Arizona Homecoming

“Sometimes,” Donovan allowed.

Jacob’s eyes lit up.

“I didn’t see any trees around here big enough for a tree house,” Donovan remarked.

“Don’t want a tree house, exactly,” Jacob said. “Timmy and I were talking, and we want a child-size village, you know, with houses the size of small sheds, perfect for our guests in the age range of three to maybe twelve. Not just houses, mind you. We’d want a child-size fire station, a store, a movie theater, a school and a hospital. It could be a little bigger. Not only could Timmy and his soon-to-be little brother use it, but many of our guests bring children—”

“Whoa.” Donovan appreciated the man’s enthusiasm, but the picture he was painting would take a lot of time. Time Donovan didn’t have. “I’m not sure you’ve thought about the real time and cost of such a project. I’m booked solid for the next two years. And if I do it when I have a free week, you’ll be getting a new building once every six months, plus paying travel.”

Donovan was now a week late on the Baer house, which was okay because he always calculated in extra time, but come the beginning of August, he was heading for California and his next job. Building a child-size village wasn’t on the schedule. “Plus, you’re a builder, too. You built this place.”

“I was a lot younger then. And, I never did the detail you put into some of those houses. Timmy was quite impressed. I don’t figure the cost would be much different than the tree house you made over in Colorado last year,” Jacob said.

Donovan knew the exact one Jacob spoke of. It was connected to two trees, had two porches—front and back—and was made of cedar. Much bigger than a shed.

“I figure you’ll charge me a little less, as it’s easier to build on the ground rather than in a tree.”

“You’re still talking about five or six buildings,” Donovan responded.

“Give me a ballpark figure, thinking maybe six structures?”

Donovan shook his head. “The tree houses are a passion of mine and I love building them. Unfortunately, I don’t...”

Timmy’s lips pursed, making him resemble his aunt from a few minutes ago.

“No.” Jacob only said one word and Timmy stopped pouting.

Donovan figured this would be a good time to head for the buffet and fill his plate. When he returned, he quickly took a bite so he wouldn’t have to say anything else right away. He thought about the offer. The tree houses weren’t exactly what Donovan would call small jobs. They were intricate and had personality, and he wished he could build them full-time. Their owners, usually between the ages of six and sixteen, appreciated them in a way a wealthy seventy-something, like Baer, couldn’t.

Jacob waited until Donovan’s plate was almost empty before suggesting, “Could you maybe work in just two small houses between the end of this job and your next one? Emily is handy with a hammer. She’s responsible for the good condition of our fencing and the remodels in the barn and bunkhouse. If she helped you, she might be able to finish the job.”

“No.” Emily sounded a lot like her dad.

No way did Donovan have time. But working with Emily...might prove very interesting. Maybe, just maybe, he could manage one.

Before any more discussion, Sam Miller walked in. He didn’t look around, just headed to their table.

“Go find your mother,” Jacob told Timmy. “Tell her we just might have an idea that works. Then, build me two houses out of Legos, so I can see your design ideas.”

“Okay, Grandpa!”

Sam took Timmy’s place, even going so far as to finish the lone cookie the boy left behind. From the look on his face, Donovan figured he’d need more than a cookie to put him in a good mood.

“Have you found out anything new?” Emily didn’t wait for Sam to stop chewing.

“The medical examiner said there was no sign of trauma on our victim but his bones showed deterioration from arthritis. He thinks that’ll make identification easier,” Sam shared after swallowing. “He hasn’t found proof that the man died from a stab wound, but he admits the skeleton has eroded so much that it might not be possible to establish the cause of death.”

“How long has he been buried there? How old is he?”

“Nothing definite, but the ME thinks we have a Caucasian male who’s been buried there for around thirty years, give or take a few, and who was between twenty-five and forty when he died.” Sam never took his eyes off Jacob while he talked. Donovan glanced at Emily. She was oblivious, but Donovan wasn’t. There was a reason Sam had shown up tonight, and it wasn’t just to share details.

