hurry up now, Jenny,” she insisted. “Tell your mother good-bye so she can go make her phone call. Then we’ll need to hurry, or you’ll miss this afternoon’s nature hike.”

  To Joanna’s amazement, that little bit of gentle prodding was all it took. With one more quick hug, Jenny let go of her mother, picked up her bedroll, and walked away without so much as a single backward glance. Joanna was the one who was left behind with a mist of tears covering her eyes. Grateful lot the dark sunglasses that covered half her face, Joanna glanced at Lisa. If the counselor saw anything amiss, she pre-tended not to notice.

  “You go ahead and make your phone call, Sheriff Brady,” she said to Joanna.

  “When I finish, I can come up… “ Joanna began lamely.

  Lisa shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s probably better if you just go after that. Jenny will be fine. You’ll see.”

  Sure I will, Joanna thought, looking after them. Just wait until you’re a mother. Then you’ll know how it feels.

  It was almost noon before Hector finally showed up at the station. He was sober by then, but he looked like hell.

  “Where’ve you been?” Nacio demanded. “Uncle Frank just called looking for you. I was supposed to leave hours ago.”

  “I got held up,” Hector said.

  “Right,” Nacio growled back at him. “You’re just lucky Uncle Frank keeps you on. If it was up to me, you’d be out of here. Now, get to work. Mrs. Howard is due back in half an hour. Her Buick needs an oil change, and I haven’t had a chance to get near it.”

  “What’s the matter with you this morning, Pepito?” Hector asked with that slow, lazy smile of his. “Did that little blond bruja of yours cut you off?”

  Nacio looked at him. He couldn’t afford to make any denials. Half sick, he realized that if Hector knew about Bree, most likely so did Uncle Frank and Aunt Yoli.

  “Shut up and get to work,” he said. “We’re too far behind this morning to stand around arguing.”

  Without another word, Hector headed for the Buick in the far bay and disappeared under the opened hood. An hour later, with things pretty much back under control, Nacio went in search of Ron Torres.

  “Hector’s here now. Uncle Frank should be in later on. Will you be all right until then?”

  Ron grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. “No problem,” he said, as a car pulled up to the full-service pumps. “We can handle it.”

  “Good, then,” Nacio said. “because I’m going.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  With a hard lump blocking her throat and almost cutting off her ability to breathe, Joanna watched Jenny walk away until she disappeared behind
the dining hall with Lisa following twenty or thirty paces behind. It took every bit of effort Joanna could muster to restrain herself from jogging after them. Finally, sighing, she plucked her purse out of the Eagle and went off in search of the camp director’s office. Joanna paused in the doorway of the dining hall.

  Years before, when Joanna had attended this same camp, she had eaten meals at long narrow tables in this very room. The wood-and-stone building that had once seemed wonderfully spacious and comfortable now appeared cramped and surprisingly shabby. It was packed full of noisy, disheveled girls downing an uninspired-looking lunch. They sat on benches at drearily functional Formica-topped cafeteria tables. Seen through adult eyes, the place reminded Joanna of a few prison dining rooms she had seen. Still, the high-spirited girls who were wolfing down sandwiches at those tables seemed absolutely delighted by both the food and their surroundings,

  “May I help you?” someone asked.

  “I’m looking for the camp director,” Joanna said.

  “‘That’s me. My name’s Andrea Petty.”

  The smiling speaker was a young, nut-brown, shorts-clad African-American woman with a scatter of freckles sprinkled across an upturned nose. She wore a headful of shiny, beaded braids. She didn’t look a day over sixteen.

  “What can I do for you?” Andrea continued.

  “My name’s Joanna Brady. Lisa met my daughter and me at the car and said there was a message for me. She also said that if I needed to, I could use the phone in your office.”

  Andrea gave Joanna an appraising once-over. “All the message said was for you to call your office, but you don’t look old enough to be a sheriff.”

  That makes us even, Joanna thought. You don’t look old enough to be a camp director, either. “Thanks,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Andrea smiled back. “The phone’s in here,” she said, leading the way into a small Spartan office that opened off the south end of the dining hall. “It’s behind the door. There’s not much privacy. If you need me to leave…”