by J. A. Jance
“You’re saying she was mentally disturbed?” Joanna asked.
“Amongst the family, we always said she was just plain crazy—crazy and dumb both. She got away from her old man once when she run off and married that trucker from Dripping Springs, Texas. What nobody could ever figure out was why she come back home once that marriage broke up, or why she stayed, either one. Guess she thought she just didn’t have no other choice. The thing is, if she’da left him, she pro’ly coulda made it on her S.S.I. Aunt Franny—Franny Langford, my mother’s older sister—woulda taken her in in a minute if need be. Hannah never woulda been left out on the streets.”
“Your cousin was receiving Social Security income based on what?” Joanna asked.
“Who knows?” Dotson said. “On account of being crazy, I expect. Disabled, one way or the other. I’m sure my uncle never let her keep none of the money to spend on herself. That wasn’t his way.”
Joanna thought of the five hundred or so dollars Hannah had said she had hidden away in her underwear drawer. For someone in her straitened circumstances, that must have amounted to a fortune. How long had it taken the poor unfortunate woman to accumulate that much of a hoard?
“So what can I do for you today, Mr. Dotson?” Joanna asked.
“I just come to town to retrieve the bodies and make arrangements. Only havin’ one body sent back, really. My uncle’s gonna be buried here in Bisbee, and the sooner the better. No service, no nothing. I’m havin’ Hannah shipped up to Thatcher. Aunt Franny’s makin’ arrangements for Hannah to be buried in the Langford family plot, where she belongs. Her mother, too, if we can work it out. She’s buried over in Willcox, but we’re seein’ about movin’ her to Thatcher as well.”
“Has anyone given you your cousin’s personal effects?” Joanna asked.
Dotson shook his head. “Not so far. The lady out in the lobby told me I should come here to talk to Detective Carpenter, exceptin’ I guess he’s not here, so I ended up with you instead.”
Joanna pushed the button on her intercom. “Kristin,” she said. “Have someone from the jail bring over Ms. Green’s personal effects, would you?”
While they waited, Joanna turned back to Philip Dotson. “You wouldn’t happen to know whatever happened to Hannah’s right hand, would you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Reed slammed it in a door once years back to keep Hannah from leavin’ home that second time. Never carried her to no doctor with it, neither. My Uncle Reed didn’t believe in doctors. That’s how come Aunt Ruth died so young, too. She caught pneumonia and died. If she’da went to a doctor, she’d pro’ly still be around.”
Joanna reached for Ernie’s written report on the two linked cases—on Hannah Green and Reed Carruthers. “I’ve had detectives over there at Sunizona asking questions for two days. How come none of the neighbors mentioned any of this?”
“Pro’ly didn’t know nothin’ about it. Reed Carruthers never was one to wash his dirty underwear in public. My mother’s people—the Langfords—is the same way.”
Just then Tom Hadlock, the jail commander, showed up in Joanna’s office bearing a thin manila envelope and a plastic bag. He dropped the bag on the floor and then dumped the contents of the envelope out onto Joanna’s desk.
“Her clothes are all here in the bag,” he said. “You’re welcome to them if you want…”
“I know all about Hannah’s clothes,” Philip Dotson said. “You go ahead and get rid of ’em. Like as how burnin’s all they’re good for.”
Leaning forward, he saw the stack of clipped-together bills that had fallen out of the envelope. Picking up the paper money, he thumbed through it. “Where’d all this come from?” he asked. “Looks like a bundle. How’d Hannah lay hands on so much money?”
Joanna glanced at the listing on the outside of the envelope. “It’s five hundred fifty-six dollars and eleven cents in all,” she said. “Hannah told me she had saved it. She claimed she had more than that set aside, so she must have spent some of it on her way to my house.”
“Why’d she do that?” Philip Dotson asked, his eyes narrowing. “That’s what my Aunt Franny wants to know. If Hannah was just gonna do herself in anyways, why’d she come all that way down here to see you first, Sheriff Brady? Why not just do it at home and get it over with and save everybody the trouble?”