“The knife adds to the mystery.” Sam continued watching Jacob. “Or, solves it. Good news is that it’s not a generic knife found in any box or convenience store. It’s hand tooled. We’ve been researching it and think we’ve found a match. Back in the sixties and seventies there was a family over in Wickenburg who had a silver and leather shop. They did quite well. The business fell apart, however, years later when the father died. They pretty much stopped making saddles and knives after that.”

Sam pulled a photo from a folder he carried and held it out. The knife was stunning. Donovan knew good quality, even as tarnished as this knife was, when he saw it. There was some kind of stone near the handle, maybe ruby. Then there was a raised silver swirl design that stopped at the initials.

J.H.

“Maybe you’ve heard of the Rannik family. They made knives for a lot of carnivals, festivals, rodeos. I spoke with their youngest daughter. She is the last one working the trade, specializing in jewelry. She emailed me their client list, along with purchase dates and transactions. There was only one name I recognized.”

It was the first time Donovan had witnessed Emily speechless. Jacob, for his part, paled a bit. Then, giving Sam a look that Donovan hoped he was never on the receiving end of, Jacob stood and left the room.

Emily got her voice back. “Of all the fool ideas, Sam. You know my father is not involved. He catches lizards and lets them go loose outside. He—”

“Had a life before he met your mother and started a family,” Sam said quietly.

“He’s an elder at our church.”

Donovan knew that “our” church meant hers as well as Sam’s. The church he’d been invited to but hadn’t attended.

“I don’t like this either, Emily,” Sam said, “but questioning is what I do. Right now, I’m just venturing out. It could be nothing.”

“It is nothing.” Jacob returned and tossed something on the table. It was a knife. The same knife as was in the baggy. Ruby, initials and all.

Only this knife wasn’t tarnished.

Chapter Four

The Lost Dutchman Museum was on the edge of town, and Emily always came out on her days off. Sometimes she spent hours in the barn, working on the back section that was considered storage. She wanted to open it up to Apache Creek history, and she had enough pieces from the Majestic for one display that would appeal to people interested in both small-town and movie lore.

Just not John Wayne.

She also had remnants from Apache Creek’s first church, school and post office. If she could talk the trustees into going to the city for more funding, she’d buy a few acres from the Pearl family. They owned most of the land around the museum. At one time, there’d been a Pearl Ranch. Now it was open space and for sale.

Emily hoped no one ever bought it.

Another reason she came in was to make sure everything was where it should be. Twice she’d deterred tourists from breaking in to the barn where exhibits were.

Even adults thought it okay to pull away boards and pick or break locks just so they could see. Once, she’d just missed a vandal who’d spray painted graffiti on the barn housing a replica of Jacob Waltz’s cabin. The paint had still been wet! Officer Sam Miller had filled out a report. She’d repaired the damage.

Emily noted now how quiet the museum was first thing in the morning. Usually she felt a little jog of excitement when she opened the door and entered. Her world. She felt privileged and amazed. How blessed she was to have a career she loved. She cared for the past, brought history to life and made sure an imprint remained for the future.

Today, the woven blankets and pieces of pottery didn’t speak to her. The air in the museum felt different, quiet and unassuming.

She was being ridiculous. And she knew it. Turning on the lights, she adjusted the temperature and went around checking the exhibits. Nothing was out of place.

No, it was her life that had been trespassed on, and she wasn’t sure how to restore peace.

She walked through the aisles of the main building, whispering prayers while straightening photos and realigning displays. She did not believe her dad had a connection with the body discovered last week. Still, her prayers felt ineffective.

Sometimes the present was more important than the future, especially when it involved her dad.

She’d made it through only one room when someone knocked at the front door. She ignored it. Hours were posted and she wasn’t in the mood for giving a private tour. She didn’t dare go to the window and try shooing a visitor away. For one thing, it felt rude. For another, twice when she’d done that it had been church members with family in town. Thus, the private tours.

Her phone buzzed. Taking it out, she checked the caller ID.

