Damage Control

by J. A. Jance

  As for the former boyfriend? It turns out he’s no longer a danger to anyone, Lauren Dayson included. Shortly after the shooting incident, he was injured in a diving accident at a Phoenix area hotel. His neck was broken. Now a quadriplegic, he is being cared for by the very woman he once threatened.

  “It’s a way of evening the score,” she says. “I took a life and now I’m giving one back. I pray for forgiveness every day. I hope God is listening.”

  “I have Lauren Dayson’s address,” Detective Ramsey said quietly. “Do you want to go visit her and let her know we’ve identified her victim?”

  Joanna’s first instinct was to say no, that she and Deb needed to get back to Bisbee and handle whatever needed handling there. She didn’t, though, and she was glad. Lauren Dayson and Rick Mosier lived in a one-level town house at the far end of Grant, where the ringing doorbell was greeted by the frantic barking of what sounded like a tiny dog.

  Mojo, Joanna thought.

  The woman who opened the door was a careworn woman holding a squirming dog. “Ms. Dayson?” Becky asked.

  The woman nodded. She was a lithe blonde whose figure said she was probably somewhere in her twenties, but her haggard face made her look far older. “I’m Lauren Dayson,” she said. “Who are you?”

  “Police officers,” Becky said, holding out her ID. “I’m Detective Ramsey. This is Sheriff Joanna Brady from Cochise County, and this is one of her detectives, Debra Howell. May we come in?”

  “Who is it?” a man’s voice bellowed from somewhere out of sight. “What do they want? And can’t you get that damned dog to be quiet for even a minute?”

  Lauren glanced toward a room that must have been a bedroom, but she didn’t reply. “I guess,” she said, opening the door and gesturing the three women into the unit. “What’s this about?”

  “It’s about the man you shot,” Joanna said. “Now that we’ve identified him, we thought you’d want to know.”

  Clutching the dog close to her body, Lauren Dayson staggered away from the door and dropped onto a couch. “Who was he?” she asked.

  They stayed there talking with her for the next forty-five minutes, telling her everything they could about Wayne Leroy Hamm. The whole time they talked, the conversation was interrupted time and again by Rick Mosier summoning Lauren from the living room to the bedroom for one bogus reason or another.

  “What an incredible jerk!” Deb exclaimed as they made their way back out to Joanna’s Crown Victoria. “He treats her like crap. Why does she even bother?”

  “Guilt,” Joanna replied.

  “But why? She didn’t make Rick Mosier dive into the shallow end of a pool. That was his own stupidity.”

  “And you didn’t make Danny Sloan walk into that ambush, either,” Joanna reminded her. “You didn’t, Jaime didn’t, and neither did I.”

  “Oh,” Deb Howell said quietly, fingering the black band around her badge. “I see what you mean.”

  The next few days were hell. Preparing for Dan Sloan’s funeral and then getting through it occupied Joanna’s every waking moment. The day started with an inspiring standing-room-only service at Saint Dominick’s that came complete with all the necessary pomp and circumstance and what seemed to be hundreds of officers visiting from other jurisdictions. Jaime Carbajal ended the funeral itself by delivering a moving eulogy. After that came those other essential pieces—the wailing bagpipes; the presentation of the folded flag; the last call; and a luncheon at the high school cafeteria put on by firefighters from all over the county.

  Much later that afternoon, more than a week after their deaths, Martha and Alfred Beasley were quietly laid to rest as well. The only good thing about their joint memorial service was that their two daughters, both out of the hospital, sat through it all side by side. They were there together and no longer feuding. They said they would be scattering the ashes at the top of Montezuma Pass at sunrise the next morning. Would Samantha and Sandy’s truce last long enough to get though Larry Wolfe’s upcoming funeral? That was anyone’s guess.

  At the end of the day Joanna had to conclude that, by any standard, it was way too many funerals in far too short a time.

