by J. A. Jance
With my sister’s chilled body lying in the Cochise County Morgue, all I had to do was ask a few questions to find out what was really going on. I suspect that Sheriff Brady could have discovered that same information earlier than yesterday—if she’d bothered to ask, that is. But then, maybe she thought what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, either.
Moving on to the Cochise County Morgue brings me to something else the sheriff failed to mention—the fact that Cochise County Medical Examiner Dr. George Winfield happens to he married to Sheriff Brady’s mother. I’m sure if I had asked her why she didn’t tell me that, her answer would have been the same—I didn’t need to know.
Which brings me back to that heartbroken mother standing in that Phoenix cemetery. What all did police officers fail to tell her that she, too, didn’t need to know?
At this moment, the only thing I know for sure is that Connie, my baby sister, is dead. I can’t think about her the way she was as a sunny six-year-old, when I taught her how to ride a bike. I can’t think about how she almost drowned when I tried to teach her to swim in our backyard pool. I can’t think about how we sounded when our mother tried, unsuccessfully, to teach us to sing “Silent Night” in three-part harmony.
No, all I can think about is the way Connie looked tonight, lying on a gurney in the awful fluorescent lighting of the Cochise County Morgue. I am appalled by remembering her once beautiful face beaten almost beyond recognition.
There’s much more that I need to know that I haven’t yet been told—the why, the where, and the how of her death. Why, where, and how are the Holy Grails that keep all journalists and cops seeking and working and on their toes. But this time, I’m experiencing that search in an entirely different manner from the way it has been before both in my life and in my career. I’m seeing it through the eyes of that grieving mother, cloaked in her pain, standing in that lonely, desolate cemetery.
I’m not much of an expert on the grief process. I’m not sure which comes first, anger or denial. I can tell you that, right this moment, hours after learning about Connie’s death, I any consumed with anger. Maybe I’m taking that anger out on Sheriff Brady when I should be taking it out on Connie’s killer. The problem is, although I have my suspicions, I don’t know who that person is yet. When I do, you’ll hear about it.
When my editor asked if I would be willing to chronicle my experiences and share this painful journey with you, my readers, I said yes immediately. Why? Because I understand that, no matter how hurtful it may be for all concerned, we will all learn things from it—things we all need to know.
Maggie MacFerson
Astonished by what she had read, Joanna was in the process of reading through it a second time when she heard Butch’s voice. “Why, look who’s here. Why aren’t you up in the room? Did you lose your key?”
Joanna looked up to see Butch walking across the spacious lobby accompanied by a tall, willowy blonde. Butch left the woman behind and hurried around a massive brass-and-glass coffee table. Reaching Joanna’s side, he bent over and planted a kiss on her cheek.
“This is my wife, Joanna Brady,” he said, turning back to the woman, who had paused uncertainly on the far side of the table. “I didn’t make her change her name, and she didn’t make me change mine,” he added with a grin. “Joey, this is a good friend of mine, Lila Winters. She used to live here, but she’s moving to Texas now. She came for the wedding, of course. We’ve been reminiscing about old times.”
Caught unawares, Joanna took a moment to gather her wits, stand up, and offer her hand. “Glad to meet you,” she said.
Blond, blue-eyed, and with palely luminescent skin, Lila Winters was beautiful in the same fragile, delicate way that expensive English porcelain is beautiful. She wore a blue denim pantsuit the top of which was decorated with a constellation of rhinestone outlined stars.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Lila said. “Including the fact that you’d been called out of town on some kind of official investigation.”
Simultaneously, Joanna Brady made several quick calculations. If Lila Winters was such a good friend of Butch’s, why hadn’t he ever mentioned her name before? And why hadn’t the name Lila Winters been on the guest list to Joanna and Butch’s own wedding back in April? There could be only one answer to those two damning questions. Butch and Lila had to have been far more than just “good friends.” And since Butch had evidently been away from his hotel room all night long, there could be little doubt that he had passed the time in the company of that selfsame “good friend” while Joanna had been stuck driving up and down freeways, doing her job, and looking after her daughter.