“She said she wanted to talk to a woman,” Joanna answered slowly. “She said she wanted somebody to hear her side of what happened.”
“And what did happen?”
“According to what she told me, Hannah wanted to watch a particular program on TV, but your uncle took the remote control and ran off outside with it. Hannah went after him, trying to get it back. When she caught up to him, I think she went over the edge and started hitting him.”
“She told you then, didn’t she,” Dotson said. “About my uncle. About how mean he was.”
Joanna nodded.
“And you believed her?”
“Yes, I did,” Joanna said. “If her case had gone to trial, I don’t think there ever would have been a homicide conviction. Manslaughter, maybe. Considering the extenuating circumstances, maybe not even that.”
Without another word, Philip Dotson started scooping the money and the few other loose items back into the envelope.
“Don’t you want to count the money first?” Tom Hadlock objected. “I need you to sign for it. You should make sure it’s all there before you do.”
“It don’t matter none,” Philip Dotson said. “However much it is, it’s not enough to fight over.”
With careful concentration he signed the form Tom Hadlock handed him, then Dotson stood up. Holding both the envelope and his hat in one hand, he reached out toward Joanna with the other.
“Thank you, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “I thank you, and so does my Aunt Franny. She’s been cryin’ for twenty-four hours straight now, beratin’ herself somethin’ fierce on account of no one ever listened to Hannah or done nothin’ about her. But it turns out now that somebody did listen, and we’re mighty grateful. Can’t none of us vote for you, on account of we’re up in Graham County instead of in Cochise. But we’ll all be prayin’ for you. Aunt Franny’s especially good at that.”
“Thank you,” Joanna said. “And tell your Aunt Franny thank you as well. Any and all prayers are greatly appreciated. After all, they’re part of the glue that holds us all together.”
Isn’t that right, Jim Bob? Joanna thought as she watched Philip Dotson amble out of her office. Lunches and prayers, both.
Through the remainder of the afternoon she continued to wade through the paperwork jungle. She tried several times to reach Larry Matkin, but to no avail. He evidently hadn’t returned to his office after leaving the parish hall. The next time Joanna’s phone rang, the caller was Butch Dixon. “Are we all set for dinner?” he asked. “What time and where?”
“There’s a place called the Pizza Palace out in Don Luis. How about if we meet there around six?”
“Don Luis?” Butch repeated. “Where’s that? I thought we were having dinner here in town.”
Joanna laughed. “We are. Don Luis is part of town. It was incorporated into Bisbee in the fifties, along with Warren, Bakerville, and Lowell. The thing is, all those individual neighborhoods have retained their original names, even though they’re all a part of Bisbee proper.”
“The Pizza Palace,” Butch repeated.
“Do you need directions?”
“No, thanks. I’m sure someone here at the Grand Hotel will be able to tell me how to find it.”
Once Joanna was off the phone, she tried Larry Matkin’s number once again for good measure. Still there was no answer. About four, Kristin came in with a stack of typed letters for Joanna to sign. “By the way, Deputy Voland told me to tell you he was taking off early this afternoon.”
“Did he say when he’d be back?”
“I’m sure he’s gone for the day,” Kristin said, a trifle too quickly.
Joanna regard
ed Kristin Marsten with a penetrating look. “I’m sure he won’t be coming back to work,” Joanna said. “But did he say whether or not he was coming back to sleep?”
Kristin flushed to the roots of her light blond hair.
“So you did know about that?” Joanna pressed.
Kristin nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The young secretary shrugged. “I guess I was afraid he’d get in some kind of trouble.”
“Kristin,” Joanna said. “Police officers are a lot more likely to get into trouble if we don’t know what’s going on in their personal lives. As my secretary, you’re my eyes and ears around here. Your job is to let me know things that are going on that may have some bearing on the performance of any member of my department. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” Kristin replied. “I see.”
“Good.”