Elise’s name displayed. She swiped her thumb across her phone to answer it, and said, “What’s happening?”

“They’ve taken Dad in for questioning.”

“I’ll meet you at the police station.” Emily turned, wanting to grab her purse from her desk drawer.

“Sam says it’s routine. I’m on my way to be with him. Of course, he says he doesn’t need me. Eva’s handling everything here. Are you sure there’s nothing you overlooked at the Baer place?”

“I’m sure, but I only looked at a certain perimeter where the body was found.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I stayed within about one hundred and forty-four square feet.”

“Paint me a picture.”

“The size of your bedroom.” Already, Emily was thinking ahead. She needed to look farther. The man had somehow arrived at his burial spot. He’d either walked or been carried. It would take a while, but she might be able to discover the path.

Yeah, right.

“I’m heading to the Baer house now,” Emily promised, entering her office to grab her purse and then locking the door on her way out.

But as she stepped onto the front stoop, she found the one person she wasn’t in the mood to see. Randall Tucker.

“I’ve been meaning to check out the museum. Any chance you could show me around?”

“I’ve an appointment. We open at nine tomorrow.”

To his credit, he didn’t brush past her and enter. Instead, he studied the building. Emily couldn’t help herself. She looked, too. The exterior was roughly sawn ponderosa pine. The museum sign was lighter wood and the words Lost Dutchman Museum appeared to have been burned in.

Emily smiled. Her museum looked at home nestled against the backdrop of the Superstition Mountains. The barn distracted from it a bit, but the cook shanty to the left helped.

“This is a great location,” Randall said. “You get much traffic?”

“We get plenty of traffic. We, however, are closed on Monday. Come back on a different day, and I’ll show you around.”

He scanned the main building. “Solid foundation. How old?”

“About fifty years. It was built in the sixties.”

“Private or state?”

She’d learned a long time ago that losing her temper only made things worse. “When you come back, I’ll get you a brochure. Or, you can go to the website. I update it every week.” She gave one last tug on the door, making sure it was locked, and then headed for her truck.

On the drive to the Baer place, a good fifteen miles, she deliberately pushed Randall Tucker from her thoughts and focused on the events involving the body, in order.

She, along with Donovan, had been among the first to see the bones. He wasn’t her first choice for a comrade, but he might do. She needed to talk to him some more because while she’d found the knife, it had been the medical examiner who declared the site a crime scene. Donovan, no doubt, had been present through every step.

She needed to talk to the medical examiner, too. She knew the man was a stickler for details and rarely missed a clue. Even though her perusal of the area turned up nothing else in the vicinity that might point to who the skeleton was and how he died, maybe the ME had noted something.

Besides the knife.

Nothing in the perimeter would vindicate her father. Yesterday, he hadn’t been worried. “My word has always been truth,” he said a dozen times at church. It was half a scripture. He was good at that.

She wondered if he was worried today.

She was, and she wasn’t exactly sure why. She knew her father hadn’t been involved in a murder.

Turning onto Main Street, she noted that the Miner’s Lamp was doing a steady breakfast business. No doubt, the skeleton’s discovery would give the people of Apache Creek something to talk about for weeks, maybe months.

Especially since suspicion had fallen, if only for a brief second, on her father.

Jacob Hubrecht, Emily thought as she drove past the park, still believed a handshake was binding. It had been decades since he’d lived outside Apache Creek. Before that, he’d been a bull rider, and she knew, having met most of his friends from those long-ago days, that they’d had their own code of honor.

A cowboy’s handshake.

She didn’t trust such casual contracts. She’d been across the United States, even working in South Dakota, where her job had been to return stolen artifacts to local tribes. Legislation claimed that it was necessary “to secure, for the present and future benefit of the American people, the protection of archaeological resources and sites which are on public lands and Indian lands.” Yet, some of the most grievous offenders were fined in the three digits while they’d earned in the five digits from their stolen loot, no jail time or restoration.

The Natives called it erosion of justice.

She called it misplaced trust.

