J. Jance - Skeleton Canyon

Katherine stopped abruptly, as though the customary graciousness of telling visiting guests about her objets d’art had somehow outdistanced the painful circumstances that had brought this particular visitor into her home. “Sorry,” she said. “Detective Carpenter and my husband are out back by the pool. If you’ll come this way.”

Katherine O’Brien led Joanna past a formal dining room and through a large kitchen where the housekeeper was busy cooking something meaty that smelled absolutely wonderful. Beyond the kitchen was an informal dining room and a family room complete with a massive entertainment unit. French doors from the family room led to a fully enclosed patio complete with black wrought iron furniture, a permanently installed canopy, a hot tub, and a lap pool. The interior wall of the patio was lined with raised flower beds that held an astonishing assortment of vividly colored, dinner plate-sized dahlias.

An empty wheelchair sat parked next to the edge of the pool. In the pool itself, a silver-haired man Joanna recognized as David O’Brien swam back and forth. Meanwhile, Detective Ernie Carpenter, overdressed as usual in his customary double-breasted suit, sat sweltering under the canopy.

As soon as Joanna and Katherine came out onto the porch, O’Brien used two swift strokes to propel himself over to a stainless steel pole that stood next to the wheelchair. Turning his hack to the side of the pool, he did something that activated a whirring motor. Moments later, he emerged from the water seated on what was evidently a one-person lift. The lift stopped when David O’Brien was exactly level with the seat of the chair. Using the strong, well-defined muscles in his arms and shoulders, David swung himself from lift to chair.

A stack of terry cloth towels sat on the table. David O’Brien rolled his chair over to the table. Taking the top towel off the pile, he draped that over his deformed and useless legs. He used a second towel to dry his hair, face, and upper body.

“It’s about time you got here, Sheriff Brady,” he grumbled. “Maybe now you can get Detective Carpenter here to stop asking all these damn fool questions about Bree’s friends and start doing something useful like actually looking for her.”

“They are looking for her, David,” Katherine reminded her husband gently. “Detective Carpenter already told us that they have deputies and the highway patrol searching all the roads between here and Playas…”

“But she didn’t go to Playas!” David O’Brien exploded, pounding the table with his fist. The powerful blow sent Ernie’s almost-empty glass of iced tea skipping across the surface of the table. The detective managed to catch it, but only just barely.

“What would you like us to do, Mr. O’Brien?” Joanna asked. “Call in the FBI. Get some manpower on this thing.”

“The FBI?”

“Hello, Sheriff Brady,” Ernie said, nodding in greeting. He was a solidly built, beetle-browed man in his early fifties. His tie and stiffly starched white shirt were wilting fast.

“Mr. O’Brien here is under the impression that his daughter has been kidnapped.” He finished his tea and returned the emptied glass to the table.

“Kidnapped,” Joanna repeated. “Why? Has there been a ransom demand?”

“Nothing like that,” Ernie replied. ‘‘Not so far.”

“What about the pay phone call? If that wasn’t an abortive tall for ransom…” David O’Brien interjected.

“What phone call?” Joanna asked.

“The O’Briens have caller ID on their phones,” Ernie said. “A call came in a few minutes ago, just about the time I got here. The monitor reported it as a pay phone call. I traced it to a location near the Kmart down in Douglas. The problem is, whoever it was hung up.”

“So you didn’t actually speak to anyone?” Joanna asked Katherine.

“No.”

“And there was no request for ransom?” Joanna continued.

“‘That’s true,” Katherine agreed.

“But that’s where ransom calls usually come from, isn’t it?” O’Brien interrupted. “From pay phones so the calls can’t be traced back to the kidnapper’s residence or place of business.”

“It could have been nothing more ominous than a wrong number,” Joanna suggested. “What makes you think otherwise? Have there been kidnapping threats in the past?”

“No. Not really. But look around,” O’Brien said brusquely, with an expansive gesture that took in both the patio and the opulent home beyond it. “My wife and I have money, plenty of it. What better way for someone to lay hands on some of it than by kidnapping our only daughter? It’s not as though her existence is some kind of secret. Her graduation picture was plastered all over the papers a few weeks back. It’s no wonder-”

Joanna glanced back at Ernie. “ Any sign of violence or foul play?”

The detective shook his head. “Not that I’ve found so far. In addition, Brianna has evidently taken off like this on at least two other occasions. According to Mrs. O’Brien here, there have been two other similar incidents in the last few months-times when Brianna has left for the weekend without arriving at her supposed destination. Each time it’s been with the understanding that she was going to visit this same girl, this” -Ernie paused to consult his notes- “this Crystal Phillips over in Playas. The problem is, Crystal ’s father says Brianna hasn’t ever been there.”

“But she keeps pretending that’s where she’s gone,” Joanna said.

Ernie nodded. “Right. Each time, she left home late in the day on a Friday and returned Sunday evening. As long as her folks here didn’t call to check up on her, everything was peachy. My expectation is that she’s pulled the same stunt this time, too. She isn’t lost at all. Late Sunday she’s going to show up thinking everything’s all fine and dandy. Only this time, she’ll find out the game’s up. When she comes waltzing home on Sunday afternoon, she’s going to be one mighty surprised young lady.”

Ernie finished his speech by hauling out a hanky and mop-ping his sweat-drenched brow. His theory sounded reasonable enough, and Joanna wanted it to be right. She wanted to believe that an errant Brianna O’Brien would arrive home on Sunday night in time to be read the riot act by both her out-raged parents for having been AWOL all weekend long. Still, Joanna couldn’t dodge the premonition that had come to her before she ever left the parking lot on Mount Lemmon one that left her believing that Brianna O’Brien was already dead.

Standing there fully clothed with the late afternoon sun blazing down on her, Joanna was already regretting having changed clothes. The O’Briens’ flower-bordered patio might have been fine if you were dressed in shorts or if you had just stepped out of a swimming pool. For people dressed in business clothing and wearing body armor, though, it was like playing dress-up in the middle of a blast furnace.

David O’Brien glared across the table at the detective. “My daughter is an honor student,” he announced. “She’s never lied to me about anything in her life. I can’t understand why she’d start now. But since we’ve done our jobs as parents, how about you starting to do yours as cops?”

Joanna knew there were lots of people in town who were intimidated by David O’Brien. It was easy to see why. He was a craggy-faced man whose suntanned arms and chest glistened with silvery hair. He had a long, hawkish nose and piercing blue eyes. He was ruggedly handsome in an aging Marlboro man kind of way. In fact, at that very moment, he reached for a pack of cigarettes that lay on the table in front of him. Watching him light up, Joanna estimated that he had to be somewhere in his late seventies-of an age when he might be more likely to be a teenager’s grandfather rather than her father.