Dead to Rights

ELEVEN

The next half hour or so was a blur of frantic activity. The whole house buzzed with cops while Joanna fielded a concerned call from Marianne Maculyea, whom Jenny had also called, reassuring her that everything was fine, that help had arrived, and that Hannah Green was being taken into custody. When it was time for Ernie Carpenter to lead a handcuffed Hannah Green out to the waiting patrol car, they can through the living room, where Joanna and Jenny were sitting on the couch.

Hannah stopped in front of them. “Them dogs of yours is real nice,” she said to Jenny.

Jenny nodded. “Thank you,” she murmured.

Then Hannah looked at Joanna. For a few seconds the eyes met. There was such an air of hopelessness about her-such beaten-down defeat-that Joanna couldn’t help feeling sorry for the woman. Even at Joanna’s worst, in those bleak days right after Andy’s death, she hadn’t been nearly as lost as Hannah Green. One important difference was that Joanna Brady had been blessed with something to live for-she had Jenny. Hannah Green had nothing.

“Thanks for Iettin’ me get that load off my chest,” Hannah said. “Needed to tell somebody. Guess I been needin’ to for years.”

“You’re welcome,” Joanna said.

“Come on now,” Ernie Carpenter urged, taking Hannah by the elbow and propelling her forward. “We’ve got to get moving.”

Joanna walked them outside. When she came back into the house, she could smell something burning. Out in the kitchen, the pot with the potatoes in it had burned dry. “Damn!” she exclaimed, dashing for the kitchen. “There goes dinner.”

Dick Voland followed her into the kitchen and then stood leaning against the kitchen counter as she rinsed what was left of the scorched potatoes and rescued the pork chops from being burned to a crisp.

“This is a nice place you’ve got here,” Voland observed, looking around the efficient but spacious kitchen.

“Thank you,” Joanna said. “You’ve never been here before, have you?” Voland shook his head. “Well,” Joanna said, “I can’t take any credit for it. My in-laws are the ones who did the kitchen remodel.”

Voland nodded. “It is a long way out of town.”

Joanna stopped stirring the gravy and stared up at her chief deputy. She didn’t have to be psychic to know where he was going on this one. “It’s not that far,” she said.

“But what if Jenny hadn’t been smart enough to call me and let me know what was happening? What would you have done then?”

Joanna went back to the gravy. “I would have thought of something,” she said. “Actually, I don^’t think we were ever in any real danger. It may have been scary at the time, but Hannah Green wasn’t armed. She didn’t try to do either Jenny or me any harm.”

“But she could have,” Voland countered. “And so could any other crazy who might choose to show up here.”

“What are you saying?”

Voland shrugged. “With a house like this, on some acre age with your own well, you could probably sell it in a minute. Maybe buy something in town. A place where Jenny could walk back and forth to school and where you wouldn’t be out here all by yourselves.”

Joanna and Dick Voland were so at odds most of the tiff that Joanna found it oddly touching for him to be concerned about her safety. The fact that he would actually come right out and say something about it was downright disconcerting.

Joanna shook her head. “I appreciate the suggestion Dick,” she said. “But the High Lonesome is Jenny’s and my home. It’s the one Andy and I planned and worked for together. I’m not letting someone scare me out of living here.”

“No,” Dick Voland said a moment later. “I suppose not.”

The afternoon had stretched so long after the luncheon that her trip out to the Rob Roy with her mother and mother-in-law seemed eons ago. Still, Dick Voland’s suggestion about Joanna’s selling the High Lonesome had reminded her something else, something Eleanor had said. Joanna knew that even raising the issue would put an end to this amicable but highly unlikely truce between Dick Voland and her. She decided to go ahead and risk it.

“Speaking of selling,” she said. “Did you know Terry Buckwalter is making arrangements to sell out Bucky’s practice?”

Voland looked surprised. “So soon’“ lie asked. “With a business like that, especially one with a professional involved, I would have thought it would take months, it not years, to unload it. Where’d you hear about that?”

“At the luncheon today,” Joanna replied. “Actually, that little nugget of intelligence came straight from my mother, who got it from Helen Barco at Helene’s Salon of Hair and Beauty.”

“Who’s buying the place?” Dick asked. “Most likely someone from out of town.”

“Mother didn’t say,” Joanna told him. “I meant to mention it to Ernie, but we didn’t have time to talk about anything but Hannah Green.”

“It’s probably not that important,” Voland said. “But I’m going by the department on my way home. If Ernie’s still there, I’ll let him know.”

“While you’re at it, there’s something else I forgot to mention,” Joanna continued. “I ran into Terry Buckwalter out at the Rob Roy today, too. When I saw her, she was just coming back from a game of golf. She looked like a million dollars, her wedding ring was among the missing, and it looked to me like she might have something going with her golf pro. The guy’s name is Peter Wilkes. Tell Ernie to check him out, too.”

“Peter Wilkes!” Dick scoffed. “Isn’t he one of the”-he paused, searching for some kind of acceptable phraseology-”gay blades,” he said finally, “who started the Rob Roy in the first place?”

Joanna nodded. “He and his partner.”

“What would he have going with Terry Buckwalter, then?” Voland asked.

“I don’t know,” Joanna said. “That’s what I want Ernie to check out. I le might want to start by talking will Helen Barco.”

“Wait a minute,” Voland said. “Aren’t you reaching on this one?”

Joanna had been right. Word by word, sentence by sentence, the truce between Joanna and her chief deputy was disintegrating.

“What do you mean, reaching?” she asked.

“Look, Joanna,” Dick Voland said reasonably. “I can see where you’re coming from. What happened to Hal Morgan wife is more or less the same thing that happened to Andy. They’re not exactly the same, mind you. But they’re close enough for you to have lost perspective-to be viewing things through some misguided sense of sympathy.”

“Sympathy!” Joanna began, but Voland went right on talking.

“You shot Tony Vargas dead, but it wasn’t a premeditated thing. Hal Morgan came here to Bisbee with every intention of doing exactly what he did-of taking the law in his own hands. This afternoon and tonight, I sent those two deputies over to Saginaw, just like you wanted me to. They didn’t find anything, Joanna-not one blessed thing-to support Hal Morgan’s lame story. Now here you come with this fruitcake business about Terry Buckwalter and Wilkes. It’s just… just ridiculous.”

The heat Joanna felt rising up her neck had nothing to do with either the bubbling gravy on the stove or with the potatoes she had just mashed.

“Leaving no stone unturned isn’t ridiculous,” she said curtly. “It’s called doing a thorough investigation, Dick. At before you start casting aspersions about who has and who hasn’t lost perspective, you might consider that, if nothing else, I’m looking at Hal Morgan with a presumption of innocence. You and Arlee Campbell keep acting like the man’s already been tried and convicted. I want Peter Wilkes checked out, and Terry Buckwalter as well.”

