Exit Wounds (18 page)

Sticking strictly to the posted speed limits, Joanna arrived at the rodeo grounds just as the sixteen-member drill squad galloped into the arena. Shading the sun from her eyes, Joanna spotted Butch, Jim Bob, and Eva Lou Brady sitting high in the stands. Excusing herself, Joanna made her way up to them. She was grateful to realize that their backs were to the sun.

Butch greeted her with a kiss. “Glad to see you,” he said.

Joanna settled into the seat beside him and actually let herself relax as she watched the end of the drill team’s performance. Joanna couldn’t help but be impressed by the talented troop of elaborately costumed and synchronized riders as they galloped around the relatively confined space on swiftly moving horses. Each rider carried a banner that stood out straight behind her, whipping in the wind. As horses and riders careened around the enclosure, Joanna held her breath. At every turn it seemed as though two or more of them were bound to crash into one another with disastrous results, but they never did. It made Joanna grateful that when Jenny’s turn came, there would be only one horse and one rider in the ring at a time.

As the drill team finished up and filed out to tumultuous applause, Joanna turned to Butch. “I thought Eleanor was going to be here.”

“She called and canceled at the last minute,” Butch replied. “She said she had a splitting headache.”

Eleanor’s got a headache, all right,
Joanna thought.
It has nothing at all to do with Jenny’s rodeo appearance and everything to do with me.

Eva Lou Brady reached over and squeezed Joanna’s knee. “Congratulations again, Joanna,” Eva Lou said. “Jim Bob and I are both so happy for you.”

Joanna looked at her former mother-in-law. For some inexplicable reason, her eyes filled with hot tears. Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady were and always had been the embodiment of unconditional love. They, too, might have come up with any number of excuses for not going to the hot fairgrounds, but they were in attendance that afternoon, interested and uncomplaining, to support Jenny’s foray into the world of rodeo riding.

When Joanna had announced her engagement to Butch Dixon, they had accepted her choice without a hint of disapproval. From the beginning, they had treated Butch with unfailing kindness and grace. And sitting there under the hot afternoon sun, Joanna knew, without question, that Jim Bob and Eva Lou would accept this new child—Joanna and Butch’s child—as though he or she were their own flesh-and-blood grandchild.

“Thank you,” Joanna murmured.

“Are you nervous?” Eva Lou asked.

Joanna didn’t know if Eva Lou was asking about Jenny’s upcoming ride or about the pregnancy. She simply nodded yes.

As the first barrel racer pounded into the arena, Joanna’s attention was riveted. The girl looked to be much older than Jenny, and the horse, a palomino, was utterly splendid. Leaning into the curves as one entity, horse and rider skidded around the three equally spaced barrels. Watching their seemingly break-neck pace, Joanna couldn’t help but hold her breath.

As the PA system broadcast the first rider’s time, Joanna’s cell phone rang. The distinctive rooster-crow ring echoed through a suddenly silenced grandstand. Joanna dived for her purse to stifle the noisy thing. With many nearby spectators glaring at her in disapproval, Joanna glanced at the readout. She recognized the number at once—Dispatch.

“Sheriff Brady here,” she said tersely into the phone. “What’s up?”

“I thought you’d want to know that we’ve got a serious roll-over accident on Highway 80 out by Silver Creek,” Tica Romero answered. “A coyote-driven SUV with twenty or so undocumented aliens riding in it. We’ve got injured UDAs everywhere and at least two confirmed fatalities. Multiple units, ambulances, and an Air-Evac helicopter are all on the way.”

“What about Chief Deputy Montoya?”

“He’s at the site of a reported road-rage shooting west of Huachuca City. It’ll take him at least an hour to get to the other side of the county.”

“Fair enough,” Joanna told her. “I’m on my way.”
God help me, I’m on my way!

She glanced up in time to see the second barrel racer charge into the arena. She hoped for a brief moment that it possibly might be Jenny, but of course, it wasn’t.

Butch looked at her questioningly.

“There’s been a multiple-fatality accident east of here on Highway 80,” she told him. “I’ve got to go.”

Butch nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Drive carefully. See you at home.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay long enough to watch Jenny ride?” Eva Lou asked, reaching out to stop Joanna. “It can’t be more than a few minutes before it’s her turn. Barrel racing doesn’t last all that long.”

