Skeleton Canyon

Joa

“What do you mean by your thing and my thing, Mr. O’Brien?” she asked.

“It means that as soon as I saw your department’s reluctance to call in reinforcements, I went ahead and made other arrangements. I’ve contacted a private eye up in Phoenix. Detective Stoddard will be here by nine o’clock tomorrow morning. You may be unwilling or unable to do the job, Sheriff Brady. I’m sure my PI won’t be.”

“Hiring a detective is certainly your prerogative, Mr. O’Brien,” Joa

“Even if she does, it’s my money,” O’Brien said sourly.

“Of course,” Joa

“What’s that?”

“Have you noticed any changes in your daughter’s behavior in the last few months?”

“What’s this? You’re asking me questions about a daughter you insist isn’t really missing?”

Joa

O’Brien shrugged. “Of course she’s changed,” he said. “Night to day. As though she had a personality transplant. Telling us one thing and doing another is just the tip of the iceberg.” He paused long enough to glower at his wife, as though he held Katherine personally accountable for his daughter’s emerging dishonesty.

“She never should have dropped out of the cheerleading squad,” he continued. “That was the begi

You mean being student body vice president and class valedictorian weren’t enough? Joa

David O’Brien might have wanted Katherine to keep quiet, but his orders weren’t enough to suppress a mother’s natural inclination to defend her daughter. “Miss Barker had to drop her,” Katherine interjected. “It happened back in November. At the end of football season. Because Bree had been captain of the squad, there was a bit of a flap about it. You may have heard…”

From the moment Joa

Joa

“You’re probably the only one,” David said. “It happened during the Bisbee-Douglas game. One of the players from Douglas-some young Mexican kid-ended up getting hurt. Had his leg broken, I guess. Bree was upset about it beyond all reason. She walked off the field right in the middle of the game. Left the ballpark and went directly to the hospital. Naturally, the cheerleading adviser had no choice but to put her off the squad.”

Joa

“She was moody, I suppose,” Katherine said. “But that was understandable. After all, losing her position on the squad was a very real loss to her, a blow to her self-esteem. There’s some grieving to be done after something like that happens. Grieving and a certain amount of acting out. But beyond that, she was fine. It’s not like it interfered with her grades or anything.”

Realizing Katherine was once again attempting to smooth things over and to minimize whatever had happened, Joa

“She called me a bigot, among other things,” David O’Brien snarled, his face darkening with rage. From the looks of him, Bree’s accusatory words might still be hanging in the charged air around him. “My own daughter called me that to my face when I tried to explain to her that some stupid Mexican having his leg broken was no reason for her to give up something she’d wanted for years-something the whole family had worked for.”

Joa

“Are you a bigot, Mr. O’Brien?” Joa

The room grew still. Raising his bushy eyebrows, Ernie Carpenter shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. The silence lasted so long that Joa

“Are you aware that I’m from here originally?” he asked at last, favoring Joa

“Not just from Bisbee,” he continued. “But from right here on the outskirts of Naco. My father, Tom O’Brien, died of a ruptured appendix when I was two. Growing up in a border town makes it tough for kids. On both sides. I didn’t transfer to St. Dominick’s in Old Bisbee until I was in the third grade. Before that I was one of the only Anglo kids in Naco Elementary. The Mexican kids down here used to beat me up every day, Sheriff Brady. Not only that, it was a Mexican driving the truck that killed my first family, smashed my legs to smithereens, and sentenced me to a wheelchair for the rest of my natural life. So believe me, if I’ve got my prejudices, maybe I’m entitled. That’s what I told Bria

CHAPTER EIGHT

Not knowing what to say in response, Joa

The housekeeper nodded in her stolid, impassive way and started down the hallway. She was standing in front of the open door waiting for them to step outside when Joa

The woman’s faded blue eyes welled with tears. “I packed the food,” she said brokenly. “Just like before. I did not mean to cause trouble.”

“What trouble?” Joa

“A bag of sandwiches, chips, some fresh fruit, and sodas,” Olga answered. “She always wanted plenty of sodas, root beer and Cokes, both.”

Joa

Olga nodded. “Several of each.”

“And what kinds of sandwiches?”

“Peanut butter and bologna.”

“How many?”

“Five of each.”

Joa

“That’s what I think,” Joa

Olga nodded.

“What was she wearing?”

Olga glanced toward Ernie. “He ask me already, but I don’t remember. Too upset. She’s a good girl, Bria