Skeleton Canyon (34 page)

“Look,” he was saying, “I don’t care who you are. You can’t just barge in here—”

“Dick,” Joanna interrupted, “it’s all right. Let her be. Come in, Angie. What’s wrong?”

Angie darted away from Dick Voland and came dripping across the carpet to Joanna’s desk. “It’s Dennis,” she gasped. “Something terrible has happened to him.”

“Dennis?” Joanna asked. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Not for sure. I was talking to him on the phone when someone broke into his trailer. It sounded like whoever it was had a gun. I tried calling back, but there was no answer.”

Dick Voland let go of Angie’s arm and backed off a little. “Dennis who?
^”
he asked.

“Dennis Hacker,” Joanna told him. “The parrot guy.” She turned back to Angie. “Tell us what’s going on. Where did this happen, and when?”

“Out in the mountains. Right around five.”

Joanna shook her head. “There are lots of mountains around here, Angie. Which ones? The Huachucas? The Chiricahuas?”

Angie shook her head. “I don’t remember exactly. It’s someplace around where the body was, I think.”

“In the Peloncillos?”

Angie’s face brightened. “Yes,” she said. “That’s it.”

Joanna knew that the Peloncillos wandered back and forth across the Arizona/New Mexico line from the far southeastern corner of the state all the way north to Graham County. “Do you know where in the Peloncillos?” she asked, hoping to narrow the scope of the problem.

“Not exactly,” Angie said. “I can show you, but I can’t tell you how to get there. It was near a cemetery, though—a cemetery with a wall around it.”

“That would have to be Cottonwood Creek Cemetery,” Dick Voland supplied. “That’s the only one I know of in the area that fits that description. Sheriff Brady’s busy right now. Why don’t you come out to the desk sergeant and give your information to him?”

The bedraggled young woman shot the chief deputy a baleful look. With the notable exception of Joanna Brady, Angie Kellogg had no use for cops. She seldom came near the Cochise County Justice Center because it brought back too many painful memories. In Angie’s past life, working the streets of L.A., there had been lots of crooked cops who, in exchange for certain services rendered, had been willing to forget making an arrest. Joanna knew nothing short of sheer desperation would have driven Angie this far into enemy territory.

“Dick,” Joanna said, “is Deputy Carbajal back from Ben-son yet?”

“I believe so. He drove into the sally port a few minutes ago. He’s probably over in the booking room right now.”

“Call the jail,” Joanna ordered. “Tell him that you and I and Miss Kellogg here are heading for the Peloncillos. He should follow ASAP. I’ll take Angie with me in the patrol car. You can follow in your Blazer. That way, if we need to do any offroading, we’ll have the Blazer to do it in.”

“Wait a minute,” Voland objected. “If what she says is true and we’re dealing with some kind of hostage situation, you can’t possibly bring a civilian along. That’s crazy.”

“You heard what Angie said,” Joanna returned. “She can show us how to get there. She can’t tell us. If we have to go driving around looking for the right spot, no telling how much time we’ll lose. In a situation like this, minutes mean the difference between life and death.”

“But—”

“No buts!” Joanna snapped, cutting him off. “I’ve got an extra Kevlar vest for her—one I keep in the trunk. If Dennis Hacker is in the kind of trouble Angie says he’s in, that’s the best we can do. Let’s get going.”

Voland shook his head, but he said nothing more. Outside the building rain poured down in the kind of downpour Jim Bob Brady would have called “raining pitchforks and hammer handles.” It was only a matter of a few feet from Joanna’s private entrance across the open sidewalk to her covered parking place. Even so, by the time she reached the Crown Victoria, she was drenched. Angie Kellogg, wet to begin with, was even more so. Joanna went around to the trunk, dragged out the Kevlar vest, and gave it to Angie.

“Put it on,” Joanna ordered.

“Do I have to?” Angie asked.

“Yes, you do. It’s the only way you’re going along.” Without another word, Angie began strapping the vest into place while Joanna slipped the gearshift into reverse and switched on both lights and siren. “What happened?” she asked as the car shot through the parking lot.

“What do you mean?” Angie returned. “I already told you what happened.”

“Not all of it,” Joanna said. “The last I heard, you were so mad at Dennis Hacker that you were ready to walk home eighty miles in a storm every bit as bad as this one.”

“I guess I was wrong about him,” Angie admitted thoughtfully.

