Exit Wounds

by J. A. Jance

  “We’re in Hilton Head with Marcie’s folks,” Bob answered. “Just hanging out. July’s a good time to be as far away from D.C. as possible.”

  In the course of the last few years, Joanna had seen her brother several times when he had come to Bisbee to visit with Eleanor. She and Bob weren’t close, but Joanna had to admit that he was a pretty sharp and likable guy. Usually, when Joanna spoke to Bob Brundage, it was by phone, mostly on holidays and mostly on her home telephone line. The fact that he knew her cell phone number came as something of a surprise and made her slightly apprehensive.

  “So what’s up?” she asked.

  “I heard from Eleanor today,” Bob said casually.

  By mutual agreement, when Joanna Brady and Bob Brundage spoke of their mother, both of them referred to Eleanor by her given name. It was easier—a way of avoiding the emotional minefield of their shared-but-absent family history.

  Suspicions confirmed, Joanna thought. No wonder you have this number.

  “What about?” she asked innocently.

  “Eleanor happened to mention that you and Butch are expecting,” Bob replied. “Congratulations. I’ve never been an uncle before. Unless it’s a girl, that is. I suppose then I’ll end up being an aunt.”

  It was an old joke, and Joanna wasn’t disposed to be amused. “We’ll be sure to let you know which one you turn out to be,” she returned.

  “That is why I called, though,” Bob went on with all trace of joking around excised from his voice. “Eleanor wanted me to talk to you about this.”

  “About what?”

  “About your being pregnant and running for sheriff at the same time.”

  “I suppose she expects you to talk me out of it?” Joanna demanded. “She’s bringing you in because you’re her big gun. She’s convinced that as soon as you say the word, I’ll fold?”

  “Something like that,” Bob admitted. “I tried to explain to her that this is none of my business.”

  You’ve got that right, Joanna thought. So why are we having this conversation?

  “But I did promise her that I’d call,” Bob continued. “I’m worried—”

  “Don’t waste your breath,” Joanna interrupted, running out of patience. “Please don’t worry about me, Bob. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself, and I certainly don’t need you telling me what to do.”

  “I meant I was worried about Eleanor,” Bob put in patiently.

  “You don’t need to worry about her, either,” Joanna said. “She’s tough as nails.”

  “But she seemed really upset.”

  “Of course she’s upset,” Joanna fumed. “She’s always upset. She disapproves of everything I do. It’s been that way my whole life. Now that I’m pregnant, she wants me to pull out of the election, go home, put on an apron, and play housewife. That’s not me, Bob. It never has been me.”

  “I don’t think she’s upset because you’re pregnant,” Bob said. “At least not totally so. It’s partially because you accused her of leaking the information to some reporter. What’s her name?”

  “Marliss,” Joanna said. “Marliss Shackleford. Maybe I was wrong about that, but Eleanor and Marliss have always been bosom buddies. Based on that, I can hardly be accused of leaping to conclusions.”

  “I suppose not,” Bob agreed. “But I do think you need to take a look at this whole situation.”

  By now Joanna had pulled into the parking lot at Benson High School and was sitting with the car parked but idling in order to keep the air-conditioning running. “What situation?” she asked.

  “Eleanor’s jealous,” Bob answered.

  “Jealous?” Joanna repeated. “Of me?”

  “That’s right,” Bob Brundage said. “Think about it. Eleanor based her whole life on all those old rules, the ones she grew up with. I was born pre–women’s lib; you were born after. First, she lost me because, back then, being pregnant and unmarried just wasn’t done, not by good girls from good families.”

  And what does that make me? Joanna wondered.

  “Eleanor Matthews had a rebellious streak,” Bob continued, “but society—in the form of her parents—ran roughshod over it. Her family made her conform and forced her to give me up for adoption. She told me once that losing me broke her heart, and I’m sure it’s true. From then on, she decided she was through with breaking rules. She set about conforming, and she did it up brown. When the sexual revolution came along, she ran in the opposite direction. While other women her age were out burning their bras, Eleanor decided to go home and stay there, looking after her husband and raising her daughter. Did you know that, at one time, Eleanor wanted to be a fashion model?”

