by J. A. Jance
Looking closer, Joanna could see a bloody mark that sliced across the top of the dog’s back. And she had to agree that right that moment, the dog didn’t seem the least bit vicious.
“That’s his name?” Joanna asked. “Miller?”
Natalie nodded. “Funny name for a dog, but he was wearing a name tag along with his dog tag. He’s a two-year-old Doberman mix. And he’s not vicious. All he was doing was trying to protect his owner. If that had happened to me, I’d probably turn vicious, too. You’re a good dog, aren’t you, Miller,” Natalie added gently, speaking to the dog. “You’re a very good boy.”
Miller responded by looking at her and wagging his stub of a tail the tiniest bit.
Joanna had learned that in the topsy-turvy world of Animal Control, the animals’ names often took precedence over those of any humans involved.
“If we know the dog’s name,” Joanna said, “and if you’ve seen his tags, does that mean we know the victim’s name as well?”
“Attwood,” Natalie answered. “Lester Attwood. At least that’s what Jeannine says anyway, and the address Attwood listed as his home address in our records matches up to this one.”
“You called that over to Detective Carpenter?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” Natalie agreed with a nod. “He said he’s on his way. For me to wait here.”
Looking off to the east, Joanna saw a cloud of light tan dust billowing skyward. A few minutes later, Ernie arrived, driving the new four-wheel-drive Yukon that had finally replaced the aging Econoline van her detectives had used for years. Ernie parked next to Joanna’s patrol car, then rolled down his window and glared out through it first at the dog and then at Natalie.
“What the hell?” he muttered. “That dog is a holy terror. Why’d you let him out?”
Miller, who seemed to be as happy to see Ernie as Ernie was to see him, made a very believable lunge at the idling SUV.
“No!” Natalie ordered. “Leave it. Sit.”
Once again Miller obeyed Natalie’s command. He sat while Natalie returned Ernie’s look, glare for glare. “Just because he doesn’t like you,” she told the detective, “doesn’t mean the dog is vicious. Maybe he’s got good sense.”
“Just keep him away from me,” Ernie said. “I don’t trust him.” With that, he turned to Joanna. “Want to go see the crime scene?”
Joanna nodded. “Should I follow you?”
Ernie shook his head. “Not unless you want that Crown Vic of yours to be stuck up to its hubcaps. We’re talking world-class sand here, boss.”
A new Yukon was on order for Joanna as well and was due to be delivered in two weeks, but that wouldn’t help today. Without a word Joanna exited her vehicle.
“What about the dog?” Natalie asked. “Have you done anything about finding out who’s going to take him?”
That was always an ACO’s straightforward concern-what would become of the animal? As a homicide detective, Ernie’s concerns and possible courses of action were far more complicated.
“Thanks to you, we may finally have a lead on our victim’s ID, and I appreciate that,” he said, “I really do. Now that we think we know the man’s name, our next job is to verify that-to find someone who can identify the body. After that we have to locate and notify his next of kin. That’s a lot to worry about without even thinking about that dog. Got it?”
“Got it.” Natalie’s brisk reply hinted that she wasn’t backing down. “Got it loud and clear.” With that, she tugged on Miller’s leash. “Come on, boy,” she told the dog. “Let’s go for a walk.” She didn’t say “far away from this jerk,” but she might as well have. Her meaning was abundantly clear.
Natalie Wilson turned on her heel and marched away with Miller walking placidly beside her.
“Where on earth did Jeannine Phillips find that piece of work?” Ernie Carpenter wanted to know.
“I believe she fell off the rodeo circuit,” Joanna replied. “She used to be a barrel racer.”
“Figures,” Ernie said disapprovingly. “Women like that are always a handful.”
That parting remark might have been a lot funnier if Joanna hadn’t taken it so personally. Not only did she suspect it was absolutely true, there was something else that bothered her. Her very own daughter, fourteen-year-old Jenny, had her own heart set on the world of rodeo. Being sheriff was hard work, but it was easier for Joanna to discuss murder and mayhem than it was to consider her daughter’s plans for the future.