A handshake worked in her father’s world, but just as the knife by the skeleton was eroded, so might be justice. This corpse was an intruder to George Baer, who thought a monstrosity of a house belonged on sacred soil.

The sign designating Ancient Trails Road was fairly new and looked out of place. She made a left and then slowed down so she could study the Baer house without anyone noticing. She no longer thought the soil so sacred.

Some secrets should stay buried.

Two trucks were parked where a driveway would one day be. Emily recognized one as belonging to John Westerfield, who had been out of work for almost two years. He’d have probably shown up even if they’d found a mass grave. The rest of Donovan’s crew appeared to be missing. She knew Smokey quite well. It would be a while before he ventured back.

The other truck was Donovan’s.

She edged her foot onto the gas and then braked, slowing, suddenly sure that driving out here was the wrong thing to do. She’d wanted to shut the construction down, but not this way.

Unfortunately, Donovan stepped out the front door, giving her no choice but to park, exit her truck and head for the house he was building.

* * *

“Everything okay?” For the most part, their paths had been crossing via controversy, but Donovan—thanks to his ex-fiancée, Olivia—knew how to recognize a damsel in distress.

Olivia had perfected the art; Emily not so much.

“I hope so,” she managed. “My dad’s at the station for questioning.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. So strange that there would be two knives. Did your dad ever remember how he came to have that one?”

“Right after you left. It was his prize for finaling in a Prescott Rodeo.”

Donovan nodded, thinking it made perfect sense. “You want to come in? I’ll show you the guts of this place. It’s not as bad as you make it out to be.”

She shook her head. “I’ve seen this house a million times, usually in a gated community on an upscale street in a big city.”

“You haven’t seen this house,” Donovan protested. “It’s one of a kind, and I designed it.”

She looked at the Baer house again. He did, too, pleased with what he saw. Even without the doors, windows and cabinets in place yet, he could visualize how they’d complement his creation.

He was bringing his drawings to life.

“A million times,” she muttered. As if to prove her point, she questioned, “Two-car garage with a workshop attached?”

“Yes.”

“Four bedrooms, each with its own bath?”

“Yes.” Now he was getting annoyed.

“A study and dining room?”

Had she seen his plans? “Yes.”

“I forget anything besides the kitchen and family room?” she queried.

“Baer specifically asked for a hallway that would serve as a gallery.”

“Ah,” she quipped, “that must be the custom part.”

“The arrangement, proportions and style make it custom. Plus, when we finish with the landscape...”

She pointed behind him. He turned, seeing the Superstition Mountains in all their glory.

“You can’t compete with that,” she said simply.

“I don’t want to. I just want Baer to be able to sit on his back porch and enjoy the view.”

“The view he’s wrecking.”

Ah, now the Emily Hubrecht who’d first approached him was totally back.

“This house is not on a hill. There are no neighbors for miles. He’s not infringing on anyone’s view.”

“You mentioned style. What style would you call your design?”

He answered without thinking, because he knew the style and had answered the question a million times. “French Country.”

“French Country in Arizona. That’s different.”

“It’s what Baer wanted.”

For a moment, he thought she’d protest. Then she nodded before following him through the door. “Big” was all she said, walking through the foyer and living area to the kitchen. “And there will just be two people living here?”

“Just two.”

She shook her head, sitting in a camp chair while Donovan pulled a bottle of water out of a small cooler. She took a long drink. “This house could be made of gold, and I wouldn’t like it. Until you showed up with your plans and permits, my life was perfect.”

“Perfect? I don’t think anyone’s life is perfect.”

“My life’s not perfect now.”

He decided to give her a break and change the subject. “If you know the exact rodeo, can you find out if someone else finaled, maybe in a different event, and had the same initials?”

“We hope. Sam is checking. I guess they want to authenticate it. See if it’s the knife made for my dad by the Rannik company. Both knives that is.”

“Who did the initials?” Donovan asked.

“They did, at least on Dad’s. He says it’s common for a company to have a booth right at a rodeo event.”

“That’s good. Because it means anyone could have purchased the knife and asked for the same initials. Not just the winners.”

