Desert Heat

by J. A. Jance

“You know, short leather skirt, boots, big hair, lots of makeup. She was laughing and hanging on Andy, whispering in his ear.”

  “They came to the bank together?”

  “No. Actually, she was here first. She drove up and waited outside. He came a few minutes later. When he got out of his truck, she hurried over to him, gave him a big hug and a kiss and the envelope.”

  “What envelope?”

  “The one with the money in it. The ninety-five-hundred dollars in cash. They counted it all out together, right here at my desk.”

  Joanna took a deep breath. “I see,” she said. Sandra Henning waited, as though she had no idea what else to say.

  “You say she drove up to the bank?”

  “That’s right. In one of those cute little Geo Storms, one of the turquoise blue ones. It had Nevada plates. I noticed that much.”

  “How old was she?”

  “Not very old. Early twenties.”

  Joanna nodded. She felt queasy. The lunch-time pasty that had tasted so good hours earlier was a leaden mass in her gut, groaning and wanting to rebel. It was all too much. Everywhere she turned, someone new was accusing Andy of something else. Could any of it be true? She had thought she knew Andy as well as she knew herself, but all around her were people telling her she was a fool, and blind besides.

  A storm of tears came bubbling to the su r-face. Joanna wanted to duck out of the bank before they struck. She didn’t want to make a scene in public, any more so than she already had.

  “Cora,” she murmured, standing up. “Cora from Nevada, a girl with no last name.”

  Sandra met Joanna’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Believe me,” Joanna returned, stumbling blindly away from the desk. “So am I.”

  Outside, Jenny was waiting in the car. “What’s the matter?” she asked, as soon as she saw her mother’s face. “Did Mrs. Henning say something mean?”

  “I’m okay,” Joanna said.

  “But you’re crying.”

  “I’m all right.”

  Jenny settled back in the car seat and crossed her arms. “Are we going home now?”

  Joanna gripped the steering wheel and ought about the question. Finally she shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “We have to make one more op along the way.”

  “Where?” Jenny asked.

  “Before we go home, we’re going to go see Sherriff McFadden.”

  SIXTEEN

  Walter McFadden’s house sat at the top end of Arizona Street, less than half a block from where town gave way to open desert. Usually he wouldn’t have been there at five o’clock, but Dick Voland had already told Joanna that today McFadden had gone home early. When the Eagle turned onto Cole Avenue, his Toyota was parked in the carport be-hind the redbrick house.

  As Joanna stopped near the back gate, she saw a bright yellow Frisbee come sailing off the shaded front porch and fly along just under the eaves of the house. At almost the same instant, a dog launched itself into the yard from three steps up. The dog chased the Frisbee and overtook it halfway across the back yard, leaping up and snagging it out of the air in a graceful, four-foot arch. With the Frisbee clenched tightly in its teeth, the dog tore back toward the front porch.

  “Good catch,” Jennifer commented. “I wish Sadie did that good with Frisbees.”

  “Well,” Joanna corrected without thinking. “I wish Sadie did that well.”

  Walter McFadden stood up and sauntered off the porch to greet them, carrying an open can of Coors, a Silver Bullet, in one hand. He walked over to the gate with the dog at his heels.

  “Howdy, Joanna, Jennifer. What can I do for you?”

  “Can we come in?”

  “Sure.”

  Stories about the sheriff’s ugly mutt were legend in Bisbee. The dog, an improbable mixture of half-golden retriever/half-pit bull, had destined for destruction before Walter Fadden had come to the animal’s rescue. As a puppy, the dog had belonged to an escaped felon who was discovered and apprehended while living in an abandoned shack in Old Bisbee. When the man was picked and sent back where he belonged, the dog, a starveling pup, was sentenced to death and would have been put down if the sheriff, newly widowed and terribly lonely, hadn’t intervened.

  “Are you sure the dog will be okay?” Joanna asked.

  The sheriff grinned. “He’s fine. You don’t yr to worry about Tigger. He may be ugly as all sin, but he’s real sweet-tempered.”

