The Old Blue Line: A Joanna Brady Novella (Joanna Brady Mysteries) (11 page)

It generally took the better part of ten minutes for Joanna to drive her county-owned Yukon the three miles of combination dirt and paved roads between High Lonesome Ranch at the base of the Mule Mountains and her office at the Cochise County Justice Center. In this instance she drove straight past her office on Highway 80 and headed into Bisbee proper. St. Dominick’s Church, up the canyon in Old Bisbee, was another four miles beyond that.

The time Joanna spent in her car each day gave her a buffer between her job and her busy home life. On this late-spring day, she spent some of the trip gazing off across the wide expanse of the Sulphur Springs Valley, taking in the scenery—the alternating squares of cultivated fields and tracts of wild desert terrain punctuated with mesquite trees—that stretched from the nearby Mule Mountains to the Chiricahua Mountains in the distance, some thirty miles away. She loved the varying shades of green that springtime brought to the desert, and she loved the very real purple majesty of the mountains rising up in the distance to meet an azure sky. As much as she thought of this corner of the Arizona desert as being hers, it was always humbling to remember, as her history-loving father had loved pointing out to her, that much less than two hundred years ago everything she could see had been the undisputed domain of the Chiricahua Apaches.

Today, however, she didn’t bother admiring the landscape. Her thoughts were focused on Junior Dowdle—a troubled individual with the body of a grown man, the ailments of an old one, and the heart and mind of a child. Knowing that Junior was out in the world somewhere—lost, alone, and unprotected—was heartbreaking, and she uttered a quiet prayer as she drove. “Please help us find him,” she pleaded. “Please let him be okay.”

Driving through the central business district of Old Bisbee on Tombstone Canyon Road, Joanna kept her eyes peeled, watching for anything out of the ordinary on side streets or on the steep scrub-oak-dotted hillsides that loomed above the town. If Junior had wandered outside in the dark, it wouldn’t have taken him long to cross that narrow strip of civilization and find himself lost in a desert wilderness with neither food nor water.

Joanna had just passed Tombstone Canyon Methodist Church when her radio crackled to life.

“Alvin Bernard just called. Terry and Spike have arrived at the Maxwells’ house. They’re working on finding a scent. Everyone else is at St. Dom’s.”

“Okay,” Joanna told Tica. “I’m almost there, too.”

When Joanna arrived at the parking lot for St. Dominick’s Catholic Church, she found Father Matthew Rowan, one of St. Dom’s two resident priests, standing at the gate directing traffic. He pointed Joanna toward a clutch of official-looking vehicles. Tucked in among the collection of patrol cars sat a 1960s-era VW. The chaplain sticker on the VW Bug’s back bumper explained its odd presence among the other official vehicles. The vintage VW belonged to Joanna’s friend and pastor, the Reverend Marianne Maculyea, who in the past month had been certified as a chaplain for the local police and fire departments. It was no surprise to Joanna that, if first responders were on the scene, Marianne would be, too.

Pulling into the open spot next to the VW, Joanna stayed in the car for a moment, taking in the scene. The hustle and bustle might have been part of something as innocuous as a church bazaar. Cars came and went. The center of activity seemed to be a hastily erected eight-by-ten-foot canvas canopy. Some enterprising soul had used several matching sawhorses and a piece of plywood to create a massive makeshift table on which a six-foot-long paper map of the city had been tacked down. Surrounded by teams of officers and volunteers, Chief Bernard was bent over the map, assigning people to the streets and neighborhoods they were expected to search.

Twenty yards away from Chief Bernard’s command center, a clutch of ladies from several nearby churches were setting up a refreshment buffet complete with a coffee urn, stacks of Styrofoam cups, and a surprising selection of store-bought and homemade baked goods and cookies. A blond teenage boy, someone Joanna didn’t recognize, sprinted past her. Carrying a thermal coffee carafe in one hand, he waved in Joanna’s direction with the other. Looking at her rather than at traffic, he came close to stepping into the path of another arriving vehicle.

“Look out!” Joanna called out, and he jumped back just in time.

Another stranger, a woman Joanna had never seen before, shouted after him, too. “For Pete’s sake, Lucas! Watch what you’re doing! Pay attention.”

Joanna turned to the woman, a harried-looking thirty-something. Her long dirty-blond hair was pulled back in a scraggly ponytail. “He’s yours?” Joanna asked.

