Tombstone Courage

“Joanna,” Eleanor Lathrop hissed from the sidelines, gesturing desperately. “Come here. Hurry.”

The look on Eleanor’s face was so pained that for a moment Joanna feared that her mother had been somewhere near the melee and that she, too, had been hurt in the scuffle.

“What’s the matter?” Joanna asked worriedly as she and Jenny hurried to her mother’s side.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

Eleanor Lathrop shook her head. “For heaven’s sake, Joanna. Can’t you see those cameras are running?”

Joanna glanced back over her shoulder. Sure enough, three television cameramen were lined up, shoulder to shoulder, with their video cams humming away. “What about them?”

“Your dress, for one thing!” Eleanor wailed tearfully. “Your bra is sticking out. I’ve looked all over for your buttons, and I can’t find them any where. The only thing I have in my purse is this. Now go in the rest room and use it.”

Desperately Eleanor pressed a huge safety pin into Joanna’s hand. Looking down at it, Joanna was tempted to burst into her own storm of semi hysterical laughter. But she didn’t.

Because it really wasn’t a laughing matter. That safety pin encapsulated the difference between Joanna and her mother: between the active participant and the bystander. With the car screaming down on them, Joanna’s prime concern had been to keep people from harm. Eleanor’s prime consideration, on the other hand, was always and forever the maintaining of appearances.

With a sudden flash of insight, Joanna realized that same difference had always separated her parents from one another as well. That was why her father was dead. He had been physically incapable of driving past a stranded woman and her worn out tire, and changing that tire had killed him.

D. H. Lathrop had offered to help because that was the kind of man he was. It was his natural part of him he was helpless to change. And when he died as a direct result of his own kindness, people had called Big Hank Lathrop a hero. No one tried to change him or make him anything other than what he was.

To be fair, if it was all right for someone to be a doer and a hero, wasn’t it equally all right to be a bystander? Yes, Eleanor was concerned about appearances, but was that wrong? And if it was wrong, was it more or less wrong than changing a tire and being killed for it?

Slowly, Joanna closed her cupped hand around the safety pin. She looked at Eleanor, whose eyes were still scanning the nearby sidewalk in search of the missing buttons. Joanna’s heart squeezed her with a sudden quickening of understanding, like the first sensed movement of a baby within her womb.

At twenty-nine years of age, with emergency lights pulsing all around her, with video cameras rolling, and with only incomplete election results starting to trickle in, Joanna Brady had just learned something important about her mother. She had also learned something important about herself.

She was a chip off the old block. She was definitely her father’s daughter. But she was also her mother’s.

Jenny,” she said, looking down at her own daughter and holding her torn dress shut at the same time. “Would you please see if you can help Grandma find my buttons?”

“Where are you going?” Jenny asked.

“Into the women’s rest room to try to fix my dress. As soon as you find a button, bring it in there. And bring along a sewing kit as well. Ask Grandma Brady. I’m sure she has one in her purse.”

As soon as Joanna started into the building, Dick Voland came charging after her. “Just a minute. Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the rest room,” Joanna answered evenly.

“Everybody else went to the hospital. I need someone to give a preliminary statement to one of the officers here, to explain exactly what went on.”

“I can do that,” Joanna said, “but it’ll have to wait.”

Dick Voland was old school-male, stubborn, and used to having people snap to whenever he gave an order. “Wait for what?” he demanded.

“For me to fix my dress,” Joanna replied. Then she turned her back on him and walked into the rest room where no old-school male in his right mind would dare to follow.

The SCRATCHES don’t show all that much,” was Eva Lou Brady’s practical and unperturbed assessment of her daughter-in-laws appearance after viewing the videotaped version of Joanna’s victory speech. “Your eye looks real funny, though.”

It doesn’t feel very funny,” Joanna returned.

The previous night’s fall had taken its toll. Joanna had limped over to her in-laws’ house that morning and gratefully accepted Eva Lou Brady’s pampering breakfast that included eggs and bacon, mashed-potato parries, and hot homemade buttermilk biscuits. There was no hurry. Milo had ordered her to take the whole day off. With pay.

Using all the makeup tricks at her disposal, Joanna had done her best to camouflage the damage done to her face, but not even Helen Barco’s considerable skill with foundation and blush could have successfully masked the purplish bruise that blossomed garishly beneath Joanna’s right eye.

Carrying coat and schoolbooks, Jennifer stopped in front of her mother and studied her face with an unsmiling and reproachful gaze. “You promised you’d be careful,” she said. “Scout’s honor, you said.”

Those accusatory words were the first ones Jennifer had spoken to her mother that morning.

“People were in danger,” Joanna answered. “I was afraid someone might get hurt.”

“It could of been you,” Jennifer shot back.

“Could have,” Joanna corrected reflexively.

“Have,” Jennifer repeated woodenly, scowling.

“Jenny, are you ready?” her grandfather called from the front door. “I don’t want to be late.”

“Where’s he going?” Joanna asked.

“Search and Rescue called this morning,” said Eva Lou. “Harold Patterson’s turned up missing. With all the excitement last night, it took awhile for someone to figure out that his car was there in the convention-center lot, but he was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t at home, either, so they are talking about organizing a search. Jim Bob wants to go to the meeting, since he’s a whole lot better at talking these days than he is at searching.”

“Where are they going to look?”

“Out on the ranch, I guess, although since his car was in town, seems to me like that would be the first place they’d look.” Eva Lou sipped her coffee. “Those Pattersons do seem to be having their troubles, don’t they?”

“They do that,” Eva Lou’s daughter-in-law agreed.

Joanna had only seen the car as it careened toward them. Burton Kimball, standing off to the side, had insisted in his statement that the vehicle in question belonged to Rex Rogers, his cousin’s outta-town attorney, and that the driver of the Cadillac was none other than Holly herself. Joanna was more than mildly curious about what was going on, but she had no real official recourse, and she wasn’t about to call up Dick Voland to ask him.

While Joanna scarfed down her breakfast, Eva Lou Brady poured two more cups of coffee and then sat down across the table. “What’s Jenny so bent out of shape about?” she asked.

“Remember last night when Jenny said she didn’t want me to win the election?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she’s worried about me, afraid something bad will happen to me, just like it did to Andy.”

“Makes sense,” Eva Lou said. “And with your face all tore up the way it is, I can see why she might have some cause.”

“what happened last night could have happened to anyone. When there is an emergency like that, you do what you have to do because you’re a person, because you care what happens to other people. It has nothing whatever to do with whether or not you’ve been elected sheriff.”

“True enough, I suppose,” Eva Lou agreed. “I mean, if a Methodist minister can end up in the hospital with a concussion, I guess it really could happen to anybody. How is Marianne, by the way?”

“They only kept her for observation. Jeff says they’ll most likely let her out sometime today.”

After that, an awkward and unusual silence seemed to spring up between the two women. Eva Lou Brady was the one who finally broke it.

“Lord knows I don’t mean to pry, Joanna, but I have to ask. Have you made any kind of arrangements for Jenny? I mean, with this new job and all, what if something awful did happen? Jim Bob and I could take Jenny in if we had to, but we shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be good for her in the long run. She needs somebody younger, someone more your age.”

Joanna dropped her gaze and didn’t answer. That in itself was answer enough. She hadn’t made any such arrangements, although she understood all too well the ramifications of not doing so. like writing her will and appointing potential guardions to care for Jennifer were two of the nagging loose ends of her life. In the awful aftermath of Andy’s death, those were two distasteful yet essential tasks she had not yet found courage enough to face.

“Maybe,” Eva Lou continued, not unkindly, “once you do get all those details straightened out, you should talk them over with Jenny. She’s a smart little girl. I think just knowing you’ve handled things and prepared for the worst would make her feel better, less alone. After all, both of your lives had been put through a wringer. I don’t blame her for being scared.”

“No,” Joanna said, with a rueful shake of her head. “I don’t blame her, either.”

The phone rang, and Eva Lou hurried to answer it. The caller was none other than Marianne Macula looking for Joanna. “When there wasn’t any answer out at the house, I figured I’d find you at the Bradys’. How’s the candidate…Excuse me, hoWs the sheriff doing this morning?”

“The sheriff-elect is stiff as a board,” Joanna returned. “Rolling around on sidewalks isn’t good for me. I hurt in places I didn’t know I owned. And I’ve got a shiner where you clipped me under the eye. How are you?”

Marianne laughed, sounding far more chipper than she should have. “Bored stiff. Ready to be out of here. If it comes down to a contest of who’s more hardheaded, it’s a toss-up. You’ve only got a black eye. They thought I had a concussion.”

“Let’s call it even,” Joanna said, laughing into the phone herself, and starting to feel a little better.

Maybe the painkillers were finally starting to do their stuff-the painkillers and, of course, a great breakfast. “What’s on your agenda today?” she asked

“The doctor says I’ll be out by noon. It’s time for me to get out of the campaign-manager business and go back to being just plain Pastor Macula,” Marianne replied. “But I wouldn’t have missed this election for the world. It’s been fun, hasn’t it?”

“I’m not sure ‘fun’ is the word that applies. How’s Linda Kimball doing?”

“Fine. They didn’t even keep her overnight. Just put her arm in a brace and a sling and sent her home,” Marianne answered. “By the way,” she added after a pause, “speaking of the Patterson van, have you heard anything more about Harold?”

“Just that they still haven’t found him. Grandpa Brady left here a little while ago to go work on organizing a search.”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Marianne asserted quietly.

Joanna had been too preoccupied with her own concerns to give Harold Patterson’s unexplained disappearance that much thought. Marianne’s blunt pronouncement brought it home.

“Why do you say that?”

“I talked to Ivy just a little while ago. She wasn’t home last night, either. I’m not sure what’s going on, because she mentioned something about moving into an apartment. But she also said she went by the Rocking P early this morning. The city cops were getting ready to ticket Harold’s Scout, so she drove it home and discovered that no one had done the chores. Based on that alone, Burton Kimball talked Judge Moore into granting a continuance.”

“Oh,” Joanna said.

Farmers and ranchers are among the last of the world’s day-trippers. Their lives are like yo-yos with strings that stretch only as far as they can travel between morning and evening chores. If Harold Patterson had now missed both evening and morning chores, that was serious.

“You’re right,” Joanna agreed. “Either he’s dead or he’s badly hurt. He’s a tough old coot. It would take something serious to get that man down”

“Heart attack, maybe?” Marianne suggested

“I saw him yesterday morning,” Joanna said, “at the office. Now that you mention it, he did seem awfully upset.”

“I guess we’ll just have to hope for the best,” Marianne said. “Now, what about you? What are your plans?”

“Milo gave me the day off. I don’t think he wants someone who looks this awful beautifying his office. I’m due to go see Dick Voland a little later. One of the deputies took my statement last night. They’re supposed to have it typed up by this morning so I can sign it.”

“Why one of the deputies instead of one of the city cops?” Marianne asked. “After all, it happened inside the city limits.”

“I think it was so hectic, they just passed out numbers, and whoever drew yours, that was it. Some people got city cops; some ended up with deputies.”

“Speaking of deputies, did you talk to Dick Voland after the final election results came in?” Marianne asked. “You won by such a landslide that he’s probably not a very happy camper this morning.”

“I haven’t seen him since the party. He and Al ducked out as soon as they saw the way the vote was going and that there was no way for Freeman to catch up. Frank Montoya stayed around long enough to concede and shake my hand.”

“I wish I could have seen the look on Dick Voland’s face when he finally figured out you were going to win. Do you think he’ll quit before you take office, or will you have to fire him?”

“Fire him? Why would I do that?”

“Joanna,” Marianne said severely, “haven’t you been listening to all the things that man has been saying about you out on the campaign trail? I have. I’m afraid he’ll try to undermine you every step of the way.”

Joanna had been listening, but most of what Chief Deputy Voland had said in the previous six weeks Joanna had chalked up to campaign rhetoric. Voland had spent years working for the previous administration, much of that as second in command. So far, independent investigators had turned up no connections between Voland and any of the departmental drug-related skulduggery. He had been clean enough for the county board of supervisors to appoint him acting sheriff until a new one could be elected.

Personally, Joanna wouldn’t have given Richard Voland the time of day. Around the department and directly to his face, the chief deputy was referred to by his official title. Behind his back, in - unofficial circles, he was dubbed “Chief Redneck.”

Voland’s “good ole boy” mindset, one that had worked with Walter V. McFadden and would have been compatible with Al Freeman, wasn’t nearly as good a fit with Joanna Brady.

“Dick will be fine,” Joanna answered confidently, glossing over Marianne’s concern as well as her own. “He’s been around the department since my father was there. We’ll wait and see if he’s a problem.”

Joanna and Marianne might have talked longer if one of the nurses hadn’t showed up with a thermometer and a blood-pressure cuff.

Marianne got off the line with only a hint of ill grace. Hospitals were like that.

When Joanna put down the phone, Eva Lou once more refilled their coffee cups. “I get such a kick out of your mother,” Eva Lou said thoughtfully “Eleanor was on the phone here bright and early this morning, excited as a little kid and wondering what kind of outfit I thought you should wear to your swearing-in.”

Joanna laughed. “That’s my mother for you,” she said, but a moment later all trace of laughter was gone.

“Between now and January, there should be plenty of time for us to figure out what I should wear. Not that getting a new outfit will help. Mother had a fit yesterday because she wanted me to look great for the election-night television cameras. But even after she went to all the trouble of sending me to Helen Barco for the full, deluxe treatment, I still managed to show up on the news looking like the tail end of disaster. You’d think she’d finally just give up on me, wouldn’t you?”

Eva Lou Brady shook her head. “No, Joanna, mothers don’t give up,” she said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet? No matter what, we never, ever, quite give up.”

FEELING spoiled by Eva Lou’s breakfast, Joanna drove down the Warren Cutoff and past the huge Lavender Pit tailings dump on her way to the new Cochise County Justice Complex two miles east of town on Highway 80. Built and furnished with the county’s share of confiscated drug moneys, the pink and tan stuccoed buildings nestled in a deft in red iron-tinted hills, while a line of stark limestone gray cliffs marched across the horizon forming a backdrop.

Andy had been working as a deputy when the new complex opened, and the new jail’s ongoing difficulties had been one of the hottest campaign issues. Still, in Joanna’s mind’s eye, the words “sheriff’s office” still meant her father’s cramped and shabby digs in the old Art Dectyle county courthouse uptown.

There, seated at a scarred wooden desk, her father had ruled supreme, running a much smaller but seemingly more effective Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. In terms of crime statistics, Hank Lathrop’s administration put all succeeding administrations to shame.

Just for curiosity’s sake, once Joanna turned off the highway into the County Justice Complex, she played tourist and drove all the way around the whole facility-past the jail with its razor-ribbon lined exercise yards and auto-impound lot, past the building housing the county justice courts, and around to the back parking area where a large posted sign said EMPLOYEES ONLY. The parking lot was only partially full, but directly behind the building the reserved spaces with a shaded canopy over them were 100 percent occupied.

The county Blazer Dick Voland usually drove was parked in the spot marked CHIEF DEPUTY. His personal car-a late-model Buick Regal-sat squarely in the spot reserved for SHERIFF. From that space, a separate and seemingly private walkway led to a door that entered directly into the far back corner of the office complex.

Finding Dick Voland’s car parked territorially in the sheriff’s spot was probably fair enough, Joanna reasoned. He was, after all, the officially designated acting sheriff. But still, something about the way the car was parked there tugged at her, bothered her in a way she couldn’t quite pin down.

Shrugging off that fleeting shadow of doubt, Joanna drove back to the designated visitor parking area at the front of the building. When she went inside and gave her name to the young woman behind the counter, the clerk didn’t seem to make a connection or attach any particular significance to it. Certainly, no one in the outside office had been told to expect a possible visit from the incoming sheriff.

For all the courtesy and attention lavished on her, Joanna Brady might just as well have been a traveling ballpoint-pen salesman, with no advance appointment, wandering in off the high way for a cold call.

