by J. A. Jance
Joanna stood near the Blazer and gazed off across the broad, flat stretches of the Sulphur Springs Valley toward the broken blue lines of mountain that surrounded it—the Chiricahuas and the Swisshelms to the north and east, the Dragoons directly to the north, and behind her, to the west, the steeply rising foothills of the Mules.
As clearly as if it were yesterday, she remembered the first time she had stood in almost that same spot with Andy while he had pointed out those same mountain ranges. Andy had loved High Lonesome Ranch when he had lived there as a boy with his parents. Because he had cared about the place so much and because it had been so much a part of him, Joanna had loved it, too—at least she had when she was sharing it with Andy. Now, though, she wasn’t so sure. Trying to run the place by herself seemed overwhelming at times.
The half-formed thought was interrupted when the dogs—Tigger and Sadie—scrambled out from under the empty swing, leaped off the porch, and came bounding through the gate, barking wildly. Ranch dogs traditionally earn their keep by functioning as noisy early-warning systems. Over the chorus of barking, Joanna couldn’t tell what kind of vehicle was making its way up the road, but knew for sure that someone was coming. Moments later Frank Montoya’s blue Chevy pickup rounded the corner, followed by the two noisy dogs.
“Quiet, you two,” Joanna ordered. “It’s okay.”
The dogs headed for the porch while Frank stopped the truck a few feet away from Joanna. “Some watchdogs you’ve got there,” he observed through a partially opened window. “Do they actually chase bad guys or just break their eardrums.”
“Maybe a little of both,” she answered. “How’s it going, Frank?”
Chief Deputy Frank Montoya climbed down out of the truck. He was a tall, spare, easygoing Hispanic. The youngest son in a family of no-longer migrant workers, he was the first person on either side of his family tree ever to attend college. Working full-time and taking mostly night courses, Frank had completed his associate of arts degree at Cochise College. Now, commuting back and forth to Tucson and taking only one or two classes a semester, he was slowly working away at attaining a B.A. in law enforcement.
Well into his mid-thirties, Frank’s neatly trimmed crew-cut hairline was showing definite signs of receding. Friends, including Joanna Brady, teased him, telling him that when he was finally ready to graduate, he wouldn’t have any hair left to wear under his mortarboard.
Frank hurried around his truck to the rider’s side. He opened the door to reveal a short but massive Mexican woman whose iron-gray hair had been plaited into a long, thin braid. It was wrapped into a dinner-plate-sized halo and pinned to her head. Her features were stolid, impassive. When Frank opened the door to help her out, she stepped down heavily and stood, splay-footed and unsmiling, with her hands folded across her broad waist as Joanna moved forward to greet her. An over-sized black purse dangled from the crook of one elbow. The other hand gripped a large manila envelope.
“You must be Mrs. Grijalva,” Joanna said, holding out her hand.
The older woman responded by turning toward the sound of Joanna’s voice, but she made no move to return the handshake. Cataracts leave visible signs of their damage. The glaucoma that had robbed Juanita Grijalva of her vision had left no apparent blemish on her eyes themselves. She looked past Joanna with a disconcerting, unblinking stare.
After a moment, Joanna reached out and grasped Juanita’s free hand. “I’m Sheriff Brady,” she said.
Juanita Grijalva frowned briefly in Frank’s direction. “She sounds very young to be sheriff,” she said.
“Young, yes,” Frank put in hurriedly, “but she’s also very smart. After all, she hired me, didn’t she?”
“Your mother seems to think that was smart,” Juanita observed.
Frank’s face reddened slightly, and Joanna laughed aloud at his discomfort. The awkward moment passed, and Joanna took the woman’s arm. “Won’t you come into the house?” she asked.
A few steps into the yard, Juanita Grijalva stopped short, sniffing the air. “I smell cooking,” she said. “I think we are disturbing you. We should go and come back another time.”
“No,” Joanna insisted. “It’s all right. My mother-in-law is cooking dinner, but it isn’t quite ready yet. There’s time for us to talk. Come on inside.”