“Right,” Dick Voland said. “I’ll make sure to pass the word along.”

The food was ready to be put on the table. “Would you like something to eat?” Joanna asked in the awkward pause that followed.

“No, thanks,” Voland said. “In fact, maybe I’d better head out and get on this right now. After all, I wouldn’t want any of these valuable leads to slip through our fingers.”

The sarcasm in Voland’s last sentence wasn’t lost on Joanna. She had heard it before on other occasions. She was learning to live with it, and most of the time it didn’t bother her. Tonight it did. For a while it had seemed she might be gaining ground in Dick Voland’s opinion. Earning her stripes. But his parting remark proved otherwise.

Even so, she didn’t want him to go away angry. She followed him as far as the back porch. “Thanks, Dick. Especially for dropping everything and coming as soon as Jenny called.”

He looked back at her. “You don’t have to thank me,” he said. “Of course I came. It’s my job.”

Shaking her head, Joanna went back inside and called Jenny to dinner. The child came at once and attacked her food with more enthusiasm than she had shown in months. She had polished off her very well-done pork chop and was working her way through a mound of peas before she slowed down enough to talk.

“I was watching out the window when Detective Carpenter took Mrs. Green out of the house and put her in his car,” Jenny said thoughtfully. “I felt sorry for her. She seemed more sad than crazy, and she didn’t do anything to hurt us. What’s going to happen to her?”

“I don’t have any idea, Jenny, and that’s the truth.”

“Will she have to go to prison?^”

“Maybe. That’ll be up to the judge to decide,” Joanna said.

“Will she have to go to court?”

“Most likely.”

“But she’s poor, isn’t she?” Jenny asked. “She looked poor.”

“I think you’re right,” Joanna said. “She looked poor to me, too.”

“So how will she pay for a lawyer then?” Jenny asked. “Don’t they cost a lot of money?”

“If she can’t pay for a lawyer, the judge will give her one. That’s called a court-appointed attorney.”

“And she doesn’t have to pay then?”

“No.”

All of Jenny’s peas had disappeared. The only thing remaining on her plate was a single helping of coleslaw. Before Jenny started on that, she shot her mother a subtly appraising glance. “Was Mr. Voland mad that I called him?”

“Mad?” Joanna returned. “Not at all. Why do you ask?”

“I heard him just before he left. It sounded like he was yelling at the top of his lungs.”

“We were having a discussion,” Joanna said. “A disagreement.”

“About what?”

“About how to do things,” Joanna answered after a moment’s consideration. “He thinks the department should do things one way, and I think we should do them another.”

“Well,” Jenny said. “You’re the boss, aren’t you? Isn’t he supposed to do things the way you want?”

Joanna had to smile at Jenny’s uncomplicated view of the world. Things either were or they weren’t. Politics hadn’t yet intruded on Jenny’s consciousness. As far as Joanna could tell, neither had the battle of the sexes.

“Do you remember all those old Calvin and Hobbes books that your dad loved so much? Remember how Calvin never wanted to let Susie in his club?”

Jenny nodded.

“Dick Voland reminds me a little of Calvin. He liked the department a lot better when it was a private club with no girls allowed.”

“If he doesn’t like you, why doesn’t he quit and go work somewhere else?” Jenny asked.

“It isn’t quite that easy, Jenny,” Joanna told her daughter. “Not for either one of us. Dick Voland has been in law enforcement a long time. I haven’t. There are all kinds of things I can learn from him that will make me a better sheriff. The only problem is, sometimes it isn’t easy for the two of us to work together.”

“Still,” Jenny insisted firmly, “he shouldn’t yell. It isn’t nice.”

Joanna smiled. “No, it isn’t, but fortunately I’m pretty tough. I can handle whatever he says.”

“Sort of like sticks and stones can break my bones?”

“Exactly,” Joanna said. With a laugh she picked up the two empty plates and carried them to the sink. “It’s exactly like that. Now hurry off to bed, Jenny. It’s late. We’ll leave the dishes until morning.”

Ignoring her overloaded briefcase, Joanna headed for her own bedroom. Setting her alarm for five, she fell into bed and was asleep within minutes. The dream came later.

She and Andy were together once again. The two of then hand in hand, were strolling through the dusty midway the Cochise County Fair while Jenny, carrying an enormous cloud of cotton candy, darted on ahead. The sun shone, at Joanna felt warm and happy. Even in her sleep, she savored the sense of well-being that surrounded her.

The two of them had stopped beside the carousel why Jenny came racing back toward them. “There’s a great big Ferris wheel. Can we ride on it, please?”

Andy reached into his pocket, pulled out his billfold, extracted some money, and handed it over to Jenny. “You get the tickets, Jen,” he said. “Mommy and I will be right there. We’ll all ride it together.”

Once again, Jenny raced off. Soon, without any intervening walking, they were stepping up the slanted wooden ramp and the attendant was fastening the wooden pole across the front of the car. “No swinging now, you hear?” he warned.

The Bradys-Andy, Joanna, and Jenny-were the last passengers to board. Once they were locked in place, the Ferris wheel started its upward climb. Jenny, her whole body alight with excitement, sat in the middle. Andy leaned back in the seat, smiling. With one arm he reached across behind Jenny until his wrist and hand were resting reassuringly on Joanna’s shoulder.

Joanna didn’t much care for Ferris wheels-didn’t like the way they went up and up and up until you were at the very top with nothing at all beneath you. Nor did she enjoy the stomach-lurching way in which the world dropped out from under you. Suddenly, as they fell, she realized that the comforting weight of Andy’s hand had disappeared from her shoulder.

Concerned, she looked across the seat. Jenny had scrambled over to the far side of the car-to the place where Andy had been sitting-and was frantically peering out over the armrest.

“Daddy, Daddy,” she screamed. “Come back. Don’t go. Please don’t leave us.”

But Andy was already gone. He had disappeared into thin air. When their car hit the bottom of the arc, Joanna could see no sign of him.

“Stop this thing,” Joanna shouted at the attendant. “Let us out. My husband fell. We’ve got to find him.”

The attendant pointed to his ears, shook his head, suggesting that he couldn’t hear, and then touched the control panel. Instead of stopping, the wheel sped up to twice its previous speed, racing up and then plummeting down into the void, with Joanna floating helplessly in her seat. Jenny inched over until she managed to grab on to her mother. As the wheel went round and round she clung there, sobbing in terror. Then, suddenly, everything stopped. The car Jenny and Joanna were in was at the very pinnacle of the Ferris wheel. From there they could see for miles-off across the fairgrounds and the racetrack, to Douglas and Agua Prieta and to the parched desert landscape beyond.