The clerk suggested Joanna take a seat, telling her that Mr. Voland was busy on the phone at the moment but that he would be with her as soon as possible. ‘How soon was that?” she wondered as she waited first five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. While Joanna stewed in her own juices, the people behind the counters, apparently intent on their jobs, continued working, barely acknowledging her presence. It was almost as though she were invisible. After a while, impatient and unable to sit still any longer, Joanna got up and roamed the lobby, pacing over to the long lighted display case that decorated the spacious room’s back wall.

There, among a collection of photos dating back to Arizona’s territorial days, Joanna found the official portrait of her late father, Sheriff D. H. “Big Hank” Lathrop. She had seen the display before, but seeing her father’s picture there among the others caught her by surprise and made Joanna wonder what her father’s reaction would be if he could see her now. Would he be proud of her for running and ultimately winning the election? Would he understand why she did it, or would he be puzzled or upset or even disappointed?

Without having the opportunity to know him as an adult, there was no way for his daughter to guess at his possible reactions.

Afraid to return to her seat for fear her tumbling emotions might betray her, Joanna examined the entire display, carefully reading through an encapsulated and officially photographed history of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. The last photo in the group, the one on the far right, was also the newest, a portrait of Walter V. McFadden. Next to his was a blank spot.

With a lump in her throat, Joanna realized that, had things been different, Andy’s picture most likely would have hung there eventually. Now that spot would be hers instead, filled no doubt by the picture she’d used for her campaign brochure.

Realizing that eventually her picture would be with her father’s did something to her spine and strengthened her resolve. Most of those previous sheriffs of Cochise County had been fine, upright citizens, doing the best job they could under whatever difficult circumstances had been handed them.

Her father, Big Hank Lathrop, had been a straight shooter in every sense of the word. In his book of sherifflike behavior, scheduled appointments always came first, taking precedence over everything including the always unscheduled demands of a ringing telephone.

And thinking about that reminded her of stories Andy had related to her from time to time, stories about how Dick Voland was prone to throwing his considerable weight around. He had some times bragged about leaving people with appointments cooling their heels in the lobby for as long as he wanted. For the fun of it. Because he felt like it. Because he could.

By the time Joanna turned away from the display case, twenty minutes had passed, and her temper was on the rise. More than 140 people were employed by the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. Once she was sworn into office, whether in one week or after the standard two months, she would be those employees’ chief administrator. Their boss. And whether they liked it or not, some things about the Sheriff’s Department were about to change.

Joanna hit the wall at exactly twenty-three minutes and counting. She left off pacing in front of the display case and started for the outside door just as Dick Voland sauntered into the waiting room carrying an unsightly brown-stained mug filled with newly poured black coffee.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he drawled casually. “Got tied up on the phone and just couldn’t get away.”

“That’s all right,” Joanna returned coolly. “I’m sure you’re very busy.”

Noisily sipping away, Dick Voland nodded sagely, making no move to invite Joanna away from the public part of the building.

“What with everything that went on overnight I’m afraid we’re a little behind on our paper,” he said. “I just checked with the transcription clerk She hasn’t had a chance to get cracking on any of last night’s work yet. She says it’ll probably be another fifteen or twenty minutes, if you don’t mind waiting that long.”

Joanna was taller than Dick Voland expected, and she caught sight of the supposedly well-concealed smirk that leaked out over the top rim of his coffee mug. Seeing the look, Joanna Brady knew intuitively that Marianne Macula was right, and she was wrong.

Dick Voland’s being a professional law-enforcement officer made not the slightest difference. His car being parked in the sheriff’s space outside and not in the chief deputy’s was in fact, an open declaration of war.

He knew it, she knew it, and so did all the people toiling away in the outer office.

The same thing went for being kept waiting.

“That’s unfortunate,” she said without raising her voice. “I didn’t really have a spare half hour when I arrived here twenty-four minutes ago. I have even less now. I came here as a courtesy to sign that statement. If I still happen to be here when it’s ready, I’ll be happy to sign it. Otherwise, you’ll have to have someone from here bring it to me.”

Her curt response wasn’t quite what Dick Voland expected. The self-satisfied smirk faded.

“I do have another minute or so, however,” Joanna continued without giving him an opportunity to respond. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get an advance look at my office.”

Dick Voland might have read the election results in the newspaper. He might have seen them on television. But Joanna Brady saw the man’s face at the moment her words hit home, when the reality of the election outcome finally sank in.

His jaw stiffened. “You mean right now?”

A moment before, no one else in the public area had showed the slightest interest in Joanna Brady, but now an almost electric charge seemed to crackle through the room. Every eye and ear was aimed in their direction, hanging breathlessly on every gesture, every word. It was a test of wills, a critical first step that Joanna Brady could ill afford to fail.

She smiled. “Of course I mean now.”

Without moving, Dick Voland stared back at her. Joanna stood still and waited.

“Oh, all right,” he grumbled irritably, reaching for the hefty key ring that dangled from his belt.

“This way.” Frowning, Voland unlocked the door, opened it, and then stepped back, holding it open for Joanna to enter. “After you,” he said with a slightly exaggerated and too-polite bow.

Joanna recognized the implications at once. It was a none too-subtle issue of control, of who was in charge and who wasn’t. Someone who hadn’t grown up as the daughter of a sheriff might not have paid any attention, might not have caught it but Joanna did.

In the world of law enforcement, prisoners walk in front; guards follow. Suspects walk in front; police officers follow. The person in the back is the one in charge, the one calling the shots. Nobody ever forgets that, not for a moment.

“No,” she said, still smiling and stepping aside, “You lead the way.”

Seconds passed-it might have been eons while neither of them moved and while the whole office waited to see the outcome. Finally, with a disgusted shake of his head, Dick Voland gave in and lumbered off ahead of her.

Not daring to let down her guard, Joanna kept her shoulders ramrod straight as she followed him down the hall. She might have won the first minor skirmish. No doubt, the people in the front office would be talking about it for days to come. But it was a damn long way from winning a single battle to winning the war. And it was another long way from winning the election to winning your stripes.

Joanna followed Dick Voland down a hallway to the far back corner of the building, where he led her into a suite of comfortable offices built around a common reception area. The upholstered couch and several side chairs were from the nouvelle Southwest school of roses and browns and turquoises. Brass and glass coffee and end tables created the atmosphere of an upscale attorney’s office. Everything about the place was a far cry from what Joanna remembered of D. H. Lathrop’s old industrially furnished courthouse days. Back then, scarred wooden chairs and battered gray metal desks had been the order of the day.

A slim blonde sat at a spacious desk in the common reception room, busily typing on a computer terminal. As she typed, she leaned forward and frowned nearsightedly at the screen. Joanna assumed that she needed glasses but was too vain to purchase them.

Sensing that someone had entered the room, the young woman glanced up from her screen. Seeing Dick Voland, she grinned at him knowingly as soon as he walked through the doorway. “Well?” she said with a coyly raised eyebrow. “How’d it… go with the dragon lady?”

Joanna managed to glimpse the almost imperceptible movement of Dick Voland’s head. The warning shake may well have been accompanied by a covering wink. If so, it was outside Joanna’s sight line. Obviously, the secretary had missed it as well.

“Kristin,” Dick Voland said hurriedly, “I’d like you to meet Joanna Brady. The new sheriff. At least she will be.”

Instantly, the grin disappeared from Kristin’s impeccably made-up face. “Oh,” she said, scrambling uncertainly to her feet as Joanna came into view. “Glad to meet you.”

I’ll bet, Joanna thought.

When the long-legged young woman stood up, the hem of her eye-popping leather miniskirt barely skimmed the surface of her desk. Joanna sometimes wore short-shorts that were longer than that almost nonexistent skirt.

Pointedly leaving the staring to Dick Voland, Joanna held out her hand. For a moment, a look of utter confusion washed over the younger woman’s startled features. Obviously, the “dragon lady” hadn’t been expected to venture uninvited down the hall. When Kristin finally came to her senses, she had presence of mind enough to offer her own hand.

After the weeks she’d spent practicing on the campaign trail, Joanna’s handshaking skills were considerable. She took no small pleasure in firmly grasping Kristin’s limp, flaccid fingers. Smiling cheerfully, Joanna thoroughly ground Kristin’s knuckles into one another. She pretended not to hear the satisfying crunch of bone on bone and seemed not to notice the surprised wince of pain that darted across the younger woman’s petulant features.

“What did you say your name was?” Joanna asked.

“Kristin Marsten.”

“And how long have you been working here, Miss Marsten?” Joanna inquired formally.

“I started out as a clerk/intern last summer,” Kristin answered. “The old secretary/receptionist quit a few weeks ago. Mr. Voland asked me to work in here for a while, to fill in on a temporary basis.”

“I see,” Joanna said. And she did, too.

She glanced around the room, assimilating all the details at once. Several separate doors opened off the reception area. A light was on in the far corner office, the one with the private walkway and private door leading in from the sheriffs designated parking place. Without having to be told, Joanna knew that was the office she was looking for, but she asked anyway, just for form’s sake.

“Which office is mine?”

“This way,” Dick Voland muttered, heading off in that direction.

The northwest corner office was spacious and bright with a pair of spotlessly clean windows set in each outside wall. Those windows afforded a spectacular and unobstructed view of the surrounding desert.

Joanna noticed that the furnishings in the room carried Walter McFadden’s distinctly masculine stamp. A long leather couch occupied one wall, while a matching wingback chair sat casually off to one side.

Walter McFadden’s parking place wasn’t the only thing Dick Voland had appropriated for him self. Next to the chair was a freestanding ashtray, filled to overflowing with the smelly leavings of several potent cigars. The fine grains of the cherry wood desk and matching credenza were difficult to see beneath a hodgepodge of jumbled papers frosted by a shaky layer of opened newspapers. Beside the credenza, a stack of unused Al Freeman yard signs leaned conspicuously against the far wall.

Joanna stood in the center of the room and pivoted slowly, examining everything around her while Voland stood apprehensively beside the desk. “Good,” she said when she finished her 360 degree turn. “That’s all I wanted to know for now.”

Without waiting to be escorted from the room and ignoring both Kristin and Voland, Joanna stalked across the reception area, down the hall way, and let herself back out into the public lobby area.

She had come to the sheriff’s office that morning with nothing at all in mind other than signing that damn statement. By being there, however, by seeing it in person, she had learned things that were far more important and disturbing.

Predictably, the typed statement still wasn’t ready to be signed. Employee productivity was yet another thorny departmental issue. For now, it was Dick Voland’s problem. Eventually, it would be Joanna’s….

WHEN SHE left the justice complex, Joanna drove straight to the new county administration offices on Melody Lane. Her arrival there was much different from that at the Sheriff’s Department.

Without an officially scheduled appointment, Norbert DeLeon himself hurried out from his inner office as soon as his secretary announced Joanna’s name over the intercom. A warm, cordial smile beamed across Nor bert’s face as he held out his hand in welcome. “I believe congratulations are in order,” he said ushering Joanna into his office. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks. I’ve had enough caffeine already this morning.”

“What can I do for you then?” he asked, easing himself down behind his desk-a light oak-veneer affair that didn’t come close in quality to the genuine cherrywood desk that graced Sheriff McFadden’s former office.

“I came to ask you to either verify or squelch a rumor I’ve heard.” A concerned frown creased Norbert’s face. “We’ve had lots of rumors around here in the last few months. I hope it’s nothing bad.”

“Someone mentioned last night that since the position of sheriff is vacant, the board of Supervisors was considering filling that office as soon after the election as possible.”

“Oh, that,” Norbert DeLeon said, dismissively. “Well, there had been some talk, but now that the election is over, no one wants to push you too hard. We’re all well aware of what you’ve been through these past few months. The final consensus was that we should give you a chance to rest up, give you a bit of a breather before you take on your new duties in January.”

“In other words, if Al Freeman or Frank Montoya had won the election, the board would have gone ahead and sworn in either one of them right away. But since I won, they won’t?”

DeLeon nodded. “I guess that’s about right.”

“Does that seem discriminatory to you?”

The county manager looked shocked. “Well,” he faltered, “I suppose it could be interpreted that way, but believe me, no one meant any harm. They were all looking out for you. I mean, you’ve had such a difficult time with Andy’s death and all….”

“Norbert,” Joanna interrupted firmly. “The supervisors may have my best interests at heart, but I doubt that decision is necessarily beneficial to the people of Cochise County.”

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“I was elected sheriff to solve the problems that currently exist in the Sheriff’s Department. That’s exactly what I intend to do, and I’d like to get started as soon as possible.”

DeLeon steepled his fingers under his chin and regarded her appraisingly. “When would you like to go to work?”

“The sooner, the better.”

“I see. Today?”

“Suits me.”

“But what about Milo Davis? You’ve worked for him a long time. Won’t you have to give him some kind of notice?”

“Milo’s already been working on a contingency plan,” Joanna replied. “Believe me, that won’t be a problem.”

“All right then,” Norbert said, nodding and reaching at once for his telephone. “Hold on here a minute, Joanna. I’ll make a few calls and see what I can do.”

As a result of those phone calls, Joanna Lee Lathrop Brady was sworn into office as the first female sheriff of Cochise County at two o’clock that afternoon: Wednesday, November 7, one day after her election.

The hastily organized ceremony was held in the chambers of Superior Court Judge Cameron Moore, with Jennifer Ann Brady holding her mother’s worn Bible.

Joanna, dressed in a well worn navy-blue blazer, was surprised to see tears in her mother’s eyes as Eleanor pinned Hank Lathrop’s old but newly polished badge over Joanna’s left breast pocket.

Eleanor was disappointed that no Tucson television stations or newspapers sent reporters to Bisbee to cover the event. Joanna didn’t mind at all. By then the purplish bruise under her eye had turned a full-fledged black.

After the swearing-in, the whole crew-minus Judge Moore trooped down to the Davis Insurance Agency in Warren to celebrate. There they sipped champagne and devoured a special, hastily decorated-to-order cake topped with an artfully designed chocolate-frosting sheriff’s badge.

A beaming Milo Davis proposed the first toast.

“All I can say is,” he said, raising his glass, “I sure know how to pick a winner.”

Joanna gazed around the crowded rooms. Winning was fine, but the prospect of leaving the homey office saddened her somehow. This was a place where she had grown to adulthood, advanced from a giddy high school part-timer to a responsible and self-assured businesswoman. With Milo’s help and support, she had worked for him all the while she commuted the hundred miles back and forth to the university in Tucson to earn her B.A.

The happy crew of supporters, jammed together wall-to-wall, consisted of both family and friends-Eleanor Lathrop and Jenny, Marianne Macula and Jeff Daniels, Eva Lou and Jim Bob Brady, Angie Kellogg, Milo Davis, and Lisa Connors. Despite her overnight stay in the hospital, Marianne seemed none the worse for wear. Unlike Joanna, she wasn’t sporting a black eye.

Acting as unofficial master of ceremonies, Milo went around the room asking for comments. He even cajoled Eleanor Lathrop into letting down her hair far enough to drink a second half-glass of champagne. Jenny, sitting cross-legged a little apart from the others and sipping sparkling cider in a champagne flute, was the last person Milo called on to speak. “What about you, Jenny?” he asked. “Care to propose a toast?”

Struck suddenly shy, Jennifer rose to her feet and raised her glass the way she had seen the others do. “Even if you are sheriff,” she said, “I’m glad you’re still my mom.”

People smiled and laughed and said, “Here, here!” while Joanna fought to swallow enough of the lump in her throat so she could take the expected sip of champagne.

“Thank you, Jenny,” she murmured.

When post champagne cleanup started, Joanna retreated to her desk and began the process of clearing and emptying. As she sorted and packed Joanna was struck by the oddball bits of memorabilia that had somehow wormed their way into her work space, each bringing with it a separate and sometimes bittersweet echo from the past.

Why, for instance, had she kept Jenny’s orange and green kindergarten-sized handprint on the credenza behind her desk? Why was that tiny plaster-of-paris plaque from Jenny’s Daily Vacation Bible School more important to her mother, more worthy of display, than one of Jenny’s more recent school pictures?