  Jennifer, following her mother into the yard, peered critically at the dog and made a face. “He is kinda ugly, isn’t he?” she agreed. “Why’d you name him Tigger? After Winnie the Pooh?”

  Walter McFadden smiled and nodded. “That’s right. How’d you know?”

  “When I was little,” Jenny said, “Winnie the Pooh used to be one of my favorite books.”

  “It still is one of mine,” McFadden said, “al-though I don’t have anyone to read it to now that my own little girl is all grown up.”

  “What kind of dog is it?”

  “I always say that Tigger’s a pit bull wearing a golden retriever suit,” McFadden replied seriously. “I’m not sure which was which, but either his daddy or his mama must’ve been a pit bull. That’s where he gets the square nose and that godawful circle around his one eye. The rest of him’s pretty much golden retriever. I don’t know where the jumping comes from.”

  “Can I try throwing for him?” Jennifer asked.

  McFadden glanced quizzically in Joanna’ direction, and he picked up on her almost imperceptible nod. “You bet,” he said. “As much as you like. There isn’t anything Tigger like: better than having someone new throw the Frisbee for him. You do that, while I talk to your mama.”

  McFadden handed the tooth-pocked Frisbee over to Jennifer and then led Joanna up onto the porch and motioned her into the old-fashioned metal lawn chair. “Care for a beer?” he asked. Joanna shook her head. “Is something the matter?”

  “I found out where the money came from,” she said. “Sandra Henning down at the bank told me.”

  “The woman, you mean?”

  Joanna nodded, and McFadden took a long swig of beer. “Doesn’t mean much,” he said. ‘Question is, where’d she get it? The money, that is. And nobody’s been able to track her down so far, either.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about her?” Joanna asked.

  “Fact of the matter is, I didn’t know about myself, not until I got back home yesterday afternoon. The DEA guys turned most of that stuff up when they got the court order to at your account. My department’s been playing catch-up ball ever since.”

  “So everybody in town knew about her but me,” Joanna commented bitterly.

  “Maybe there’s not that much to know,” adden suggested.

  And maybe there is,” Joanna returned.

  “What’s Ernie Carpenter after really, Waiter’ Andy’s dead. It’s bad enough to lose him, but is anyone interested in finding out who killed him or are they just interested in dragging his name through the mud? If Andy was having an affair, it hurts, hurts like hell to find out about it now. I would a whole lot rather not have known about it at all, but to my way of thinking, that doesn’t matter nearly as much as who killed Andy and why. Those preliminary autopsy results…”

  “Whoa, down, Joanna. Let me tell you something. You’re hurting. We all understand that. As Andy’s widow and as D. H.’s daughter, everybody’s trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but…”

  “Benefit of the doubt?” Joanna exploded. “What does that mean?”

  “Joanna, no matter who you are, you can’t go around the system. I don’t know how you laid hands on those preliminary autopsy results-that’s Pima County’s problem not mine-but you’ve got no business interfering with this investigation. You’re going to have to step back and let people like Ernie Carpenter do his job.”

  “Ernie Carpenter isn’t investigating Andy’s death nearly as much as he’s investigating what he believes Andy did wrong. There�
��s a big difference.”

  “See there?” McFadden pointed out. “You’re doing it again.”

  “And what about Adam York? What’s his game?”

  “Federal drug enforcement’s no game,” McFadden reasoned seriously. “If you think it is, you’re crazy.”

  “Right, but if Adam York’s busy waging a war on drugs, why’s he nosing around town asking questions about me? This morning when I tackled him about it, he gave me some lame song and dance about possible insurance fraud, but as you just told me, that’s not his job. So what’s going on? There must be some reason he’s after me specifically, and I want to know what it is.”

  McFadden shook his head. “Look, Joanna, theoretically, York and I are on the same side of the fence, but the Feds are under no obligation to share their information with us, and they usually don’t. If York’s asking questions, he must have some good reason for doing so, but if you personally have done nothing wrong-and I can’t imagine you have-then I’m sure it’ll all get straightened out eventually.”

  “Me personally,” she repeated, plucking the two most significant words out of McFadden’s sentence and focusing in on those. “You said if I personally have done nothing wrong. What about Andy?”