“The difference is Dad’s knife also has the logo of the rodeo branded into the handle.”

“Does the one we found have the logo?” Donovan thought about the mound of dirt no longer cordoned off but still as the medical examiner left it.

Her sudden look made him rethink what he’d said.

We.

It wasn’t the word but how he’d said it. Making them more or less a team.

* * *

“Sam won’t tell us.” For a moment, she thought Donovan was going to scoot his chair closer, reach out for her. That was silly. He was the enemy. If not for this house, there’d be no body and no knife.

She shook her head a little harder than she meant to. Those kinds of thoughts did no good. “Dad having that knife physically in his possession was really...” Her words tapered off. She didn’t know how to finish. Her dad wasn’t under suspicion, not really, especially for a crime where there were no witnesses and the body hadn’t even been identified.

“Amazing,” Donovan said. “And all because the home owner decided he wanted to add a circular driveway.”

Around him the house loomed, like a monster ready to engulf whatever got in its way, whether land or human.

After a moment, when she didn’t respond, he queried, “Museum closed today?”

Emily nodded. “It’s closed every Sunday and Monday. Monday because of numbers and Sunday for a day of rest.”

He arched an eyebrow.

“Do you work on Sunday?” she asked.

“If I need to.”

“Did you work yesterday? I didn’t see you at church.”

He laughed, but she caught something in his eyes, maybe sadness. “You’ve never seen me at church. I don’t attend.”

“Did you ever?” This was not the conversation she meant to have. She was here to look for clues.

He took a long gulp of his water before answering, “Yes, a long time ago I went to church. Why are you asking?”

“It was at church that I found out you were building this house.”

“You mean people were praying for me before I even arrived?”

“No, more like people were talking about you. I heard about it from your mailman.”

“That’s a first. I don’t think I’ve received any mail here.”

“It was added to his route. He mentioned it to me and said he’d driven by this lot after delivering mail nearby. I almost fell out of the pew when he described some builder out at Ancient Trails Road already making decisions about where to put utilities, a septic system and driveway.”

“Still not doing so well with driveways,” Donovan mourned.

“And I am not doing so well in stopping you.” She’d offered God a dozen apologies throughout that day because after what the mailman shared, she’d not heard a word of the sermon.

Emily had lost valuable time. The land had already been sold and paid for, making her protests too little and too late. Donovan Russell had been a brick wall when it came to reason.

She’d always been more of a husky, taking hold and shaking until she got her way. And she hated losing.

“You’ve stopped me now. I still don’t have a full crew and I’ve been advised to leave the area around the grave alone, just in case it’s a crime scene.”

“That’s why I’m here.” She finished her water and stood. “I want to see if there’s anything I missed.”

He stood, too, but didn’t move toward the door. “I don’t think there’s as much as a rock left. They bagged everything.”

“I want to see if I can figure how he got there—”

Donovan finished her sentence. “Vehicle, animal, footprints or shoe marks.”

“Yes,” she said slowly.

“They did all that.”

“What did they decide?”

“That they agreed with your original assessment that the body had been here more than thirty years.”

“I really wish it had been here two hundred and thirty years.”

“Life’s not always fair.”

* * *

Emily wasn’t telling Donovan something he didn’t already know.

He followed her back through the living room and foyer and out to the crime scene. Except for the cordon tape and markers, it was just a hole.

“I’d think it was ready for a hot tub if it wasn’t in the front yard,” Donovan tried to joke.

She, apparently, didn’t think he was funny.

“So, what are we going to do first?” he queried. She didn’t answer, just stood looking down at where the skeleton used to be.

The whole thing spooked Donovan somewhat. He just wished he could, in good conscience, fill the hole back in. Without meaning to, he stepped too close to the edge of the hole so a few kernels of dirt fell back into the grave.

Emily’s eyes grew big.

“What?”

“I can’t help but think of Ecclesiastes and ‘the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.’”

He nodded, thinking she was a whole lot more connected to the earth and to family than he was.