Silence in West Fork: A small town police procedural set in the American Southwest (The Pegasus Quincy Mystery Series Book 5)

by Lakota Grace

  I ordered the house specialty, a traditional Mexican broth soup, made from scratch, with marinated pulled pork and white hominy topped with shredded cabbage, radish, diced avocado, and fresh lime wedges. And a large piece of carrot cake.

  I always eat when I’m nervous, and I was plenty nervous right now. Worried about my dog. Worried about Thorn Malone. Worried about what I’d say to her father. And underlying it, a nagging concern about my grandfather and his health.

  While I waited for my order, I munched on the complimentary corn chips and salsa. When the waitress brought refills, I munched through them, too.

  Phone service in the canyon was spotty, sometimes available, sometimes not. Only one bar right now. As I touched the first number of Shepherd’s cell, the message blinked to “out of service area.” I felt a quick relief at being able to postpone the confrontation for a few more moments. Thorn was in good hands, I reassured myself. If Cooper followed protocol she’d be in holding, and once I reached Shepherd, we could take steps to get her out, pronto.

  The waitress brought the soup. I ordered a roast beef sandwich and another slice of the carrot cake to-go for the vet. I took a sip of the hearty Mexican stew and pulled out a notebook. I needed to figure out where to go next.

  Thorn, with all of her teen bravado, didn’t deserve to be in jail. She’d done nothing, only been in the wrong place at the wrong time—which she wouldn’t have been if I’d made more right choices.

  And what did the law have on her? Not much yet although that knife was worrisome. I widened my thought patterns. How was Thorn’s relationship with her boss? Knowing the sulky teen, I was willing to bet it was contentious. But enough to murder the executive? I’d give her the benefit of the doubt and say no. I could do that, at least until I found out the rest of the story.

  I needed a way to access critical information. There was a possibility that I’d get involved as a family liaison officer with the sister Claire. I would have told that idiot handling the case that if he’d been willing to listen to me for half a second. But he seemed intent on pinning this murder on Thorn.

  I wondered what his hurry was. Wanting to make a name for himself in a new job? Sometimes the rush to closure opened the way for big mistakes. HT always told me that when I wanted to cut a board too soon in his carpenter shop. My grandfather. I’d stop over there tomorrow, for sure, and have a good long talk. Find out how he was doing.

  What a tenderfoot Cooper Davis was, fixated on the East Coast, big-city ways of doing things. Not too long ago I’d been in the same situation, only in my case it had been Tennessee that was home, not Florida. I’d discovered there was a world of difference between the hill country of Tennessee and the high desert plateaus of Arizona. Hopefully, this guy would come to his senses soon.

  I dipped a folded corner of tortilla in the soup and took a bite. What about Jil-Clair Industries, the murdered woman’s company? Perhaps there was something there. I’d heard it was an international high-tech company. Maybe there was an extremist who figured taking out the head honcho would solve whatever his problem was.

  We needed to get Thorn sprung, pronto, before she said anything incriminating. If I couldn’t reach Shepherd, I could at least arrange for legal representation. I flashed to my dwindling bank account. Hmm. Maybe not.

  What was Plan B? Dejected, I realized I didn’t have one. I yearned to turn the whole mess over to her father. I wasn’t cut out to be a parent, especially of a teenager like this one.

  A chili seed sent a spire of hotness through my mouth. I fished it out and put it on the plate. Where would Cooper Davis likely take Thorn for arraignment? He had two choices. There was a small sheriff’s annex in Sedona. That would be the closest. Or he might deliver her to the Coconino County sheriff’s office in Flagstaff. That was bigger, but farther away.

  I pulled out the card the detective had given me. There was a possibility that he was in range of my signal, here in the canyon.

  Cooper answered on the first ring. “Yeah. Find her yet?”

  “Find who?” I asked.

  “Quincy, that you? I didn’t recognize the caller ID.”

  Not surprising, since it was listed under my grandfather’s name. He was paying the bill, too, come to think of it. I’d have to get that changed. Soon.

