“I don’t know, ma’am,” he replied. “Spike’s never done this before. What is it, boy? What are you trying to tell me?”
Joanna turned to Elvira. “What’s in the vehicle?”
“Nothing,” she snapped. “You can see for yourself. There’s nothing there.”
“The dog seems to think otherwise. Open the trunk.”
“I won’t,” Elvira Hollenbeck declared. “You can’t make me. You don’t have a warrant, and I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Yesterday this site was the scene of a riot, Mrs. Hollenbeck,” Joanna observed. “The dog’s unusual behavior is enough to suggest that you have something dangerous concealed in your vehicle. In other words, probable cause. Now, are you going to open that trunk, or are we?”
“I won’t.”
“All right. Fair enough. Deputy Gregovich, if you’ll check in the backseat of my Blazer, you’ll find a toolbox with a crowbar in it. Go get it, please, and then come back and pry this thing open.”
“But my car,” Elvira objected. “You’ll wreck my car.”
“Then open it yourself,” Joanna told her. “It’s your choice.”
Leaving Spike where he was, Terry walked to Joanna’s Blazer and brought back the crowbar. He was just starting to place it between the hatch and the frame when Elvira stepped forward. “Don’t,” she said. “Someone will get hurt.”
“Why?” Joanna asked. “What’s in there?”
She expected Elvira to answer “Dynamite,” or “Blasting caps.” Something explosive. Something that would blow pieces of Mark Childers’ earth-moving equipment to kingdom come. What Joanna didn’t expect was Elvira Hollenbeck’s one-word answer.
“Snakes,” she said.
“Snakes?” Joanna echoed.
Elvira nodded. “Rattlesnakes. Fifteen or so. I had another one that I was bringing back to the car, but when I saw you parked here, I had to let him go.”
Joanna was dumbfounded. “You have a earful of rattle-snakes? How come?”
“I collect them,” Elvira said. “They’re worth a lot of money these days. When a developer comes through and clears land like this, they’re here for the picking. Besides, with their habitat all torn up and with winter coming on, they’ll all die anyway.”
“You collect snakes and sell them?” Joanna asked. “Isn’t that illegal?”
Elvira looked Joanna directly in the eye. “It may be,” she said. “But it shouldn’t be. What should be against the law is this.” She gestured off across the great expanse of yellowed grassland with its wide gashes of bulldozed red earth where not a single tree or blade of grass had been left standing. “We don’t leave homeless dogs and cats to die long lingering deaths,” she continued. “The SPCA sees to that. Snakes are God’s creatures, too.”
“So that’s what you’re doing?” Joanna asked. “Operating a one-woman humane society for the benefit of displaced snakes?”
Elvira clamped her lips shut and didn’t answer.
“Open the trunk, Mrs. Hollenbeck,” Joanna ordered. “I want to see for myself what you have inside.”
Elvira moved forward and unlocked the hatch. As soon as she began to raise the lid on the inner trunk, Joanna heard the telltale buzzing. As the hairs rose on the back of her neck, Spike’s low-throated growl turned to a frenzied bark.
“That’s enough,” Joanna said. “I don’t need to see any more.”
Elvira shut the lid. “What happens now?” she asked. “Am I under arrest, or what?”
For a moment Joanna didn’t know what to say. “Deputy Gregovich,” she said finally. “Why don’t you take Mrs. Hollenbeck over to your vehicle and let her have a seat.”
While Terry and Spike led Elvira back to the Bronco, Joanna returned to her Blazer. Knowing the radio was out of the question, Joanna used her cell phone instead. “Dick,” she said, when Chief Deputy Voland answered the phone. “Any suggestions about what to do with a Subaru full of rattlesnakes?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We’ve picked up a woman whose trunk is full of rattle-snakes. What do we do with them?”
“How would I know?”
“Get on the horn and check with somebody from Arizona Fish and Wildlife,” Joanna ordered. “Tell whoever you talk to that the snakes were picked up from a construction site at the base of the Huachucas and that their habitat’s pretty well destroyed. Ask if we should turn them loose, or what.”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess.” Dick Voland groaned. “The Subaru’s on Oak Vista Estates.”
“Right you are,” Joanna told him cheerfully. “Where else would it be?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It took almost an hour and a half for the ranger from Fish and Wildlife to show up and take charge of both Elvira Hollenbeck and her snakes. By then Joanna was sick to death of Oak Vista Estates. She had hung around with the snake lady longer than necessary in hopes Mark Childers would finally return from his endlessly long lunch. Finally, Joanna left Deputy Gregovich and the ranger to sort things out and drove on into Sierra Vista. After locating Dena Hogan’s office on Fry Boulevard, Joanna was told by the receptionist that Mrs. Hogan was in court-in Bisbee.
Frustrated, Joanna gave up and decided to head back there herself. On the way, her phone rang once again. “Where are you?” Butch Dixon asked.
“Just over the Divide.”
“Since we seem to be engaged, don’t you think we should meet for a late lunch?”
“What about Junior?”
“I’ll bring him along. Not very romantic, I know, but that’s the way it is.”
“How’s he doing?” Joanna asked.
“All right. Once I got him started on video games, he finally stopped driving me crazy about the badge.”
“I have one for him,” Joanna said. “Remind me to give it to him at lunch.” She paused, needing to ask and not wanting to. “Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“What happened with Eleanor?”
“We had a nice chat.”
“Butch, when it comes to my mother, there’s no such thing as a nice chat. What did she say?”
“She asked if I was going to marry you, and I said yes. End of discussion.”
“Just wait,” Joanna predicted. “She isn’t going to let me off that easy.”
“Of course not,” Butch agreed. “You’re her daughter. Maybe we could work out a deal. You talk to my mother, and I talk to yours.”
“I don’t even know your mother.”
“It’s just as well.”
“You never talk about her.”
“For good reason.”
“Is she going to be happy about this?”
“About our getting married? Sure.”
“Then why don’t you want to talk to her about it?”
“Probably for a lot of the same reasons you don’t want to talk to yours,” Butch admitted. “That’s why I know how to handle Eleanor. It’s familiar territory. Those two women are birds of a feather. My mother and yours could be twins.”
“Oh, great!” Joanna said. “That should make for a really interesting wedding.”
“Right,” Butch said. “We’ll turn our mothers loose on each other. Bisbee, Arizona, will never be the same. When it comes time for the rehearsal dinner, your mother can complain about having a sheriff for a daughter, and mine can gripe about having an ungrateful son who left Chicago-where they’re currently having an early winter ice storm,
