BETWEEN SAINT David and Tombstone, Joanna said little and Junior said even less. He sat huddled in the far corner of the passenger seat with his arms clutching his chest. When Joanna asked him a direct question, he ducked his head and stared out the windshield without any acknowledgment that she had spoken to him.
What the hell have I let myself in for? Joanna asked herself. Obviously Junior didn’t belong in jail, not even in protective custody—as if that would be protection enough from some of the casually abusive thugs populating the Cochise County jail. The county hospital down in Douglas contained a mental ward, but Joanna was sure Junior wouldn’t qualify as a mental patient, either. He may not have been in possession of all his faculties, but he certainly wasn’t crazy. He was lost. Abandoned. And, as Joanna could see, terribly, terribly sad.
So if jail and the hospital are both out of the question, what do I do with him? she asked herself. In the past she would have gone straight to Marianne Maculyea with that kind of thorny problem. Marianne had the unerring knack of knowing just where to turn for help in sticky situations, but at this point in Mari’s life, she was at such a low ebb that she couldn’t even help herself. How on earth, then, could she be expected to help someone else?
That was as far as Joanna had managed to noodle the problem by the time she reached Tombstone. Once there, she had to call in to Dispatch to get directions to Alice Rogers’ home. It was on the far northern outskirts of town, past the dusty pioneer cemetery, and off on a dirt track called Scheiffelin Monument Road. At the far end of that road was a rocky cairn containing the worldly remains of Ed Scheiffelin. Scheiffelin was a hardy prospector whose silver strike had been the original foundation of Tombstone’s fabulous if short-lived mineral wealth.
Joanna’s father, D. H. Lathrop, had venerated the cussed independence of Ed Scheiffelin and others like him. With the Sonora Desert alive with marauding Apaches, Scheiffelin had left Tucson alone and on foot with little more than a mule, a chaw of tobacco, and a dream of achieving impossible wealth. And when that dream came true—when the silver claims other people had scoffed at came to fruition—Scheiffelin had gone on to wealth, fame, and high living without ever forgetting his humble roots. Years later, before he died in Oregon, he had asked to be returned to Arizona and buried near the site of that initial mining claim.
For D. H. Lathrop, people like Ed Scheiffelin epitomized the heroes of the Old West in a way the good guys and bad guys—the Earps and the Clantons—did not. Lathrop had filled his daughter’s head with stories about Ed’s greedy partners who had done their best to cheat him out of what was rightfully his. Her mother had disparaged everything about Tombstone—the clapboard buildings, the phony gunfights, and the tacky tourist souvenirs. For Eleanor Lathrop the place was little more than a vulgar tourist trap—something to be despised and certainly not patronized.
Joanna had grown up with her father’s love of legends on the one hand and with her mother’s unflinching disapproval on the other. Thinking about Alice Rogers, it made Joanna sad that as far as she knew Alice and her father had never met. She sensed that D. H. Lathrop would have had much in common with a woman whose whole life seemed to be tied in with Tombstone’s fabled mineral wealth. In fact, Joanna wondered now: Did Alice’s mining claim at Outlaw Mountain have anything to do with her death?
Joanna pulled up to the group of cars parked on both sides of the road. Alice’s house was completely surrounded by the thick six-foot-tall adobe-and-stucco fence Susan Jenkins had told her about. Stopping for a moment outside the arched wrought-iron gate, Joanna considered the workmanship. Regardless of how much Farley Adams had been paid for building the fence, it was clear the construction project had been a labor of love. On either side of the gate and set at ten-foot intervals were beautifully wrought sconces made of turquoise-shaded stained glass and powered by carefully concealed wiring.
Having seen the fence, Joanna expected the house to be a luxurious hacienda-style affair. Instead, she found herself looking through the gateway toward a modest slump-block building that looked as though it had been thrown up on the cheap sometime in the fifties. With Junior tagging along, Joanna couldn’t risk venturing inside for fear evidence might be disturbed or destroyed. Instead, she flagged down a deputy and sent her into the house to locate Detective Carbajal and send him back to the gate.
