Outlaw Mountain (8 page)

“I sent for him as I was leaving Tombstone,” Joanna re-turned. “If Detective Carpenter left the office right then, he can’t be more than twenty minutes behind me.”

Fran nodded. “All right. I’ll go on up to the scene, get set up, and snap a few pictures. I won’t do anything critical, though, until after Carpenter gets here—just as long as he’s not too slow about it. By the time I finish taking photographs, he’ll probably be here. In the meantime, Sergeant Mallory, are you the officer in charge?”

“At the moment. The two detectives are up with the body.”

“According to Sheriff Brady, a man who’s the son of our suspected victim is on his way here from Tombstone. What did you say his name is again, Sheriff Brady?”

“Rogers,” Joanna replied. “Cletus Rogers.”

“Right. Rogers. You got that, Sergeant Mallory? When Cletus Rogers shows up here, you’re not to let him through. I don’t want any civilians blundering through my crime scene. You let Mr. Rogers know that if he’s planning on doing an identification of the body, he’ll need to come to the morgue in Tucson after it’s been transported.”

“Gotcha, Doc,” Mallory agreed. “I’ll handle it.”

“Good.” With that, Fran Daly ground out her cigarette butt on the pavement. Then she picked it up and dropped it into a small rectangular box of the red-and-white Altoid variety. Only when the box was closed and shoved into her hip pocket did she once again heave her equipment case off the ground.

“Now then,” she demanded of Sergeant Mallory. “Where is it we’re going?”

“This way. It’s not far, but the cactus grows so thick you can’t see inside it.”

As Claude Mallory and Fran Daly walked away, Joanna started to follow them. She went as far as the ditch and then stopped. Fran was dressed in proper crime scene attire—a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and snakeskin cowboy boots. Joanna was in high heels, a silk blouse, and a cotton-knit blazer and skirt. One glance at the thick grove of spiny cactus convinced her that what she had worn into the office that morning—clothing that would have been entirely appropriate for an appearance at a board of supervisors meeting—wasn’t going to cut it at a cholla-studded crime scene.

Remembering her mother’s old adage about an ounce of prevention, Joanna retreated to the trunk of the Crown Victoria and dug into the small suitcase of “just-in-case” clothes she kept packed at all times.

She extracted jeans and a worn pair of tennis shoes as well as an ankle-length cotton duster straight out of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. After changing, she was just starting to cross the ditch when a battered Ford F-100 pickup pulled up beside her. It screeched to a halt with Clete Rogers at the wheel. Parking half-on and half-off the road, he rammed the pickup into neutral and jumped out.

“All right, Sheriff Brady,” he demanded. “Where is she? Over there? In that stand of cactus somewhere?”

Joanna had hoped Clete Rogers wouldn’t arrive until after Sergeant Mallory had returned from leading Fran Daly to the crime scene. That way, someone from Pima County could have taken the flak for sending the mayor of Tombstone on his way. Unfortunately, Sergeant Mallory had dodged the bullet.

“You can’t go there, Mayor Rogers,” Joanna said, stepping into the path and barring his way. “As I told you earlier, crime scenes are off limits to civilians.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Rogers objected. “This isn’t Cochise County. You’ve got no authority here.”

“Yes, I do,” Joanna told him. “I’ve spoken to Dr. Fran Daly of the Pima County Medical Examiner’s office about this. She made it clear she doesn’t want you here. You’re to go to the Pima County morgue in Tucson to make an official identification. If you’d like, you can go there and wait.”

“How long will that be?”

“No telling.”

“Is it hours, then? Days?” Clete Rogers demanded. “What are we talking about here?”

“As I said, there’s no way to know.”

Another car pulled up and stopped. This one was a cherry-red Chrysler Sebring convertible with an auburn-haired woman at the wheel. She, too, parked without first bothering to move her vehicle entirely out of the path of traffic. She jumped out of the car. Leaving her door ajar, she came striding up to where Joanna and Clete Rogers stood.

“What’s going on here?” she asked.

Clete turned to Joanna. “If I’m not supposed to be here, why is she?” he demanded. “Who told her?”

