At the base of the hill, Interstate 5 bisects the city. As we rounded the circular driveway and drove past a gurgling fountain, I could imagine Homer and Darrell sipping cocktails and watching the freeway turn to a parking lot each evening as commuters tried to go home. “W...
Lowering clouds blanketed the Mule Mountains in southeastern Arizona. It was the last day of August. The summer monsoons had arrived early and stayed on, leaving the desert grassland valleys of Cochise County lush and green. A flash of lightning off toward the east roused ...
"Which way?" she demanded. "Ask him which way." Frank relayed the question. "Toward the pass," Kries answered. "Up Road Three-Seven-One, Redington Road, almost to Piety Hill." "Can you find that on the map, Frank?" Joanna asked. "It's right here," h...
Her best friend, Reverend Marianne Maculyea, was standing on the sidewalk, grinning at her. “Hey,” she said when Joanna opened the window. “Your eyes were open, but you were a million miles away.” “I was,” Joanna conceded. “It’s been a tough couple of days.” “You are going to the gala tonight,” M...
By the time class was out for the evening, Joanna was more than ready. On the way back to her room, Joanna stopped by the lounge long enough to buy a diet Coke from the vending machine and to make a few phone calls from the pay phone. The soda was more rewarding than the p...
Joanna couldn’t help thinking that if skeletal remains were all that was left of Wanda, there wouldn’t be much for her mother to see. “You may not be able to do that,” she warned instead. “Today is Sunday. There’s a good chance Dr. Winfield, our medical examiner, won’t be ...
"Could I interest anyone in some cocoa and toast?" she asked. “How about it?" Joanna asked. Jenny nodded. "Okay," she said. On her way to the kitchen, Joanna stopped at the telephone long enough to try calling Butch one more time. Once again, rather than reaching her husband, she found herself co...
Jenny said as she climbed into the Blazer. “I know you don’t like me fighting, but I couldn’t help it. They made me so mad!” “I’m the one who should be sorry,” Joanna returned. “I should have told you that Butch had asked me to marry him, Jenny. I never should have left yo...
The woman was crying and so were all three kids. Barely able to hear over the din, and despite having left her coat on the chair inside Andrea’s office, Ali stepped outside. A frigid breeze had kicked up, blowing down off the mountains to the west. Ali huddled against the building while she waite...
The grieving widow or widower knows generally what is expected, and other people have some idea of what they should say or do and how they, too, should behave. If you’re divorced and a former spouse dies, all those rules go out the window. Months after my husband’s death, I was on the opposite si...
Preoccupied with the dogs, the boy looked up when he realized Ali was pulling in to a hotel parking lot. “Hey,” he said. “I thought you told me we were going to Austin. To the hospital. I thought you said I’d get to see Lance.” “Sorry,” Ali replied. “There’s been a slight change of plans. It turn...
87º Fahrenheit When Brandon returned to the house in Gates Pass, he pulled into the garage and parked his CRV next to Diana’s hulking Tampico red Buick Invicta convertible. She had told him just that morning that she intended to sell it—that she wanted him to take it up to Barrett Jackson, the co...
It was wonderful to have their lives back again. By now the in-laws from hell should be past the New Mexico border and well into Texas. As she walked out to the garage, Butch was happily hauling his laptop out of its in-office exile and back onto the kitchen table, where he preferred to work. And...
Even though she had tried to warn them of the attack, they thought she had betrayed them. And so the council changed her name and said that from that time on she would be called Betraying Woman—Gagdathag O’oks. Young Man had been badly hurt when the women beat him. They c...
I also tried calling Lars and Beverly. When there was no answer at their place, I left a message on their machine saying I was thinking about them. Then I took a shower and put on clean clothes. A little over an hour later, when I opened the door in answer to Mel’s ring, she walked into my apartm...
“Detective Capenter is on the line,” Kristin announced. “What gives?” Joanna asked, picking up the phone. “Are you bringing Nettleton in?” “Sending him,” Carpenter replied. “Nettleton, that is. Detective Carbajal picked him up for transport just a w...
Because it was very hot and dry, the first thing the hunters needed to find was water. In some mountains with very steep slopes they came upon a hollow shaded by mesquite trees, and in this hollow was a pool of water. There was a rock in the middle of the pool and on it sat a coyote. ...
I was in a cemetery, a cold, wind- and rainswept cemetery, not a real one, and not one I’d ever seen before. Across a wide expanse of grass, I could see a wooden casket poised over a newly dug grave, waiting to be lowered into it. Around the grave a group of men, some leaning on picks and shovels...
