Outlaw Mountain (38 page)

“Nice guy. What about Mark Childers and Karen Brainard? Did Dena tell you anything about them? Were they in a financial bind as well?”

“Same deal.”

“And Monica Foster?”

“Apparently she’s not in on it. Dena referred to Monica as Miss Goody Two-shoes. Monica doesn’t do drugs. Paul Brainard and Rex Hogan don’t either. What I can’t figure out is how come straight-shooters end up getting stuck with people who aren’t? What is it, wishful thinking?”

“That, or out-and-out stupidity.”

Jenny tiptoed into the living room. “Mom,” she whispered, “are you going to come have your pie or not?”

“I have to go, Ernie,” she told him. “You go on home. I’ll come by in a little while and handle the Dena Hogan paperwork. You don’t need to worry about it. And tomorrow—”

“Tomorrow Jaime and I will both go straight to Tombstone,” Ernie told her. “In the morning we’ll finish interviewing Clete Rogers’ neighbors. Since Dena Hogan denies any involvement in that case, we need to find something that will link Ross Jenkins to Clete’s death. Then, in the afternoon, we’ll attend Alice’s funeral. That’ll take place at the Episcopal church in Tombstone at two tomorrow afternoon. Visitation is tonight at Garrity’s, down in Douglas. One of us had planned to make an appearance there as well, but there are only two of us, and Jamie and I can only be in so many places at once.”

“Mom!” Jenny insisted.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Ernie. I’ve got to go.” Joanna ended the call while Jenny skewered her with an accusing stare. “Are you going back to work?”

“Yes. I have to.”

“Well, can I stay here then? I know the Gs will let me,”

“I suppose,” Joanna said. “1 don’t want to wear out your welcome, but we’ll ask.”

“Well,” Eleanor sniffed as Joanna resumed her seat. “What is it now? Another crisis, I suppose?”

Joanna looked around the table. Everyone else was finished with dessert. Hers was the only piece of pie left on the table. She took a bite. It was delicious, but she felt self-conscious eating after everyone else had finished.

“Mom has to go back to work,” Jenny announced. “So can I—may I stay here again? Please?”

“It’s fine with us,” Eva Lou said.

“Thanks,” Joanna said, then she turned to Butch. “Do you mind giving me a ride over to the department? I need to pick up a car. Both the Crown Victoria and the Blazer are out of commission at the moment.”

“Sure,” Butch said. “Finish your pie and we’ll go right away. Maybe Junior can stay here until I get back.” “That’ll be fine, too,” Eva Lou said.

Butch and Joanna left the Bradys’ house a few minutes later. At the stop sign at Cole Avenue and Arizona Street, Butch Dixon stopped, reached over, pulled Joanna as close as the seat belt would allow, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sure I look awful, but really, I’m fine.”

“You were amazingly quiet during dinner. You barely said a word. I was afraid you were upset about something.”

“I am upset,” she admitted. “I’ve spent a week dealing with people who are liars and cheats at best; druggies and murderers at worst. George gave me a little buck-up talk in the car, but it didn’t help very much. I still feel like the world is full of dirtbags, and they’re winning. People like Eva Lou and Jim Bob Brady never lied or broke a promise in their lives, but they’re the exception, Butch. They’re not the rule. The problem is, how do I bring Jenny up in a world where people like Dena Hogan and Ross Jenkins may end up running things?”

“We already live in that kind of world,” Butch said. “And the only thing you can do to change it is to keep on doing what you’re doing.”

“Even if it keeps me out late at night? Even if it makes me feel betrayed?”

“Even if it means you have to keep on taking chances. I don’t want to lose you, Joanna. And the idea that you had to go toe-to-toe with those creeps today drives me crazy. But I also know what’ll happen if you quit. You’ll be in exactly the same kind of fix as Marianne Maculyea. So where are you going now?”

“Down to Douglas to make arrangements to check a prisoner into the mental ward at County Hospital. She’s coming off drugs of some kind, and I don’t want her detoxing in one of my jail cells.”

“Can’t somebody else handle that?” Butch asked. “What about Frank Montoya or Dick Voland? Isn’t that what they get paid to do?”

“Frank has gone home, and Dick Voland doesn’t work for me anymore,” Joanna said quietly.

