“When you went sneaking around on these camping trips,” Jaime was saying when Joanna tuned back into the conversation, “where exactly did you sleep?”
“Usually in the back of Bree’s pickup on an air mattress.”
“With a bedroll?”
“Two,” Nacio said. “One on top and one on the bottom. We zipped them together.”
“But we found only one bedroll at the scene today,” Jaime said casually. “Where do you suppose the other one went?”
“I have no idea. Someone must have taken it.”
“They took it, all right,” Jaime said. “They took it because it was soaked in blood. We’re convinced Brianna’s killer used that other bedroll to wrap up the body and move her around.”
Jaime reached into his pocket and pilled out one of the evidence bags. “See this?” he said, handing it over to Nacio. “We found that stuck on a clump of brush near where Brianna’s truck went over the edge of the cliff. What does it look like to you?”
Nacio looked at it. Then, as his face took on a deathly pallor, he let the bag drop to the floor. Groaning, he buried his hands in his face and began to sob, his shoulders heaving. By then, Burton Kimball was on his feet.
“All right, you guys. That’s enough of this. No more questions. Either book my client or let him go, but there’ll be no more questions tonight.” Bristling with anger, he bent down and retrieved the bag. “What the hell is this?” he demanded, handing it back to Jaime.
“It’s a piece of material,” Jaime returned. “We found it snagged on a clump of cat claw at just about the same spot where Brianna’s truck went off the cliff. It looks like it could he from the inside lining of a bedroll. Not only that, I wouldn’t he surprised if that spot on it didn’t turn out to be a splotch of blood matching the victim’s.”
Burton Kimball’s jaw clenched with anger. “You had no business showing him that,” he snarled at Jaime. Then Burton wheeled on Ernie as well. “Let’s cut to the chase, Detective Carpenter. Are you arresting my client or not?”
“Not at this time,” Ernie returned mildly. “But he’s not to leave the area. We’re going to be questioning all his associates. If Mr. Ybarra knows what’s good for him, he’ll have a sudden flash in the memory banks about what exactly happened to his face and ribs. If he wants us to believe that he didn’t get those injuries as a result of a physical confrontation with Brianna O’Brien, then he’d better come up with some other plausible answer, along with some witnesses to back it up.”
“Come on, Ignacio,” Burton Kimball said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m free to go then?” Nacio asked. He sounded dazed, as though he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.
“Evidently,” Burton said. “For the time being at least.”
Taking his young client by the arm, Kimball exited the room. The reception area was quiet for some time after they left.
“I figured showing him the cloth would provoke some kind of reaction,” Jaime said. “Did I go too far?”
Rubbing his forehead, Ernie shook his head. “You were pushing it, maybe, but you did get a reaction. What do you think?”
Jaime shrugged. “Maybe she was trying to break up with him. Maybe they got in a fight over that.”
“Maybe. How about you, Sheriff Brady?” Ernie said, turning to Joanna. “What’s your opinion?”
“I wish we had that missing journal,” she said. “If we could read that, we’d have a better idea of what was really going on.
“We’ll find it all right,” Ernie said grimly. “I’ll bet we find that missing bedroll, too.”
“You want me to go to work on getting a search warrant?” Jaime asked.
“Not tonight,” Ernie replied. “Tomorrow’s another day.” “Right,” Jaime said. “I’ll get after it first thing in the morning.”
Ernie turned again to Joanna. “What about the O’Briens?” he asked. “Should we drive out to Green Brush Ranch and talk to them tonight?”
Wearily, Joanna shook her head. “As you said, Ernie, its late. Tomorrow’s another day.”
They all left the department a few minutes later. On the drive home, Joanna found she was so exhausted that she had trouble staying awake. Corning through the cuts on Highway 80, she was dismayed to see orange emergency lights flashing at the intersection of High Lonesome Road and the Double Adobe cutoff.
“What now?” she muttered. “Not an accident, I hope.”
When she reached the lights, however, she discovered not one but two utility crews. “What’s going on?” she asked, rolling down her window.
“We’ve got a fried transformer here,” the foreman told her. “It melted some wires as well. None of the people up High Lonesome have power right now, but we should have it back on within a couple of hours.”
“Great,” Joanna said. “The perfect ending to a perfect day.”
The dogs met her, as usual, halfway up the drive. The water had drained out of both creek beds, leaving both crossings rocky and muddy and devoid of the usual tracks, but passable nonetheless. It was eerie, though, driving into the yard without having the motion detector turn on the floodlights. Joanna wasn’t looking forward to the silence, either.
It’s going to be quiet, she thought. Way too quiet.
But when she stepped out of the Eagle, she was assailed by the noise of what sounded like the bleating of a herd of a thousand sheep. Colorado River toads, she realized with a smile of relief. The night wasn’t going to be quiet after all.
The frogs’ noisy squawking was one of the sounds of summer. That first rainstorm always awakened hordes of hibernating toads and set them on their brief but frenetic mating trail.
Their raucous racket never failed to cheer Joanna. It meant that after months of dry days and endless blue skies, the rains had returned, bringing with them the promise of life begun anew.
Joanna knew that once she went inside, the walls of the house would cut off the toads’ welcome, cheery song. That settles it, she told herself, making up her mind. I’m sleeping out on the porch again tonight.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Standing in front of her closet on Monday morning, Joanna was faced with the usual problem of what to wear. Had she managed to go shopping on Saturday afternoon, she might have had a few more choices. As it was, she settled on a three-piece hunter green pantsuit that was coming up on the end of its useful life. It was an old standby that dated from her previous career in the insurance business. She had worn it until she was tired of it. Most likely so was everyone around her.
The phone in the outer office was ringing as she walked in the door to hers. “It’s Adam York,” Kristin Marsten, her secretary, announced over the intercom once Joanna made it as far as her desk. “Do you want me to put him through?”
“Sure,” she said. “Hello, Adam,” she added a moment later. “You’re certainly up and at ‘em bright and early this morning.”
“You call this bright and early? What do you mean?” Adam replied. “I’ve been working all weekend-ever since you called on Saturday. In fact, I tried like hell to reach you yesterday evening. The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. Your machine never picked up, either.”
“Sorry about that,” Joanna apologized. “I was out all day in a car with no radio. Then, last night, a storm came through and knocked out a transformer just up the road, shutting off the electricity for several hours. It also seems to have put a permanent glitch in my answering machine. Even with the power back on this morning, I couldn’t make the thing play back messages or record a new one.”