Skeleton Canyon (14 page)

I stopped by Jim Hobbs’s place tonight and made an appointment to have the Eagle fixed. You’ll be happy to know that by the time I come pick you up, we’ll once again have a fully working air conditioner.

Joanna paused again. She had already decided to say nothing at all about work or about the type of case that had occupied the whole of her Saturday afternoon. There was no point in mentioning Brianna O’Brien’s disappearance. Chances were the missing teenager would show up safe and sound the next afternoon. In that case, if she had been off somewhere fooling around with a boyfriend, the less said, the better. On the other hand, if David O’Brien was right and his daughter had fallen victim to some awful fate, then word of that would come won enough for everyone—Jennifer Brady included.

With a shock, Joanna realized that Jenny, at ten, was a mere eight years younger than Bree. Determinedly thrusting that disturbing thought aside, Joanna returned to her writing.

Grandpa and Grandma Brady have invited me over for dinner tomorrow after church. I think they’re afraid that with you gone for two weeks, I’ll dry up and blow away or starve to death.

Speaking of drying up, I can see lightning way off in the distance to the south, somewhere down in Sonora. Maybe the summer rains will get here a little early this year—sooner than the Fourth of July. But not so soon, I hope, that they spoil any of your time at camp.

I guess that’s all for now. It’s so hot inside the house and so nice out here on the porch that I think I’ll do what we used to do on hot summer nights when Dad was alive. Re-member how we’d bring those old army cots out here and sleep on the porch? That way, you’ll be camping out tonight, and so will I.

Love, Mom

Joanna addressed an envelope, sealed the letter inside it, and then carried the letter, the phone, and her writing materials back inside. The three old army cots were stowed in the back of Jenny’s closet. Joanna dragged one out, brought her pillow and a set of sheets, and returned to the porch. For tonight, at least, she wouldn’t be dealing with Reba’s double bed problem.

She was on her way back outside for the last time when the phone rang. That late at night, there were only two real possibilities—something had happened at work, some new emergency that demanded the sheriff’s attention; or else, things had quieted down enough at the Roundhouse Bar and Grill up in Peoria and Butch Dixon had found a spare moment to give her a call.

“Did you get Jenny off to camp safe and sound?” Butch asked. “How did it go?”

Glad to hear the sound of his voice, Joanna slipped onto the chair beside the telephone table and tucked her feet up under her. “It went fine,” she said, giving Butch the benefit of only the smallest of white lies. “No problems at all.”

Later, lying there on the porch, waiting to fall asleep and watching the intermittent flickers of lightning, Joanna reviewed what had gone on during the day. One of the things that stood out in her mind was Ernie’s objection to Joanna’s use of the word
enemies in
conjunction with Bree O’Brien. Having raised only sons, Ernie was more familiar with little boy kinds of disputes—ones that included straightforward fistfights and uncomplicated rock throwing.

Joanna, however, was acquainted with the kinds of insidious, ego-damaging warfare traditionally practiced on young women by other young women. Joanna Lathrop Brady had been there and done that. Her nemesis at Bisbee High School had been a girl named Rowena Sharp.

Popular and smart and blessed with two doting parents, Stub and Chloe Sharp, Rowena had been everything Joanna Lathrop wasn’t. In fact, now that she thought about it, Bree O’Brien reminded Joanna of Rowena. Going through adolescence is tough enough, but Joanna Lathrop had also been dealing with the loss of her father. For some reason, Rowena had singled Joanna out as the object of unmerciful torment and contempt. Not only that, Rowena’s gal pals had risen to the occasion and joined in the fun, not unlike a flock of cannibalistic chickens pecking to death some poor wounded and defenseless bird that had happened to wander into their midst.

Joanna never knew what she had done to merit Rowena’s scorn, but it was something she had been forced to endure, day in and day out. There had been bitchy remarks about “Miss Goody Two-shoes” in the girls’ rest room and the cafeteria lunch line. There had been numerous and undeniably deliberate pushings in the hall and gym when Joanna’s back was turned to open her locker. It wasn’t until late in their senior year that things had changed ever so slightly.