An angry woman marched up until she stood within inches of Clete Rogers’ face. Belligerently she stared up at him. “She’s my mother, too,” she stormed. “And it happened just the way I said it would. 1 tried to tell you the guy was bad news—that he was trouble. But you’re always so much smarter than anyone else. You knew all about this long before I did, but you didn’t bother to lift a finger. If you had told me what was really going on, I might have prevented this from happening, but oh no. Not you. And now Mother’s dead because of you, because you’re such a closed-mouthed son of a bitch. I hope you’re happy.”

“Wait just a damned minute here!” Clete railed back at his sister. “You’re saying what happened is all
my
fault? No way!”

“You should have made her break up with him.”

Clete hooted with laughter. “Sure,” he said. “Me
make
her. When did anybody ever make Mother do anything she didn’t want to do?”

Joanna remembered what Frank Montoya had said about the previous day’s incident in the Grubsteak, about the two-sided fight between Susan Jenkins and her brother, and the scuffle that had included a table’s worth of flying crockery and glassware. Before they could start whaling on one another, Joanna attempted to soothe the raging waters.

“Excuse me,” she began calmly, holding out her hand. “You must be Susan Jenkins. I’m the—”

“You stay out of this,” Susan snarled back. “Who the hell do you think you are? If I want to tell my brother he’s a jackass, it’s nobody’s business but ours. Now leave us alone.”

“A jackass!” Clete choked. “Why, of all the—” He clenched one massive fist and drew back, as if preparing to deliver a brain-crushing blow.

Joanna’s mind echoed with all the police academy cautions about the danger of stepping into the middle of a domestic dispute. She knew the statistics involved—the textbook recitations of cops killed and injured nationwide when summoned to intervene in family disturbances. Even so, as Clete Rogers wound up to deliver a haymaker to his sister’s skull, Joanna had no choice but to act.

“All right, you two,” she said, stepping into the fray and inserting her own body between the bristling pair, both of whom towered over her. “Knock it off!”

Surprisingly enough, Clete complied immediately. Susan Jenkins, however, held her ground. “I told you to leave us alone.”

“And I said knock it off!” Joanna repeated.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are—”

“I’ll tell you who I am,” Joanna told her. “I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady, and I’m ordering you back to your vehicle. Now!”

“Why? If my brother’s allowed to be here, I should be able to-”

“Return to your vehicle immediately, Mrs. Jenkins. Otherwise I’ll be forced to place you under arrest.”

“Under arrest!” Susan screeched. “Me? My mother’s dead. My worthless brother turned a deaf ear and let her boyfriend kill her, and you’re telling me I’m the one who’s under arrest?”

But even as she objected, Susan Jenkins took a backward step. Joanna stepped after her, hoping to keep her moving in the right direction. “All the way to the car, Mrs. Jenkins,” Joanna urged. “I want you to stand behind your vehicle. Spread your legs and place both hands on the trunk.”

The big danger in domestic disputes is always the possibility that both combatants will stop fighting with one another and turn on the police officer. Concerned that Clete Rogers might come at her from behind, Joanna glanced over her shoulder. She was relieved to see that rather than joining in, he had moved away, backing up until he collided with the rear bumper of Fran Daly’s van. It took mere seconds for Joanna to see that he posed no threat, but that momentary lapse of attention was enough for Susan Jenkins to launch a full-scale attack. By the time Joanna realized what was happening, the enraged woman was almost on top of her.

Dodging to one side, Joanna reached out, grabbed Susan by one arm and then tossed her over an outthrust hip. One moment Susan, bent on attack, was rumbling forward. The next she was sailing skyward and flipping end over end. She landed on her back with a thump that sent the air whooshing out of her lungs. For several long moments she didn’t breathe. She simply lay there, staring bug-eyed into the sky.

With her own heart pounding, Joanna placed one foot on her opponent’s shoulder. She was in the process of wrestling her Glock out from under the billowing duster when another car—a familiar white Econoline van—stopped beside her. Her burly, middle-aged homicide detective, Ernie Carpenter, vaulted from his vehicle and into the fray. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

“Cuff her, Ernie,” Joanna ordered, moving away. “I don’t think she’s armed, but you’d better check.”

By then, Susan was coughing and gasping for breath. Ernie reached down, hauled her to her feet, and then spun her around to secure her wrists behind her. Meanwhile, Joanna hurried to check on Clete Rogers, who was leaning against Fran Daly’s van. His face had gone dangerously white.

“Are you all right?” Joanna asked.

