by J. A. Jance
“Spilling secrets is my mother’s specialty,” Joanna said shortly. “I don’t think she’s ever kept one in her life, certainly not anybody else’s. And a boyfriend? No way. It couldn’t be.”
“Your mother’s an attractive woman,” Eva Lou returned. “And stranger things than that have happened, you know.”
Joanna considered for a moment, then shook her head. “I agree,” she said. “It would be strange, all right.”
With that, banished from the kitchen, Joanna did as she’d been told. She retreated to her bedroom for one last check of her luggage to make sure she had packed everything she would need. When it came time to open the closet door, she hesitated, knowing that the sight of it would leave her with a quick clutch of emptiness in her stomach that had nothing at all to do with hunger.
At her mother’s insistence, Joanna had finally found the strength to take Andy’s clothing to a church-run used-clothing bank down in Naco, Sonora. Although half of the closet was now totally empty, Joanna’s clothing was still jammed together at one end of a clothes rod while the other end held nothing but a few discarded hangers. Two months had passed, but Joanna could not yet bring herself to hang her own clothes on the other side of that invisible line that divided her part of the closet from what she still thought of as Andy’s. The time for claiming and rearranging the whole closet would come eventually—at least, she hoped it would—but for now, she still wasn’t ready.
As she turned away from the closet, there was a gentle tap on the bedroom door. “Joanna, Eva Lou says you may need some help packing your stuff out to the car,” Jim Bob Brady said. “Are you ready, or do you want to do it later?”
“Why not now?” Joanna returned. “Things are pretty well gathered up.”
Her father-in-law carried two suitcases while Joanna took one. She also lugged along a briefcase crammed full of paperwork in need of her perusal. “I’ve never been away from home this long before. I’m probably bringing too much,” she said, as they loaded the luggage into her county-owned Blazer.
“Better to take too much than too little,” Jim Bob replied.
When all of the suitcases were stowed in the back, Jim Bob Brady closed the cargo gate, then looked at Joanna quizzically. “Seems to me like Peoria’s pretty much flat. And last time I was up in those parts, I do believe all the streets were paved. So how come you’re going up there in a Blazer, for Pete’s sake? You’d get a whole lot better gas mileage from that little Eagle of yours than you will from this gas-guzzling outfit.”
“It’s a requirement,” Joanna explained. “The academy suggests that, wherever possible, students bring along the vehicle they’ll actually be using once they’re out patrolling on their own. That way, when it comes time to practicing pursuit driving, not only will we be learning pursuit-driving techniques, we’ll also be learning the real capabilities of our own vehicles.”
“Oh,” Jim Bob said, scratching his almost bald head. “Guess it does make sense, after all. Need anything else hauled out?”
Joanna shook her head. “That’s it.”
“I’m gonna go on back inside, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Maybe I can watch a few minutes of pro football before Eva Lou makes me turn off the set to come eat dinner. She’s real stubborn that way. Fussy. To hear her tell it, you’d think food eaten in front of a television set is plumb wasted.”
“It does seem like a waste of good cooking to me,” Joanna said.
Jim Bob Brady squinted at her and then grinned. “You women are all alike, aren’t you?” he muttered. “Not a hair of difference.”
As he marched off toward the house, Joanna stayed behind, enjoying the warmth of the early-afternoon sunshine and the crystal-clear blue of the sky overhead. It had been a strange fall with unseasonably cold and wet weather in October. Now, the week before Thanksgiving, warm, shirt-sleeve temperatures had returned, even in the high desert country of southeastern Arizona.
Joanna stood near the Blazer and gazed off across the broad, flat stretches of the Chiricahuas 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. Maybe…
The half-formed thought was interrupted when the two 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 she 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 oversized 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 allow 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?” she 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 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.
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.
All 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 Ev
a 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.