J. Jance - Skeleton Canyon

“But the Fourth of July is a holiday,” Eleanor objected. “Wouldn’t Marianne mind having to work that day?” “Call her up and find out,” Joanna said.

Just then Joanna’s door burst open and a distraught Angie Kellogg appeared in the doorway. Her blond hair was drip-ping wet. Her face was flushed. She was still wearing the striped, oversized blue-and-white apron she generally wore while working the bar of the Blue Moon. Behind her trailed an indignant Kristin Marsten accompanied by Chief Deputy Voland.

“Joanna,” Angie blurted, wrenching her upper arm away from Dick’s restraining hand. “Please, I’ve got to talk to you.”

Startled by all the activity, Joanna had taken the phone from her ear. “Mother,” she said hastily back into the phone. “Someone’s here. I have to go.” She turned back to the melee in the doorway just as Dick Voland grabbed hold of Angie again and started leading her back into the reception area.

“Look,” he was saying, “I don’t care who you are. You can’t just barge in here-”

“Dick,” Joanna interrupted, “it’s all right. Let her be. Come in, Angie. What’s wrong?”

Angie darted away from Dick Voland and came dripping across the carpet to Joanna’s desk. “It’s Dennis,” she gasped. “Something terrible has happened to him.”

“Dennis?” Joanna asked. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Not for sure. I was talking to him on the phone when someone broke into his trailer. It sounded like whoever it was had a gun. I tried calling back, but there was no answer.”

Dick Voland let go of Angie’s arm and backed off a little. “Dennis who? ”he asked.

“Dennis Hacker,” Joanna told him. “The parrot guy.” She turned back to Angie. “Tell us what’s going on. Where did this happen, and when?”

“Out in the mountains. Right around five.”

Joanna shook her head. “There are lots of mountains around here, Angie. Which ones? The Huachucas? The Chiricahuas?”

Angie shook her head. “I don’t remember exactly. It’s someplace around where the body was, I think.”

“In the Peloncillos?”

Angie’s face brightened. “Yes,” she said. “That’s it.”

Joanna knew that the Peloncillos wandered back and forth across the Arizona/New Mexico line from the far southeastern corner of the state all the way north to Graham County. “Do you know where in the Peloncillos?” she asked, hoping to narrow the scope of the problem.

“Not exactly,” Angie said. “I can show you, but I can’t tell you how to get there. It was near a cemetery, though-a cemetery with a wall around it.”

“That would have to be Cottonwood Creek Cemetery,” Dick Voland supplied. “That’s the only one I know of in the area that fits that description. Sheriff Brady’s busy right now. Why don’t you come out to the desk sergeant and give your information to him?”

The bedraggled young woman shot the chief deputy a baleful look. With the notable exception of Joanna Brady, Angie Kellogg had no use for cops. She seldom came near the Cochise County Justice Center because it brought back too many painful memories. In Angie’s past life, working the streets of L.A., there had been lots of crooked cops who, in exchange for certain services rendered, had been willing to forget making an arrest. Joanna knew nothing short of sheer desperation would have driven Angie this far into enemy territory.

“Dick,” Joanna said, “is Deputy Carbajal back from Ben-son yet?”

“I believe so. He drove into the sally port a few minutes ago. He’s probably over in the booking room right now.”

“Call the jail,” Joanna ordered. “Tell him that you and I and Miss Kellogg here are heading for the Peloncillos. He should follow ASAP. I’ll take Angie with me in the patrol car. You can follow in your Blazer. That way, if we need to do any offroading, we’ll have the Blazer to do it in.”

“Wait a minute,” Voland objected. “If what she says is true and we’re dealing with some kind of hostage situation, you can’t possibly bring a civilian along. That’s crazy.”

“You heard what Angie said,” Joanna returned. “She can show us how to get there. She can’t tell us. If we have to go driving around looking for the right spot, no telling how much time we’ll lose. In a situation like this, minutes mean the difference between life and death.”

“But-”

“No buts!” Joanna snapped, cutting him off. “I’ve got an extra Kevlar vest for her-one I keep in the trunk. If Dennis Hacker is in the kind of trouble Angie says he’s in, that’s the best we can do. Let’s get going.”

Voland shook his head, but he said nothing more. Outside the building rain poured down in the kind of downpour Jim Bob Brady would have called “raining pitchforks and hammer handles.” It was only a matter of a few feet from Joanna’s private entrance across the open sidewalk to her covered parking place. Even so, by the time she reached the Crown Victoria, she was drenched. Angie Kellogg, wet to begin with, was even more so. Joanna went around to the trunk, dragged out the Kevlar vest, and gave it to Angie.

“Put it on,” Joanna ordered.

“Do I have to?” Angie asked.

“Yes, you do. It’s the only way you’re going along.” Without another word, Angie began strapping the vest into place while Joanna slipped the gearshift into reverse and switched on both lights and siren. “What happened?” she asked as the car shot through the parking lot.

“What do you mean?” Angie returned. “I already told you what happened.”

“Not all of it,” Joanna said. “The last I heard, you were so mad at Dennis Hacker that you were ready to walk home eighty miles in a storm every bit as bad as this one.”

“I guess I was wrong about him,” Angie admitted thoughtfully.

“Wrong?” Joanna echoed. “I thought you said he was making fun of you, laughing at you.”

The rain was falling hard enough that even with the wind-shield wipers working on high Joanna could barely see the road ahead. She found herself sitting forward and squinting, but that didn’t help.

“He did laugh,” Angie replied. “I think now he was really laughing at something else, not me.” She glanced at the speedometer. “You have the siren on. Can’t we go any faster?”

“Not with all the water on the roadway,” Joanna said. “We’ll end up hydroplaning.”

“What’s that?”

“It means you’re driving on the surface of the water instead of on the pavement. That’s how people lose control of their vehicles in rainstorms. No traction.”

“Oh,” Angie Kellogg said.

They were quiet for a minute or two until Joanna spoke again. “You’re sure whoever broke into the camper had a gun ?”

“I’m not sure,” Angie said. “It sounded like it. I heard somebody tell Dennis to put his hands up.”

“Were there any guns in the trailer to begin with?” Joanna asked. “Did Dennis Hacker have any weapons of his own?”

“If he did,” Angie answered. “I didn’t see them.”

Struck by the hopelessness of it all, Angie Kellogg’s toughness and strength seemed to give out all at once. Pressing herself into the far corner of the car, she began to cry.

Joanna Brady ached to comfort her friend, but all she could do right then was keep on driving.

When the speeding Crown Victoria finally reached the eastern outskirts of Douglas on Highway 80, Angie looked around at the sodden desert landscape and shook her head. “This isn’t the way we went Sunday morning,” she said. “It’s how Marianne brought me back that afternoon, not the way Dennis took going.”

Joanna immediately heeled the Crown Victoria into a sharp U-turn and headed back to the nearest intersection where she could cross over to Geronimo Trail, the only other route that led from Douglas to the Peloncillos. As they drove past Dick Voland’s Blazer, Joanna caught a glimpse of the pained expression on her chief deputy’s face. He was shaking his head in disgust. It made her glad they weren’t in the same vehicle. She didn’t want to hear his “I told you so.”