He nodded. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ve got some medication in my truck. Just help me back to it.”

With him leaning against her for support, Joanna led him back to his pickup. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?” she asked. “I can call for an ambulance and have them take you to a hospital in Tucson.”

He waved her away and then reached for a lunch-box-sized cool chest on the seat beside him. “No,” he said, as he opened the lid. “Just let me be for a little. I’ll be fine.”

Sergeant Mallory appeared at that moment. “What’s going on?” he demanded, looking from Joanna to a dust-covered but still belligerent Susan Jenkins.

“I want that woman arrested,” Joanna said, pointing at Susan. “She’s to be charged with assaulting a police officer.” “Who is she?” Mallory asked.

“Susan Jenkins, the dead woman’s daughter.”

Mallory looked puzzled. “I thought the son was the one who was on his way.”

“They’re both here,” Joanna told him. “Clete Rogers is over there in his truck. Somebody had better check on him. He may need medical attention.”

Mallory whistled. “Nice family.”

“Isn’t that the truth!”

While Mallory went to check on Clete Rogers, Ernie walked over to Joanna. His thick, bushy eyebrows were beetled into a frown. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“As I drove up, I saw what was happening,” Ernie continued. “The woman was coming right at you, Joanna. She’s so much bigger than you are, I thought for sure you were a goner. The next thing I knew, though, she was flying through the air like some kind of rag doll. Nice move. Who showed you that one?”

As relief flooded through Joanna’s body, she remembered those countless summertime sessions out in the yard at High Lonesome Ranch where Andy had taught both his wife and daughter a collection of self-defense moves. He had taught them to use a thumbhold that could bring even the most burly opponent to his knees. Not only that, Andy had shown Joanna and Jenny how an attacker’s own body weight could be used against him. Or her, as the case might be.

On wrestling mats Andy had borrowed from one of his old high school coaches at Bisbee High, they had practiced time and again until they had perfected their technique—until Joanna could throw Andy and until Jenny, in turn, could throw her mother. At the time it had seemed like little more than a game—something inexpensive that the financially strapped family could do together. Back then it had never occurred to Joanna that those very skills might one day mean the difference between life and death—between walking away from a fight as opposed to being carried away on a stretcher.

“It’s a gift,” Joanna told Ernie.

Ernie’s frown deepened. “You mean it’s something you were born knowing?”

Joanna shook her head. “No, I mean it’s something Andy taught me before he died. A gift from him.”

“Well,” Ernie Carpenter said. “It’s pretty damned impressive.”

Frank Montoya came up behind them. In his early thirties, Frank was a tall man with a medium build. In hopes of disguising his receding hairline, he kept his hair barbered in a precision crew cut.

“Ernie!” Frank exclaimed. “You’re already here. Good. Doc Daly sent me to find you. She’s almost ready to start the proceedings, and she was hoping you’d arrived.” Frank stopped and looked around at the collection of haphazardly parked cars. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Was there a fender bender or something?”

Joanna chuckled nervously. “No. Chapter two in the Rogers family feud. I’ve asked Sergeant Mallory to place Susan under arrest. Other than that, everything’s fine.”

“You’re sure?” Frank asked.

The very real concern fellow officers showed one another never failed to touch Joanna. “Really,” she said, “I’m fine, Frank. Lead the way to the crime scene. Let’s not keep Fran Daly waiting.”

“If you expect me to arrest her,” Mallory objected, “what about statements? I’m going to need to talk to both you and your detective here.”

“We won’t go back to Bisbee without talking to you, Sergeant Mallory,” Joanna reassured him. “But right this minute, working with Dr. Daly takes precedence.”

As Joanna followed Frank Montoya and Ernie Carpenter into the cholla grove, she slipped her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Dick Voland’s number. “I just had a little run-in with Clete Rogers’ sister,” she told him. “She seems to think her mother’s boyfriend may have had something to do with all this. His name’s Farley Adams or Adams Farley. I forget which. Anyway, if Detective Carbajal turns up there, you might have him take a run to the mining claim out on Outlaw Mountain. Regardless of what Susan Jenkins thinks about the guy, we owe him the common courtesy of letting him know what’s happened to Alice. I don’t think anyone else is going to do it. Besides, in the process, between Sunday and now, maybe he’ll have remembered some little detail that might help us.”