Skeleton Canyon

“Yes,” Ignacio murmured. “I’m sure that’s when it fell out of my shirt pocket. It’s bound to be there, right across the road from the gate. I’m sure I can find it again, but if I go back on my own to look for it, he’ll send somebody after me again. That’s why I carne here this morning, Sheriff Brady. To ask for help. If I go there with a deputy, no one will bother me.”

“Do you want to file charges against him?” Joa

“Against the man who beat me up?”

“Yes.”

Ignacio seemed to consider the possibility. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he admitted. “I just wanted the pearl back, that’s all.”

“If you have broken ribs, we’re talking about a serious assault here,” she told him. “Whoever did this to you shouldn’t hr allowed to get away with it.”

“But I barely saw him,” Ignacio objected. “It was dark. I may not be able to identify him.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Joa

Before Joa

The door burst open and Detective Carpenter strode into the room. “What exactly is going on here?” he demanded, glowering first at Joa

“Good morning, Ernie,” Joa

Ernie started to object, but something in the authoritative way Joa

“Jaime Carbajal is up at the courthouse trying to obtain a search warrant,” Joa

Without another word, Ernie turned on his heel and started for the door. Once there, he turned and looked back into the room. “Coming, Mr. Ybarra?” he asked.

Slowly, Ignacio Ybarra rose to his feet. He stepped toward Joa

“Why?” Joa

“He said that he’d met a lot of sheriffs in his time but that you were the only one who knew how to listen with your heart as well as your ears.”

“Thank you,” Joa

May it always be so.

CHAPTER TWENTY

An hour later, while Joa

The prospect of talking to the coroner threw Joa

“I still have some toxicology tests to do, and those take time-weeks even,” he told her. “But the preliminary results are these. The victim was struck on the head, repeatedly. The weapon was a heavy blunt object of some kind, but what actually killed her was drowning.”

“Drowning?” Joa

“In her own blood. Her rib cage was completely crushed. Both lungs filled with blood. That’s what killed her.”

Joa

“None,” George Winfield returned. “It looks to me as though she was naked when the attack came and as though her assailant came at her from behind. There are contusions and abrasions that look as though they happened prior to death.”

“Like she was ru

“Maybe.”

Joa

“No,” George Winfield answered. “Given the circumstances of a naked victim, that’s something I would have suspected. But there’s no sign of sexual violation at all.”

“What about pregnancy?” Joa

“Negative on that, too. Her birth control pills must have been working.”

“Good,” Joa

“Anything else?” Joa

“That’s all so far. This should be typed up by noon in case you want someone to come get it.”

“Thanks, George,” Joa

She had no more than put down the phone when it rang again. “We’ve got it,” Ernie said.

“Got what?” Joa

“The pearl.”

“Yon found it, then?”

“Looks like. With the rainstorm and all I didn’t think we’d ever find it, but we got lucky. It was right where Ignacio said II would be. Maybe he was telling the truth after all.”

Having already talked to Dr. Lee, Joa

“What do we do now?” he asked.

“While I was sitting here waiting, I’ve been reading up on Alf Hastings’s background,” Joa

“What?”

“He liked to burn them,” Joa

The phone line went so silent that for a moment Joa

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m thinking about Ignacio Ybarra,” Ernie Carpenter said. “I guess he’s one lucky guy.”

“Lucky? How do you figure? He just lost a girl he cared about very much. He-”

“Right, but he only got the shoulder blade treatment,” Ernie interjected. “From my point of view, that’s luck.”

As soon as Sheriff Brady stopped long enough to think about it, she had to agree.

“I guess I’d better go on over to the ranch and have a chat with Mr. Hastings,” Ernie said a moment later.

“Alone? Where’s Detective Carbajal?”

“He left a few minutes ago. I had him take Nacio back over to the hospital. He was here with us when we found the pearl. I had pla

“If Detective Carbajal’s not there with you,” Joa

“I’ll call in and have Dispatch send me out a deputy,” Ernie replied.

“No,” Joa