They stayed there for the longest time, with Joanna searching in every direction for some sign of Andy, for some hint of where he might have gone. At last the wheel moved again-down, down, down-until it stopped at the bottom. The attendant, grinning, leaned forward to unlatch the wooden bar. It wasn’t until she stood up to walk down the ramp that Joanna realized she was naked. And all around her, watching, were people from the department. Dick Voland and Ernie Carpenter. Kristin and the clerks from records. The deputies from Patrol and the guards from the county jail.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t the least bit embarrassed. Instead of shrinking away and trying to cover herself, Joanna was angry. Furious! How could Andy have done this to her? How could he have gone off and left her alone like this? He should have stayed with her-stayed with them both.

She heard a bell then. Andy had always liked the sledge hammer concessions. In those games, a strong enough blow from a hammer would ring the bell at the top of a metal post. The resulting prize was usually nothing more exotic than a shoddily made teddy bear or an awful cigar. Still, Andy loved to try his hand at it. Joanna looked toward the bell, hoping_, that whoever was ringing it would turn out to be Andy. She could see the pole, the bell, but there was no one in sight. Still, the bell continued to ring, over and over, until it finally penetrated her consciousness. The insistently ringing bell was coming from a telephone-the one on Joanna’s bedside table.

As she raised herself on one elbow to grope for the receiver, she glanced at the glowing green numbers on the clock radio. Twelve forty-seven. Who the hell was calling her in the middle of the night?

“Sheriff Brady,” she answered, her voice still thick with sleep.

“Sorry to wake you,” said Larry Kendrick from Dispatch. “We’ve got a problem here. The jail commander asked me to call you.”

Sitting up, Joanna fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp. “What is it?”

“We just found Hannah Green dead in her cell,” Kendrick said.

“Dead!” Joanna echoed. “How can that be? What happened?”

“She hung herself from her bunk,” Larry said. “Or, more accurately, strangled herself. With her bra.”

“Has somebody called Dick Voland and Ernie Carpenter?”

“Dick’s already here. Ernie’s next on the list.”

“I’ll be right there, too,” Joanna said, scrabbling out of bed. In a turmoil, she slammed down the telephone receiver and tore off her nightgown. She was half-dressed when she stopped cold.

What about Jenny?

Jenny was in bed and sound asleep. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning. With this kind of emergency, Joanna might be gone for several hours. She couldn’t very well go off and leave Jenny alone, asleep in a house a mile from the nearest neighbor. But waking her up and taking her along was equally impossible. What should she do? Bed her down on the couch in Kristin’s office and expect her to sleep while all hell broke loose around her?

Sinking back down on the bed, Joanna realized she’d have to call someone. Whom? Her mother? Eva Lou or Jim Bob Brady? They would have been asleep for hours. It wasn’t fair to wake them up. The same held true for Marianne Maculyea. She’d be asleep, too. Despairing, Joanna glanced at the clock once more-five to one.

And that’s when she realized that there was one friend who would still be awake. One A.M. would be closing time at the Blue Moon Saloon and Lounge up in Brewery Gulch. Angie Kellogg would just be getting off work. In Angie’s previous life, and in this one as well, she lived what was essentially a night shift existence. Other people might think it was the middle of the night. For Angie, it was late afternoon.

Seconds later, worrying that she might already he too Tale, Joanna dialed the number. “Blue Moon,” a voice said. “Angie speaking,”

“‘Thank God you’re still there. It’s Joanna.”

“Of course I’m still here,” Angie replied. “It’s not quite one yet. I’m just washing up the last of those god-awful trays. What’s the matter?”

“I’ve got to go into work, and I don’t know what to do about Jenny. I need someone to look after her while I go back to the office.”

“Now?” Angie asked.

“There’s been a problem over at the jail. Once I go in, no telling how long I’ll be there. I don’t want to wake Jenny up-tomorrow’s a school day-but I don’t want to leave her here by herself, either.”

Angie Kellogg still couldn’t quite fathom how she had become friends first with Joanna and then with Joanna’ friends, the Reverend Marianne Maculyea and Jeff Daniels. What she did know, however, was that those three people were the ones who had made her new life possible. Faced with an opportunity to repay some of what she regarded as an overwhelming debt of kindness, Angie was eager to help

“Do you want me to come there, or would you like to bring her to my place?” Angie asked.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d appreciate your coming here,” Joanna answered.

“Sure,” Angie answered. “No problem. I’ll be there jus as soon as I can. I’ll lock up right now, but I’ll leave Bobo note so he’ll know why I didn’t finish cleaning up.”

“You’re sure he won’t mind?”

“No. Not at till, but it’ll still tike the better part of twenty minutes for me to get there.^”

Joanna looked at the clock once more. It was one straight up. Still, after what had happened earlier that evening, Joanna wasn’t willing to leave Jenny alone, not even for a minute. “Don’t rush, I can wait that long,” she said. “The woman’s dead. My getting there a few minutes earlier or later isn’t going to make a bit of difference.”

As Joanna hurried into her clothing, she was overwhelmed with guilt. Hannah Green had come to Joanna, come specifically to the sheriff, for help. Joanna had done what she could for the unfortunate woman-handled the situation to the best of her ability. She had been terribly moved, as much by Hannah’s broken spirit as by the woman’s mangled hand and crippled fingers. Joanna had listened and had been kind to her even while using Jenny to engineer the woman’s capture. There was nothing bad or dishonorable in that. It was Joanna’s job.

Still, she felt guilty. In the first days and weeks after Andy’s death, she, too, had lived with the same kind of abject hopelessness that she had recognized in Hannah Green. Joanna, too, had seen a future empty of all promise and possibility. Even now, the future still didn’t look all that bright, but at least Joanna could see that she had a future. Hannah Green did not.

Joanna Brady had Jenny to live for, but she had something else as well-something beyond simply being needed. As an upholder of law and order, she still possessed a good deal of faith in the justice system. Just as Joanna had told Jenny, she would have expected Hannah Green to have her day in court. A court-appointed attorney would have been at her side. She would have had the opportunity to tell her story to a jury.

Having heard it all the years of casual and debilitating meanness Reed Carruthers had inflicted on his daughter surely no jury would have convicted I Hannah Green of first degree murder. Maybe not even of manslaughter.

Had Hannah Green only lived long enough to hear that verdict read in court! But she had not. Instead, she had short-circuited the justice system by taking her own life. She had come to Joanna and willingly confessed to the crime of murder because she had already made up her mind. Long before she climbed into Joanna’s Blazer she had known that whatever confession she made to Sheriff Brady was all the unburdening she would ever have a chance to do.

So why didn’t I order a suicide watch for her? Joanna demanded of her reflection in the mirror. Why didn’t I see it corning?

Did that mean it was her fault? Was it a natural outgrowth of her own lack of experience? There had been other, far more experienced, officers involved in what had happened, but Hannah Green had died on Joanna’s watch. So, although Joanna might not be directly to blame, responsibility for what had happened rested squarely upon her shoulders.