And what about the worn buffalo head nickel Andy had playfully dropped down her bra the night of their first date? Always lurking in the top right-hand corner of her pencil drawer, the nickel served as a talisman, one she picked up and rubbed from time to time. By now the surface designs were worn sufficiently thin that they were only vaguely visible.

And then there was the Montblanc fountain pen Milo Davis had presented to her last summer on the tenth anniversary of the day she went to work for him. When he gave it to her, she had expected to work for the Davis Insurance Agency as long as there was a Davis Insurance Agency. But then, between last summer and now, Joanna’s entire life had been thrown into a whirring blender.

She glanced up as Jim Bob Brady hobbled back to her desk and sank gratefully into a chair.

“These dogs are killing me,” he said. “Mind if I set a spell and kick off my shoes?”

“Go right ahead. You do look tired.”

Her father-in-law nodded. “I’m not nearly as young as I used to be. Just that piddly-assed little bit of tramping around out in them hills this after noon was enough to wear me out. Used to be I could go all day and not think twice about it.”

“Still nothing on Harold?”

“Not by the time I left,” Jim Bob replied. “We mostly worked the lower pastures because that’s where Ivy said she thought he’d most likely be, repairing fences and such. Tomorrow, I guess, if he’s still missing, they’ll head on up toward Juniper flats. Don’t think I’ll go on that one. Terrain’s too rough. Besides, if they haven’t found him by now…”

Jim Bob Brady left off without finishing the sentence. He leaned forward in the chair and began massaging his feet.

“You think Harold Patterson is dead then?” Joanna asked.

“Don’t you?”

Joanna nodded. “I guess so. With the weather as cold as it’s been, if he’s been out in it all this time, I suppose he’s done for.”

“Yup,” Jim Bob agreed. “Like as not he had himself a heart attack or a stroke out there in a pasture somewhere. And if it was me, I couldn’t think of a better way to go. Given my druthers, I’d do the same damn thing. Die with my boots on “I keep telling Eva Lou I don’t want none Of those doctors to get hold of me and keep me hanging on with all those goldurned tubes and ma chines when it’s time for me to go and meet my Maker.”

Abruptly straightening up, Jim Bob Brady peered sharply at Joanna over the top of his wire rimmed glasses.

“How are you doing, Joanna? You holding up all right?”

“I’m fine, Daddy Jim,” she said. “Tired. And a little apprehensive.”

“How come?”

She shrugged. “I had planned to take the next two months to study policies and procedures so I could hit the ground running. Instead, I had to go shoot off my mouth. Now I’m caught flat-footed, wearing a badge two months too early.”

“It’s not too early. You’ll be fine. Just take it as it comes, one thing at a time. And don’t let the turkeys get you down.”

“I’ll do my best,” she answered.

It was six by the time Joanna and Jenny stowed all the packed boxes in the back of the Eagle for the drive back home to the High Lonesome. During the campaign, an elderly neighbor named Clayton Rhodes had become the ranch’s self appointed man of all work, dropping by the place both mornings and evenings to see what needed doing and picking up the slack wherever there was some. After much badgering on Joanna’s part, Clayton had finally agreed to accept some token payment for his work.

When Joanna and Jenny arrived at the turnoff to the ranch, Clayton’s rattletrap Ford pickup was just clattering over the cattle guard. Never one to indulge in unnecessary conversation, the old man raised the brim of his cowboy hat with one finger, nodded in their direction, and kept right on driving.

They made their way up to and into the house through a melee of ecstatic doggy greetings. While Jenny scrambled on the floor with the two dogs, Joanna checked the answering machine. A series of blinking lights told her there were numerous messages. Joanna tried counting them but lost track after eight. She gave up and punched the Playback button.

The messages were mostly congratulatory calls, some from high-school acquaintances she hadn’t talked to since graduation. Mercifully, most required no call back.

One did. It came from Adam York, the DEA agent in charge of the Tucson office. Although York had, at one time, suspected Joanna of illicit connections to a South American drug dealer, they were now on good terms. In fact, Adam York had been one of the first people to encourage Joanna to campaign for the office of sheriff in Andy Brady’s place. She was gratified to know that he had phoned her, but she waited until after Jenny was in bed and asleep before returning his call.

“Congratulations,” Adam York said, sounding the now-familiar refrain. “Good going.”

“Thank you,” she responded. “I think,” she added a little lamely.

“You think? What’s this? I’ve been watching the newspaper reports. You ran a good strong campaign, and you wound up garnering yourself a good solid base of support. I also heard they might go ahead and swear you in prior to January.”

“You heard right,” Joanna said, “but you’re be hind times. It’s a done deal. I’m a sworn officer as of two o’clock this afternoon.”

“So why this distinct lack of enthusiasm? Nerves?”

Joanna laughed. “How’d you guess? That’s one of the reasons I’m calling you back so late tonight. I waited until after Jenny went to sleep. She’s really worried about me, Adam, afraid something’s going to happen to me just like it did to her father. So I’m calling to ask what you think.”

“On what subject?”

“I helped you put a major crimp in a big-time drug dealer’s way of doing business. I was elected to office on the premise that I continue that process. What are the chances of his sending one of his hit men after me?”

The phone line was quiet for so long that Joanna thought the line had gone dead. “Adam?”

“Just a minute. I’m here. Let me ask you a question in return. What are the chances of someone being hit by lightning?”

“Not that good, but it happens. Depends on where a person is standing when the storm hits. If he’s out in the open with nothing much around him, or if he’s wearing or holding something that’s a natural conductor, then he could be in big trouble.”

“Exactly,” Adam York agreed.

“What do you mean-‘exactly’?”

“As of right now, you are standing in the middle of an open field. A hell of a storm is blowing up all around you, and that badge they handed you today is nothing if not a goddamn lightning rod.”

“Oh,” Joanna breathed. “I see. Any suggestions?”

“APOA, for one thing.”

The Arizona Police Officers Academy in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria was a mutually sponsored training program for officers from many different jurisdictions throughout Arizona. The six-week-long program of formal classroom lectures, lab work, and rolplay provided general basic training for police recruits from all over the state, after which they returned to their separate departments for more in-depth and jurisdiction specific instruction.

“You mean sign up for that course and take it just like I’m a new hire?”

“Aren’t you?” Adam York asked pointedly.

Joanna didn’t answer. “What else?”

“Target practice,” Adam York returned. “Lots of it. From what I know about you, you’re already a fair shot, but target practice never hurt anybody. And a Kevlar vest. Get one that’s properly fitted and wear the damn thing.”

“You sound serious.”

“I have never been more serious in my life,” Adam York asserted.

“If it really is this bad, how come you called to congratulate me?”

“Because congratulations are in order. What you did was amazing, and I’m not just talking about winning the election, either. You flat out saved that woman’s life.”

“If Jenny heard you sounding like this, it would scare the daylights out of her. You act as though I’m suffering from some kind of death wish.”

“What I’m telling you is strictly common sense. Any other cop would say exactly the same thing. People on the outside may make fun of the ‘war on drugs.” They may claim it’s just so much political propaganda and bullshit. But you and I both know it’s a war-a real one with real guns and live ammunition, where real people get killed. I’ve seen you in action, Sheriff Joanna Brady. In this man’s war, you’re one soldier I’m very happy to have on my side.”

“Thank you,” Joanna said.

“Think nothing of it. By the way, I’ve got a catalog from a specialty shop in California. It’s where some of the female federal agents get street clothes-type equipment, vests included. I’ll send a catalog your way tomorrow. And there’s another book you should have as well. Where do you want me to send them?”

“To the Cochise County Criminal Justice Complex, Highway Eighty, Bisbee, Arizona. I should get moved into my office sometime tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” Adam York told her. “It’s too late to make it in tomorrow’s mail, but you should have it the day after at the latest.”

“Thanks, Adam,” she said gratefully. “Thanks a bunch.”

She went to bed and tried to sleep, but her mind wouldn’t let her. At last she crawled out of bed, turned on the light, and reached for the phone book.

Bisbee had come so far into the modern era that after generations of five-number dialing, telephone users now had to use all seven numbers to make a local call, which seemed like an unnecessary and cumbersome waste of time. But some small-town practices persisted. Alvin Bernard, Bisbee’s chief of police, still had his home telephone number listed in the directory, and Joanna decided it wasn’t too late to call.

Back when Alvin graduated from high school, he had flunked the company physical and had missed being hired by P.D. When he went to work as a cop for the city of Bisbee, his former class mates had looked down their noses at him. They were somewhat more respectful and envious, both, now that their high-paying copper-mining jobs had disappeared and Alvin’s hadn’t. Not only was he still employed by his original employer, attrition and two key heart attacks had bounced him all the way up to chief.

“Congrats, Joanna,” he enthused. “Welcome aboard and all that shit. Excuse me, all that crap. What can I do for you?”

“I was calling for some information about that hit-and-run incident last night.”

“Ask away. We’ve got letters of mutual aid out the kazoo. What do you need?”

“Can you tell me what’s happening on that case?”

“Sure thing. My guys talked to Holly Patterson’s sleazebag lawyer. He says it’s nothing. That her foot slipped on the accelerator or some such thing, and that by the time Holly had the car back under control, she was too upset to come back.”

“Right.”

“That’s what I say. But we picked up another angle on it from someone else. One of my officers’ aunts, Isabel Gonzales, and her husband work at Cosa Viejo. She’s the cook, and he’s the gardener, for the new owner.

“Isabel told her sister that Holly Patterson has really been going downhill ever since she got back home. Sounds almost like a rerun of what happened to her mother. From what I’ve been able to pick up, Burton expected Harold Patterson to offer Holly some kind of settlement yesterday. Harold stopped by to see her, but when they couldn’t come to terms, Holly went ballistic. She blames her cousin, Burton Kimball, for talking her father out of settling.”

“What does Burton say?”

“He flat out denies it. He says he tried to talk Harold out of it but that he didn’t get to first base. He did succeed in talking old Judge Moore into granting a continuance when Harold didn’t show up in court this morning. I guess the out-of-town lawyer was screaming like a scalded Indian.”

Joanna thought about all that for a minute. “I’ll bet he was. So one person says Harold was going to settle, the other says he wasn’t. Who’s right? What do you think is going on?”

“Well,” Alvin Bernard replied cheerfully, “I’d have to say somebody’s lying through his teeth. It’s just too damned soon to tell which is which. But then, that’s what you and I get paid for, isn’t it-to find out who’s lying?”

“Yes,” Joanna Brady answered. “I suppose it is.”

Joanna Expected to toss and turn after those two disquieting phone calls. Instead, she fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow; her eyes closed, and she fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep. Toward morning, though, she drifted into a dream-an un usually happy one at first, a dream about the old days, about when Andy was still alive.

Joanna and Jenny were sitting in the back of a moving pickup. Jenny was holding an old wicker picnic basket, and the two of them were laughing and singing songs at the top of their lungs.

They were driving down a bumpy dirt road. It took some time before Joanna realized they were in Hank Lathrop’s old Chevrolet pickup the terrible old half-ton truck her father had promised would be Joanna’s someday when she had her license, the truck her mother had sold to a farmer from out in the Sulphur Springs Valley the week after Hank’s funeral.

The time frame of the dream was disjointed and confusing. Details were disturbingly out of synch.

There were two dogs riding along in the pickup, but not Liz and Pearl, Hank Lathrop’s two old black-and-tans, but Joanna’s present-day Sadie and Tigger.

Eventually, Joanna turned around to look in the cab and see who was driving. She was startled to find that the driver was none other than Hank Lathrop himself, while Andrew Brady rode shot gun in the passenger seat. The two of them were talking and laughing, enjoying some private joke.

Like the time-warped dogs, that part of the dream could never have happened in real life, there. D. H. Lathrop might have known Andy Brady as a child by name or reputation, but certainly not as Joanna’s future husband-as Hank Lathrop’s future son-in-law. By the time Andy came home from the service and he and Joanna became a hot item, Joanna’s father was already dead.

But this was a dream. In the dreamscape, those things were possible, and both men were together.

And the Joanna Lathrop Brady who was riding in the back of that silver Cheyenne was overjoyed to see them. She tapped on the window, wanting to catch their attention. Since there was plenty of room in the front, she wanted to ride up there with them, to join in the stories and jokes, but they were too busy laughing and having a good time to hear her. She tapped on the window again and again. Still they didn’t notice.

Suddenly, a cloud seemed to pass in front of the sun, darkening the sky overhead. Joanna looked up and saw a rainstorm marching across the valley toward them. It was one of those fierce summer storms, the kind that kicks up clouds of swirling dirt and sends those out as reconnaissance troops in advance of the driving rain. Not wanting to be soaked, she turned back to the cab and pounded on the window again, only now no one was there.

The truck was still barreling down the road, but the cab was empty. The doors were open. Both her father and Andy had disappeared. No one was holding on to the steering wheel, which twisted wildly from side to side while the truck careened drunkenly down the narrow track, picking up speed as it went.

Joanna woke up slick with sweat. She fought her way out from under the covers and then lay there with her heart hammering in her chest, waiting for the fright to pass.

Gradually, her heartbeat slowed to normal, and a sort of calm numbness spread over her. You don’t need a PhD. in dream interpretation to understand what that one meant, she thought. In the dream-as in life both Andy and her father had bailed out on her, abandoning her to fight the good fight alone, leaving her stuck in the bed of the moving pickup of life with no way for her to reach either the steering wheel or the brakes.

As she knew it would, eventually the clarity of the dream grew fuzzy and disappeared, taking with it both the terrifying end as well as the pleasant, carefree beginning. That was the problem with dreams. In order to shake off the bad parts, you usually had to let go of the good ones as well. Joanna glanced at the bedside clock: 4am, too late to go back to sleep but still far too early to get -up. That’s when she noticed where she was lying.

Ten years of habit are hard to break. Even after almost two full months, her sleeping body had yet to adjust to the changed circumstances of her life.

When autumn chill penetrated the bedroom or when late-night dreams changed to terrifying nightmares, force of habit still sent Joanna scurrying toward Andy’s side of the bed. Her cold or frightened body still sought comfort and refuge in the spot where his fading scent lingered in the lumpy down of what had once been his pillow.

With a sigh, and knowing now she wouldn’t go back to sleep, Joanna crawled out of bed. She pulled on her heavy terry-cloth robe and went out to the kitchen, where she heated water and made herself a cup of instant cocoa. Not the old-fashioned made from-scratch kind that Jim Bob Brady favored, but a close enough substitute to help shake off the chill.

Carrying the steaming mug with her, Joanna made her way into the darkened living room. It wasn’t necessary to turn on any lights. She knew the way.

Sitting down on the couch, she dragged one of Eva Lou’s heavy, hand-crocheted afghans over her icy feet. Moments later, Sadie, the big bluetick hound, emerged from Jenny’s bedroom and thrust her warm, smooth muzzle into Joanna’s lap.

“I didn’t mean to wake you, girl,” Joanna apologized, patting the dog’s seemingly hollow head.

It no longer disturbed her to find herself speaking aloud to the dog. In the preceding weeks, Sadie had given more than her share of late-night comfort to a grieving Joanna Brady. Tigger-an ugly and improbable mixture of pit bull and golden retriever, had been adopted by Jenny in the aftermath of his previous owner’s death. Tigger stuck with Jenny no matter what, while Sadie was more evenhanded about sharing herself. Even pawed, Joanna thought, smiling at the self correction.

With a sigh, Sadie flopped down on the floor near Joanna’s feet, and the woman was grateful for the creature’s company. It made the early-morning house seem less silent and alien. In the old days, she might have turned on the radio, tuned in some far-off countrywestern station. She didn’t do that anymore, didn’t make that mistake. Those songs were all about couples, about relationships. The words always hurt too much and made her own loneliness that much worse.

So Joanna sat listening to her empty house, grateful for Sadie’s jowl-flapping snores. No matter how hard she tried, Joanna couldn’t escape the sense that the house was practically empty. And it wasn’t just because of Jenny’s continuing subdued silences, either. The small house seemed deserted and eerily abandoned because Andrew Brady wasn’t in it. And would never be again.