“Yes,” she said levelly. “I’ve had my hands full. And I guess Butch has been pretty busy, too.”
Lila gave Joanna an appraising look, then she nodded at Butch. “Thanks for breakfast, Butch,” she said. “And for everything eke, too,” she added. “See you at the wedding.”
With that, Lila Winters turned and walked slowly across the lobby. Meanwhile, Butch turned back to Joanna.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
She gazed at him in stony silence and didn’t answer for several long seconds. “What do you think it was about?” she demanded finally. “I come in after being out working all night—after trying to call you time and again—and find you haven’t slept in our room. And them I meet you with someone I don’t know, someone who obviously knows you very well. ‘Thanks for breakfast, Butch,’ ” Joanna mimicked sarcastically. “ ‘Thanks for everything.’ ”
“Joanna . . .” Butch began.
Flinging the newspaper down on the table, Joanna stalked away, leaving Butch standing alone in the lobby. At the hotel entrance she handed her parking receipt over to the parking attendant. “I need my car right away,” she said.
Butch picked up the newspaper from the table and hurried after her. “Joanna, what’s going on? Where are you going?”
“Out,” she snapped. “It’s getting a little stuffy in there. I need some air.”
Joey, it’s not what you think, really. I can explain everything.”
“I’m not interested in your explanations,” she said. “Now go away and leave me alone!”
By then the parking attendant had returned, bringing the Crown Victoria to a stop under the portico and opening the door. As Joanna got in, she handed the attendant his tip. “Will you be needing directions this morning?” he asked.
Not trusting herself to speak, Joanna shook her head mutely. Then she drove off without a backward glance, leaving Butch standing alone on the curb. She made it only as far as the first stop-light before she burst into tears. Sobbing so hard she could hardly see, she finally turned into a nearby parking lot, one belonging to the Peoria Public Library. Looking around, she was grateful to see that late on a Sunday morning the lot was completely deserted.
She had put the car in neutral and set the parking brake when her cell phone began to crow. She picked it up and looked at it. The readout said UNAVAILABLE, which meant her caller might possibly be Butch calling from the hotel. It could also be someone else who needed to reach the sheriff of Cochise County. Sniffing to stifle her tears, she punched SEND, then sat there holding the phone in her hand but saying nothing.
“Joey?” Butch’s voice sounded frantic. She winced when she heard him utter his pet name for her. “Joey,” he repeated. “Are you there? Can you hear me? Where did you go?”
Still she said nothing. She couldn’t.
“Joey,” he pleaded. “Please talk to me. I can explain what happened.”
Suddenly she could speak, but in that odd strangled way that was just above a whisper. It seemed as though the strength of her voice was somehow inversely proportional to whatever she felt. The stronger her emotions, the smaller her voice.
“I already told you,” she croaked. “I don’t want any of your damned explanations.”
She heard Butch’s sigh of relief, and that hurt her, too. The very sound of hi
s voice—the voice she had come to love—made her whole body ache. “You are there, then,” he said. “You’ve got to come back to the hotel, Joey. You’ve got to give me a chance to tell you what went on.”
“I know what went on,” she snapped back at him. “And I’m not coming back.” With that, she punched the END button. Butch called back almost immediately. Eventually the ringing—that awful roosterlike crowing—stopped, only to begin again a moment later. He called five more times in as many minutes, but she didn’t answer. Each time the phone rang, and each time she didn’t answer it, Joanna Brady gathered a little more of her anger around her. Finally she switched the ringer to SILENT and flung the phone out of reach on the far side of the car.
Out of sight, out of mind, she thought. But that gave her pause, too. Wasn’t that exactly what had happened with Butch? Evidently, the moment Joanna had been out of sight, she had been out of his mind as well, enough so that Lila Winters had been able to walk in and make her move.
Just then a group of skateboarders and in-line skaters—bronzed, bare-chested teenagers oblivious to the scorching, one-hundred-fifteen-degree sun—appeared at the far end of the parking lot. Not willing to let even strangers see her in such a state, Joanna put the Crown Victoria back in gear and drove away. For a while, she drove aimlessly through Peoria, Glendale, and North Phoenix. She could think of only one person who might be able to help her, only one who would understand her sense of betrayal and offer comfort—her best friend, pastor, and confidante, Marianne Maculyea. The problem was, Marianne was more than two hundred miles away, back home in Bisbee.