“He doesn’t? Since when?”

“Yesterday.”

“What do you mean? How did that happen?”

“He was waiting for me out at the ranch when I got home after Kiwanis,” Joanna explained. “He was drunker ‘an nine hundred dollars and pissed because I had gone and gotten myself engaged to you when all the time he was waiting for me to give him the go-ahead so he could ask me out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?” Butch asked.

“I didn’t have a chance.” Joanna paused. “No, that’s not true,” she added. “I didn’t want to tell you. I was afraid you’d be upset, and I didn’t want to worry you.”

“You fired him?”

“He gave me his resignation, and I accepted it.”

“At the ranch,” Butch said. “While you were there alone.” “I handled it,” Joanna said.

“What if he comes back tonight? What if he’s there now, waiting for you?”

Joanna grinned. “He’ll have a long wait, then, won’t he?” Her lame attempt to diffuse the sudden tension didn’t work.

“You know what I mean, Joanna,” Butch continued. “If Voland is so obsessed over losing you that he quit his job, it’s serious. You may think he’s just going to go away and leave you alone, but he won’t. I know how these guys work—how they think.”

“Butch, please—”

“No. You shouldn’t be out at the ranch by yourself. You should come stay at my house, or else Junior and I can come there.”

“That isn’t going to work.”

“At least let me ride down to Douglas with you. Or let me follow you down and back. That way I can be sure you’re all right.”

“Wait a minute, here,” Joanna objected. “You’re talking to a woman who already has two black eyes. I can take care of things, Butch. I’m not some helpless little woman, you know. If push conies to shove, I think I qualify under the heading of armed and dangerous.”

“Armed and bull-headed is more like it,” Butch said.

A stiff silence fell over the car. Thinking back, Joanna couldn’t quite figure out how the quarrel had started, but she did know that by the time Butch whipped the Outback to a stop beside her private back-door entrance, it still wasn’t over.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get home,” she said.

“Sure,” he muttered.

‘‘And I’ll be all right, Butch. Honest. Don’t worry.”

“Right.”

Once Joanna stepped out of the car and slammed the door, he sped away, leaving her standing in a hail of gravel.
Great,
she told herself.
Another perfect ending to another perfect day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

In the office, it took only a few minutes to formalize the paperwork to have Dena Hogan admitted to Southeastern Arizona Medical Center. Once Joanna had managed to locate the necessary forms, she typed them up herself. Twenty minutes later, she was part of a two-car caravan headed for Douglas. Handcuffed and shackled both, Dena rode in a patrol car accompanied by two deputies. Joanna drove the aging white Bronco that had, for years, been assigned to Deputy Dick Voland.

S.A.M.C., was still called County Hospital by locals, situated just outside the town of Douglas. As Joanna drove there, she couldn’t help thinking about Alice Rogers and those first few chapters of her memoirs—the ones that dealt with her happy childhood years spent in Douglas. Reflecting about Alice inevitably led Joanna to the missing Farley Adams.

Her investigation had determined that Adams wasn’t his real name. That meant that he, like some of the other people Joanna had encountered in the past few days, had played fast and loose with the truth. If there were people in North Las Vegas who were looking for him and wanting to kill him, maybe Jonathan Becker had good reason to lie about his name. What Joanna wondered was, had he lied to his wife or not? Had he told Alice the truth about his past, or had Becker been as dishonest with Alice as Dena Hogan had been with Rex? Had he married Alice in hopes of inheriting a portion of her estate, as Susan Jenkins believed? Or was it possible that the man who called himself Farley Adams had really loved Alice Rogers and that the look captured on his face in Jessie Morgan’s postcard wedding portrait had been one of real affection rather than a supreme job of acting?

Keeping one eye on the road, Joanna dug around in her purse until she located the copy of that picture she had stowed there. Switching on the reading light, she held the picture close to the light and glanced at it several times. There was no getting around it. Both people pictured looked incredibly happy. Neither of them seemed to be faking it.

Joanna put the piece of paper down on the seat. Supposing he really did love her and supposing he’s still alive, she wondered, what will he do now?

Joanna suspected that the people looking for Jonathan Becker were prepared to go to a good deal of trouble to find him and get rid of him. And there was always a chance that they had already succeeded in doing so. But if they hadn’t, and if he had really loved Alice Rogers, would he simply turn his back and walk away, or would he be there for her—even in death?

