Skeleton Canyon

“Why?” Ernie asked. “Is there a problem?”

“There will be if someone doesn’t do something to prevent it,” Joa

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to tell his wife.”

As it turned out, they met up with Katherine O’Brien in the entryway. She had just come in the door and was depositing his keys and purse on a gilded entryway table. She was dressed in a sedate navy blue shirtwaist dress. There was makeup on her face. Her graying hair was swept up into an elegant French twist. The cumulative result made Katherine O’Brien far different from the casually attired, makeup-free woman Joa

“What’s going on, Sheriff Brady?” Katherine asked. “I saw two sheriff’s cars out in the drive. Has something happened? Did you catch Bree’s killer?”

“No,” Joa

“Of course he’s taking it badly,” she returned. “It isn’t the kind of thing you take well.”

“I believe your husband is suicidal,” Joa

Katherine O’Brien seemed to draw back. Her eyes narrowed, her lists clenched. “God helps those who help themselves,” she said.

The woman’s brusque response was so different from what Joa

“Just that. I mean David’s a grown-up. If he wants to find someone to talk to about this, he’ll have to find help for himself. It’s not up to me.”

“But isn’t-”

“Look,” Katherine interrupted, her eyes blazing with anger, “I spent eighteen years of my life walking a tightrope and ru

Looking at Katherine, Joa

She decided to take one last crack at smoothing things over. “We all have to learn to live with the consequences of our actions,” she said.

Katherine nodded. “I figured that out a long time ago,” she said. “David never has. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She turned toward the kitchen. “Olga,” she called, “I’m going to go lie down for a little while. Please don’t let me sleep past three. I have a four o’clock appointment with Father Morris.”

Left alone in the foyer, Joa

“Maybe there’s no such thing,” Joa

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Taking two separate cars, Ernie and Joa

The first trailer on the left-hand side of the road was flanked by a six-foot-high chain-link dog run. As soon as Joa

Ernie, joining Joa

The dog was still harking furiously when a woman opened the door in answer to Ernie Carpenter’s knock. “Yeah?” she said, holding on to the doorjamb with both hands and swaying unsteadily on her feet. “Whad’ya want?”

“Maggie Hastings?” he said, opening his wallet and displaying his ID. “Would it be possible to speak to you for a few moments? Could we come in?”

Maggie Hastings was a disheveled, dark-haired woman in her mid-to-late forties. Her graying, lackluster hair was pulled back in a greasy ponytail. She wore a soiled man’s shirt over a pair of too-tight shorts. She was also quite drunk.

Stumbling away from the door, she allowed Joa

The room’s curtains were tightly closed. The difference between the interior gloom and the brilliant exterior sunlight left Joa

“Sorry the place is such a mess,” Maggie muttered, kicking something aside. “Haven’t had a chance to pick up today. Waddn’t ‘xactly expecting company.”

From the sound, Joa

Remembering all too well how many bugs the new cook had rousted from what supposedly had been a clean jail kitchen, Joa

Turning her back on her visitors, Maggie staggered as far as the end of the couch and then fell onto it. She picked up a remote control and muted the droning television set, turning an afternoon talk show into a wordless pantomime of moving lips and wagging heads. She stared at it with such avid interest, however, that Joa

“This is about your husband,” Joa

Maggie Hastings’s eyes never wavered from the set. “What about him?” she asked.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Work.” Maggie’s reply was little more than a grunt.

“No, he’s not,” Joa

“Well, that’s news to me,” Maggie said with a noncommittal shrug. “If he was going somewhere, don’t you think he’da told me?”