She was just finishing combing her hair when Angie Kellogg drove into the yard. It should have taken a full twenty minutes for her to drive from the Blue Moon in Brewery Gulch to High Lonesome Ranch, but her Oldsmobile Omega stopped outside Joanna’s gate in just under fifteen. Joanna stifled the barking dogs and then rushed into the yard to meet her.

“What’s going on?” Angie asked. “You sounded upset.”

“One of the inmates committed suicide at the jail,” Joanna answered. “I’ll probably be gone the rest of the night, so when you get tired, go ahead and bed down in my room. If I get home before you’re up and out, I can always sack out on the couch.”

“Are you sure?” Angie asked.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Joanna said. “After all, you’re the one who’s doing me the favor. Thank you.”

“Go and don’t worry,” Angie said. “I’m glad to help out,”

A few minutes later when Joanna pulled into the Cochise County Justice Center, the place was alive with people moving around in the clear, chill night. The driveway was thick with a clot of vehicles. She recognized most of the emergency equipment. Picking her way up the drive, she came around to the back of the building. There, she pulled into her reserved parking place.

When she opened the car door, she was momentarily blinded by the flash of a camera. “Who the hell is that?” she demanded as spots of light continued to dance in her eyes.

“Kevin Dawson with the Bisbee Bee,” a voice said out of the darkness. “Any reason you’re sneaking in the back door, Sheriff Brady?”

“This happens to be my parking place,” Joanna snapped back at him.

“Do you have any comments about what happened in the jail tonight?”

“My comment, Mr. Dawson, has to do with the fact that this parking lot is off limits to the public. I suggest that you get back around to the front of the building where you belong.”

“Come on, Sheriff Brady. I’m just doing my job.”

“So am I,” she told him. “Now get moving.”

She stood and watched until he disappeared around the corner of the building. To steady herself, she paused long enough to take several deep breaths. She gazed up at the canopy of stars and tried to prepare herself for what was conning. This would be an ordeal for all concerned. Kevin Dawson was only the beginning of it.

Using her combination on the push-button lock, Joanna let herself into the building through the private door that led directly into her office. When she switched on the lights, she found to her surprise that the room was already occupied. Ernie Carpenter was sitting in one of the captain’s chairs opposite her desk. He looked up at her. His face was bleak, his skin ashen.

“I blew it,” he said.

“You had no way of knowing,” Joanna told him, dropping her purse on the corner of the desk and then coming around to stand leaning against it. “Don’t blame yourself, Ernie. I’ve been thinking about it all the way here. It’s not my fault, and it’s not yours, either.”

“But it is,” Ernie insisted. “Don’t you understand? Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I’m usually a better judge of people than that-better at reading what’s going on with them. I’ve always prided myself at being able to tell in advance if someone’s going to turn violent on me or go gunny-bags. I didn’t see this one coming, not at all.”

“How long had Hannah Green been in her cell before it happened?” Joanna asked.

Ernie shook his head. “Not long. No more than half an hour or so. She waived her right to a lawyer, so Jaime and I stayed long enough to get the whole interview down on tape. I’d just managed to drag my ass home and crawl into bed when the call came in saying she was dead.”

“Did she leave a note?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Not nothing, Ernie. Her confession to you and Jaime, her confession to me was a note of sorts.”

“I realize that now,” Ernie agreed. “I should have picked up on it at the time. But I didn’t. That’s why I’m quitting.”

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the leather wallet with his badge in it and tossed it on Joanna’s desk. Joanna could barely believe her eyes or her ears. “Quitting?” she echoed.

“That’s right.^”

“Over this? Over Hannah Green?”

Ernie nodded. “If you want me to, I’ll go write my letter of resignation right now. That’s why I was waiting for you here in your office. I wanted to talk to you alone. Without Dick Voland hanging around. He’ll try to talk me out of it.”

“You don’t think I will?”

“Why should you? Look, there are other, younger, guys coming along. I’ve put in my twenty-plus years. This wasn’t a fatal error for me, but it sure as hell was for Hannah Green. By the time we had finished talking to her, I could see that if she was telling us the truth about her father, we’d have a problem when it came to charging her with murder one. Maybe we could get voluntary manslaughter. Maybe even second-degree homicide. Whatever the charges might have ended up being, they wouldn’t have amounted to a capital offense. She may have committed a crime, but she shouldn’t have died for it. The fact that she did is my fault plain and simple. Who’s to say that the next time I won’t screw up worse and somebody else will die? Jaime Carbajal, for example.”

“You’re overreacting,” Joanna said.

“The hell I am.”

Joanna picked up the wallet. The leather was still warm to the touch from being in Ernie’s pocket. She flipped it open and studied the badge. The picture was of a somewhat younger man. A man with a less florid, less careworn face. “Detective Ernest W. Carpenter,” the card said. “Cochise County Sheriff’s Department.”

“You’ve been here a long time,” Joanna said softly. “Since my father’s time.”

Ernie nodded. “That’s right. Your dad is the one who hired me. That’s so long ago it seems like ancient history.”

“How many times, in all the years you’ve been here, have you had two homicides and a suicide in three days?” Joanna asked.

Ernie looked up at her quizzically. “Never,” he said.

“Is there a chance that you’re spread too thin right now? That you’ve been doing too much? Could that account for your not reading Hannah Green the way you might have under ordinary circumstances?”

“I suppose it could,” Ernie allowed grudgingly. “Jamie and I have both been working our tails off.”

“What about Jaime?” Joanna asked. “Do you think he’s ready to step into your shoes? Is he capable of doing this job without you?”

Folding his arms, Ernie stuck his feet out in front of him and examined his shoes. For the first time ever, Joanna noticed that his usually immaculate wing tips were in need of a shine. “Jaime’s young,” Ernie said. “But he’s getting there.”

“But he’s not all the way up to speed yet, is he?”

“No.”

“If you drop the ball now, Ernie, you’ll leave us all in the lurch. Jaime will be in over his head, so will I. So will my department.”

“But what about…” He stopped.

“Hannah Green?”

Ernie nodded.

“I’ve been thinking about that all the way here,” Joanna said. “We gave Hannah Green what she wanted and needed, Ernie. You and Deputy Carbajal and I not only listened to her, we believed her. It may have been the first time ever in her poor unfortunate life that anyone really listened to her. If Reed Carruthers was the kind of man we both suspect, he never paid any attention to a word she said-including what television channels she wanted to watch.”

Holding out the wallet, Joanna handed it back to Ernie. He studied it. “So what are you saying?” he asked. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay,” she said simply. “Go over to the jail and take charge of our part of the investigation. Hannah Green’s death will have to be investigated by an outside agency, of course. Dispatch has already called in the State Department of Public Safety, haven’t they?”

Ernie nodded. “But you’re to handle our end of it,” Joanna said.

When Ernie Carpenter looked up at her, his eyes were grave. “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” Joanna said with conviction.

