by J. A. Jance
It was enough of an assist so Joanna was able to stop the rising retort before it ever made it out of her mouth. Instead, to her surprise, she discovered it was possible to shrug off her mother’s none-too-subtle attack while at the same time saluting Eleanor’s unwavering single-mindedness.
“Thanks all the same, Mother,” Joanna said with a smile. “I’ll have to see when I can work a haircut into my schedule and set the appointment on my own.”
To Joanna’s amazement, that was all it took. Once she let it go, so did Eleanor. By the time they reached the Rob Roy parking lot a few minutes later, Eleanor was happily telling Eva Lou all about Bob and Marcie’s bone-china egg cups.
It was ten after twelve. Between golfers and luncheon attendees, the parking lot was fairly crowded. Joanna dropped Eleanor and Eva Lou at the door and then drove to the nearest available parking place at the far end of the lot. As she stepped out of the Blazer, she realized that the car next to hers was a familiar-looking aging white T-Bird that looked very much like Terry Buckwalter’s.
Sure enough, when she went around to the back and looked at the vehicle license, the license surround was printed with the words, “Have you hugged your vet today?”
Joanna was stunned. She had been surprised by Terry Buckwalter’s matter-of-fact acceptance of what had happened to her husband, but was the woman out playing golf the very next day? That was astonishing. Unheard of. And if Joanna was shocked by the idea, Terry Buckwalter was making a social faux pas that would set tongues wagging all over Cochise County for years to come.
Shaking her head, Joanna headed for the dining room, where a man met her at the door with a charming proprietary smile. “You must be Sheriff Brady,” he said. “Your lovely mother said you’d be along any minute. I’m Myron Thomas, the manager.”
Myron was short and round. He had penetratingly blue eyes, a courtly manner, and a slightly foreign but entirely unrecognizable accent.
“How late am I?” Joanna asked.
“Not at all,” Myron said easily. “The ladies were so enjoying their pre-lunch cocktails that they’re only just now settling into the dining room. If you’ll come this way, Sheriff Brady, I can take you directly to your place.”
As soon as Myron led the way into the dining room, Marianne Maculyea came hurrying to meet them. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she said. “Until your mother and Eva Lou showed up, I was afraid you weren’t going to make it. I’ve just been drafted into introducing you. Come on. You’re seated right next to me.”
“What happened to Marliss Shackleford? I thought doing the introduction was her job.”
“So did I,” Marianne answered. “Maybe she’s sick. All I know is, she isn’t here. Linda Kimball, the women’s club president, asked me to pinch-hit.”
After their telephoned confrontation the night before, Joanna couldn’t help being grateful that Marliss wasn’t doing the introductory honors. With no love lost between the two women, there was no telling what Marliss might have said.
A waitress bearing two loaded salad plates stood waiting for Joanna and Marianne to slip into their places. As she sat, Joanna was pleasantly surprised to see her mother smiling in Joanna’s direction from two tables away. Eleanor Lathrop’s glass of “house” white wine was raised in a salute. Using her water glass, Joanna returned the favor.
Linda Kimball leaned her stout frame in Joanna’s direction. “I hope you don’t mind that there wasn’t room at the table for both your mother and your mother-in-law. I did find a place where they could be together.”
“That’s fine,” Joanna said. “I’m sure they appreciate it.”
“And how are things out at the sheriff’s department this morning?” Linda asked. “Hopping, I presume.”
“You could say that,” Joanna said with a nod. “That’s why we’re so late, as a matter of fact.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Linda said. “Most of the ladies have never been here before. The social hour gave them all a chance to explore. I think even nondrinkers like me were getting a kick out of prowling around. Makes me feel like somebody dropped me somewhere smack in the middle of the Cotswolds.”