  The following Monday morning, Joanna came out to the kitchen feeling emotionally spent and not nearly ready to start a new week. She was surprised to find several newcomers gathered there—Carol Sunderson and her two grandsons. While the boys mowed through multiple bowls of cereal, Butch was explaining Dennis’s sleeping, eating, and bathing schedule to an attentively listening Carol Sunderson. Within a matter of days, Carol and her boys fit into Butch’s and Joanna’s lives like an essential piece of a picture puzzle that they hadn’t known was missing. By the end of that first week, neither Butch nor Joanna could imagine how they had ever managed without Carol.

  On Thursday Dick Voland dropped by Joanna’s office.

  “The feds are calling off the dogs,” he said. “You and Butch are in the clear.”

  “Really?” Joanna asked.

  “Really,” he replied. “So that makes us even. Right?”

  “Right,” she said.

  Friday of that week was when Joanna was finally able to go before the Board of Supervisors and get permission to retool Animal Control with Jeannine Phillips in charge. That Friday was also George Winfield’s last day on the job. Until a permanent replacement was hired, the county would be contracting with other medical examiners in the area.

  George and Eleanor came to High Lonesome Ranch that night for a farewell dinner.

  “You’re all packed up, then?” Butch asked as they sat around the dining room table eating some of Carol Sunderson’s freshly made peach cobbler.

  “Yup,” George said. “Packed and ready to rumble. When we get home tonight, I’ll put my car on the trickle charger in the garage and we’ll bring Ellie’s along on the tow bar. We’ll be up and out bright and early in the morning. It’s going to be fun.”

  Joanna glanced at her mother’s shadowless face. Eleanor was actually glowing. In fact, Joanna had never seen her happier.

  The realization that George and her grandmother were really going away had finally penetrated Jenny’s world, and she wasn’t at all happy about it. “I’m going to miss you,” she said almost tearfully. “Are you sure you’ll be back in time for Thanksgiving?”

  “Definitely,” Eleanor declared. “We wouldn’t think of being anywhere else. Jim Bob and Eva Lou have already invited us to have Thanksgiving dinner with all of you at their place.” With that she turned to her son-in-law. “Did you make this cobbler?” she asked.

  “No,” he admitted. “Carol made it.”

  “I thought so,” Eleanor said. “It’s not nearly as good as yours.”

  Later, when it was time to say good-bye, Eleanor hugged Joanna close. “You’ve got a good one there,” she said. “Be sure to treat him that way.”

  “You’ve certainly brought my mother around,” Joanna said to Butch as they lay in bed that night.

  “Eleanor’s not so hard to figure out,” Butch said. “As long as I make you happy, she’s happy.”

  “George seems to have her number, too.”

  “Yes, he does,” Butch agreed. “They’re both having a ball.”

  Moments later, Butch was snoring. Joanna lay awake thinking about all that. From the outside, it seemed as though George had quit working because Eleanor had pressured him into doing so, but since they both seemed so ridiculously happy with what they were doing now, did it really matter what had caused it? Wasn’t it likely that George had been ready to quit all along and had just been waiting for some kind of catalyst? And if it was that easy for George to make Eleanor Lathrop happy, why hadn’t Hank Lathrop been able to do the same thing?

  That was the real question—the one that stayed with Joanna for the rest of the night. By the time she finally fell asleep, she knew she would have to ask it. The next morning she got up and dressed in plainclothes rather than a uniform, but it was clear she had no intention of hanging around t
he house.

  “It’s Saturday,” Jenny objected. “Do you have to go in?”

  Joanna nodded, but that wasn’t quite true. She drove straight past the Justice Center and up to Old Bisbee. About ten past ten she pulled up in front of the small wood frame house at 305 Quality Hill. Mona Tipton’s house. Kristin hadn’t looked up the information for her. Joanna had found it herself.

  Now, though, peering at the house, Joanna paused, filled with uncertainty and a sense of disloyalty, too. This was none of her business. Her father’s love life was his love life. And if Hank Lathrop had betrayed her mother once long ago, what did it matter? And yet Joanna understood that she had based much of her adult antagonism toward her mother on her father’s presumed perfection. In her mind, Hank had always been the wronged party. Maybe it was time to set the record straight by finding out the truth of the matter. That was the only way Joanna was going to get over it once and for all.

