Outlaw Mountain

CHAPTER TWO

As the sun sank behind the Mule Mountains, a sudden chill settled over the porch. Raking the steaming, foil-wrapped potatoes out of the remaining embers, Joanna announced it was time to move the party inside. One by one, the fully cooked spuds were divested of blackened foil and scooped onto dinner plates where they were smothered with butter, sour cream, and chopped green onions and joined by thick slices of freshly baked meatloaf. After hours of play, the two girls were famished. Joanna, too, was surprisingly hungry. Once again, how-ever, Marianne Maculyea pushed food around on her plate and made only the slightest pretense of eating it.

Dinner was over, the table cleared, and dishes mostly in the dishwasher before the telephone rang again. Joanna had left the cordless phone sitting by her place at the dining room table. Jenny raced to answer it before her mother could dry her hands.

“It’s for you,” Jenny announced, carrying the handset into the kitchen. “It’s Butch. I already told him we’re saving him a potato and some meatloaf.”

“Does that mean Jeff and I are invited out to the ranch when we get home?” Butch Dixon asked when Joanna came on the line.

“Sure,” Joanna said.

“Anything besides potatoes and meatloaf on the menu?” Butch asked.

Knowing his slyly stated question had nothing at all to do with food, Joanna ducked her face away from Marianne and Jenny in order to conceal the crimson blush that swept up her neck and face. Her best line of defense was to ignore his remark altogether.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“ Tucson,” he said. “We’re making a pit stop, getting gas, and grabbing some coffee.”

“When do you expect to be home?”

“Not much later than an hour and a half.”

“Where are they?” Marianne asked from across the room. Joanna held the phone away from her mouth. “In Tucson,” she answered. “Getting gas.”

Marianne nodded. “Have Butch tell Jeff that Ruth and I will meet him at home. If we don’t go home until after he gets here, it’ll be too late for Ruth to have a bath before bedtime. Tell him we’ll bring his dinner home and he can eat it there.”

“Did you hear that?” Joanna asked Butch.

“Got it,” he said. “I’ll have Jeff drop me off at my place so I can pick up my car. I’ll be out at the ranch as soon as I can. See you then.”

“Be careful,” Joanna said. The warning was out of her mouth before she could stop it. No matter how hard she tried, Joanna could never quite forget that she had failed to say those cautioning words to Andy as he left home on the morning he died-the morning he went off to work never to return. With Butch those once unspoken words were never far from her lips or her heart.

“Don’t worry about Jeff and me,” Butch replied. “Neither of us is big on taking chances.”

By the time Joanna put down the phone, Marianne was already gathering her stack of traveling-mother equipment-a diaper bag, an old briefcase packed with toys and books, as well as a purse. She loaded the collection into the backseat of her venerable VW bug. When it came time to strap Ruth into her car seat, the weary child turned suddenly cranky. She fought the seat belt and was screaming at the top of her lungs as they headed down the road for the seven-mile trip back uptown to the Canyon United Methodist parsonage in Old Bisbee. As Ruth’s earsplitting wail receded into the distance, Joanna felt a sudden wave of gratitude that Jenny had grown far beyond the unreasoning tantrums of toddlerhood.

“Come on, Jenny,” Joanna said. “Fun’s over. Time to do the chores.”

Six days a week Clayton Rhodes, Joanna’s octogenarian neighbor, took care of the animal husbandry duties on High Lonesome Ranch. Sunday was Clayton’s one day off.

For the next half hour Jenny and Joanna worked together, feeding and watering the High Lonesome’s menagerie of animals. There was Kiddo-Jenny’s quarter horse gelding; four head of cattle; two dogs; and half a dozen noisy, squawking chickens. The flock of birds had started out as cute and cuddly, living decorations for in-town children’s Easter baskets, but once the chicks sprouted feathers and stopped being cute, they had all been discarded. The animal control officer who had convinced Joanna to take the first one knew when he had found a soft touch. He soon brought her several more, and she took those as well.

Joanna Brady found something; life-affirming and grounding in watching animals munch their oats and hay. On Sundays when she had time to do her own chores, she found that performing those menial tasks gave her respite from the day-to-day pressures of running her department. Not only that, sharing those mundane duties with Jenny made Joanna feel that she was keeping faith with Andy-that she was continuing to raise their daughter in the way they had both intended.