When the woman nodded apologetically, a faint whiff of booze and an even stronger scent of cigarette smoke floated in Joanna’s direction.

“My son,” she answered, “fourteen years old and full of piss and vinegar. Once the coffee was ready, he wanted to be the one to take it to Chief Bernard.” Then, glimpsing the badge and name tag on Joanna’s uniform, the woman’s eyes widened in recognition.“You’re Sheriff Brady?”

Joanna nodded.

“I’m Rebecca Nolan. Lucas is my son. My daughter, Ruth, Lucas’s twin sister, is over there.”

The woman nodded toward the refreshment table. Following Rebecca’s gaze, Joanna caught sight of a teenage girl who, with her mouth pursed in concentration, was laying out straight lines of treats in a carefully designed fashion. Rebecca had said the girl was Lucas’s twin. True, they were about the same size—fair skinned and blue eyed—with features that were almost mirror images. They were also dressed in matching bright blue track suits. When it came to hair, though, the two kids weren’t on the same page. Lucas’s dark blond hair resembled his mother’s. Ruth’s, on the other hand, was mostly dyed deep purple, with a few natural blond strands showing through here and there. A glance at the girl’s purple locks was enough to make Joanna grateful that her own daughter’s hair didn’t look like it came from a box of crayons.

“I hope you don’t mind the kids being here,” Rebecca added quickly. “I’m homeschooling them, and we’ve been doing a unit on community service. When I heard what happened, I told the kids to get their butts out of bed because we were coming down to help. I don’t know Moe and Daisy well, but we live just up the street from them. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

Marianne stepped into the conversation and handed Joanna a cup of coffee. “Good morning, Rebecca,” she said cordially. “So glad you and the kids could make it.”

Rebecca nodded. “I’d better go help,” she said, backing away.

“You know her?” Joanna asked as Rebecca melted into the refreshment crowd.

“I met them at Safeway shortly after they arrived in town,” Marianne said. “They’ve only been here a few months. Rebecca is divorced. Moved here from someplace in New Mexico with a boyfriend who disappeared almost as soon as they got to town.”

“What does she do for a living?” Joanna asked.

Marianne shrugged. “I’m not sure, but she’s homeschooling the two kids, which strikes me as a full-time job all its own. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be any good at homeschooling, and neither would Jeff.” Jeff Daniels was Marianne’s husband.

Joanna nodded. “The same goes for me,” she agreed. “I’ve never been teacher material.”

They stood for a moment, sipping their respective cups of coffee in the early morning cool and appreciating the quiet comfort of an enduring friendship that had started in junior high. Bisbee may not have boasted an official Welcome Wagon organization, but Reverend Maculyea filled the bill anyway. When it came to newcomers in town, you could count on Marianne to have a handle on them— where they came from, what they were about, and whether or not they needed any kind of assistance. Other people lived their lives by drawing circles in the sand designed to keep people out. Marianne’s whole purpose in life was to draw circles that pulled people in.

“You got here fast,” Joanna observed as another pair of cars nosed into the lot and parked where Father Rowan indicated. “I’m the sheriff. How come you got the call before I did?”

To anyone else, it might have sounded like a dig, but Marianne didn’t take offense. “I wasn’t called,” she explained. “I heard it from Jeff. He went out for an early morning run up the canyon and came across Moe Maxwell, who was already out looking for Junior on his own. Jeff convinced Moe that he needed to call the cops, then came straight home and told me.”

“You’re the one who summoned all the ladies?” Joanna asked, nodding toward the gathering of women who were bustling around setting out tables and folding chairs.

Marianne grinned. “I didn’t have to summon all of them,” she replied. “All I had to do was call the first two people on my list. Each of those called two more. It’s the first time we’ve used CCT,” she added. “It worked like a charm.”

For months, Marianne had been spearheading a team of local pastors and parishioners who had established something they called Christ’s Crisis Tree, a phone tree organization that used a combination of text messages and landline calls to mobilize members of various churches to respond quickly to community emergencies, where they provided refreshments to all those involved, first responders and volunteers alike.

Marianne’s grin faded as quickly as it had come. Joanna turned in time to see Daisy Maxwell, disheveled and distraught, coming toward them. Marianne hurried forward to embrace the woman.

“So sorry,” Marianne said. “I’m sure they’ll find him soon.”