When he was alive, there had been times when he had been away overnight, either at work or out of town on a trip. Occasionally, he had been gone for several days at a time. Joanna and Jenny had stayed on High Lonesome Ranch by themselves back then, but it hadn’t been a problem. In those days, the ranch hadn’t lived up to its name. It had never seemed lonesome or empty because always there was the expectation that Andy would come back eventually, and the house would once more ring with noise and laughter.

But now, with no such expectation, the High Lonesome was lonesome indeed. At times Joanna considered locking the front and back doors, slap ping a For Sale sign on the front gate, and simply walking away. For good. After all, she and Andy had bought the house expecting to be there together, not alone. She thought about leaving, but she didn’t do it.

of course, the scavengers had come out in force. Two different real estate agents from Tucson sleazy developer types who were evidently both avid followers of the obituary pages-had showed up on her doorstep within minutes of the funeral, offering to buy the High Lonesome for some ridiculously low figure.

From what they said about “taking the place off your hands” it was clear neither one of them had any idea that the insurance she and Andy had purchased over the years had left her with the mortgage paid in full and with a good deal of financial security besides. Joanna Brady sure as hell didn’t have to give High Lonesome Ranch away, but she wasn’t at all certain she wanted to keep it, either.

For one thing, located seven miles from town and two miles off the nearest paved road, the house on High Lonesome Ranch was, as one might expect, very isolated. Clayton Rhodes, her nearest neighbor, was a toothless, hard-of-hearing octogenarian who lived a good mile away. Bill and Charlene Harris were another mile beyond the Rhodes’ place. If there was trouble, if lightning ever did strike, a mile or two was a long way to go for help. What happened to Andy had already proved that.

When that thought crossed her mind, Joanna’s first instinct was to turn on the light, pick up the phone, and call Adam York back that very minute to see if he had anything to add to the advice he had given her the night before. She was tempted to call again, but she didn’t.

What stopped her was the vision of herself, Joanna Brady, the candidate stomping all over hell and gone, asking the eighty thousand residents of Cochise County to vote for her. She had won the election, by God. More people had written her name in the blank for sheriff than had chosen Frank Montoya and Al Freeman put together.

Those people hadn’t all voted for her because she was Hank Lathrop’s poor orphaned daughter or because she was Deputy Andrew Brady’s poor shattered widow, either. Sympathy stretched only so far. Voters had chosen Joanna Brady because they thought she was the right person for the job And now, as the duly sworn sheriff of the whole damn county, she’d better not go ducking for cover at the first sign of trouble. Besides, Adam York had already told her what to do.

Joanna got up from the couch then, once more disturbing the sleeping Sadie. Leaving the dog b hind, she again made her way through the house in the dark, returning this time to her bedroom, where she switched on the light. She made straight for Andy’s rolltop desk and unlocked the drawer where she kept her new 9-mm Colt 2000 semi automatic, one she had bought for herself from part of Andy’s life-insurance proceeds. She had told herself at the time that she was buying it for protection; that living alone as she did, she needed the weapon regardless of whether or not she won the election. But now that she had won…

Handling the gun with the kind of careful respect it deserved, she carried it out to the kitchen.

There, after mixing herself yet another cup of cocoa, she took a seat at the breakfast nook. Meticulously, she dismantled the weapon, cleaned it, and painstakingly put it back together. She had splurged and allowed herself the luxury of the wooden-handled First Edition model because she liked the smooth feel of it in her hand. The gun was new, and it was hers. It wasn’t something that had been handed down to her by either her father or her husband.

Finished with the cleaning, Joanna dressed warmly and went outside into the cold November morning. If the cattle were surprised to be awakened and fed long before daybreak, they voiced no objection. By the time the shadowy tops of the Chiricahua Mountains to the east were dusted with a soft lavender glow, all ten head of cattle were in the corral contentedly munching hay. That was when Joanna took her holstered Colt and retreated to the back pasture for a session of target practice.

Joanna Brady had owned the semi-automatic for less than two weeks, so it was still somewhat new and unfamiliar.

Even without Adam York’s advice, she had been doing target practice on her own, as much as time permitted. Every session, she pinned a black-and-white man-sized, man shaped target to a hay bale and fired away at it.

She continued to have some difficulty in mastering the sweeping trigger-finger motion required to fire the next round, but each subsequent practice showed some slight improvement. And each succeeding target came down from the bale with the bullet holes grouped more tightly in the desired deadly patterns. She didn’t have to wonder what kind of damage those kinds of groupings could do to a human body. She already knew about that. On a firsthand basis.

At ten to seven, chilled to the bone, she took off her protective ear covering and heard the shrill sharp blasts of the soccer-referee whistle she and’ Jenny used to summon each other when the distances on the ranch were too great for shouts to carry.

The high-pitched blasts had a disturbingly frantic quality to them. Joanna holstered the gun and hurried back to the house with a sense of dread walking beside her. She was relieved to see Jenny and the dogs waiting for her on the back porch. As soon as she was close enough to see her Joanna could tell from the look on Jennifer’s face that something was terribly wrong. The childs face was pasty white, her thin lips drawn together in a grim, straight line.

“What’s the matter?” Joanna asked, hurrying to Jenny’s side.

“Marianne called,” Jenny said. “She wants you to call her back right away.”

“Why? What happened?”

“She says they found Mr. Patterson. He’s dead!”

And with that, Jennifer Ann Brady threw both small arms around her mother’s neck and sobbed her heart out, the racking sobs shaking her whole body. It was as though she had somehow slipped through the protective cocoon of childhood into the terrible world of adulthood, of life and death.

Joanna took Jenny in her arms and held her close, murmuring what words of comfort she could summon. But the child’s frantic grief, her overriding anguish, went far beyond the reach of her mother’s puny words. Or of Marianne’s phone call, either.

Jenny wasn’t crying about Harold Patterson, an old man she barely knew. No, she was crying for her father.

Damn Tony Vargas anyway! Joanna thought, remembering the man who had murdered Jenny’s father. Damn him straight to everlasting hell!…

WHEN JENNY finally calmed down enough to go shower, Joanna headed for the telephone. There were three new messages on the machine from three different reporters-all wanting to schedule interviews, but no one from the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department had bothered to dial up the new sheriff to let her know what was going on out at the Rocking P Ranch. If there was some kind of official notification system within the department, Sheriff Joanna Brady’s name was not yet included on the list.

She was tempted to call Dispatch and demand to know what the hell was going on, but she squelched that idea. Going off half-cocked would be stupid. Before she did anything at all, she needed some real knowledge of the situation from a reliable source. Instead of calling the department, she dialed Marianne Macula’s number.

“What’s up?” she asked Jeff Daniels when he answered the phone.

“Marianne’s in the shower. She told me to tell you she’s heading out to the ranch as soon as she gets dressed. Ivy called a few minutes ago. They found her father in a glory hole up on Juniper Flats. Harold Patterson is dead.”

“Heart attack?”

“No. Hit on the head with a rock. At least that’s what Ivy said. The sides must have caved in on him. Ivy was hysterical on the phone. Marianne’s out of the shower now. Do you want to talk to her?”

“There’s no need. Tell her thanks for letting me know, and that I’m on my way, too. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Jenny came out of the shower wrapped in a towel. “Be where?” she asked.

“At the Patterson ranch. Hurry and get dressed,” Joanna told her. “We’ll have to leave early. I’ll check with Grandma Brady to see if you can have breakfast with her.”

After making hasty arrangements with Eva Lou, Joanna dialed the Sheriff’s Department and asked to speak to Dispatch.

“This is Joanna Brady,” she said when a youthful-sounding operator came on the phone. “I want to speak to a dispatch supervisor.”

“Who did you say this is?”

“Sheriff Joanna Brady,” she said firmly. “Who are you?”

“Larry. Larry Kendrick. But I thought…”

“What did you think?”

“Excuse me, ma’am. You just got elected the other day. How can you be sheriff already?”

“It happens, Larry, and you should have been briefed. I still need to speak to a supervisor.”

“There isn’t one available at the moment. She’s down the hall. Is anything wrong? Something I can help you with?”

“When did the call come in about Harold Patterson?” Joanna asked.

“About an hour ago.”

“Who took the call?”

“Tica Romero.”

“And who called it in?”

“Let me check.” There was a slight delay before he answered. “Ivy Patterson. I believe she’s one of Harold’s daughters.”

“And who responded?”

“Deputy Dave Hollicker. His car was closest to the scene at the time. As far as I know, he’s still there. After Hollicker’s initial survey, he called for backup. Dick Voland and Ernie Carpenter both headed out there on the double.”

Ernie Carpenter was Cochise County’s lead homicide investigator, but his being called in didn’t necessarily mean murder. He was usually summoned to the site of any unexplained death, where the first order of business was to determine whether the person had died of natural or unnatural causes. As acting sheriff, Dick Voland naturally would have responded as well. The problem was, Dick Voland was no longer acting sheriff. And no one had bothered to call the real one. The new one.

“I see,” Joanna said, keeping her voice free of any trace of rancor.

It was highly possible that Tica Romero and Larry Kendrick were doing things exactly as they had been told. Joanna’s swearing-in, the official changing of the guard, should have been top priority at all duty briefings as officers came on shift, but clearly few, if any, had been told. Joanna suspected that fault for that oversight lay fairly high up in the chain of command. If Joanna was going to make an issue of it, she had to make sure she was dealing with the responsible party.

“Kristin Marsten isn’t in yet, is she?”

“No, ma’am. She doesn’t come in until eight or so.

“Leave word with her that I’m out at the Rocking P and won’t be in until later. And from now on, Larry, things are going to be different. If there’s a dead body found anywhere in this county, I want to know about it. Any time of the day or night. Once you dispatch duty officers and emergency personnel to a scene, I’m to be called next. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am. Absolutely.”

“Good.”

“And Sheriff Brady?”

“Yes?”

“Is it okay if I say congratulations?”

“It’s fine.”

Once off the phone, Joanna hurried into the bed room to grab a quick shower and get ready herself. Standing under the steaming water, she felt dumb washing her hair just to go out and tramp around a crime scene, but she did it anyway. The shower was fine, but she didn’t hassle with makeup. Her shiner would just have to shine.

Once again, the real question was what to wear. Did men have this problem? Certainly not in the same way women did. No matter what she wore, it made a statement one way or the other. And given that Joanna was operating in what was perceived as a male venue, she was subject to intense scrutiny every time she poked her head outside the house.

By the time she was standing in front of the closet in her underwear, Joanna had nixed the idea of either a dress or a skirt. For working in Milo’s office, the choices had been relatively simple, heels, panty hose, skirts, blouses, and blazers. But none of those made sense for a glory hole on Juniper Flats.

Finally, she settled on the much-used jeans and hiking boots she had worn for target practice earlier that morning, but she passed on the shirt. Her worn plaid flannel shirt, the comfortable one with patches on both elbows, would never do. Over coming her natural reluctance, she turned at last to Andy’s end of the closet.

All through the campaign, she had put off sorting Andy’s things, telling herself that painful job, along with designating possible guardians, could wait until after the election, until she felt stronger.

The Ladies’ Auxiliary at Canyon Methodist had started a clothing bank, and Joanna had planned to take most of Andy’s clothes there.

She rummaged around on the top shelf until she located the extra Kevlar vest Andy had kept there, the one he had insisted was too small and uncomfortable to wear.

As soon as she tried strapping it on over her bra, she could certainly believe the lack of comfort. Nothing about the bulletproof vest took the specifics of female anatomy into consideration. The vest was surprisingly heavy, and it chafed the skin under her arms.

For a moment, she considered not wearing it at all But then she thought about Adam York and the wise counsel he had been kind enough to offer-lifesaving advice it didn’t make sense to disregard. Joanna was sure that in Adam York’s book, even an ill-fitting vest would be preferable to none at all.

With a sigh, she undid the vest and added one of Andy’s undershirts to the mix before trying again. The extra layer of material did seem to help.

Next she buttoned on one of Andy’s khaki uniform shirts, rolling the sleeves up far enough so her hands showed beneath the cuffs. Over the breast pocket where Andy had worn his badge, Joanna pinned the one her mother had given her.

Hank Lathrop’s badge. Hers now.

Once the badge was in place, she paused and studied it for a moment before pulling on jeans and boots. Next she belted the holstered semi automatic into position and was relieved to know that at least one thing she wore actually belonged to her. She finished off the outfit with Andy’s heavy denim jacket-the fleece-lined one with the single.44 caliber bullet hole in the pocket. From the inside out. She herself had pulled the trigger of that pocketed gun. She had pulled it with the intent to kill and she had done exactly that.

Finally dressed, Joanna once again examined her costume in the mirror. And it was a costume, she decided critically. She looked like a little girl dressed up in her father’s oversized clothes and about to go out trick-or-treating. The ill-fitting, pasted-together ensemble would never pass inspection with Eleanor Lathrop. For that reason alone, Joanna found herself almost liking it.

She was still standing in front of the mirror when Jenny came into the room. Except for slightly puffy eyes, all trace of her previous out burst had been seemingly scrubbed away.

Joanna spun around, giving Jenny the full effect of her outfit. “Well,” she asked, “what do you think?”

Jennifer wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

“Daddy’s clothes are way too big for you,” she said.

Joanna shrugged off her daughter’s confidence sapping comment.

“Someday soon,” she said, “I guess we’ll have to go shopping for some clothes of my own. Are you ready to go? Did you feed and water the dogs?”

Stopping in front of the Bradys’ duplex a few minutes later, Joanna shifted into Park, set the emergency brake, and got out of the car. Meanwhile, Jenny was already on her way up the brick walkway. “Hey, wait a minute here, Jennifer Ann Brady,” Joanna said severely. “Since when don’t I get a hug?”

Dejected and dragging her feet, Jenny turned and came back. When Joanna hugged her, the child’s head thumped solidly against the hard surface of the Kevlar vest. Andy Brady had worn a vest like that to work for as long as Jennifer remembered. Recognizing the vest for what it was as soon as she bumped against it, the child stiffened and drew away.

“Wearing one of those didn’t help Daddy,” she said disparagingly. With that, Jenny darted up the walkway.

Dismayed, Joanna climbed back into the idling Eagle. This wasn’t at all how she had imagined her first day as sheriff of Cochise County. Rather than savoring triumph, she seemed to be losing ground at every turn. If winning could be this bad, losing must be hell.

And it didn’t get any better. When Joanna reached the turnoff to the Rocking P Ranch, a Cochise County Sheriff’s Department patrol car was parked sideways just inside the cattle guard, totally blocking the entrance. Marianne Macula’s sea-foam VW Bug was stopped on the shoulder of the highway. Reverend Macula herself, agitated and gesturing wildly, stood arguing with an impassive deputy, one Joanna didn’t instantly recognize, but from Dispatch’s information she guessed this to be Deputy Hollicker.

Joanna parked behind the VW and was surprised to hear Marianne’s usually calm voice rise to the level of shrill outrage. “What do you mean, no one’s allowed in? Ivy Patterson called me. She specifically asked me to come! I’m her pastor. I’m sure she called because she wants help making funeral arrangements.”

Hurrying to join the fray, Joanna heard the duty deputies dispassionate response. “Sorry, lady. Orders are orders.”

“Whose orders?” Joanna asked.

Together, both Marianne and the deputy turned toward Joanna. She had known Marianne Macula for years without ever seeing the woman this angry. Two vivid red splotches colored her cheeks, while her dark eyes crackled with emotion.

“He says no one’s allowed up at the house,” Marianne complained. “Can you believe it?”

The deputy’s glance took in Joanna’s appearance in one quick appraisal before settling warily on her holstered Colt, the nose of which peeked out from under the hem of her jacket.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?” They eyed one another, giving Joanna a chance to verify the name.

“Does the name Joanna Brady ring a belL Deputy Hollicker?” she asked, pulling aside the jacket enough so the badge showed. “The last time I heard, someone told me I was the new sheriff in this jurisdiction.”

