Tombstone Courage (30 page)

Joanna nodded. “Good,” she said. “I'll be right back. Don't tell anyone I'm coming.”

“Oh, no,” Isobel Gonzales agreed. “I wouldn't think of it.”

B
Y THE
time Joanna parked the Blazer on the far side of the
Casa Vieja
caretaker's cottage, she had reached only one firm decision—she would attempt to lure Holly Patterson out of the house so she could talk to her. If Holly was in mortal danger, as she had hinted to Linda Kimball, then the source of that danger had to be the people who were there in the house with her.

Other than the fact they were liars, Joanna had no other concrete charges to lay at the door of either Amy Baxter or Rex Rogers, but Rex's lie about Holly falling off the terrace had been a direct falsehood.

Amy's was more subtle. She had simply gone along with the idea that Harold Patterson had never showed up for his scheduled appointment with Holly when in fact he had. Both times. Holly's attempt at vehicular manslaughter—regardless of whether or not the city of Bisbee called it negligent driving—had been based on that erroneous premise, Holly's mistaken belief that her father had once again let her down.

Halfway up the cracked flagstone steps that led through the terraced backyard, Joanna pulled off
her pumps and stuck them in the pockets of her blazer. Within three steps, she felt the distinctive crackle of a run that started at the back of her heel and stopped somewhere midthigh. So much for the brand-new pair of panty hose she had put on that morning.

She could see now the very real wisdom behind Ernie Carpenter's system of stashing a selection of extra clothing wherever it might be needed. As soon as she had a chance—and as soon as she had that many extra clothes—she'd have to follow his example with a suitcase of her own.

When Joanna reached the highest level of terraces, she saw Isobel standing beside what was evidently a basement door, beckoning her to hurry. “This way,” she mouthed.

“They're in the front room talking,” she whispered, as soon as Joanna was close enough. “Arguing, really. If we go up this back way, they won't hear a thing.”

The back stairs were long, steep, and uncarpeted. They had to walk close to the ends of the risers in order to keep the boards from squeaking noisily underfoot. At the second landing, Isobel paused to catch her breath. In the otherwise-silent house, the only sound was an eerie rhythmic creaking, a sound Joanna eventually recognized as coming from Holly's rocking chair. It was there in the background, like the steady but annoying drip of a constantly leaking faucet.

“I'm glad someone is helping Miss Patterson,” Isobel Gonzales gasped between breaths. “I feel sorry for her.”

“Why?”

The older woman shrugged. “I don't know,” she said. “It's like something is weighing her down and crushing the life out of her.”

“Maybe it is,” Joanna replied.

They climbed on then, coming out through a door in the upper corridor just across from Holly Patterson's room. “I can handle it from here,” Joanna said. “You go on back downstairs. Hopefully, they won't know you helped me.”

Isobel nodded and started back down at once. She didn't care much for either Rex Rogers or Amy Baxter, but it would be a shame if she and Jaime lost their jobs with that nice Mr. Enders.
Casa Vieja
provided them both with a living wage as well as a free place to live. In a one-horse town like Bisbee, where mining had disappeared and jobs were scarce as hen's teeth, that wasn't something to throw away lightly.

Unsure how Holly would react to her sudden reappearance, Joanna waited several minutes before she emerged from the landing and crossed the hallway. She wanted to give Isobel plenty of time to distance herself from any difficulty that might arise.

And all the time she stood there waiting, the eerie rocking continued. Finally, after checking the corridor, Joanna darted across the hallway. To her surprise, when she tried turning the knob, she found the door was locked. That gave some validity to the theory that Holly Patterson was indeed being held against her will.

A skeleton key lay on a nearby oak hall table.
Joanna tried it, and the door swung open, revealing a room in which nothing had changed. Joanna's business card still lay exactly where it had fallen. Holly hadn't moved at all. Her two scraped hands still lay hopelessly in her lap, while her vacant eyes stared through the small opening in the otherwise-drawn drapes.

“Holly,” Joanna said softly, her voice barely rising above the incessant racket of the rocker.

Slowly, like a television camera doing a gradual pan around a room, Holly Patterson's face and eyes swung away from the window. Her questioning gaze settled on Joanna's face with a puzzled frown. “Who are you?” she asked.

