The Old Blue Line: A Joanna Brady Novella (Joanna Brady Mysteries) (12 page)

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Authors: J. A. Jance

BOOK: The Old Blue Line: A Joanna Brady Novella (Joanna Brady Mysteries)

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“Most of these folks are volunteers,” Joanna told her. “My people are here because Chief Bernard requested my department’s assistance, and we’re happy to oblige. As for its being an overreaction? I doubt that’s how Daisy Maxwell would characterize it. In fact, Daisy is right over there chatting with Marianne. Why don’t you ask her?”

Marliss scurried off in search of Daisy Maxwell. “Thanks for getting rid of her,” Alvin Bernard muttered once the reporter was safely out of earshot. “I was afraid she was going to be on my case all morning long.”

Quickly Joanna briefed him on the situation with Terry and Spike.

“Should I call off the street search, then?” Chief Bernard asked.

“Not yet,” Joanna replied. “Just because Junior wandered up to the highway doesn’t mean he didn’t come back down into town somewhere else. I sent a pair of uniformed deputies up there to direct traffic. What we don’t need on the scene is a mob of civilians.”

“You’re right about that,” Bernard agreed.

“Why don’t I go see if I can assist my guys?” Joanna told him. “I’ll call you directly if we find any sign of Junior.”

When their conversation was interrupted by questions from someone else, Joanna took the opportunity to slip away. Once in her Yukon, she exited the parking lot, drove back down to Tombstone Canyon, and then headed north to the junction with Highway 80. Merging into the southbound lane, she turned on her light bar and flashers and drove slowly down the highway, scanning the shoulders on both sides of the road as she went. When she reached mileage marker 337, she pulled over to the side of the road and tucked in behind Deputy Stock’s Ford Explorer.

“Where’s Terry?” she asked.

“Up there,” he said, pointing up the steep hillside above the highway. “He and Spike took off up that gully.”

Years earlier, when the new highway bypass was built, the roadway had been carved out of the series of undulating limestone cliffs that covered the hillside. The mounds of cliffs were separated by steep gullies. During rainstorms those washes turned into cascades of fast-running water. Bone dry at the moment, they offered a natural but rough stairway leading up through otherwise impassable terrain. Pulling a pair of binoculars off her belt, Joanna scanned the mountainside.

When Anglos had first arrived in what was now southeastern Arizona, the Mule Mountains had been covered by a forest of scrub oak. The trees had been cut down to provide firewood for home use as well as for smelting the copper being mined underground. As a girl, Joanna had hiked these hills with her father. Back then most of the scrub oak had been little more than overgrown bushes. Decades later those same slow-growing shrubs had matured into genuine trees, growing here and there in dense clusters.

Joanna was still scouring the hillside with her binoculars when Spike and Terry popped out from behind the cover of one of those groves of trees. They remained visible for only a matter of moments before resuming their climb and disappearing into another clump of scrub oak a few yards farther on. Even from this distance Joanna could see that Terry was struggling to keep up with his agile dog. Spike, nose to the ground and intent on his quarry, lunged forward with his brushy tail plumed out behind him.

Joanna knew that Terry Gregovich prided himself on being in top physical condition. If this was proving to be a tough climb for him, how had Junior managed it? The missing man was in his early sixties. He was naturally clumsy and anything but a natural athlete. Joanna was hard-pressed to imagine Junior making the same climb, especially alone and in the dark. Still, she also understood that the trail didn’t lie. Junior’s scent had to be there because that’s what Spike was following.

“Did there happen to be a full moon last night?” Joanna asked.

“Yes, ma’am, there was,” Deputy Stock answered. “Out between here and Tombstone it was almost as bright as day.”

Just then Joanna heard the dog. Spike’s excited, purposeful barks alerted everyone within earshot that he had located his target. Almost a minute later, Terry reappeared, popping out of the second grove of trees. As Deputy Gregovich came into view, Joanna’s phone rang.

“I found him,” Terry said urgently.

“Where?” Joanna asked. “Is he all right?”

“I can’t tell if he’s all right or not,” Terry replied. “I can see him, but I can’t reach him. I called to him, but he didn’t respond. He doesn’t appear to be breathing.”

“Where is he?”

“At the bottom of a glory hole inside a cave of some kind. I always heard rumors about a series of limestone caverns under the mountain, but I never really believed it. The narrow opening that leads into it is hidden in the trees directly behind me.”

Joanna knew that the Mule Mountains were riddled with natural caverns and man-made glory holes—small test holes that had been drilled into the earth by prospectors and left abandoned when no ore was found.

“Which is it?” Joanna asked, “a glory hole or a cave?”

“A little of both,” Terry replied. “The cave itself is natural, but there’s a small glory hole inside it that someone must have worked for a while. The tailings outside the entrance are hidden under the trees. If I’d been on my own, I would have missed the opening completely. Fortunately, Spike didn’t. Someone put an iron grate across the entrance to keep people out. Junior evidently crawled under it. So did Spike and I. The glory hole is a few feet inside the cave, and it’s a big drop-off. I can see Junior facedown at the bottom of that, lying on top of a layer of loose rock and boulders where it looks like the side of the hole collapsed. There’s a cat or kitten stuck down there, too. It’s on an outcropping halfway between where I was and where Junior is. I can’t see it, but I can hear it crying. I’ll bet that’s what happened. Junior was following the kitten, and they both fell.”

“Can you get to him?” Joanna asked.

“Not me, not without ropes and a winch.”

“Okay,” Joanna said. “I’m on it. Calling for help right now.”

About the Author

J
.
A
.
J
ANCE
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, and four interrelated thrillers about the Walker family, as well as a volume of poetry. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

www.jajance.com

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www.AuthorTracker.com
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By J.A. Jance

Joanna Brady Mysteries

The Old Blue Line: A Joanna Brady Novella

J. P. Beaumont Mysteries

Dismissed with Prejudice

Ring in the Dead: A J. P. Beaumont Novella

Second Watch

Walker Family Mysteries

Ali Reynolds Mysteries

Edge of Evil

Web of Evil

Hand of Evil

Cruel Intent

Trial by Fire

Fatal Error

Left for Dead

Deadly Stakes

Moving Target

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Excerpt from
Remains of Innocence
copyright © 2014 by J. A. Jance.

THE OLD BLUE LINE
. Copyright © 2014 by J. A. Jance. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition JUNE 2014 ISBN: 9780062366917

Print Edition ISBN: 9780062366924

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