J. Jance - Devil’s Claw

As soon as Frank’s Crown Victoria pulled into Catherine Yates’ yard, the porch light snapped on and the front door slammed open. A stocky woman in blue jeans and a flapping denim shirt came hurrying off the front porch of a tiny square house.

“Did you find her?” she demanded of Frank Montoya as he rolled down the driver’s window.

“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m sorry to report that we still haven’t found your granddaughter. I’ve brought Sheriff Joanna Brady along with me, Ms. Yates. She and I need to talk to you for a few minutes. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Joanna stepped out of the car and went around to the other side, offering her hand. “How do you do, Ms. Yates.”

Catherine Yates’ work-hardened fingers closed around Joanna’s with a surprisingly gentle touch. “Nice to meet you,” she said grudgingly. “I guess I didn’t really expect that the sheriff herself would show up.”

“I came because we need to speak to you about your daughter,” Joanna said.

“About Sandra?” Catherine asked. “How come? My granddaughter’s the one who’s missing.”

“You told Frank that you were expecting Sandra home soon. Is it possible that she and Lucinda took off together?”

Asking the question, Joanna knew she was stalling for time, postponing the inevitable moment when she would most likely have to deliver the painful news. Joanna fully expected Larry Kendrick’s mug shot would confirm that Catherine’s daughter was dead. In the meantime, asking questions was an acceptable delaying tactic. Even so, if Sandra was the victim, the awful task of telling Catherine Yates that her daughter was dead couldn’t be put off indefinitely. Notifying bereaved next of kin was Sheriff Joanna Brady’s job-part of it, anyway.

Behind her, Frank switched off his Crown Victoria-his Civvie, as he preferred to call it-and emerged into the chill early evening air.

“No,” Catherine Yates was saying. “That wouldn’t have happened. Lucy wouldn’t have gone anywhere with her mother.”

“How can you be sure of that?” Joanna asked. “Her mother’s been away for some time. Doesn’t it stand to reason that she’d be glad to see her?”

Catherine Yates simply shook her head and said nothing.

“All right, then,” Joanna said with a sigh. “Why don’t you tell us what you know about your daughter’s recent whereabouts.”

Catherine glanced warily at Frank Montoya before she answered. “I heard from Sandra just yesterday afternoon,” she said. “Sandy called from Tucson and told me she had been released. She said she was spending last night in Tucson with a friend. I told your deputies that earlier. I expect her home sometime today or tomorrow.”

“What friend?” Joanna asked.

“A friend, that’s all.”

“Look, Ms. Yates, I’m sure this is all terribly painful for you to discuss. Otherwise you would have told Chief Deputy Montoya the whole story earlier. We already know that your daughter was released from prison yesterday afternoon, so it’s no secret. Just tell us. Have you heard from her since then?”

Catherine Yates bowed her head. For a moment her face was obscured by a curtain of shoulder-length gray hair. Seeing her face in the dim glow of a yard light, it was easy to understand why Frank might have been in doubt about the woman’s ethnic heritage. She could easily have passed for either Hispanic or Indian, although there was clearly some Anglo blood mixed in as well.

“No,” Catherine said finally. “Sandra hasn’t called me, and I haven’t tried reaching her, either. In fact, I’ve been dreading talking to her all day long-ever since I realized Lucy was gone. I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell Sandy that Lucy had run away.”

“Who’s the friend?” Frank interjected. “The one Sandra’s supposed to be staying with?”

Catherine bit her lip. “Her name’s Melanie Goodson, and she’s not much of a friend, if you ask me. She lives somewhere out on Old Spanish Trail. She was Sandy’s attorney years ago. She’s also the one who let that stupid plea bargain go through. I don’t know if she was lazy or what. I don’t think she even tried to take Sandy’s case to court. If she had, I’m sure my daughter would have gotten off. What happened between Sandy and her husband should have been ruled self-defense. He was abusive, and my daughter never should have gone to prison for manslaughter. After all, Tom Ridder beat her up. If I’d‘a been her, I would have shot the son of a bitch, too.”

Listening, Joanna remembered what Catherine had said earlier-about Lucinda Ridder not being willing to go anywhere with her mother. “How did your granddaughter feel about her father’s death?” Joanna asked.

Catherine Yates was a stout woman. When asked that question, her broad shoulders seemed to shrink inside her shirt. She shook her head sadly. “Lucy loved her father,” Catherine said. “All she remembers is this tall handsome devil in his smart army uniform. I’ve tried talking to her about it, tried explaining that as far as Tom Ridder is concerned, looks weren’t everything. Tom looked a whole lot better than he really was.

“But it’s like talking to a wall, Sheriff Brady, and it hasn’t done a bit of good. No matter what I say, Lucy still blames Sandy for her father’s death. You know how kids are. Once they get some wild idea in their heads, nothing short of an act of God is going to shake it loose.”

“I take it Lucy wasn’t necessarily happy that her mother was getting out of prison?” Joanna asked.

Catherine sighed and nodded. “Happy? I’ll say she wasn’t happy, not at all. Furious is more like it. In fact, we had a big fight about it just yesterday afternoon when Lucy came home from school. She told me that she had prayed every day that her mother would die in prison so she’d never have to see her again. I tried to explain how wrong and unforgiving that was. I told her there are two sides to every story, and that she needed to give her mother a chance to tell her side of it. Instead, Lucy blew up at me. She told me that she would never live in the same house with her mother, no matter what. She said that I’d have to choose between them-between Lucy or Sandy-because I couldn’t have both.”

“What did you tell her?”

In the glow of the porch light, Joanna saw Catherine’s eyes fill with glistening tears. “I told Lucy that mothers don’t work that way. That just because your child does something wrong, that doesn’t mean you wipe them off the face of the earth. It’s like Big Red and the kitten.”

“Who’s Big Red?”

“A hawk,” Frank Montoya supplied. “Remember? I told you about him. Big Red is Lucy’s pet hawk.”

“A red-tailed hawk,” Catherine added. “Lucy found him when he was nothing but a half-dead hatchling-a tiny little thing who had fallen out of his nest. Lucy climbed up and put him back. She waited and watched, but the parents never returned. Finally, rather than leave him there to starve to death, she brought him home and took care of him.

“For months we’d get up early several mornings a week and go find what we used to call fresh road-kill pizza. We’d drive along the highway between here and Elfrida or between here and the freeway and pick up whatever had been run over on the road overnight-rabbits, kangaroo rats, coyotes-and we’d give Big Red that for breakfast. Finally, though, he got big and strong enough to hunt for himself. And wouldn’t you know, the first thing he nailed was a newborn kitten-a kitten Lucy had her heart set on keeping. She was mad about it for days, but I told her that wasn’t fair. I told her that hunting is what hawks do to survive and that she was wrong to hold a grudge when Big Red was just doing what comes naturally.