  Joanna was stunned by this astonishing revelation. To those growing up in the cultural backwater of Bisbee, Arizona, a career as a fashion model would have been beyond the realm of possibility.

  “You’re kidding!” Joanna exclaimed. “Eleanor Lathrop a fashion model? You mean a real, honest-to-goodness fashion model, in someplace like New York?”

  “Or Paris,” Bob added.

  Joanna was unconvinced. “That’s a little far-fetched. It sounds about as likely as her wanting to grow up to be a stripper. Besides, she never mentioned a word about it to me.”

  “She did to me,” Bob returned.

  Naturally, Joanna thought bitterly. Of course, she told her fair-haired boy and not me…

  “So what happened?” Joanna asked with more than a trace of sarcasm in her voice. “If she wanted to become a model so badly, why didn’t she do it?”

  “Because, after she had me, her mother convinced her that models who had damaged their bodies with babies were all washed up in the fashion biz.”

  “So she decided to become a housewife instead?”

  “That’s right. She stifled her own career ambitions, first because of me and later because of her husband and you. But now, Joanna, take a look at what you’re doing. It’s not just that you’re not following Eleanor’s blueprint for life. Instead, you’re designing a whole new ball game. Eleanor Matthews Lathrop had two children—you and me. It’s pretty clear to me that between the two of us we cost her everything.”

  Speak for yourself, Joanna thought.

  But Bob continued. “You have one child, soon to be two, but you’re living in a whole new era. From Eleanor’s point of view, society is letting you off easy. You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to pay the same kinds of prices Eleanor had to pay. As far as she’s concerned, you’re not having to give up anything.”

  The cell phone next to Joanna’s ear was hot, but so was she. She sat there steaming, saying nothing but doing a slow burn. Bob Brundage had a hell of a lot of nerve analyzing what, if anything, Joanna Brady was having to give up.

  “Joanna?” Bob asked at last. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” Joanna said stiffly. “Tell me something. Did you think all this up on your own, or did Eleanor ladle it to you one word at a time?”

  “On my own,” Bob answered. “I swear, every word of it.”

  “So what are you then, some kind of psychologist?”

  “I have an advantage you don’t have,” Bob replied.

  “What’s that?” Joanna asked pointedly. “Age?”

  “That, too.” Bob’s reply to Joanna’s blunt question was pleasantly evasive. “But not just that,” he added. “I have the benefit of perspective, and perspective only comes with distance. You’re too close to see it.”

  “As in too close to the forest?”

  “Something like that.”

  Across the parking lot, Joanna could see the Benson mayor’s aide, Martha Rogers, checking her watch and glancing anxiously around the parking lot. A look at the clock on the dashboard told Joanna why. It was two minutes away from the time to introduce visiting dignitaries, one of whom was scheduled to be Joanna Brady, sheriff of Cochise County.

  “You still haven’t said what you want me to do about it,” Joanna said to her brother.

&n
bsp; “Just be aware of it, is all,” Bob said. “And cut Eleanor a little slack now and then.”

  “Does that mean you’re not going to tell me to drop out of the race for sheriff?”

  “Are you nuts?” Bob asked with a chuckle. “I get all kinds of points around the Pentagon when I tell my coworkers that my kid sister is a sheriff out west in Arizona. They always want to know whether or not you carry a gun. And when I tell them you’re almost as good a shot as I am, they’re impressed.”

  Joanna laughed, too. “Next time you’re out to visit,” she warned him, “you and I will do some target practice. We’ll see then who’s the better shot. Right now, I’ve gotta go. Someone’s looking for me. Tell Marcie hi for me.”

  It was a thoughtful Joanna Brady who made her way through the parking lot toward the red-white-and-blue-festooned podium. Joanna had always despised what she had dismissed as Eleanor’s perpetual social climbing. Now she wondered how much those social-climbing tendencies had to do with Eleanor’s own thwarted ambitions—the hopes and dreams Eleanor Matthews had put aside in favor of marriage, motherhood, apple pie, and the American way. It was likely that her thwarted ambitions had determined the kind of mother Eleanor had turned out to be.

