“What truth is that?”
“If Sandy is dead, I know who killed her, and so do you-Lucy! It has to be her. She’s missing, isn’t she, and so is my gun. I should have known. She as good as told me, but I never thought… Couldn’t even imagine that she’d do such a thing!” Moaning softly, Catherine doubled over on the couch, rocking back and forth.
“You mustn’t jump to conclusions,” Joanna said carefully, even though she herself had made much the same kind of leap. “As I said, we did find some evidence that suggests UDAs may have been involved, and there may be some other explanation entirely. At this point, other than the fact that your granddaughter is missing, we have nothing to indicate that she’s involved in what happened to her mother.”
“You’ll find it,” Catherine said sadly. With that she leaned back against the couch and covered her eyes with one hand. After a full minute of silence she added in a hoarse whisper, “I can’t do this again. I just can’t.”
“Do what?” Joanna asked.
“Go through all this.” Catherine took her hand away from her face. The sorrowful eyes she focused on Joanna were smoldering coals. “This has probably never happened to you, has it,” she added accusingly. “I’ll bet no one you love has ever been arrested and sent to prison for killing someone else.”
“No,” Joanna admitted. “You’re right.”
“I thought so,” Catherine Yates said. “Go away. Leave me alone.”
“But we’ll need to make arrangements to have you come to Bisbee and do an official identification. My detectives will need to talk to you…”
“Tomorrow will be time enough for that,” Catherine Yates replied. “Right now, all I want is to be left alone!”
“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” Joanna asked.
“I won’t be all right,” Catherine said. “I’ve lost my daughter, and my granddaughter, too. I’m sure I’ll never be all right again. But I’m a tough old bird, and I’ll live. So go now, please.”
Joanna started to say something, to warn Catherine about not going into Lucy’s room or disturbing anything, but in the end she said nothing. The all-pervasive grief that distorted Catherine Yates’ previously placid face, screwed up her mouth, and wrung a steady stream of tears from her eyes made any such cautions seem rude and unnecessary.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Yates. Really I am.”
Catherine nodded. “I know,” she croaked brokenly. “So am I.”
CHAPTER 8
“It’s interesting that Catherine Yates immediately came to almost the same conclusion we did,” Frank said, as they started back toward Joanna’s Blazer.
“It’s not interesting,” she countered. “It’s sad. With all the UDA debris there in the culvert, we could be totally off-base even suggesting it. Still, Catherine knows Lucy Ridder better than anyone else in the world-including Lucy’s own mother. If Catherine thinks her granddaughter is capable of murder, then the rest of us had better pay attention. Call Mike Wilson and cancel that Search and Rescue call for tomorrow morning. We’re not going to send an unarmed S and R team out looking for someone whose own grandmother thinks she could be armed and dangerous.”
“You’re just going to wait for her to turn up then?” Frank asked.
“No,” Joanna replied. “We’ll send Terry Gregovich and Spike out to find her. That’s why we have a canine team, but when you dispatch them, let Terry know that I expect both of them-man and dog-to be wearing their Kevlar vests at all times. I don’t want to lose either one of them.”
Terry Gregovich and his eighty-five-pound German shepherd Spike constituted the Cochise County Sheriff Department’s first-ever K-9 team. Both man and dog were relative new-hires. Terry, a Gulf War veteran, had come over from Search and Rescue. With the help of drug-enforcement monies, Spike had been purchased directly from a breeder who specialized in police dogs. After months of training and working together, Spike and Terry had evolved into an inseparable and valuable team. Six weeks earlier, a Phoenix-area K-9 dog had been shot to death by a pair of fleeing bank robbers. In the aftermath of that incident, Joanna had managed to find room in her budget to purchase a canine-fitted Kevlar vest for Spike’s protection.
“Do you want them to start looking tonight?” Frank asked.
Joanna thought about that. “Tomorrow will be soon enough. Catherine Yates asked to be left alone tonight. We can give her that much of a break.”
“Are you going to go for a search warrant?”
“With what?”
“Good question,” Frank said.
Just then a call came in over the radio. “What’s up, Larry?” Joanna asked.
“Detective Carbajal called in a few minutes ago. He wants you back up at the entrance to Cochise Stronghold pronto. He says he’s found something but he isn’t sure what.”
Frank flipped on both lights and siren. As he floorboarded the gas pedal, the rough surface of the road seemed to smooth out. Joanna knew, however, that that was a dangerous illusion. The ride was smooth only because the tires were spending so little time in contact with the roadway. After several nerve-racking minutes, Joanna was more than slightly relieved when they stopped on the outskirts of a group of emergency vehicles parked around the carved redwood forest service sign that marked the entrance to Cochise Stronghold. The sign was illuminated by Jaime Carbajal’s trouble light. The detective himself, on hands and knees, appeared to be crawling through a scattered field of rocks.
“What’s up, Detective Carbajal?” Joanna asked.
Jaime rose to meet her. “After what Deputy Pakin told us, I decided to come up here and take a look around. Over there are signs of what appears to be a serious struggle, including what looks to me like blood spatter.” He pointed to a spot just to the right of the sign where a ten-foot-square area had been marked off with a border of yellow tape. “We’ll be able to tell more tomorrow in the daylight. In the meantime, take a look at this.”
He held up a bag that contained what looked like a small plastic soup bowl. Even through the glassine bag, Joanna could see that the outside of the once white bowl was yellowed with age and covered with a coating of grime.
“What’s this?” Joanna asked. “The leavings from somebody’s long-ago picnic?”
“I don’t think so,” Jaime replied. “Remember, Deputy Pakin’s witness said the woman he saw was messing around with the rocks at the base of the sign, so I decided to come check. The cover was loose inside the hole, but the bowl itself was embedded in the dirt at the bottom of the hole.”
Joanna took the bag and examined the bowl more closely. On the bottom, accentuated by clinging dirt, was a still recognizable Tupperware trademark.
“I tried selling Tupperware years ago, when Andy and I were first married,” she told her astonished deputies. “The stuff’s supposed to be airtight, waterproof, and capable of lasting forever. This looks as though it’s been here for a long time. What’s in it?”
“Nothing now,” Jaime replied. “It was empty when I found it, but I’ll bet it wasn’t empty when the woman in the white car came looking for it.”
Joanna walked over to the sign and the pile of disturbed rocks beneath it. With the help of a flashlight, she peered down in among them to where the outline of the bowl was still clearly visible in the soft, fine, insect-sifted dirt under the rocks.
“Assuming Sandra Ridder is the one who hid it, that would mean the bowl has been here for eight years at least,” Joanna stated. “That’s how long she’s been in prison. What could be so valuable that, after all this time, she would risk stealing a vehicle her first night out of the slammer in order to come get it?”
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t very big,” Frank offered.
Joanna studied the container. “And it wasn’t something Sandra wanted her attorney to know about, since she evidently stole Melanie Goodson’s car to come get it. But shouldn’t we ascertain once and for all that the person Lance Pakin’s witness saw here really was Sandra Ridder? What’s his name again, and is he still camped out up there?”