Hollicker’s jaw dropped. “Oh, yes,” he said, relaxing his stance. “I believe something about that just came over the radio.” Joanna smiled, but without humor. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Now, what’s this about orders?”

“They came straight from Dick Voland, the chief deputy. He said not to allow anyone at all past this gate.”

“I see,” Joanna said. “Under the circumstances, it’s a perfectly understandable order, but for now I’m countermanding it. Please move your vehicle aside so Reverend Macula and I can drive through. You’re more than welcome to keep everyone else out after that.”

“Okay,” Deputy Hollicker said uncertainly, moving at once to comply. “Sure thing.”

Marianne and Joanna started back toward their respective vehicles. Reverend Macula was still steaming. “What’s the matter with that guy? He sounded as though your being sheriff was a total surprise to him, like he just found out about you a few minutes ago.”

“It did sound that way,” Joanna agreed. “I may be the sheriff, but someone seems to be trying to keep that fact a secret.”

“You mean if they don’t see you, maybe you’ll go away?”

“Nice try, but no time,” Joanna answered grimly in time-honored rodeo lingo. “They’ll have to do better than that.”

Dave Hollicker started up his Ford Taurus patrol car and drove it out of the way long enough for Joanna and Marianne to cross the cattle guard; then he moved it back into its original position, once more blocking the gate.

Marianne continued on up the road toward the Rocking P’s ranch house, but Joanna stopped the car and went back to the Taurus, where Dave Hal licker was speaking animatedly into his hand-held microphone. When he saw Joanna peering in the window at him, he hurriedly switched off the microphone and rolled down his window.

“Did you need something else?” he asked.

“Yes. Where is this glory hole? How do I get there?”

“Chief Voland said for you to wait right here. He’ll come down and get you.

“Deputy Hollicker, I don’t believe you under stood what I said to you back there. I’m issuing orders, not taking them. And I have no intention of standing here waiting for Deputy Voland to come get me. Is that clear?”

Even as she said it, Joanna realized it wasn’t fair to put Dave Hollicker in the middle of a power play between Dick Voland and herself, but some thing definitive had to happen to get the chief deputy’s attention.

Hollicker waffled only a few seconds longer before making up his mind. “Drive just like you’re going to the house,” he directed. “When you reach the corrals, instead of turning in, go straight on past. About a half-mile farther on, you’ll come to a gate. Go through that, then take the left-hand fork. Whenever you can after that, bear left. It’s three miles, give or take.”

“Thank you.” Joanna turned and started back toward her Eagle.

“It’s a pretty rough road,” he called after her.

“That’s why Chief Deputy Voland wanted you to wait here. He said he’d come get you in his Blazer.”

“Radio back and tell him not to bother,” Joanna said over her shoulder. “My four-wheel-drive Eagle can make it anywhere Dick Voland’s Blazer can.”

“Oh,” Dave Hollicker mumbled into the cloud of dust that billowed in her wake. “I’ll be sure to tell him that. He’ll love hearing it. And then he’ll chew my ass.”

Even without directions, Joanna would have had no trouble finding her way. Much of the road was over coarse, trackless shale, but here and there in still-muddy low spots or in patches of dry, dusty dirt-a collection of freshly laid tire indentations left their separate marks. Wherever visible tracks remained in the roadway, Joanna was careful to drive around them.

She followed the ever-narrowing trail, through a scrub-oak-dotted landscape toward the rockbound red cliffs that crowned the mountain. As she drove through the ranch where Harold Patterson had lived all his life, Joanna allowed herself a moment of private grief. She hadn’t thought about that part of the job, about investigating the death of someone she knew and cared for. But Cochise County was a relatively small community. Some of the people whose deaths came under investigation were bound to be acquaintances if not friends.

Looking around her, she hoped Jim Bob was right; that Harold had “died with his boots on,” doing the work he loved. But there was something worrisome in the back of her mind, a stray thought that wouldn’t disappear no matter how much she wanted to stifle it.

The last time Joanna had seen Harold Patterson was two days ago, when he came to Milo’s office. He had seemed anxious and upset when he came looking for those change-of-beneficiary forms. He had talked about wanting to change the provisions of his policies from Ivy alone to someone else.

Those are the kinds of changes people don’t undertake without some reason prodding them to do so, marriage, a death, or, in this case, what seemed to be a change of heart.

Taken together, Harold Patterson’s policies didn’t add up to a huge fortune, but a cool quarter of a million dollars or even half that much couldn’t be overlooked as a possible motive for murder. If Harold Patterson had, in fact, been murdered.

Joanna racked her brain trying to remember the old man’s exact words. He had told her a story, a parable about his daughters, comparing them to two dogs pulling apart an old saddle blanket rather than sharing it. Did that mean Harold in tended to split the proceeds of his policies fifty fifty? It would be important for the investigators to learn whether or not those beneficiary forms had been properly signed and witnessed and a phone call to Milo Davis or Lisa would have answered that question in a minute, but Joanna was in her own car, with no radio and no kind of communications capability. How long would it take, Joanna wondered, for the new sheriff to have an official, properly equipped vehicle of her own? And how did she go about requesting one?

Deputy Hollicker had told her three miles. Dick Voland’s Blazer blocked the path at 2.5 in a spot where the road wound between two immense boulders. When Voland stepped up to the side of her car, he leaned down as if expecting her to roll down the window so he could speak to her. In stead, she turned off the ignition, opened the door, and stepped out of the car.

“What’s going on here?” she demanded.

Voland shrugged and glowered meaningfully at Joanna’s Eagle. “Nothing much,” he replied sarcastically.

“Ernie Carpenter asked me to limit access to the area until he can have casts made of all the tire tracks. As you can see, we’ve been driving on the hump in the middle of the road and on the shoulder to avoid messing up anything important.”

“So have I,” she answered crisply. “I do know how plaster casts work.”

A shadow of disappointment crossed Dick Voland’s face so fleetingly that Joanna almost missed it. Clearly the chief deputy had fully expected her to screw up her first time out, but she had managed to outmaneuver him. So much for Round One.

“Why wasn’t I notified when Harold Patterson’s body was found?” she asked, taking the offensive “Why wasn’t I called?”

“The man was already dead,” Voland answered.

“Deputy Hollicker, Detective Carpenter, and I had the situation well in hand through the regular chain of command.”

“Mr. Voland, are you or are you not aware that I was sworn into office as of two o’clock yesterday afternoon?”

“I knew about that,” he answered reluctantly, “but I saw no reason to drag you out of bed. It didn’t seem like that big a deal.”

“For your information, I was already up and working at the time the call came in. I haven’t yet had time enough to study all the policies and procedures, but tell me something. How would a situation like this have been handled under Walter McFadden’s administration? Chain of command be damned, would he or would he not have been notified?”

“Would have,” Voland conceded grudgingly. “Out of courtesy.”

“Then I expect the same courtesy.”

“But surely…” Voland started, then stopped abruptly.

“But surely what?”

“You don’t want to be called and dragged out of bed to every crime scene?”

“I didn’t run for office to be nothing but a glorified bureaucrat,” Joanna told him. “Did you think I broke my neck the last two months for the dubious privilege of overseeing departmental budgets and vacation schedules? I’m here to be a full fledged officer of the law. Possibly my presence won’t be necessary at every unlawful death scene in the county, but for right now I intend to make up my mind on a case-by-case basis. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.” Voland’s reply was curt and sullen “Is there anything else?”

“I came to see the glory hole,” Joanna said.

The chief deputy spun on his heel and started back up the mountain. “This way,” he grunted “We walk from here. Stick to the shoulder.”

“So what’s the status?”

“Ernie’s about finished with what he can do up top. He’s rigging a rope to the come-along on his winch so we can lower him down into the hole itself. He wants to take pictures and gather evidence before calling in a stretcher and sling to drag Old Man Patterson’s body out.”

“What happened?”

“You’ll have to talk to Ernie. He’s not big on talking about what he’s finding. He’s his own one man show.”

“Who found the body?”

“Ivy, I guess.”

“How’d she do it? This is a long way from the house.”

“Like I said,” Dick Voland groused. “Talk to Ernie.”

At five-thousand-some-odd feet of elevation, the steep path soon took its toll on Richard Voland’s more-than-ample frame. Exertion made it difficult for the chief deputy to walk and talk at the same time, and Joanna soon regretted her own double layers of clothing. Removing her jacket, she slung it over her shoulder as she trudged along behind him on the rocky verge of the road.

They crested the top of a steep rise and entered a small basin. A fenced-off area in the middle surrounded the glory hole’s mound of tailings. Parked nearby was Ernie Carpenter’s crew-cab pickup and Harold Patterson’s much-used International Scout. Off to one side was a vintage decommissioned fire truck-pumper permanently positioned next to a metal stock tank. A length of hose led from a spigot on the truck’s tank to the one on the ground. Joanna surmised the truck was used to haul water to thirsty stock in the -Rocking P’s upper pastures whenever necessary.

From the desiccated cow pies littering the area, Joanna knew this section of pasture wasn’t currently in use.

Seated on the running board of the old truck was the red-haired, red-bearded giant Joanna recognized as Yuri Malakov. Two weeks earlier, he had come to church with Ivy. Joanna had seen him and assumed from things Marianne had told her that’s who the huge stranger had to be. But that Sunday had been right toward the end of the campaign. Instead of staying for after-church coffee and socializing, Joanna had rushed off to give a speech in Double Adobe.

Seeing him at first glance when they topped the rise, Joanna assumed the Russian was wearing a blue work shirt. As she came closer, however, she realized he was naked from the waist up. What she had thought to be blue cloth was actually ink.

Above a wide silver-and-turquoise belt buckle, Yuri’s massive chest was covered by a wild assortment of tattoos.

He was leaning against the side of the truck with his eyes closed, dozing. Joanna had never seen such a display of tattoo art. For several long moments, she studied the amazingly detailed patterns that had been inked into his skin.

Most of the pictures were surprisingly well crafted and artistically done, but the subject matter was anything but Russian. The picture covering most of the man’s chest showed a complicated bucking bronco complete with cowboy flailing a Stetson. Beneath that tattoo, lettered in English, was the caption COWBOY SAM.

Two distinct versions of coiled rattlesnakes were inked onto the bunched muscles of his biceps. One forearm featured a hangman’s noose, while the other pictured a single long-stemmed rose.

neath the rose were the letters ‘The yellow Rose of Texas.”

Despite brilliant blue skies, native Arizonans still regard November as winter. For them, it’s no time to be lounging out in the sun, soaking up rays, but Yuri Malakov came from another climate entirely. What his new neighbors experienced as cold, he considered balmy.

Although Joanna was unaware of making a sound, Yuri’s eyes suddenly blinked open. As soon as he saw her standing a few feet away, he grabbed for his shirt and hurriedly pulled it on, scrambling to his feet and blushing in confusion.

“So sorry,” he mumbled, in his severely broken English, clumsily fastening buttons as fast as he could. “So very sorry. I did not think woman would be here. Please excuse.”

“It’s all right, Yuri. They say Ivy is the one who found Mr. Patterson?”

“No. Yes. But she tell me to come here to look while she stays at ranch, at house. Later she ask me to bring police here.”

“She knew where to look without actually coming here?” Joanna asked. “How did she do that?”

“Those,” he said, jerking his head skyward.

“She say go follow those birds. There also we find father.”

Joanna glanced in the direction indicated. Far overhead, three huge buzzards, harbingers of death, circled the mountaintop in long, lazy circles.

But they might just as easily have been circling over a road-killed rabbit or coyote rather than over the body of Ivy Patterson’s father.

“What time did you call in the report?”

Yuri shrugged. “Early,” he said. “Five or maybe four.”

“Early-bird buzzards,” Joanna said. “They must have been out looking for worms.”

Yuri looked at her with a puzzled frown. “Excuse?” he asked.

Joanna shook her head. “It’s nothing,” she said. “An old joke.”

The hair prickled warningly on the back of Joanna’s neck. There was no reason to tell Yuri Malakov that she knew either he was lying or else Ivy was. Even if the vultures had been up and circling overhead that early in the morning, they wouldn’t have been visible in the dark, not to someone three miles away, down in a valley.

Joanna glanced toward the glory hole. While Joanna and Yuri had been talking, she had watched while Dick Voland used a winch and leather harness to lower Ernie down into the hole. Now, with Ernie back on the surface, the two men were earnestly conferring in tones hushed enough that none of the words carried as far as the fire truck.

“Wait here,” Joanna said to Yuri. She walked to the glory-hole fence, eased her way through the strands of barbed wire, and joined the two men on the little mound of rock-chip tailings. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“We’ve got a problem,” Ernie said slowly.

“Accident or not?” Joanna asked, abandoning all hope that Harold Patterson had died of natural causes.

“It’s no accident,” Ernie said firmly. “And no cave-in, either. Somebody bashed his skull in with a five-pound river rock.”

“River rock?” Joanna repeated, looking around at the shards of brick-red shale that littered the basin. “There’s no river rock around here.”

“That’s right. The closest place to get it would be the last crossing of Mule Mountain Creek at least half a mile away,” Ernie answered. “But that’s not the major problem.”

“What is?”

“Come look,” he said.

Together, the three of them walked to the edge of the glory hole and looked down. The ugly stench of not-yet-disinfected death wicked up from the hole into Joanna’s face. The odor that had attracted vultures from miles around sickened her, causing a bubble of nausea to rise in her throat.

She held her breath to contain it.

“Here,” Ernie said, taking out a flashlight and handing it to her. “Use this.”

Fighting back nausea and battling dizziness as well, Joanna moved forward and aimed the flash light into the pitch-black hole. It was some time before her eyes adjusted to the gloom; before she could see anything at all in the glow of that frail artificial light.

At last, though, the pale yellow beam illumination noted something-Harold Patterson’s open, blankly staring eyes.

“What about it?” Joanna asked, still not sure what she was supposed to be seeing.

“Look under his shoulder,” Ernie Carpenter said. “Under his right shoulder.”

By now Joanna could see well enough that she noticed river rocks scattered here and there on the floor of the hole. At first the white bulge sticking out from under Harold Patterson’s shoulder seemed like one of the same.

“It’s just another rock, isn’t it?” she asked, keeping her voice controlled and steady.

“I wish it were,” Ernie Carpenter said softly. “I wish to God it were. It’s a skull, Sheriff Brady. A human skull. It looks as though the rest of the skeleton is under Harold. It’s somebody who’s been down in that hole a hell of a lot longer than Harold Patterson has.”

“But who?” Joanna asked.

“I guess we’ll just have to find out, now, won’t we?” Dick Voland said.

Joanna could have been mistaken, but it seemed as though the chief deputy was smiling to himself when he said it. But the meaningful look that passed between the two men required no interpretation.

Federal EEOC guidelines notwithstanding, both Ernie Carpenter and Dick Voland regarded crime scene investigation as an all-male preserve. They had expected Dave Hollicker’s roadblock to function as a Nobody-Allowed notice, but she had ignored the warning.

It would have been easy for Joanna to take the easy way out. For her to stagger away, grope her way over to the fire truck, collapse on the running board, and wait for her head to stop swimming.

Instead, steeling herself against the fainthearted impulse, she stayed where she was and kept her eyes focused full on Harold Patterson’s face.

“Yes, we will,” she said softly, underscoring the word “we.”

“Now how about telling me exactly how you propose to go about it?”

Joanna WALKED back to where Yuri Malakov was sitting on the running board of the decommissioned fire truck.

He moved aside far enough to make room for her. Sinking down beside him, she wiped her clammy forehead with the sleeve of her jacket and closed her eyes, trying to shut out the memory of Harold Patterson’s eerily blank eyes.

She wanted to forget how they had caught the glow of Ernie Carpenter’s flashlight and stared dully back up at her through the darkness.

Yuri glanced at Joanna with some sympathy, and he seemed in tune with her reaction. “Is bad thing,” he muttered. “Very bad thing.”

