Skeleton Canyon

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

During Joanna’s term as sheriff, paperwork had become the bane of her existence. No matter how often she did it-no matter how hard she tried to keep up-it continued to roll across her desk in a perpetual stream. It struck her that it was just like trying to keep up with housework at home, where there was always another pile of dirty laundry to wash or another load of dishes to do. It was a drudgery aspect of police work that somehow never quite made it into the phony TV world of quirky cops and equally fantastic crooks duking it out in exotic high-speed car chases.

She had barely made a dent in the pile labeled “Thursday” when Chief Deputy Frank Montoya tapped on her half-open door and let himself into her office. Frowning, he eased his lanky frame into one of the chairs opposite Joanna’s desk.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s that obvious?” he returned.

“From a mile away,” she said with a smile. “Now, what is it and how bad?”

“The usual,” he said. “It’s going to be another big-time media blitz, including all the out-of-towners.”

“Great.” Joanna groaned. “Just what we need.”

Frank nodded. “I’ve been doing this job long enough that I should be getting used to it. At least by now I pretty well know all the players-as in which reporters are trustworthy and which ones should be run out of town on a rail.”

“That sounds ominous,” Joanna said.

“It is. I happen to have in my possession a preview of Marliss Shackleford’s column for tomorrow’s Bisbee Bee.”

“What do you mean a preview?”

“Just what I said. Ken Dawson, the publisher over at the Bee, sent along a copy of tomorrow’s column just in case you have any comment.”

Despite the fact that Joanna and Marliss both attended Canyon Methodist Church, the two of them had never been friends. Since Joanna’s election, their already thorny relationship had deteriorated even further. Marliss never failed to publicly point out whatever she thought to be Joanna’s official shortcomings.

Joanna reached for the paper Frank was holding in front of him. “That bad?” she asked.

“It’s not good,” Frank muttered as she turned her attention to the words on the paper.

With eighteen-year-old honor student Brianna O’Brien dead by what officials are calling homicidal violence, it remains to be seen how much responsibility Sheriff Joanna Brady must shoulder for the girl’s untimely death.

As late as Saturday afternoon Sheriff Brady reportedly refused to call in the FBI to search for Brianna even though the girl’s father, retired Paradise Valley developer and Naco native David O’Brien, specifically requested that she do so.

Although it is doubtful summoning the FBI at that point would have spared the recent BHS graduate’s life, the question remains about why Sheriff Brady was so reluctant to request the involvement of other law enforcement agencies to help with this unfortunate situation.

At a time when the criminal element is able to leave a trail of destruction that crosses both state and international boundaries, can Cochise County afford a sheriff who regards herself as a female version of the Lone Ranger?

Think about it, Sheriff Brady. How about a little more cooperation and a little less egomania?

Her head buzzing with anger, Joanna tossed the paper back to Frank. “How dare she? That’s garbage and Marliss knows it. Brianna O’Brien was dead long before I refused to call in the FBI.”

“You know that and I know that,” Frank agreed. “Unfortunately, everybody else-other reporters included-may take this stuff as gospel. I think you should make some kind of official comment. In fact, I’ve even drafted a couple…”

“The Lone Ranger?” Joanna continued, almost as though she hadn’t heard him. “I’ve never been a lone damned ranger. And here she is, putting that in the paper when, even as we speak, my department is up to its ears in the middle of a joint operation with the DEA.”

After that, Joanna fell silent. “So,” Frank asked. “Do we send a response or not?”

What Joanna really wanted to do in response was get in her car, drive uptown to the Bee’s office on Main Street, grab Marliss by the front of her shirt, and shake her until her teeth rattled. That, of course, was a rotten idea. Struggling to get a grip, Joanna thought about it. As for a written response, any mention of the joint operation ran the risk of blowing the Freon deal and possibly the murder investigation as well. Much as Joanna personally would have liked to drop Marliss Shackleford down the nearest mine shaft, Joanna knew that just wasn’t possible-not without jeopardizing too many other things.

“Not,” she said. “Thank Ken for sending it over. That was very evenhanded of him for a change, but we’ll let the column go as is. With no comment.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you said something?” Frank asked.

“No,” Joanna said. “In this case, I think we’ll let our actions speak for themselves.”

“All right,” Frank conceded. “Have it your way.”

