THE CARAVAN OF VEHICLES THAT LEFT BISBEE HEADING FOR THE Peloncillos bright and early on Saturday morning might well have been dubbed a criminal-justice parade. Detective Deb Howell led the motorcade in her Tahoe, intent on picking up June and Jack Carver from their home in Douglas. That way, with Jack along to provide directions, she could lead the other investigators to the crime scene.
Dave Hollicker, Joanna’s chief CSI, was next in line, behind the wheel of the county’s new Ford Transit evidence van. Next up came the medical examiner, Dr. Kendra Baldwin, driving her all-wheel-drive Honda CRV. Dr. Baldwin had two morgue assistants, officially known as dieners. One of the two, a guy named Ralph Whetson, followed his boss in the morgue’s official vehicle, a Dodge Caravan, a minivan everyone in the department routinely referred to as “the body wagon.”
Acting Sheriff Hadlock brought up the rear of the procession, driving the Yukon that had once been Joanna’s. That had been passed along to him in anticipation of the delivery of a new Ford Interceptor SUV, which was due to make its appearance about the time Joanna was scheduled to return from maternity leave.
Tom was one of the veterans in the department, and he looked the part of an Arizona sheriff. The man had a middle-aged girth to him. The Stetson he customarily wore concealed a receding hairline and his sparse gray comb-over. He had hired on as a deputy back in the day when D. H. Lathrop was still running the show. Hadlock had moved out of patrol and into jail management early on in the four-term administration of D.H.’s successor, Walter McFadden.
Hadlock had been aware of much of the underhanded dealings going on back then. Although he hadn’t been part of any of it, he hadn’t had nerve enough to come out publicly against it, either. When Deputy Andrew Roy Brady had decided to go up against their mutual boss, Hadlock had quietly supported Andy’s attempt to oust McFadden from office and had been left heartsick by Andy’s untimely and brutal murder.
Even so, when people started broaching the idea of asking Andy’s widow to run for office in her murdered husband’s place, Hadlock had considered that to be a bridge too far. Just because Joanna’s father had been a sheriff and her husband had been a deputy running for the office of sheriff, this didn’t mean that Joanna herself was qualified to do the job. In that original three-way contest, Tom had actually backed and voted for another candidate, Cochise County deputy, Frank Montoya. Then, when Joanna won, Tom, as the newly appointed jail commander, had sat back on the sidelines watching and waiting for her to fail—something that hadn’t happened.
Most of the people who’d voted against Joanna and even some of her supporters had expected Andy Brady’s widow to function as sheriff in name only—as a placeholder rather than as a real officer of the law. Almost no one had expected that she would transform herself into a consummate professional. People both inside and outside the department had been surprised and gratified when she took the time and effort to put herself through the rigors of police-academy training, and they were amazed by the seriousness with which she conducted herself on the job.
She brought the rank and file around by running her department in an open, honest, and evenhanded fashion. The fact that she had taken her two opponents—deputies Dick Voland and Frank Montoya—and made both of them her co–chief deputies had settled the hash for many of the folks who’d originally supported them. She won over hearts and minds by being a hard worker and putting herself on the line. She wasn’t someone who sat at her desk and phoned the job in. When something happened, Joanna was present and accounted for. Cochise County was a vast square, almost eighty miles wide by eighty miles long. If a homicide occurred somewhere within those jurisdictional boundaries, Sheriff Brady’s officers went, and so did she.
And that was why on this bright Saturday morning in mid-November, rather than sleeping in or watching golf on TV, Acting Sheriff Hadlock, standing in for Joanna, was on his way to the crime scene, too.
The vehicles formed up on the shoulder of Geronimo Trail, just east of the Douglas city limits and waited for Detective Howell to arrive on the scene. When she did so, Tom was surprised to note there were three passengers riding along with her rather than the expected two. As soon as the Tahoe came to a stop, the front passenger door swung open and a man stepped out. As he strode over to where Tom was parked, there was enough of a family resemblance for Tom to realize this had to be Jack Carver’s father.
He was approaching in such a purposeful fashion that it seemed reasonable to expect there would be some kind of hell to pay. Not one to dodge a confrontation, Tom emerged from his own vehicle and stepped forward to meet whatever was coming. Rather than throwing a punch, the new arrival surprised Tom by extending his hand.
