“Yes,” Joanna said. “I understand. Later on this evening, when Detective Carpenter gets back to town, he and I may need to come back out to the house to see you and Mr. O^’Brien.^”

“‘That’ll be fine,” Katherine said. “We’ll be home.”

She left then. Joanna turned back to the lab. Inside, the discarded bag lay on the floor and George Winfield was in the process of draping a sheet over the naked body. He looked up at Joanna. “Is there something else?” he asked.

“What do you think about her?” Joanna asked, nodding toward the door.

“You mean about Katherine O’Brien?”

Joanna nodded. “She may have been a nurse once, but how could she be so cool, so calculating?”

“Shock affects different people different ways,” George replied. “Some people collapse in hysterics. For others, it’s just the opposite.”

“Oh,” Joanna said. Instead of leaving, though, she stood there lost in thought, considering the many mystifying faces of Katherine O’Brien. Was her surprising reaction to her daughter’s death shock, as George suggested, or was it something else entirely?

“Is that all?” George asked at last as if impatient to be rid of Joanna so he could go on with his work.

The question startled Joanna out of her contemplation and back into the present. “When you do the autopsy, be sure you check to see whether or not Brianna was raped.”

Winfield nodded. “That’s all part of the autopsy protocol-looking for semen, hairs, and other evidence of rape.” The coroner paused. “You think she might have been?” he asked. “Of course, given the fact she was naked, it’s certainly possible.”

Joanna nodded.

“And if she was,” George added wearily, “I suppose her father won’t want to know about that any more than he would about the earring.”

“You’re right,” Joanna said, closing the door behind her and leaving George Winfield to deal with his grisly tasks. “I don’t suppose he would.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Joanna left the coroner’s office at five. The rain had finally let up by then, but when she got to High Lonesome Ranch, the creek beds were still running too deep for her to risk crossing them even with four-wheel drive. Instead, famished now and feeling filthy as well, she headed back to town.

She considered going to her mother’s place but quickly decided against it. She wasn’t yet ready to walk into Eleanor Lathrop’s house and encounter George Winfield’s shaving kit on the bathroom counter. And she wasn’t ready to discuss it, either. Instead, she drove to her in-laws’ duplex on Oliver Circle, where she could be relatively sure of her welcome.

Stopping the Eagle in front of the Bradys’ walkway, she stepped out into the cool, rain-freshened air and realized that the smell of deteriorating flesh was still with her-still clinging to her hair and clothing and to the car’s upholstery as well. Hoping time and open windows would help, she rolled them all down before going inside. When Sadie had gotten into a skunk once, Andy had used one of his mother’s time-honored remedies^-he had washed the dog in tomato juice. Maybe Eva Lou will have to do the same thing to me, Joanna thought grimly, climbing the steps.

If Joanna’s mother-in-law noticed the odor, it wasn’t apparent in Eva Lou’s greeting when she opened the door. “Why, Joanna,” she said, her face beaming in welcome. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“Hoping to bum a meal, a shower, and use of your washer,” Joanna said sheepishly. “I’ve spent all day at a crime scene. I’m a mess and need a shower in the worst way. I tried to go home to clean up, but the washes out at the ranch are still running. So I came here to throw myself on your mercy.”

“Why, of course,^” Eva Lou agreed. “You come on inside and make yourself at home. I saved you some leftovers, and it won’t take any time at all to run those clothes of yours through the wash. You can wear my robe in the meantime.”

By the time Joanna was out of the shower, the washer was running full steam and a plate of microwaved chicken dinner was waiting for her on the kitchen table. Beside it sat a platter stacked with mouthwatering slices of ruby-red tomatoes fresh from Jim Bob’s garden.

“The gravy came out a little too thick today for some reason,” Eva Lou apologized, hovering as Joanna took her first bite of mashed potatoes.

“The gravy,” Joanna declared, savoring that first mouthful, “is absolutely scrumptious.”

Jim Bob poured himself a cup of decaf and wandered over to the table. “Did I hear you say you’ve spent all day on a crime scene?”

When Andy had signed on as a Cochise County deputy sheriff, his father had taken on the unofficial role of the department^’s Monday morning quarterback. Retired from his job as a foreman in Bisbee’s copper mines, Jim Bob Brady had enjoyed backstopping his son’s handling of various cases, analyzing what had worked and what had gone wrong, making suggestions that were based on common sense rather than proper police procedures. Now that his widowed daughter-in-law had assumed the job of sheriff, Jim Bob was at it again.

Had Joanna’s mother been the one asking those kinds of probing questions, Joanna most likely would have felt Eleanor was prying. With Jim Bob, though, it was… well, different.

“A possible crime scene,” Joanna corrected. “In Skeleton Canyon. At this point it could still go either way-as an accident or as a homicide.”

“Anybody we know?” Jim Bob asked.

Katherine O’Brien had already positively identified her daughter’s body. There was no need to withhold information pending notification of next of kin. “You may know her,” Joanna answered. “The victim’s name is Brianna O’Brien.”

Eva Lou paled visibly upon hearing the name. “Not that nice girl who was valedictorian of the senior class!” she exclaimed.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“What happened?” Jim Bob asked.

“Brianna was evidently out in the Peloncillos east of Douglas four-wheeling it. Sometime over the weekend, she went off a chit. It turns out my friend Angie Kellogg was out there, too, hiking and bird-watching with a friend of hers. The friend is the one who actually discovered the body. In the process of notifying us, though, Angie herself got lost. When Doc Winfield and I left the mountains to bring the body back to town, Search and Rescue was still looking for Angie.”

“You mean to tell me that poor girl was out there all by herself, walking around in that awful storm’?” Jim Bob asked. “I have two-point-six inches showing in my rain gauge right here in the yard. No telling what it was like in the mountains. Some places around are reporting more than that-up to three inches in Sierra Vista. And it said on the news a little while ago that Tucson is a mess, too, with flooded streets and power outages all over town.”

Jim Bob’s unwelcome weather report went straight to the heart of Joanna’s own guilt where Angie was concerned. And Jenny, too, for that matter, staying up on Mount Lemmon in Camp Whispering Pines’ canvas-topped cabins. Joanna pushed her chair back and started for the phone. “I should probably call the department and check in. Hopefully they’ve found Angie by now. I’ve been driving the Eagle all day, so I’ve been without a radio.”

“You stay right where you are,” Eva Lou ordered. “You can call after you finish eating.”

Obeying Eva Lou’s edict, Joanna settled back onto her chair, but from then on, with Angie foremost in her mind, even Eva Lou’s crisp chicken and Jim Bob’s juicy hand-grown tomatoes had a cardboard taste to them. Whatever had happened to Angie, it was all Joanna’s fault.

While his daughter-in-law ate, Jim Bob sat quietly nearby thoughtfully sipping his coffee.

When the food was gone and with her now-clean clothes transferred to the dryer, Joanna helped herself to the Brady’s kitchen wall phone. “What’s the latest?” she asked after identifying herself to the duty clerk.