When Linda turned away to speak to the person seated on her left, Joanna had an opportunity to study her surroundings. The room was lovely, and spacious enough to hold the ten or so tables of twelve without seeming the least bit crowded. Dark walls and wood, as well as indirect lighting concealed behind deep-profiled cove molding near the ceiling gave the place an elegant ambience. If the food came close to matching the atmosphere, it was little wonder that the Rob Roy had emerged as the dining place of choice in Cochise County.
Linda stood up and tapped her water glass with a spoon, calling them to attention. “Good afternoon, ladies,” she said with a smile. “Please stand for the invocation. Reverend Maculyea?”
With the invocation and flag salute over, the luncheon began in earnest. In years past, Joanna would have been almost sick at the prospect of standing up later and giving a speech. Fortunately, running for sheriff had cured her of all fear of public speaking. She was able to enjoy the food and to chat with her table companions without succumbing to a case of nerves.
“Have you heard anything more from Jeff?” Joanna asked during a moment of relative privacy.
A cloud seemed to pass over Marianne’s face. “Nothing,” she said. “Not a word. The board advanced the money he said he needed. I wired it to him yesterday afternoon, but at this point I have no way of knowing whether or not he received it.”
“Don’t worry,” Joanna said. “It probably arrived there right on time. If it didn’t and he really needed the money, he would have called by now.”
Marianne nodded, but still she looked troubled. “The problem is, spending that money now is going to leave us strapped later on. I can’t imagine what Jeff was thinking when he asked me to come up with that much more. When he gets back, he may have to go to work just to help keep us afloat. Who’ll take care of the baby?”
“You’ll work it out,” Joanna told her. “It’s not the end of the world. Lots of kids grow up with two working parents.”
“But that’s not how we planned it,” Marianne argued.
Marianne Maculyea always appeared to be so calm and poised and completely all-knowing. It startled Joanna to realize that she already possessed intimate knowledge of something her friend and pastor was just beginning to learn.
“Welcome to parenthood, Mari,” Joanna said with a reassuring smile. “It’s always full of surprises. Now when can I schedule the baby shower?”
“Not until they’re home,” Marianne insisted. “I keep worrying that if we do anything beforehand, something will go wrong and the whole thing will fall apart.”
Just then Linda Kimball rose to her feet and once again called the group to attention. “Ladies, today we have as our guest the newly elected Sheriff of Cochise County, Joanna Brady. I believe Sheriff Brady will be honoring us with a few remarks—a state-of-the-county talk, if you will, rather like the President’s state of the union.
“Unfortunately our first vice president, Marliss Shackleford, is ill today. Substituting for her and making both the introduction and the official presentation will be our second vice president, the Reverend Marianne Maculyea.”
Before Marianne stood up, she reached down beside her chair and picked up a paper-wrapped parcel. “As you may suspect, I was asked to do this introduction just a few minutes ago. It’s a pleasure, however, since Joanna Brady and I have been friends for years. We met in seventh grade at Lowell School, longer ago than either one of us wants to remember. Not only is Joanna a good friend, she’s also one of the most resilient people I know.
“Most of you know the series of tragedies that, by force of circumstance, vaulted Joanna Brady into the position she holds today. As Arizona’s first and only female sheriff, we’ve all heard and read a good deal about how different she is, as though, by virtue of being sheriff, she’s somehow grown two left feet. I can assure you t
hat, although she may be very different from our previous sheriffs, she’s still very much the same old Joanna Lathrop Brady I’ve always known and loved.
“I’ve heard it said on occasion that she became a sheriff without really meaning to. In a way, that’s true. She set out on the very ordinary path of becoming a wife and mother, but when she reached a fork in that road, she knew which path to follow.
“Those of you who haven’t yet seen the women’s club’s display at the Cochise County Justice Center may not know that it consists of a series of framed pictures—formal portraits, if you will—of all Joanna Brady’s male predecessors in the office of Cochise County Sheriff. If you were to study the pictures as a group, I believe you’d find the officers featured there to be a pretty tough-looking bunch of customers—every man of them. Some of them look more like desperadoes than they do like upholders of law and order.