Kristin went out then. As Joanna sat putting her signature at the bottom of the typed letters, she thought about what she had just told Kristin. What she had said was true. But didn’t it go further than that, further than just needing to know what was going on? Now that she was aware of the situation in the Voland household, didn’t she have some responsibility to do something about it?
Closing up her desk, she took the signed letters out to Kristin to put in the mail. “I’m heading out early, too,” she said.
Except, instead of driving directly to Eva Lou and Jim Bob Brady’s to pick up Jenny, Joanna drove out to San Jose Estates. Ruth and Dick Voland lived in a four-bedroom stuccoed rambler with a magnificent view of the stately mountain peak several miles south of the border in Old Mexico from which the development took its name.
It was a long time after Joanna rang the bell before the mahogany door opened. Ruth was a heavyset, jowly woman in her early forties. Wearing sweats, she was panting, as though she’d been interrupted in the middle of a workout. Ruth paled as soon as she saw Joanna standing there. “It’s not Dick, is it?” she demanded. “Has something happened to him?”
“No,” Joanna said. “I came to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“You’re making a terrible mistake,” Joanna said. “Dick and I work together. That’s it. There is absolutely nothing going on between us.”
Ruth stood back and opened the door, gesturing Joanna into the house. She shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter if there is or if there isn’t,” she said.
“Of course it matters,” Joanna returned. “He’s out right now, looking for an apartment. Catch him before he rents one. Have him come back home. You guys have two kids, don’t you?”
Ruth Voland nodded. “One in high school and the other in junior high.”
“Those kids need their father. Dick is my chief deputy, but when it comes to romance, you don’t have a thing to worry about.”
“I already told you,” Ruth asserted, “it is too late. I got sick and tired of listening to him talk about Joanna Brady this and Joanna Brady that twenty-four hours a day. I’ve found someone else. Kenneth is the coach of my son’s bowling team out in Sierra Vista. Ken’s already divorced, and I will be soon.”
Joanna was stunned. She had somehow thought all she’d have to do was walk up to the door, talk to Ruth Voland a few minutes, and the whole thing would be set to rights.
“You’re filing for a divorce?”
“Sure I am,” Ruth Voland replied. “Ken and I want to get married as soon as we can.”
“But Ruth,” Joanna argued. “You’ve already got a perfectly good husband.”
“If he’s so damned perfect, you have him then,” Ruth Voland said. “It was bad enough when he was married to the job. I could take that. I knew what to expect. But then, when you turned up, it was too much. I’m just a housewife, Sheriff Brady. I don’t know what you are, but to hear Dick tell it, you must be right up there with Wonder Woman. I can’t compete with that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my Exercycle.”
Still in a daze, Joanna walked back to the Blazer, got in, and drove back to her in-laws’ place in Warren. Jenny was at a friend’s house when Joanna got there, and that was just as well.
“What’s going on?” Eva Lou asked. “You look upset.”
“Ruth Voland has thrown Dick out of the house. She’s filing for a divorce. She thinks there’s something going on between us.”
“Between you and Dick Voland?”
“That’s right.”
“There isn’t anything, is there?” Eva Lou asked.
“Of course not!” Joanna replied indignantly. “We work together, and that’s it. I tried to explain that to Ruth. I’m certainly not interested in the man, but I don’t think she believed me.”
“Probably not,” Eva Lou answered. “You’ve got to look at it through her point of view.”
“Which is?”
“Other than being an Avon Lady for a little while a few years back, I don’t think Ruth Voland has ever worked outside the home. All of a sudden you arrive on the scene, not just as a fellow officer, but as her husband’s boss. He’s bound to talk about you. The more he does, the more threatened she must feel.”
“But Eva Lou,” Joanna argued, “we never did anything. There was never anything out of line. We’ve just worked together, but here she has me cast as the other woman.”
“Whether you meant to be or not, you are the other woman,” Eva Lou said quietly.