Once Frank left her office, Joanna continued to fume. She found herself second-guessing her decision. Between that and wondering what was going on in Benson, it wasn’t too surprising that she couldn’t concentrate on paperwork anymore. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t force herself to proof-read a densely worded letter from her to the board of supervisors. The sentences on the page simply didn’t make sense. They kept becoming entwined with Marliss Shackleford’s Lone hanger comment and with the single sentence from Brianna O’Brien’s diary that Joanna had come to regard as the dead girl’s haunting last words. “My mother is a liar.”

Finally, giving up on her third attempt at reading the letter, Joanna put it aside, along with the remainder of that day’s untended correspondence. Abandoning all pretense of staying on task, Joanna leaned back in her oversized chair and stared out the window.

When Joanna had come into her office an hour or so earlier, the sky outside her window had been brilliantly blue. Now that same blue sky was pockmarked with puffy white, gray-bottomed clouds. On the ground below, swiftly moving shadows from those same clouds glided silently over the desert landscape like so many circling vultures. Watching the shadows, Joanna found herself once again thinking about Brianna O’Brien’s mother, the liar.

Determined to do something constructive, Joanna stood up and headed for the evidence room. Buddy Richards, the evidence room clerk, greeted her with a welcoming smile that Joanna knew was far more pleasant than it should have been. Buddy was one of the recalcitrant old-timers who had much preferred things the way they were. Months after the election, Buddy still wasn’t happy about having a woman for a boss.

“What can I do for you, Sheriff Brady?” he asked from be-hind his manufactured grin.

Buddy was a former deputy who, as a result of a bull-riding accident on the amateur rodeo circuit, now had a right leg two inches shorter than the left. When he had been offered a disability retirement, Joanna had hoped he’d take it, thus ridding her of one more detractor. Unfortunately, Buddy had refused the offer, claiming he’d much rather “gimp around the evidence room than be put out to pasture.”

“Ernie Carpenter should have turned in a book with regard to the O’Brien case,” Joanna told him. “Do you happen to know whether or not it’s been dusted for prints?”

“Looks like,” Buddy replied, consulting his computer screen.

“Could I see it, then?”

Richards frowned. “According to the rules, I’m only supposed to release it to one of the officers on the case.”

Joanna looked the man directly in the eye. “What do you think I am, Mr. Richards?” she asked. “Chopped liver?”

“I’ll get it right away,” he said.

Once the book was in her hands, Joanna took it straight to her office. Out on the mountain on Sunday afternoon, she had scanned through most of the journal. Now, with nothing to do but wait, she took the time to read it more thoroughly. More than once, the words Brianna had written brought tears to Joanna’s eyes.

Bree had filled the pages with teenaged joy and anguish both. She had spent full pages agonizing over the extent and seriousness of Ignacio Ybarra’s football injuries. Using the journal as a sounding board, she had also poured out her dismay at the callous attitude exhibited by the other girls on the cheer-leading squad who had once been her friends. Not only did they not share her concern for the injured player, they had ostracized her for leaving the squad. It was only in reading the journal that Joanna learned how Bree, once arguably the most popular girl in school, had been forced to come to grips with life as a social outcast.

In that emotional snake pit, it wasn’t surprising that she had invested so much of herself in a new and forbidden relation-ship with Ignacio. Isolated and alone, she had turned to him for solace. No wonder the friendship between them had quickly blossomed, first into romance and later into love.

Joanna discovered some references to a brief summer school connection between them that was little more than a stolen kiss or two. Had they never seen one another again, that brief encounter would have been dismissed as mere puppy love. Their second interaction, however, had been far different. Even from a distance, Joanna Brady couldn’t help but be moved by the youthful but undeniable passion that had flowed so freely out of Bree’s heart and onto the pages of her journal. The outpouring was made all the more poignant by Joanna’s knowing the rest of the story. Ignacio Ybarra had returned Bree’s feelings. Now he was left alone, trying to find a way to survive the loss of that ardent first love.

Not only did the journal provide a detailed road map of Bree’s feelings, it also offered a faithful account of the resourceful young couple’s meetings, of how they had arranged at least one of their secret assignations. It also told about where they went and what they did on the first of their unauthorized weekends together. It wasn’t until Joanna reached the last week in February that she found an item that had nothing at all to do with Ignacio Ybarra. It was something Joanna remembered reading on her first scan of the journal, but with everything that had been going on at the time, she had missed the entry’s possible significance.

