Dance of the Bones

“It was, but only just. It was printed, but all the copies were bought up before they were shipped to the stores. It was pulled prior to publication,” Amanda explained. “Evidently pressure was brought to bear, and the copies that had been printed were shredded. This copy—-a galley copy—-survived. When I was doing my research, I read the complete papers from beginning to end. Somewhere along the way I stumbled on an item that mentioned Mr. Hardy was working on the book. I made a note of it in case it might be related. When I went looking for it later and could locate nothing about it, I tracked down Mr. Hardy himself.

“He was still living here in town at the time. He’d had several other books published after the first one disappeared. I made an appointment with him on the basis of asking for his papers to be donated to Special Collections at the U of A library. He seemed cordial enough and said I was welcome to what he had. When I made the mistake of asking about Lawmen in particular, he went ballistic. He said he’d burned everything that had anything to do with that ‘goddamned book,’ quote unquote, and that he wished he’d never written it.”

“Slight overreaction?” Brandon asked.

Amanda nodded. “That sent me looking. The publisher was a local outfit that went out of business shortly after all this happened. That piqued my curiosity, too. I wondered if the two were related, and that sent me off on a search for the book itself. The book’s initial print run was small, so there weren’t many review copies printed either—-twenty to fifty at most. Fortunately for me, there are -people out in the world of dead tree books who specialize in collecting review copies. I paid a lot of money for this one, but that’s where I found the connections between the man who prosecuted John Lassiter and sent him to prison and John’s onetime girlfriend—-Ava Martin.”

“I understand Jack DuShane is in here, too?”

Amanda nodded. “He’s there as one of the bad guys. By the way,” she added, “you’re notably absent.”

“Sheriff DuShane and I were never on the best of terms.”

“When I read the book, I realized that all those folks—-the sheriff, the prosecutor, the -people running the call girls and the massage parties—-were thick as thieves, and I think they all joined forces to pin Amos Warren’s homicide on John Lassiter. He was a guy with no connections, which made him an easy target. I went to the sheriff’s department and tried to get someone to take a look at all this with a view to reopening the case.”

“And you got nowhere?”

“Correct, but maybe you’ll have better luck.”

“Because I was sheriff once upon a time? I wouldn’t count on it. Is your father aware of any of this?”

“I’m not sure. He might have heard about it through Mr. Glassman, but I certainly haven’t shown it to him.”

“And did you reach any conclusions?”

“Yes, I did. I think Ava Martin bears some looking into. There’s a file in there about her, too. I suggest you go through the material on your own and decide for yourself. Just for the record, though, you should be aware that there’s at least one other unsolved homicide involved in this case. Kenneth Mangum was one of John’s pals—-his best friend, actually. Kenneth testified on John’s behalf at the first trial and was expected to appear at the second one, but he never showed. He apparently left Arizona and was living in Seattle under the name Kenneth Myers when he, too, was murdered.

“His death is spookily similar to Amos Warren’s in that his remains went undiscovered for a number of years. Then, when his body was found, the case was never solved. It’s only a few years ago now since those remains were linked up to a missing persons case filed by Kenneth Mangum’s mother in Phoenix.”

Brandon had been busily taking notes. “I believe it’s time for me to go see your father,” he said.

Amanda smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“What about this?” he asked, reaching for the box and tapping the lid. “You said I should draw my own conclusions. Does that mean you’ll let me go through what you’ve gathered?”

She nodded. “You’re welcome to all of it,” she said, “even this.” She placed the book in the box before closing the lid. “I’m a librarian, though. That means I want it all back. When all this is over, I may use it to write my own damn book.”