Unwilling to usher the newcomers into the house through the laundry room and kitchen, Joanna led Juanita Grijalva and Frank Montoya around to the seldom-used front door, which happened to be locked. Joanna rang the bell. Moments later, Jenny threw open the door.
“What are you doing out here?” the child asked.
“We have company, Jenny,” Joanna answered smoothly. “You know Mr. Montoya, and this is Mrs. Grijalva.”
As they came into the room, Jim Bob switched off the television set and retreated to the kitchen. Nodding to Frank, Jenny moved away from the door, but her piercing blue eyes remained focused on the older woman.
“I know you, too,” she said. “You’re Ceci’s grandmother. Last year you came to our Brownie meeting and taught us how to make tortillas.”
Juanita nodded. “One of the boys at school said that Ceci’s mother got killed up in Phoenix,” Jenny continued. “Is that true?”
“Yes,” Juanita said. “My daughter-in-law is dead.”
“Is Ceci going to come back to Bisbee, then? We both had Mrs. Sampson in second grade. Maybe we’d be in the same class again.”
Juanita shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Ceci and her brother are staying in Phoenix right now. With her other grandparents.”
“Jenny,” Eva Lou called from the kitchen. “You haven’t finished setting the table.”
Jenny started toward the kitchen, then turned back to Juanita Grijalva. “When you see Ceci, tell her hi for me, would you?”
Juanita nodded again. “I’ll be sure to tell her.”
Jenny left the living room without seeing the stray tear Juanita Grijalva brushed from her weathered cheek as Joanna eased the older woman down onto the couch. “I may not, you know.”
“May not what?” Joanna asked.
“Ever see Ceci again. Or Pablo, either. And that’s why I’m here,” she said. “Because I don’t want to lose them, too.”
Joanna had settled herself on the hassock. Jolted by Juanita’s last comment, Joanna leaned forward, her face alive with concern. “Has someone threatened your grandchildren?” she asked.
“If my son is convicted of killing Serena,” Juanita said, “I’ll never see them again. The Duffys—Serena’s parents—will see to it. Even now, they won’t let me to talk to them on the telephone. I got a ride all the way to Phoenix and back, but they wouldn’t even let me go to Serena’s funeral. Ernestina’s brother was there, and he told me to go away. They didn’t let me see the kids then, either.”
‘Mrs. Grijalva,” Joanna began, but Juanita hurried on, ignoring the interruption.
“Do you know anything about my son’s case?” asked.
Joanna shook her head. “Not very much. It was all happening right around the time my own husband died, and I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention to much of anything else.”
“‘That’s all right.” Juanita picked up the bulging envelope she had dropped on the couch beside her and handed it to Joanna. “Here are all the articles from the papers. The ones we could find. Lucy, my sister-in-law, read them to me. And she made copies. You can keep those.”
“But, Mrs. Grijalva,” Joanna objected. “I don’t know what you expect me to do with them. You have to understand, this isn’t my case. It happened up in Phoenix, didn’t it?”
“Peoria.”
“Peoria, then. My department only has jurisdiction over things that happen in Cochise County. We have no business meddling in a case that happened that far away from here.”
“You don’t want to help me, then?”
“Mrs. Grijalva, please believe me. It’s not a matter of not wanting to,” Joanna said. “I can’t.”
/> “His lawyer wants him to plea-bargain,” Juanita Grijalva said.
Joanna nodded. ‘That probably makes sense. If he can plead guilty to a lesser charge, sometimes that’s better than taking chances with a judge and jury.
“But he didn’t do it,” Juanita insisted firmly. “No matter what they say, I know my Jorge didn’t kill Serena. She may have given him plenty of cause, but he didn’t do it.”
“Even so, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Joanna responded. “It’s not my case. I’m sorry.”
Juanita Grijalva rose abruptly to her feet. “We could just as well go, then, Frank. This isn’t doing any good.”
Frank hurriedly took Juanita’s arm and led her back out of the house. Still holding the unopened envelope, Joanna watched as Chief Deputy Montoya guided the grieving woman out the door, across the porch, and down the steps. Following behind them, Joanna resisted the temptation to say something more, to make an empty promise she had no power to keep. Even though her heart ached with sympathy, there was nothing she could do to help Jorge Grijalva. To claim otherwise would have been dishonest.