  “Find who?” I repeated.

  “That friend of yours skipped out on me.”

  My first reaction was, good for Thorn. I would have been tempted to run, too, in her situation. But my second reaction was more negative. Now she had resisting arrest added to her charges. The kid was digging herself in deeper.

  “Where’d you lose her?” I asked. “She’s hard to misplace, not like a lost puppy or anything.”

  “Look, Quincy, this isn’t funny. If she contacts you, bring her in. She’s in a shit-load of trouble.”

  He rang off before I could needle him anymore. But it introduced another wrinkle in the Thorn problem. Shepherd had taken her exploring in Oak Creek since she was a little kid. If Thorn didn’t want Cooper to find her, he wouldn’t. And we probably couldn’t either.

  She had her cellphone with her, and the kid was resourceful. Where might she go? If she stayed on the far side of Oak Creek, the evening would be cold and miserable, but if she elected to cross the creek, there were private homes with sheds and barns where she could hide.

  That last action meant fording Oak Creek, which had a much swifter current than the sometimes-trickle of West Fork. And Thorn couldn’t stroll across that nice wide footbridge at the beginning of the trail. If Cooper were a good officer, he’d have a man stationed there, at least until dark.

  Or he’d try to get the ranger, Buzz Marks, to stay and watch as well, although I wished the detective luck. Buzz Marks’ air of cheerfulness might vanish into slothfulness once he no longer had an audience. Getting that man to do anything more than his minimal nine-to-five assignment would be problematic.

  Thorn had been in and out of trouble most of her adolescence. Hopping from parent to parent had to be a hard way to spend one’s teenage years, but many kids did it when parents divorced. Glad I didn’t have to face that parent problem. I was never having kids.

  I sighed. I swiped my soup bowl with the rest of the tortilla and took a swig of coffee. Then I tried Shepherd’s number again. He answered on the first ring as if he was waiting for my call. Maybe he was, knowing his daughter. Plates and silverware clattered behind him. They must be on a dinner break at the convention.

  “Yeah?”

  I welcomed his gravelly voice. All afternoon I’d been dealing with the murder and Thorn’s involvement in it. It would be a relief to hand the problem over to Shepherd.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours,” I said. “There’s been a problem.”

  “Is Thorn okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s fine, but…”

  “Well, spill it! What’s happened?”

  The concern in his voice pushed me further.

  “Shepherd, there’s been a murder. Jill Rustaine, Thorn’s boss, was stabbed in West Fork. She’s dead, and I am not sure how involved Thorn is. She at least witnessed it.”

  “Reception is lousy in this convention center. But you say that Thorn is okay?”

  “She’s scared, Shep. Anyone would be. But holding up. She’s your daughter.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “The detective in charge, one Cooper Davis, took her into custody for questioning.”

  “Cooper Davis,” he mused. “Don’t know him, must be new to the force. Where is Thorn now?” His voice shifted to the cool-as-a-cucumber planning stage that fit more with the Shepherd that I knew.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Why not? Did he take her to Flag or Sedona?”

  “Well, that’s the next problem. The detective called me a minute ago. He was hiking back to the trailhead with her, and she escaped.”

  “Thorn, why would you do that, baby?”

  The concern in his voice wrenched at my hear
t.

  “Where you at now?” Shepherd asked.

  “Junipine. Reckless had an injury. The vet is stitching up his paw. Should be done soon.”

  “It’s been a day for you, too. Sorry, Peg, that you are involved in all of this.”

  “Can’t be helped. I thought I’d go back to my house when I pick him up, wait for Thorn to call,” I said.

  “Nah, she won’t call you. She’ll make a run for it. Hitchhike out of the canyon if she can catch a ride.”

  He was right. Running was the first instinct of many teenagers in trouble, and particularly this one. I could hear him shifting in his seat.

  “It’ll take me two hours to drive back up from Phoenix. Back track on the road. She’ll be out there trying to hitchhike.”

  “Right.”