“Is Marianne all right?” Jenny asked once the feeding frenzy was over. Mother and daughter were standing outside Kiddo’s stall, and Jenny was reaching through the wooden slats to scratch the big sorrel’s smoothly muscled shoulder.

“Why do you ask that?” Joanna returned.

“No fair,” Jenny pointed out. “Remember, you’re not supposed to answer a question with a question. If I can’t, you can’t.”

Joanna laughed. “That’s fair enough, I guess. And no, Marianne’s not all right.”

“What’s wrong with her? Is she still sad about Esther?”

Joanna nodded. “I think that’s it,” she said.

Jenny considered that answer for some time before she spoke again. “When somebody dies, it takes a long time to get better, doesn’t it?”

Joanna reached over and ran her fingers through Jenny’s tangle of blond hair. “Yes, it does,” she agreed. “But then, you and I both know something about that, don’t we?”

Jenny nodded. “I guess we do,” she said.

Back in the house and putting things to rights, Joanna was dimly annoyed by the fact that so much time had passed with-out Frank Montoya’s returning her call. In fact, it wasn’t until well after dark and after Jenny had scooted off to the bathroom for her evening bath when the telephone finally rang.

“What took you so long?” Joanna asked when she heard her chief deputy’s voice on the line.

“It’s hunting season, so naturally we’ve got spooked deer everywhere,” Frank replied. “Right after you called, a big buck put himself through the windshield of a motor home just outside the Tombstone city limits. The Department of Public Safety officer who responded to the incident needed some help, and I happened to be handy. Sorry about that.”

“What about the accident?” Joanna asked. “Not a fatality, I hope.”

“It was fatal for the deer,” Montoya answered. “The people in the motor home both got hit by flying glass. The seat belt did a pretty good job of bruising the woman’s collarbone, but other than that, I think she and her husband will both be fine. What was it you wanted?”

“To know what’s going on with Clete Rogers.”

Frank sighed. “That’s another whole can of worms. I’m just now getting ready to file the missing person’s report.”

“What missing person’s report?” Joanna demanded.

“On Clete’s mother-Alice Rogers.”

“She’s missing?”

“Evidently. According to the family, she drove to Sierra Vista yesterday afternoon to have dinner with her daughter and son-in-law, Susan and Ross Jenkins. Ross owns Fort Apache Motors, the Chrysler dealership on Fry Boulevard. According to the daughter, Alice left their place around eight-thirty, but she never made it home. At least, that’s the way it looks so far. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there was also a problem earlier at noontime between Susan Jenkins and her brother.”

Joanna cut in. “I know about that. Mayor Rogers himself called to give me a full report.”

Frank Montoya groaned. “Which was probably none too complimentary regarding yours truly.”

“Right. Clete couldn’t understand why you didn’t arrest her. I’ve been wondering about that myself. If the woman was doing property damage, why didn’t you?”

“Because they were both out of line,” Frank Montoya replied. “I don’t suppose Clete mentioned that.”

“No.”

“No surprises there,” Montoya continued. “I’ve worked with the man long enough to know that when it comes to points of view, he has only one-his. I can also tell you that Clete Rogers doesn’t exactly exude sweetness and light. By the time brother and sister finished bitching one another out in the middle of the restaurant, I had two choices. I could either arrest them both or let them off the hook. It was a judgment call, Joanna. Considering the current political climate, I chose the latter. I sent Susan Jenkins on her way. Told her to go home and cool off. She didn’t, however. Instead, she went over to her mother’s house looking for her. My guess is she planned to raise a little more hell, except her mother wasn’t home. The Sunday paper was still on the porch.

“Afraid her mother might be sick or something, Susan let herself inside. She had a key. Once there, she found the place looked like it had been ransacked. Instead of calling us, she climbed right back into her car and drove out to Gleeson and proceeded to raise more hell, this time with Farley Adams.”

“Her mother’s boyfriend,” Joanna supplied.

“Right,” Frank responded, “although that’s not what Susan Jenkins called him. Scumbag, for one. Gold digger, for another, along with a few other choice expressions that shouldn’t be repeated in mixed company. I tell you, that woman’s a piece of work!”

“You were there?”