  Finally, she climbed out of the car and made her way up the short flight of stairs. She rang the bell and then waited as someone called, “I’m coming. I’m coming. Who is—?”

  When Mona Tipton opened the door, she stopped in midsentence. “Oh,” she added after a pause. “It’s you. Come on in. I wondered if you’d ever get around to asking me about your dad. Have a seat. Would you like some coffee? I just made a new pot.”

  That was surreal. Here Joanna was in the home of the woman who had been her father’s lover, and Mona was offering her coffee as if this were a perfectly normal event. As though their meeting like this was nothing out of the ordinary.

  “No, thanks,” Joanna said. “I’m fine.” Although she wasn’t fine. She was anything but fine.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll go get mine, then,” Mona said. “There’s no sense in letting it get cold.”

  Mona returned with a cup that announced she had donated money to NPR. She was still an attractive woman. Her dark hair, now broken by several strips of white, was pulled back in a French twist that was held in place by a pair of old-fashioned tortoiseshell combs. She was slender and graceful enough that Joanna found herself wondering if maybe she had been a dancer once. And even on this Saturday morning at home, she was wearing a skirt and blouse, stockings, and a pair of low heels.

  “I can see how you had to wait until your mother left town before you could come see me,” Mona said. “What is it you want to know?”

  That meant that long after D. H. Lathrop’s death, Mona Tipton still kept track of her rival’s comings and goings.

  “I read my father’s journals,” Joanna answered quietly. “I know you and he were involved.”

  “Yes,” Mona said, thoughtfully sipping her coffee. “Yes, we were. Your father was a wonderful man. He was loyal and strong, but what I loved most about him was his sense of humor. No matter how bad my day was, he always found a way to make me laugh. I don’t think your mother ever appreciated that in him. I don’t think she ever appreciated him at all.”

  Joanna didn’t doubt the appreciation bit was true. Eleanor had always been as hard on her husband as she had been on her daughter, but Joanna was beginning to realize that was how Eleanor Lathrop showed her love—by being toughest on the people she cared for most.

  “I hear she gave that new husband of hers the same kind of deal—my way or the highway,” Mona continued. “And I heard she won that round, too, won it hands-down. Your mother’s a very fortunate woman to be able to wield that kind of influence on the men in her life.”

  “Wait a minute,” Joanna said after a pause. “What do you mean, ‘won that one, too’?”

  “Because your father chose her instead of me,” Mona said quietly. “He called me that Saturday morning—the morning he died—before he went to pick you and your friends up from that camping trip. He told me he had made up his mind—that you and your mother came first. He said I’d have to leave the sheriff’s department—that he’d give me good references but that it wouldn’t work for me to stay on. Hearing it broke my heart, of course. Then he died, and that broke it even more. I don’t know how your mother found out about it. I thought we’d been very discreet, but that’s the way small towns are. She knew. She called me up and told me that if I dared set foot anywhere near the funeral, she’d tear me apart. I believed her, and I didn’t go.”

  Mona’s eyes filled with tears. The woman’s hurt was still there. And somehow Joanna understood that D. H. Lathrop had loved her, too—just as deeply as she had loved him. Making the difficult choice must have hurt him, too.

  “He talked about you in his journals,” Joanna said softly. “He may have chosen my mother and me, but I know he loved you, too.”

  “Thank you for saying that,” Mona said. “Thank you very much.”

  When Joanna left Mona Tipton’s house an hour later, she felt older but not much wiser. She had come away with a sense that her parents were real people in their own right. That they had existed in ways that she’d known nothing about. On the surface they were still the same people they had always been. Now they were more than that. And less.

  Joanna could have stopped then. She could have come down to the bottom of Quality Hill and turned her car around and driven right back to the Justice Center or back to the ranch. But one piece of unfinished business still haunted her. She had one more ghost, one that she either had to lay to rest or learn to live with. With that in mind, she headed for Tucson.