  “And be careful, Peg. No predicting what she’ll do, especially if she is involved in something this serious.”

  He hung up before I could respond. I was left with my own suspicions on the guilt or innocence of one Thorn Malone. Either way she was in deep trouble, and Shepherd’s pragmatic reaction bothered me. Thorn needed support, not judgment, at this point.

  I grabbed the vet’s fare along with a big container of coffee and returned to his office. Reckless was overjoyed to greet me, and I leaned down for a face lick so that he wouldn’t try to jump with his bad paw. To my relief, he seemed to be limping less. Maybe he’d be okay.

  The vet grabbed the sandwich with alacrity.

  “Thanks! What do I owe you for the food?”

  “Nada. Thanks for stitching up my dog on such short notice.”

  The vet handed me a vial of pills.

  “He should be okay, but here’s something in the event he gets too uncomfortable. The stitches will dissolve on their own, so you don’t need to bring him back in, but keep him out of cactus patches for a while."

  Good luck with that. My entire front yard was filled with cholla and prickly pear. But I had more serious things to worry about.

  “What do I owe you, doc?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Thanks for the sandwich.”

  I tried to keep the expression of relief out of my face. My bank account was flat, too flat for comfort. I had enough for next month’s rent, but pickings would be slim on the food side. A good time to visit my grandfather. That’s what family was for, right? It didn’t hurt that his housekeeper, Isabel, fried chicken wings like a Tennessee native, even though she hailed from New Mexico.

  Reckless jumped into the back seat, and we headed north through Oak Creek Canyon.

  “Keep your eyes peeled, dog, for Thorn Malone. You remember Thorn?”

  His tail thumped the seat, but I wasn’t sure he got the message. I passed beyond West Fork turnoff. The smell of campfire smoke drifted through the open window as I drove slowly, scanning both sides of the road.

  I picked up a conga line of impatient cars behind me by the time I reached the Pine Flat Campground at the end of the canyon. There was no sight of Thorn. I made a U-turn at that point and headed the opposite direction, passing the West Fork parking lot again and continuing toward Junipine.

  It was dusk, and I watched for the reflected eyes of deer and raccoons intent on crossing the road. I almost missed the huddled outline of a person on the edge of the highway, thumb out. It was Thorn. Her hair hung in dribbly strands, and she shivered in the cooling breeze. I rolled down the window.

  “Come on, get in. I called your dad.”

  She hesitated a moment, then opened the door and climbed in.

  “Coffee in the container there, if you’re cold.” I leaned over and squeezed her arm. “We’re driving to your dad’s house, and you and I are going to wait for him there.”

  She started to protest, and I shushed her.

  “You’re in enough trouble as is. Just listen for a change. Your dad and I want to help you, believe it or not. Buckle up. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I checked for oncoming traffic and then walked behind the car. My first call was to Shepherd. No answer; he must already be on the road. I left a short voicemail.

  “Shep, I found her. We’ll meet you at your house. Drive safe.”

  My second call reached a real person if you’d call him that.

  “Cooper. Got your prisoner. Her dad is in Phoenix, driving up. Thorn will turn herself in, tomorrow morning at the Sedona office.”

  I expected him to argue with me, but he didn’t.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I caught a note of relief in his voice. Good! We’d need all the friends we could make, to get this bedraggled teen out of her latest scrape. I hoped we weren’t too late.

  CHAPTER 6

  HARRIET WEAVER worked frantically the rest of the afternoon, trying to shut out the shock of Jill’s death. She lost track of time as she tried to halt the train that was the now-canceled Open House. It was after dark at Jil-Clair Industries when the vibrating of her silenced cellphone aroused her. The staff, except security, had gone home, and the building was still.

  What time was it? Lenny would be frantic. She pulled the phone from her purse. Yes, there were four messages from him, each more strident than the last. He was dependent on her for everything and expected dinner promptly at six. She checked her watch. After seven.

  He’d been laid off during the last recession and had tried to find employment. He’d had several near misses at jobs, even. It was hard, Harriet knew, to find a job at his advanced age. He was four years older than she was.

