Dora unwrapped the towel and dropped it on the floor. “I am,” she said. Jenny was surprised to see that Dora’s usually dingy brown hair was shining in the glow cast by the motor home’s generator-powered fluorescent light fixture.
Eva Lou bent over, picked up the wet towel, and handed it back to Dora. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to leave this lying on the floor. As soon as you hang it up, we’ll be going.”
For a moment Jenny thought Dora was going to say something smart. Instead, without a word, she stomped back into the bathroom and jammed the wet towel onto a wooden towel bar. “If that’s okay, maybe we can go now.”
“Yes,” said Eva Lou, guiding Jenny and Dora past Frank Montoya, who still stood in the open doorway. “I’m sure that will be just fine.”
The girls and their gear were both in the back of the Bradys’ Honda when Frank Montoya handed his phone to Grandma Brady. With a sinking feeling, Jenny knew at once that the person on the phone had to be her mother. Sliding down in the car seat, Jenny closed her eyes and wished she were somewhere else. A minute or so later, Eva Lou tapped on the window and motioned for Jenny to get out of the car.
“It’s for you,” Grandma Brady said. “Your mother wants to speak to you.”
Reluctantly, Jenny scrambled out of the car and took the phone, but she walked around to the far side of the motor home before she answered it. There were flashlights flickering in the other tents. Jenny knew that in the stillness, all the other girls in the troop were watching the excitement and straining to hear every word.
“Hello, Mom,” Jenny said.
“Are you all right?” Joanna demanded.
Hot tears stung Jenny’s eyes. “I guess so,” she muttered.
If Joanna had been ready to light into Jenny about her misbehavior, the faltering, uncertain sound of her daughter’s subdued voice was enough to change her mind and melt her heart. “What happened?” she asked.
Jenny’s tears boiled over. “I got into trouble, Mom,” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean to do it . . . trying the cigarette, I mean. It was like an accident, or something. Dora asked me and I said yes, even though I knew I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, Mom. Really I am.”
“Of course you’re sorry, Jenny,” Joanna said. “Grandma and Grandpa are there now to take you home, right?”
“Yes,” Jenny murmured uncertainly with a stifled sob, her tears still very close to the surface.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” Joanna said. “But in the meantime, I want you to know I love you.”
“Thank you.”
“Grandma told me that you reported finding the body even though you knew you’d probably get in trouble. That was brave of you, Jenny. Brave and responsible. I’m really proud of you for doing that.”
“Thanks,” Jenny managed.
“You go with the Gs now. I’ll see you tomorrow when I get home. Okay?”
“ ’kay, Mom.”
“Bye-bye.”
“Bye.”
“I love you.”
Jenny switched off the phone and then blundered back toward Grandma and Grandpa’s Honda. At the far end of the state, Sheriff Joanna Brady turned to her new husband.
“How’d I do?” she asked.
“Cool,” he said. “Understated elegance. Now come back to bed and let’s try to get some sleep. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”
4
It was only a little past seven when Joanna and Butch, packed and breakfasted, left the Marriott in Page for the five-hour drive to Phoenix. After the flurry of late-night phone calls, Joanna had had difficulty in falling asleep. She had lain awake for a long time, wondering if the dead woman in Apache Pass might be connected to the epidemic of carjackings that had invaded Cochise County. True, the previous crimes hadn’t been that vicious. None of the other victims had been badly hurt, but that didn’t mean whoever was doing it hadn’t decided to do the crime of carjacking one better.
Leaving Page, Joanna was still thinking about the dead woman and whether or not finding the body would leave any lingering emotional scars on either Jenny or Dora. Lost in her deliberations, Joanna hardly noticed the miles that passed in total silence.
Butch was the one who spoke first. “No matter how long I live in Arizona,” he said, “I’ll never get over how beautiful the desert is.”