  McFadden raised the can of Coors and finished it. He dropped the empty can into a paper bag beside his chair while his somber gaze met and held hers. “I don’t want to break your heart, Joanna,” he answered quietly. “That’s the last thing I want to do, but I’m not so sure about Andy.”

  Joanna’s chest constricted. “And you won’t tell me anything more than that?”

  “Can’t, Joanna. Sorry.”

  “There’s a big difference between can’t and won’t, Sheriff McFadden,” she said, standing up abruptly. “Come on, Jenny. We’ve got to go.

  Jennifer dashed up onto the porch and handed the Frisbee over to Walter McFadden. “Tigger’s one neat dog,” she said. “Hey, Mom. Can we get a Frisbee so I can teach Sadie to catch like that?”

  “We can try,” Joanna said. With a curt nod over her shoulder to Walter McFadden, she led Jennifer back to the car. The sheriff watched them go, shaking his head as he did so.

  “Come on, Tigger,” McFadden said to the dog. “Let’s go see about rustling us up some dinner.” The two of them, man and dog, walked into the house together.

  Joanna headed home. Jennifer, who had been laughing and running with the dog, was suddenly quiet and subdued. “Are you mad at me?” she asked.

  “Mad? Why would I be mad at you?”

  “I was having so much fun, I almost forgot,” Jenny said.

  Joanna shook her head. “No. If I’m mad at anybody, I’m angry with myself.”

  “Why?”

  “For not taking my own advice. I told you not to let what people say bother you, but I’m letting it bother me.”

  “Sheriff McFadden said something?”

  “Everybody’s entitled to his opinion,” Joanna said tightly.

  When they pulled into the yard at the ranch, with Sadie running laps around the Eagle, Eleanor Lathrop’s Chrysler was parked by the gate, and Clayton Rhodes’ Ford pickup was down near the barn.

  “You go on inside and let Grandma Lathrop know we’re home,” Joanna said. “I’ll go see if Mr. Rhodes needs any help.”

  As she opened the car door, she heard the troublesome pump in the corral stock tank cough, wheeze, and finally catch. When she reached the corral, she found the ten head of cattle were already munching hay, while a steady stream of water flowed into the metal stock tank. Clayton Rhodes was standing then watching the tank fill when she came up behind him. He jumped when she spoke.

  “You and Jim Bob don’t have to do this, you know,” Joanna said.

  Clayton Rhodes turned around to face her, cupping one hand to his ear. “What’s that?” he asked. Without teeth he spoke with a decided lisp.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Joanna repeated loudly enough to compensate for both the old man’s deafness and the noisy rattle of the pump’s motor. “You and Jim Bob are doing way too much. Jenny and I can handle the chores ourselves, really.”

  Clayton shrugged his bony, stooped shoulders. “It’s no trouble,” he said. “I figure I could just as well be doing something useful of an evening.”

  He turned back to the pump and studied the flow of water into the metal tank. “Didn’t put in much gas,” he added. “Should fill up the tank without running over. You won’t have to come back out and turn it off. I started the pump out in the back pasture on my way over.”

  “Thank you,” Joanna said. “I had forgotten about that one completely.”

  “Other people haven’t,” Clayton Rhodes observed with a frown. “From the footprints and tire tracks around it, I’d say somebody’s been having a regular convention.”

  “Hunters?” Joanna asked.

  He shrugged. “Maybe, but why hunters would be out tramping around in street shoes is more than I can figure.”

  Street shoes? Joanna wondered.

  Finished with the chores, Clayton Rhodes wiped his hands on his worn overalls and started toward his truck with Joanna and Sadie both trailing along behind.

  “I don’t understand,” Joanna said. “Why would someone in street shoes be out in the middle of my back pasture?”

  “Kinda makes you wonder, don’t it,” Clayton nodded.

  Suddenly Joanna remembered to mind her manners. “Won’t you come on up to the house for coffee. If there isn’t any ready, it’ll only take a few minutes.”

