“I know,” Joanna said. “I’ve seen them before.”
“Grandma Bagwell, my great-grandmother, used to say that people can make baskets without using devil’s claw, but that’s what they need to make the basket interesting, to make it tell a story. When she gave me the necklace, she told me it was because she thought I was interesting, too.”
“Did you know your mother had a necklace just like this—one that’s almost identical?” Joanna asked after a pause. “She was wearing it when she died. When your grandmother saw it, she thought it was yours.”
Once again Lucy’s eyes clouded over with tears. “No,” she whispered. “I didn’t know that. Grandma Bagwell must have given her one at the same time. But why? I thought when Grandma Bagwell gave this one to me it meant I was special, but I guess I was wrong.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Joanna offered. “Maybe she thought you were both special. That in your own way you both had interesting stories to tell.”
“No,” Lucy Ridder said, shaking her head.
Still holding the silver necklace in her hand, Joanna studied Lucy Ridder as the blustery late-March wind sifted through her light brown hair. Of the Native Americans Joanna had met, most had black, straight hair very unlike Lucy Ridder’s, which was both light brown and wavy. Behind the girl’s glasses her eyes were a striking gold-flecked hazel rather than deep brown. If this anguished young woman really was the great-great granddaughter of a famed Apache chief, it certainly didn’t show in her features. But there could be little doubt that many of Lucy Ridder’s ancestral instincts were still alive and well. After all, she had somehow summoned both the patience and skill to befriend, tame, and train a wild red-tailed hawk.
“My job is studying patterns,” Joanna said quietly, as she handed the necklace back to Lucy, who gazed at it as though it were no longer the treasure she had always assumed it to be. “Not the devil’s-claw patterns woven into baskets,” Joanna continued. “As sheriff, it’s my job to study the patterns left behind when people die—when they’re murdered.”
“Like my father and my mother,” Lucy murmured.
Joanna nodded. “Let me ask you something, Lucy. When a basketmaker weaves patterns with devil’s claw, do they always mean the same thing?”
“Not always.”
“But they may be connected, right? One may be different from the next one—from the one before it—but they’re still related.”
“Yes.”
“I think something similar has happened here,” Joanna said. “I think what’s happened in the past few days with your mother may be related to what happened to your father years ago. And now someone else is dead as well.”
“My grandmother?” Lucy asked.
“No. The latest victim is Melanie Goodson.”
“My mother’s attorney?” Joanna nodded.
Lucy shuddered. “She’s dead because I called her,” Lucy wailed, shaking her head and rocking back and forth. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble for her, too. I didn’t mean for her to be killed. I just knew I needed help, and I didn’t know who to ask.”
“Please, Lucy,” Joanna said, trying to console the girl. “Don’t blame yourself. Melanie Goodson was your mother’s attorney when your father was killed. That makes her part of the pattern, too. Before I can make sense of what’s happening now, I need to learn everything I can about what happened back then. As far as I can see, you’re the only one left who can tell me what I need to know. If you will, that is,” she added.
For several long seconds Lucy Ridder made no reply. She sat gazing intently into the concealing branches where Big Red had disappeared. Finally she turned away from the tree and focused her penetrating hazel-eyed gaze back on Joanna.
“Why should I?” she asked hopelessly. “What good will it do? My father’s dead. Nothing I can tell you will bring him back.”
“Or your mother, either,” Joanna added. “Lucy, listen to me. My father died when I was just a year younger than you are now. My daughter, Jenny, was seven when her father was killed—the same age you were when you lost your father. Not knowing the answers about why those things happened to my father and to my husband could have haunted Jenny and me for the rest of our lives. Finding out and knowing the truth about what happened to my dad and my husband didn’t bring either one of them back, but it did make it possible to go on.
“You’re right. What we learn now won’t bring either one of your parents back. They’re gone. But they say the truth will set you free, and I believe that’s the case. Finding out what really happened to Sandra and Tom Ridder is the only way you—Lucy—will be able to put these awful things behind you. It’s the only thing that will allow you to move forward. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck, and you’re too young and have far too much potential to let that happen.”