Devil’s Claw

Crown Victoria’s grille. The speedometer hovered right around 95 miles per hour. She made no effort to listen to the chatter on the police radio. In fact, she actively blocked it out. Butch had said she needed to see it-whatever it was-for herself. No matter what, it couldn’t possibly be that bad, could it?

She tried to imagine what the crisis might be. Butch was all right, and he had said Jenny was fine. And since Jim Bob and Eva Lou were coming for Jenny, they must be okay as well. But the dogs-Sadie and Tigger. Who would have ventured onto High Lonesome Ranch and poisoned Jenny’s dogs?

After puzzling over the problem for several minutes, Joanna wondered if it wasn’t possible that the dogs had simply gotten into something they shouldn’t have. Tigger especially was always sticking his nose into places where it didn’t belong. That was especially true when it came to porcupines. To her knowledge, Joanna kept no harmful chemicals lying around the place, but maybe there were some she didn’t know about-maybe something Clayton Rhodes had used in the course of his chores during his last few days on the ranch and had neglected to put away. Even so, thanks to Butch’s prompt action, the dogs were being cared for by Bisbee’s newly arrived vet. Joanna prayed that Dr. Millicent Ross would be able to work her curative magic.

Maybe the house was hit by a fire, she thought. If it is, we’ll rebuild. It won’t be that bad. Then, a little later she added, Please, God. Whatever it is, don’t let it be that bad.

Coming through the highway cuts between Bisbee and the Double Adobe turnoff, Joanna scanned the upper reaches of the Sulphur Springs Valley. In the spot where she knew her house to be, she saw the telltale pulsing glow of lights from any number of emergency vehicles. There were lots of lights, but there was no dark smudge of smoke rising skyward, no layer of smoke drifting north across the valley. So no, it wasn’t a fire then, or, if a fire had occurred, someone had put it out much earlier.

Joanna slowed down and turned off, first onto Double Adobe Road and then onto High Lonesome. The whole situation seemed weird to her. On the one hand she was a police officer responding to the report of an incident. It could have been an ordinary car wreck or homicide, except this one was different. When she arrived, the smashed car or worse would belong to her. How was that possible? How could it be?

Turning onto the one-lane track that led to her house, she saw that the pulsing halo of lights was much larger, much brighter. Usually she recognized the separate tire tracks that traveled her mile-long dirt access road. This time there were too many strange tracks for her to be able to identify any of them. When Joanna reached the wash, she had to slow to a crawl. The Crown Victoria, built far lower to the ground than Joanna’s Blazer, had a difficult time negotiating the rugged terrain where first Reba Singleton’s limo and subsequently the tow truck as well as numerous other vehicles had torn the established roadbed to pieces.

Once through the wash, Joanna sped up again, only to be forced to a stop once more when she broke through the grove of mesquite and found her way blocked by a clot of emergency vehicles. That was when the reality of the situation finally hit home. Whatever had happened, it was serious enough to have brought all these people out in the early-evening twilight. And it had happened here, on High Lonesome Ranch, in Joanna Brady’s own safe haven.

She looked at the house. From the outside it seemed all right. There were lights on throughout, and they cast a comforting, familiar glow. See there? Joanna told herself as she took a deep breath. It’s going to be fine.

She stepped out of the Crown Victoria and took stock of some of the nearby vehicles scattered haphazardly around on the roadway. There were Frank Montoya’s Civvie, Ernie Carpenter’s Ford van, Butch’s Outback, and even Dick Voland’s new Camry. She noticed the vehicles and the small clutches of people standing here and there. The groups of onlookers all seemed to be watching her questioningly, waiting for direction, perhaps-waiting for her to tell them what they should do. She heard the sound of a few voices, of people speaking to one another in the low, earnest, and self-consciously controlled voices usually reserved for guests at funerals, for broadcasters at golf tournaments, and for stunned bystanders at fatality auto accidents.

Butch Dixon detached himself from a trio of men and walked toward her. His face materialized through Joanna’s growing fear like a ship emerging from a cloud of fog. She tried to read the messages written on his features-concern, anger, and more besides.