  “Nope, but thank you just the same,” he said, as they reached Clayton’s ancient Ford with its much-replaced wooden bed. “Think I’ll head on home.” For a moment he stood with one hand on the door handle as if trying to reach some decision. “You know,” he said finally, “I worry about you and Jenny being out here all by yourselves.”

  “We’re all right,” Joanna said. “For right now, there are plenty of people in and out. Besides, we’ve got the dog.”

  Clayton looked down at the hound and shook his head. “This worthless old thing?” he said disparagingly, ruffling the dog’s floppy ears. “Why, she’d as soon lick somebody to death as bite ‘em. She didn’t even bother to bark at me when I showed up here a while ago.

  “I’m serious as hell about this, Joanna. With that there new prison down at Douglas and with wetbacks coming across the line the way they do nowadays, a person needs to be ready to defend himself. Maybe some folks are buying off on that suicide story, but it seems to me as if somebody was mad enough at Andy to take a shot at him. And now we’ve got a pack of strangers hanging out in your back pasture. Nosiree, I don’t like this a-tall. You got yourself a gun there in the house?”

  Joanna shook her head. “Andy had guns, two of them, but we don’t have either one of them anymore.”

  The old man nodded sagely. “That’s about what I figured. You do know how to use one, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “My dad taught me when I was a girl. It’s like riding a bicycle, you never really forget the basics, but maintaining any kind of accuracy takes constant practice, and I haven’t fired a gun in years.”

  “Then I’d get myself some practice if I were you.”

  With that, Clayton Rhodes wrenched open the creaking door and reached across the truck’s threadbare seat. He opened the glove box and pulled out a small bundle which he handed over to Joanna. From the feel and the shape of the surprisingly heavy package, Joanna knew she was holding a gun wrapped In an old pillowcase.

  “Here,” he said. “This here used to be Molly’s before she up and died on me. I never I liked leaving her out here all by herself, either, so she kept this in her apron pocket just in case. Never had to use it, thank God, but we had some good laughs about her bein’ a pistol packin’ mama.”

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out a box of ammunition. “You’ll need this along with it.”

  Joanna started to object, to say that she couldn’t possibly accept it, but the old man silenced
her with a wave of his hand. “Humor a butt-sprung old man, will you?” he said, climbing up into the truck. “You hang onto it as a personal favor to me.”

  He turned the key in the ignition and the old engine coughed to life, then he looked back at Joanna. “Deal?” he said through the permanently opened window.

  She nodded. “Deal,” she said, “but only as a personal favor.”

  As he drove out of the yard, Joanna realized that in all the years she had known Clayton Rhodes, this was the most she had ever heard him say. Only heartfelt concern for her and for Jenny had propelled him beyond his usual reticence. She headed for the house both humbled and grateful.

  Joanna Brady was riding an emotional roller coaster. Inside the house her gratitude toward Clayton Rhodes quickly turned to irritation with her mother. Just inside the back door she stumbled and almost fell over Eleanor Lathrop’s pride and joy, her Rainbow Water Vacuum, which was parked there in the dark. The kitchen was a shambles. Every inch of countertop was covered with the contents of Joanna’s kitchen cupboards. Eleanor herself, perched precariously on a stepladder, was busily scrubbing down the topmost shelf directly over the sink.

  “Mother, what in the world are you doing?” Joanna demanded.

  “Cleaning the cupboards,” Eleanor replied. “You know as well as I do that the ladies from the church are going to be all over this house for the next few days, and I don’t believe this kitchen has been properly cleaned in years.”

  The phone rang just then and Jenny leaped to answer it. “Brady residence,” she said. “Jennifer speaking.” After that she said nothing, and a moment later, she hung up the phone.

  “Who was that?” Joanna asked.

  “I dunno,” Jenny answered with a shrug. “Whoever it was hung up.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to the phone,” Eleanor said. “It’s been ringing all day. Come over here now, Jenny, and start handing up things from that stack over there. That way I won’t have to climb up and down so much.”

  Jenny hurried to help. Shaking her head, Joanna headed for the bedroom, still holding Clayton Rhodes’s pillowcase-wrapped gift.

  “Where are you going?” Eleanor asked after her.