“But, Sheriff,” Mr. Soda Can objected. “Youse weren’t here when it happened, so youse didn’t see it, but yeste’day when them people came after us, we wus nothin’ but a bunch of sittin’ ducks. They could’a creamed us.”
“Could have, but they didn’t,” Joanna pointed out. “And in case you haven’t heard, several of those demonstrators ended up spending the night courtesy of Cochise County. Some were arrested for simple assault; others for assault with a deadly weapon. So listen up. If anyone here goes after demonstrators with guns, the same thing will happen to you. You’ll end up in jail-at least overnight-and you’ll lose your weapons besides. You can count on the fact that, if you happen to be arrested by one of my deputies, your weapons will be confiscated and you won’t be getting them back anytime soon. Understood?”
No one spoke aloud. For an answer, Joanna had to content herself with a series of grudging nods.
“All right, then,” she said. “Which way to find my deputy?”
“Bitch,” Bob Evans muttered under his breath. “I hope you go to hell.”
She looked back at him and smiled. “Not today,” she said. “For right now, I only have to go as far as the barbed-wire fence. See you in my office, Mr. Evans. Either late this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning. You might want to call, though, first. Just to be sure the little lady is in.”
Back in her vehicle, Joanna breathed a sigh of relief as she switched on the ignition. As soon as the Blazer was in motion, she reached for her radio. “Patch me through to Dick Voland,” she told the dispatcher.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“We’ve got a big problem out at Oak Vista,” she told him. Over the next several minutes, she brought him up-to-date. “We’ve got to have people out here,” she urged as she finished. “If the demonstrators show up again today, they’ll be walking into an armed camp. They’re likely to be met with a hail of bullets. As I said, I don’t know how many more guns are involved over and above the one I took off Rob Evans, but I’m willing to bet money that he isn’t the only one who came to work today packing a weapon.”
“Do you think Mark Childers encouraged it?”
“He sure as hell didn’t discourage it,” Joanna replied. “Which means in effect that he’s fomenting a modern-day range-war-type mentality where people are going to get hurt and/or killed.”
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“Not yet. According to his work crew, he’s in town having a long lunch. I wasn’t going to bother hanging around here and waiting for him, but now I think I’d better. In the meantime, I want you to assemble that squad of deputies. Take them from whatever sectors you have to. Since demonstrators showed up around quitting time yesterday, we should have our people here no later than two. That way, if there is going to be trouble, they’ll already be on site.”
“Great,” Voland said. “By the way, have you talked to Deputy Gregovich yet?”
“Not so far. I was just on my way to look for him. According to Childers’ work crew, Terry’s out here somewhere, but I haven’t managed to spot him yet. What about Ernie and Jaime? I don’t suppose they’ve found any trace of Farley Adams.”
“Nope,” Voland told her. “The last I heard, Carpenter and Carbajal were both still over in Tombstone. But I do have a little bit of good luck to report. Jaime’s in charge of the crew working Farley Adams’ mobile home at Outlaw Mountain. About an hour ago, one of his investigators opened the dishwasher. Guess what?”
“They found a dead body inside?” Joanna suggested.
“Ha, ha!” Voland said without humor. “The dishwasher was full of dirty dishes. The guy forgot to run it.”
A jolt of excitement coursed through Joanna’s body. “If he forgot to turn on the dishwasher,” she said, “does that mean he also forgot to wipe the dishes for prints?”
“You’ve got it,” Voland told her. “Once the techs finish dusting the dirty dishes, we should have a good set of prints-a complete set-to input into AFIS.”
“Great. While we’re on the subject of Alice Rogers, you might let Ernie know that I’ve spoken to Dr. Daly up in Tucson. She’s got some preliminary autopsy information for him that she’ll be faxing down to us. He’ll want to stay on top of it.”
“Daly says it’s murder then?” Voland asked.
“Looks like. The Pima County detectives continue to hang tight to their neat little theory that Alice Rogers got herself falling-down drunk and then went staggering off into that grove of cactus to die, helped along by a convenient bunch of teenaged car thieves. From what I’ve seen of Hank Lazier, he may not let the facts get in the way of his pet theory. That’s why I want Ernie and Jaime to keep after it.”
“They already are,” Dick said. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to convince them otherwise.”
Just then Joanna came to the end of the newly bladed road. Across an expanse of tinder-dry, knee-high grass she could see an old firebreak meandering off to the right along a drooping barbed-wire fence that evidently marked the boundary of the Oak Vista development. With the Blazer already in four-wheel drive, Joanna bounced easily across the intervening desert and turned north on the old dirt firebreak. It was rough, slow going. Joanna was grateful she was behind the wheel of the Blazer rather driving the lower-slung Civvy.
Half a mile north, she topped a slight rise and had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a white Subaru Legacy parked directly in her path. Had the circumstances been different, she might have simply assumed that the car belonged to a hiker off on a day-long jaunt in the Huachucas. Considering the ongoing problems at Oak Vista, however, Joanna couldn’t afford to ignore the possible threat of that parked vehicle. She had just told Dick Voland that the demonstrators probably wouldn’t show up at the job site much before quitting time. Now, though, she wondered if, in fact, some of them weren’t already there and wandering around undetected.
Using her radio, Joanna ran a check on the license plate. The results came back with gratifying speed.
“The car belongs to Elvira and Luther Hollenbeck,” the records clerk told her. “The address listed is 6855 Paseo San Andreas in Tucson.”
“The Hollenbecks didn’t happen to get picked up along with the rest of our crew of born-again monkey wrenchers yesterday, did they?” Joanna asked.
“No,” the clerk said. “I don’t see anything at all at that address in Tucson. No police or criminal activity, anyway. There’ve been several nine-one-one calls, but those all turned out to be medical emergencies of one kind or another. The last one was three months ago.”
While Joanna had the Records clerk on the line, she asked for any available information on Rob Evans as well. That check, too, came up empty.
After Joanna finished with Records, she sat for the better part of a minute staring at the Legacy. Although there was nothing to say that Elvira and Luther Hollenbeck were connected to the monkey wrenchers, there was nothing that said they weren’t, either.
Keeping one hand on her Colt and holding her breath, Joanna exited the Blazer and made her way to the driver’s side of the Subaru. Only when she discovered both the front and back seats to be empty did she take another breath.
She returned to the Blazer and to her radio. “Dispatch,” she said. “Try to raise Deputy Gregovich for me.”
Moments later, Terry’s voice came hiccuping through the radio. There was so much static in the transmission that he might have been in Timbuktu rather than a mile or so away. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?” he asked.
“Have you been on the firebreak this morning?”
“I’ve been up and down it two or three times. Spike and I have been going around the perimeter to make sure no one tries to come in via the back door.”
“I think someone has come in that way now anyway,” Joanna said. “I drove due west from the construction shack to where the road ends. I’m about half a mile north of there now, parked behind an empty Subaru Legacy that’s sitting in the middle of the road.”