Devil’s Claw

“Can we get either Jaime or Ernie on the horn?” Joa

“I don’t know. We can try. The last time I talked to Ernie, his cell phone was cutting in and out. The coverage may be pretty spotty out in that neck of the woods.” Nonetheless, Frank picked up his phone and began dialing.

“How can the cell phone coverage be that bad?” Joa

“Not South Old Spanish Trail,” Frank told her. “From what Ernie told me, Melanie Goodson’s house is out in the middle of nowhere, almost to Vail.” He listened intently for several seconds, then shook his head. “Says he’s left the service area.”

“What’s the phone company thinking?” Joa

“That’s about the size of it,” Frank told her. “The phone company doesn’t have to think, and our two-way car radios don’t stretch over the mountains that far, either. We’ll just have to wait for one of them to report in.”

“Waiting isn’t something I’m very good at,” Joa

Frank Montoya gri

Joa

After that Joa

She and Je

“Congratulate me,” Butch Dixon said. “It worked.”

“What worked?”

“Butch Dixon Tour Guide,” he said. “I’ve worn my parents out. I offered to take them out to di

“Butch, really,” Joa

“Please,” he said. “Have pity on me. I’ve spent the whole day trying to dodge one of my mother’s negative comments after another. ”Wherever did you get the odd idea that you could write a book?“ is my personal favorite. As far as I’m concerned, that was the topper on the cake. What my ego needs now is a little dose of positive feedback from my two favorite people in the world. I promise, I won’t try to talk. I’ll sit in the corner quiet as a mouse and watch you work-make you work-if need be. And I won’t even hint about spending the night.”

By the time Butch finished his sad lament, Joa

“I don’t like it either,” Butch agreed. “I’m afraid my folks bring out the worst in me.”

He was out at the High Lonesome within fifteen short minutes. By then Joa

“Boy,” he said. “Are you two a sight for sore eyes! I’ve had about all of Maggie Dixon I can stand, and she’s been in town for barely twenty-four hours.”

Je

“That’s about the size of it,” Butch said.

Joa

“Where are you?” Joa

“Benson,” he said. “We’ve given up for the day, and we’re on our way home. Dispatch said you wanted us to call.”

“I did-do,” Joa

“Not too bad, considering. I guess Frank told you that we missed the boat when it came to talking to Melanie Goodson. And the nun you wanted us to talk to, the one who’s the principal at Santa Theresa’s…”

“Sister Celeste,” Joa

“Right. We didn’t see her, either. She was out sick today, but we did have one bit of luck.”

“What’s that?”

“Not surprisingly, the Pima County homicide detectives weren’t too thrilled when we showed up hot on their heels. Since they wouldn’t let us anywhere near their crime scene, Ernie and I were stuck just sort of milling around down on Old Spanish Trail at Melanie Goodson’s turnoff, which, by the way, seems to be paved from there all the way to her house. That had to have cost a fortune. Anyway, we were left cooling our heels there, and since people are just naturally curious when they see a couple of stopped police vehicles, we did manage to talk to some of Melanie’s neighbors.”

“Jaime, could you stop stringing me along and try getting to the good part?”

“We ended up talking to a lady named Karen Gustafson who lives just up the street, if you could call it that. It’s a road, really. Anyway, she told us that she and her husband were coming home from Webb’s Steak House on Friday night about ten when they saw Melanie Goodson’s Lexus coming down the road. Karen said she was sitting in the car while her husband went over to the mailbox to pick up their mail. She said that when the car came by, she saw there were two people in it-Melanie Goodson and some other woman. The thing is, until we started asking her questions, she didn’t even know Melanie’s car had been stolen.”

“Good grief!” Joa

“I don’t think they ever bothered to pick it up. Grand-theft auto evidently isn’t a very high priority around here. In most cases they don’t do much more than take the report over the phone. I believe Melanie Goodson got an in-person officer visit because of who she was and what she did for a living. Of course, now that she’s dead, a possible homicide case is gathering a lot more attention than her stolen car did.”

“Could it be that Melanie Goodson and Sandra Ridder both went to Cochise Stronghold that night?”

“That’s how it sounds to Ernie and me,” Jaime answered.

“But why would she go along?” Joa

“I don’t know,” said Jaime, “but my guess is, once we have an answer to the first question, we’ll also know how come she’s dead. She was Sandra Ridder’s attorney, right?” Jaime asked.

“Right.”

“And Ridder went to prison on a plea bargain. That means there was never any trial in regard to Tom Ridder’s death, so maybe there wasn’t much of an investigation, either,” Jaime continued. “The detectives probably figured they had a slam-dunk domestic-violence case. Frank told us Tom Ridder got thrown out of the army for assaulting one of the brass. And since Sandra was willing to stand up in front of a judge and accept full responsibility for plugging her husband, the detectives on the shooting case probably figured, why waste any more time digging any deeper? She goes to prison. The detectives clear one case and go on to the next.”