Daisy nodded numbly. “I hope so,” she agreed. Then she turned to Joanna. “That guy from your department was up at the house, the one with the dog.”

“Terry Gregovich,” Joanna told her.

“Before I left, I gave him some of Junior’s clothing so the dog would have his scent. I hope and pray it works. That’s why Chief Bernard had everyone else, including these wonderful volunteers, meet here at the church instead of at our place. He didn’t want people disrupting the scent and interfering with the dog.”

“Spike’s good at his job,” Joanna said reassuringly. “Would you like some coffee, Daisy? Something to eat?”

That was what people did in difficult times—they offered food and drink. Daisy rejected both with a firm shake of her head, all the while gazing in wonder at the bustling parking lot.

“Where did all these people come from and how did they get here so fast?” she asked. “It’s only a little past six. How did they even know what had happened?”

“They care about you,” Marianne said, “and they care about Junior, too. Let’s go sit down for a while.”

Taking Daisy by the arm, Marianne led her to a nearby table. Meanwhile, Detective Matt Keller, a Bisbee police officer and Alvin Bernard’s lead investigator, wandered over to the refreshment area and collected a cup of coffee before joining Joanna.

“Making any progress?” she asked.

Matt shook his head. “Not much. I’ve talked to all the people who live on O’Hara, the Maxwells’ street,” he said. “Because it was so warm last night almost all the neighbors had their windows open, but nobody seems to have heard or seen anything out of line, including Jack and Lois Radner, who live right next door. I talked to both of them and to their son, Jason, whose bedroom faces Junior’s. So far I’ve got nothing that would help with timing, not even so much as a barking dog.”

Joanna looked away from the detective in time to see two sheriff’s department patrol vehicles nose into the parking lot. As she walked over to confer with her deputies, her phone rang and Terry Gregovich’s name appeared in her caller ID.

“I could use some help up here,” he said.

“Where are you? Did you find a scent?”

“We found one, all right. The trail from the house led up to the highway above town at milepost 337,” he said. “We’re there now. Spike may be able to follow the trail on the pavement or across the pavement, whichever it turns out to be, but we won’t be able to do either one until we have someone up here to direct traffic.”

“Two patrol deputies just arrived,” Joanna told him. “I’ll send them right up. You said milepost 337?”

“That’s right,” Terry confirmed.

“If somebody up on the highway gave Junior a ride, he could be miles away by now.”

“I know,” Terry said. “If the trail ends in the middle of the pavement, we’ll know that’s probably what happened.”

Joanna hustled over to the two cars just as Deputies Ruiz and Stock stepped out of their vehicles. Deputy Stock’s usual patrol area was on Highway 80 between Tombstone and Benson, while Deputy Ruiz spent most of his time on the stretch of Highway 92, west of Don Luis and out as far as the base of the Huachuca Mountains.

Joanna turned to Deputy Stock. “Did you see anyone walking on the highway as you came over the Divide?” she asked.

Jeremy shook his head. “Not a soul,” he said. “Do we have any idea how long Junior’s been gone?”

“Less than ten hours,” Joanna said. “He took off sometime during the night. Right now, I need both of you up on the highway at milepost 337 to assist the K-9 unit. Spike picked up Junior’s scent and followed it there. Before they can venture onto the pavement, they need someone directing traffic.”

“On our way,” Jeremy said. He turned to head out, but Joanna stopped him.

“No lights or sirens until you get there,” she cautioned. “I don’t want a hundred civilians milling around on the highway. One of them might get killed.”

As the deputies hurried to do her bidding, Joanna went in search of Alvin Bernard. She wanted to tell him she had just heard from Terry Gregovich. To do so, she had to get in line behind one of her least favorite people, Marliss Shackleford, the
Bisbee Bee
’s intrepid reporter. Marliss may have been Joanna’s mother’s closest chum, but she was also a gossipy busybody and the bane of Joanna’s existence. Knowing that Marliss dished out the same kind of torment to Alvin Bernard made it only slightly less irksome to Joanna.

As soon as the reporter caught sight of Joanna, she registered her surprise. “How come you and your people are here, Sheriff Brady?” Marliss demanded abruptly. “My understanding is that Junior disappeared from the Maxwells’ place on O’Hara. That’s well inside the city limits and outside your jurisdiction. Isn’t this whole circus a bit of an overreaction to someone simply wandering off?” She waved dismissively at the crowd of people milling in and out of the parking lot.