by J. A. Jance
“I’ll say it was,” Dick Voland growled. The chief deputy, hat in hand, had entered the reception area just in time to hear what Father McCrady had to say. “Sheriff Brady seems to be celebrating Random Acts of Kindness Week a little early this year,” he said.
Joanna turned on him. “I believe that’s enough, Dick.”
“I’m on my way to Tombstone, Kristin,” he said with a glower. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.” He headed for the door.
Joanna stopped him. “Wait a minute, Dick,” she said. “I’m going there, too. Maybe we should ride over together. It’ll give us a chance to talk. You and I seem to have more than one topic to discuss.”
“But I was leaving right now,” Voland objected.
“So am I,” Joanna returned.
Voland sighed. “Which car?” he asked. “Mine or yours?”
Joanna realized that if she and her chief deputy were about to have a battle royal, it was important that Joanna Brady be the one in the driver’s seat. “Mine,” she said, then she turned back to Father McCrady. “If you’ll excuse us, we have to go now.”
“One more thing, Sheriff Brady,” the priest said. “Hal isn’t actually charged with anything at the moment, is he?”
“Not yet,” Joanna replied. “My chief detective has been occupied with a number of other cases, but that could change. The Buckwalter incident is still being actively investigated.”
“That being the case, is it really necessary to have a police officer following him around everywhere he goes? Hal is finding that very disturbing.”
Joanna glanced in Dick Voland’s direction. He nodded back at her. Urgently. “Homicide is also disturbing,” Joanna said evenly. “At this time we still believe a police presence is necessary.”
“But why?”
“Because he’s a flight risk,” Voland put in, answering Father McCrady’s question in Joanna’s stead.
Father McCrady peered around Joanna and let his eyes settle on her chief deputy. “I can assure you that Hal Morgan didn’t kill that man. Nevertheless, he has given me his word of honor that he’ll make no effort to leave Bisbee until the investigation is complete and he has been fully exonerated.”
“Hal Morgan’s word may be good enough for you,” Dick Voland said. “But it doesn’t mean much to anyone else. We’re working on physical evidence.”
“What physical evidence?” Father McCrady asked.
“Obviously we can’t reveal that,” Joanna said. “What Mr. Voland and I are both saying, Father McCrady, is that the guard stays for the time being.”
Hurrying back into her office, Joanna called Jenny at her grandmother’s house. “I’ve got to go to Tombstone,” she said. “It’s a serious car accident. I may be very late. Would you please ask Grandma and Grandpa Brady if you can spend the night?”
Any other night, Jenny would have been thrilled at the prospect of sleeping over. Tonight was a different story.
“Oh, Mom,” she whined. “Do I have to?”
“Yes,” Joanna said. “Now hurry and ask.”
Minutes later, Joanna and Dick Voland were in the Blazer. With siren wailing and lights flashing, they headed for Tombstone. Voland sat on the rider’s side, with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. Maneuvering through town, Joanna concentrated on her driving. As they started up the Divide, however, before Joanna had a chance to say a word, Voland surprised her with an unexpected apology.
“Sorry about that Random Acts of Kindness comment,” he said. “I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. And thanks for backing me up on the Morgan surveillance, too. I’ve just got a feeling about this Morgan guy. I can’t explain it.”
“You’ve been checking him out?”
Voland nodded. “I have. That’s what worries me. Nobody has a bad word to say about him. Nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Trust him with my life. Honest as the day is long.”
Joanna thought of her own meeting with Hal Morgan. That was how he had struck her, too. Honest.
“Maybe the people who are telling you those nice things about him are right. Maybe he didn’t do it.”
“And maybe he did,” Voland insisted glumly.
Joanna spent the rest of the trip to the accident scene recounting to her chief deputy what she had learned in the course of the day. She told him about Terry Buckwalter’s plan to sell her husband’s practice and leave town as soon as possible. She also told him about Bebe Noonan’s pregnancy. Voland whistled when he heard that.