“Come on,” Joanna said, climbing into the Yukon’s passenger seat, where she immediately fastened her seat belt. “Let’s go take a look at that dead body.”
CHAPTER 3
As they drove away from the gate,Joanna was still thinking about Jenny and her rodeo-riding ambitions when Ernie brought her back to the case.
“I left Deb with the witness,” Ernie said.
“What witness?” Joanna asked. “The man who found the body?”
“Seems like a pretty squared-away guy. His name’s Maury Robbins. He’s a 911 operator from Tucson, and he’s also an all-terrain vehicle enthusiast. He comes down here on his days off whenever he can. What he told me is that he drove down late last night after his shift ended. He got here about three A.M. The gate was open, but he didn’t think that much about it. He drove on in, set up his Jayco-”
“His what?” Joanna asked.
“His Jayco. It’s one of those little pop-up camper things. He carries his ATV in the bed of his pickup truck and drags the camper along behind.”
“So there’s an actual campsite here?”
“Yes, but it’s pretty primitive,” Ernie replied. “No concrete pads, no running water. People have to haul in their own water and the only facilities turn out to be a few strategically located Porta Pottis. Maury’s camper has its own facilities. News to me. The Jayco I had years ago sure as hell didn’t.”
Joanna smiled to herself. When she had first arrived on the scene, Ernie had apologized whenever he used a bad word around her. She liked the fact that they had both moved beyond that. And right now, Joanna wasn’t especially interested in either Ernie’s language or his old camper.
“So this is private property?” she asked. “Action Trail Adventures isn’t situated on state or federally owned land?”
“Yes,” Ernie said. “That’s my understanding. It’s privately owned. Robbins told me he pays an annual fee that gives him access through a card-activated gate. That way he can let himself in or out as needed. There’s also a keypad where you can punch in an entry code to open the gate.”
“Anyway,” Ernie continued, “Robbins got in last night. This morning, when he took his ATV out for a ride, he found the body lying facedown in the sand with the dog standing guard over it. Once we finally managed to drag the dog away, Robbins was able to take a closer look at the victim and give us a tentative ID. He says the guy’s first name is Lester. He had no idea about his last name, or any next of kin, either.”
“Lester’s last name is Attwood,” Joanna said, but she was thinking about the number of times so-called good citizens calling in reports of a homicide turned out to be perpetrators.
“Do you think Mr. Robbins might be involved in whatever happened here?” she asked.
Ernie shook his head. “Not to my way of thinking. At any rate, as you said, the name we got back from Animal Control on the dog’s license is Lester Attwood. According to Records, Attwood’s driver’s license is suspended. His rap sheet shows six DUIs, two criminal assaults, two driving without a license.”
“So we’ve got a photo then?”
“On the computer,” Ernie said. “Not one I can print right now. Any idea when Dr. Machett will bother getting his butt out here?”
“All I can tell you is that he’s on his way,” Joanna said.
“I’m not holding my breath,” Ernie grumbled. “He always takes his own sweet time about getting to a crime scene, and we’re left standing with one foot in the air until he does.”
&n
bsp; Following a fairly smooth gravel road, the Yukon wound down into a steep wash. When they roared up the far side, they came out on the boundary of a breathtaking landscape. Even though Joanna had been warned about them in advance, seeing the tawny-colored dunes in person took her by surprise. Starting with a line of demarcation just to the left of the gravel, the dunes stretched off into the distance in a series of rounded hills. Here and there the rippled surface of the sand was marred by a series of tire tracks.
Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, Ernie swung the Yukon off the road and into the dunes along a course that included several of those tracks. Even with four-wheel drive, he had to maintain a fair amount of speed to keep from getting bogged down.
As they jolted along, Joanna checked her seat belt and then held on to her armrest. “How can this be?” she said over the laboring sound of the engine. “I’ve lived here all my life and never knew these dunes were here!”