In the deepening twilight, Joanna noticed that lights showed at every window in Alice Rogers’ house. An ordinary passer-by, seeing those lights and all the extra vehicles, might have assumed there was a party going on inside. It’s a party, all right, Joanna thought grimly. Your ordinary crime scene fiesta.
A harried-looking Jaime Carbajal hustled down the walk. “Hello, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to check on how things are going.”
“Okay, I guess,” he replied. “We’re working the problem. Looks like a straight-out burglary—no TV, no radios, no jewelry. We’re finding lots of prints, and we’re collecting them all. Between this house and the other one, that’s a lot of ground to cover. It’s going to take time.”
The detective paused and glanced questioningly toward Junior, who clutched his arms and gazed skyward, saying nothing. “Who’s this?” Jaime asked.
“I’ve run into a little complication,” Joanna explained quickly. “Junior here got separated from his family, and we’re trying to help find them. Which means, by the way, that I’m not going to be able to go out to Gleeson to check on your other crew.”
“That’s no problem. They’re about to close up for the night anyway. Besides, you’re driving one of the Civvys today, aren’t you?”
Joanna nodded. “Be advised,” Jaime Carbajal said. “The road to Outlaw Mountain is a mess. Strictly four-wheel-drive. We’re having to ferry the crime scene guys in and out in one of the Broncos.”
“What all are you finding?” Joanna asked.
He nodded toward Alice Rogers’ glowing house. “It’s just like the daughter said. This place has been ransacked. No way to tell exactly how much is missing, since we don’t have any idea what was in the house to begin with. We’ll have to get relatives to help us with an inventory. The mobile home over in Gleeson looks like somebody did a fast job of packing rather than tearing the place apart. If you’re asking for my best guess, I’d say whoever left there did so in one hell of a hurry.”
“As in on the run?”
Carbajal nodded. “Maybe.”
Joanna thought about that. Farley Adams taking off in a hurry didn’t square with Pima County’s kids-as-killers program, but it was something to check out. If Farley Adams had nothing to hide, why had he run away?
“Do we have any idea what kind of vehicle he’d be driving?” Joanna asked.
“We do have that. A vintage Jeep, a post-World War II Willys model. It belongs to Alice Rogers.”
“Why is everybody so intent on stealing Alice Rogers’ cars? And how did you find that out, Department of Transportation?”
“No,” Jaime said. “I talked to Nadine Harvey, Farley Adams’ neighbor. She runs that junkyard in Gleeson right at the turnoff to the mine. As near as I can tell, she spends most of her life standing out in her yard sweeping china-berries out of the dirt and watching everything that goes on.”
“Did she have any idea when Farley took off?”
“She knew exactly. Said it was yesterday afternoon. She claims Adams came hauling ass down the road about an hour or so after Frank Montoya left.”
“Yesterday afternoon,” Joanna mused. “That means he has a long head start on us, over twenty-four hours. Have you done anything about finding him?”
“Not yet. I’ve had my hands full, but I will. What do you think, an APB?” he added.
“No. I think that would be premature. Besides, a Jeep that old isn’t going to be hard to find. He may have headed for the border, where he can still buy leaded gas. For now, let’s post the Jeep as a stolen vehicle and wait for somebody to spot it for us. That way, by the time we locate Farley Adams, we may know more about what we’re up against.”
Next to Joanna, Junior stirred restlessly, shifting from one foot to the other, moaning softly. “Go,” he whimpered, making his first sound in almost an hour. “Go. Go. Go.”
Glad that he was speaking to her at last, Joanna did her best to reassure him. “It’s all right, Junior,” she crooned. “We’ll be leaving soon. Just let me finish talking to Detective Carbajal.” She turned back to Jaime. “Sorry I can’t be more of a help right now,” she told him. “As you can see, I—”
“You’ve got your hands full, Sheriff Brady,” Jaime said. “Don’t worry. You take care of him. I can handle this.”
“But I’ll want you at tomorrow morning’s briefing,” Joanna said. “With everything that’s been happening today—here, in Tucson, and out at Sierra Vista—we’re going to need to start the day with firsthand information on all fronts.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jaime said. “I’ll be there.”