Frank was busy maneuvering his pickup out of the yard when Eleanor Lathrop’s elderly Plymouth Volare came coughing up the road. Seeing her daughter standing just inside the front door, Eleanor parked in an unaccustomed spot nearer the front door than the back.
“Who was that?” she asked, bustling up onto the porch. “Frank Montoya?”
“Yes,” Joanna answered. “Frank and a friend of his mother’s. Her name’s Juanita Grijalva. Her son has been accused of murdering his ex-wife up in Phoenix. Juanita thought I might be able to help him, but I had to tell her I can’t.”
“If it happened up in Phoenix, of course you can’t do anything about it,” Eleanor said huffily. “What a stupid idea! I can’t imagine why they’d even bother to ask. Frank certainly knows better than that.”
“Frank wasn’t the one doing the asking, Mother,” Joanna said.
“But he brought her here, didn’t he?” Eleanor returned. “And on your day off, too. I don’t know about him, Joanna. He just doesn’t seem all that sharp to me. And why you’d want to go out on a limb and make one of the men who ran against you your chief deputy ...”
This was ground Joanna and Eleanor had already covered. Several times over. “Never mind, Mother,” Joanna said, opening the door and herding Eleanor into the house. “Let’s go on out to the kitchen and see if Eva Lou needs any help.”
Just then, Marianne and Jeff’s sea-foam-green VW pulled into the yard and stopped at the back gate. When Joanna went out through the laundry room to open the door, she was still holding Juanita’s Grijalva’s envelope.
Joanna stood by the dryer for a moment, examining the still-sealed package. The best course of action would probably be to throw it away without ever knowing what was inside. Still, Jorge Grijalva’s mother had gone to a lot of trouble to bring her that material. Didn’t Joanna owe the woman at least the courtesy of reading it?
True, the case was 140 miles outside Joanna’s jurisdiction. And no, she couldn’t possibly do anything about it, but there was no law against her reading about it. What could that hurt?
Making up her mind, Joanna dropped the envelope onto the dryer next to her car keys and purse, then she hurried outside to greet the last of Eva Lou’s invited guests.
CHAPTER 5
The dinner went off surprisingly well, from the moment they sat down at the dining room table until the last morsel of Cynthia Sawyer’s praline cake had been scraped off the dessert plates.
AII through the meal, Joanna couldn’t help noticing that Eva Lou was right. Eleanor Lathrop wasn’t at all herself. After the initial wrangle about Frank Montoya, she had curbed her critical tongue. She was so uncommonly cheerful—so uncharacteristically free of complaint—that Joanna found herself wondering if it was the same woman. Once, when Eleanor was laughing gaily—almost flirtatiously—at one of Jim Bob’s folksy, time-worn quips, Joanna found herself speculating for just the smallest fraction of a moment if there was a chance Eva Lou was right after all. Maybe there was a new man in Eleanor Lathrop’s life.
In the end, though, Joanna attributed her mother’s lighthearted mood to the fact that there were nonfamily guests at dinner. She reasoned that Jeff and Marianne’s presence must have been enough to force Eleanor Lathrop to don her company manners. Whatever the cause of her mother’s sudden transformation, Joanna welcomed it.
The festive dinner with its good food and untroubled conversation helped ease Joanna past her earlier misapprehensions about being away at school. Jenny and the ranch would be in good hands while Joanna was gone. There was no need for her to worry. She said her flurry of good-byes, to everyone else in the house; then Jenny alone walked Joanna out to the loaded Blazer.
“Ceci and I are almost alike, aren’t we,” Jenny said thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, my daddy’s dead, and her mom is. She’s staying with her grandparents. While you’re away, I’ll be staying with mine.”
The situations of the two girls weren’t exactly mirror images. Joanna was on her way to take a course that would help her be a better police officer, Jorge Grijalva was in jail, charged with murdering his former wife. Jenny’s surviving grandparents had just enjoyed a companionable meal with one another. Ceci Grijalva’s maternal grandparents had refused to allow Juanita Grijalva to attend her own daughter-in-law’s funeral. But Joanna didn’t mention any of that to Jenny.