“Chief Deputy Hadlock?” he asked.
“That’s me,” Tom said, returning the proffered handshake.
“I’m Nathan Carver,” the man said, “Jack’s dad. I wanted to meet you before we got started.”
In the old days, Tom would have known most of the Border Patrol guys in the county on sight and probably on a first-name basis as well, but that was no longer true. Border enforcement was a growth industry in Cochise County, and Nathan Carver was a complete stranger.
“Glad to meet you, too,” Tom replied.
“Thanks for giving my boy a break,” Nathan added. “You didn’t have to do that, and I appreciate it.”
Tom couldn’t help but chuckle. “Turns out I didn’t have a choice. That wife of yours pretty much painted me into a corner.”
“She’s a pistol, isn’t she?” Nathan said with a wry grin.
“She is that,” Tom agreed. “Shall we get started?”
They loaded up again and headed out, this time driving east on a rough dirt track that skirted the Mexican border. With each of the vehicles billowing rooster tails of dust, it was necessary to maintain a fair amount of distance between them. They drove through the San Bernardino Valley in a forest of winter-bare mesquite, past the turnoff to John Slaughter’s ranch, and past Silver Creek as well. Finally, just beyond Sycamore Creek, Deb turned off onto a primitive forest service road that ran into the foothills of the Peloncillos toward Paramore Crater before eventually hooking up with Skeleton Canyon Road. It was rugged terrain. The high-profile all-wheel vehicles were fine, but Tom could see that the poor guy driving the morgue’s low-ground-clearance minivan had his work cut out for him.
Eventually Deb pulled over and stopped once more. She and her three passengers piled out of the Tahoe and stood waiting until the trailing vehicles caught up. Once they did, Jack set off toward the north, heading into a sea of brittle yellow grass and low-lying brush, with the others trailing along behind. On the way they passed more than one NO HUNTING sign. A hundred yards or so from the road, a startled covey of quail shot into the air and flew off to the west. Tom Hadlock couldn’t help but smile at that. If Jack and his shotgun-wielding buddy had been better hunters, those birds probably wouldn’t be here right now.
It was no mystery why this would be a good place for birds. When Anglos first arrived on the scene, the wide valleys in what would eventually become southern Arizona—the San Pedro, Sulphur Springs, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz, and San Simon Valleys—had consisted of lush grasslands. Overgrazing cattle soon depleted the grass. When that was gone, hungry stock had foraged on low-hanging mesquite. Over time, digested and fully fertilized mesquite beans had performed their own kind of magic. Unfortunately, where mesquite trees flourish, grass does not. Thirsty mesquite roots sucked all the moisture out of the surrounding soil, turning lush valleys into hard-packed desert dotted with mesquite.
Over the past twenty years, some of the cattle ranchers in the foothills of the Peloncillos had banded together to get rid of the mesquite and bring back the native grasses by chopping down and removing hundreds of long-entrenched trees. When the grass returned, other things came back as well, including a now much-photographed jaguar—long thought to be extinct in the United States—along with a thriving population of deer, birds, and other wildlife.
As they topped a small rise, a single bird—an immense vulture—spread his massive wings and vaulted into the air, circling briefly above them before soaring away. The presence of the buzzard sent a chill message to Tom Hadlock and to almost everyone else in the group. Up ahead of them, something was dead.
Jack, seemingly unaware of the bird, continued to press forward. Then, a few steps later, he stumbled to a stop and dropped to the ground. By the time Tom reached the stricken boy, he was on his hands and knees, heaving his guts out, and the distinctive odor of death was all around them.
Jack had stopped on the lip of a dry creek bed. Lying in the sandy wash below them was the bloody mess of what had to be a partially consumed human being. There was no clothing present and there was nothing recognizable in the damaged face, but the long black hair fanning out across the sand suggested that the victim was a woman who had been left in the desert, face-up and naked. Her legs were folded under her in an unnatural pose that made her look as though she’d been kneeling at the time of her death and had remained locked in that same position.
Based on his finding of that desiccated skull, Jack Carver’s story had led Tom to believe that they would come upon a collection of sun-bleached, ancient bones, but there was nothing ancient about the body. This was a relatively fresh kill.