As per usual Mom is going to be out of town over her birthday. I don’t know why she insists on being gone right then. She always gives some lame excuse like she doesn’t care for birth-days or that after a certain age they don’t matter that much any-way. And she always says it wouldn’t be fair to interrupt what the whole group is doing for some kind of birthday celebration.

Before, I’ve gone along with her wishes and haven’t done anything about her birthday until she gets back home. But this time I’ve made up my mind things are going to be different. I’ve found the most wonderful birthday card-tire perfect one-and I don’t want to have to wait and give it to her after she gets back home. I know that one of those companies like FedEx or UPS-the ones who advertise that they can deliver anything anywhere-will he able to get it to her on time. All I have to do is figure out in advance exactly where she’ll be. After that, the rest will be easy.

Joanna stopped reading and once again stared out the window. The clouds that earlier had merely dotted the sky now had coalesced into an ominously dark and unbroken gray canopy. Across the parking lot, gray sticks of ocotillo, already edged with new green leaves sprouting in the aftermath of yesterday’s rain, tossed wildly back and forth in a brisk breeze.

Just as Joanna had suspected earlier, another fierce summer thunderstorm was on its way, bringing with it wind, dust, and rain. Not to mention flash floods and more overtime, Joanna thought. But as she continued to stare out the window, her budget concerns were overtaken by another consideration-by the glimmer of a hunch that was more gut instinct than anything else.

Under normal circumstances, Joanna would have turned that hunch over to her investigators. With both her detectives otherwise occupied, she decided to follow through on it herself. Picking up her phone, she dialed the records clerk. “Cindy, can you get me driver’s license information for Katherine O’Brien?”

“Sure, Sheriff Brady,” Cindy Hall responded. “Do you have a middle initial or date of birth?”

“Negative on both of those,” Joanna told her.

“What about address?”

“Purdy Lane,” Joanna replied. She waited during the silence for the several seconds it took for the computer to hook into the slate’s vehicular database and to kick out the needed information.

“All right,” Cindy said finally. “I think I’ve got her. Middle initial is V. Maiden name was Ross. What else would you like to know?”

“Date of birth, for starters,” Joanna said.

“March four,” Cindy answered. “And the year is 1942. Anything else?”

March four, Joanna thought. The same day as the entry that said Katherine was a liar. Are the two somehow related?

“Any arrests or convictions?” Joanna asked.

“None at all,” the clerk answered.

Putting down the phone, Joanna considered her next move. Finally, picking up the receiver again, she dialed her in-laws’ number. She was relieved when Eva Lou answered the phone. That way Joanna could ask her question directly without having to go through Jim Bob.

“Why, good afternoon, Joanna,” Eva Lou said. “How are you doing today, and what have you heard from Jenny?”

Joanna laughed. “Nothing so far. This is Monday. She’s only been there since Saturday, remember?”

“I suppose that’s true,” Eva Lou conceded. “It seems much longer.”

Joanna nodded. It seemed that way for her as well.

“If you write to her,” Eva Lou continued, “be sure to tell her that Grandpa and I miss her terribly.”

“Will do,” Joanna agreed. “In the meantime, I need your help. Last night you were telling me something about Katherine O’Brien. About her mission work.”

“Oh, yes. That poor woman,” Eva Lou said. “My heart just aches for her.”

“Who was it who told you about Mrs. O’Brien’s going on missions?^”

“That would have been Babe,” Eva Lou answered at once.

“Babe Sheridan. She also attends St. Dominick’s. Why do you heed to know?”

“It’s nothing,” Joanna said. “I have a couple of questions is all.” Minutes later, Joanna was on the phone with Babe Sheridan at the water company’s customer service desk, where she had worked ever since her husband’s death in a mining accident some thirty years earlier.

“What can I do for you Sheriff Brady?” Babe asked.

“I’m curious about Katherine O’Brien,” Joanna said, trying to make the inquiry seem as casual as possible.

“Isn’t it terrible about their daughter?” Babe said at once. “It’s bad enough to lose a husband, but a child? I hear the funeral mass is going to be on Thursday afternoon. I’m planning on taking half a day off so I can attend.”

“Yes, it is terrible,” Joanna replied, “but I’m not calling about that at the moment. I wanted to ask you about the mission work Katherine does. I have a friend who’s interested in doing some medical mission work as well, but this doesn’t seem to be the right time to ask the O’Briens about it.”