Joanna studied his broad face. Thick eyebrows hunched over heavily lidded eyes. Although from a distance he had appeared to be relaxed and snoozing, she realized now that his carefully hooded eyes were observing everything about him with intense interest.

Ernie Carpenter, leaving the glory hole for the moment, carted a cumbersome suitcase of equipment from his traveling crime-lab van to a newly dried puddle in the road. There, on hands and knees, he was attempting to make plaster casts of the fire tracks left in crusted mud. Meanwhile, Dick Voland stood beside Ernie’s van, speaking into the radio microphone and gesturing with his other hand.

“Detective Voland is trying to locate a sump pump,” Joanna explained.

“A what?”

“An emergency pump and a generator to run it. They need to empty the water out of the bottom of the hole before they attempt to bring up either body, Patterson or the other one.”

Suddenly, Yuri Malakov was no longer lounging against the side of the truck. He loomed over Voland and Joanna, dwarfing them both. “Two bodies?” he demanded, his smoldering dark eyes boring into Joanna’s. “More than one? More than Mr. Patterson?”

Joanna realized at once that she had blundered and spoken out of turn. That kind of information about an ongoing investigation shouldn’t have been casually mentioned to a passing acquaintance who happened to appear at the crime scene. But it was too late to take it back, and there didn’t seem to be any justification in lying about it.

She nodded. “Detective Carpenter seems to have found another body, a skeleton, under Harold Patterson. He had fallen directly on top of it.”

“Who?” Yuri asked.

“We don’t know that,” Joanna answered. “The other victim has been dead for a long time, most likely. Until they can search the glory hole for evidence, there’s no way to tell.”

Yuri Malakov lurched to his feet. “Ivy must know about this,” he declared.

“No,” Joanna objected. “That kind of news should come from one of the investigating officers, from someone official.”

Yuri shook his shaggy head impatiently. “Investigators busy. I am not busy. I tell her.”

With that, Yuri stomped away toward the Scout, leaving Joanna no choice but to trail along after him. He was a huge man. The idea of her physically restraining someone his size was laughable.

Joanna glanced back toward Dick Voland, who was still talking on the radio. He would be of no help. Besides, she didn’t want to tell him about this. She didn’t want to admit to blabbing out of turn.

“Wait,” Joanna said. “If you’ll give me a ride back down to my car, I’ll come with you and tell Ivy myself.”

Yuri stopped next to the Scout with one hand possessively on the door latch. “Okay,” he agreed readily. “I drive. You tell.”

As they maneuvered past the spot in the road where Ernie Carpenter was working on the plaster casts, Joanna directed Yuri to stop. “I need to tell Detective Carpenter where I’m going.”

As if that was necessary, she thought afterward.

Ernie barely glanced up when she spoke to him, acknowledging their departure with an inattentive frown. By then the homicide detective was totally focused on the solitary pursuit of obtaining evidence. Anything that removed distracting onlookers was to be regarded as a help, not a hindrance.

“That’s fine,” he said, waving them away. “Tell the people down at the house to stay out of Harold’s room. That goes for everyone there. Tell them to leave it alone until I have a chance to go through it.”

“Right,” Joanna said. “I’ll tell them.”

At the point in the road where Dick Voland’s Blazer still blocked the way, they had to abandon the Scout in favor of Joanna’s Eagle. The hulking Russian had to scrunch his broad shoulders and duck his head in order to cram himself into the passenger’s seat, but he did so without complaint.

While Joanna drove, he sat with his arms folded stubbornly across his massive chest, frowning and looking straight ahead, saying nothing. She looked at him from time to time and tried to decipher the troubled expression on his face.

She was surprised at the complete change in Yuri Malakov’s demeanor. His appearance now was a complete 180 degrees from the way he had looked earlier, sitting relaxed and supposedly dozing on the running board of the pumper. And the change had been instantaneous rather than gradual. It happened the moment she had mentioned existence of that second body. The news had seemed to distress him in a way that went far beyond his supposedly slight connection to the Patterson clan and their troubles. “What’s the matter?” Joanna asked. “Is some thing bothering you?”

Yuri glanced at her suspiciously. “What means ‘bother’?”

“Bother is like worry,” Joanna explained. “Is something worrying you?”

“Nyet,” he answered. “Nothing.”

But Yuri Malakov, silent and brooding, certainly didn’t look worry-free.

Thinking about his situation, Joanna realized it had to be dismaying to be thrown into a crisis especially a crisis involving a murder investigation-in a place where the entire legal system was completely foreign. Not only that, he was having to sort through all the strange customs through a veil of stilted, inflexible classroom English.

Joanna’s own four years of classroom Spanish, two in high school and two in college had been difficult enough and barely qualified her to speak “menu Spanish” in unfamiliar Stateside Mexican restaurants. Had she been foolish enough to head for Spain or the interior of Mexico with only that rudimentary background, she could probably survive-order food and make her most basic needs known-but she had no illusions about her ability to communicate or to be understood. Complex ideas would have been far beyond her.

But here was Yuri Malakov, a grown man able to communicate only basic messages. No doubt he had taken a good deal of classroom instruction in English years earlier-his formal, nonidiomatic way of speaking indicated as much. But still, it -had to be terribly difficult to be living and coping with complex day-to-day issues in a foreign country where virtually no one other than perhaps a few second-generation Slavic miners spoke some version of his native tongue.

As someone who had lived in one small Arizona town all her life, Joanna found the very idea of Yuri Malakov fascinating. What would drive a man to turn his back on everything familiar? To leave behind all family and friends? What kind of work had he done before coming here, and what career path had he abandoned in order to work as a hired hand for strangers on an isolated Arizona ranch? And what would possess a man, some where in his mid-forties, to set himself the task of grasping the intricacies of a whole new culture?

Maybe that was it, Joanna theorized. Perhaps Yuri’s concern for Ivy Patterson was based primarily on her helping him make that difficult transition; gratitude for the invaluable role she was playing in his life as his English-language tutor.

For a few moments, Joanna considered asking him, but then she let the idea go. He sat staring out the window, effectively shutting out any more questions. Besides, it didn’t seem worthwhile to fight her way through the difficulties of the communication barrier in order to discuss something simple as motivation. Instead, they drove the rest of the way to the Rocking P ranch house in silence.

As they entered the yard, the place looked typically idyllic. With a plume of inviting smoke curling out the chimney, the house and surrounding ranch seemed an improbable setting for two unexplained deaths. Several loose chickens scratched lazily in the dirt, and a fully adorned watchdog peacock strutted his stuff in the clear November sunlight. Marianne’s VW was still parked beside the gate, as was Ivy Patterson’s Chevy truck.

The ranch house was surrounded by a white picket fence that set off the yard proper with its blanket of winter-yellowed Bermuda grass from the rest of the grounds. The house was an early twentieth-century period single story of even space topped by a steeply pitched tin roof.

The metal roof shone with a coat of freshly applied paint as did the wooden siding, shutters, and trim.

Everything about the place looked neat and properly maintained.

A wide covered porch ran the entire length of each outside wall, creating a good eight feet of extra overhang and shade to help cool the house’s interior from Arizona’s scorching summer heat.

Although the porch had to be close to ninety years old, none of the flooring sagged. Not a single spindly rail was missing or broken from the long span of banister. If some pieces of woodwork were no longer original, it didn’t show. They had been replaced and repaired so carefully that it was impossible to tell old millwork from new.

Two massive wisteria vines, thick-trunked with age, stood guard on either side of the front entrance, sending out a tangle of naked gray branches that clung tenaciously along the front lip and gutters of the overhang. In the spring, the porch would be all but obscured by a curtain of lush greenery and cascading lavender flowers.

Joanna was quick to note that the grounds of the Rocking P were surprisingly clear of junk. The outbuildings were all fully upright and freshly painted. No hulks of dead cars or rusting farm equipment had been left to crumble within sight of the house. Joanna’s High Lonesome suffered terribly in comparison.

The wheels on the Eagle had not yet come to a complete stop before Yuri Malakov had the door open. He would have leaped out and been long gone if Joanna hadn’t stopped him. “Let me tell her,” she said. “It’ll be better if I do it.”

Yuri glowered at her, but he subsided in the seat. “You do it then,” he said.

As if on cue, the front door of the house opened.

Ivy Patterson and Marianne Macula appeared on the porch together. Not surprisingly, Ivy’s usually cheerful face was shrouded in grief, but even Marianne’s features were frozen in an atypically grim mask.

Joanna opened the gate and started up the walk way. To her surprise, Ivy left Marianne on the porch and came running forward. Instead of stopping when she reached Joanna, Ivy darted past and threw herself sobbing against Yuri Malakov’s massive chest. He reached down, folded her in his arms, and touched his chin to her hair.

Yuri clicked his tongue soothingly. “is okay. Yuri is here.”

That small series of loving gestures turned all of Joanna’s previous conjecture on its ear. Yuri and Ivy might have known each other for only a matter of weeks, but clearly they meant far more to one another than simple teacher and pupil. They were in love. Even the desolation of her grief didn’t entirely obscure the glow on Ivy’s face as she abandoned herself to the comfort of Yuri’s encircling arms.

Joanna cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Ivy, but I need to talk to you. There’s something you need to know.”

Instead of looking at Joanna, Ivy stared up at Yuri’s stolid face, as if whatever she needed to know would be clearly written on his broad facial features. He shook his head. “She tells,” he said, nodding in Joanna’s direction.

“Tell me what?” Ivy asked. “What’s wrong now?”

This was Joanna’s first experience at delivering bad news in some kind of official capacity. Like a child thrust suddenly into the spotlight of a Sun day-school Christmas pageant, she was instantly out of her depth, stymied about what to say or where to begin.

“Maybe we should go inside and sit down,” she suggested lamely.

Glaring at her but holding tightly to Ivy’s hand, Yuri strode up onto the porch and inside the house. “What about me?” Marianne asked, as Joanna started by.

“Come ahead if you want to,” Joanna said.

By the time Joanna and Marianne entered the living room, Ivy and Yuri were already seated side by side on an old-fashioned, faded leather couch.

They sat close to one another, with Yuri’s long arm sprawled intimately across Ivy’s shoulder. A good-sized woman in her own right, Ivy Patterson seemed dwarfed and diminutive beside the hulking Russian. The fiercely protective look on his face was out of place, he and Ivy knew more about how Harold Patterson had come to be in the glory hole than Yuri had so far admitted.

But still, Joanna’s first order of business was to inform Ivy of the presence of that second body.

The cozy fireplace-warmed living room now seemed as bad a place to deliver that kind of news as the front porch had moments earlier.

“What is it?” Ivy asked.

Feeling every bit the unwelcome interloper, Joanna stumbled her way into a chair. For a few moments, she almost wished she were a man, wearing the lawman’s stereotypical Stetson. At least that way she would have had something to take off and put in her lap, some tangible object to use as a physical buffer between Ivy Patterson’s already significant pain and the news Joanna was about to add to it.

“I’m so sorry about your father,” she began haltingly. “Harold Patterson was a wonderful man, and he’s going to be greatly missed.”

Ivy Patterson nodded. Tears threatened, but she held them in check. “Thank you,” she murmured

“As you know, Yuri and I have just come down from up on the mountain,” Joanna continued “From up at the glory hole. Did he have a chance to tell about what’s going on up there?”

“Just that they wouldn’t let him bring Dad’s Scout back down the mountain.”

Joanna nodded. “There’s a roadblock near the top, and the Scout is stuck on the wrong side of it.”

Ivy shrugged. “That doesn’t matter. I suppose we can go up later and get it back. That’s how we brought it home from the convention center yesterday. Is that what you came to tell me?”

“No,” Joanna said. “There’s something else.” She paused for a moment, searching for the right words. “I was up there with Dick Voland and Ernie Carpenter, the homicide investigator.”

“Homicide,” Ivy repeated. “As in murder? You mean my dad didn’t just fall in? It wasn’t an accident?”

“No,” Joanna said. “I’m afraid it doesn’t look like an accident. In the meantime, that’s not all. There’s something else you need to know.”

“What else?” Ivy demanded impatiently, sitting forward on the couch. “What more could there be?”

Joanna took a deep breath. “Your father’s isn’t the only body down in that hole, Ivy,” she said. “Ernie Carpenter found a human skeleton down there with him, someone who’s been in the glory hole for a very long time. For years.”

Ivy Patterson’s eyes grew wide with shock. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, my God!” she ex claimed. “It’s true then!”

“What’s true?” Joanna asked.

Suddenly, a fresh torrent of tears coursed down Ivy Patterson’s cheeks. All color drained from her cheeks. She buried her face in her hands, while her whole body convulsed with sobs. For a moment, there was no sound in the room except Ivy’s desperate weeping and the crackles and pops from the mesquite log fire. No one else had anything to say.

Eventually, Ivy drew herself erect, but the look on her face was far more dismayed than grief stricken. “Mother always said there was a body in that hole,” she said softly. “She always said so, and I never believed her.”

Joanna felt her own jolt of shock. “You mean to say your mother knew something about this?”

Ivy nodded. “I’m sure of it.”

“What about your father?”

A strange look washed over Ivy’s face. Her flesh seemed to harden. Her jawline froze with visible anger. “That son of a bitch,” she murmured. “That rotten, low-down son of a bitch. He must have known it was true the whole time.”

“Who must have known what was true?” Joanna asked, confused by the sudden shift in Ivy Patterson’s demeanor.

“My father. That there was a body. When Mother told me that, he insisted she was crazy. Every time she brought it up, he claimed she was talking out of her head. That was about the time he started having someone watch her constantly every minute, day and night. He said that if she was capable of making up such bizarre stories and of getting people to believe her, we’d have to be careful or they’d haul her away to Phoenix and lock her up in the state hospital.”

“Wait a minute,” Marianne said. “If your mother was telling the truth, if the body was really there the whole time, then maybe she wasn’t so crazy after all.”

“That’s right, maybe she wasn’t,” Ivy added grimly, with a ferocity that was chilling to hear.

“At least not at first, but she was later. And why not? Dad started locking her in her room at night. He stopped trusting her, and she went downhill fast. Before long, he wouldn’t even let her out of his sight. Or mine. She did go crazy then, and maybe it happened because he drove her to it. Damn him anyway! How could he do that to her? How could he?”

Ivy collapsed against Yuri’s shoulder, her whole body convulsed by a new paroxysm of broken hearted sobs.

Sitting there, Joanna sensed something odd. Before Ivy Patterson had learned about the second body, her reaction to her father’s death had been completely appropriate and understandable. But this new storm of tears was something else.

The woman weeping inconsolably on Yuri Malakov’s massive shoulder wasn’t simply Harold Patterson’s grieving daughter. She was instead the betrayed child of a betrayed mother, a child who now-perhaps for the first time - finally was forced into seeing her once-trusted father through new eyes. Joanna’s revelation had coerced Ivy into holding Harold responsible for any number of past sins, either real or imagined.

And Ivy’s betrayal, her profound distress, clearly stemmed from the fact that two bodies had been found in the glory hole up on Juniper Flats. Two bodies, not one.

But there’s far more to it than that, Joanna thought uneasily, as she waited for Ivy Patterson’s spate of wild tears to subside.

If Harold Patterson had betrayed his own wife and daughter, if he had somehow tricked them into believing he was something he wasn’t, then what had he done to the rest of the world? After all, a man capable of deceiving his family was more than smart enough to trick a mere insurance agent. Or a brand-new sheriff….

With SOME effort, Ivy pulled herself together and leveled her gaze on Marianne. “That settles it then,” she said. “I’ve changed my mind. I want to go through with it after all, just the way I talked about in the first place.”

“But, Ivy…” Marianne protested.

“No,” Ivy interrupted forcefully, “I’ve had it. I’m not going to change my mind again. I’ve spent my whole life looking out for everybody else. I’m not going to do that anymore.”

At that juncture, the front door slammed open, and Burton Kimball rushed uninvited into the room. “Is it true?” he demanded. “Did they find him? Is he dead?”

Beyond tears, Ivy’s eyes suddenly glimmered with cold fury. “He’s dead all right,” she said.

