J. Jance - Skeleton Canyon

“You’d say you’re on good terms with your daughter, then?” Joanna asked.

“Absolutely!”

“David, please don’t shout,” Katherine said quietly, giving him a lingering look Joanna noticed but couldn’t quite decipher. “That isn’t necessary. And we’re forgetting our manners. Won’t you sit down, Sheriff Brady? This chair is still in the shade. Would you care for a glass of iced tea? And, it you don’t mind, I’ll switch on the mist cooler.”

Accepting the offer of tea, Joanna sank into the chair Katherine had indicated. Meanwhile, Katherine herself walked over to the wall and flipped a switch. Instantly a fine spray of water Nettled over the patio. It was a cooling device Joanna had seen in Phoenix and Tucson at nicer restaurants with outdoor seating areas, but this was the first time she had seen that kind of setup in a private home. She would have loved to strip off her jacket, but that would have revealed that she was armed, twice over. Her Colt 2000 rested in a shoulder holster under her arm. Her backup weapon-a Glock 19-was hidden in a discreet small-of-the-back holster.

“Did you already tell Detective Carpenter what kind of vehicle your daughter is driving?” she asked.

“A red Toyota,” Katherine said.

“It’s a Tacoma,” David added. “She could have had any kind of car, but what she wanted was a damned pickup. We gave it to her three months ago as a combination birthday/ graduation present.”

“Do you happen to know the license number?”

David shook his head. “Not off the top of my head, but I’m sure the registration and title are in my file. Would you like me to get them?”

Joanna shook her head. “That’s not necessary. We’ll get it from the D.M.V.” She looked at Ernie. “Have you checked the house to make sure nothing’s missing, Detective Carpenter?”

“Not yet,” he replied. “I was about to do that when-”

“Missing?” David O’Brien interrupted. “What do you mean, missing? Are you implying that Brianna would steal from her own parents?”

“I’m implying nothing of the kind,” Joanna returned coolly, choosing to ignore David O’Brien’s continuing bluster. “Your daughter left home yesterday, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I’m merely trying to ascertain what, if anything, she took with her. Something she might have taken along may give us a clue as to her actual destination.”

“I see,” David agreed reluctantly.

Joanna turned to Katherine. “Would it be possible for you to show us Brianna’s room?”

The woman stood at once. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll be happy to. Right this way.”

With Katherine leading, Ernie and Joanna walked back into the welcome coolness of the house. Morosely smoking his cigarette, David O’Brien remained where he was.

“Please excuse David,” Katherine O’Brien was saying. “He’s not usually so on edge. You have to understand, this has all been a terrible strain on him. A shock. And the idea that some-thing awful may have happened…” Pausing, she shook her head. “After what went on before, it’s just… just unthinkable,” she finished at last.

They had entered a part of the sprawling house that appeared to be a bedroom wing.

“After what happened before?” Joanna asked.

“You know,” Katherine said. “If he lost Bree, too. Just like he lost his other two kids. I don’t think he’d survive it.” Joanna frowned. “He had other children?”

Katherine had stopped in front of a closed door. With one hand on the knob, she hesitated before opening it. “I’ve always respected Bree’s privacy,” she said. ‘I’ve never gone into her room without permission.”

“Do it just this once,” Ernie urged. “I think she’ll forgive you.” Nodding, Katherine opened the door and let him inside, but without entering the room herself. Since the woman was Moving in the hallway, so did Joanna, mulling over what Katherine had just told them.

“I thought Brianna was an only child,” Joanna said a moment later.

“There were two others,” Katherine said. “A boy and a girl. From his first wife.”

“What happened to them?”

Katherine looked surprised. “I thought everyone knew about that.”

“I don’t.”

Katherine sighed. “They both died,” she said simply. “David and Suzanne, his first wife, were driving back to Phoenix after being down in Tucson over Fourth of July. David was at the wheel. The two kids were asleep in the backseat. David Junior was eight, and Monica five. On the road between Phoenix and Casa Grande, they got caught in one of those terrible Interstate 10 dust storms.

“David told me that he saw the dust cloud coming and was trying to make it to the next exit, but the storm got to them first. He drove over on the shoulder of the road, hoping to get out of the way of traffic. He got out of the car and was opening the passenger door to lead Suzanne and the kids to safety when a semi slammed into them from behind. The impact threw him clear of the wreckage. Suzanne and the kids were trapped in the car. The coroner said they all died on impact. I hope so, because there was a terrible fire after that-one of those awful chain reaction things. Nine people died in all, most of them burned beyond recognition.

“It was more than an hour later when someone finally found David. He was unconscious and had been thrown so far from the other wreckage that no one saw him at first. They airlifted him to Good Samaritan in Phoenix. That’s where I met him. I was an intensive care nurse. I was on duty in the ICU when they brought him in. I was there when he regained consciousness.”

Remembering, Katherine paused and bit her lip. “I’ll never forget it. ‘Where’s my wife?’ he asked. ‘Where are my kids? Please tell me.’ The doctor had left orders that he was to be told nothing, but that didn’t seem right. The funerals were scheduled for the next day, and he didn’t even know they were dead. So I told him.

“Later, when his doctor found out I was the one who had given David the information, the doctor tried to have the nursing supervisor fire me. It didn’t work, but I quit anyway. When David left the hospital, he needed a full-time nurse, and he hired me to take care of him. Those first three or four years were awful for him. He was devastated. He felt like he had lost everything. He was suicidal much of the time. There were guns in his house. If I hadn’t hidden them, I think he would have taken his own life a dozen times over.”

“When did you get married, then?” Joanna asked.

“Five years later,” Katherine answered. “When David finally realized that his life wasn’t finished. That he wanted to live again. That he could possibly father another child.”

Katherine stopped. “People say that, you know,” she added. “At funerals. To the parents of dead children. They say, ‘You can have another child.’ Except it doesn’t work out. You can never replace one child with another.”

Up to that very moment, Katherine O’Brien had given every indication that she was a pillar of strength. Leaning against the doorjamb of her daughter’s room, she began to cry.

“She’s gone,” she sobbed hopelessly. “I know it. My poor little Bree is gone, and she’s never coming back.”

For a time there was nothing Joanna could do but wait. She knew that words would do nothing to relieve the kind of distress Katherine O’Brien was suffering. “I’m sorry,” the weeping woman mumbled at last, blowing her nose into a tissue. “I’ve been trying not to fall apart in front of David, but opening the door to Bree’s room was more than I could bear.”

“I understand,” Joanna said kindly. “Believe me, I do.”

Ernie reappeared in the doorway. “Would you mind coming in here now, Mrs. O’Brien? I’d like you to look through your daughter’s clothing and toiletries and try to see if anything in particular isn’t here. That way, if it becomes necessary to broadcast a report to other jurisdictions, we’ll be able to include a description of exactly what she might be wearing.”