J. Jance - Skeleton Canyon

“Don’t worry about it,” York said. “Happens all the time. Besides, look who’s talking,” he added. “It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night, and here you are calling me from the office.”

“Don’t tell me,” Joanna said. “Caller ID. Right?”

“It would have to be,” Adam York said with a chuckle. “I’m sure as hell no psychic.”

When Joanna left the office an hour or so after she arrived, she found that the outside temperature had dropped some. Turning off on Double Adobe Road, she noticed that, off to the southeast, at the southernmost corner of the vast Sulphur Springs Valley, there were a few muted flickers of light on the distant horizon. Lightning. The first storms of the summer monsoon season were trying to make their way up into the Arizona desert from the Gulf of California.

Traditionally, summer rains always arrived just in time to throw a wet blanket on Bisbee’s Fourth of July fireworks celebration. But Independence Day was still more than two weeks away. In the meantime, Joanna expected there would be more days of scorching summer temperatures accompanied by the added complication of gradually increasing humidity.

She had barely turned off onto the High Lonesome’s dirt track of a road when Tigger, a clownish golden retriever/pit bull mix-and Sadie, a leggy bluetick hound-bounded into the moving glow of headlights to greet the car and race the Crown Victoria back to the house. When Joanna parked and opened her door, the dogs raced around to the far side of the vehicle in a frenzied but futile search for Jenny.

“Too bad, guys,” Joanna told them. “No Jenny tonight. Sad to say, you two are going to have to make do with just me for the next little while.”

Out of habit, Joanna had switched off the cooler when she had left for Green Brush Ranch late that afternoon. Now, at ten o’clock at night, the inside of the house felt overheated, especially when compared to the far more moderate temperatures outdoors. Once Joanna turned on the old swamp cooler, she knew it would take an hour or more for it to work its magic. In the meantime, she stripped off her work clothes in favor of shorts and an old T-shirt. Then, pausing only long enough to take messages off the machine, she collected her new cordless phone, a tablet, and a pen and went outside onto the front porch. Settling into the swing, she began returning calls.

Eva Lou Brady, Joanna’s mother-in-law, had called early in the afternoon to invite Joanna to come to dinner after church on Sunday. One of the organizers of the Fourth of July parade had called to see if Sheriff Brady would be willing to step in as grand marshal now that Bisbee’s mayor, Agnes Pratt, had been sidelined with an emergency appendectomy. There were also two separate calls from Joanna’s friend Angie Kellogg-one from home and one from work.

The parade call couldn’t be returned until Monday, and Angie would be at work until two o’clock in the morning. The call to Joanna’s in-lows was different. Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady usually went to bed right after the local news ended at ten-thirty, so she called them back immediately. Jim Boll Brady answered the phone.

“How’d it go?” he asked. “You get Jenny dropped off at camp all right?”

The hours between then and Joanna’s last glimpse of Jenny seemed to melt away. The image of her daughter trudging dejectedly away from the car with her camp counselor caused a sudden tightening in Joanna’s throat. “It was fine,” she managed, speaking around a lump in her throat that made speech almost impossible. “It would have been better if the air-conditioning in the Eagle hadn’t given out on us along the way.”

“Did you get it fixed?” Jim Bob asked at once. “Is there anything you need me to do?”

Her in-laws’ unfailing helpfulness and generosity never failed to warm Joanna. “Thanks, Jim Bob,” she said. “I’ve already made an appointment with Jim Hobbs to have it fixed.”

“Good. What about dinner tomorrow, then?” Jim Bob asked. “Eva Lou doesn’t want you to get too lonely out there all by yourself.”

“Dinner would be great,” Joanna told him. “What time?”

“One. One-thirty.”

“I’ll be there,” Joanna said.

Ending that call, she dialed the bar in Brewery Gulch. Angie Kellogg answered, speaking over the din of talking people and blaring jukebox music. “Blue Moon. Angie speaking.”

“It’s Joanna. You called?”

“Yes,” Angie said. “I wanted to ask a favor, but it doesn’t matter. He’s already here.”

“Who’s already there?”

“The parrot guy. He came to take me for a hike tomorrow morning. To see some hummingbirds. I was going to ask you to come along.”

“No kidding. The parrot guy? The one from the Chircahuas? What was his name? Hacker, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Angie said. “Dennis Hacker.”

“And the two of you are going on a hike? That’s great.”

Angie’s voice sounded a little more hopeful. “Could you maybe come along with us?” she asked. “We’re going to leave here right after I get off work.”

At two o’clock in the morning? Joanna thought. “Sorry, Angie,” she said. “I just can’t make it. I’m already beat as it is. I’ve got to go to bed and get some sleep. Not only that, I just made arrangements to have an early dinner with Jim Bob and Eva Lou.”

“Oh,” Angie said. “Well, I guess I won’t go then, either.”

“What do you mean you won’t go? You love hummingbirds.”

“It’s just that…”

“It’s just what?”

“I don’t know if I want to go with him all by myself.”

Joanna thought back to her one meeting with Hacker. He had come to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department to give a statement in regard to another case. Jenny had been in the office for Take Our Kids to Work Day, Cochise County’s modified version of the national Take Our Daughters to Work Day. While there, she had encountered the tall, gangly, and loose-jointed Englishman in the hallway. Afterward, Jenny had come dashing into her mother’s office.

“Mom,” she had babbled breathlessly, “you’ll never guess who’s out there in the hall. It’s the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.”

Smiling at the memory, Joanna addressed Angie. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Why don’t you want to go out with him? I’ve met him. He seems like a nice enough guy to me.”

“That’s just it,” Angie said defensively. “I don’t know what to think. What if he turns out to be too nice for me or else… “

“Or else what?” Joanna asked.

“Well,” Angie returned defensively, “what if it turns out to be like the old days? What if we go on a hike to see the birds but he really thinks we’re going out there for something else?”

“You wrote him a letter, didn’t you?” Joanna asked.

“Yes. He claims that’s why he came to see me after all this time-because of the letter.”

“What do your instincts tell you?”

“Half one way and half the other.”

Joanna smiled. “It sounds like a date to me, Angie,” she said kindly. “A regular, ordinary, old-fashioned date for two people to get together and do something they’re both interested in. If I were you, I’d go.”

“Would you really?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve gotta go,” Angie said. “Someone’s asking for a drink.”

“Have fun,” Joanna told her. “Call me tomorrow and tell me how it turned out.”

“Okay,” Angie said with a dubious sigh. “I will.”

Joanna punched the button that ended the call. Putting the phone down on the swing beside her, she picked up the tablet and pen and began to write.

Dear Jenny,