“I know Ernie was out talking to the Rob Roy guy this afternoon,” Voland said. “So he may have found out about the golf stuff, but the pregnancy bit is something else. How’d you find that out if Ernie didn’t?”
There was a certain grudging respect in Dick Voland’s voice, something Joanna had never heard there before. “Just lucky, I guess,” she said.
Several miles passed before Dick Voland spoke again. “The last time I remember seeing Terry and Bucky together was at a football game last fall. They seemed just fine—as normal as apple pie. There was no way to tell all this other stuff was going on, but that’s the way life works. You think people are fine, and then one day they blow up in your face.” He paused. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” he added.
“Yes,” Joanna agreed. “It certainly does.”
In the course of the next four hours, Joanna learned far more than she had ever wanted to know about triage. Nothing she had read in textbooks could have prepared her for the carnage waiting in a gully off a narrow dirt track east of the Tombstone Municipal Airport. Eighteen adults had been locked in the back of the speeding van when it flipped. Two were dead at the scene. Two more were in critical condition and had been airlifted to trauma centers in Tucson. Neither of those two victims was expected to make it. Others, less seriously injured, had been stashed, under guard, in three different hospitals in Cochise County, and two in Tucson. The remaining five, people with injuries no more serious than cuts and bruises, had been booked into the Cochise County Jail.
Just dealing with the prisoners proved to be a logistical nightmare. Most of the time, Border Patrol policy dictates that undocumented aliens simply be returned to Mexico. This time, however, with authorities wanting to file vehicular homicide charges against the driver, it had been deemed necessary to hold all the U.D.A.s in what, for now, was being billed as “protective custody.”
The smuggler/driver—who had been wearing a seat belt and wasn’t injured in the wreck—had left the scene on foot. After three hours of searching, a canine unit finally found him hiding under a mesquite tree in a wash.
It was almost ten by the time Joanna and Dick Voland returned to the county jail. Not wanting to leave until all the prisoners had been properly booked, Joanna settled down at her desk. There were more messages—two more from her mother and one from Larry Matkin, but Joanna simply put them aside with the others. She would return her calls—all of them—in the morning and not before.
Shortly after eleven Tom Hadlock, the jail commander, stopped by Joanna’s office to report that all the prisoners had been booked into the jail.
“I’ve got the coyote in an isolation cell,” Hadlock told her. “I was afraid some of his victims might try to do him in.”
“I wouldn’t be too surprised if they did,” Joanna said. “Any idea who he is?”
At the time of his arrest, the smuggler had been carrying no driver’s license and had given what everyone had assumed to be a phony name.
“You bet,” Tom replied proudly. “When we ran his prints through that new Automated Fingerprint Identification System, they rang bells from here to Texas. The guy’s real name is Jesus Rojas Gonzales. He has three outstanding warrants on non-related drug-running charges—two in New Mexico and one in Texas. Those warrants plus the three kilos of black gold heroin hidden under the floorboards are most likely what triggered his attempt to elude the Highway Patrol officer who was stopping him for nothing more serious than a busted taillight. By the way, how’s the officer d
oing?” Hadlock asked.
“About how you’d think,” Joanna replied. “He’s in shock. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong, but there are plenty of people who are ready to string him up right along with the coyote.”
The jail commander grinned. “The Highway Patrol is the state’s baby,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to see what the governor’s Ms. Morales makes of this.”
After Hadlock left her office, Joanna gathered her purse and coat. She was preparing to leave herself when she realized the light was still on in the reception area outside her door. Stepping across the room, she had just switched off the light and was about to return to her own office when she heard a strange rumbling sound. It took a moment for her to place the noise—someone snoring.
Three offices and the conference room opened off the reception area—hers, Dick Voland’s, and Frank Montoya’s. Frank’s office was empty, as was Joanna’s. In Dick Voland’s office she found her chief deputy lying stretched out full-length on his couch. Except for his shoes, he was fully clothed. His sock-clad feet stuck out beyond a length of plaid wool blanket. He was sound asleep.
