Skeleton Canyon

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

About four o’clock in the afternoon, still watching the clock and waiting for the fax to come in, Joanna finished her paperwork and made her way down the hall to the evidence room.

“I believe Ernie Carpenter or Jaime brought in another journal either last night or this morning,” she told Buddy Richards. “It’ll be one similar to the one I looked at yesterday. It’s part of the Aaron Meadows investigation.”

“What about it?” Buddy asked.

“I’d like to take a look at it.”

Shaking his head in disapproval and mumbling objections under his breath, Buddy found the journal. He handed it over only after making doubly sure the paperwork was properly signed and documented.

Back in her office, Joanna opened the book to the last page:

I’m sorry Nacio isn’t here tonight with me, but that’s one of the things I love about him-he’s dependable. With his aunt in the hospital, his family needs…

The journal ended in mid-sentence, leaving Joanna with the bittersweet knowledge that Brianna O’Brien had been interrupted then and had died in the act of declaring once again her unrepentant love for the young man her family had deemed entirely unsuitable.

Fighting back tears and swallowing the lump in her throat, Joanna went on to read the entire book, scanning from back to front. She expected to stumble upon some reference to Brianna O’Brien’s discovery that her parents were involved in Marco Marcovich’s smuggling game, but she found nothing at all like that. What Joanna found instead was Brianna O’Brien’s shock and outrage that her father had slapped her face-for wearing the forbidden earrings.

As she worked her way backward through the journal, though, Joanna found more and more references to something bad-something Bree had discovered. Over and over she had wrestled in her journal with whether or not she should tell “Nacio what was really going on,” but there was hardly any information at all to say what that awful secret was. Finally, at the very beginning of the book, Joanna found what she was looking for. In an investigation that almost paralleled Joanna’s, Brianna O’Brien had come to the same damning conclusion Joanna had-that Katherine O’Brien had murdered Ricardo Montano Diaz-the man responsible for the deaths of David O’Brien’s family-his previous wife and his firstborn children.

Closing the book, Joanna stared off into space. What was her responsibility here? Katherine and David O’Brien had already suffered an incredible loss. Of course, there was no statute of limitations on murder, but would justice he served by re-opening that ancient wound?

By then the confession arrived. In it, Aaron Meadows admitted to not one but two separate murders. He claimed that Bree’s death had been little more than an accident. The camping place she and Ignacio had frequented happened to be the same spot where Aaron was supposed to meet Luis, his mule, bringing Marco’s next load of Freon north from Juarez. Afraid she would be able to identify him, he had simply run her to ground and killed her. End of story.

On the other hand, he claimed that Alf Hastings’s murder had been self-defense. Afraid of being caught in connection with the girl’s murder, he had given Marco his notice. What he didn’t know was that one of the reasons Stephan Marcovich ran such a successful smuggling business was that he never left any loose ends. His runners weren’t allowed to quit. One way or another, they disappeared. Aaron Meadows claimed it was only sheer luck that, in the process of fighting back, he had managed to kill his would-be dispatcher. Reading that, Joanna wondered how long Alf Hastings had been his cousin’s Mr. Fixit Man and how many times, before his attempted hit on Aaron Meadows, Alf had been only too happy to do Marco’s dirty work. With no one around to tell the tale, they would probably never find out.

At nine o’clock on Tuesday night, burdened by all she had learned, Sheriff Joanna Brady once again headed for Green Brush Ranch. On the way to deliver the news that Brianna O’Brien’s killer had signed a confession, Joanna had yet to reach a decision on that other case-on something that, for more than twenty years, had been officially labeled a wrongful death even though Joanna wondered now if it hadn’t actually been a homicide. By the time she pulled up to the locked, electronically controlled gate, she was still uncertain about what to do.

The gate opened without her having to reach out and push the button. At the house, Olga Vorevkin, her eyes red with weeping, opened the door.

“I’ve come to see Mr. O’Brien,” Joanna said. “I believe he’s expecting me.”

Nodding, Mrs. Vorevkin led Joanna as far as the entrance to the darkened living room. It surprised Joanna to see that there were no votive candles burning on the rosewood prie-dieu at the end of the passageway. The open Bible and the onyx rosary were also missing, as was the marble statue of the Madonna and Child from the artfully lit but empty alcove in the wall.

Turning from there to the darkened living room, Joanna’s first impression was that the place was empty. “I’m over here, Sheriff Brady,” David O’Brien said from the far corner. “By the window. I hope you don’t mind sitting in the dark. I was studying the stars. It’s easier to see them when all the lights are off.”