  Then he started to have the TIAs. The doctor told her there was little they could do, that it was best to keep Lenny active and engaged.

  But that was hard, especially when she was working full time. Nowadays he mostly sat around the house. He did the crossword puzzle in the Journal, “to keep his brain sharp,” and studied stocks that they had no hope of ever buying, now that he was no longer bringing in any income.

  Harriet had suggested once that since he was home, he could help with chores. He’d made a half-hearted attempt to do the wash once but threw her favorite fuchsia sweater in with the hot-water whites. The sweater shrunk, and the laundry turned an unholy shade of pink.

  An honest mistake, he said. Perhaps it was. The doctor had warned her there might be memory loss and personality changes. Harriet resumed the household duties after that.

  Lenny’s one social event of the week was a morning coffee klatch at the local grocery store with other guys his age or retired. She really didn’t think much of the crew. That forest weirdo, a construction guy stove up with arthritis, an insurance salesman that hung around hoping to sell a life insurance policy or two. Good luck with that. Harriet and Lenny didn’t have extra cash for luxuries like life insurance.

  Harriet had one final task for her boss. Lenny would have to wait a little longer for supper. She looked around the darkened office with a dull heaviness in her heart. Jill had made her promise that if anything ever happened Harriet would destroy her personal journal. They laughed at that unlikely event, seeing Jill so alive and vibrant. Now that nightmare was here. Harriet set her mouth in a resolute line.

  She entered the executive washroom connecting her office and Jill’s. After she used the lavatory, she filled the basin with water. She splashed it on her face, seeing the blotched face with its ugly reddened eyes in the mirror. A barren wind swept through her with aching loneliness. With shaking fingers she pushed graying strands of hair back in place.

  Harriet never had children. But she’d worked for this company for years. In a way, it was her baby. That and the two girls, Jill and Claire. Ever since old man Rustaine had died, she’d tried to be a mother to Jill. Sometimes it worked, but sometimes she felt abused by the treatment that Jill meted out.

  Harriet told herself it was stress, that Jill had a tough job and a steep learning curve when she took over the company. But at other times, she got tired of excusing the woman’s ill behavior and just stayed out of her way. Pick your battles, Harr
iet’s mother always used to say.

  Harriet entered Jill’s office and switched on a light. Jill’s journal would be in the file drawer in her desk, under O for “outrageous.” In it went her most private thoughts about lovers, about the company, about life in general. Jill had laughed that it contained the dirt on everyone in the organization. Harriet warned Jill of the dangers of keeping such a record, but for the past years, she had held her employer’s secrets close.

  The police mustn’t find the journal, and they wouldn’t if Harriet had anything to do with it. She reached into the desk and pulled out the maroon leather binder edged in gold. She fanned the pages, covered with Jill’s close precise writing, so unlike her outward flamboyant, rebel nature.

  Harriet touched one page, her fingers tracing the letters. Jill, her boss and almost-daughter, had written these words. Not that Harriet had ever mentioned how she felt, but it was her dream that Jill would have children of her own someday.

  They could visit an exotic foreign country together, Belize likely, and lounge on the beach. She could take the granddaughters, always girls and always two in her daydreams, to attend an art lecture at a nearby museum. Harriet would sip a mai-tai and enjoy the bright tropic sunshine while Jill and the girls scuba dived in the turquoise water. Now that would never happen.

  Harriet clutched the journal as the doorknob rattled. Someone was out there! She slipped the diary behind her in the executive desk chair.

  “Yes?” she called out. Maybe it was the janitorial staff.

  Malcolm Vander entered.

  What had he come to do? Riffle through Jill’s, her Jill’s, papers, even as he had bothered the papers on her own desk?

  Harriet half rose and then resumed her seat in the chair, protecting the journal by smoothing her skirt wider.

  “I called your office, but you didn’t answer.”

  Malcolm’s voice grated against her jangled nerves.

  “Aren’t you a sight,” he said, “sitting there like this all belonged to you.”