“You’re right,” she said simply. “You have a lot in common.”
“Could we go see her?”
“Who?”
“Ceci. Next weekend when I come up for Thanksgiving?”
Joanna was carrying her purse and keys. Jenny was carrying Juanita Grijalva’s envelope. As far as Joanna could see, it hadn’t been opened. Joanna found herself wondering if Jenny had been hanging around the living room eavesdropping while Joanna had been talking to Juanita.
“Why would you want to do that?” Joanna asked guardedly.
Jenny shrugged. “Almost everyone else in Mrs. Lassiter’s class has two parents. There are two kids whose parents are divorced. I’m the only one whose dad is dead.”
“So?”
“At Daddy’s funeral, everybody said how sorry they were and that they knew how I felt. But they didn’t, not really. They weren’t nine years old when their fathers died. If I tell Ceci I know how she feels, it’ll be for real, ‘cause she’s nine years old and so am I. Maybe if I tell her that, it’ll make her feel better.”
They had reached the truck by then. Joanna wrenched open the door and tossed both her purse and Juanita’s envelope into the car. Now she leaned down and pulled Jenny toward her, grasping her in a tight hug while a sudden gust of wind blew a whisp of Jenny’s long, smooth hair across Joanna’s cheek.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re one special kid?” Joanna asked, holding Jenny at arm’s length so she could look the child in the eye.
“Daddy did sometimes,” Jenny answered wistfully.
“He was right,” Joanna said. “You’re right to be concerned about Ceci. And I’ll see what I can do. If I can find out where she’s staying, maybe we could take her out to do something with us while you’re there.”
“Like going to Baskin-Robbins?” Jenny asked.
“Just like,” Joanna said with a fond smile. Joanna had spent days and nights agonizing in advance about this leave-taking. Now the moment came and went with unexpected ease and without a single tear. “I’ll miss you, Mommy,” Jenny said hugging Joanna one last time. “I’ll miss you, but I’ll be good. I promise. Girl Scout’s honor.”
“I’ll be good, too,” Joanna replied.
“Promise?”
“I promise. I’ll see you Wednesday night.”
Jenny stepped away from Joanna’s grasp. “What’s the name of the place we’re stay’ again?”
“The Hohokam Resort Hotel.”
“Doe
s it have a swimming pool?”
“It’s supposed to.”
“Come on, Sadie and Tigger,” Jenny said to the dogs. Then she looked innocently back up at h mother. “Me and the dogs’ll race you to the corn of the fence.”
Joanna’s grammar-correcting reflex was automatic. “The dogs and I will race you,” Joanna countered.
Jenny grinned up at her impishly. “Does that mean I get to drive?” she asked.
The nine-year-old humor was subtle. It took a moment for Joanna to realize she’d been had, that for the first time in months, Jennifer Ann Brady had actually cracked a joke. And then Joanna was grinning, too.
“Last one to the corner is a rotten egg,” she said, bounding into the Blazer and turning the key in the ignition. Jenny and the dogs took off running. Joanna let them win, but only just barely.
After passing them, Joanna glanced in the mirror. The last thing she saw as she drove away from High Lonesome Ranch was Jenny, standing on tip-toe by the corner of the fence and waving her heart out. Her long hair blew in blond streamers behind her, while the two dogs danced around her in crazy circles.
“She’s going to be all right,” Joanna marveled to herself as the Blazer jounced across the rutted track that led out to High Lonesome Road.
A couple of stray tears leaked out the corners of her eyes as she drove, but they were welcome tears—not at all the kind she had expected.
Maybe it was trying to drive two hundred miles on a full stomach. Maybe it was the warm autumn sun slanting in on her through the driver’s window. By the time Joanna had driven as far as Eloy, she could barely stay awake. She stopped at a truck stop for coffee break. Reaching for her purse, she caught sight of Juanita Grijalva’s envelope and carried it along into the coffee shop. As she slipped into a booth, she tore open the flap.
Sipping coffee, she shuffled through the stack of copied newspaper articles. Even though most of the articles were undated, as soon as she started reading them, the chronology of events was clear enough.