“For part of it. He told her to leave-he lives in a motile home parked at Alice Rogers’ mining claim on Outlaw Mountain. When Susan refused to leave, he called for reinforcements. After what happened at the restaurant earlier, I didn’t waste any time getting there. She was still raising holy hell with the man when I drove up. That’s when she told me her mother was missing. I asked Susan if she suspected foul play, and the woman fell all apart on me. She went to pieces-hyperventilating and the whole nine yards. I ended up having to call her husband to come drive her home. The thing that really corks me is that Clete Rogers is probably right on this one-I should have arrested her to begin with.”

“Where is she now?”

“Back home in Sierra Vista. Once I unloaded her, I went back to Tombstone and checked out the mother’s house myself. And she’s right. It looks as though the mother has disappeared, all right. At least she didn’t come home overnight. Her car’s gone. Somebody has ripped through the old woman’s house and torn it to pieces, although there’s no way to tell what, if anything, is missing.”

“Did you have a chance to talk to the boyfriend?” Joanna asked.

“A little. Not that much because, like I said, I had my hands full with this Jenkins woman. Then, after that, I was helping with the car wreck.”

“What did Farley Adams have to say?” Joanna asked.

“He claims the last time he saw Alice was when she came out to his place yesterday morning. According to him, she planned on leaving home early in the afternoon because she had some errands to run in Sierra Vista before she was due at the Jenkins’ place for dinner. Adams claims he hasn’t seen or heard from her since. He says that he wasn’t particularly concerned about that-about not seeing her earlier this morning-because he expected to see her later. They were supposed to have dinner together tonight.”

“What time did you say Alice left her daughter’s house last night?”

“About eight-thirty. Susan says she usually takes the Charleston Road back and forth to Tombstone.”

Charleston Road, named after a long-gone mining town near the San Pedro River, was a short cut from Sierra Vista to Tombstone. It was a ribbon of cracked, curvy, up-and-down pavement. Because it crossed the San Pedro River, Charleston Road had its own share of meandering animals that sometimes came to grief with speeding vehicles.

“Had Alice Rogers been drinking?” Joanna asked.

“Some. According to the daughter, they had drinks before dinner and wine with the meal.”

“There’s not much nighttime traffic on Charleston Road,” Joanna said. “Is it possible she hit a cow or a deer? Maybe she ran off the road somewhere between Sierra Vista and Tombstone. Her car may be out of sight in a ditch or a wash. Maybe that’s why no one has spotted her.”

“I already thought of that,” Frank said. “I contacted Patrol and told them to have a deputy take a run out that way to see if he can find her. Just to be on the safe side, I also plan on filing a missing persons report. I don’t want to give His Honor the Mayor anything else to complain about.”

“Good thinking, Frank,” Joanna said. “And good job, too, although I’m not sure it’s going to help much. Clete Rogers is the kind of man who would complain if he was hanged with a new rope.”

“‘Thanks, Chief. Always glad to be of service.”

She put down the phone just as a pajama-clad Jenny emerged from the bathroom. “Was that Butch?” she asked.

“No. It was Frank Montoya calling about work. Did you want it to be Butch?”

For months now, Joanna Brady had watched from the sidelines, observing her daughter’s reaction to Butch Dixon’s increasing presence in their lives. It was a concern for Joanna, one she approached with more than a little misapprehension. She was glad Jenny seemed to like the man, but she was worried that if Butch walked away from a long-term relationship with Joanna, Jenny would end up suffering yet another devastating loss.

So far, though, things seemed to be all right. Butch Dixon was the kind of man who had been born to be a father. Since he had no children of his own, he had thrown himself into an affectionate, easy kind of relationship with Jenny. Seemingly effortlessly, he had assumed the role of a beloved uncle.

And why shouldn’t Jenny adore him? Joanna wondered. Butch was fun. He took every opportunity to spoil the child. Still, Joanna niggled away at the idea that under the placid surface of their friendship something else was at work. Jenny’s adoration went only so far. Much as she seemed to like the man, she maintained a certain distance as well. Maybe Jenny, like her mother, couldn’t bear the risk of having her heart broken once again.

Jenny shrugged and studied her toes. “I guess I wanted it to be him,” she admitted.

“Well, Butch is on his way, but he probably won’t be here until after you go to bed.”

“Oh,” Jenny said.

