J. Jance - Devil’s Claw

“As a matter of fact, there is,” Joanna said. “Hold on a minute. Let me give you a phone number.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the notebook in which she had jotted Jay Quick’s number. Once she found it, she read it off to Frank.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“It’s a telephone number Lucy Ridder called Saturday morning at three a.m. The man’s name is Jay Quick. Years ago, Mr. Quick’s mother, Evelyn, was Lucy Ridder’s ballet teacher at the Lohse Family YMCA in Tucson. Not knowing that Evelyn Quick died some time back, Lucy called the son’s house trying to reach her.”

“That’s a relief then,” Frank breathed. “We may not know where Lucy Ridder is, but at least she’s still alive.”

“She was early Saturday morning,” Joanna returned. “Naturally she didn’t leave a number where she could be reached, but Mr. Quick told me he heard what sounded like eighteen-wheelers rumbling in the background. He thought maybe she was calling from a truck stop.”

“Want me to find out where the call came from?” Frank asked.

Joanna laughed. “How did you guess? Out of my whole department, you’re the best-suited to ferreting information out of faceless corporate entities and balky bureaucrats. Go get ”em, Frank.“

“Was that a compliment or not?” he demanded.

“That’s how it was intended.”

“All right, then. Let me off the phone so I can see if I can live up to it.”

Once Frank hung up, Joanna radioed into the department and asked to be patched through to either Ernie Carpenter or Jaime Carbajal. Since Jaime Carbajal was planning to go to Tucson that afternoon, she hoped he could also stop by and see Jay Quick.

“Where are you?” she asked, when the detective’s voice came over the speaker.

“Between Elfrida and Douglas. We’re on our way to a place east of Douglas, where a border-patrol officer reported spotting an abandoned white Lexus parked along the border fence.”

“Melanie Goodson’s missing Lexus?”

“According to license information, it’s the very one. The officer saw what he believes to be bloodstains in the backseat. I’ve called up and canceled my appointment with Melanie Goodson. Ernie and I talked it over and decided that right this minute it’s more important for us to check out the vehicle than it is to go running up to Tucson to interview secondary witnesses.”

“That’s probably a good call,” Joanna agreed. “Are you going to try to change the appointment to later this afternoon?”

“No. Tomorrow should be plenty of time. Once we finish with the Lexus, Ernie and I will have to hotfoot it back to Bisbee. Doc Winfield is chomping at the bit to tackle the Sandra Ridder autopsy, and one or both of us should be on hand when he does it.”

By that point in the conversation Joanna had driven as far as the traffic circle. At the intersection where she should have turned right to head back to the department, she made a last-minute decision. Since there was no chance Jaime Carbajal was going to go see Jay Quick that afternoon, Joanna decided to copy the Little Red Hen and do so herself. Instead of turning right, she went straight ahead.

“I’m on my way to Tucson right now,” she said. “At three o’clock on Saturday morning, Lucy Ridder attempted to place a phone call to her old ballet instructor up in Tucson.”

“She called somebody?” Jaime demanded. “Where is she, then? Is she all right?”

“I don’t know the answers to any of those questions at the moment,” Joanna told him. “I’m on my way to talk to the instructor’s son and see if I can learn anything more.”

“With this kind of a new lead, do you want either Ernie or me to skip the Lexus and follow up on the Tucson deal instead?” Jaime asked.

“No, that’s all right. I’m fine this way. Now tell me, did you and Ernie learn anything useful out in Elfrida today?”

“Not a whole lot other than the fact that Lucy Ridder wasn’t the most popular girl in town,” Jaime said. “I’d say she’s probably right at the bottom of the heap in Elfrida High School’s social pecking order. We didn’t find a single person who would admit to being her friend.”

“Sounds to me like we’re dealing with the classic teenaged loner,” Joanna observed, thinking of the disaffected youths who had, in recent years, wreaked schoolyard havoc with guns and/or explosives.

“And we’re not the only ones worried about it, either,” Jaime added. “We went out to the ranch and talked to Catherine Yates before we went to the school. She told us that, as far as she knew, Lucy’s only friend was the damned hawk. Then, while we were at the school, the principal’s secretary brought us a message that we should talk with a guy named Wayne Hooper.”

“Who’s he?”

“His wife, Agnes, drives Lucy’s school bus. We spent quite a while with him. Somehow or other he found out we were in town and insisted on talking to us. He doesn’t know Lucy Ridder personally, but claims his wife does. He says Lucy Ridder sounds like a weird kid. He’s afraid she’s going to show up at school with a gun and mow down everybody in sight. After we talked to Wayne, we tracked his wife down at the school district bus garage. Her take on the situation is a little different from her husband’s. She says Lucy’s never been any problem-that Wayne is pushing panic buttons for no reason. Agnes did say, though, that on Friday afternoon on the bus, Lucy Ridder looked unhappier than usual. Like she was upset. Like she didn’t want to get off the bus to go home.”

Joanna thought about that for a minute, trying to remember exactly what Catherine Yates had said about Sandra Ridder’s release from prison and her expected homecoming.

“I’m pretty sure Catherine Yates told us that she had just heard on Friday afternoon that her daughter was being released from Perryville. But if Lucy was more upset than usual on Friday afternoon and if what was upsetting her was the unwelcome prospect of her mother’s homecoming, then how did she know about it before she got off the school bus?”

“Good question,” Jaime Carbajal said. “Maybe Catherine Yates called the school and told her so.”

“That’s one possibility,” Joanna agreed. “But since Catherine knew all about Lucy’s negative attitude toward her mother, I doubt it. No, I think Lucy herself had some kind of advance notice-probably from Sandra herself.”

“You’re saying maybe Lucy knew about her mother’s upcoming release before Catherine Yates did?”

“Maybe,” Joanna said. “Speaking of Catherine Yates, did she give you any more helpful information about either Sandra or Lucy?”

“Some, but not very much. According to Catherine, compared to her mother, Lucy’s a peach. She said Sandy was a headstrong handful from the day she was born. By the time she hit junior high, she was in so much trouble that she spent several months in juvie. We don’t know why she was sent up because the record was expunged once she turned eighteen.

“Then, in high school, Sandra more or less got her head screwed on straight. She started staying out of trouble and hitting the books. Since her father was an Anglo, she’s not a full-blooded Apache, but she had enough Native American blood to win a BIA scholarship to the University of Arizona, where she majored in Business and Native American studies. She didn’t graduate, though. Her senior year she got hooked up with a radical group called NAT-C.”

“You mean like Hitler Youth?” Joanna asked.

“No, something called the Native American Tribal Council-NAT-C for short.”

“That’s an unfortunate acronym,” Joanna murmured.

Jaime laughed. “Isn’t it, though! NAT-C is made up of Indian radicals and wannabe Indian radicals from all over the country who take the position that the Indian wars never ended. Once Sandra got involved with the group, she quit school and hit the road with them doing demonstrations, picketing, that kind of thing.”