Looking off to the east, Joanna saw a cloud of light tan dust billowing skyward. A few minutes later, Ernie arrived, driving the new four-wheel-drive Yukon that had finally replaced the aging Econoline van her detectives had used for years. Ernie parked next to Joanna’s patrol car, then rolled down his window and glared out through it first at the dog and then at Natalie.
“What the hell?” he muttered. “That dog is a holy terror. Why’d you let him out?”
Miller, who seemed to be as happy to see Ernie as Ernie was to see him, made a very believable lunge at the idling SUV.
“No!” Natalie ordered. “Leave it. Sit.”
Once again Miller obeyed Natalie’s command. He sat while Natalie returned Ernie’s look, glare for glare. “Just because he doesn’t like you,” she told the detective, “doesn’t mean the dog is vicious. Maybe he’s got good sense.”
“Just keep him away from me,” Ernie said. “I don’t trust him.” With that, he turned to Joanna. “Want to go see the crime scene?”
Joanna nodded. “Should I follow you?”
Ernie shook his head. “Not unless you want that Crown Vic of yours to be stuck up to its hubcaps. We’re talking world-class sand here, boss.”
A new Yukon was on order for Joanna as well and was due to be delivered in two weeks, but that wouldn’t help today. Without a word Joanna exited her vehicle.
“What about the dog?” Natalie asked. “Have you done anything about finding out who’s going to take him?”
That was always an ACO’s straightforward concern-what would become of the animal? As a homicide detective, Ernie’s concerns and possible courses of action were far more complicated.
“Thanks to you, we may finally have a lead on our victim’s ID, and I appreciate that,” he said, “I really do. Now that we think we know the man’s name, our next job is to verify that-to find someone who can identify the body. After that we have to locate and notify his next of kin. That’s a lot to worry about without even thinking about that dog. Got it?”
“Got it.” Natalie’s brisk reply hinted that she wasn’t backing down. “Got it loud and clear.” With that, she tugged on Miller’s leash. “Come on, boy,” she told the dog. “Let’s go for a walk.” She didn’t say “far away from this jerk,” but she might as well have. Her meaning was abundantly clear.
Natalie Wilson turned on her heel and marched away with Miller walking placidly beside her.
“Where on earth did Jeannine Phillips find that piece of work?” Ernie Carpenter wanted to know.
“I believe she fell off the rodeo circuit,” Joanna replied. “She used to be a barrel racer.”
“Figures,” Ernie said disapprovingly. “Women like that are always a handful.”
That parting remark might have been a lot funnier if Joanna hadn’t taken it so personally. Not only did she suspect it was absolutely true, there was something else that bothered her. Her very own daughter, fourteen-year-old Jenny, had her own heart set on the world of rodeo. Being sheriff was hard work, but it was easier for Joanna to discuss murder and mayhem than it was to consider her daughter’s plans for the future.
“Come on,” Joanna said, climbing into the Yukon’s passenger seat, where she immediately fastened her seat belt. “Let’s go take a look at that dead body.”
CHAPTER 3
As they drove away from the gate,Joanna was still thinking about Jenny and her rodeo-riding ambitions when Ernie brought her back to the case.
“I left Deb with the witness,” Ernie said.
“What witness?” Joanna asked. “The man who found the body?”
“Seems like a pretty squared-away guy. His name’s Maury Robbins. He’s a 911 operator from Tucson, and he’s also an all-terrain vehicle enthusiast. He comes down here on his days off whenever he can. What he told me is that he drove down late last night after his shift ended. He got here about three A.M. The gate was open, but he didn’t think that much about it. He drove on in, set up his Jayco-”
“His what?” Joanna asked.
“His Jayco. It’s one of those little pop-up camper things. He carries his ATV in the bed of his pickup truck and drags the camper along behind.”
“So there’s an actual campsite here?”
“Yes, but it’s pretty primitive,” Ernie replied. “No concrete pads, no running water. People have to haul in their own water and the only facilities turn out to be a few strategically located Porta Pottis. Maury’s camper has its own facilities. News to me. The Jayco I had years ago sure as hell didn’t.”
Joanna smiled to herself. When she had first arrived on the scene, Ernie had apologized whenever he used a bad word around her. She liked the fact that they had both moved beyond that. And right now, Joanna wasn’t especially interested in either Ernie’s language or his old camper.
“So this is private property?” she asked. “Action Trail Adventures isn’t situated on state or federally owned land?”
“Yes,” Ernie said. “That’s my understanding. It’s privately owned. Robbins told me he pays an annual fee that gives him access through a card-activated gate. That way he can let himself in or out as needed. There’s also a keypad where you can punch in an entry code to open the gate.”
“Anyway,” Ernie continued, “Robbins got in last night. This morning, when he took his ATV out for a ride, he found the body lying facedown in the sand with the dog standing guard over it. Once we finally managed to drag the dog away, Robbins was able to take a closer look at the victim and give us a tentative ID. He says the guy’s first name is Lester. He had no idea about his last name, or any next of kin, either.”
“Lester’s last name is Attwood,” Joanna said, but she was thinking about the number of times so-called good citizens calling in reports of a homicide turned out to be perpetrators.
“Do you think Mr. Robbins might be involved in whatever happened here?” she asked.
Ernie shook his head. “Not to my way of thinking. At any rate, as you said, the name we got back from Animal Control on the dog’s license is Lester Attwood. According to Records, Attwood’s driver’s license is suspended. His rap sheet shows six DUIs, two criminal assaults, two driving without a license.”
“So we’ve got a photo then?”
“On the computer,” Ernie said. “Not one I can print right now. Any idea when Dr. Machett will bother getting his butt out here?”
“All I can tell you is that he’s on his way,” Joanna said.
“I’m not holding my breath,” Ernie grumbled. “He always takes his own sweet time about getting to a crime scene, and we’re left standing with one foot in the air until he does.”
Following a fairly smooth gravel road, the Yukon wound down into a steep wash. When they roared up the far side, they came out on the boundary of a breathtaking landscape. Even though Joanna had been warned about them in advance, seeing the tawny-colored dunes in person took her by surprise. Starting with a line of demarcation just to the left of the gravel, the dunes stretched off into the distance in a series of rounded hills. Here and there the rippled surface of the sand was marred by a series of tire tracks.
Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, Ernie swung the Yukon off the road and into the dunes along a course that included several of those tracks. Even with four-wheel drive, he had to maintain a fair amount of speed to keep from getting bogged down.
As they jolted along, Joanna checked her seat belt and then held on to her armrest. “How can this be?” she said over the laboring sound of the engine. “I’ve lived here all my life and never knew these dunes were here!”
“Think about Kartchner Caverns,” Ernie replied. “Lots of people knew about that before it ever came out in public. This is all on private property. As far as I know, it’s only been open to ATVers in the last few years. Now that I think about it, I think some environmental group or other was trying to buy it up a few years back, but the owner wouldn’t sell.”
Kartchner Caverns, a series of limestone caverns on the far side of Benson, was Cochise County’s most recent tourism hot spot. The caves had been discovered in the late seventies by a pair of hikers who had been exploring the countryside at the base of the Whetstone Mountains. When they had first located and started exploring the caverns, they were located on private land owned by a family named Kartchner. It had taken another ten years to make arrangements to transfer the property to the state of Arizona and turn it into a state park people could actually come visit. Now Kartchner Caverns is a genuine tourist home run. Joanna wondered if something similar was going on with Action Trail Adventures. People in the ATV community seemed to know all about it. No one else did.