By now, Junior had edged away from Joanna and was skittering down the road. He had already passed the Crown Victoria by the time she was able to dash after him, catch him by the arm, and bring him back to the vehicle.
“Go,” he said again, more urgently this time. “Junior go. Junior go now!”
“All right,” Joanna agreed. “We’re going. Come get in the car.”
He tried to shake loose of her hand. Remembering what had happened to Sister Ambrose, Joanna held firm. After a momentary struggle, he quieted. For a matter of seconds Joanna wondered if she should lock him in the backseat rather than letting him ride up front with her, but by then he was no longer fighting. She helped him into the front passenger seat and buckled the seat belt across him. Then she hurried around the car and climbed in herself.
She had started the car, backed up, and completed a U-turn when the sharp and unmistakable odor of urine flooded her nostrils. Her heart sank with the sudden realization of what Junior had really meant when he said he wanted to go. She knew instantly that Junior’s particular brand of “go” was going to play havoc with the Civvy’s cloth-covered interior.
Embarrassed for Junior and angry with herself for not understanding his urgent plea, Joanna floorboarded the gas pedal. There was no point then in stopping the car and trying to hustle him into a rest room. The damage was already done.
What are the guys in Motor Pool going to think when I bring this one in? she wondered.
On the seat beside her, Junior buried his face in his hands and sobbed. “Sorry,” he wailed over and over again. “Junior sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Joanna said, swallowing her own anger in hopes of calming him. “You tried to tell me and I didn’t understand. We’ll be home soon, Junior. We’ll take care of it.”
He raised his head hopefully. “Home?” he said.
A feeling of total helplessness washed over Joanna. She had no idea where his home was or how to take him there. In his innocence he thought she did and trusted her to make good her promise. How could she do that? And how would she deliver on what she had told Father Mulligan, that she would take care of Holy Trinity’s little lost lamb?
Where would she find something as simple as dry clothing for him to wear? There was nothing out at High Lonesome Ranch that would fit him. Joanna had long since sent Andy’s things to a local clothing bank. Even if she was able to solve the basic issue of dressing Junior, what would she do with him after that? For one thing, there was the question of bedrooms. The house at High Lonesome Ranch was a modest two-bedroom affair with no guest room. Butch had slept fine on Joanna’s cloth-covered sofa. With Junior that wouldn’t be possible—for several obvious reasons.
On the seat beside her, an inconsolable Junior once again dissolved into tears. His despairing, muffled sobs were enough to break Joanna’s heart.
“Hush now,” she said. “Do you like to sing?”
Continuing to whimper, he didn’t answer.
They were through Tombstone now, past the airport, and coming down the long curve into the upper San Pedro Valley. Off to the right—a good twenty miles across the valley—the combined lights of Sierra Vista and Fort Huachuca glimmered along the base of the mountains. Ahead of them, in the darkened sky over the Mule Mountains, a single star—the evening star—glittered brightly. Seeing it reminded Joanna of some of the trips she had made back and forth to Tucson when Jenny was a baby. Driving by herself, there had been no way to comfort her crying child but to sing. Would that same magic work on Junior?
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” Joanna began. The familiar tune filled the night. At the sound of her singing, Junior quieted a little. He continued to sniffle and choke, but his heart-wrenching sobs eased.
By the time Joanna finished that first familiar ditty, Junior’s breath was coming in long, ragged shudders, but at least he was quieter. And Joanna felt better, too. As the last notes of “Little Star” died away, she moved on to another equally familiar tune. For the next twenty minutes, she sang every childhood song she could remember. There were ones from Sunday school: “Zacheus,” “Jesus Loves Me,” “I’ll Be a Sunbeam for Jesus.” There were ones from kindergarten: “Eensy Weensy Spider,” “I’m a Little Teapot,” and “Do the Hokey-Pokey.” By the time the Crown Victoria slid across the Divide and dropped down into Bisbee’s Tombstone Canyon, Joanna had moved on to Girl Scout songs: “Make New Friends But Keep the Old” and “White Coral Bells.”
By then it no longer mattered what she sang because Junior was sound asleep beside her. With the heater on, the smell of urine was thick in the air, but Joanna didn’t dare open the window for fear the cold air would chill him. After all, he was wet. She wasn’t.