For the first time, Joanna allowed herself to notice the scenery. On either side of the endless ribbon of two-lane blacktop, the surrounding desert seemed empty of human habitation—empty and forbidding. Early-morning sunlight and shadows slanted across the red and lavender rock formations, setting them in vivid relief against an azure sky. High off against a cloudless horizon, a solitary buzzard drifted effortlessly, floating in graceful, perfectly drawn circles. Just inside a barbed-wire fence a herd of sheep, their wool stained pink by the dust raised by their dainty hooves, scrabbled for bits of life-giving sustenance. Joanna drove past a meager trading post and a line of run-down makeshift clapboard sales stands where Native American tradesmen were starting to lay out their jewelry, baskets, and rugs in hopes of selling them to passing tourists.
As a lifelong desert dweller, it was difficult for Joanna to see the stark landscape through the eyes of a Chicago area transplant. What Butch saw as wonderfully weird and exotic struck her as simply humdrum.
“I keep thinking Cochise County is sparsely populated,” Joanna said with a laugh. “I suppose that compared to this, it’s a metropolis.”
Butch reached over and took her hand. “Speaking of Cochise County,” he said, “have you made up your mind about whether or not you’re going to run again?”
Joanna heaved a sigh. With the wedding and everything else going on, Joanna had kept sidestepping the issue. But now, three years into her term of office, she was going to have to decide soon.
“I can’t quite see myself going back to selling insurance for Milo Davis,” she said with a rueful laugh.
“No,” Butch agreed. “I can’t see that either.”
“But I lived with my dad when he was running for office,” Joanna continued. “It was hell. When it was time for an election campaign, we hardly ever saw him—he was either at work or out politicking. What do you think?”
“I can’t imagine seeing you less than I do now,” Butch replied, “but I also know better than to get into this. It’s totally up to you, Joey. Since I’m currently a kept man, I don’t think I should actually have a vote. If I say, ‘Go for it!’ people might think I was just interested in your paycheck. If I say, ‘Give it up,’ they’d say I was bossing you around and stifling you—not letting you live up to your full potential.”
“You’re not a kept man,” Joanna objected. “The income that comes in each month from the sale of the Roundhouse isn’t to be sneezed at. You’re serving as the general contractor on the construction of our new house and you just finished writing a book. You also cook and look after Jenny. How does that make you a kept man?”
“Maybe not in your eyes,” he said. “But I doubt the rest of the world gives me the same kind of break. Still, when it comes to running for office, I’m serious when I say I’m leaving that up to you. I’ll back you either way, but you’re going to have to decide for yourself. You like being sheriff, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Joanna admitted.
“And you’re doing a good job.”
“As far as I know, although the final decision on that score will have to be up to the voters.”
“Is there anything you’d want to do more than what you’re doing now?”
“Nothing that I can think of,” she answered.
“Well, then,” Butch said with a shrug, “as far as I’m concerned, it really is up to you. Have you discussed it with Marianne?”
The Reverend Marianne Maculyea had been Joanna’s best friend since junior high. She was also pastor of the Tombstone Canyon United Methodist Church, where Joanna was a faithful member. Marianne and her stay-at-home husband, Jeff, were in much the same position Joanna
and Butch were—with Marianne being the primary breadwinner while Jeff took care of their two small children and worked on the side refurbishing old cars. In the old days, Joanna had asked Marianne for advice on almost everything.
“With the new baby and going back to work, she hardly ever has time to talk anymore,” Joanna said.
“What about Jenny?” Butch asked. “Have you talked to her about it?”
Joanna shook her head. “Not really.”
“Maybe you should ask her opinion,” Butch persisted. “Your decision is going to have a lot bigger impact on her than it will on anyone else.”
“Even you?” she asked.
“I’m a big boy,” Butch said.
In the silence that followed, Joanna thought about what had been said. She couldn’t remember her father ever asking for her opinion about whether or not he should run for office. Fathers did what they did. Discussion from outsiders was neither solicited nor accepted. Joanna had always idolized her father and been slightly embarrassed that her mother had never “worked outside the home” or had what Joanna would have considered a “real” job. Instead of being grateful for having a stay-at-home mother, Joanna had chafed under Eleanor’s ever-vigilant attention.
