J. Jance - Partner In Crime

The frightened woman’s words poured out in a torrent. “Please, Mrs. Wingate,” Joanna interrupted. “Slow down. Which way did he go?”

Alma pointed a shaky finger. “That way,” she said. “Toward the river.”

Joanna nodded wordlessly at Frank, who sprinted off in the direction of the river, following a trail of fresh hoofprints.

“Do you know if he was armed?” Joanna asked.

Alma nodded. “Must be,” she said. “I just checked. The door to my son-in-law’s gun cabinet is smashed to smithereens. I don’t know what all’s missing. You’ll have to ask him.”

“Look,” Joanna advised. “You should probably go back inside the house and stay there. Backup officers are on the way, but in the meantime, you need to be safe.”

“You think he’s dangerous then?” Alma demanded. “I thought he was just a dirty low-down horse thief.”

“I’m afraid this guy’s far worse than just a horse thief, Mrs. Wingate,” Joanna said as Frank came racing back toward the house. “Much, much worse.”

By the time Joanna had guided Alma Wingate safely into the house, Frank was leaning against his Civvie, gasping for breath. Ernie had disappeared.

“He went down into the riverbed and turned south,” Frank reported. “It’s a good thing we didn’t come with sirens blaring. It looks like he’s walking the horse rather than running her.”

“Where’s Ernie?”

“He’s going to move south, sticking to the riverbed to make sure he doesn’t turn out somewhere between here and the border. I’ve put in a call to the federales across the line in Old Mexico. They’re sending a squad of agents over from Naco. They should be here within fifteen minutes. I told them someone would meet them where the river crosses the border.”

Knowing her own lack of proficiency in Spanish, Joanna had no doubt about who should be at the border to meet the federales .

“Do it, Frank,” she said. “I’ll drive along the riverbank and see if I can spot him somewhere between here and there.”

Frank nodded. “Be careful,” he warned. “There’s lots of thick cover in there, places where he could hide and see you without being seen.”

“You be careful, too,” she told him.

Moments later, with tires spinning in the dirt, both cars swung out of the yard and headed south. A quarter of a mile down the road, Joanna stopped and got out. Crouching behind the trunk of a cottonwood tree, she used a pair of binoculars to peer up and down the river. Even though there was no movement in the dry bed of the river, she could make out the pattern of blurred hoofprints that said a horse had recently passed that way.

Parallel to her and across the river, a cloud of fast-moving dust rose skyward. She didn’t remember there being another road over there, but obviously one existed nonetheless.

Whoever you are , she told the faceless driver in that invisible vehicle, just stay the hell out of our way .

With that, she jumped back in the Blazer and headed south again. As she drove she was glad she’d had the good sense to use lights only; no sirens. Out here in the silent desert, Jack Brampton would have heard those sirens from far away and would have known they were coming. This way, there was still a chance of surprising him.

Joanna stopped for a second time and got out, crouching in the dead grass, keeping under cover. And that’s when she heard the sound of sirens, wafting up from the south. The federales were coming, all right, with their sirens blaring to kingdom come!

“Damn,” she muttered. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”

GRUMBLING UNDER MY BREATH, I went looking for Frank Montoya. It turns out he did have a vest, but it wasn’t my size. He said he thought there were larger ones back in the supply room, but since he was on his way to Palominas, I’d have to have one of the clerks in the lobby get it for me. By the time I had the blasted thing in my hand and made it out to the parking lot, everyone else, including Chief Deputy Montoya, was long gone. So much for hot pursuit!

“Damn!” I hurried back into the lobby. “Where’s Palominas?” I demanded.

“West of town, on Highway 92,” the clerk told me. “It’s beyond Huachuca Terraces. Do you know how to get there?”

I’m a native of Seattle. There, geography poses no problem. I know the streets and my way around them. In Bisbee I was totally useless, but the name Huachuca Terraces sounded vaguely familiar. I was pretty sure that’s where Dee Canfield’s house was located.

“Thanks,” I told her. “I think I can find it.”

Racing back out to the parking lot, I jumped into the Kia and wound it up as fast as it would go. If somebody gave me a speeding ticket, it was just too damned bad, although the idea of getting a speeding ticket in a Kia might have been worth it. Then again, out here in the world of the Wild West, where crooks used stolen horses instead of getaway cars, maybe state patrollers just shot speeders instead of handing out tickets.

Retracing the route Joanna Brady had driven the day before, I was relieved when I finally saw a sign that read: palominas, 10 miles. I knew then that I was on the right track. And with the Kia running on the flat and wound up to a full eighty-five miles per hour, I knew that meant I was six minutes out.

Driving through the desert, I looked ahead. In the distance I saw a long meandering line of greenish-yellow autumn-tinged trees stretching south to north. Near that line of trees I saw what appeared to be a cluster of buildings. That must be the town of Palominas, whatever that means.

Isn’t that some kind of horse ? I wondered.

Crossing a railroad overpass, I caught my first glimpse of flashing red lights as the fast-moving police cars ahead of me swept into that tiny community. I was thrilled to think that I was actually closing the distance between me and them. They had all left the Justice Center a couple of long minutes before I did. Maybe my Kia wasn’t so terribly lame after all.

Soon I was near enough to tell that the rearmost vehicle was signaling for a left-hand turn. About that time, however, I met a pair of oncoming dodoes who never should have been issued driver’s licenses. As soon as one guy pulled out to pass, the other one sped up, thus making the passing process take far longer than it should have. As they rushed toward me side by side in both lanes, I started looking for somewhere to hit the ditch and dodge out of the way. Finally, at the last moment, the passing car gave up and pulled back into the right-hand lane. By the time I looked again, the police cars had disappeared.

As I entered town, I slowed down. When I reached what I assumed to be the correct intersection, I turned left. After a hundred yards or so, the pavement ended and I bounced down a narrow, rutted cow path without another vehicle in sight. I stopped finally, rolled down the window, and listened. I was hoping for sirens. I saw clouds of dirt billowing skyward east of me, but I heard nothing, at least not at first. But then, very, very faintly, I did hear a siren. Not the standard kind of siren we use here in the States. No, this one had a decidedly foreign flavor to it.

I was watching the clouds of dust off to my left and listening to the siren when it finally hit me. I had made a mistake and overshot the turn. The action was there, all right – to the south and east of where I was.

I pulled ahead, looking for a place to turn around so I could go back the way I had come, but then I stumbled on another dirt road. This one, little more than a two-wheel track, was even narrower than the one I was already on, but at least it wandered off toward the southeast, the same general direction I wanted to go. So I went that way as well.