Coming around Lavender Pit, she finally made up her mind about where she was going to go—straight to Butch Dixon’s place in Saginaw. Picking up the phone, she dialed his number and breathed a sigh of relief when he answered right away.
“Where are you?” Butch asked. “Jenny and I are just now sitting down to eat.”
“I’m coming through Lowell,” she told him, speaking quietly, afraid that if she raised her voice she might disturb Junior, who was snoring softly beside her.
“Great,” Butch said. “We set a place for you, but I didn’t think you’d be here this early.”
“Neither did I,” Joanna murmured, wondering how she was going to break the news to him. “But I’ve got a problem, Butch.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I’ve got a passenger with me. His name is Junior. At least that’s as much of his name as we know. He’s developmentally disabled. He peed his pants about the time we were leaving a crime scene in Tombstone, and now he’s sound asleep.”
“What’s he doing in your car?” Butch asked. “Is he under arrest, or what?”
“He didn’t commit a crime, so no, he’s not under arrest. Somebody abandoned him at the weekend arts and crafts fair over in Saint David. It’s hard to tell about his age. I’d say he’s somewhere close to fifty, but we’ve got no identification to verify that. Mentally he’s closer to three or four. Verbal, but only just.”
“Not enough to tell you he needed to go to the bathroom.”
“Right. He tried. I just didn’t understand.”
“So where are you taking him, to the jail?”
“I can’t take him there, Butch. Some of those guys…”
“I know. I know. And you can’t take him home, either.”
“No,” Joanna agreed. “I can’t, but…”
“You want me to take care of him?”
Joanna’s heart filled with a flood of gratitude. It was exactly what she had wanted, but she hadn’t dared ask. By then she was less than half a mile from Butch’s home in the Saginaw neighborhood. Driving around the traffic circle, she was tempted to go around several more times, just to give Butch time to adjust to the idea of taking in an unexpected house guest. It seemed, however, that Butch was already coping.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“The traffic circle.”
“I’ll go out and move the Subaru so you can pull into the carport right next to the house. And I’ll bring out a robe and some towels so we can get him out of his wet clothes before we try to bring him inside. How big is he?”
“Not very,” Joanna responded.
“Will my underwear fit him?”
“He’ll swim in it.”
“No problem,” Butch said cheerfully. “Sounds like he’s swimming in something else at the moment. How bad is your car?”
“It’s bad. Soaked.”
“It’ll have to wait. First things first,” Butch said. “See you in a couple of minutes.”
It wasn’t much more than that when Joanna arrived at Butch’s house. True to his word, Butch’s new Outback was parked on the street. The chain-link gate to his driveway stood wide open, allowing Joanna access to a covered carport. Jenny stood at the back door clutching an armload of material that turned out to be the promised towels, a robe, and a pair of sweats with a drawstring at the waist.
For a change, Joanna was only too happy to stand aside and let someone else take charge. Butch knelt beside the car and untied Junior’s high-topped tennis shoes. After removing the shoes, Butch gently shook Junior awake. Helping him out of the car, Butch stood him upright long enough to peel off the soaked khaki work pants, under-shorts, and shirt, all of which he allowed to fall into a sodden heap. After helping Junior step into the sweats, Butch wrapped the shivering and uncomplaining man in the ample folds of a thick terry-cloth robe.
“There you go,” Butch said, taking Junior by the arm. “Come on in. It’s cold out here, and dinner’s on the table. I’ll bet you’re hungry.”
Looking down at the terry-cloth robe, Junior ran his fingers across the soft, downy material in seeming delight. “Hungry,” he said, nodding agreeably. “Junior eat.”
As soon as Butch had begun unbuttoning Junior’s shirt, Jenny had disappeared into the house. When Joanna followed Butch and Junior into the small, cozy kitchen, she was gratified to see that Jenny had made use of the time alone to set another place at the table.
“This is Junior, Jenny,” Butch said.
“Hello, Junior,” Jenny responded, as though welcoming someone like him was the most ordinary thing in the world. “What do you want to drink—milk, water, or soda?”