The question startled Joanna. She had been in that very room scant minutes earlier, speaking to this same woman, asking her questions. But now Holly obviously had no memory of it. Joanna was as much a stranger as if she had never laid eyes on her. Joanna felt with rising certainty that chemicals of some kind were responsible for Holly Patterson's faulty memory.

“I'm Joanna Brady,” she answered, speaking calmly, trying to instill confidence. “I'm the new sheriff. I came to talk to you, to see if there was anything I could do to help. Would you like to go for a walk?”

“A walk? No!” Holly shook her head vigorously. “Amy wouldn't want me to do that. She doesn't like it when I go for walks.”

“Amy wouldn't have to know,” Joanna said conspiratorially. “We could just walk down the
back stairs and out the door. She wouldn't have any idea we were gone.”

“No, I'd better not. I'd get in trouble.”

Holly's voice was plaintive, like that of a child who, while already being punished for one misdeed, fears the additional retribution of another. As Joanna watched, two tears squeezed out of the corners of Holly Patterson's eyes and ran down her sunken cheeks. There is something seriously out of whack here, Joanna told herself, but she still couldn't quite put her finger on what it was.

There were no visible restraints on the rocking chair, but there could just as well have been. Holly refused to budge, but her tearful refusal did nothing but strengthen Joanna's determination to somehow entice Holly out of the house.

Suddenly, she remembered what Isobel had told her earlier, about Holly wanting to see the top of the dump. Maybe that would serve as enough of a temptation. “Would you like to go up on the dump?” Joanna asked.

Joanna's educated guess was right on the money. Holly's rocking ceased abruptly. A look of heartbreaking eagerness settled over her face. “You could take me up there? Really?”

“Yes. And you wouldn't have to climb, either,” Joanna answered quickly. “That's too dangerous. I could take you in my car, in my Blazer. I'm sure, if I called ahead and asked, the P.D. watchman would give us a tour.”

“Yes, please,” Holly Patterson said avidly, staggering to her feet and then swaying back and forth
as though about to black out from the sudden effort. “I'd like that very much.”

“Then we have to move quickly,” Joanna cautioned. “Down the back stairs. I'll lead the way. Follow me, and stay close to the wall so the stairs don't creak so much.”

Once Holly was out of the room, Joanna relocked the door and returned the key to its place on the table while Holly stood in the middle of the hallway, watching her in a state of confused bewilderment.

“This way,” Joanna said, taking her by the arm. “Hurry.”

As they started down the stairs, Joanna realized the whole house now echoed with sudden, deafening silence. The ever-present sound of the rocker was stilled. In its absence, the creaking floors, many times amplified, seemed to echo off the walls and ceilings.

What if we're caught? Joanna wondered worriedly. It was bad enough to have two of her deputies charged with false arrest in the Kansas Settlement case. It would be far worse to have the new sheriff herself up on similar charges.

When they stepped outside, Joanna was shocked by how cold it seemed. Running up and down the stairs had left her overheated and winded, but she at least had the wool blazer. Holly had been sitting in a very warm room, and she was wearing nothing but loose-fitting sweats and a pair of bedroom slippers. They were barely out the door when Holly shivered and hunched her thin shoulders against the cold.

“Here,” Joanna said, shrugging off her blazer. “Put this on. The car's this way.”

But instead of heading in the way Joanna pointed, Holly Patterson set off determinedly in the other direction, winding her way down through the terrace, heading toward the towering dump, gliding along like a sleepwalker, drawn forward by some invisible and inexplicable force. Joanna darted after her. “The car's over here,” she insisted.

When Holly still ignored her, Joanna grasped her arm and tried to turn her bodily in the right direction. It was no use. Holly Patterson, headed straight for the dump, was as unstoppable as a loaded freight train on rails. She shook off Joanna's grasp and continued forward with single-minded focus.

“Where are you going?” Joanna asked.

“I've got to see if he's up there,” Holly answered with surprising animation. “I've got to know.”

“If who's up there?” Joanna demanded.

Behind them, a door to the house slammed open, then closed. “Hey!” Amy Baxter shouted. “What the hell do you think you're doing? Come back.”

The sound of that distinctive voice seemed to galvanize Holly Patterson. Her eyes widened. She leaped forward like a startled hare. Joanna was momentarily left behind by Holly's first sudden burst of speed.

