Outlaw Mountain

answered, “Dena Hogan, Attorney at Law.”

“This is Joanna Brady, Sheriff Joanna Brady,” Joanna said. “I was wondering if it would be possible for me to see Ms. Hogan early this afternoon. Say between one-thirty and two?”

“Sure,” the receptionist said. “I can pencil you in, but I don’t have access to her official calendar. There could be a conflict that I don’t know about.”

“That’s all right,” Joanna said. “Since I’m coming out that direction anyway, I can afford to take my chances.”

Just then Joanna’s call waiting sounded, telling her there was another caller on the line. “Hello.”

“Joanna? Fran Daly here. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No. What’s going on?”

“I just had a call back from Al Paxton, the computer nerd at Holloway/Rimblatt Pharmaceuticals.”

“And?”

“We are, if you’ll pardon the expression, a couple of smart cookies. That particular numbered batch of insulin went first to a distributor in L.A. who ships to drugstores all over the Southwest. From there it went to the O.K. Pharmacy in Tombstone, Arizona, where Cletus Rogers just happens to have his insulin prescription filled on a regular basis.”

“How very interesting,” Joanna said. “I’ll have one of my detectives go have a chat with Hizzoner the Mayor. Do you suppose Detective Lazier would be interested in being in on that interview?”

“Wait just a minute,” Fran Daly complained. “I no sooner finish telling you you’re smart when you start acting like a complete fool. You don’t mean that, do you?”

“No, I don’t mean it at all,” Joanna said with a laugh. “I was just checking to see if it would get a rise out of you. And it worked.”

“I’ll say,” Fran agreed. “That man bugs the daylights out of me. Don’t you dare invite him along.”

“Believe me,” Joanna said. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was high noon when Joanna stepped through the swinging doors into the dim and shabby interior of Clete Rogers’ Grubsteak. The bottle-blond hostess, looking nervous and out of sorts, led Joanna to a table for four, where Jaime Carbajal and Ernie Carpenter were already waiting. Considering the relative distances involved, Joanna should have beaten Ernie there by a good ten minutes. Around the department, the detective was sometimes called “Lead-foot Carpenter,” and for good reason.

“I can see Ernie didn’t let any grass grow under his steel-belted radials,” she said pointedly as she sat down.

“When the boss offers to meet for lunch, I figure it must be important,” Ernie countered.

“Important,” Joanna agreed, picking up her menu. “But not a matter of life-and-death.”

Nancy returned to the table and sloshed a brimming coffee mug onto the table in front of Joanna.

“Is the mayor around?” Joanna asked.

The hostess responded with a narrow-eyed glare. “Mr. Rogers wasn’t here five minutes ago, when he asked,” Nancy said, jerking her head in Jaime Carbajal’s direction. “And he still isn’t.”

With that the hostess turned and flounced away from the table.

“What’s the matter with her?” Joanna asked.

Jaime shrugged. “Who knows? I asked about Clete when I first showed up, and the woman nearly bit my head off.”

Whoever had designed the menu for the Grubsteak had been cute enough to create entree items with names that matched a selection of local mining claims. When the waitress came around with her pad, Joanna ordered a Lucky Cuss hamburger and coffee. Jaime settled for the Tough Nut steak sandwich, while Ernie decided on a bowl of Contention stew. When the food came, Joanna’s hamburger and Ernie’s stew were both fine, but from all the knife- sawing and necessary chewing, it was clear the steak in Jaime’s Tough Nut sandwich lived up to its name.

During the course of the meal, Joanna had to endure some good-natured ribbing about her “doorknob” diamond, followed by a discussion of Dick Voland’s abrupt departure. Later on, Joanna brought the two detectives up-to-date with everything she had learned that morning, and they did the same. Susan Jenkins had turned up for the inventory meeting at Alice Rogers’ house, but Clete hadn’t appeared. Susan had verified that Alice’s television set and a VCR were missing along with several pieces of antique jewelry. In view of Clete’s possible involvement in his mother’s death, his failure to show up for the inventory seemed far more ominous.

Ernie pushed back his chair. “I suppose we’d better get with it. Do one of you want to ask the lady where Clete Rogers is, or should I?”

“You go right ahead,” Jaime said with a smile. “I believe in taking turns. This Bud’s for you.”

The third time around, Nancy’s reaction was downright explosive. “What the hell’s the matter with you people? I’ve already told you, Clete isn’t here!”

“How about telling us where he is then?” Ernie prodded gently. “It’s about his mother, you see. That’s why we need to talk to him.”

To Joanna’s surprise, Nancy immediately collapsed onto the fourth chair at their table, buried her face in her hands, and then sobbed into them. “That’s just it,” she wailed. “I don’t know where he is! I haven’t seen him all morning. He’s usually here when we open for breakfast. I’ve called the house at least a dozen times now, but he doesn’t answer. I even went over there looking for him. His car’s there, but he isn’t. Or, if he is, he wouldn’t come to the door.

“I’m scared to death something awful has happened to him. I thought about breaking the window in the door and letting myself in to see. But the thing is, if nothing’s wrong, he’ll be furious. He hates it when i fuss over him or when I do something he calls fussing. But what if he’s passed out, or even worse? What if he forgot to take his medicine?”

“His insulin?” Joanna asked, innocently.

“Yes. His insulin. Ever since that business with his mother, he’s been so upset that his whole system has been out of whack. He hasn’t been able to stabilize his blood sugar. What if he forgot to give himself an injection and he’s gone into diabetic coma or something? Or maybe he got mixed up and gave himself too much. Either way, it could be bad for him real bad. I know he’ll be all bent out of shape with me for telling on him like this, especially if it turns out to be a false alarm. He hates it when people treat him like an invalid. But you people are all cops, aren’t you? If you break into his house to check on him, it’ll be all right. It’s not like you’d be going in to steal something. I just want to know that he’s okay.”

When Nancy finally stopped talking long enough to draw a breath, Joanna and Ernie exchanged discreet glances. The last thing they needed was to enter a prime suspect’s home with-out the benefit of a search warrant. Here in the restaurant, with a tearful Nancy begging them to go check on her boss’s well-being, the idea of breaking and entering seemed perfectly reasonable-necessary, even. But Joanna knew that if Clete Rogers was ever brought to trial for his mother’s death, even the most dim-witted of defense attorneys would be able to make hay out of what would then be considered an illegal search.

“What do you think?” Ernie asked.

It was a tough call. On the one hand, a man’s life might be at stake. On the other, a conviction. “We’d better go check,” Joanna said. “In and out. In the meantime, Jaime, how about if you streak back to Bisbee and pick up a search warrant. Just in case.”

Ten minutes later they were standing in front of Clete Rogers’ modest tin-roofed house. It was a white clapboard affair that clearly dated from Tombstone’s mining heyday. On three sides the house was surrounded by a thicket of agave. Some of the cacti had done their century plant performance, leaving behind long skeletal stalks that still held shriveled and blackened seed pods while all around a new generation of tiny plants sprouted from the hardened earth.

Seeing the dying cacti gave Joanna a weird feeling, as did spotting Clete Rogers’ much-dented F-100 Ford. The pickup, parked almost out of sight in a narrow-faced, one-car detached garage, had a forlorn, abandoned air about