Junior’s eyes fastened hungrily on the carton in Jenny’s hand. “Milk,” he said. “Junior like milk. Milk good.”
Matter-of-factly, Jenny went to one of the places and filled the glass there with milk. “Here, Junior,” she said, pointing. “You sit here.”
Butch helped Junior onto the proper chair. Joanna wasn’t sure how Butch had done it, but somehow he had managed to convey to Jenny exactly what was going on. Between the two of them, Butch and Jenny were handling Junior’s afflictions with such easy grace and acceptance that they might both have been used to dealing with people like him on a daily basis.
Butch set a bowl of soup in front of Junior. Jenny seated herself next to their guest, picked up a piece of Butch’s crusty, freshly baked bread, spread it with butter, and then laid it next to his place. Without a word, Junior picked up his spoon and buried it in the thick, steamy soup.
“Careful,” Butch warned. “It’s hot.”
Nodding, Junior held the loaded spoon to his lips and blew on it noisily. Most of the soup slopped back into the bowl, but as soon as he put the remainder in his mouth, his face cracked into the same wide grin Joanna had seen when she had first pinned the sheriffs badge on his chest.
“Good!” he exclaimed happily. “Good, good, good.”
Transfixed by all this activity, Joanna stood just inside the door and watched. She didn’t know which was more gratifying—Butch’s and Jenny’s compassion toward Junior, or the total ease with which they dealt with his obvious abnormalities. Overcome by emotion, Joanna’s eyes brimmed with tears. She tried to speak, but her voice caught in her throat.
Joanna was still struggling to find words when Butch took her gently by the shoulder and led her to a chair. “Will Madame be seated?” he asked with a comically formal bow. “And what are we drinking this evening? I can recommend the Cabernet…”
“Milk for me, too,” Joanna said. “I may still have some work to do tonight”
Jenny made a face at that, but she didn’t say anything to Joanna. Instead, she turned her wide blue eyes full on Junior’s face. “Where are you from?” she asked.
Ladling his soup and blowing on each spoonful, Junior didn’t answer. Jenny, however, seemed determined to draw him into conversation. “Is it near or far?”
Junior paused and looked at her. “Far,” he said. A speech impediment made it difficult for him to pronounce the letter r, but Jenny wasn’t fazed by that, either.
“How big is your family?” she asked.
Junior stopped eating. He put his spoon down and stared back at Jenny. Worried that any discussion of his family might provoke the same kind of outburst that had bruised Sister Ambrose’s elbow, Joanna tried to interrupt, but Butch laid one hand on hers and shook his head, warning her to silence.
Junior held up one finger. “Mama,” he said. Then he raised another finger. “Junior.”
“So it’s just the two of you,” Jenny said. “That’s like Mom and me. Butch here is our friend, and this is his house. But at home where we live, it’s just Mom and me. Just the two of us, same as you.”
A short silence settled over the table. “Do you like to play video games?” Butch asked.
Junior brightened. He reached for what would have been his pockets, then the smile faded. He knew enough to realize that video games required money and he had none.
“Don’t worry,” Butch told him. “I have some video games in the other room that came from my restaurant when I sold it. I’ve fixed them so they don’t take quarters anymore. You can play them all you want, for free.”
Junior’s mouth dropped. “No quarters?” He started to push his chair away from the table.
“No,” Butch said. “Soup first, then video games.”
Without a murmur of objection, Junior settled back onto his chair and resumed eating.If Father Mulligan thought the badge trick was impressive, Joanna thought,he ought to see this.
When the soup was gone, Jenny led Junior into what had once been a small parlor but which was now a tiny video arcade. As soon as they were out of the kitchen, Butch turned a penetrating gaze on Joanna. “How are you doing?”
“Better now,” she said. “Much better. How did you know how to handle him like that? You were great.”
“I used to coach Special Olympics,” Butch said. “The Roundhouse used to sponsor a team to the games over in Tempe every summer. I liked doing it, and I pride myself in thinking I was pretty good at it.”
“I’d say very good,” Joanna told him.
Butch stood up. “If you want to clear the table, I’ll go outside, gather up his clothes, and stick them in the washer.”