Slowly, Ernie pulled himself up and out of the chair. He stood there with the leather wallet still open in his hand, staring down at his badge. “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll get on it. You’re sure you don’t mind having old duffers like me hanging around?”

Joanna shook her head and smiled. “It’s the old guys, as you call them, who keep the rest of us from having to reinvent the wheel. Not only that, if I were dumb enough to let you quit over Hannah Green, then I’d have to quit myself. After all, I didn’t see it conning any more than you did. As of right now, we’d both he out of a job.”

Closing the wallet, Ernie stuffed it heck in his pocket. “I guess I’d better get cracking,” he said. “Are you coming along over to the jail?”

“In a minute,” Joanna told him.

Ernie headed for the door. “All I can say is, Sheriff Brady, you’re a hell of a salesman. I’ll bet Milo Davis is still kicking himself over losing you.”

At the time Joanna left the insurance agency, she had not yet quite completed the transition from office manager to sales, but there was no reason to explain that to Ernie-not right then.

“I hope so,” Joanna said. “I certainly do.”

It was almost seven by the time Joanna stumbled home. She walked into a house that was alive with the fragrance of frying bacon and brewing coffee. Jenny and Angie Kellogg were already eating breakfast in the kitchen nook. Because she planned on trying to grab another few hours of sleep, Joanna passed on Angie’s offer of coffee. Instead, she opted for a glass of orange juice. Dragging the kitchen stool to the end of the breakfast counter, she sat down, kicked off her shoes, and began rubbing the soles of her aching feet.

“Where were you, Mom?” Jenny asked. “Angie said you had to go to work.”

All the way home, Joanna had dreaded having to answer that question. She was already so mind-numbingly weary, she had hoped to dodge the subject of Hannah Green entirely, but now Jenny’s questioning stare made avoiding the issue impossible.

“Mrs. Green died last night,” Joanna said carefully, mincing around the word “suicide.” “She died at the jail after the guards put her in her cell.”

Jenny’s eyes widened momentarily, then she turned to Angie. “Mrs. Green is the one I was telling you about,” Jenny explained. “She was waiting by the mailbox when we came come last night.” The child turned back to her mother. “What happened? Was she sick?”

Maybe Andy would have been brutally honest at that Joint, but Joanna simply wasn’t up to it. “Yes,” she answered. “She was very sick.” Which isn’t a complete lie, she thought. But it’s a long way from the truth.

“Couldn’t a doctor have saved her?” Jenny asked.

“I don’t think so,” Joanna said. “A doctor did come to the jail afterward, but he was too late.”

Jenny seemed to consider that for a moment. Then, abruptly and with childlike unconcern, she simply changed the subject. “The quail were here just a little while ago,” she said. “We used to have roadrunners out here, too,” she added in an aside to Angie. “But that was before we got Tigger.”

Angie Kellogg, newly come to the wonders of birding, both feeding and watching, looked horrified. “You mean your dog chases them?” she asked.

“Of course,” Jenny said with a shrug. “He chases everything, but the only thing he ever catches is porcupines.”

“Can’t you make him stop?” Angie asked.

“Not so far,” Jenny said.

The jarring juxtaposition of Hannah Green’s death and Tigger’s senseless antics cast Joanna adrift from the spoken words. Looking around the kitchen, she realized that the place was spotless. When she had left the house, dirty dishes and pots and pans from last night’s long delayed dinner had still been stacked on the counter and in the sink. Between then and now, someone-Angie, no doubt-had rinsed them, loaded and run the dishwasher, and emptied it as well. The unspoken kindness and concern behind that simple act made Joanna^’s eyes fill with fears of gratitude.

“I love roadrunners,” Angie Kellogg was saying when Joanna tuned back into the conversation. “Growing up back in Michigan, I used to think they weren’t real, that the people who made the Roadrunner/Coyote cartoons had just made them up.”

“I like those cartoons, too,” Jenny said, scrambling out of the breakfast nook. “But I always feel sorry for the coyote.”

Without having to be told, she took her dishes as far as the sink, rinsed them, and loaded them into the dishwasher. Then she headed for the bathroom to brush her teeth.

“Thanks for doing the dishes,” Joanna said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t mind,” Angie answered with a laugh. “It was fun-almost like playing house. And it’s so peaceful here. I never knew there were homes like this.”

Over the months, Joanna had heard bits and pieces about Angie Kellogg’s past, about the sexually abusive father who had driven his daughter out of the house. For Angie, life on the streets in the harsh world of teenaged prostitution had been preferable to living at home. Only now, living in her own little house, was she beginning to learn about how the rest of the world lived. Joanna looked around her clean but familiar kitchen and tried to see it through Angie’s eyes. The place didn’t seem peaceful to her. There was still a hole in it, a void that Andy’s presence used to fill.

“I didn’t know where all the dishes went,” Angie continued. “I told Jenny that if she’d put them away for me, I’d give her a ride to school.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Joanna said.

“Why not?” Angie returned. “Greenway School is just a little out of the way. It won^’t take more than a couple of minutes for me to drop her oil. That way you can go to bed. You look like you need it.”

Unable to argue, Joanna stood up. “If anything,” she said, “I feel worse than I look.”

She staggered into the bedroom and dropped fully clothed onto the bedspread. Jenny stopped by on her way to her own room. “Aren’t you going to get undressed?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” Joanna said, pulling the bedspread up and over her. “I’m too tired.”

Sound asleep, she didn’t stir when Jenny and Angie left the house a few minutes later. The phone awakened her at eleven. “Sheriff Brady?” Kristin Marsten asked uncertainly.

Joanna cleared her throat. Her voice was still thick with sleep. “It’s me, Kristin,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Dick Voland asked me to call you. There’s going to be a telephone conference call with someone from the governor’s office at eleven-thirty. Can you make it?”

“I’ll be there,” Joanna mumbled as she staggered out of bed. Showering and dressing in record time, she headed for the office. The governor’s office, she thought along the way. Why would Governor Wallace Hickman be calling me?

As Joanna drove into the Justice Center compound, she saw that the front parking lot was once again littered with media vehicles, including at least one mobile television van from a station in Tucson. Fortunately, out-of-town reporters, unlike Kevin Dawson of the Bisbee Bee, had no idea about the sheriff’s private backdoor entrance. Joanna took full advantage of that lack of knowledge. Without having had the benefit of a single cup of coffee, she wasn’t ready to face shouted questions from a ravening horde of reporters. For them, Hannah Green’s life and death meant nothing more than a day’s headline or lead story. For the police officers involved, Joanna Brady included, Hannah Green’s death meant failure.

Climbing out of the Blazer, Joanna heaved out her briefcase as well. She had dragged it back and forth from the office without ever unloading it or touching what was inside. No doubt today’s batch of correspondence was already waiting for her. Any other day, the thought of all that paperwork would have been overwhelming. Today, Joanna welcomed it. By burying herself in it, perhaps she’d be able to forget the sight of a massive, lifeless Hannah Green slumped at the end of her jailhouse bunk, the air choked out of her by the tautly stretched elastic of a grimy bra that had been wrapped around and around her neck and finally around the foot rail of her upper bunk.