“Think about Kartchner Caverns,” Ernie replied. “Lots of people knew about that before it ever came out in public. This is all on private property. As far as I know, it’s only been open to ATVers in the last few years. Now that I think about it, I think some environmental group or other was trying to buy it up a few years back, but the owner wouldn’t sell.”
Kartchner Caverns, a series of limestone caverns on the far side of Benson, was Cochise County’s most recent tourism hot spot. The caves had been discovered in the late seventies by a pair of hikers who had been exploring the countryside at the base of the Whetstone Mountains. When they had first located and started exploring the caverns, they were located on private land owned by a family named Kartchner. It had taken another ten years to make arrangements to transfer the property to the state of Arizona and turn it into a state park people could actually come visit. Now Kartchner Caverns is a genuine tourist home run. Joanna wondered if something similar was going on with Action Trail Adventures. People in the ATV community seemed to know all about it. No one else did.
Is that what this murder is all about? Joanna wondered. Have we wandered into some kind of environmental range war?
The Yukon crested a dune. In the cleft between that dune and the next, Joanna caught sight of the crime scene. The debris field included an upright ATV as well as a second one that had been tipped over onto its side. Yards away from the vehicles in a tangle of tire tracks lay something that, from this distance, might have been a pile of loose laundry.
The victim, Joanna thought. “Stop for a minute, please,” she said to Ernie. “Let me take a look from here.”
Ernie stopped abruptly, allowing a towering plume of dust to blow past them. When it cleared, Joanna could see the victim again. He looked like a crumpled rag doll, lying facedown in sand. Around him ranged a complex scribble of vehicle tracks that resembled the Etch-a-Sketch doodlings of some giant-sized child.
Joanna glanced at her detective. “So what do you think happened?” she asked.
Ernie shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “It looks to me like several vehicles were involved.”
“And several people?”
Ernie nodded. “We’ve got tracks of that one wrecked ATV and at least two others, four-wheel-drive pickups, most likely, one with dual rear tires. I’m guessing the dead guy rode up on the wrecked ATV right through there.”
Ernie pointed casually off to his left, where a pair of tracks emerged from the cleft between the dunes and then disappeared into the tumult of disturbed sand.
“Once he got here, I’m guessing there was an altercation of some kind. There may have been some gunfire.”
“What makes you say that?”
“For one thing, somebody evidently took a shot at the dog. There’s an empty scabbard on the ATV. I doubt the owner would have shot his own dog. But if there are weapons or shell casings out here, we’ll need metal detectors to find them.”
“Okay, so all these guys meet up. What do you think happened next?”
“At some point, I think, our victim, the guy on the ATV, may have tried to leave. One of the larger vehicles T-boned him and knocked him ass over teakettle. Once the victim was on foot, the other guys ran him down. Not just once, either-several times over.”
“Sounds cold-blooded,” Joanna said.
Ernie nodded. “It was cold-blooded. I suspect he died from internal injuries. Machett should be able to tell us for sure, if and when he bothers to show up.”
Despite being in agreement with Ernie’s disparaging remark about Dr. Machett, Joanna let it pass. “What about that single track?” she asked, pointing to a track in the sand that disappeared over the top of the next dune. “The one that leads off to the right from the body?”
“Looks to me like the dog made that one, either going or coming or maybe both,” Ernie said. “The bad guys probably ran him off, but he came back as soon as the coast was clear. I have to give the damned dog credit,” the detective added grudgingly. “Even though he’d been shot, he was downright fierce about not letting any of us near that body. After he offered to tear me limb from limb, I was a little surprised to see Natalie Wilson with him on a leash, walking around just as nice as you please.”
Which is why you work homicide and she’s animal control, Joanna thought.
She studied the expanse of disrupted sand around the body. “You said you thought one of the vehicles had dual tires. How do you know that?”
“This isn’t the shortest way to and from the gate, but it’s the most passable. If you look carefully, you can see the dips left in the sand by the dual wheels even though you can’t make out the treads on the tire.”
