“They told you that?” he asked at last.
“Mrs. O’Brien did,” Joanna replied. “She said her husband disapproved of Brianna’s wearing earrings.”
“Bid she tell you how much they didn’t like them?”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. O’Brien hit Bree,” Ignacio said quickly. “Did her mother tell you about that, too?”
Joanna shook her head. “No,” she said.
“Well, he did,” Ignacio declared, rushing on. “He caught her wearing the earrings in the house and told her to take them off. She told him they were her ears, that she should he able to decide what she would and wouldn’t wear on them. That’s when he slapped her-hard, right across the face. It happened the week before graduation. She had to wear makeup all week to keep the bruise from showing.”
Joanna nil let her breath out. I wasn’t wrong, she thought. There was an undercurrent of violence in that compulsively clean house. And in Bree’s room as well.
“Did her parents know about you?” Joanna asked gently a moment later. “Did they know that’s where the earrings came from?”
Ignacio shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “She was afraid to tell them.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Bree was afraid of what her father might do if he discovered his daughter was involved with an Hispanic.”
“Afraid he’d do something to her or to you?” Joanna prompted.
“Maybe both,” Ignacio replied after a pause.
“She was afraid he’d hurt you?”
“He did,” Ignacio said simply.
Joanna sat bolt upright in her chair. “He did what?”
“Mr. O’Brien hurt me. At least, one of his men did.”
Joanna could barely believe her ears. “Wait a minute. You’re telling me that one of David O’Brien’s men beat you up? When? Where?”
“Saturday night,” Ignacio said haltingly. “It happened right outside the gate to Green Brush Ranch. I went there hoping to catch sight of Bree. I thought if she had gone home, maybe I could spot her truck and know she was all right. I wanted to talk to her-to apologize for being late. I didn’t see her truck, though. All I saw were police cars. I was afraid something had happened to her.”
Fully alert, Joanna listened with every cell of her body. Ignacio was a homicide suspect. If what he was saying was true-if he had gone to Green Brush Ranch hoping to catch sight of the victim-that would mean he still thought she was alive almost twenty-four hours after Brianna’s shattered Timex had stopped ticking for good at 9:51. On Friday, not Saturday. That would also mean Ignacio Ybarra hadn’t killed her. The question was, however, was he telling the truth?
“When was this again?” Joanna asked.
“Saturday. I went there in the late afternoon, after I left the station. I was hiding outside the gate in a clump of mesquite when some guy saw me-one of Mr. O’Brien’s security guards, I guess. He’s the one who beat me up.”
“You’re saying the man who beat you up came from Green Brush Ranch?” Joanna asked.
“I le must have,” Ignacio replied. “I didn’t see exactly where he came from. All I know is, he snuck up on me from behind. I didn’t see him until he was on top of me. But that’s where he went afterward-back through the gate to Green Brush Ranch. Another guy on an ATV drove up to the gate. He waited just inside the fence. After the one guy finished with me, he walked across the road and went inside the gate. The two of them rode away together, back up the drive toward where the house roust he.”
“Where the house must be,” Joanna repeated thoughtfully. “You’ve never been there?”
Ignacio shook his head. “Bree made me promise that I wouldn’t go. I think she was worried something like this might happen.”
“Like what?” Joanna asked. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“This guy came up behind me-an older guy.”
“What did he look like?”
“I couldn’t see him too well in the dark, but he was tall and skinny. Tan. Wearing a cowboy hat.”
Unbidden, the image of Alf Hastings flashed across Joanna’s mind, but she brushed it aside. “Go on,” she said.
“Like I said, it was after dark,” Ignacio said. “1 may have dozed off for a minute. All I know is, out of nowhere I heard someone walk up behind me. I tried to stand up, but I had been in the same position for so long that my legs were asleep. When I tried to stand up, they collapsed under me. I fell forward, right on my face. I had managed to make it as far as my hands and knees when the guy kicked me in the gut. He was wearing pointed cowboy boots, and the toe caught me in the solar plexus. It knocked the wind out of me. I fell down again. The next thing I knew, he had me by the hair, pulling it out by the roots.”
Ignacio paused, as if remembering the attack were almost as painful as living through it the first time.
“So?” Joanna urged.
“I must have blacked out for a minute. When I came to, he was talking to me. ‘You’re a big one for a greaser,’ he was saying. ‘But you know what they say about that. The bigger they come, the harder they fall, right?’ I didn’t answer. I tried to turn around so I could get a better look at him, but he shook me so hard, I was afraid he was going to break my neck. ‘Did you hear me?’ he said again. ‘You’re supposed to answer when somebody speaks to you.’
“He shook me again-the kind of shake a coyote might give a rabbit in order to break its neck. That’s when I decided a rib was broken. One at least. According to Dr. Lee, it turns out to be three.”
“Dr. Lee over at the Copper Queen?” Joanna asked. She was taking notes now, writing as fast as she could.
Ignacio nodded. “He was my doctor last fall when I got hurt up here playing football. And that’s where I went after this happened-to the hospital to see Dr. Lee.”
“Go on then,” Joanna said.
“‘What’re you doing here, greaser?’ the guy says. ‘Casing the joint? Trying to figure out how you and your buddies can get inside and steal some of Mr. O’Brien’s stuff?’ I tried to tell him that I didn’t care about the O’Briens’ stuff, but he didn’t believe me. He must’ve thought I was one of the border bandits.”
“What happened next?” Joanna urged.
“He let go of my hair. When I fell back down, it hurt so had, I was afraid I might have ruptured a lung. I was still dealing with that when he burned me.”
Joanna caught her breath. “Burned you?”
Ignacio nodded. “I heard him strike a match and then I smelled cigar smoke. The next thing I knew, he burned me-right between my shoulder blades. I could smell that my shirt was on fire. I rolled around on the ground, trying to put it out. All the time, he’s talking to me. ‘Just pass the word along to all your thieving friends down there across the line,’ he said. ‘Tell ‘ em Mr. O ’Brien has a few surprises for anyone who comes around here trying to steal his stuff.’ By the time I finally got the fire out, the guy was already crossing the road to where the other guy was waiting on the ATV.”
Listening to the story, Joanna felt almost physically ill as she recalled some of the almost forgotten details of the Alf Hastings case over in Yuma County. There wasn’t a decent police officer in the state of Arizona who hadn’t been ashamed of what had happened to the young illegals who had fallen into his clutches. They had been beaten and left to die. Now that Ignacio Ybarra mentioned it, Joanna thought she remembered that the young men had also been tortured and burned.