“Sorry, Eva Lou,” she said. “Jenny will just have to understand.”

As Joanna threaded her way down through the grandstand, she hoped fervently what she said was true and that Jenny would indeed forgive her.

At the far end of the parking lot where she’d left the Civvie, Joanna paused long enough to open the trunk and slip on a Kevlar vest, then she vaulted into the front seat. In her glove box she fumbled blindly around until she located the spare spiral-bound notebook she kept there. Once she’d stuffed that into the pocket of her jeans, she turned the key in the ignition. She switched on her flashing lights the moment the engine started, but she didn’t activate her siren until she was well away from the fairgrounds.

“Okay, Tica,” Joanna said into the radio as she turned onto Highway 80. “Tell me again what’s going on.”

“A Border Patrol unit in New Mexico saw an old GMC Suburban headed northbound toward Animas. He signaled the driver to stop, but the driver didn’t pull over. Instead, he jammed his foot on the gas and drove straight past. The Border Patrol went after the guy, but when the Suburban’s speed exceeded ninety miles per hour, the agent broke off pursuit. He notified the New Mexico Department of Public Safety. One of their officers headed down from I-10, expecting to intercept the fleeing vehicle, but before he could make contact, the Suburban had crossed into Arizona north of Rodeo. A unit from the Arizona Department of Public Safety had been called and was responding when word came of the crash.”

“Where exactly is it?”

“Silver Creek. The vehicle smashed through a Jersey barrier at a construction site and plowed into the wash. Hold on, Sheriff Brady,” Tica added. “I’ll have to get back to you.”

While she waited for Tica, Joanna thought about Silver Creek, a mostly dry, sandy creek bed that meandered through the Perilla Mountains. The community of Silver Creek may have been little more than a blip on even the best road map, but when it came to smuggling, the tiny community had a long and colorful history.

Joanna’s father, an amateur historian, had delighted in telling Joanna the story of how, in the early days, prior to Arizona’s statehood, Texas John Slaughter had once decoyed a Border patrol detail to Silver Creek, telling them some notorious smugglers were on their way through. While the hapless Border Patrol agents waited in vain for the nonexistent smugglers to appear, Slaughter himself brought a herd of illicit cattle across the line from his own ranch in Old Mexico. By the time the Border Patrol agents wised up and returned to Slaughter’s ranch, the illegal cattle were mingled in with and totally indistinguishable from Slaughter’s home herd in the States.

Years earlier, while Highway 80 had still been a main thoroughfare for cross-country traffic, Silver Creek had boasted a celebrated steakhouse. Since the completion of Interstate 10 forty miles north, both traffic and business had migrated there. For decades the old highway had been left to languish in neglect. The steakhouse, having opened and closed in various incarnations, was now permanently shuttered.

In the past several months, however, the Arizona Department of Transportation had embarked on an ambitious program to rehab Highway 80 between Douglas and the New Mexico border. A mile or two at a time, the roadway was being widened and straightened. Decrepit bridges and worn-out culverts were being replaced and widened as well.

Approaching Silver Creek from the west, Joanna was surprised at how abruptly the relatively straight and flat roadway suddenly evolved into a series of steep dips and blind curves just as the orange road-construction signs began appearing on the shoulder. No wonder the speeding Suburban had come to grief.

An ambulance came barreling into sight in Joanna’s rearview mirror. She pulled over to let it pass, then sped up and kept pace behind it. She hated to think of the dead and wounded scattered across the desert floor in the searing afternoon heat. Driving in air-conditioned comfort, she found it easy to ignore how hot it was outside, but with temperatures hovering in the low hundreds, the injured were as likely to die of heat and dehydration as they were of their injuries.

And so, since there was nothing else to do as she drove, Joanna Brady went ahead and prayed. “Please, God,” she whispered aloud. “Be with those poor people. Comfort the injured and the dying, and guide all those who would help. Amen.”

Nine

I t was just after five when Joanna, still driving behind the ambulance, rounded the last curve and saw a clutch of first-responder emergency vehicles lining the road. From where she was, though, the accident scene itself remained invisible. The sun had dipped behind the tall cliffs that topped the rugged Perilla Mountains, casting the whole area into shadow. Joanna parked her Civvie and then hurried to a spot where a shattered wall of Jersey barriers spilled down the rocky cliffs onto the baked-sand floor of Silver Creek.

