J. Jance - Outlaw Mountain

“I always thought they called cholla jumping cactus because the cactus jumped,” he observed with a smile. “I see now the cactus stays put. It’s really the people who jump.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass,” she ordered curtly, “Come help me. This hurls like hell.”

Without another word, Frank pulled his Leatherman multi-purpose tool from the pouch on his belt. Flipping it open to the pliers configuration, he used that to remove the two offending cactus segments. Once the spines had been pulled free from her body, Joanna stood alternately massaging first her burning leg and then her arm. Even though the needles were gone, her flesh still hurt. It felt like the aftermath of a bee or wasp sting. Adding insult to injury, under her fingertips she felt a run tear through her brand-new pair of No Nonsense panty hose. When it came to crime scene investigation, panty hose were the most common casualty.

“Thanks,” she said gratefully as Frank restowed his Leatherman. “I couldn’t believe how much those spines hurt.”

Frank shook his head. “If you think this was bad,” he warned, “just wait till you see what happened to Alice Rogers.”

They both moved forward then. Deep in the grove of cacti they came to a small space where the cholla wasn’t as thick. Several of them appeared to have been knocked down. In the middle of the fallen cacti and on top of one-impaled on the three-inch spines-lay a small female form that was covered with ants and surrounded by a cloud of buzzing flies. Hundreds of needles dug deep into the woman’s back and sprouted from her legs and arms. The slightly bloated body was clad in a print dress and a lightweight sweater. There were torn nylons on her legs, but no shoes. Her vacant, empty eyes stared upward. One tightly clenched fist rested on her breast. The other lay outstretched on the rocky ground, as if searching for the pair of wraparound sunglasses that lay in the dirt just out of reach.

Fresh from her own excruciating encounter with the cacti, Joanna had difficulty looking at the cholla needles piercing Alice Rogers’ insect-covered sunbaked flesh. She didn’t want to think about how much the poor woman had suffered. It hurt Joanna to realize that she had died in such a horrific way-alone and in appalling pain.

A stiff breeze, blowing out of the west, swept across the scene and filled Joanna’s nostrils and lungs with the awful stench of death. Once she would have turned and fled from that all-pervasive odor. Now she simply waited, hoping that eventually her gag reflexes would settle and that her nostrils would adjust.

Engrossed in what was going on around her, Joanna lost track of the fact that Frank was standing at her elbow. When he spoke, she started reflexively, almost as though she had been awakened from a sound sleep.

“Well,” he said. “I’ve heard of people sleeping on a bed of nails, but this is ridiculous.”

It was a nonsensical comment, and it certainly wasn’t funny, but somehow it did the trick. The bile that had been rising dangerously high in Joanna’s throat receded. What came out of her mouth was a chuckle-a hoot of utterly inappropriate, necessary, and life-affirming laughter.

“It’s ridiculous, all right,” she agreed when she finally sobered enough once again to be capable of speech. “Ridiculous but deadly.”

Fran Daly proceeded through the examination process with Ernie Carpenter and the two Pima County detectives, Hank Lazier and Tom Hemming, observing her every move. With four people crowded around the body, there was no room for Joanna and Frank Montoya to move any closer. They remained on the edge of the clearing. They were close enough to hear most of the crisp comments Dr. Daly spoke to the detectives and into a small tape recorder but not close enough to see what was happening.

Losing interest, Joanna turned to Frank. “You were here when they found her?”

“Not right here,” he said. “I was over by the cars. When the Search and Rescue guys found the body, Lazier and Hemming took off like a shot. I stayed put because I wanted a chance to talk to Joaquin Morales. I figured it was probably the only shot any of us would have at him without his attorney hanging on every word.”

“What did you find out?”

“That his lawyer negotiated a real sweetheart deal.”

“What do you mean?”

“All he had to do was lead us to Alice. Once he did that, he walks. Blanket immunity. No arrest, no charges, nothing. When his buddies come to trial, he doesn’t even have to testify.”

“Come on, Frank,” Joanna objected. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes sense to someone,” Frank countered. “They claim it was a humanitarian gesture based on the fact that at the time there was a chance Alice Rogers was still alive, since finding her in a timely manner might have saved her life. The other considerations have to do with the fact that Joaquin Morales is only fourteen. He comes from one of Tucson ’s fine ‘old Pueblo ’ families, and this is supposedly his first offense. His pals are older and, according to him, their hands are anything but clean. Once they’re extradited, they’ll be up on charges of grand-theft auto and murder.”

“Not car-jacking?”

“That would make it a federal case. According to the detectives, the county attorney is looking forward to next year’s election and won’t let this one out of his personal jurisdiction.”

“What exactly did Joaquin Morales tell you?”

“That there were several carloads of kids. They came out to the desert for a keg party on Saturday night. He says they were on their way back to town from the kegger when Morales and his buddies came across Alice ’s Buick. He claims it was just sitting abandoned by the roadside with the windows wide open and with a mostly empty bottle of Scotch sitting in the front seat. After the kids polished off the rest of the booze, they decided to take Alice ’s car out for some late-night drag racing. He claims he never even saw the old lady, but it could be he was too drunk to remember.”

“He wasn’t so drunk that he didn’t remember where they found the car,” Joanna pointed out.

Frank nodded. “That’s true,” he agreed. “So on Sunday, after the kids had sobered up, one of them came up with the bright idea of driving the car down to Nogales. He said he knew someone across the line who would pay good money for a car like that, no questions asked.”

“Sounds perfectly plausible,” Joanna said with a grimace. “And I’m sure Joaquin is pure as the driven snow. What do Lazier and Hemming think happened?”

“They think the old lady pulled over and stopped. With the booze in the car, there’s probably a good chance she was drinking, too. Maybe she had pulled over and was passed out in her car. Maybe she had stopped to take a leak. Whatever, Lazier theorizes the kids found her, chased her into the cactus, and left her there. Since her death happened in the course of the commission of a felony, that makes it murder.”

“But only for perpetrators who don’t have connections or a sharp wheeler-dealer attorney,” Joanna said.

“Right,” Frank agreed. “Whoever said the world is fair?”

“Justice is supposed to be,” Joanna countered.

She glanced around the area. “Any sign of footprints?” Even as she asked the question, she saw the futility of it. The terrain was far too dry, rough, and rocky to retain usable prints.

“None,” Frank said.

As he spoke, a shadow fell across Frank’s face. Joanna looked up. High above them a buzzard rode the updrafts, drifting in long, lazy circles, hoping for access to the feast. Seeing the carrion eater, Joanna realized that the agreement Joaquin’s attorney had negotiated may not have saved Alice ’s life, but it had, at least, forwarded the investigation. Without the fourteen-year-old’s help in locating the body, it might have been months or even years, before anyone located Alice Rogers’ remains. And with the desert’s numerous carrion caters always on the lookout for their next meal, there might not have been much left for Fran Daly to examine.