“Are you okay?” he asked, reaching for her and pulling her close.

“I’m fine, Butch,” she said with a catch in her throat. “At least I think I’m fine. What’s happened here? What’s going on?”

He took her hand. “Come inside,” he said grimly. “You’ll see.”

As soon as Butch opened the back door, Joanna caught the whiff of a jarring mix of odors. The sharp smell of mustard, hot sauce, peanut butter, vinegar, and ammonia all came flowing at her in an eye-watering mix.

“Watch your step,” Butch murmured, steadying her by holding on to her elbow. “There’s lots of broken glass and lots of water, so it’s all terribly slippery.”

Once at the doorway to the kitchen, Joanna realized he was right. Nothing Butch could have said on the phone could possibly have prepared her for the wanton destruction that had been visited on her house. She felt her pulse quicken, felt the disbelieving panic rising in her throat. For a few seconds, she could barely breathe. The oxygen came into her mouth and throat but didn’t seem to pass from there to her lungs.

Months earlier, watching a television newscast, Joanna had seen the image of a dazed woman pawing through the splintered remains of her tornado-shattered home. Now, as her own pulse accelerated and as she fought back a rising sense of panic, she remembered the disbelief written on that woman’s face and knew exactly what she had been going through in those awful moments-knew exactly what she had been thinking and doing. That unknown woman-that stranger-had been searching through the shattered wreckage of her home for some sign or shred or crumb of her former life. Now Joanna Brady was doing the same thing.

Standing in the doorway of her own destroyed kitchen, it seemed impossible to Joanna that any such particle existed. The devastation, beyond anything she could have imagined, was almost complete. Cupboard doors had been wrenched off their hinges and the contents of the faceless, broken shelves swept out onto the floor. Broken jars and bottles of food mingled with the remains of shattered glassware, of broken plates and dishes and serving bowls. Plastic bottles that hadn’t shattered on impact-the brand-new bottle of Log Cabin pancake syrup, a half-used gallon of Wesson Oil, a partially full container of Palmolive dishwashing detergent-had all been opened and poured over the mess, with the empty bottles allowed to fall in place.

All the kitchen drawers had been pulled out, emptied, and then used as sledgehammers on the counter and the breakfast nook, smashing to pieces Andy’s carefully routered Formica and demolishing the drawers themselves in the process. And all around-on the walls, the ceiling, the light fixtures-were zany fingerpaint patterns of squirted colored matter-mustard, ketchup, barbecue sauce, hot sauce-crusted with crumbs of thrown cereal and flour and sugar.

The refrigerator lay on its side, with the hacked-off end of an electrical cord dangling from the back of it like an amputated appendage. On the counter was a line of broken appliances also devoid of cords. The kitchen sink had evidently been plugged up and filled to brimming, which accounted for the soup of inch-deep soapy, greasy water that covered the floor.

Stunned beyond speech, Joanna simply looked at Butch. He shook his head. “You’d better come see the rest,” he said. “Then we’ll talk.”

If anything, the dining room was worse. The buffet had been turned over on its side, spilling out and smashing all of Joanna’s good china and crystal. Someone had taken her good flatware-the monogrammed silver Eva Lou had given her-and had used that to gouge long scars in the smooth surface of the oak dining room table and in the upholstery of every chair.

The top of the buffet was where Joanna had kept her treasure trove of framed family pictures-casual and professional photos of Joanna and Andy; and of Joanna, Andy, and Jenny together. There were pictures of Jenny with Santa Claus and a set of ever-changing school pictures. All of those were gone. Not only had the glass been broken and the frames been bent beyond recognition, the pictures themselves had been torn out and pulled to pieces.

Unable to move, Joanna braced herself by holding on to the scarred surface of the dining room table. From that vantage point she looked as far as the living room. There, every piece of upholstered furniture had been sliced with short, jagged cuts. Handfuls of stuffing had been pulled out through the holes in great white globs of cotton. The drapes on the windows had all been cut off halfway up the walls. The blinds behind the drapes had been wrenched from their moorings.