Back in our cubicle, I finished my part of the paperwork and rested my head on my hands while I waited for Al to complete his. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping the fatigue would somehow magically disappear. It didn’t, and for good reason. A glance at the clock on the ...
X. McRory’s on Occidental Street. Peters got off on the right foot by buying a bottle of champagne. “All right, you closemouthed bastard,” he said, raising his glass, “now that I’m a party to this little romance, you’d better tell me about her.” I didn’t need to be asked twice. I hadn’t had a cha...
When Ali looked inside the vehicle, she could see that Victor took up more than half of the front seat, with the steering wheel grazing his ample belly. Helga, on the other hand, was so tiny that once Ali settled into the backseat, the top of the diminutive attorney’s hairdo didn’t clear the head...
Sasha Miller wanted to know. “You’ve been like on the moon for days.”A.J., who had been dozing with his head on the Camry’s headrest, opened his eyes and looked at his girlfriend of three months. After two mostly sleepless nights, the warmth of the sun-filled car had lulled him. His peanut-butter...
This one had been recently painted. Someone had taken a Weed Eater and mowed down the grass and weeds around the house. Partially visible behind the house was a redwood kids’ play structure, complete with a canvas cover. I don’t know how much those things cost in dollars and cents, but I helped m...
He was carrying a tray with three cups and one of those French press coffeepots where you have to lower a screened plunger through the hot water and squeeze the coffee grounds at the bottom of the pot. I prefer Mr. Coffee any day. “Oh, no,” he said. “Not Planning and Zoning again. It’s a very lon...
At midnight I awakened Ralph Ames out of a sound sleep. It served him right. “What time is it?” he grumbled. “And why are you calling me at whatever ungodly hour it is!” “I need your help, Ralph. Come get me.” “Come get you! You’re not due to be out for another two weeks. Besides, what’s the matt...
“We’ve been nailed but good, haven’t we?” he said. “No doubt about it. What do we do now?”That was a switch—a real first—Ralph Ames asking me for advice. “Don’t do anything until I get back, except try to keep her from skipping town. By the way, where is she now?” I asked.“Back at Live Oak Farm, ...
WHEN I opened my eyes again, that was the first thing I noticed. The second one was that I was “feeling no pain,” as they say, so the drugs were evidently doing what they were supposed to do. I was apparently in the recovery room. Nurses in flowery scrubs hovered in the ba...
The winter rains had been more than generous this year, and this part of the Sonoran desert, Soza Canyon on the far eastern edge of the Rincon Mountains, was alive with flowers. Scrawny, suntanned, and weathered, Amos was more than middle-aged and still remarkably fit. Even so, the sixty or seve...
Frank Montoya said the next morning as he entered Joanna’s office for the daily briefing, which would include the previous day’s skipped briefing as well. It helped that Joanna had gotten a decent night’s sleep for a change. She had come home to find Butch and Jenny both e...
She was amazed by the intensity of the anger she felt toward her mother. She wanted to go back out into the kitchen and scream at Eleanor to get down off the damn ladder and leave her kitchen the hell alone. But that had never been her way where Eleanor was concerned. Instead, following her fathe...
Janice Morraine took it from me, glanced inside, then closed it back up. “Thanks,” she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste at the smell. “Where’d this come from, a dry cleaners?” “A Damm Fine Carpets van,” I replied. “You do...
U’uwhig—the Birds—had all gone away to a distant water hole, so they were not there to help their friends, the Desert People. Many of the Tohono O’othham were killed, among them many women and children. Tho’ag—the Mountain—felt so bad when so many of his friends were being...
Not likely, Joanna thought. She’d had previous dealings with Wally Hickman in a case that had reflected badly on one of the governor’s former partners. With that in mind, she doubted the governor would be eager to return her phone call—no matter how urgent. The surface of ...
The detective still worried about the gun. "You shouldn't do this, you know," he said. "Do what, wear a gun, protect myself? Why not?" "For one thing, if somebody gets shot with that thing, chances are it won't be Andrew Carlisle. In an armed confro...
Taking the warrant with her, Joanna headed for the conference room, where the entire team was already assembled. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and expectant, they watched as she walked to the front of the room and took her place at the lectern. “Good morning,” she said. “We’ve got to stop meeting li...
I was fine while we drove to her house to pick up a copy of her “shelf list.” But after that, on the way back to Belltown Terrace in downtown Seattle, I fell off the cliff. Once upon a time I could do all-nighters. I used to be able to go without sleep for seemingly days on end without it botheri...