Once at the hospital, Joanna turned Dena Hogan over to the emergency room people and directed the deputies to take turns guarding her. Meanwhile, Joanna went to work on the admissions process. Even though she had come armed with all the necessary information and documents, it still took the better part of an hour before Dena Hogan’s admission was complete. And all the while the watch on Joanna’s arm and the clock over the admission clerk’s head continued to tick.

Free at last, Joanna raced out to the Bronco. It was eight-thirty. No doubt Alice Roger’s visitation at the funeral home would end at nine. With no time to lose, Joanna started the Bronco and switched on the pulsing blue emergency lights for the next several miles. Once she hit Douglas proper, she turned off the flashing lights and slowed to a more reasonable pace. By the time she drove under the railroad underpass, she was actually driving at the speed limit.

Garrity’s Funeral Home had once been a massive old house on G Street. It was situated only a few blocks from Jessie Monroe’s Golden Agers Nursing Home, and only a few more blocks from where Alice Monroe Rogers and her brothers and sisters had played hide-and-seek as children.

Joanna shivered as she stepped out of the Bronco and walked toward the mortuary. It was a cold, brisk night, but the chill she felt was more than that. Joanna knew from reading Alice’s own words that she had lived her whole life trying to escape Douglas. Now, at the end of her life, here she was again, mere blocks from where she had started. To Joanna, it all seemed pointless somehow, and, at the same time, inevitable.

With her copy of the wedding picture folded into a small square in her hand, Joanna walked into the plushly carpeted lobby of the mortuary. A man in a suit and tie met her at the door. “Are you here for Mrs. Rogers?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Second door on the right,” he directed. “But the visitation is almost over,” he added. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of it or not, but there’s been another tragedy in the family today. As a result, most family members had to leave earlier than expected. There are only a few stragglers left.”

The man’s politely unspoken message was clear: It’s over, lady. All the important people are gone already, so don’t hang around and waste my time.

“That’s fine,” Joanna said. “I won’t be long.”

She walked into the room. Like the lobby, the small, chapel-like room was plushly carpeted. An open casket, eerily lit, sat at the front. Glancing around the room, Joanna realized that the man in the lobby was wrong. Besides Alice, there was only one person left in the dimly lit chapel—a man, seated near the front. His head was bowed. He appeared to be deep in prayer.

Walking silently, Joanna moved forward. She took a seat three rows back from the man and waited. For a long time, he continued to sit there without moving. Finally he stood up. As he turned to walk toward the aisle, Joanna recognized him. She also saw that he was carrying something—a flower, a single rose. Once in the aisle, he walked to the casket and placed the rose inside.

It was such a simple, moving gesture, that Joanna felt her heart squeeze.
He does care,
she thought.
The look on his face in the wedding picture isn
’
t a lie.

Knowing the man known as Farley Adams still thought himself alone, Joanna waited for him to turn. She had no idea what he would do when he saw her. Was he armed? Would he think she was someone sent to kill him?

As soon as he saw her, Joanna saw the look of dread that passed briefly over his tear-stained face. His eyes shifted desperately from side to side, as if searching frantically for some other way out of the room. Realizing there was none, he turned back. For a long moment, the two people stared silently at one another. Finally Farley Adams shook his head. The look of fear on his face was replaced by one of profound resignation. His shoulders sagged, then, slowly, he raised his hands.

“All right,” he said. “It’s no use. I can’t run anymore. You’ve got me. Go ahead and get it over with.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Becker,” Joanna said softly. “I’m not one of them. My name’s Joanna Brady, Sheriff Joanna Brady. We need to talk.”

“But you called me Becker,” he objected. “You must know all about me then?”

“And about your son,” Joanna replied. “And about the dirty cops from North Las Vegas who killed your son and who want you dead as well.”

Becker dropped into one of the rows of seats and covered his face with his hands. “If you could find me this easily, they will, too. I knew better than to go to the funeral, but I thought I could take a chance on coming here. There were so few people. Nobody recognized me—except you. I know it’s all my fault. That’s why Alice is dead. The people who are looking for me must have thought she would lead them to me, although I don’t know how they found out.”