Joanna’s story was a bold-faced lie, but it worked. “Oh, of course not,” Babe Sheridan agreed at once. “They shouldn’t he bothered at a time like this. Now, let me see. I don’t quite remember the details or even the name of the organization. It’s not Doctors Without Borders, but it’s something like that. I’m terrible with names. Whatever it is, it operates out of Minneapolis. I could probably find out for you if you want me to,”

“No,” Joanna said quickly. “I’ll give nay friend the information and let her do her own searching. If she’s that interested in going, she should do her own research, don^’t you think?”

“I suppose so,” Babe replied. “But still, if you need me to help out…”

“You’ve been a help already,” Joanna assured her. “I’ll let my friend take it from here.”

When she finished that call, she considered for only a moment before dialing Doc Winfield’s office. Since he was from Minnesota and also a doctor, Joanna thought he might know something about such an organization. When his voice mail message announced he was out of the office until five, Joanna looked up the area code for Minneapolis and dialed the number for information, asking the directory assistance operator for the number of the Minneapolis public library. It took several minutes before she was put through to a reference librarian who was willing to help.

“I’ve never heard of any such organization,” the librarian said once Joanna finished explaining what was needed. “The medical association might know about it, though, and if it’s possibly church-related, the diocese might know as well.”

For the next half hour, Joanna followed one blind lead after another. If a medical mission operation was working out of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, someone was doing a terrific job of keeping it a total secret-something that didn’t seem the least bit likely. An organization setting out to save the world would want everyone to know about it-for fund-raising purposes if nothing else. Of course, the simplest thing to do would have been to call Katherine O’Brien herself and ask for the name and number, but Joanna knew better than that.

Instead, she called Phoenix information. After receiving yet another number, she dialed Good Samaritan Hospital and asked to be put through to the director of nursing. While waiting for someone to answer, Joanna tried to piece together a timetable. Brianna O’Brien had been eighteen years old when she died. Joanna remembered Katherine’s saying that she and David O’Brien hadn’t married until five years after she stopped working at Good Sam. That meant that the records Joanna needed would be twenty-three to twenty-five years old, if they still existed at all. She didn’t hold out much hope.

Moments later a woman’s voice came on the line. “This is Barbara Calderone, the director of nursing,” she said. “How can I help you?”

“My name is Joanna Brady. I’m the sheriff of Cochise County. We’re trying to learn something about a nurse who worked at Good Sam a number of years ago. I was wondering-”

“How many years ago?” Barbara Calderone interrupted.

“More than twenty.”

“It’s highly unlikely that we’d still have records from that long ago. We’re computerized now. It’s much easier to keep t^rack of the nurses who come and go. The problem is, few of our records go back that far unless there was some kind of special circumstance. What was her name? In those days, of course, I’m assuming the nurse was a woman.”

“Ross,” Joanna said. “Katherine V. Ross.”

“One moment.”

Over the phone line came the familiar sound of a clicking keyboard as Barbara Calderone typed something into a computer. “That’s odd,” she said. “Is her birthday March 4, 1942?”

“Yes,” Joanna replied, fighting to contain the excitement in her voice.

Barbara Calderone sounded mystified. “I don’t know why, but the name’s still here, even after all this time, along with a DNH designation. There’s a notation that indicates all inquiries ore to be directed to the legal department.”

“DNH?” Joanna asked.

“Do not hire,^” Barbara Calderone explained. ^“In this business, before we hire someone, we run his or her name, Social Security number, and date of birth through the computer just to be sure we’re not rehiring someone who’s already created some kind of difficulty for us, which this Katherine Ross certainly must have done. I have to say, this is one of the oldest DNH designations I’ve ever seen. Most of the time, records that n up that way are for people who’ve developed inappropriate relationships with their patients. Or else ones who have developed difficulties with prescription medications-particularly other people’s prescription medications,” she added meaningfully. “But then, I suppose you know all about that.”

“Right,” Joanna responded. She was surprised that she had made it this far with Barbara Calderone without some demand as to Joanna’s legal right to make such inquiries. Still, she wasn’t about to turn down the information.

“Could you connect me with the legal department, then?”

“Sure,” Barbara Calderone replied. “Hold on. I’ll transfer you.”

The man Joanna spoke to there, a Mr. Armando Kentera, wasn’t nearly as loquacious as Barbara Calderone had been. “We do have a file on Ms. Ross,” he conceded, “but, without a properly documented court order, that’s all I can tell you. We’re dealing with privacy issues here, Sheriff Brady. I can’t give out any further information than that.”