  In Joanna’s opinion, she and her mother had been locked in a perpetual state of warfare that dated from the very beginning—from Joanna’s first conscious memories. Rather than supporting her daughter, Eleanor had always been the one standing in Joanna’s way, blocking her progress and attempting to turn Joanna into someone far different from who she really was. But maybe Bob was right. Maybe the constant bickering with her mother was an outgrowth of a simple case of mother/daughter jealousy. And if Bob was right about that, maybe he was correct in something else as well. Maybe Joanna Brady was too close to the situation—so close that she hadn’t had a clue it even existed.

  Minutes later she was standing on a makeshift podium welcoming people to the Benson Community Fourth of July picnic. She kept her remarks short and nonpartisan, then she spent the next forty-five minutes working the crowd, shaking hands and doing what she could to drum up support for her campaign. Later, after the short ten-minute drive from Benson to St. David, she did the same thing again—a short speech followed by another session of glad-handing all around. Everywhere she went she was offered food, none of which appealed to her in the least.

  After the St. David appearance, Joanna headed home. She sailed past the Cochise County Justice Center without even turning on the Civvie’s directional signal. Had anything been wrong, someone would have summoned her. She took the relative silence of radio chatter to mean that even the crooks were taking a holiday. At the Double Adobe turnoff, however, she glanced at her watch. It was twenty after three. The barrel-racing competition would start after a four o’clock performance by Sierra Vista High School’s junior girl’s rodeo drill team. Joanna figured that would give her time enough to get out of her dress uniform and into something a little more comfortable for sitting in the dusty stands at the fairgrounds. With that, she stepped on the brakes, and headed for High Lonesome Ranch where, in addition to changing clothes, she might be able to find something decent to eat.

  It took Joanna a couple of minutes to negotiate the ecstatic dog greeting committee that met her at the front gate. Tigger was beside himself, and Lucky was so thrilled that he managed to pee on Joanna’s pant leg and dribble into her shoe. That meant the uniform would have to go to the cleaner’s after all. Lady showed even stronger signs of being happy to see her. Sadie’s loss was still a fresh memory, but it was a little easier to bear the bluetick’s absence now that there were other dogs to take the old hound’s place.

  Once in the house, Joanna changed into jeans and a long-sleeved denim shirt. She knew better than to brave the late-afternoon sun with her fair complexion and short sleeves. Finding a banana on the counter, she downed that along with a glass of ice-cold milk. Then, settling a straw Stetson on her head, she hurried outside and back into the now-roasting Civvie. Butch had left a note saying that the Outback was in the garage if she wanted to take that, but she felt more at ease in the Crown Victoria. That way, if duty called and her services were needed, she wouldn’t be driving in a vehicle without two-way radio capability.

  Sticking strictly to the posted speed limits, Joanna arrived at the rodeo grounds just as the sixteen-member drill squad galloped into the arena. Shading the sun from her eyes, Joanna spotted Butch, Jim Bob, and Eva Lou Brady sitting high in the stands. Excusing herself, Joanna made her way up to them. She was grateful to realize that their backs were to the sun.

  Butch greeted her with a kiss. “Glad to see you,” he said.

  Joanna settled into the seat beside him and actually let herself relax as she watched the end of the drill team’s performance. Joanna couldn’t help but be impressed by the talented troop of elaborately costumed and synchronized riders as they galloped around the relatively confined space on swiftly moving horses. Each rider carried a banner that stood out straight behind her, whipping in the wind. As horses and riders careened around the enclosure, Joanna held her breath. At every turn it seemed as though two or more of them were bound to crash into one another with disastrous results, but they never did. It made Joanna grateful that when Jenny’s turn came, there would be only one horse and one rider in the ring at a time.

  As the drill team finished up and filed out to tumultuous applause, Joanna turned to Butch. “I thought Eleanor was going to be here.”

  “She called and canceled at the last minute,” Butch replied. “She said she had a splitting headache.”

  Eleanor’s got a headache, all right, Joanna thought. It has nothing at all to do with Jenny’s rodeo appearance and everything to do with me.

  Eva Lou Brady reached over and squeezed Joanna’s knee. “Congratulations again, Joanna,” Eva Lou said. “Jim Bob and I are both so happy for you.”