So distracted that she hardly noticed her surroundings, Joanna was brought up short by a blaring horn. To her dismay she discovered she’d gone through an amber light and had almost been broadsided by someone jumping the green. With her heart pounding in her throat, she turned right at the next intersection, a side street which led to the back entrance of one of Phoenix’s major shopping malls, Metrocenter.
Realizing it wasn’t safe for her to continue driving, she parked in the broiling parking lot. Her cell phone had slipped off the end of the seat. She had to walk around the car and open the passenger door in order to retrieve it. When she picked it up, the readout said she had missed fifteen calls, all of which were from UNAVAILABLE. All from Butch, no doubt, she told herself.
Slamming the car door shut, she made her way into the mall. Finding a bench near a noisy fountain, she glanced down at her watch. One o’clock was time enough for Jeff and Marianne to have finished up with both the church service and the coffee hour and to have returned home to the parsonage. Gripping the phone tightly, Joanna punched Marianne’s number into the keypad.
“Maculyea/Daniels residence,” Julie Erickson said. Julie was the live-in nanny who cared for Jeff and Marianne’s two children—their almost-four-year-old adopted daughter, Ruth Rachel, and their miracle baby—the one doctors had assured the couple they would never have—one-and-a-half-month-old Jeffrey Andrew.
For years, Marianne Maculyea had been estranged from her parents. A partial thaw had occurred a year earlier, when Ruth’s twin sister, Esther Elaine, had been hospitalized for heart-transplant surgery. Marianne’s father, Tim Maculyea, had unbent enough then to come to the hospital in Tucson. Later, when Esther tragically had succumbed to pneumonia, he had come to the funeral as well. Marianne’s mother, Evangeline Maculyea, had not. Only the birth of little Jeffy had finally effected a lasting truce. Julie Erickson, complete with six months’ worth of paid wages, had been Evangeline’s peace offering to her daughter. It was Julie’s capable presence that had made possible Marianne’s rapid post-childbirth return to her duties as pastor of Bisbee’s Tombstone Canyon United Methodist Church.
“Marianne,” Joanna gulped.
“Who’s calling, please?”
“It’s Joanna,” she managed to mumble. With that, she dissolved into tears.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Why, Joanna!” Marianne exclaimed, the moment she heard Joanna’s voice. “What on earth is the matter?”
“It’s Butch,” Joanna whispered.
“What about him?” Mari demanded. “Is he hurt? Has there been an accident?”
Joanna shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “No accident.”
“What is it, then? You’ve got to get hold of yourself, Joanna. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Oh, Mari,” Joanna sobbed. “What am I going to do? What am I going to tell Jenny? It’ll break her heart.”
“Tell her what? What’s happened?”
Joanna drew a shuddering breath. “Butch stayed out all night. He was with another woman. I saw them together, just a little while ago.”
Marianne was all business. “Where did this happen?” she asked.
“At a hotel up in Phoenix—Peoria, really. “There’s a wedding tonight ...”
“I remember now,” Marianne said. “Butch is the man of honor.”
“Right,” Joanna said. “The rehearsal dinner was last night. I was supposed to go, but I ended up having to work. I had to drive a homicide victim’s sister down to Bisbee to identify the body. Then there was a huge flap with my mother calling CPS and upsetting everyone out at the ranch. By the time things settled down, it was too late to drive back, so I spent the night and came back to Phoenix this morning. I had tried calling Butch to let him know. I left several messages on voice mail in the room, and they were all still there because he never came back to the room. He was with another woman, Mari. When I saw them, they had just finished having breakfast together.”
Like a wind-up toy running down, Joanna subsided into silence.
“Breakfast,” Marianne interjected. “You said they had break-fast. What makes you think there’s anything more to it than just that?”