Rowena had been one of two contenders for the position of salutatorian, but she was having a terrible time grasping the basics of chemistry. On her own, she would have earned a solid B in the course, but a B wouldn’t have done enough for her GPA. She had persuaded one of her friends—a girl who worked in the principal’s office during second period—to lift a copy of Mr. Cantrell’s final exam. Word of the pilfered exam had traveled like wildfire through the senior class. Even Joanna heard about it, and she alone had tackled Rowena on the issue.

“Why cheat?” Joanna asked. “Why not just take the grade you’ve earned on your own?”

“Because it won’t be good enough,
^”
Rowena shot back. “Be-cause if Mark Watkins is salutatorian instead of me, my parents will just die.”

Not wanting to be saddled with more “Miss Goody Two-shoes” remarks, Joanna had kept her mouth shut. Rowena Sharp received her illicit A and graduated second in their class, with Mark Watkins coming in a close third. As for Joanna, she could never look at that page in her senior yearbook without feeling a stab of guilt whenever she saw Rowena’s smiling face staring back out at her.

The last time Joanna had seen Rowena Sharp Bonham had been at their ten-year class reunion, where the printed bio had announced that Rowena was an attorney practicing law in Phoenix. Clearly, the passage of time hadn’t helped Rowena forget any more than it had helped Joanna. When they encountered one another in the buffet line, Rowena had cut Joanna dead.

Good riddance,
Joanna thought as a surprisingly cool breeze wafted over her, letting her drift off to sleep. As
Eva Lou would say, good riddance to the bad rubbish.

Long after midnight, Francisco Ybarra sat in the kitchen of his darkened home, keeping company with a bottle of Wild Turkey and worrying.

Frank wasn’t much of a drinker. Nonetheless, he poured himself another glassful of bourbon. The hundred-proof liquor warmed his gut as it went down. Maybe eventually sleep would come, but right now he was still wide awake.

Frank’s worries had two separate sources—his ailing wife, Yolanda, and Pepito. Hector had told him about the blond girl in the red truck, about how she had come by the station the previous afternoon and about how today Nacio had been in a foul mood all day long. Frank’s nephew had left the station after first lashing out at Hector. When he had returned to the station much later in the day, Hector claimed Pepito hadn’t been worth a plugged nickel.

Hector had long ago alerted Frank Ybarra to the existence of the girl in the red pickup truck—the one who came by the station, usually when Frank wasn’t there and sometimes even when he was. He knew about her long blond ponytail, her long tan legs, and her cute little ass. Frank was sure she had to be the same girl from Bisbee, the one Yolanda had been all over Pepito about last winter.

Frank had known from very early on about what was going on, but he had decided to let it go—to allow the affair to run its own course—because he was confident Pepito would get over it eventually. Now he wasn’t so sure.

From outside the house, came the sound of familiar tires crunching the gravel of the back alley. A pair of glowing head-lights dissolved into darkness. Not moving, not reaching for the light, Frank Ybarra sat in the dark and waited, listening for the telltale creak of the iron gate and for Nacio’s limping steps on the wooden planks of the back porch.

Stealthily, almost as though he were willing the sometimes fussy lock to silence, Nacio’s key clicked in the keyhole. The door opened. Almost simultaneously, the overhead light came on. Illumined in the glaring fluorescent glow, Ignacio Ybarra was a bruised and bloodied mess. His scraped and scabby face looked as though it had been dragged along a sidewalk. Underneath the torn material of a ragged shirt, Frank glimpsed a layer of bandages encircling the boy’s chest.

“What happened?” Frank asked, even though he thought he already knew the answer.

The door was still open when Nacio saw his uncle. He turned and would have fled back into the night, had Francisco Ybarra not stopped him. “I asked you, what happened?”

“I got in a fight,” Nacio said, slipping unconcernedly onto a chair and trying to sound casual. “A guy beat me up.”

Uncle Frank stood up, a little unsteadily, and walked around the table to the far side of Nacio’s chair. He stared down at his nephew for a moment, then, walking with great dignity, Frank returned to his chair. He had seen beatings before. He knew what they looked like.

“What guy?” he asked, his face going still and cold. “An Anglo?”

Nacio nodded.

“Which one?”

“Just a guy,” Nacio answered. “I can’t say.”

