Skeleton Canyon

CHAPTER FOUR

With a hard lump blocking her throat and almost cutting off her ability to breathe, Joa

Years before, when Joa

“May I help you?” someone asked.

“I’m looking for the camp director,” Joa

“‘That’s me. My name’s Andrea Petty.”

The smiling speaker was a young, nut-brown, shorts-clad African-American woman with a scatter of freckles sprinkled across an upturned nose. She wore a headful of shiny, beaded braids. She didn’t look a day over sixteen.

“What can I do for you?” Andrea continued.

“My name’s Joa

Andrea gave Joa

That makes us even, Joa

Andrea smiled back. “The phone’s in here,” she said, leading the way into a small Spartan office that opened off the south end of the dining hall. “It’s behind the door. There’s not much privacy. If you need me to leave…”

“No, that’s all right,” Joa

Fumbling through her purse, she found her departmental telephone credit card and began punching numbers into the phone while a tearful girl about Je

“Sheriff Brady here,” Joa

“Dick Voland said if you called to put you straight through to him,” the desk clerk said. “Hang on.”

With a severe budget crunch looming, Chief Deputy Richard Voland wasn’t supposed to be in the office on Saturday. “What are you doing going to work on your day off, lobbying for comp-time?” she asked as soon as Voland came on the phone. “You haven’t moved out of your apartment and back into your office, have you?”

“I got called in,” he said, ignoring the jibe. “We’ve got a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“A missing person.”

“A missing person?” Joa

“Wait until I tell you which one is missing,” Voland replied.

The seriousness in his tone was unmistakably convincing. “Go ahead, then,” Joa

“Roxa

“Katherine O’Brien’s daughter.”

“Bree O’Brien? You’re kidding.”

Joa

“When?” Joa

“She left home yesterday afternoon to drive to Playas, New Mexico. She was supposed to spend the weekend with a friend of hers, Crystal Phillips,” Dick Voland said. “The problem is, she never made it. Katherine O’Brien called over there this morning to verify what time she’d be home tomorrow after-noon, but according to Ed Phillips, Crystal ’s daddy, Bree never showed up there. Not only that, she wasn’t expected.”

“Not expected? That sounds bad.”

“Just wait,” Voland continued. “You haven’t heard anything yet. It gets worse. According to Katherine O’Brien, Bree has made three weekend trips to visit Crystal Phillips in the last three months-this one included. Crystal and Bree plan to be roommates at the University of Arizona this fall. As far as the O’Briens are concerned, the two girls have been getting together on weekends to make plans about that-about dorms and clothes and curtains and whatever else girls have to sort out before they can live together. But Ed Phillips and his wife, Lorraine, claim they’ve never laid eyes on her these last three months. They both say that the last time they saw Bree O’Brien was before they left Bisbee to move to Playas over a year ago.”

As sheriff of Cochise County, Joa

“What are we doing about it, Dick? Have you been in touch with Randy Trotter over in New Mexico?”

“I tried,” Voland returned. “Sheriff Trotter is on vacation. He’s camping up in the White Mountains and isn’t due back until a week from tomorrow. I have been in touch with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department, however. The under-sheriff there has deputies looking for Bree O’Brien on his side of the state line. I’ve got cars looking for her on this side as well, ours and Department of Public Safety both.”

“On Highway 80 and on Geronimo Trail?”

“Right,” Dick Voland replied. “Deputy Hollicker took the initial call from the O’Briens. I sent Detective Carbajal out to see them, but that didn’t work.”

“What do you mean, it didn’t work?”

“Old man O’Brien wouldn’t talk to him. In fact, he ordered Jaime off the place and then called in here raising hell and asking what were we thinking of sending a kid out to investigate his daughter’s disappearance. A kid and a Mexican to boot.”

Joa

“Not in those exact words, but believe me, I caught his drift.”

“Well,” Joa

Dick Voland chuckled. “That probably has more to do with where his granddaddy settled than it does with David O’Briens personal preferences.”

“In the meantime, what else is there to do?” Joa

“I told Mr. O’Brien that the only detective we have, other than Jaime Carbajal, is off duty today. According to Rose Carpenter, Ernie’s out in Sierra Vista having some work done on his car. We paged him, but he’s apparently in the middle of a brake job and can’t get back here any sooner than another hour at the very earliest. O’Brien said that was fine. That the extra hour’s wait would be worth it as long as he gets to talk to a real detective.”

Had Joa