“I saw them,” Joanna said. “I saw them together. And he introduced me to her. He said she was an old friend, Mari. But if she was such a good friend, why haven’t I ever heard her name before? Why wasn’t she invited to our wedding? Believe me, they’re more than good friends. And I can’t stand it. We’ve been married less than two months, and already Butch may have been unfaithful to me. I can’t believe it.”
“Do you know that for sure?” Marianne asked. “Did he tell you he’s been unfaithful?”
“No, but—”
“How do you know then?”
“I just know. I’m not stupid, Mari. I saw them together. I know what I saw.” In the silence that followed, Joanna heard Lila Winter’s voice once more. “Thank you for everything.”
“What you think you saw,” Marianne admonished. “Have you actually talked to Butch about this? Did you ask him?”
“No. Ever since I left the hotel, he’s been trying to call me. He says he wants to explain. Explain! As if there could be any explanation. But I won’t talk to him. He thinks all he has to do is give me some kind of lame excuse, and the whole thing will go away. I t won’t!”
“You still haven’t spoken to him?” Marianne asked.
“No. What’s the point? What’s tearing me up is what am I going to tell Jenny, Mari? She loves Butch almost as much as she loved her dad. What will happen to her if she loses Butch, too? And how am I going to face all the people in town, the ones who came to our wedding—the ones who told me I was jumping iii too soon? The ones who said I should have given myself more time? It turns out that they’re right and I’m wrong. How will I ever be able to live this down?”
“Where are you right now?” Marianne asked.
“Metrocenter,” Joanna answered. “When I left the hotel, I didn’t know where to go. I thought about coming home, but I was crying so hard that it wasn’t safe to drive. I stopped here at the im.ill because I was afraid I was going to kill someone.”
“Good decision,” Marianne said. “Nobody should try to drive when they’re crying their eyes out. So what are you going to do now?”
“Come home,” Joanna said in a small voice.
“Where’s Butch?” Marianne
asked.
“Back at the hotel,” Joanna answered. “At the Conquistador, in Peoria. That’s where the wedding’s going to be held, the one where Butch is the man of honor. What a joke!”
“And how’s he getting home?”
“How should I know?” Joanna asked.
“Does he have a car?”
“No. We took my county car up to the Sheriffs’ Association Conference in Page. We stopped off in Phoenix for the wedding on the way back down.”
“How’s he getting back to Bisbee?”
“He can walk, for all I care.”
“I see,” Marianne said.
Around her, the mall was filling up with people while Joanna Brady had never felt so alone in her life. Families—mothers and fathers with young, boisterous children—walked through the mall. Some were just out shopping. Others, still dressed in their Sunday finery, were headed to the food court for an after-church lunch. There were throngs of teenagers, kids Jenny’s age, laughing and joking as though they hadn’t a care in the world. Everyone else seemed happy and glad to be alive while Joanna was simply desolate. She noted that a few of the passersby aimed wary, sidelong glances in her direction.
They probably think I’m crazy, she thought self-consciously. Here I sit. Tears are dripping off my chin, and I’m holding on to my cell phone as though it’s a damned life preserver!
“I think you should go back,” Marianne Maculyea was saying when Joanna’s straying attention returned to the phone.
“I should do what?”
“When it’s safe for you to drive, you should go back to the hotel and talk to Butch.”
“Why? What’s the point?”
Marianne sighed, sounding the way she did when dealing with Ruth, her recalcitrant three-year-old. “Before we go into that, I want you to tell me what’s been going on. All of it, from the beginning.”
And so Joanna found herself relating all the events of the past several days, including how Jenny and Dora Matthews had found Constance Haskell’s body and how Joanna had ended up leaving Phoenix the previous afternoon in order to bring Maggie MatFerson to Bisbee to identify her sister’s body. She explained how Eleanor had precipitated a crisis at home by dragging Child Protective Services into an already overwrought situation. It was harder to talk about coming back to the hotel that morning and discovering Butch hadn’t been there. Finally she came to the part where Butch and Lila Winters had found her reading Maggie MacFerson’s article in the hotel lobby. As she recounted that, Joanna was once again struggling to hold back tears.