“Wrong?” Joanna echoed. “I thought you said he was making fun of you, laughing at you.”

The rain was falling hard enough that even with the wind-shield wipers working on high Joanna could barely see the road ahead. She found herself sitting forward and squinting, but that didn’t help.

“He did laugh,” Angie replied. “I think now he was really laughing at something else, not me.” She glanced at the speedometer. “You have the siren on. Can’t we go any faster?”

“Not with all the water on the roadway,” Joanna said. “We’ll end up hydroplaning.”

“What’s that?”

“It means you’re driving on the surface of the water instead of on the pavement. That’s how people lose control of their vehicles in rainstorms. No traction.”

“Oh,” Angie Kellogg said.

They were quiet for a minute or two until Joanna spoke again. “You’re sure whoever broke into the camper had a gun
^?
”

“I’m not sure,” Angie said. “It sounded like it. I heard somebody tell Dennis to put his hands up.”

“Were there any guns in the trailer to begin with?” Joanna asked. “Did Dennis Hacker have any weapons of his own?”

“If he did,” Angie answered. “I didn’t see them.”

Struck by the hopelessness of it all, Angie Kellogg’s toughness and strength seemed to give out all at once. Pressing herself into the far corner of the car, she began to cry.

Joanna Brady ached to comfort her friend, but all she could do right then was keep on driving.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

When the speeding Crown Victoria finally reached the eastern outskirts of Douglas on Highway 80, Angie looked around at the sodden desert landscape and shook her head. “This isn’t the way we went Sunday morning,” she said. “It’s how Marianne brought me back that afternoon, not the way Dennis took going.”

Joanna immediately heeled the Crown Victoria into a sharp U-turn and headed back to the nearest intersection where she could cross over to Geronimo Trail, the only other route that led from Douglas to the Peloncillos. As they drove past Dick Voland’s Blazer, Joanna caught a glimpse of the pained expression on her chief deputy’s face. He was shaking his head in disgust. It made her glad they weren’t in the same vehicle. She didn’t want to hear his “I told you so.”

Even though the storm seemed to be over and there was water standing along the road, the dips across Geronimo Trail were just beginning to run with trickles of water. Joanna knew full well that just because the rain had stopped didn’t mean the danger of flash floods was past. It would take time for the runoff to drain out of the desert’s higher elevations and into the lower washes. Once that happened, they could quickly become impassible.

Holding her breath each time, Joanna rushed through one dip after another with the wary expectation that at any time a solid wall of water could come crashing out of nowhere and sweep them away. Dick Voland’s four-wheel-drive Blazer would be far less susceptible than Joanna’s Crown Victoria. Still, the bottom line was clear. If the water did come up suddenly, no one else would be able to make it through until after the flooding receded. That meant that if Dick and Joanna found themselves in some kind of difficult situation, calling for reinforcements wouldn’t be an option. Sheriff Brady and her chief deputy would be on their own. Which also meant, Joanna realized, that there was a real possibility she was placing Angie Kellogg in grave danger.

“Sheriff Brady?” The radio squawked to life with the voice of the head dispatcher.

“What is it, Larry?” Joanna returned.

“Ernie Carpenter just called in from Willcox. He says to tell you he’s got some good news and some bad news.”

“Give me the good news first.”

“They found Alf Hastings’s Jeep Cherokee parked behind Aaron Meadows’s place just east of Willcox.”

“Great. What’s the bad news, then?”

“Nobody’s home. Aaron Meadows’s Suburban is among the missing, and so are both Meadows and Hastings.”

“Can you patch me through to Detective Carpenter?” Joanna asked.

“Sure thing. Hang on.”

Joanna came to the next dip, the place where Cottonwood Creek crossed Geronimo Trail. Here a foaming river of rushing water crossed the road. Realizing the depth might be dangerously deceptive, Joanna stopped at the crest of the dip and put her Ford in reverse, then pulled off onto the shoulder.

Ernie’s voice came through the radio. “What are you doing, Sheriff Brady?”

“Changing cars, it turns out,” Joanna told him. “The water’s too deep for the patrol car. From here on, we’ll have to ride with Dick Voland.”

“But where are you?”

“On our way to the Peloncillos. There’s some problem with Dennis Hacker.”

“The parrot guy?”

“One and the same,” Joanna answered. “What are you doing?”