Burton Kimball closed his eyes and shook his head. “Ivy,” he said, “I’m so sorry. But these things happen. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

“It is not all right!” Ivy insisted. “It’ll never be all right. Don’t you understand? Dad lied to me.”

A stricken look washed across Burton Kimball’s face. “If it’s about the will, Ivy, there shouldn’t be any problem. He said he was going to change it, he may have wanted to change it, but I wouldn’t do it for him. Not the day he asked about it. And I doubt he found anyone else to do it on such short notice. You should still end up with the ranch. That’s the way we set it up originally. And even if Holly were to attempt to go against the will or try to continue the lawsuit against his estate, I don’t see how she’d win.”

“I’m not talking about Dad’s will,” Ivy cut in icily. “It’s worse than that. Way worse. Mother was right all along, Burtie. About the glory hole. They just found another body in it.”

Dismayed, Burton Kimball stopped short.

“What do you mean, another body?”

“Just what I said. Somebody else is dead and down in the glory hole with Dad,” she answered.

Stricken, Burton Kimball staggered toward a chair. “How can that be? It’s crazy.”

“That’s what Dad always told Mother, That it wasn’t possible for a body to be down there, that she was crazy for saying so, remember? Dad used us, Burtie,” she added bitterly. “He used us both, to spy on her and keep her in line, when the whole time she was telling the truth. It must have been true all along.”

With every word, Ivy’s voice had risen both in pitch and outrage. Yuri soothingly rubbed her upper arm. “Be still” he murmured. “Do not be so upset.”

Ivy burrowed under Yuri’s arm, not so much like a lost wild thing seeking the warmth of its nest, but more like an angry wounded bear retreating to her cave. As she rested against him, Burton shot Yuri Malakov a single scathing and questioning glance, but his full attention soon settled back on Ivy.

“who is this other body?” he asked. “Does any one know?”

“There’s no way to tell who it is until we can raise it out of the hole,” Joanna said. “From the looks of it, it’s not so much a body as it is a skeleton. It’s been down there a long time.”

“Do you hear that, Burtie?” Ivy demanded.

“Don’t you remember? Mother made us both promise never to go near that place. She even made me swear that, on the family Bible.”

Burton Kimball nodded. “Until after your father was dead,” he added. “I do remember that much. At the time, I thought it was just more of her ranting and raving. In fact, it was one of the things that helped convince me Uncle Harold was right, that Aunt Emily was really completely around the bend. She would go on and on about that glory hole for hours on end, insisting it would be the death of your father someday.”

“She was right,” Ivy Patterson said shortly. “Now it is.”

She took a deep breath. “I kept my promise to her,” Ivy added. “I stayed away right up until last night.”

Yuri pulled Ivy close in what seemed a warning for her to drop the subject, but Joanna had already caught the small discrepancy in their story.

“You went up there last night?” she asked, glancing meaningfully at Yuri Malakov, wanting him to understand that she knew he had lied to her earlier about the way he had found the body. “So the part about seeing the buzzards wasn’t true?”

“It’s true,” Ivy said. “I saw them late yesterday afternoon, just as the search party was giving up and shutting down for the night. I wanted to go see for myself. I went up and checked as soon as I could.”

“You’re saying you found him yesterday after noon then?”

Ivy nodded. “Just before sundown.”

“But you didn’t report it until this morning. Why not?”

“Because I didn’t feel like it. There was something I had to do first,” Ivy Patterson answered. “Something important.”

“What?”

Ivy’s hand sought the top of Yuri Malakov’s knee and rested there lightly. As she answered the question, though, her eyes were defiant and focused full on Joanna’s face.

“Yuri and I spent the night on an air mattress in the back of the Scout. It wasn’t very romantic, but it was okay.”

“You did what?” Burton exploded.

Ivy looked at him. “You heard me.”

“But why on earth would you pull a crazy stunt like that?”

“To prove I could,” she said defiantly. “Because I wanted to. And why not? Dad turned against me, and don’t try to tell me he didn’t. In my book, turnabout is fair play. I did it to get even. I did it to prove a point. I did it because it was the closest I could come to dancing on my father’s grave. Mother’s grave is next to his down at Evergreen Cemetery. I couldn’t do it there.”

Burton Kimball was clearly thunderstruck.

“You mean to tell me, you and this… this… jerk,” he finally spit out the word with a heartfelt glare in Yuri’s direction “spent the night together next to a glory hole with your father’s body in it, and you didn’t even bother to report it until this morning? What kind of craziness is that, Ivy? What in the world’s gotten into you?”

“You think it’s crazy, do you? Well, maybe it is. Maybe craziness runs in our family. I think I finally just got sick and tired of being the good girl, of doing my duty and getting shit on for it, of having other people tell me what to do.”

Burton Kimball held up both his hands as though trying to see through the blaze of Ivy’s anger to some kind of reasonableness. “Wait a minute here,” he said. “Let’s try to think straight for a change. This is a tough time for all of us, Ivy. I only came by because I heard from Marliss Shackleford up at the Bisbee that something was up. I came to see if there was anything at all Linda and I could do to help. “Do you want me to call Norm Higgins for you? I could start working on funeral arrangements, calling relatives, that sort of thing. What exactly do you need? I guess the first thing is to find out when the body will be released and go from there.” He looked at Joanna. “Any idea, Sheriff Brady?”

“That’s entirely up to Ernie Carpenter,” Joanna answered. “He’s the one handling the investigation. He’ll be the one making that call.”

“How soon can I check with him?”

“Maybe later this afternoon.”

Burton turned back to Ivy. “Would you like me to call Norm then and see if he can come out here for a consultation? Maybe later on this evening say, around eight o’clock.”

“No,” Ivy Patterson said decisively, answering her cousin but with her eyes focused on Marianne Macula’s face. “Not tonight. I’m busy tonight. Yuri and I are getting married. At seven o’clock.”

Kimball’s jaw dropped. “You’re doing what?”

“Getting married. In the Canyon Methodist parsonage, at seven o’clock.”

Burton looked at Marianne Macula. “Surely, this is some kind of joke,” he asked helplessly.

Marianne shook her head. “It’s no joke. I spent all morning trying to talk her out of it, but she changed her mind back to going ahead with it just a few minutes ago.”

“But with your father not even…”

“Don’t tell me one more word about my father,” Ivy Patterson warned. “I don’t want to hear any more. You already told me enough, the other day.”

“Ivy, I’ve already told you how sorry I am about that. I was drunk and way out of line. Shooting off my mouth like that was a terrible breach of ethics. I never should have mentioned a word about it.”

“But the point is, you did. I figured if Dad was going to give away half of what I’d worked for, then I wasn’t going to wait around any longer. Yuri and I started making plans right then. That very day. On such short notice, we haven’t found anyone to come look after the stock, so we’re going to spend the night in Tombstone. The motel will probably have a banner over the door-Welcome Old Maids of America. Besides, you don’t need me to talk to Norm Higgins. You can do it yourself, or Holly can.”

“But, Ivy,” Burton argued. “Getting married like this isn’t right. It’s not… seemly. Think what people will say.”

“I don’t give a damn what they say. They can say whatever they like.”

“But your father just died. People around here, especially those who knew Uncle Harold, aren’t going to like it. It shows a terrible lack of respect, of propriety.”

“You expect me to respect the man?” Ivy raged. “After everything he did? Forget it. I did respect him for forty years, and you can see how far that got me. When he decided to throw me to the wolves in favor of dividing this place up between Holly and me, he didn’t hesitate, not for a minute. Maybe he didn’t change his will, but only because he ran out of time. He didn’t give a damn about all the years I worked here. I poured my whole life into this place. If Holly’s portion and mine are exactly the same, then what I did for him and with him all those years didn’t mean a thing.”

“Ivy, you’re being too hard on the man.”

“Hard? No I’m not. Not only did he turn on me, he destroyed Mother, Burton. Maybe you don’t see it the same way I do. I was here every day taking care of her. He even made me help him do it to her, damnit. That’s something I’ll never forgive. Never.”

She paused long enough to take a ragged breath, and then a strange look passed over Ivy’s face, look of terrible comprehension. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“What now?” Burton asked wearily, as though he were too exasperated to care anymore.

“Don’t you see? That must be why he swore she was lying and why she insisted that we stay away from the glory hole.”

“What are you talking about, Ivy?”

“The other body. The skeleton. I know now who killed that other person.

“Who?” Joanna asked.

“My father, of course,” Ivy Patterson said matter-of-factly. “Don’t you see? Why else would he have covered it up all these years?”

Why else? Joanna thought with her own heart constricting in her breast. Why else indeed?

Ivy cut off all further discussion by getting up, taking Yuri’s hand to pull him off the couch, and leading him out the door. The other three people were left in the living room, trapped in their own stunned silence.

“I don’t understand what’s going on with that woman,” Burton grumbled as the front door closed behind Yuri and Ivy. “Who the hell is that guy? Where’s he from?”

“Yuri Malakov,” Marianne answered. “He’s from someplace in Russia, of course. Or from someplace in what used to be Russia. You mean you don’t know him?”

“I’ve never laid eyes on the man, and yet Ivy says they’re engaged? They’re getting married? What kind of craziness is this?”

“From the way Ivy brought it up to me this morning, she sounded as though it was all decided long ago. I would have thought for sure you’d know all about it.”

“Well I don’t. Not a word,” Burton said. He shook his head. “What did he say his name is? Malakov? What kind of name is that and what’s he doing in this country? How’d he get here? And how did he meet up with Ivy?”

“He’s an immigrant,” Marianne explained. “And a very nice man. It’s part of our national church mission to help newcomers to this country. Jeff and I actually helped him find sponsors. Hale and Natasha Robertson, from just up the road.”

“You and your husband helped bring him here?” Burton asked reproachfully.

Marianne nodded. “Jeff’s actually more involved with that part of our outreach program than I am. You’ve met Natasha Robertson, haven’t you?”

Burton nodded. “Years ago. I remember when Hale brought her home as a G.I. bride right after World War II. They moved into a place a few miles down the road.”

“Hale’s in a wheelchair now,” Marianne continued. “He was in a car accident years ago. He’s turned himself into an accountant, keeping books for various ranchers. For a long time, Natasha looked after their place all by herself, but she’s getting up in years now, too. It finally got to be more than she could handle. Jeff was the one who came up with the idea of putting them together with Yuri. And it’s a perfect match. Natasha speaks Russian and needed somebody to help her with chores. Yuri needed a job and a place to stay, and he didn’t speak much English. It seemed like a match made in heaven.”

“You still haven’t told me how he and Ivy got together,” Burton Kimball objected. “And just what kind of man is he? You can sit there and blithely tell me what a nice man he is, but for all you know he may be taking Ivy for all she’s worth.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Marianne assured him, “Yuri Malakov is totally on the up-and-up. Ivy started out tutoring him in English. The two of them just hit it off. Right from the start. Actually,” she added, “I like seeing them together. I think it’s sweet.”

“I hope you’re happy then,” Burton said sarcastically. “I suppose holding the wedding tonight was your idea?”

“Absolutely not. Having the wedding now is a terrible idea. I already told you I tried my best to talk Ivy out of it, but, as you can see, her mind’s made up.”

“And what was that I saw peeking out from under Lothario’s shirt?”

“His shirt?” Marianne asked. “What are you talking about?”

“The top button of his shirt was open. I saw something that looked a whole lot like a tattoo.”

Marianne looked puzzled. “I wouldn’t have any idea about that.”

“I would,” Joanna said. “It was a tattoo. Why?”

“Joanna,” Marianne said, “how did you…?”

“I’ve read about Russians with tattoos,” Burton Kimball went on. “In The Wall Street Journal.”

“What about them?” Joanna asked.

“It was in an article about Russian prisons. It talked about how Russian prisoners cover them selves with tattoos as a way of showing defiance of authority. Any kind of authority. It’s a variation on a theme of The Red Badge of Courage.”

With rising excitement, Burton Kimball sat up straighter and continued. “What if this man is an ex-con? Or maybe he’s an escaped criminal or a member of the Russian mafia. I’ve read about them, too. They’re all over here in the States these days. They’re into everything from drugs, to money laundering, to arms smuggling. What if Ivy’s being dragged into something like that?”

Kimball got up and started toward the door.

“Wait a minute, Burton,” Marianne said. “You’re being ridiculous, jumping to all kinds of crazy conclusions.”

Burton paused at the door. “Maybe I am,” he said. “But you don’t know Ivy the way I do. She’s totally naive. He probably… Wait a minute. Maybe that’s what happened.”

“What?” Joanna asked.

“Maybe Yuri was here when I called to tell Ivy about what was going on with Harold. Maybe she told him what was going on, and he decided to do something about it.”

“What exactly did you tell Ivy?”

Burton shrugged. “That Uncle Harold had decided to settle Holly’s lawsuit out of court. He told me that morning that he was going to give Holly everything she wanted. I was worried Ivy would be left out in the cold, with very little to show for all her hard work and with no one to take care of her. It makes perfect sense now. That gold-digging bastard was worried about the same thing, so he killed Uncle Harold before he had a chance to change the provisions of his will.”

“No way,” Marianne objected. “I’m sure you’ve got it all wrong. These are two fine, upstanding, honorable people.”

But Burton Kimball was on a roll. “Oh, yeah?” he snarled back at her. “What do you know about him, really? About where he comes from, about what kind of background he has? If you ask me, he’s nothing but a glorified wetback. Everybody knows getting married is a surefire way of turning a green card into U.S. citizenship. With what she was due to receive from Uncle Harold, Ivy must have looked like a sure thing.”

By then, Marianne Macula was as outraged as Burton was. “I’m telling you you’re wrong about Yuri, Mr. Kimball,” she insisted. “I will personally vouch for him. He’s a fine man who will make Ivy Patterson very happy.”

“Like hell he will!” Harold returned. “You god damned preachers are all alike. Little Miss Goody Two-shoes. You ought to come down off your high horse and your pulpit and grub around in the real world for a while. Come on up to the courthouse someday and just hang around, Reverend Macula. Maybe you can afford the luxury of taking everyone at face value, but the rest of the world can’t. I can’t. And I’m going to do my best to talk Ivy out of marrying him until we can find out more about him.”

With that, Burton Kimball stormed out of the house. Left alone in someone else’s living room, Joanna Brady and Marianne Macula stared at one another in subdued silence.

“I guess I’d better go,” Marianne said. “If Jeff and I are having a wedding at the parsonage tonight, he may need help getting the place ready. It’s a good thing I vacuumed before you conked me on the head.”

Joanna ignored Marianne’s small attempt at humor, “Doesn’t it seem odd to you?” Joanna asked.

“For Ivy to be getting married like that, in such a rush?”

Marianne stopped to consider the question. “Actually, the older I get, more and more strange stuff is starting to seem normal.”

“Is that because the world is getting weird, or because we are?”

“Maybe both,” Marianne replied. “Most likely both.”

They stepped outside onto the porch in time to witness the end of a fierce shouting match between Burton Kimball and Ivy Patterson.

Finally, Burton slammed himself into his Jeep Cherokee and raced out of the yard, sending Ivy Patterson’s normally placid flock of chickens and peacocks scattering in all directions.

“It looks to me,” Marianne observed, “that the voice of sweet reason didn’t prevail, and the Wedding March marches on.”

Joanna shook her head. “Maybe the whole gang has flipped out. Actually, speaking of that, do you know if anyone’s called Holly to tell her what’s happened? She’s also Harold’s daughter, you know. She has as much right to be notified as any one else.”

“I don’t remember anyone mentioning it to me,” Marianne returned.

Joanna shook her head. “Then maybe I’d better take a crack at that one, too. Better me than Marliss Shackleford.”

“By all means,” Marianne agreed, “but you’d best get a move on. If I know Marliss, she won’t miss a trick. In fact, she may already be there by now.”