Joanna waited to see if Jenny would say anything more.

When she didn’t, Joanna chose the easy way out. If Jenny wasn’t ready to talk about Butch Dixon, neither was Joanna.

“Your homework’s all done?” The motherly question was a cowardly attempt at sidestepping the issue.

Jenny sighed, flopped down on the couch beside Joanna, and snuggled in under her arm. “Of course,” she said. “You know I always do my weekend homework on Friday afternoon right after school.”

Joanna knew something was going on, even though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “Why are you worried about whether or not that was Butch?” she asked.

Jenny shrugged and said nothing.

“Come on,” Joanna urged. “Give.”

“I just need to talk to him, that’s all.”

“What about?”

“I can’t tell you,” Jenny replied. “It’s a secret. Girl Scout’s honor.”

The lack of an answer bothered Joanna, but she tried to let it go. “All right, then,” she said. “If it’s Scout’s honor, I won’t try to pry it out of you. But it’s getting late. You’d best scoot off to bed.”

Jenny stood up. “Okay,” she said. “But when Butch gets here, have him come talk to me.”

“Only if you’re still awake,” Joanna said. “If you’re already asleep, it’ll have to wait until morning.”

“Sadie, Tigger, come on,” Jenny ordered. “Let’s go to bed.”

Obediently, both dogs got up and padded after Jenny into her bedroom. Long after the bedroom door had closed, Joanna sat there thinking about what had been said.

What kind of secret? she wondered. Everybody seemed to have secrets these days. The topper still had to be her mother, Eleanor Lathrop, hauling off and marrying Dr. George Winfield, Cochise County ’s new medical examiner, without saying a word to her daughter in advance of the nuptials. Even though Joanna had come to see that Eleanor and George were blissfully happy, she still wasn’t over that initial sense of betrayal. Now she couldn’t help wondering what kind of conspiracy Jenny was cooking up with Butch Dixon and what emotional traps would be laid for Joanna in the process.

She had gone just that far in her thinking when Butch’s new Subaru Outback drove into the yard. Rather than risk having the dogs start barking in Jenny’s room, Joanna opened the bedroom door to let Tigger and Sadie out. A quick check of Jenny proved she was already sound asleep.

Pulling on her jacket against the November chill, Joanna hurried outside. With the dogs on her heels, she met Butch at the gate. Using one hand to fend off an ecstatic greeting from the two pooches, he drew Joanna into a quick embrace and gave her a glancing kiss on the cheek.

“Nothing like a couple of dogs and a good woman to make a guy feel at home.”

“Be quiet and come inside,” she said. “It’s too cold to stand around out here making jokes.”

Butch followed Joanna into the kitchen. With his shaved head and stocky build, Butch looked far older than his chronological age of thirty-six. “Where’s Jenny?” he asked.

“Asleep.”

That announcement caused Butch to gather Joanna in his arms once more for a far more serious kiss. By mutual agreement, when Jenny was around, both Butch and Joanna consciously limited displays of affection. And since that one weekend in August when Jenny had been off in Oklahoma with her grandparents, Butch had never again stayed overnight in Joanna’s house.

Dodging out of Butch’s arms, Joanna look leftover baked potato and meatloaf from the fridge and popped them into the microwave. Then she brought out the butter, sour cream, and chopped onions.

“Jenny wanted to talk to you,” Joanna said, as she stood watching the readout on the microwave count off the passing seconds. “I told her if you got here too late to see her tonight that the conversation would have to wait until morning.”

“Any idea what’s on her mind?” Butch asked.

Joanna shook her head. “I asked her, but she wouldn’t tell me. Said it’s a secret. Do you know what it is?”

Butch shrugged. “You’ve got me,” he said.

Joanna set a place for Butch in the breakfast nook. When she put the plate of steaming food in front of him, she slipped onto the bench beside him.

“How was it?” she asked.

“The auction?”

Joanna nodded.

“Okay. We made some money on the deal. Of course, if we’d had to pay wages for all the work we did, we wouldn’t have made a dime. The good thing is that several of the collector types got a chance to see the kind of work Jeff does. I think they were impressed. My guess is he’ll get some more business out of it. Advertising. The main thing we did, though, going and coming, was talk. Jeff’s really worried about Marianne.”

“That she’s going to quit the ministry?”

