Page 115

“Your intel was incorrect?”

“My intel was good. I just didn’t tell you the truth about it, exactly. Apparently, Verro got in some trouble up there. He was accused of theft. He was dismissed from his position, but never formally charged for any crime. Virgie knew about it, but was just so glad to have a police chief on board who actually understood police work, she didn’t care, figured it was a win-win. The reason he was MIA from here for a day or so was because he’d had to run back up to Prescott. One of his former fellow officers picked a fight or some such thing up there. That’s why he was beat up a little. Jenna knew what he was doing, but he’d asked her not to tell me. She’d been torn. He’s apologized for putting her in that position.”

I nodded. “Okay. Good.”

I looked toward the kitchen, where Doug was working as hard as he always did. Virgie’s hair made its way through and behind the cook. She was always around, even if you couldn’t see all of her. I glanced at my finger. It was almost healed, though my broken arm would be in a sling for some time.

“I hope Verro and Jenna don’t get bored,” I said.

“They probably will, but it will be good for Black Vulture to have them around. Real police.”

As Dixie passed the booth again, she refilled my already half-empty mug. “Where’s Trisha?” I asked her.

“Day off.” She winked and then walked away.

“What was that about?” I asked Calloway.

“Trisha is probably with Joey.”

I hadn’t imagined Joey out there with his ink pen and quick thinking, but he hadn’t been there when the chopper arrived to gather George. I remember barreling into the diner and telling Trisha to call the police, but I didn’t remember telling anyone where I’d left George and Joey. Later, when I’d awakened in the hospital in Tucson, I was informed that I’d been very precise. I guessed I’d been in The Wild enough that even my subconscious knew locations.

Like Jerry, I just wanted to get out of the hospital. Unlike Jerry, I didn’t wait to be officially discharged. Once I was told that my arm didn’t need surgery or setting but would just need to be stabilized at the shoulder to heal, I pulled out the IV and left.

Calloway continued, “Joey was hiding from some guys because of a gambling debt. I think Jerry and Trisha have convinced Joey to man up and be an adult. I figure that either Joey will be killed by some thugs, or Jerry will get things straightened out soon enough. I’m sure Trisha’s helping with all of that.”

Calloway would be protecting them if he thought they were in real jeopardy. He was confident in Jerry’s abilities to get the problems solved. And probably Trisha’s.

“Joey saved George’s life,” I said.

“You’ve mentioned that a time or two. By the way, Joey was the one to stop by his and Jerry’s trailer to text Trisha that he was okay. Also, he wanted to grab an EpiPen, but he couldn’t find any.”

I remembered being irritated that Trisha wanted me to take her out to the trailer. “If Trisha hadn’t convinced me to go out there and look, we might never have found Jerry in time.”

“Yep.”

“There’s hope for Joey,” I said.

“With good people in your court, there’s always hope.”

I was the living embodiment of that. I nodded. “I saw a cut on George’s face. Was he the one to confront Jerry out in The Wild?”

“Well, yeah. Jerry saw someone digging through one of his piles of bones. It was George, who’d been camping out by the caves for about two weeks by then, apparently, getting the lay of the land, watching everyone, you mostly. George says he got the horse tail bones from one of the piles. Anyway, he ran off when Jerry came out to confront him. George took off on the ATV, but Jerry knew a way to cut him off down the path. Jerry just wanted to know what George was up to, but George wasn’t going to tell him, of course. He coldcocked Jerry, hard enough that George thought he’d killed him, at least left him for dead. Then dehydration about got him, but Jerry’s one of the toughest guys out here. Anyway, George got that small cut in the scuffle that took place before he went down. I noticed it when I first met him, but it didn’t look like much of anything to me.”

Whatever sympathy I had for George was diluted. Poor Jerry.

“Hazel, I have to tell you the rest.”

I swallowed. “I’m listening.”

“George’s goal was to kill you, pose your bones, probably like a snake—”

“That’s ironic.”

“Isn’t it. Anyway, the pendant was your mother’s. He was going to use your knife to skin—”

“Deflesh.”

“Deflesh you, and then leave the pendant around your neck. He wasn’t sure when he lost the necklace, but he was going to use your knife, the one that killed …”