  Suzanne Quayle’s house wasn’t hard to find. Her name and address, well, her initial, anyway, and address were right there in the phone book. “S. Quayle.” She lived in one of the newer housing developments off Kino out near the airport. The homes were on the smallish size—affordable places in a neighborhood where newly planted landscaping was just barely taking hold.

  Suzanne Quayle’s house didn’t have trees in the fenced front yard, but there was a swing set with two little boys, one with blond hair and one with brown, playing on it, swinging as high as their little legs could pump. It was getting on toward noon and very hot by Bisbee standards, but these two little desert dwellers—laughing and flying through the air—seemed totally unaffected by the heat.

  Joanna studied them closely, searching both tanned small faces for some resemblance to Andy. If it was there, it wasn’t readily apparent. She walked up to the gate.

  “Is your mommy home?” she asked.

  One of the two, the one with a mop of brown hair, skidded to a stop. “She’s inside,” he said. “I’ll go get her.”

  He dashed away before Joanna could stop him and returned a moment later with a woman—the same small blond woman Joanna remembered from the sheriff’s department’s group photo—following behind. “Jimmy, I don’t know who—” She saw Joanna and stopped short.

  “Oh,” she said. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?” She glanced nervously in her son’s direction.

  “It wasn’t hard,” Joanna said. “You’re in the book.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To talk to you.”

  “Let’s go inside, then,” Suzanne said. “Jimmy, you and Gus stay out here for a little while longer, then we’ll have lunch.”

  For the second time that day, Joanna was led into a home—an “other woman’s” home. As soon as they were inside, however, Suzanne Quayle ditched any pretense of being polite.

  “You’ve got no business coming here,” she said. “No right bringing up the past. I’ve done my best to put it behind me. I’m listed in the book because I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m proud of my little boy, but if you’re here to cause any kind of trouble—”

  Joanna’s heart was breaking. This was every bit as bad as she had expected. “I’m not here to make trouble,” she managed. “But he is Andy’s, then? Was your son’s father my husband?”

  “Excuse me?” Suzanne demanded.

  “Your little boy,” Joanna said again. “Was Andy his father?”

  “Absolutely not!” Suzanne declared. “How could you even think such a thing?”


  “But I—”

  “Of course Andy wasn’t the father. It turns out Jimmy’s father wasn’t a father, either. He wanted me to have an abortion instead of a baby. He wanted me to ‘get rid’ of him. If Andy hadn’t helped me, I don’t know what I would have done. He was the only one who said it didn’t matter what the father said. That if I wanted to have the baby, I should have the baby. And I did. That’s why Jimmy’s named the way he is—James Andrew—after your husband.”

  “Oh,” Joanna said sheepishly. “Do you mind if I sit down for a minute? I think I’m feeling a little woozy.”

  When Joanna left Suzanne Quayle’s house some time later, it was with a profound sense of gratitude. Her mother was a fortunate woman, and so was she. They had both chosen wisely. Twice.

  Even then, she might have gone home, but she didn’t. She was learning the painful truth that even though change hurts, it isn’t all bad. There was one more thing she needed to do, something she wanted to buy that wasn’t available in Bisbee.

  It took a while to find the right dealer. Then, once she had made her purchase, it was hell finding someone who would gift-wrap it. Eventually, though, she succeeded. When she got back to Bisbee, she didn’t even slow down for the Justice Center. She drove home.

  Butch was at the kitchen table, writing. “The kids are at the other house,” he said, not looking up from his computer. “Carol said if she took them all to her place, maybe I’d have a better chance of getting some work done.”

  “Fine,” Joanna said, “but right now you have to stop and open this.” She set the gift-wrapped package in front of him.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Am I in trouble? Did I forget a birthday or an anniversary?”

  “It’s a surprise,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re a good man,” she said. “And I’ve decided to give you your heart’s desire.”

  “What is it?”

  “Open it up and find out.”

  When he unwrapped the box and saw what was inside, he looked back at Joanna with some consternation. “But I don’t need this,” he said. “I already have a motorcycle helmet.”