“The hell you can’t!” Uncle Frank returned savagely, pounding the table with his fist. He realized then he was more than a little drunk. “You can tell me, and you will. People can’t get away with this kind of shit anymore. You tell me who it was who did this. I’ll call the cops.”

“No,” Ignacio insisted. “No cops.”

“Why not, Pepito?” Frank’s voice grew softer suddenly, al-most cajoling. Nacio was the little boy he had raised from an infant, the one he loved almost as much or maybe even more than his own son. The fact that once again someone had hurt his beloved Pepito shook Francisco Ybarra to the core. His fury was made that much worse by the fact that it could so easily have been prevented. Frank knew that he himself should have put a stop to Nacio’s dangerous romance. If nothing else, he should have told his wife about it. Yoli would have handled it.

“Were you doing something wrong?” Frank asked gently. “Something you shouldn’t?”

 Nacio’s chin trembled. His Adam’s apple wobbled up and own with the effort of speaking. “No,” he replied. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong. But still, no cops.”

He stood up then, walked over to the light, and switched it back off. “I’m going to bed, Uncle Frank. We can talk about his in the morning.”

Feeling sick, Frank Ybarra waited until the door swung shut before he reached for the bottle. This time, though, instead of pouring another drink, he grasped the bottle by the neck. Molding it in one knotted fist, he stood up and staggered as far as the back door. After wrenching open the door, Frank hurled the bottle as far as he could into the inky darkness of the backyard. The bottle splattered against the brick wall of the garage and splintered into a thousand pieces.

Frank stood for a moment longer, leaning against the doorjamb while his chest heaved and he fought with the knowledge that his worst fears had been realized. One of the reasons he hadn’t told Yoli about the girl was his firm belief that Pepito could take care of himself. Evidently, Frank had been wrong about that, too. Nacio might have tried to spare his uncle some of the gory details, but Frank was convinced he already knew them anyway. This was exactly the kind of shit Yoli had been worried about when she herself had warned Pepito to stay away from the girl.

Ignacio Salazar Ybarra wasn’t the first Hispanic boy to have the crap beaten out of him for messing with an Anglo girl, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be the last. But now, with Yoli so sick—in the hospital and facing surgery on Monday morning—how on earth would Frank ever be able to tell her?

Having Dennis Hacker hanging around in the bar made Angie nervous. Not that he did or said anything out of line. Not that he was obnoxious. He just sat there, chatting with the other customers, drinking coffee, and watching her. By last call, he had settled in with Archie and Willy at the far end of the bar, where the three entertained one another telling tall tales about the Huachucas and the Peloncillos. They were on such good terms that Hacker bought the two old men their last round of the evening.

All night long, Angie had waffled back and forth, wanting to go and not wanting to go. Now, though, at ten minutes before one and after the man had waited for her for hours, it was too late. She couldn’t very well tell him that she had changed her mind and wasn’t going.

Hacker, Willy, and Archie were the only customers left in the bar when Angie went into the back room to lug out the four locking wood panels that slipped into slots in the bar’s front to cover the supply of liquor. “Those look heavy. Would you like me to help you with them?” Dennis Hacker offered.

“It’s all right,” Angie said. “I can manage.”

“Hey, Angie,” Willy said. “This Brit knows all about birds. All kinds of birds. If you don’t believe me, just ask him.”

“Finish your drink, Willy,” she ordered. “You, too, Archie. It’s closing time.”

“What about him?” Archie whined.

“He’s drinking coffee,” Angie pointed out. “There’s no law against drinking coffee after hours, only booze. Besides, he’s with me.”

Archie’s toothless face collapsed in on itself. “You mean like a date?
^”
he asked. “You’re not going to put her in that fancy damned Hummer of yours and pack her off, are you?” he demanded. “Angie’s the best thing that’s ever happened to this place.”

“What’d she say?” Willy asked.

“This guy’s her boyfriend,” Archie groused. “That’s why he can stay and we can’t.”

Flushing with embarrassment, Angie collected their glasses. “Out,” she ordered. “Time to go.”

Still grumbling, the two old men helped one another off their respective stools and shuffled toward the door. They shared a basement room in an old, moldering rooming house two buildings up the street, so Angie knew they were in no danger of driving a car. At the door, Archie turned around and shook an admonishing finger in Dennis Hacker’s direction.