  Joanna looked at her former mother-in-law. For some inexplicable reason, her eyes filled with hot tears. Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady were and always had been the embodiment of unconditional love. They, too, might have come up with any number of excuses for not going to the hot fairgrounds, but they were in attendance that afternoon, interested and uncomplaining, to support Jenny’s foray into the world of rodeo riding.

  When Joanna had announced her engagement to Butch Dixon, they had accepted her choice without a hint of disapproval. From the beginning, they had treated Butch with unfailing kindness and grace. And sitting there under the hot afternoon sun, Joanna knew, without question, that Jim Bob and Eva Lou would accept this new child—Joanna and Butch’s child—as though he or she were their own flesh-and-blood grandchild.

  “Thank you,” Joanna murmured.

  “Are you nervous?” Eva Lou asked.

  Joanna didn’t know if Eva Lou was asking about Jenny’s upcoming ride or about the pregnancy. She simply nodded yes.

  As the first barrel racer pounded into the arena, Joanna’s attention was riveted. The girl looked to be much older than Jenny, and the horse, a palomino, was utterly splendid. Leaning into the curves as one entity, horse and rider skidded around the three equally spaced barrels. Watching their seemingly break-neck pace, Joanna couldn’t help but hold her breath.

  As the PA system broadcast the first rider’s time, Joanna’s cell phone rang. The distinctive rooster-crow ring echoed through a suddenly silenced grandstand. Joanna dived for her purse to stifle the noisy thing. With many nearby spectators glaring at her in disapproval, Joanna glanced at the readout. She recognized the number at once—Dispatch.

  “Sheriff Brady here,” she said tersely into the phone. “What’s up?”

  “I thought you’d want to know that we’ve got a serious roll-over accident on Highway 80 out by Silver Creek,” Tica Romero answered. “A coyote-driven SUV with twenty or so undocumented aliens riding in it. We’ve got injured UDAs everywhere and at least two confirmed fatalities. Multiple units, ambulances, and an Air-Evac helicopter are all on the way.”
/>   “What about Chief Deputy Montoya?”

  “He’s at the site of a reported road-rage shooting west of Huachuca City. It’ll take him at least an hour to get to the other side of the county.”

  “Fair enough,” Joanna told her. “I’m on my way.”God help me, I’m on my way!

  She glanced up in time to see the second barrel racer charge into the arena. She hoped for a brief moment that it possibly might be Jenny, but of course, it wasn’t.

  Butch looked at her questioningly.

  “There’s been a multiple-fatality accident east of here on Highway 80,” she told him. “I’ve got to go.”

  Butch nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Drive carefully. See you at home.”

  “Are you sure you can’t stay long enough to watch Jenny ride?” Eva Lou asked, reaching out to stop Joanna. “It can’t be more than a few minutes before it’s her turn. Barrel racing doesn’t last all that long.”

  “Sorry, Eva Lou,” she said. “Jenny will just have to understand.”

  As Joanna threaded her way down through the grandstand, she hoped fervently what she said was true and that Jenny would indeed forgive her.

  At the far end of the parking lot where she’d left the Civvie, Joanna paused long enough to open the trunk and slip on a Kevlar vest, then she vaulted into the front seat. In her glove box she fumbled blindly around until she located the spare spiral-bound notebook she kept there. Once she’d stuffed that into the pocket of her jeans, she turned the key in the ignition. She switched on her flashing lights the moment the engine started, but she didn’t activate her siren until she was well away from the fairgrounds.

  “Okay, Tica,” Joanna said into the radio as she turned onto Highway 80. “Tell me again what’s going on.”

  “A Border Patrol unit in New Mexico saw an old GMC Suburban headed northbound toward Animas. He signaled the driver to stop, but the driver didn’t pull over. Instead, he jammed his foot on the gas and drove straight past. The Border Patrol went after the guy, but when the Suburban’s speed exceeded ninety miles per hour, the agent broke off pursuit. He notified the New Mexico Department of Public Safety. One of their officers headed down from I-10, expecting to intercept the fleeing vehicle, but before he could make contact, the Suburban had crossed into Arizona north of Rodeo. A unit from the Arizona Department of Public Safety had been called and was responding when word came of the crash.”