J. Jance - Outlaw Mountain

“What do you want me to do about it?” Joanna asked. “I can’t very well put him in jail.”

“You might have to,” Father Mulligan said. “He was all right at breakfast this morning, probably because he was famished. But at lunchtime he was agitated. As near as we could tell, he wanted his mother. He wanted to know where she was and when she was coming for him. I had a meeting right after lunch. I left one of the sisters in charge of Junior. I thought he could sit quietly in the library and look at books. He got rest-less, though, and wanted to go outside. When Sister Ambrose told him he couldn’t do that, he knocked her down and went outside anyway. I found him wading in the reflecting pond, chasing the fish. So you see, we can’t keep him here. It’s not that we’re uncharitable or unchristian, but some of the brothers and sisters are quite elderly. They can’t be expected to handle someone like that-someone that unpredictable.”

“No,” Joanna agreed, “I suppose not. I’m on my way, Father Mulligan. I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m just now crossing the San Pedro River on the far side of Saint David.”

She ended the call and immediately radioed into the department and spoke to Dispatch. “Do we have any missing persons reports on a developmentally disabled male named Junior, forty-five to fifty-five years old, and last seen at the Saint David Arts and Crafts Fair yesterday afternoon?”

“Nothing like that,” Larry Kendrick, Cochise County’s lead dispatcher, told her. “Why?”

Joanna gave Larry a brief summary of everything Father Mulligan had told her. “What are you going to do with him?” Larry asked when Joanna finished.

“I don’t know yet.”

“It sounds like it could be iffy for you to handle this alone. Do you want me to send out a deputy?”

“Who’s available?” Joanna asked.

“Nobody right this minute,” Larry replied. “We’ve had a bit of a problem out at Sierra Vista. Those environmental activists showed up on the Oak Vista construction site right at quitting time. They came armed with sledgehammers and spikes and sugar to put in gas tanks. In other words, they came prepared to make trouble and to do as much damage to the contractor’s equipment as possible. It was quite a donnybrook. Terry Gregovich had to call for reinforcements. Dick Voland ordered every available deputy out there on the double.”

“I’m the sheriff,” Joanna said brusquely. “Why wasn’t I notified?”

“I’ve been trying to page you ever since it happened, but your pager must be off line and your cell phone’s been busy. I figured if you were in your car you would have heard the radio traffic and would have known something was up.”

Guiltily, Joanna glared at her radio. She had turned down the volume while she was making her phone calls. And the pager, back in her purse, must have somehow turned itself off. “Sorry, Larry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be incommunicado. Should I forget about Saint David and head out to Sierra Vista?”

“No. Chief Deputy Voland was on his way to Tombstone, but now he’s going to Sierra Vista instead. He said if you called in, you’d better go check on the two teams working in Tombstone. Detective Carbajal is there, but other than that, the crime scene investigators are on their own.”

Joanna shook her head. Even with almost two hundred people working for her, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department was chronically short-staffed. On those occasions where several major things happened at once, that chronic shortage instantly turned critical.

“All right,” she said. “Radio Chief Deputy Voland and le him know I’ll take care of Tombstone. And Saint David,” she added under her breath.

After all, someone has to do it.

When Anglos first showed up in southern Arizona, the area along the San Pedro River, a few miles south of what is now Benson, was a mosquito-infested, swampy wasteland. Despite the hardships, a few hardy souls had settled there. When a severe earthquake rocked the Sonora Desert on May 3, 1887, no one in the Saint David area was injured, nor was there much structural damage, primarily due to the fact that so few people lived there. The non-killer quake left lasting evidence of its handiwork by instantly draining the swamp and forcing much of the San Pedro watershed underground. The former swamp turned into a fertile farmland oasis studded by ancient cottonwoods.

It was late afternoon when Joanna Brady slowed her Crown Victoria at the three wooden crosses that marked the entrance to Holy Trinity Monastery, a Benedictine retreat center beyond the eastern boundary of Saint David. The center had been there for as long as Joanna remembered. It was only as an adult that she had considered it odd for the Catholic Diocese in Tucson to have established a retreat center in the middle of Mormon farming country in southeastern Arizona.

Nestled under the San Pedro’s towering cottonwoods, the monastery contained a small, jewel-like church-Our Lady of Guadalupe-a bird sanctuary, a pecan orchard, an RV park, and a library/museum, as well as a used-clothing thrift store. Living quarters for monks, sisters, and resident lay workers consisted of a collection of mobile homes clustered about the property in a haphazard manner. Throughout the year Holy Trinity held Christian Renewal retreats for various groups from the Catholic Church. Twice a year-spring and autumn-the monastery hosted a fund-raising arts festival and fair.

Shimmering golden leaves captured the setting sun and reflected off the surface of a shallow pond as Joanna parked in front of the church. As soon as she switched off the ignition, a tall, angular man in a long white robe and sandals came flapping out of the church to meet her.

“I’m so glad you came right away, Sheriff Brady,” Father Thomas Mulligan said. “I’ve been quite concerned.”

“The sister who was left with him wasn’t hurt, was she?”

“No,” Father Mulligan said. “She bruised her elbow when he knocked her down, but other than that she’s fine.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the church. There are lots of lighted candles in the sanctuary, and he seems to like them.”

“Is it safe to leave him there alone?” Joanna asked.

“He isn’t alone. Brother Joseph is with him. Back when Brother Joseph was a high school gym teacher, he taught judo. According to him, judo is like riding a bike. You never forget the moves.”

Half-trotting to keep up with Father Mulligan’s long-legged stride, Joanna followed the priest into the adobe-walled church. The setting sun, shining in through stained-glass windows, filled the small, carefully crafted sanctuary with a muted glow. Two men sat in the front pew. One was an elderly white-robed priest. The other was a wizened, hunched little man whose huge ears and doleful face reminded Joanna of an elf.

“Junior?” she said, holding out her hand.

Slowly he raised his eyes until he was staring up into her face. Politely, he held out his hand as well, but his grip barely clasped Joanna’s.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Sheriff Brady.”

Without a word, Junior scooted sideways in the pew until he was huddled next to Brother Joseph. Then, burying his head in the priest’s robe, he began to moan. “Didn’t do it. Didn’t do it. Didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do what?” Joanna asked.

“Not bad,” Junior wailed, pressing even closer to the priest, who by then had wrapped a protective arm around his shoulders. “Junior not bad. No jail, please. No jail. Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt Junior.”

Seeing that he was utterly terrified of her, Joanna stood for a moment trying to decide what to do. Then, from some far recess of memory, she recalled one sunny spring afternoon years earlier. She had been in her Brownie uniform, stationed in front of the post office in Warren, hawking Girl Scout cookies. A man had ridden up to her on a bike, a girl’s bike. He had stopped and stood beside her, staring down into her wagonload of cookies.