“When Sheriff Brady gave us the snapshot she wanted us to frame and use, her chosen pose sparked some controversy. And so, before I make the official presentation, I’d like to ask Joanna herself to please stand and give us a little background as to why she selected this particular photo. Please help me welcome Sheriff Joanna Brady.”
To a roomful of warmly welcoming applause, Joanna stood up and made her way to the podium. “Thank you, Marianne. You’re absolutely right, I never thought I would be elected sheriff, but now here I am. You’re right, too, about all the emphasis on how ‘different’ I am. Bearing that in mind, maybe I would have been better off sticking to a more formal portrait. The one I chose, though, is of me when I was seven or eight years old and setting off—Brownie uniform and all—to sell my first batch of Girl Scout cookies.
“Some people may laugh to hear this, but selling those cookies marked a real watershed for me. I was scared to death. I didn’t think I’d ever have nerve enough to talk to people and to ask them to buy something from me, but I did. Some of the boxes of cookies went to people I knew, but most of them went to strangers—to people I met at the post office and the grocery store. Over the years I got better at it. The year I was in the seventh grade, I sold five hundred boxes—enough cookies to be awarded the prize of two weeks of summer camp at Whispering Pines up on Mount Lemmon. Believe me, that’s a lot of Thin Mints.”
Joanna paused while the room filled with laughter. “Was that important?” she continued. “It must have been. Years later, I applied for a job with Milo Davis at the Davis Insurance Agency here in town. Milo asked me if I’d ever had any selling experience. I told him yes, Girl Scout cookies. I got the job. Last fall, when it came time to talk to strangers again, the voters of Cochise County gave me this job as well.
“I suspect that there are lots of women out there who are just like me, women who, as little girls, made their first forays into the world of work by selling Girl Scout cookies. Marketing those boxes of cookies is a very real job. It consists of deciding to do something, of setting a goal, and then making it happen.
“So when you look at this picture of a little girl with her Radio Flyer full of cookies, remember, that little red wagon is the vehicle that led to one I drive now—to the one that’s parked outside, at the far end of the parking lot. You’ll know it when you see it. It’s the big white Blazer with the light bar on top and with the insignia of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department painted on the door. I see selling that wagonload of cookies as the beginning of the path that led me, inevitably, to this one. And remember, too, the next time you buy a box of Thin Mints, you may be buying those cookies from a future President of the United States.”
As Joanna sat down, the women in the room rose to their feet, cheering and applauding. Gratified but feeling self-conscious, Joanna waited for the applause to die down. It was then she caught sight of Terry Buckwalter.
A wall of smoky glass separated the dining room from the lounge area and the bar beyond it. Eleanor was right. Terry’s hair was different, but not that different. Joanna watched as Terry Buckwalter, accompanied by a man, sauntered across the room. The two of them took seats at the bar. From the hand gestures and movements that accompanied the conversation, Joanna could see that Terry was evidently enjoying her part of the animated conversation. In one short day, Terry Buckwalter had undergone a total transformation.
When the applause ended and Marianne made the official presentation, Joanna managed to stand and string together a few words of acceptance, but she did so without ever letting the two people in the other room totally out of her sight.
Once the ceremony was over, Joanna leaned over to Marianne. “Could you do me a big favor?”
“Sure,” Marianne answered. “What?”
“There’s something I have to do. Could you please give Eva Lou and my mother a ride back to town?”
“I’m in the Bug,” Marianne replied, referring to her venerable late-sixties, sea-foam-green V.W. “But since there’s only the two of them, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of room. Do you want to tell them, or should I?”
“I will,” Joanna told her. “Eva Lou probably won’t mind, but you know Eleanor.”
Marianne nodded. “What kind of car did you say your brother drives?”
“A BMW,” Joanna answered. “A five-forty-i.”
“The Bug will be a big comedown if she’s used to that, but she’ll get over it.”
Which turned out to be not entirely true. “You want me to do what?” Eleanor demanded.