“I’ll ask her,” Joanna agreed finally.
The miles flew by on the almost deserted roadway. As they neared Flagstaff, flat desert gave way to mountains and forest. As soon as they were within range of a signal, Joanna’s cell phone began to squawk. Butch plucked it off the seat.
“Who is it?” she asked.
Butch examined the caller ID. “It says Winfield,” he answered, “so it’s either George or your mother.”
“I’m voting for George,” Joanna said, as she took the phone, but it wasn’t.
“Has your phone been turned off, or what?” Eleanor Lathrop Winfield demanded when she heard her daughter’s voice. “I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour.”
“We’re between Page and Flagstaff, Mother,” Joanna replied. “The signal’s just now strong enough for the call to come through. What’s up?”
“What in the world were Jim Bob and Eva Lou thinking! For all they knew, Dora Matthews is a juvenile delinquent who could have stabbed them to death while they slept.”
“Dora spent the night?” Joanna asked.
“You mean you haven’t talked to them yet?”
“We’re driving, and we left the hotel bright and early. If anyone’s been trying to call me, they’ve had the same luck you have. The last I heard, Jim Bob and Eva Lou were taking Dora home because no one could locate her mother.”
“And they still haven’t!” Eleanor huffed. “The woman went off without telling anyone where she was going or when she’d be back, so Jim Bob and Eva Lou kept Dora overnight, which I think was completely unnecessary—and at your house, too,” Eleanor pointed out. “That’s why this county has foster homes, you know—licensed foster homes—to care for just those kinds of children. And what kind of influence do you suppose that little hooligan is exerting on Jenny? Cigarettes! Why, of all things!”
“Mother,” Joanna managed, “Jenny and Dora found a body. Someone had been murdered. When you think of what might have happened to them, trying a cigarette loses some of its impact, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think anything of the kind,” Eleanor returned. “And I don’t care if Dora’s grandparents were pillars of the Presbyterian Church up in Old Bisbee. The daughter and granddaughter are totally out of control. A child like that shouldn’t be associating with our sweet little Jenny and leading her astray. You don’t put a good apple in with a bunch of bad ones in order to make the bad ones better, now do you? Life doesn’t work that way.”
As Eleanor continued to rail about the cigarettes, Joanna’s own temper began to rise. “Mother,” she said, trying to sound unflappable. “There’s no use trying to blame the whole thing on Dora Matthews. Jenny has some culpability in this situation, too. Dora didn’t exactly force Jenny to take that cigarette. Dora offered it, and Jenny took it of her own volition. She told me that herself.”
“But the point is, Dora should never have had cigarettes at a Girl Scout camp-out in the first place,” Eleanor continued. “That isn’t the way Girl Scouts worked when I used to be involved. What kind of a soft-headed leader is Faye Lambert anyway?”
“She happens to be the only person who stepped up and volunteered for the job,” Joanna returned. “She’s the one person in town who was willing to say she’d take over the troop when it was about to be dissolved for lack of a leader, remember? She’s also someone who’s volunteering because she thinks Girl Scouting is important and not because she happens to have a girl of her own in the troop.”
“That’s my point exactly,” Eleanor said. “Faye Lambert doesn’t have a daughter. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t have any children at all. How much can she possibly know about girls Jenny’s age? What makes her think she’s qualified?”
As usual when dealing with Eleanor, Joanna felt her temper rising. On occasions like this it seemed as though Eleanor never heard a word Joanna said.
“Mother,” Joanna countered, “if you’re talking about parenting skills here, let’s put the blame where it really belongs—on me. I’m where you should be pointing the finger. If Jenny and Dora are out of line, haul me on the carpet, and Dora’s mother, too. But it’s not Faye Lambert’s fault that our children misbehaved any more than it’s yours or Eva Lou’s.”