From the tone of Mr. Kentera’s voice, Joanna knew there was no sense arguing. Thanking him, she ended the call and then dialed the Copper Queen Hospital, asking to be put through to Ignacio Ybarra. He answered after the second ring.

“This is Sheriff Brady,” Joanna told him. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he answered. “It’s nothing serious. Dr. Lee says I just got overheated. They’re letting me out. One of my cousins is coming to pick me up. Detective Carbajal wanted to take me up to the Peloncillos this afternoon to look at the campsite. I tried to get back to him, but the office said he had been called away to something else.”

“That’s right,” Joanna said.

“Tell him if he wants to go tomorrow, he should give me a call.”

“Right,” Joanna said. “I will. Tomorrow will probably be plenty of time, but in the meantime, Ignacio, I could use your help with something else.”

“What?”

“It’s about Bree’s journals.”

“What about them?”

“I read the final entry in one of them,” Joanna said. “The one volume we were able to find. The words were ‘My mother is a liar.’ Do you know anything about that?”

“I guess so. Her mother was always leaving home. About twice a year she’d go away for two weeks or so, sometimes even longer. She told Bree she was doing some kind of mission work, but Bree found out that wasn’t true.”

“You mean Katherine wasn’t off doing medical mission work when she told Brianna that’s what she was doing?”

“Right.”

“Where was she, then?”

“I don’t know,” Ignacio replied. “If Bree ever found out, she never told me.”

Joanna recognized the wary reluctance in Ignacio’s voice. “She did find out something, though, didn’t she?” Joanna prodded. “What?”

“That her mother couldn’t have gone off on any medical missions. She wasn’t a nurse anymore. She didn’t have a license.” “Thank you, Ignacio,” Joanna told him. “That’s all I need to know.”

Minutes after talking to Ignacio Ybarra, Joanna had Kristin Marsten fax an official inquiry to the Arizona State Department of Licensing. The reply returned with an alacrity that Joanna found astonishing. Katherine V. Ross had lost her right to be a nurse at the request of her former employer-Good Samaritan Hospital. Her license had been permanently revoked.

She had been implicated in the wrongful death of a patient-one Ricardo Montano Diaz-who had died as a result of an accidental overdose of medication. The hospital had settled the resultant legal suit by making a sizable monetary payment to the dead man’s family. There was no mention of criminal charges being brought against the nurse. However, as her part of the settlement with the Diaz family, she had agreed to give up the practice of nursing. Just to make sure, however, the hospital had gone to the extraordinary measure of making sure her license was revoked.

Having gleaned that much information from the first page of the multipage fax, Joanna almost put it aside without glancing at any of the subsequent pages. Halfway down the second page, though, the words dust storm leaped off the page.

Mr. Diaz, it turned out, had been critically burned in a fiery, dust storm-related accident on Interstate 10 when the loaded semi he was driving had plowed into another vehicle, trapping and killing a woman and two children. David O’Brien’s first wife and his first two children.

Outside her window, a long fork of lightning streaked across the darkening sky, followed immediately by the crack and rumble of nearby thunder. Joanna barely noticed. She turned loose the pages of the fax and let them flutter onto her desk.

“My mother is a liar,” she said to herself. And probably much worse besides.

The words wrongful death could conceal a multitude of everything from involuntary manslaughter to aggravated first-degree murder. How had this death happened? Joanna wondered. And who was ultimately responsible?

The hospital had paid the claim, or at least the hospital insurer had. Katherine O’Brien, nee Ross, had lost her nursing license as a result of what had happened, so presumably she had been held primarily accountable. Had she acted alone? What about David O’Brien, her future husband, who most likely had been a patient in the same hospital at the time of Mr. Diaz’s death?

While Joanna stared off into space, her mind kept posing questions. What if, after all these years, while trying to figure out where to send her mother’s birthday card, Brianna O’Brien had somehow stumbled across the same information? What if she had confronted her parents about the roles they had both played in the other man’s death?

With a storm in her heart that very nearly matched the one blowing up outside her window, Joanna sat at her desk and considered. To everyone who knew them, Katherine and David O’Brien appeared to be a fine, upstanding couple. Supposing Bree, having discovered bits and pieces of their darker past, had threatened to expose them. Would they have killed their own daughter to keep that secret from becoming public knowledge?

After all, if the simple disobedient gesture of wearing a forbidden pair of earrings had merited a slap in the face, how would David O’Brien have responded to something much more serious?