Joanna went over to him and shook him gently by the shoulder. “Wake up, Dick,” she said.
His eyes blinked open. Glazed with weariness, he stared at Joanna for a moment without seeming to recognize her.
“Everything here is under control,” she continued. “Go home and get a good night’s rest. There’s no reason for you to sleep here.”
Slowly he swung his feet to the floor and then sat with his hands clasping his forehead. “I can’t go home,” he muttered.
“Of course you can,” Joanna returned. “If you’re too tired, I’ll get one of the deputies to drive you.”
“I said, I can’t go home!” He drew the blanket around him and sat staring down at the floor. There was something in the way he looked, some quality of abject misery in his voice, that warned Joanna there was more going on here, something over and above his being too tired to drive.
Without waiting for an invitation, she sank down on the couch beside him.
“What is it, Dick?” she asked.
“Ruth kicked me out,” he said at last. “She says she wants a divorce, and I haven’t had time to go looking for an apartment.”
“Ruth kicked you out?” Joanna repeated. “How come? What’s going on?”
“She’s jealous,” he answered.
“Jealous of your job? She’s been married to a cop for long enough that she should know how it goes.”
There was a long silence. “No,” he said finally. “It’s not the job. She’s jealous of you.”
“Of me!” Joanna exclaimed. “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You told her there was nothing to it, didn’t you?”
“I tried,” Dick Voland said miserably. “I don’t think she believed me.”
Shocked beyond speech, Joanna got up, walked back over to the doorway and switched on the light. “How long have you been sleeping here?” she asked.
“A week,” he said. “I’ve been keeping my clothes in the car and showering in the deputies’ locker room, all the while hoping she’d come to her senses.”
“Do you want me to talk to her?” Joanna asked.
“Not on your life!” Dick Voland replied. “That’s the last thing I want you to do.”
FIFTEEN
LATE AS it was when Joanna arrived home, she started the washer the moment she walked in the door. She had used the last of her clean underwear that morning. If she didn’t stay up late enough to put a load of wash in the dryer, she’d have to wear a damp bra and pair of panties to work the next morning.
Ruth Voland is jealous of me? she thought. How can that be?
Once she staggered into bed, sleep came quickly, but so did morning. Feeling guilty about spending so much time away from Jenny, Joanna had set the alarm for six so she could drive into town early and have breakfast with Jenny before she left for school.
She was dressed and close to leaving the house when the phone rang. Hurrying back to answer it, she found her mother on the phone. “You never called me back yesterday,” Eleanor complained.
“I didn’t get home until almost midnight,” Joanna answered. “I didn’t think you’d want me to call that late.”
“Well, I suppose not,” Eleanor agreed. “Were you out dealing with that awful mess up by Tombstone?”
Joanna sighed. “As a matter of fact, I was.”
“What I can’t understand is why those people keep on coming here in the first place. Why don’t they just stay in Mexico where they belong?”
“Why didn’t your great-grandparents stay in England?” Joanna asked.
“That was different,” Eleanor told her.
This was a long-standing argument—one that no amount of logic could win. Joanna closed her eyes and prayed for patience. “What is it you want, Mother?”
There was a slight pause before Eleanor answered. “Are you planning on attending the Buckwalter funeral this morning?” she asked finally.
“Yes.”
“Well, good,” Eleanor said. “You should. Your father always did. Keeping up appearances, you know. In the face of this awful crime wave, it’s important that people see you out in public and know you’re on the job.”
Eleanor hadn’t been wildly in favor of her daughter’s running for office in the first place. Now that Joanna had won the election, however, Eleanor Lathrop seemed determined to do everything necessary to keep the job of sheriff in the family.
“Right, Mother,” Joanna said.
