Joanna, gasping for breath and coughing her lungs out, fell to her hands and knees. When the Buick went up, she heard it go and felt the sudden burst of heat, but she didn’t see it. Then there were hands on her shoulders, pulling her up.
“Are you all right, Joanna?” Dick Voland asked.
“I’m fine,” she choked. “It’s just the smoke…”
He took her firmly by the arm. “Come on. We’ve called for the rangers. They’re bringing fire-fighting equipment, so we’d better get out of the way.”
Back at the Blazer, Joanna stood for a moment looking up at the burning car. “We’ve loaded Morgan into the rear of your vehicle,” Voland said. “Can you drive, or do you want me to?”
“Morgan?” Joanna asked, not quite understanding. “Hal Morgan? You mean you found him, too?”
Voland looked down at her. “Didn’t you see him? He was the guy we pulled out of the trunk.”
All Joanna could do was shake her head. And when she reached for the door handle, there was no strength left in her hands. Voland opened the door for her. “I’ll get in on the other side,” she said. “You’d better drive.”
Helping her along as though she were an invalid, Voland led her around the vehicle and lifted her into the passenger seat. Then he jogged back and jumped into the driver’s seat.
“You realize that if you’d been even thirty seconds later, Morgan would have bought it. How the hell did you manage to get that damned trunk open?”
Joanna looked across the seat. Against an orange back-drop, her chief deputy’s face stood out in sharp relief. Even through the choking coughs, Joanna could see the concern and compassion written there. She had also heard the pride in his voice. It was easy to see how someone like Ruth Voland might read something into that look that wasn’t there.
“I don’t know,” Joanna returned, then lapsed into yet another fit of shuddering coughs.
She turned around and looked at Hal Morgan. His legs were still tied, but his hands were free. Part of a duct-tape gag was still stuck to his face. He, too, was coughing and choking, trying to clear the bitter, chemical-laced smoke out of his lungs. There were dozens of questions she wanted to ask, but those would have to wait-until they both stopped coughing.
Fortunately, the single tree that had caught fire was far enough from its neighbors that no other trees burned with it. That was partially due to the fact that the fire truck and rangers were there within minutes and were able to keep the flames from spreading. Directed by the rangers, a contingent of deputies helped deal with the fire. Once it was out, they settled down to await the arrival of the canine unit. Meanwhile, at a turnoff two miles back down the road, Joanna Brady and Dick Voland finally had a chance to interview Hal Morgan. He was bruised and battered from being knocked around in the trunk, but other than that, he seemed fine.
“How did it happen?” she asked.
Morgan shook his head. “I’m not sure. Stupidity, I guess. I spent the afternoon in my room working on my laptop. Ever since Bonnie died, I’ve been keeping a journal, thinking that someday I might want to try having it published. I was expecting Father McCrady around seven or so. He was seeing friends earlier. We were going to go have a late dinner together, but time got away from me. That happens sometimes when I’m writing. When I realized how late it was, I dashed into the shower. I was in the bathroom just finishing putting on my clothes when someone came bursting into the room.”
“Into the bathroom?” Joanna asked.
“That’s right,” Hal said. “It caught me completely off guard. The door hit me square on the shoulder and pitched me all the way into the tub. Headfirst. It’s a wonder I didn’t break my neck. Before I had a chance to get my legs back on the floor, something jabbed me in the butt. That’s the last I remember.” “
“Jabbed you. Like a needle, you mean?”
Hal nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “It felt like a bee sting. Whatever it was, it knocked me for a loop. I don’t re-member a thing after that until a little while ago, when I woke up in the trunk smelling smoke. You had a guard on me, Sheriff Brady. How did this guy get past the deputy?”
“Cold-cocked her with a beer bottle,” Dick Voland said gruffly. “You say guy. Did you see your attacker?”
“No.”
“How do you know it was a guy?”
“Because of the way the door hit me. There was real power behind it. Not only that, whoever did it must have lugged me out to the car.”
Voland nodded. “I see what you mean,” he said. “What about the suicide note?” he added.
Morgan looked puzzled. “Suicide note? What suicide note?”
“We one we found on the computer screen in your room.”
Hal Morgan shook his head. “I never wrote anything of the kind,” he said.
Joanna turned to Dick Voland. “Who does our composites?”
“We never do composites.”
“We’re doing one now,” Joanna said. “Call up to Tucson and check with both Tucson P.D. and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. Find out who does theirs and see what it would cost to have him or her come down tomorrow. We’ll have him go to the hospital and get one from Deputy Long, and then we’ll take him out to Elfrida and get one from the clerk in the gas station and from anyone else who may have seen the man.”
“You want to do that on Saturday?” Voland objected. “That’ll cost a fortune. I thought there was a budget crunch.”
“There is,” Joanna said. “Since it’s a kidnapping, we could always call in the Feds…”
“No, no,” Voland agreed quickly. “I’ll do it.”
For a moment, the three people shut inside Joanna’s idling Blazer were quiet.
“It’s a frame, isn’t it,” Hal Morgan said at last. “Whoever killed Bucky Buckwalter figured you’d blame me. When it didn’t work the first time because that girl dragged me out of the barn, the killer decided to try again. This time with a phony suicide note. The only thing that saved me is the fact that the Buick burned oil like it was going out of style.” He looked questioningly at Joanna. “Would you have fallen for it?”
“I’d like to think my people are better investigators than that,” she said. “Unfortunately, there’s always a chance it might have worked.”
“Will he try again?”
Dick Voland was the one who answered that question. “I’d give that one a definite yes. Obviously we can’t take you back to the Rest Inn. Does anyone have a better idea?”
After some discussion, they finally decided to call on Father McCrady. One of his friends from seminary was the priest at Saint Dominick’s in Old Bisbee. That’s where Father McCrady was staying. One phone call was all it took to make arrangements for Hal Morgan to stay there as well. A few minutes after Dick Voland left to deliver Morgan to the church rectory, Ernie Carpenter parked behind Joanna’s Blazer.
“So much for my weekend off,” he said. “What’s happening?”
With that, Joanna launched off into a detailed recitation of the evening’s events.
The rest of the night, spent mostly in waiting, passed slowly. For the second time in two days, Joanna Brady found herself stamping around in the cold and the dark while the Cochise County departmental canine unit did its stuff-to no avail. It was almost midnight when the search for the missing driver of Hal Morgan’s Buick was finally called off for the night. Rusty, a muscle-bound German shepherd, had led his partner, Mike Cordell, on a trail that went from the charred remains of the Buick to a deserted public campground half a mile back downhill. That was where the scent disappeared.
“Whoever it was must have had a car parked here to begin with,” Cordell explained later to Joanna. “Or else there was an accomplice waiting there the whole time.”