“Once we get him dressed again, though, what am I going to do with him?” Joanna asked.
“Leave him here,” Butch replied. “I have an air mattress out in the shed. I’ll blow that up and have him sleep right there on the living room floor. He’ll be fine, and on the air mattress, if he has an accident overnight, it won’t hurt anything.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Of course I don’t mind. If I did, I wouldn’t have offered. What do you expect me to do, leave you to handle this whole mess by yourself? No way!”
While Butch went to look after the clothes, Joanna cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. Butch’s house was a high-ceilinged, 1880s kind of place. It had once been part of a neighborhood called Upper Lowell. In the early fifties, this house and all of its neighbors had been loaded onto axles and hauled down out of the canyon to make way for the Lavender Pit Mine. When Butch had bought the place months earlier, it had been a run-down mess, with a bathroom so small that he claimed he’d had to stand in the kitchen to pee. It was Butch’s own handiwork that had remodeled the place, reallocating the space, putting in new fixtures, appliances, and cabinets. Working in the small but convenient kitchen, Joanna couldn’t help admiring his craftsmanship.
Joanna had finished loading the dishwasher and was just adding soap when Butch came back into the kitchen. “That took a while,” she said.
“I know. I have a rug shampooer out in the garage. I took a crack at the upholstery in your car. It helped some, but it’s not going to solve the whole problem. Unfortunately it had a chance to really soak in.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out Joanna’s badge. “This looks like the real McCoy. It wouldn’t happen to be yours, would it?”
Drying her hands, Joanna took the badge and returned it to the leather carrying case in her purse. Once she did that, she walked over to Butch and gave the base of his neck a nuzzling kiss. In the process his hand bumped against the elbow that had swatted up against the cholla. She winced.
“What’s the matter?” Butch asked. “Are you hurt?”
“A little.”
She rolled up her sleeve and looked. Her elbow was punctured by more than a dozen tiny pinpricks, all of them red and sore. “What happened?” Butch asked
“I had a run-in with a batch of cholla,” she told him.
Shaking his head, Butch reached into a drawer and brought out a tube of Neosporin. “Maybe you’d better tell me the whole story,” he said.
For the next forty-five minutes, she told him everything, starting with finding Alice Rogers’ body and ending with Junior. When Joanna finished, Butch leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “What’s it going to take to find someone who doesn’t want to be found?”
“I don’t know,” Joanna admitted. “I’ve never encountered a case quite like this before.”
“I have,” Butch said grimly. “Two years ago the family of one of my athletes took off out of town while Brad was away at Special Olympics. When the games were over and we tried to take him home, no one was there. One of the neighbors told us they’d packed up and left on vacation. In a way, you can understand it. It’s got to be a terrible strain for the family members. For caregivers it’s a never-ending, lifetime’s worth of responsibility, with no hope and no respite. Still, abandoning ship like that is unforgivable. At least, that’s how it seemed to me then, and it still does.
“But I’ll bet the same thing that happened with Brad will happen with Junior. Somebody is going to notice that Junior isn’t at home anymore, and they’ll start asking questions. In the meantime, we’re going to have to look after him, that’s all.”
“You mean that, don’t you,” Joanna said. “The ‘we’ part, I mean.”
“Yes,” Butch said. “If we don’t, who’s going to? And if you and Jenny and I all take a crack at this thing together, it won’t be that big a problem. I’m sure Jeff Daniels will help out, and maybe even Marianne, if she’s able.”
“Did you hear from them today?” Joanna asked. “Has she turned in her resignation?”
“Not yet. According to Jeff, she’s talking about maybe seeing a doctor. Talking, but she hasn’t made an appointment yet. Jeff is afraid that if he pushes too hard, she’ll give up on the idea of going at all.”
Butch paused and grinned. “That’s the trouble with women,” he said. “They’re totally unpredictable. You can never tell what will happen when you push.”
They had been sitting at the kitchen table. Now Joanna stood up and walked over to Butch’s chair. Taking his face in both hands, she leaned down and kissed him again squarely on the lips.
“That’s right,” she said. “Women are totally unpredictable.”