“I should hope not!” Eleanor sniffed. “Faye Lambert isn’t the only one I’m ticked off at either,” she continued. “I’m disgusted with George, too. He knew all about this last night—knew that Jenny was in some kind of trouble. He should have told me about it at the time and had me go along out to pick those girls up instead of calling on Jim Bob and Eva Lou. I can tell you for sure, if I’d been the one in charge, a girl like Dora Matthews would never have spent the night at High Lonesome Ranch!”
Luckily for her you weren’t in charge, Joanna thought. “How did you find out about it then?” Joanna asked mildly.
“Jenny called a few minutes ago,” Eleanor said. “I’m sure Eva Lou made her call. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known a thing about it. All I can say is, I certainly hope you’re coming home today to get this mess straightened out.”
That, of course, had been Joanna’s intention—to drop Butch off in Peoria and head for Bisbee, but now, with her mother issuing orders, Joanna’s first instinct was to balk. “Now that the phone is working, I’ll be talking to the department and to both Jenny and Eva Lou before I make any decisions,” Joanna said.
Across the car, Butch Dixon smiled tolerantly to himself and shook his head. He was growing accustomed to the ongoing battles waged between his new wife and her overbearing mother.
“Aren’t you even concerned about this?” Eleanor continued. “It doesn’t sound like it. Here’s your own daughter spending time with the wrong kinds of friends and most likely headed for trouble, but you’re totally blasé. I don’t think you’re even worried about it.”
“Of course I’m worried,” Joanna began. “It’s just . . .” Then, as though she’d been blindsided, Joanna had an inkling of what was going on with her daughter. When Jenny had agreed to sneak away after lights-out and when she’d tried that fateful cigarette, she had simply been trying to fit in—to be one of the regular kids. The same thing had happened to Joanna when she herself had been Jenny’s age and when Joanna’s own father, former copper miner and deputy sheriff, D. H. Lathrop, had been elected sheriff of Cochise County.
In the tight-knit and socially stratified community of Bisbee, where what your father did dictated your social milieu, Big Hank Lathrop’s change of job and elevation to the office of sheriff had dropped Joanna out of her old familiar social context and into another—one in which she hadn’t been especially welcome. Her former friends felt she was too stuck-up to play with them, while kids with white-collar parents didn’t think she was good enough to be included in their activit
ies and cliques. Some of her discipline troubles at school—like the fierce fistfight that had cemented her lifelong friendship with Marianne Maculyea—grew out of Joanna’s efforts to fit in, of trying to find a place where she would be accepted.
Before Eleanor could say anything more, the phone beeped in her hand. “Look, Mom,” Joanna said, knowing Homicide Detective Ernie Carpenter was on the line. “One of my detectives is trying to reach me. I have to hang up now.”
“Tell me one thing,” Eleanor demanded. “Are you coming home today or not?”
“I’ll have to call you back on that,” Joanna replied, ending the call. After dealing with Eleanor, getting on board a homicide investigation sounded like a relief.
“Good morning, Ernie,” Joanna said. “What’s up?”
“I’m working the Jane Doe from Apache Pass.”
“What about her?”
“Doc Winfield says it looks like she’s been dead for a day or two. He thinks what killed her is blunt-force trauma. He’ll know more about that when he does the autopsy this morning. But believe me, Sheriff Brady, there’s a lot more to it than just being whacked over the head. The woman was tortured before she died. It was ugly—really ugly.”
Joanna closed her eyes and wondered how much of that Jenny and Dora Matthews had seen and how much of it they would carry with them, waking and sleeping, for the rest of their lives.
Meanwhile, Ernie continued. “We’ve had a crime scene team out there since first light this morning, and that’s why I’m calling you. They may have found something important. It’s one of those medical ID warning bracelets that says no penicillin and no morphine. It gives a name and address in Phoenix. One of the links was broken, so there’s no way to tell for certain whether or not it belonged to our victim, but I think the odds are good that it did because it doesn’t look like it’s been out baking in the weather for very long. Frank tells me you’re going to be in Phoenix today. I was wondering if you’d be interested in trying to track down this address and see if you can find someone named Constance Marie Haskell. Otherwise, either Jaime or I will have to do it.”
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