“Same old same old,” Carpenter replied. “What we’ve done all afternoon—hurry up and wait. Adam York has a guy flying down from Tucson with a search warrant. In the meantime, there’s nothing much to do but hang around here and see what happens. If you need backup, we could probably spare ...”

“Don’t even bother,” Joanna said. “The way the water’s running out here, we’ll be lucky to get through in the Blazer. Just be sure you keep me posted on whatever’s going on up there.”

“Will do,” Carpenter replied.

“So does this mean Hastings and Meadows are in it together?” she asked.

“Beats me,” the detective returned. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Great,” Joanna said.

By the time Joanna put the radio back away, Dick Voland was standing outside her window. With his feet planted wide apart and with his arms folded across his chest, he gazed into the turbulent water and shook his head. Joanna climbed out of the Crown Victoria.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“If we had a lick of sense, we’d give up this wild-goose chase right here and now.”

“It’s not that much farther,” Joanna told him.

“It is if we get washed down-river.” Voland snorted.

“Put it in four-wheel drive,” Joanna said. “From here on, we’re riding with you.”

Voland looked down at her. “I suppose that’s an order, isn’t it?”

“Not necessarily,” she replied. “If you like, you can hand over your car keys and stay here.”

“You’re going in no matter what?”

Joanna nodded. “No matter what. Angie Kellogg thinks a man’s life is in danger, and so do I.”

Dick Voland shook his head. “Get in, then,” he snapped. “Get in, both of you. I’ll drive.”

Joanna held her breath as Voland four-wheeled it through the next two washes, both of them running bank to bank. Twice the Blazer lost its footing and floated downstream half a car length or so before it once again hit the ground firmly enough to regain forward momentum.

Once back on the roadway, Voland shot Joanna a disparaging glance. “All I can say is, this better be serious enough to justify almost drowning. Besides, with everything going on up in Willcox, we should both be headed up there instead of out into the boonies someplace.”

Joanna wanted to argue with him about it—to try to explain the idea that the very fact Angie Kellogg had come to them for help was an indication of the seriousness of the situation. She decided against it. Chief Deputy Voland might be pissing and moaning, but he was also driving in the right direction.

“There’ll be time enough for Willcox later,” Joanna replied mildly. “After we make sure Mr. Hacker is okay.”

“Right,” Voland muttered.

Ahead of them, the clouds over the Peloncillos seemed to break apart, revealing a patch of brilliantly blue sky. Moments later, a breathtakingly beautiful double rainbow appeared, arching across the eastern horizon. Big Hank Lathrop had al-ways told his daughter that there was a pot of gold at the end of any rainbow, but especially double ones. A grown-up Joanna no longer believed that parental myth any more than she believed in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. For today, though, more than a pot of gold, Joanna welcomed the rainbow’s promise that the storm was truly over. Eventually the washes would quit running. Life would return to normal—whatever that was.

“There it is,” Angie called from the backseat.

Ahead of them, a road veered off to the right. Beyond the junction, the wet rock walls of Cottonwood Creek Cemetery glowed damp and shimmery in the late afternoon sun. On the far side of the cemetery, tucked into a clearing sat a small camper-trailer.

“Doesn’t look like anybody’s home,” Dick Voland commented, turning right off Geronimo Trail and then pausing to take stock of the situation. “What kind of vehicle did you say he has?”

“A Hummer,” Joanna said.

“As in sixty to ninety thou?” Voland asked with a whistle.

“How does a guy who raises parrots for a living come up with that kind of cash? He must be one hell of a grant writer!”

“I don’t know where Dennis Hacker gets his money,” Joanna said. “Now, stop here and let me out.”

Voland stepped on the brakes. “Here? What for?”

“So I can look at the tracks and try to figure out what’s going on.”

“But . . .” Voland began.

Without waiting long enough to hear his objection, Joanna climbed out of the Blazer and slammed the door. She had lived at the end of a solitary dirt road long enough to have taught herself the rudiments of tracking, of reading whatever messages were left behind in the dust and mud.

Kneeling over the still-damp dirt track, she saw that the storm had washed it clean. On the blank slate left behind, only one set of tire tracks was visible. The storm had blown up from Mexico, circling from east to west. Because Joanna had no way of knowing how long ago rain had ended on this particular stretch of roadway, it was impossible for her to tell which direction the tracks were going—in or out. The wide wheelbase made her suspect that the tracks had been left by Dennis Hacker’s departing Hummer, but there was no way of knowing for sure.