Part of Joanna's difficulty lay in her bare feet. Holly Patterson's house slippers, poor as they
were, gave her somewhat better mobility and traction. Joanna's feet were cold and bleeding. The rough surface of every bit of gravel cut painfully into her soles. She whimpered with every step. She considered stopping and giving up, but Holly Patterson was still hurrying forward, and Amy Baxter was coming across the backyard toward them at a dead run.

Joanna turned and limped after Holly. She caught her when they reached the tightly strung fence at the bottom of the dump. Holly stood there, tugging desperately on what seemed to be a bathrobe that had somehow become entangled in the tightly strung wire.

“Go on through,” Joanna urged. “Hurry. If you want the robe, I'll bring it.”

With the familiarity of a country-raised child, Holly wiggled through the fence. Naturally, one barb caught on Joanna's blazer and left a jagged rip down the center of the back, but that barely slowed Holly's forward motion. And as Joanna wormed her way through the fence, she tore her own blouse in the process. As promised, she wrenched the robe loose from the fence and pulled it on over her shoulders, grateful for some covering to ward off the bone-chilling cold.

By the time Joanna reached the bottom of the dump, Holly was already scrambling up the steep incline. Conscious once more of her painful, bleeding feet, Joanna paused, but only for a moment before she, too, began the difficult ascent.

“Holly!” Amy Baxter's voice commanded from
behind them, from the other side of the fence. “Come back!”

Joanna saw it happen. It was as though an invisible choke chain were being pulled taut around Holly's neck. She slowed her desperate flight. Slowed first, and then stopped.

“Come back down!”

Joanna had been scrabbling along behind Holly, picking her way as best she could over and around the huge boulders, trying not to dislodge anything, and trying not to think about what would happen if one of those huge stones came loose and rolled back down the steeply angled incline.

They were only a third of the way up the slope now. Joanna had seen no sign of a weapon on Amy Baxter's person, but Holly's fear was palpable—absolutely real and overwhelmingly contagious. Joanna didn't have to see a gun to understand they were both in terrible danger, that they had to get away.

“Come on, Holly,” Joanna urged, overtaking the no-longer-moving woman. “Don't stop now.” But Holly was already making the first hesitant motions toward retracing her steps.

“Don't you want to see what's up here?” Joanna taunted, trying her best to counter the almost magnetic effect Amy Baxter's voice seemed to have on Holly Patterson.

“She already kept you from doing this once,” Joanna continued. “You're not going to let her take it away from you again, are you? Not when you're this close.”

Holly looked at Joanna, as though trying to
make sense of what she was saying, but now she stopped and didn't move in either direction. Joanna dared to look back down, wondering why Amy's shouting had suddenly stopped. On the far side of the fence, Amy Baxter and Rex Rogers seemed to be standing and arguing.

“Come on, Holly,” Joanna urged again, knowing the respite wouldn't last long. “Why won't she let you climb up here? What's Amy Baxter afraid of?”

And then, miraculously, Holly was moving in the right direction again, climbing slowly uphill with Joanna scrambling along at her side. Off in the distance, she could hear the sound of a wailing siren, of some siren, but Joanna didn't know the sounds well enough to differentiate between one emergency vehicle and another. She couldn't tell whether what was coming was a police car of some kind or one of Bisbee's fire trucks.

And even if it was a police vehicle, Joanna thought despairingly, it wouldn't be coming for her. How could it? She had told Kristin where she was going, but she hadn't expected this kind of difficulty.

“Holly!” Amy was shouting again. “Are you listening to me?”

Joanna looked down. Rex Rogers was no longer visible, but Amy was. She had crawled through the fence and even now was at the base of the dump and starting to climb.

“Holly,” she ordered. “I told you to stop! Come back! I want to talk to you.”

Holly slowed once more. “Don't listen to her,” Joanna urged. “Shut her out! Sing something.”

Already, Holly's eyes were starting to glaze over. The pull of Amy Baxter's voice was so strong as to be almost irresistible. In desperation, Joanna Brady began to sing the only song she could remember at a moment's notice. A hiking song, from her days in the Girl Scouts. She sang it at the top of her panting, air-starved lungs.