As soon as Joanna was inside, Kristin Marsten brought her both the mail and a much-needed cup of coffee.

“What’s happening?” Joanna asked. “And who all is here?”

“Mr. Voland, of course,” Kristin answered. “He was here when I arrived. Detective Carpenter showed up a few minutes ago, along with Tom Hadlock.” Tom Hadlock was the jail commander. “Deputy Montoya is here, but he probably won’t be included in the conference call. He’s out front dealing with the reporters.”

“Better him than me,” Joanna said grimly.

Cup in hand, feigning a briskness she didn’t feel, Joanna marched into the conference room with five minutes to spare. Ernie Carpenter, Dick Voland, and Tom Hadlock were al-ready there. Grim-faced and red-eyed, none of them seemed any better off than Joanna felt.

Joanna looked questioningly at Dick Voland. “What’s this ill about?”

Voland shrugged. “Politics as usual,” he said. “It’s no big thing. Whenever something off the wall happens, Governor Hickman wants to be in on it. He probably wants to be reassured that this isn’t something that’s going to come back and bite him in the butt during the next election.”

“What’s going to bite him?”

“Hannah Green’s death.”

“How could what happened to Hannah Green hurt Governor Hickman?”

Voland shrugged. “You know. Allegations of possible police brutality. Violations of constitutional rights. That sort of thing.”

Joanna could feel her temperature rising. “Are you saying Hickman may try to turn that poor woman’s death into a political football?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Ernie said. “And it sure as hell won’t be the last.”

When the phone rang, Joanna punched the speaker button. “Yes,” she said.

“Lydia Morales with the governor’s office is on the phone,” Kristin said.

“Put her through.”

Lydia Morales sounded young-about Joanna’s age, perhaps-and businesslike. “Governor Hickman wanted me to get some information on the incident down there last night,” Lydia said. “He’ll have access to the Department of Public Safety’s files, of course, but he did want me to ask a question or two. For instance, the victim, this Hannah Green, she wasn’t black by any chance, or Hispanic, was she?”

“Black or Hispanic?” Joanna repeated. “What does dial have to do with it?”

Lydia paused. “Well, certainly you understand how, when a prisoner dies in custody, there can always be questions of racism or police brutality or…”

“Or violation of constitutional rights,” Joanna finished.

“Right,” Lydia Morales confirmed brightly.

Hearing Lydia’s response, Joanna knew Dick Voland was right. This really was politics as usual. Lydia Morales and Governor Hickman had no real interest in Hannah Green’s tragic life and death. They were looking for votes, plain and simple. They were checking to see if there were any political liabilities involved or gains to be made in the aftermath of what had happened the night before in the Cochise County Jail. How many constituents would be adversely affected, and could the governor be held accountable?

“You never answered my question about Hannah Green,” Lydia persisted.

Joanna tumbled then. In the minds of the governor’s political strategists there were, presumably, both a black voting block and an Hispanic one as well. Unfortunately for her, Hannah Green fit in neither category.

“Hannah Green was an Anglo,” Joanna said tersely “Good,” Lydia returned. “That will probably help.”

“Help what?” Joanna asked.

“How this thing is handled,” Lydia returned. “The kind of press it’s given. Believe me, trying to fight a racism charge is tough. Definitely lose/lose all the way around.”

Joanna was stunned at being told that having an Anglo woman die in her jail was somehow less politically damaging than having a black or Hispanic prisoner die under similar circumstances. Joanna was still reeling under the awful burden of her own part in Hannah Green^’s death. So were the other weary, grim-faced police officers gathered around the conference table.

AII her life, Joanna had been teased about her red hair her matching fiery temper. Something about Lydia’s glib response set off an explosion in Joanna’s heart, one she made no effort to contain.

‘What you’re saying, then,” Joanna said, “is that violations of constitutional rights are more important if the person being so violated happens to fall in one or another of the politically approved minority categories?”

The question stopped Lydia cold. “I’m sure I…” she began

“Perhaps you could give Governor Hickman a message for me,” Joanna continued. Her voice had dropped to a dangerously low level. “You can tell him that Hannah Green’s constitutional rights were violated.”

“Were?” Lydia Morales repeated. “Don’t you mean weren’t?”

‘No,” Joanna corrected. “I mean were. I believe that our investigation will find that her civil rights were violated for years. Every day, in fact, starting with the moment thirty years ago when her father slammed her hand in a car door and then refused to take her for proper medical treatment. From that time on, and maybe even earlier, Hannah Green was denied life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“By her family, you mean,” Lydia said, sounding relieved more. “Not by a police officer. That would make her death unfortunate, of course, but it shouldn’t be a problem from the governor’s point of view.”

From the governor’s point of view!

“It should be,” Joanna shot back. “Hannah Green may not have a natural base of constituents, but let me remind your, Ms. Morales, two people are dead down here. Most likely those two deaths are attributable to the rising tide of domestic violence. An abuser is dead, and so is his victim. If Governor Hickman isn’t worried about that, he sure as hell ought to be. Good day, Ms. Morales.”

Reaching out, Joanna jabbed at the speaker button, depressing it and disconnecting the call. Then she looked at the three men gathered around the conference table. Tom Hadlock said nothing, but Dick Voland was grinning from ear to ear. Ernie Carpenter was actually applauding.

“Way to go,” Dick Voland told her. “It’s not exactly how to go about winning friends and influencing people, but I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Tom Hadlock pushed his chair back and stood up. “Glad that little coming to God is over. Now, if you don’t mind, Sheriff Brady, I think I’ll go home and try to get some sleep.”

As Hadlock shuffled out of the room, Joanna turned back to the others. “What about you?”

Ernie leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He looked as though he was barely awake. “I’m here now,” he said. “I could just as well go to work on something. God knows there’s enough for me to do.” Joanna had hoped he would go home to get some sleep, but she decided not to argue the point.

Turning to Voland, she realized that the sudden spurt of anger toward Governor Hickman’s deputy had helped clear her own head. “Anything from Patrol I should know about?” she asked.

“Dr. Lee dismissed Hal Morgan from the hospital a little while ago,” Voland answered. “According to Deputy Howell, he’s gone hack to his motel room, to the place he rented when he first came to town several days ago.^”

After the intervening crisis with Hannah Green, Hal Morgan seemed worlds away. It took a few seconds for Joanna to switch gears. News that Hal Morgan had been turned loose meant that soon the heat would be turned back up on the Buckwalter murder investigation.

“What motel?” Joanna asked.

“The Rest Inn, out in the Terraces.^”

“There’s still a deputy with him?”

“So far. Deputy Howell again.”