It wasn’t until Joanna was standing directly over the newly constructed culverts that she was finally able to see the smashed SUV. Looking like the work of a suicide bomber and crushed beyond recognition, the Suburban lay upside down in the midst of what appeared to be a scatter of brightly colored rags. It took several moments for Joanna’s mind to come to terms with the awful reality. Those scattered bits of colored cloth weren’t rags at all—they were pieces of clothing with dead and injured people still inside them. Uniformed officers—some of them EMTs—and a few concerned civilians crouched here and there, offering aid to the victims, some of whom moaned and whimpered softly while others shrieked in agony. A few of the victims, lying still as death, had either been abandoned as beyond help or were as yet untended and uncomforted.

Rushing back to the Civvie, Joanna grabbed one of the several jugs of bottled water she kept there. Then she plunged down the rocky bank toward the nearest victim.
This isn’t an accident scene,
she told herself grimly.
It’s a damned war zone!

The first person Joanna reached was a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties. A streak of bright red blood dribbled from one corner of his mouth and disappeared into the equally red bandanna he wore around his neck. His pencil-thin mustache was neatly trimmed, even though his dusty, threadbare shoes and the rank odor of sweat told her that in his effort to cross the border, he must have walked across miles of scorching desert.

Kneeling beside him, Joanna picked up his limp arm and felt for a pulse. Finding none, she let his wrist drop back to the ground. Knowing there was nothing she could do for him, she rose and moved on to someone else. This one was an older man in his fifties or sixties, with his left leg crumpled unnaturally under the right one. The skin on one whole half of his face had been scraped away, leaving behind a raw, seeping wound.

His eyes fluttered open as soon as she touched his hand.
“Agua, por favor,”
he whispered weakly.
“Agua.”

She helped him raise his head and then held the bottle of water to his parched lips. He gulped a long drink and then sank back gratefully.
“Gracias,”
he murmured.

“Don’t move,” she told him in her awkward textbook Spanish. “It’s your leg.”

He nodded and motioned her to move on. “The others,” he said. “Help the others.”

With a screech of its siren, yet another invisible ambulance arrived on the roadway above her. A new team of EMTs scrambled down the bank carrying a stretcher and cases of equipment. “Over here,” she shouted, waving at them. “This man needs help.”

As Joanna stood up to move out of their way, Deputy Debbie Howell, who had been the first Cochise County deputy on the scene, appeared at Joanna’s elbow. “How bad is it, Deb?” Joanna asked.

Deputy Howell’s face was grim. “Five dead so far. We’ve counted twenty-three injured and several of those are critical. The Air-Evac helicopter should be here soon. We’ve alerted hospitals in Douglas, Willcox, Bisbee, and Tucson.”

Joanna was dumbfounded. “You’re telling me there were twenty-eight people crammed in that SUV?”

Debbie nodded. “Twenty-nine, counting the driver.”

“Where is he?” Joanna demanded. “Dead, I hope?”

Debbie Howell shook her head. “No such luck. He’s evidently the only one who was wearing a seat belt. As far as we can tell, he isn’t here.”

“You mean he took off?” Joanna demanded.

“Exactly.”

“Call Dispatch,” Joanna ordered. “Tell them to get the K-9 unit out here on the double. That man’s a killer, and I want him found!”

“Right away, Sheriff Brady,” Deputy Howell answered. She turned and headed back toward the roadway.

“Wait a minute,” Joanna called after her. “Who’s in charge?”

Debbie nodded impatiently toward a group of uniformed officers who stood near the damaged Suburban. Joanna recognized one Department of Public Safety uniform and three from Border Patrol. “Beats me,” she said. “It looks like those guys got here first, but with any kind of luck, you’re the one in charge.”

Joanna hurried over to the officers, most of whom she knew personally. When she had first arrived on the scene, the other officers had been scattered among the victims, checking them out and, in some cases, administering whatever aid they could. Now, though, with the arrival of several more EMTs, the four uniformed men stood wrangling among themselves, arguing about how best to proceed with the investigation. Jurisdictional considerations aside, Sheriff Joanna Brady outranked them all, and the accident was on her turf.