“Shhh,” Joanna said. “Don’t make a fuss, please. I want you to ride home with Marianne. There’s someone here I need to talk to.”
“So talk,” Eleanor said. “What’s the big problem?”
“It’s police business.”
“Come on, Eleanor,” Eva Lou said. “If Joanna has something to do, it won’t hurt us to ride back home with Marianne.”
“We’ll wait,” Eleanor insisted.
“It’s confidential, Mother,” Joanna said. “And I have no idea how long it will take.”
“We’ll wait in the car.”
“No, you won’t,” Joanna said, keeping her tone level but firm. “I’m sorry, but I have a job to do here. I expect you to go home with Marianne and let me do it.”
What had worked in regard to the hair appointment didn’t work when it came to the ride back home. The corners of Eleanor’s mouth turned down.
“Well!” she exclaimed in a voice that bristled with indignation. “I never!”
It took time for the women to drain out of the dining room, especially since most of them wanted to pause for a word or two with the guest of honor and to admire the photo. To Joanna’s relief, Terry and her male friend were still seated at the bar when Joanna’s last well-wisher headed for the parking lot. As Joanna walked toward them, she realized that, close up, the change in Terry Buckwalter was even more remarkable.
“Terry?” Joanna asked tentatively, easing herself up on an empty stool on Terry Buckwalter’s far side.
“Joanna!” Terry exclaimed, swinging around to face her. “What are you doing here?”
Joanna held up the framed picture. “I was here for the women’s club luncheon,” she answered. “I saw you come in and thought I’d stop by to see how you’re doing.”
Terry didn’t look particularly thrilled. Her tone of voice implied that Joanna’s interest in her well-being wasn’t much appreciated. “I’m doing fine,” she said. “I just want to be left alone.”
The man seated with Terry hurried off his barstool and came around to meet Joanna, one hand extended. Looking at him from behind, Joanna had assumed from the plentiful mop of reddish hair on his head that he was someone in his thirties or forties. Now that he stood in front of her, though, she realized he was far older than that. He was strikingly handsome—tan and fit, with aquiline good looks and an infectious grin that was both boyish and friendly. Still, he had to be pushing sixty if he was a day.
“Come on now, Terry,” the man urged. “Don’t be so standoffish. Who’s your friend? Why don’t you introduce us?”
“This is Peter,” Terry said without enthusiasm. “Peter Wilkes, my golf pro. And this is Joanna Brady.”
“Joanna Brady.” Frowning, the man repeated the name, then he snapped his fingers as if a light had been switched on in his head. “As in Sheriff Joanna Brady?”
Joanna nodded. “One and the same.”
“I remember now. Esther and Myron—Myron is my partner—mentioned something about a special luncheon today. If I’m not mistaken, you were the guest of honor. I hope everything measured up to your expectations.”
As soon as she heard Peter Wilkes’s name, Joanna recognized it as the other half of the pair of men who were responsible for the Rob Roy in the first place. The problem was, Joanna had understood that the two men were a gay couple rather than simply partners. If that was the case, what was going on between Peter Wilkes and Terry Buckwalter?
Peter politely backed away. “If you two will excuse me, I have another lesson coming up in just a few minutes. You shot a great game today, Terry. That back nine was terrific. Keep up the good work.”
“Thanks,” Terry said with a smile. “It was pretty good, wasn’t it?”
Peter Wilkes nodded. “It was a lot better than pretty good.”
“You’ll check for me then on the other?” Terry asked.
Peter looked down at his watch. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to reach him today. But yes, I will check. You can count on it. As soon as I know anything, I’ll let you know.”
Peter Wilkes hurried off in the direction that led out to the pro shop. Joanna waited for a moment, wondering what exactly Wilkes was checking on. Then the bartender appeared. “What can I get for you?” he asked, addressing Joanna.
Joanna shook her head. “Nothing for me,” she said. “I just finished lunch.”