Joanna looked down and saw that he was right. The tracks were there, but the fine grade of the sand left behind no visible tread.
“The victim didn’t bother following the road when he came here, and he didn’t take a direct route from the gate, either,” Ernie said. “It looks to me like he approached the scene by zigzagging in and out between the dunes.”
“Trying to stay out of sight, maybe?” Joanna asked.
Ernie nodded. “Could be,” he said.
“In other words,” Joanna said, “it’s possible the victim realized something was amiss and came out to investigate.”
“Maybe,” Ernie agreed.
“What about the trailer back by the gate?” Joanna asked. “Any sign of breaking and entering?”
“Lots,” Ernie said. “The front door is smashed and the inside is a mess. No way to tell from looking at it if anything was taken. We’ll need to dust it for prints, but with Casey away at that conference, that’s problematic. Jaime said he can collect the prints, but we won’t be able to run them through AFIS until Casey gets back.”
Jaime Carbajal was Joanna’s third homicide detective. It was unusual to have Joanna’s entire homicide unit focused on only one case, but for right now she was glad that was possible.
“By the way, where is Jaime?” Joanna wanted to know.
“I asked him to stop off and pick up a search warrant for the trailer.”
“But the guy who lived there is dead…” Joanna began.
“I know, I know,” Ernie replied. “But what if he isn’t the owner? What if the trailer actually belongs to Action Trail? The owners of that might have an objection.”
“What are you thinking?” Joanna asked.
“Look,” Ernie said, “I know this is all supposition on my part, but what if Action Trail Adventures is being used as a cover for a drug-smuggling operation? Maybe the victim was in on it; maybe he wasn’t. But supposing we end up finding out that the owners of Action Trail Adventures are somehow involved in what went on. We’d better be damned sure we have a valid search warrant in hand before we ever set foot inside that trailer. Otherwise, whatever we find there could end up being ruled as inadmissable.”
“Good point,” Joanna said.
“And I noticed what looked like the remains of a surveillance camera near the gate,” Ernie added. “The killers probably took that down as they were l
eaving.”
“Makes sense to me,” Joanna said. “But if there’s a camera, there’s probably also a tape. We need to find that, too.”
“Yes, we do,” Ernie asked. “Seen enough?”
“I think so,” Joanna said. “Let’s go talk with your witness.”
I’m just an ordinary guy, and it’s taken me a lifetime to learn that we all exist in a world of unintended consequences. For me that’s more than just a slogan. It’s life itself. My unmarried mother had no intention of getting pregnant with me, but she did. And when her fiance, my father, died in a motorcycle accident prior to my birth, my mother had choices. Even though abortions were illegal back then, she could probably have found a way to make one happen, but she didn’t. And she could have given me up for adoption, but she didn’t do that, either. In spite of her family’s opposition, she had me and raised me and, if you ask me, she did a damned fine job of it, too.
I lost Karen, my first wife, twice. The first time was as a result of the divorce and that was an unintended consequence of my years of drinking. I usually claim it was caused by working and drinking, but you need to consider the source. That’s how alcoholics work. Even when we finally sober up, we try to rationalize things away and minimize the impact our love affair with the bottle had on ourselves and the people around us. When I lost Karen the second time, it was to cancer. Not my fault. I didn’t cause it, and I like to think that, before she died, I managed to make amends for some of the heartache I caused her, and I’m very fortunate to have lived long enough to have a chance to get back in my kids’ lives.
And then there’s Anne Corley, my second wife. When I think of Anne now, I can still see her, striding purposefully through that cemetery on Queen Anne Hill in her bright red dress. And that’s pretty much all I remember, and maybe it’s better that way. Of course, I was still drinking then, so a lot of my forgetfulness may be due to booze, but there’s no arguing with the fact that what happened between us in the course of those next few dizzying days was astonishing-both astonishingly good and astonishingly bad. Thrown together, we were a fire that burned too hot and bright to last-like the brilliant flash from a dying lightbulb just before it goes black.