Joanna bumped into a single chair on her way across the room, but by the time she arrived in the far corner, her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dim light. She peered out the window, too. For a space of time, she didn’t speak and neither did David O’Brien.

A match flared as he lit a cigarette. “That’s one of the few good things I still remember from when I was a child here,” he said at last, blowing a cloud of smoke. “The stars in Bisbee always seemed to burn with a peculiar intensity.” He paused then and took another thoughtful drag before changing the subject. “I take it from your call that you have news?”

Joanna looked around and hesitated. “If you don’t mind, Mr. O’Brien, I’d prefer to share this information with both you and your wife at the same time…”

“Katherine’s gone,^” David O’Brien said.

“You mean she’s not here.”

“No, I mean she’s gone. Left me. She won’t be back.”

Joanna was stunned. “But where did she go?”

“Where she always goes,” David O’Brien returned. “To a Benedictine convent outside Socorro, New Mexico. Only this time, it’s for good. It’s a sequestered order, you see. Once she takes her vows, she’ll never return. It’s what she’s always wanted.”

“A convent!” Joanna exclaimed. “Your wife is going to become a nun? How can she?”

“Because we’re married, you mean? That won’t be a problem. It’ll take time and effort on her part, but I’m sure she’ll be able to get an annulment.”

“An annulment.” It dismayed Joanna to hear her voice echoing back David O’Brien’s words. She sounded stupid. “After this many years?” she asked.

“The number of years doesn’t make any difference,” he replied wearily. “Our daughter was a test-tube baby, Sheriff Brady. One of the early ones. If you’ll pardon my being blunt, after the accident I was never able to perform in that department. Since Katherine’s and my marriage was never officially consummated, then, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult for her to obtain a church-sanctioned annulment. That way she’ll be able to do what she’s always wanted to do-what she’s always done anyway. The only difference is, now she’ll be able to do it openly and without any interference.” He paused.

“And what would that be?” Joanna asked.

“Why she’ll be able to pray, of course,” David O’Brien answered at last. “She’ll pray without ceasing, for the sake of both of our immortal souls.”

The room fell totally silent. “She did do it, then?” Joanna breathed at last.

“Do what?”

“She killed Mr. Diaz?”

David O’Brien sighed. “Oh,” he said. “So you know about it, then. I should have realized. It was only a matter of time before someone here figured it out and brought it up again. I don’t believe Katherine killed Mr. Diaz on purpose, Sheriff Brady,” he added. “It was an accident. I believe the mixup with the medication really was a legitimate mistake on her part. She was devastated by the man’s death. The problem was, the hospital administrator didn’t approve of the fact that Katherine and I had become friends. The woman was a witch. She was out to get Katherine-to crucify her if need be. I simply couldn’t let that happen. She was a nice young woman-a nurse who someday hoped to join a convent. I turned my attorney loose on the mess. He was able to handle it-well enough, at least, that she didn’t go to prison.”

“You’re saying she was innocent, then?”

“I’m saying she may have been responsible, but that she wasn’t guilty. There’s a difference, you know. And after it was all over, we had grown close enough that I asked her if she’d be willing to help me try to start another family. She did. Not out of love, mind you. More out of misplaced gratitude. We were partners. We were together all this time, but it never quite worked. The family part. I see now that a lot of it was my fault. Bree and I were always at loggerheads-from the time she was tiny. She must have sensed my disappointment-must have known she could never be exactly what I wanted.”

“But she was a smart, bright, pretty girl,” Joanna found her-self saying. “What more could you have wanted?”

“I wanted my son back,” David O’Brien said sadly. “No matter how hard Bree tried, that was something she could never be. How stupid of me, Sheriff Brady. Why did my daughter have to die for me to figure it out?”

As the grieving father choked back a sob, Joanna closed her eyes. She remembered Katherine O’Brien’s anguish the first time she had seen her; how anxious she had been that Joanna or Ernie would give away the secret that Brianna was taking birth control pills. Joanna had seen how tightly strung Katherine O’Brien had been and had attributed it to a possible case of domestic violence. And maybe that wasn’t far from wrong. For almost twenty years, Katherine O’Brien had been the sole peacemaker, caught in the middle between her family’s two forever-warring factions-an angry, controlling father and his lovely, headstrong daughter.

After a long moment of silence, David O’Brien spoke again. “If you’re aware of the incident, you know that as a result of a negotiated deal, Katherine lost her license to practice nursing. I always thought of that as a victory, but now I tend to wonder if we wouldn’t all have been better off if Katherine had gone to prison instead. If she had, maybe she would have felt as though she had finally atoned for her sin and been able to let go of it. As it is,” he added sadly, “I doubt she ever will.”