Joanna turned to Ernie. “Have you made arrangements to talk to Helen Barco yet?” she asked.

Ernie had been sitting there with his bloodshot eyes half-closed. Now they came open. “Why on earth would I want to talk to Helen Barco?”

Joanna turned back to Dick Voland. “Didn’t you tell him what I told you?”

Voland shook his head. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Things got so hectic around here that it must have slipped my mind.”

“What slipped your mind?” Ernie asked.

“Sheriff Brady is under the impression that Terry Buckwalter may have something going with Peter Wilkes, the golf pro out at the Rob Roy,” Voland said.

There was no sense in Joanna’s making a fuss about Dick Voland’s neglecting to pass along her lead to Ernie Carpenter. They were all so tired and so overworked right then that it was to be expected that some things would drop through the cracks. Still, she wasn’t going to sit there quietly and let Voland discount her suggestions.

“I know they’re up to something,” Joanna said. “Ernie, the reason I want you to go see Helen is that Terry Buckwalter had a complete makeover at Helene’s yesterday morning. She did it early enough so she could go out and play a round golf afterwards-the day after Bucky’s death. I’m under the impression that Terry told Helen something of her plans fl the future. Those plans need to be checked out.”

Joanna returned to Dick Voland. “Is there anything mo happening in the Buckwalter case? Anything else Ernie should know about?”

Eager to make his escape, Voland stood up. “Not that can think of,” he said, heading for the door. “That shot’ dust about cover it.”

Once the chief deputy was gone, however, Ernie Carpenter made no move to get up. “I need to talk to you about this,” he said.

“About what?” Joanna asked.

Ernie sighed. “Look,” he said, “I’ll be happy to run out to the Rest Inn and interview Hal Morgan. And I’m more than happy to drive out to the Rob Roy and talk to this Pete Wilkes. No problem. But I can’t go talk to Helen Barco. I won’t.”

“Why not?” Joanna asked.

There was a long pause. “Because she won’t speak to me,” Ernie Carpenter answered.

“She won’t speak to you? Of course she will. You’re detective. Talking to people is your job.”

Ernie considered for some time before he answerer “Years ago, I dated Helen’s daughter Molly. Did you ever hear anything about that?”

“No,” Joanna answered. “I didn’t even know Helen has a daughter.”

“Had, not has,” Ernie corrected. “And not many people do. Molly Barco and I went to high school together. We dated for a while. I was older than she was by a good three years. After graduation, I went away to college. That’s where I met Rose. It was love at first sight. The real thing, not just some kind of puppy love. When I came back to Bisbee at homecoming to break the news to Molly that Rose and I were going to get married, she more or less went haywire. She had always been a little on the wild side. She took off. Went to San Diego to live with her cousin. She died two months later, three months shy of her seventeenth birthday. A sailor on leave stabbed her to death just outside Balboa Park. He claimed she was a prostitute and that when she pulled a knife on him, he stabbed her in self-defense. He was tried, but he got off.”

“That’s why Helen Barco doesn’t speak to you?” Joanna asked. “She blames you for what happened to her daughter?”

“Helen has every right to blame me. I blame myself,” Ernie said. “Molly was an only child. She was young and sweet and vulnerable, and far more in love with me than I was with her.”

Joanna thought of the many times she had been in Helen Barco’s beauty shop and the countless times Eleanor Lathrop had gone. Yet Joanna did not remember ever hearing any mention of the Barcos’ murdered daughter.

“That’s one of the reasons I became a cop,” Ernie continued. “And a detective, too. I always felt as though I owed Molly that much-to do what I could to help others, even though I couldn’t help her. I’ve run into Slim around town on occasion. He’s always civil, if not pleasant. Helen cuts me dead whenever she sees me. It would be useless for me to try to talk to her about Terry Buckwalter.”

The room grew still. “Should I go see her?” Joanna suggested at last.

Ernie nodded. “That’s probably a good idea,” he said. “If you don’t mind, that is. Otherwise, I could ask Jaime Carbajal to do it, but I just sent the poor guy home to get some shut eye himself.”

“I don’t mind,” Joanna said. And then, because Ernie looked so beaten up, she tried to lighten his load. “I’ve been needing a haircut for weeks anyway. This would be a good excuse, and subtle, too, don’t you think? Sort of like going in undercover?”

Ernie Carpenter stood up and gave Joanna the ghost of a grin. “You may be able to get away with that line,” he said, “but it wouldn’t work for me. Not in a million years.”

Once back in her office, Joanna picked up the phone and dialed Helene’s Salon of Hair and Beauty. The first time she dialed the number, the line was busy. While waiting to dial again, she thumbed through her newest stack of correspondence. Halfway down, she found that morning’s issue of the Bisbee Bee.

Curious, Joanna picked it up. There staring back at her was her own picture. The photographer had caught her in the flash of the camera as she exited her Blazer. Next to that was a very uncomplimentary mug shot of Hannah Green.

The caption under Joanna’s picture said, “Sheriff Joan, Brady returns to her office by a back entrance following the suicide of a Cochise County Jail inmate.^”

“That wormy little son of a bitch!” Joanna said.

‘Fussing the paper aside, Joanna dialed Helen’s numb once again. This time it rang. Helen Barco herself answered the phone.

“Joanna Brady here,” Joanna said. “‘There isn’t a chance you could work me in for a haircut sometime today, is there?”

“How soon can you be here?” Helen returned. “Lonnie Taylor canceled just a few minutes ago because she has to take her mother out to Sierra Vista to see the doctor. If you can be here in the next twenty minutes or so, I can work you in with no problem. Otherwise, you’re out of luck.”

“I’m on my way,” Joanna said. “Hold the chair for me.”

She drove into town feeling as though she were privy to something she didn’t want to know-to a part of Ernie’s history as well as of Helen Barco’s that shouldn’t have been any of Joanna Brady’s business. But it was. She felt as though, with her newfound knowledge, she owed Helen Barco the courtesy of a condolence. And yet, since Helen herself hadn’t mentioned her daughter, Joanna realized that her saying anything at all about Molly Barco would be a rude intrusion.

When Joanna walked into the beauty shop that day, she felt weighted down by all that secret knowledge. The eye-watering smells of permanent-wave solution and chemicals made her want to run for cover. A woman Joanna didn’t recognize sat enthroned under a beehive-shaped dryer with a dog-eared People magazine thrust in front of her face. She looked up and nodded in greeting when Joanna opened the door.

“How’s Jenny’s hair doing these days?” Helen asked as she flipped a plastic cape over Joanna’s shoulders.

Two months after Jenny’s ill-fated permanent, the solution-damaged hair was finally beginning to grow out. “It’s much better,” Joanna said. It was easy for her to be gracious at that point. Alter all, she had a good deal to be thankful for. Jenny was alive and well. Her hair would eventually outgrow the effects of that bad permanent. Helen Barco’s daughter was dead.