“But what should I do about it?” Joanna asked desperately. “What can I do to fix it?”
“Not a blessed thing,” Eva Lou answered. “It’s strictly between the two of them. It has nothing to do with you.”
The front door banged open and a breathless Jenny came racing into the kitchen. “Hi, Mom,” she said. “When’s dinner? I’m starving.”
SEVENTEEN
WHEN JENNY and Joanna reached the Pizza Palace, Butch Dixon’s Goldwing was already parked outside the door. They found the man himself inside, seated at an oilcloth-covered picnic table. He was leaning against the wall, still reading the same book. While Jenny headed straight for the video-game arcade, Joanna slipped onto the bench across from him.
“Must be a good book,” Joanna said.
Closing it, Butch looked over at her and grinned. “It is,” he said. “This is the fourth or fifth time I’ve read it. It’s like reading the Bible. Depending on where you are and what’s going on in your life, you get something different out of it with each reading.”
He glanced around the room. “Where’s Jenny?”
“Waylaid by the video games,” Joanna answered with an exasperated shrug of her shoulders. “I gave her a dollar and told her when that’s gone there’ll be no more.”
“If she’s any good, she could be gone a long time,” Butch said.
“Believe me,” Joanna returned, “she’s not that good.”
“You look tired,” Butch said, examining her face. “Rough day, I suppose, with the funeral and all.”
Joanna was still so stricken by her confrontation with Ruth Voland that Bucky Buckwalter’s funeral seemed days, not hours, away. “It’s been a rough week,” she said.
Jenny proved to be far better with the video games than her mother had expected. By the time she finally showed up at the table, Butch had already ordered a pitcher of root beer, a large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, and green salads all around. Left on their own, the two grown-ups had launched off into conversation.
“Well,” Joanna said, “what’s the verdict on Bisbee so far?”
“It’s nice,” he said. “And small. And everybody seems to know you.”
“That’s how small towns are supposed to work. Everybody knows everybody else.”
“No,” Butch said. “People know you specifically. Several different people have asked me what I’m doing in Bisbee. When I tell them I’m here visiting a friend and that the friend is you, they all have something to say about you.”
“Good, bad, or indifferent?” Joanna asked.
“Mostly good,” B
utch replied. “The people I’ve talked to seem to be very proud of you. Small-town girl makes good and all that.”
Joanna gave him a rueful grin. “Don’t believe everything you hear. And remember, I didn’t exactly volunteer for this job. I was drafted.”
“So were most of the guys whose names ended up on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.,” Butch Dixon answered seriously. “But just because they were drafted doesn’t keep them from being heroes or martyrs, depending on your point of view.”
A moment or two passed. “Does that bother you?” he asked. “The fact that everybody knows you?”
“I guess I’m getting used to it.”
Sensing that the conversation was making her uncomfortable, Butch changed the subject. “It’s gorgeous country,” he said. “The contrasting reds and grays. The blue sky. The whole place is just incredible.”
Relieved of her four quarters, Jenny arrived at the table, sampled her drink, smiled at Butch and said, “What kind of pizza?”
“Jenny,” Joanna admonished. “Mind your manners. First you should say hello.”
“Hello,” Jenny chirped in Butch’s direction. “And what kind of pizza?”
“Hello yourself,” Butch returned. “And the pizza of the day is pepperoni with extra cheese.”
“Did you know that’s my favorite?” Jenny asked.
Butch nodded. “A little bird told me.”
“It did not,” Jenny responded, settling onto the bench beside her mother. “She told you.”
Butch grinned. “You got me,” he said. “Now tell me all about this ranch of yours. Where is it again?”
“The High Lonesome is about ten miles the other side of town. Fifteen miles or so from where we are now.”
“And the two of you live out there all by yourselves?” he asked. “Isn’t it lonely?”
Jenny shook her head. “It’s not lonely,” she said. “We’ve got the dogs. And pretty soon we’re going to have a horse, too. Mom’s going to buy me one for my birthday.”