Butch turned to study Joanna. “She told you then?”

“This afternoon. She says her letter of resignation is written and ready to hand in at the next board meeting.”

“That’s what Jeff’s worried about. In their family, Marianne has always been the major breadwinner. Jeff has the garage, and he does excellent work, but Auto Rehab, Inc., is a long way from making a profit or from being able to support a family of three. Jeff doesn’t know what they’re going to do. Did you say anything to Marianne, try to talk her out of it?”

“1 tried to talk her into seeing a doctor,” Joanna said. “She’s depressed, and understandably so. I told her she needs to give herself a chance to feel better before she does anything rash.”

“Is she going to?” Butch asked. “See a doctor, I mean?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve known Marianne Maculyea since we were both in junior high. She’s always had a mind of her own.”

Just then, the phone rang. Joanna hurried across the room to answer it.

“Sheriff Brady?”

Joanna recognized the desk sergeant’s voice as soon as Lisa Howard spoke. “Yes, Lisa. It’s me. What’s happening?”

“You remember that missing person’s case Chief Deputy Montoya filed earlier this evening?”

“On Alice Rogers?”

“Yes,” Lisa answered.

“What about it? Have they found her?”

“They haven’t found her yet, but they did locate her car.”

“Where?”

“At the border crossing in Nogales. Four young Hispanic juveniles tried to drive it across the line. When Border Patrol ordered the vehicle to stop, they all bailed out and made a run for it. Three of them were picked up by Federales. They’re in jail in Nogales, Sonora. The fourth one wasn’t armed but he looked like he was. He was shot in the leg when officers opened fire. According to the Santa Cruz County dispatcher, he’s being airlifted to Tucson. University Medical Center or T.M.C., I’m not sure which. We’re hoping that he’ll be able to tell its where they left Alice Rogers.”

“How bad is the kid hurt?” Joanna asked.

“No way to tell at this point. I talked to one of the EMT’s who treated him at the scene. His best guess is that once they get him to Tucson he’ll go straight into surgery.”

Unaware that she had been holding her breath, Joanna let it out. The word “juvenile” could cover a lot of ground-from relatively harmless joyriders to cold-blooded gang-based killers. Depending on which variety Alice Rogers had encountered, she was either more or less likely to have been left alive. Unfortunately, the clock was ticking. With each passing hour the odds of her continued survival were vastly reduced.

“Has anyone let Frank Montoya know what’s going on?”

“I called Chief Deputy Montoya first thing,” Lisa Howard said. “Just before I called you. He said to tell you that he’s heading down to Nogales to see what detectives on the case have to say. After that, he’ll go to Tucson. He wants to be available when the suspect comes out of surgery and can speak with investigators.”

“Thanks for keeping me posted, Lisa,” Joanna said. “Tell Frank to let me know what develops.”

“Regardless of how late it is?”

“Regardless.”

Joanna hung up the phone and put it back down on the counter. Butch Dixon was studying her from across the room. “Bad news?” he asked.

She nodded. “A missing person,” she told him. Briefly Joanna filled Butch in on what had happened.

“Are you going to have to go in?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet, and I won’t for a while.”

Butch stood up and began to clear his place. “This wasn’t exactly how I hoped the evening would end,” he said quietly. “With Jenny already in bed and asleep, I had something more romantic in mind rather than a dinner followed by a missing person’s investigation.”

Joanna gave him a weak smile. “So did l,” she said quietly.

She watched him carry his plate to the sink. He rinsed it, then loaded the plate and his silverware into the dishwasher. She liked his purposeful, economical movements. Liked the way he made himself a contributing part of the household rather than a guest. He seemed to be quietly weaving his way into the fabric of her life, but without making unreasonable demands. Joanna found Butch easy to be with, even though he knew they would most likely spend whatever was left of the evening waiting for the telephone to ring.

“I don’t deserve you,” she said quietly.

He grinned. “Yes, you do.”

He came across the kitchen then and gathered her into a tight embrace. He held her for a long time, and she made no attempt to pull away. Finally, he was the one who broke it off.

“Come on,” he said. “Bring the phone and let’s go sit on the couch where it’s comfortable. And that’s where I’ll spend the night-on the couch. That way, if you do have to go in, someone will be here to look after Jenny when she wakes up.”