“You know,” Eleanor added, “I never remember anything like this number of homicides happening all at once when your father was in office.”
No doubt there was a hidden subtext behind that comment. Eleanor was probably building up to letting Joanna know that everything that had happened was all Joanna’s fault. It was fine for Joanna to blame herself. It was definitely not okay for her mother to do the same.
“Neither do I,” Joanna said. “But times have changed, haven’t they?”
“Yes,” Eleanor admitted. “I suppose they have. By the way, did you ever talk to Reverend Maculyea? She called here looking for you.”
“Marianne called there? That’s odd. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. You’d better talk to her first thing.”
“I will,” Joanna agreed. “As soon as I get off the phone with you.”
It was only after she clicked the receiver that Joanna remembered that she still hadn’t tackled her mother on the subject of her relationship with Cochise County Coroner George Winfield. That conversation was going to come, though, eventually.
Joanna dialed Marianne Maculyea’s number without ever dropping the telephone receiver back on the hook. She was worried about calling too early, but when Marianne answered she sounded wide awake, if harried.
“I can’t talk long,” the pastor said. “I’m on my way out the door to catch a plane.”
“A plane. Where to?”
“San Francisco. Jeff sent me a telegram yesterday afternoon. First nothing happens for weeks on end. Then all of a sudden he sends word yesterday that I have to be in San Francisco by noon today. The expectation had always been for him to fly into Tucson and for me to meet him there. He didn’t send along any explanation about the change in plan, either. Nothing. Just ‘meet us in San Francisco,’ and a flight number from Hong Kong. But that’s something anyway. At least he said ‘us.’ It means…”
Marianne’s voice faltered.
“It means he did get the baby, right?” Joanna finished triumphantly.
“That’s right.”
“How great! Mari, congratulations. Aren’t you excited?”
“Yes, but…It’s just that…”
“It’s just what?”
“I’ve been so worried that there was some kind of hitch and he wouldn’t be able to get her out, that I had sort of given up hope. Now I guess I’m a littl
e overwhelmed.”
“Do you need a ride to Tucson? Can I come pick you up? God knows, I’ve put in enough hours at work this week.”
“No,” Marianne said. “I’ve asked Billy Matthews from First Baptist to substitute for me at Bucky Buckwalter’s funeral. Meantime, I’m driving myself up in the Bug.”
Joanna knew her friend well enough to discern the undercurrent of concern beneath her business-as-usual words. “Mari,” Joanna said, “what’s wrong?”
Marianne laughed. “I’m that transparent?”
“To me you are. Now tell me. What’s wrong?”
“I’m scared,” Marianne Maculyea said.
“Scared of what?”
“Of becoming a mother. All of a sudden I realized I don’t know the first thing about it. What if she gets sick? What if she won’t eat or hurts herself? How will I know what to do?”
Joanna laughed at that. “Everybody feels that way in the beginning, but you’ll be fine. You and Jeff will be wonderful parents. Just remember, it’s all on-the-job training. How soon are you leaving for the airport?”
“Half an hour.”
“Promise me you won’t go until I get there. Jenny and I have something that we want you to take along.”
“All right,” Marianne agreed. “I’ll wait.”
Joanna dropped that call and dialed the Bradys. Jenny answered the phone, sounding sulky. “Guess what?” Joanna announced. “Jeff is on his way to San Francisco with the new baby. Do you want to ride along up to the parsonage with me to give Marianne her present?”
Concerned that something might go wrong, Marianne had absolutely forbidden any presents or baby showers prior to knowing for sure that the adoption would go through. Once Jeff left for China, however, Joanna had bought a diaper bag. In the intervening weeks she and Jenny had added another item or two almost every time they had gone to the store.
The sulkiness went out of Jenny’s voice. “But it isn’t wrapped yet,” she objected.
“It’s the thought that counts,” Joanna said. “I’m leaving the house right now.”
“I’ll be ready,” Jenny said.