Dead to Rights

“Drive up to Pinery in the Chiricahuas, get on Forest Road 42 and ask for the parrot guy. I’m sure someone will be able to tell you where he is.”

“I may just do that,” Angie said.

Joa

Over Je

“We’re going on a picnic,” Joa

“Where are we going?” Je

“It’s a surprise,” Joa

As expected, lunch was packed and ready to go. They rove from there to the Grand Hotel where Butch Dixon sat waiting for them in the lobby reading another book-Smilla’s Sense of Snow.

Once he was in the car, they headed east on Highway 80. Where are we going?” Je

“The Wonderland of Rocks,” Joa

“Where’s that?” Butch asked.

“In the Chiricahuas. If you look on the map, it’s called the Chiricahua National Monument, but locals call it the Wonderland of Rocks.”

“It’s where Grandpa Lathrop died, isn’t it,” Je

“Yes,” Joa

“Not once?” Butch asked. Not even with Andy?”

“No,” Joa

Driving into the monument, they rode past the greasy oil slick where Hal Morgan’s Buick had burned to ashes. Joa

The first glimpses of the fantastic rhyolite pillars brought gasps of astonishment from Je

“This must have been a sacred place to the Indians who lived here,” Butch said. “What did they call it?”

Joa

Later in the afternoon, after lunch, while Je

“So what do you think?” Butch asked. “Will Hal Morgan be able to get his life back now?”

Joa

“I don’t know,” she said. “It takes time to get over something like that.”

“Yes,” Butch Dixon said gently, “I’m sure it does.”

About the Author

J.A. Jance is the author of the J.P. Beaumont series, the Joa