Helen shook her head sadly. “I don’t know what got into me,” she said. “I haven’t had a disaster like that since bill when I was first going to beauty school. Your mother and I just got carried away talking and I plumb forgot to set the timer.”

“We all make mistakes,” Joanna said.

It wasn’t until after her hair was shampooed and Helen Barco was snipping away that Joanna finally got down business. “I saw Terry Buckwalter yesterday,” she said. “She looked great.”

“Doesn’t she though!” Helen Barco agreed with a smile. “She was my first appointment yesterday morning. She had a complete makeover, including letting me do her colors. I fixed her up with new lipstick and nail enamel as well. Those new spring lines do a lot for her. They’d be fine for you, too, Joanna. You should try them.”

“I’ll think about it,” Joanna said. “But I’m still not ready. Getting back to Terry, though, I barely recognized her. People will be surprised when they see her at the funeral tomorrow.”

“That’s what she said, too,” Helen said. “That people will be surprised. They’ll have plenty to talk about when Little Miss Mousie shows up at the funeral looking like a fashion plate.” Helen clicked her tongue. “It does make such a difference. It’s a crying shame she didn’t have it done years ago. But I don’t think that’s why she did it now-the funeral mean. It sounded to me like she had some kind of important appointment coming up this weekend. She wanted to look her best for that.”

“Did she say what kind of appointment?^” Joanna asked.

“Not exactly,” Helen said. “Whatever it is, it isn’t here in town. I believe it’s up in Phoenix. Or maybe Tucson. I forget which.^’’

“A meeting, or a date?^” Joanna asked, thinking once in of Terry Buckwalter’s missing wedding ring.

“Oh, I’m certain it wasn’t a date,” Helen said quickly. “I believe it had something to do with golf. Something with a whole bunch of letters. L-something and some kind of school-a V-school or a T-school, I forget.”

Over the years, Joanna had picked up a little golfing lingo just from having Jim Bob and Andy Brady watch weekend if tournaments. “Q-school?” she asked. “Is Terry trying to t into a qualifying school?”

“That’s it,” Helen said. “Those are the exact words she used. Qualifying school. And she wants to go on a tour of some kind.”

“The L.P.G.A.?” Joanna asked incredulously. “Terry Buckwalter thinks she’s going to go off on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour?”

“How did you put that together?” Helen said. “You really a detective, aren’t you. Your mother is always telling me how smart you are. This is amazing.”

Joanna thought about Terry Buckwalter. She didn’t know exactly how old Terry was, although she had to be somewhere in her mid- to late thirties. For years, Terry had served an unpaid assistant tennis coach at the high school, but as far as Joanna could remember, that had come to an end several years earlier. It was a hell of a long way from playing all-town tennis to hopping on the L.P.G.A. circuit as a professional golfer.

“She’s that good?” Joanna asked.

“Evidently,” Helen Barco said. “She seems to think so, 1 so does that guy out at the Rob Roy.”

“Terry spoke Io you about Peter Wilkes?” Joanna asked.

“You bet she did. To hear her talk, you’d think he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

That stumped Joanna. If Terry Buckwalter and Peter Wilkes had something going, wouldn’t they be a little more discreet about it than that?

“It sounds expensive as all heck,” Helen continued. “She did say that with the insurance and all that she’d come out all right, although she is selling, you know.”

“Selling what?”

“The practice,” Helen answered. “Since she isn’t a veterinarian, she can’t operate it herself. The same thing would happen to Slim if he was left holding this shop. He wouldn’t be able to do a thing.”

“Bucky’s been dead for two days and she’s already sold the practice? How can that be?”

“She said it was something Doc Buckwalter set up himself a long time ago. It’s not final yet, by any means, but it sounded like it was pretty much a done deal. According to her, that nice Dr. Wade from down in Douglas is the one who’ll be buying it. The practice and the house both. Once she has the money, she’ll be free to do whatever she wants.”

Joanna couldn’t help wondering exactly what kind of “deal” Terry Buckwalter was getting. Dr. Wade might be just as kind as could be when it came to pulling out porcupine needles, but how nice would he be when it came to taking advantage of a widow?

“If he’s moving in this fast,” Joanna said, “he’s probably buying the place at fire sale prices.”

“Could be,” Helen Barco said, “but Terry seemed happy enough about it. Like she was getting just what she wanted. According to her, Dr. Wade is planning on bringing in some young vet fresh out of school to help him run both places. Terry says Dr. Wade was such a help to her last year when Bucky was out of town that she knows people can trust him to do a good job.”

That was all that was said. Helen’s next client showed up right then. Still, Joanna was filled with misgivings. Outside in the Blazer, she sat for some time with the engine running but without putting the truck in gear, puzzling about this latest batch of information.

By Bisbee standards, Terry Buckwalter’s behavior was nothing short of outrageous. And suspicious as well. With Bucky not yet in his grave, Terry was cashing in all the jointly held marital assets to go on the pro-golf circuit? What kind of a harebrained scheme was that?

Joanna wasn’t a golfer, but she knew enough about how sports tournaments in general worked to understand that only the very few top players actually made a living at it. The people farther down the line followed the play from one course to the next, but they did so on their own, sometimes barely covering expenses, to say nothing of eking out a living.

For years Joanna had been privy to the entire Davis Insurance Agency book of business. Milo Davis handled all kinds of insurance-property/casualty, life, health, disability, and group. The Buckwalters as well as the Buckwalter Animal Clinic had been full-service customers.

Closing her eyes, Joanna tried to remember the Buckwalters’ several bulging files. One of them-the one with the orange tag on it-had dealt with nothing but life insurance. It seemed to Joanna that there had been several policies, whole-life and term insurance both. There had been some insurance on Terry, but since Bucky had been the professional and the major source of income, the bulk of the coverage had been on him.

But what kinds of face amounts? Joanna wondered. Probably no more than two hundred thousand or so. Maybe three hundred on the outside. Combined with whatever pittance Reggie Wade was paying for the veterinary practice, that would give Terry Buckwalter a fairly nice piece of change to go out into the world as a single woman. It wasn’t a huge amount, but it would have provided years of security if she didn’t blow the whole wad on something or someone stupid.

And then Joanna thought of Peter Wilkes. Was this really about Terry Buckwalter trying to break into the pro tour circuit, or was it something far more sinister? In her mind’s eye Joanna saw it as one of the old story problems from arithmetic.

Life-insurance proceeds plus sale of property equals cash equals motive for murder. That’s it, she thought. It has to be. Bucky Buckwalter was killed for the money. The question is, was it Terry, was it Peter Wilkes, or was it both of them acting together?

Shoving the gearshift into drive, Joanna pulled of her parking place and headed for the Buckwalter Animal Clinic. In a way, solving a murder case was very much like playing a complicated game of tag.

And the cops are always it.