It was time for the acting sheriff to take charge. “Everyone stop right where you are,” he said, reaching down to help an ashen-faced Jack Carver to his feet. “Are you all right?” Tom asked the boy.
“I guess,” Jack mumbled, but he was swaying so dangerously that Tom beckoned for Nathan to step forward to help keep his son upright.
“Can you show me approximately where you found the skull?”
“Over there,” Jack said, pointing a trembling hand in the direction of a clump of scrub oak on the far side of the wash. “It was hot that day. I was going over there to sit in the shade, and that’s where I found the skull—twenty yards or so on this side of that grove of trees.”
“Okay, then,” Tom said. “This is now an active crime scene. Mr. and Mrs. Carver, we can’t have unauthorized civilians interfering with our investigation. I’m going to ask Detective Howell to take you and Jack here back home. If we need anything else from you, we’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you,” Jack said in a strangled whisper, backing away from the grisly scene.
“Go home and take care,” Tom told him. “Thanks for your help.”
As the Carvers and Detective Howell took off, Tom turned back to the others. “Okay, folks,” he said. “I’m guessing you all know what needs to be done. Let’s secure the scene. Keep a sharp eye out for any kind of evidence, especially footprints or tire tracks.”
Tom knew as he said the words that looking for tracks of any kind was useless. The cars parked along the shoulder of the road would have obliterated any visible tire tracks, and the simple act of having that group of people tramp through the desert would have done the same to any footprints that might have been left behind.
While Dr. Baldwin sent Whetson to retrieve both her bag and a gurney, Tom Hadlock pressed the button on his shoulder radio in an attempt to summon Tica Romero in Dispatch. Unsurprisingly, this far from civilization, the first transmission didn’t go through.
“Okay, guys,” he announced. “Radios don’t work out here. I’m going to have to go to the car and call this in, either on the car radio or on the satphone. I’ll be right back.”
He walked out to where the cars were parked accompanying Ralph Whetson.
Once in the Yukon, Tom punched the mic button on the car’s radio. Nothing happened. In the far-flung corners of Cochise County, communications problems were an ongoing, mostly budgetary issue. In outlying areas where low-band radios didn’t work, deputies were assigned satellite phones. Joanna usually kept one in her own vehicle as well, but it was always the least reliable of the current crop and the one next in line for replacement.
That was the phone Tom was using now. When he dialed into Dispatch, he was relieved to hear Tica’s voice coming through loud and clear.
“We’ve got a homicide out here in the Peloncillos,” he told her. “Get hold of the Double C’s for me,” he said, referring to detectives Ernie Carpenter and Jaime Carbajal. “It’s urgent. The crime scene is off Geronimo Trail—first road to the left after Sycamore Creek, on the way to Paramore Crater. I need everybody on deck. Tell them to get their asses to Douglas ASAP so they can meet up with Deb Howell. That way she can guide them back to where we are. Got it?”
“Copy that,” Tica replied. “I’ll get right on it.”
When it was time to return to the others, Tom took a slightly different route, twenty or so yards to the east of where they’d walked earlier. On the way in, he’d kept an eye out for any additional bones and had seen nothing. The same was true this time, too, until he was beyond the creek bed and heading for the scrub oak. There he hit pay dirt. The remains of a human rib cage, picked clean and bleached white, lay half hidden in the grass.
“Hey, Dave,” he called to the CSI. “I’ve got something over here. I’ll need an evidence marker—” He broke off in midsentence when he spotted another skull. “Make that two evidence markers,” he said. “Looks like we’re up to at least three separate bodies.”
As Tom waited for Dave to show up, the grim reality finally dawned. This was most likely a dump site—a place where a serial killer had come to dispose of his dead prey.
At that point Tom reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. The gesture was done strictly out of force of habit. It was also completely pointless. This far out in the wilderness, the satellite phone worked, but there was no cell service of any kind. As for the satphone? Because it was having trouble holding a charge, he had left it plugged in in the Yukon.
Dave Hollicker showed up and started laying down a series of evidence markers. “I need to go back to the car and call Sheriff Brady,” Tom said as he hurried past. “She may be on maternity leave, but this is a big deal, and she needs to know what we’re up against.”