As Joanna drove toward Cosa Viejo, she was once more conscious of her hopelessly ill-fitting clothing. What worked for a crime scene wasn’t appropriate for paying an official call. Her mother would have had a fit to think her daughter would show up at a place like Cosa Viejo dressed as she was.

of all the houses in town, the venerable old mansion at the top of Vista Park was by far the most ostentatious. Two stories tall and massively built, the place was constructed out of thick brown stucco and accented by decorative strips of hand carved wood moldings. The yard was surrounded by a low-slung stucco wall backed up by an interior barrier of fifteen-foot-high oleanders, giving the place an impenetrable, secretive look.

Definitely out of my league, Joanna thought, driving up to the gate in her Eagle.

It hadn’t always been that way. For instance, during the time Cosa Viejo was carved up into apartments, Joanna’s favorite high school phys-ed teacher had lived there. In fact, her sophomore year, she had even attended a tennis-club barbecue that had been held on the wide veranda overlooking Vista Park.

But that was long before Cosa Viejo had been made over once again. According to Eleanor Lathrop, very few locals, even upscale neighbors from the immediate area, had been invited inside the refurbished place since its purchase by either the former owners-purported drug dealers - or this new one, who was supposedly someone important out in Hollywood. That stray thought caused Joanna to smile. By her mother’s lights, everyone in Hollywood - no matter how obscure - was important.

Joanna pushed the bell fastened on the gatepost.

“Who is it?” a disembodied voice asked.

“Joanna Brady,” she answered. “Sheriff Joanna Brady to see Holly Patterson.”

For an answer, the wrought-iron gate swung smoothly open, and Joanna drove in. Toward the back of the building was a garage where two open doors revealed both the fender-damaged red Cadillac and a stretch limo. The thought crossed Joanna’s mind that at least one Patterson girl seemed to have done all right for herself. A red Cadillac was a long way from Ivy’s battered Chevy truck. Several parking places had been marked on the pavement on the west side of the building. Joanna pulled into one of them. Before she had time to consider what entrance to use, a door on the side of the house opened, and an older Hispanic woman stepped out onto a small utility porch and began vigorously shaking a dust mop. Joanna walked several steps toward her before recognizing Isabel Gonzales, the grandmother of one of Jenny’s classmates.

“Why, hello, Mrs. Gonzales,” Joanna said, “I had heard you were working here.”

The woman smiled and nodded. “Me and my husband both. He retired from P.D. up in Morenci. We came home to Bisbee, but he was driving me crazy at home all day. Now we’re both working again, and it’s better.”

“You’re lucky to have him around to drive you crazy,” Joanna said, hoping the twinge of envy she felt didn’t come across as bitterness.

“I know,” Isabel said, nodding and leaning on her dust-free mop. “That’s what I keep telling my self. Miss Baxter is out front.”

Joanna hurried the way she’d been directed. The sunny front patio, warm and sheltered from the wind, was far different from the way she remembered it. For one thing, it seemed smaller, but better, too. The once-bare edges of the terrace were lined with huge pots filled with exotic and unidentifiable growing things, plants Joanna had never seen before and whose origins she could only guess. The rough-hewn picnic tables and home grown barbecue were gone, replaced by patio furniture that looked too expensive to leave out in the weather.

A woman with a short-cropped pageboy under a large straw hat sat at the table reading a book.

“Miss Baxter?” Joanna asked.

The woman looked up without closing her book.

“That’s right. Amy Baxter,” she said curtly. “I must inform you, Sheriff Brady, that Holly’s attorney has been called out of town again this morning. Since he won’t be able to be in attendance, I’m afraid you won’t be able to see Holly. It simply wouldn’t be responsible of me to let you talk to her under those circumstances.”

“May I sit down?” Joanna asked, letting her hand fall on the back of one of the chairs.

“Certainly. Excuse me. I didn’t mean to seem rude. Can I get you something? Coffee, tea?”

“I’m fine, thank you. What circumstances do you mean, Miss Baxter? What exactly did you think I wanted to see Holly Patterson about?”

“The other night, naturally. I read the article in the paper, so I’m well aware of the part you played in averting a terrible tragedy, but still, with the possibility of litigation…”

“I’m not here about the other night,” Joanna interrupted. “I came to talk to Holly about her father. Harold Lamm Patterson has been found.”

Amy Baxter breathed a sigh of relief. “Really? You can’t imagine how happy I am to hear that. Holly’s been in a state of perpetual crisis ever since he turned up missing.”

“I’m afraid it’s not good news,” Joanna hastened to add. “He’s dead. I’m here to give her the benefit of an official next-of-kin notification.”

Amy Baxter’s face fell. “Oh, my God. That’s terrible. She’ll be devastated. She’s held herself some how responsible for his disappearance; now I’m afraid… What happened? Was it an accident? A heart attack? What?”

“If I could just speak to Holly, please.”

“of course. I’ll go get her right away.” Amy Baxter started toward the house. “Actually, if you don’t mind, it might be better if we went up to her room. She’s somewhat unstable at the moment, and I’m afraid…”

“I don’t mind,” Joanna said.

Amy Baxter stood up. “This way,” she said.

The interior of the house was magnificent. Outside of pictures in home-decorating magazine articles, Joanna had never seen a more beautiful home. polished hardwood floors, covered here and there by deeply luxurious Oriental rugs. The supple leather furniture blended subtly with the Mission-style interior details into a combination that was both elegant and comfortably inviting.

Discreet track lighting on the twelve-foot ceilings accented huge oil canvasses of boldly painted flowers, many of which resembled the plants growing in the pots outside on the patio.

“Pauli’s really very good, isn’t he?” Amy Baxter said, as Joanna admired a particularly vivid piece at the top of the winding staircase.

“Pauli?” Joanna repeated stupidly, thinking that must be the name of some artist or school of artists well known enough that she should have recognized the name on hearing it.

Amy laughed. “Paul Enders, the painter. He’s a costumer really; he only paints for a hobby. We all call him Pauli. This is his house,” she continued. “He’s letting us stay here until this situation gets straightened out. As you’ll soon see, the privacy we’ve enjoyed here has been a real blessing.”

At the top of the stairs, Amy Baxter turned to the right and led the way down a long corridor to the back of the house.

“There are better rooms, and Holly could have had any one of them,” Amy said apologetically “but for some strange reason, this is the one she wanted.” Amy stopped in front of a closed door and knocked. “Holly,” she called. “Are you in there? May we come in?”

Joanna heard no answering response, but Amy went ahead and tentatively twisted the old-brass knob on the door. The knob turned in her hand, and the door shifted open without protest.

The interior of the room was dark and stiflingly hot compared to the rest of the house, with the look and smell of a sickroom. In the far corner, near tall, drapery-shrouded windows, sat a high backed rocking chair, creaking slowly back and forth.

“Holly,” Amy said tentatively. “There’s someone here to see you.

“Tell them to go away,” Holly muttered ‘I don’t want to see anybody. Leave me alone.”

“It’s Sheriff Brady,” Amy explained. “She came to talk to you about your father.”

The rocking ceased abruptly. Suddenly, Holly lurched to her feet. Out of a stark, pale face, two deeply troubled eyes stared at Joanna. “Where is he?” Holly demanded. “Tell me where he is. I have to see him. He was supposed to make arrangements for a settlement. He promised. But then he disappeared. No one knows where he is.”

“I’m afraid your father won’t be able to carry through on any promises,” Joanna said quietly. “He’s dead. He died sometime between Tuesday night and now. They’ll be able to fix the time better once they do the autopsy.”

“My father dead?” Holly Patterson repeated slowly, sinking back into the chair as though her legs no longer had the capability of supporting her. “He’s dead?”

“Yes, you see…”

Holly Patterson doubled over, as with a sudden attack of appendicitis, clutching her abdomen and sobbing. “Nooooooo. He can’t be dead. I won’t let him. I never wanted him dead. Never!”

Amy Baxter moved forward quickly and knelt beside the chair.

“It’s okay, Holly. Hush now. Everyone knows it’s not your fault.”

“Oh, but it is,” Holly groaned. “Don’t you understand? It is my fault. All of it. I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him to tell me to my face that he was sorry for what he did to me. That’s all. I never should have come back to this terrible place. Never!”

“Please, Holly,” Amy begged, “don’t take it all on yourself. You didn’t do it.”

“How did he die?” Holly was asking, her mouth still muffled by her hand. “Please don’t tell me he committed suicide. I can stand anything but that.”

Joanna could see no sense in pulling punches. Better to let all the bad news out at once and give her a chance to start assimilating it while she had someone like Amy Baxter there to help as needed.

“We’re investigating his death as a possible homicide,” Joanna answered carefully. “I wanted you to hear that from someone in an official capacity.”

“You mean he didn’t kill himself then?” Holly asked, suddenly sitting up straight and pulling her hand away from her face. “You mean someone else did it?”

“That’s the way it looks….

Holly Patterson let out a long sigh. “Thank God. I couldn’t have stood it if he had done it himself. It would have driven me crazy, but if somebody else did it…”

“Good girl,” Amy said, rubbing the back of Holly’s neck as if to remove some of the tension. “Let it go. Don’t hold on to it.”

Holly Patterson closed her eyes and leaned back into the neck rub. “I should go see Mother about this,” she whispered softly. “Mother will know what to do.”

Amy caught Joanna’s eye, shook her head, and held the fingers of one hand to her lips while she continued massaging Holly’s neck with the other. “You can’t go see your mother, Holly. I’ve already explained that to you. Your mother is dead, remember? She died five years ago. We’ve been over to the cemetery and seen her grave.”

“But I saw her. The other day in town, remember?”

“That was your sister, Ivy. She looks just like your mother used to look when you last remembered her.”

“That can’t be my sister. Ivy’s a little girl. She’s a baby.”

“Of course she is,” Amy said soothingly. “A little baby. Why don’t you rest awhile now, Holly? When you wake up later, maybe we can make better sense of this.”

Holly nodded but said nothing. There was a minute or so of silence. By the end of it, Holly was sound asleep.

Amy turned to Joanna. “I could call Mrs. Gonzoles, but if you don’t mind, would you help me get her back into the bed? She hasn’t been eating right, and she’s barely been sleeping at all during the night. After something like this during the day, though, she’ll nap for hours.”

Holding Holly Patterson between them, Amy and Joanna wrestled the dozing woman from the chair to the bed, then Joanna followed Amy down both the hall and stairs.

“What’s wrong with her?” Joanna asked.

“What isn’t wrong with her is probably a better question,” Amy Baxter said. “It’s just what I was afraid of. Being here has been way too hard on her. You’re looking at a textbook case. Start with a dash of incest, add in a mostly dysfunctional family, stir in some recreational drug use and a fistful of self-loathing, and you end up with a very troubled woman.”

“Ernie Carpenter is the homicide detective on her father’s case. He may need to talk to her. Do you think she’ll be able to handle answering questions?”

Amy shrugged. “That’s anybody’s guess. He’s more than welcome to try, but I don’t know how much good it will do. Sometimes she’s better than others. Have him call first to see what kind of shape she’s in.”

“She acts like she’s on drugs,” Joanna observed thoughtfully.

Amy Baxter answered with a nod. “Not recently, though. She still suffers from flashbacks, occasional echoes of LSD from her misspent youth.” Amy Baxter and Joanna were standing at the bottom of the stairway with Amy Baxter’s hand still on the polished mahogany banister.

“Thanks for all the help,” she said.

“It was no trouble,” Joanna returned.

“I hope you won’t think me too ungrateful, but I hope you never find out who did it. I’m glad that asshole father of hers is dead, and I’m hoping that whoever killed him gets away scot-free, because, whatever Harold Patterson got, that dirty old man deserved it!”

“What exactly did he do to her?” Joanna asked reflexively.

Amy Baxter had no business answering, but she did. “He raped her,” she answered, her words as brittle as shards of ice. “He raped his own daughter from the time she was two years old. So what ever happened to Harold Patterson is fine with me. He may be dead and out of the picture now, but you saw Holly upstairs. She’s an emotional cripple, and she’ll live with the damage he did to her for the rest of her life.”

Leaving the sheriff to find her own way out, Amy turned and hurried back up the stairs. As Joanna drove out through Cosa Viejo’s swinging iron gates, she was thinking about what Amy had said concerning Holly’s past drug use.

Was Holly Patterson really having drug-related flashbacks, or were her mental problems some thing else entirely, something more closely related to what had gone haywire with her mother years ago? Had Emily Patterson’s mental instability passed genetically from mother to daughter?

Actually, from what Joanna personally had seen and heard during the course of the last few days, all the Patterson women seemed to be several levels out of plumb.

It was only after she had started down Cole Avenue toward the Warren Cutoff that Joanna remembered what she had forgotten to mention.

Holly Patterson had been so upset by the news about her father that Joanna had failed to bring up the existence of that other victim.

What exactly was the connection between those two bodies? Joanna wondered. Surely, more than sheer coincidence had caused both corpses to turn up in the same glory hole. But in order to discover the connection between them, it was necessary to understand the relationship between all the other pieces on the board.

Joanna could have just left it alone. After all, it was Ernie Carpenter’s case. She could either go sit in her corner office and begin trying to understand next year’s budget, or she could try sticking her nose in where it didn’t necessarily belong.

At the intersection of Cole Avenue and Arizona Street, it was decision time. If she drove down the Warren Cutoff, when she reached Highway 80, she could either go home or head back to the office Or she could go straight up Cole Avenue and keep right on not minding her own business.

After only a moment’s hesitation, she switched off her left-turn blinker and headed for Eleanor Lathrop’s favorite haven, Helene’s Salon of Hair and Beauty.

When Joanna entered the beauty shop, Helen Barco stood stolidly behind the shop’s single chair twisting pink plastic permanent-wave curlers into a client’s hair while the woman handed her individual pieces of tissue-paper wrappers.

Both women glanced up in surprise as Joanna made her entrance.

My land, girl!” Helen exclaimed. “Whatever did you do to your face?”

In her hurry to dress that morning, Joanna had barely glanced in her own mirror. Now, seeing her battered reflection in Helen Barco’s brightly lit vanity, she was startled to see how readily apparent the damage was. Put simply, Sheriff Joanna Brady looked like hell.

“It’s nothing much,” she said with a shrug. “Just a black eye.”

“You call that nothing much?” Helen rolled her eyes. “People straight out of the emergency room look better than that. I know you don’t have an appointment, but if you can wait around a few minutes, maybe I could squeeze you in between Mrs. Owens here and my next lady. We should certainly do something about that eye of yours. What would your mother say?”

“Thanks anyway, Helen,” Joanna answered, biting back a comment that was sure to go straight to her mother. “I really don’t have time today. I came by to ask a favor.”

“What kind of favor? I’ve already donated a permanent and manicure to the senior citizen’s auction, if that’s what you’re here asking about.”

“No. It’s nothing like that. You do get People magazine here, don’t you?”

Helen nodded. “People, Good Housekeeping, and Ladies’ Home Journal. I tried that New Woman for a few months, but my ladies didn’t like it very much. They’re mostly older, you know, and don’t take to some of these newfangled ideas.”

“Do you keep any of the back issues?”

“Some. Why?”

“Do you still happen to have the one with the article about Holly Patterson in it?”

“Absolutely!” Helen answered. “I wouldn’t let that one out of my sight. It’s not every day that Bisbee gets that kind of coverage, thank the good Lord. Naturally, all the dealers in town sold out every last one of their copies. I was really lucky I had my subscription.”

“Could I maybe borrow it from you?” Joanna asked. “I never had a chance to read it, and now I think I ought to.”

“Sure,” Helen said. “As long as you promise to bring it right back. But how come you need to read it now? That was weeks ago. What’s going on?”

Joanna knew from things her mother had told her over the years that Helen’s was a place where beauty often took a backseat to small-town gossip. It wouldn’t hurt Helen to have a real scoop for a change. It was possible that the useful flow of information might travel in more than one direction. Besides, the next-of-kin notifications had already been completed.

“We found Harold Patterson,” Joanna said. “He’s dead.”

“No. Heart attack? Stroke?”

“We’re not releasing any information on cause of death at the moment,” Joanna replied in what she knew Helen would consider a deliciously tantalizing nonanswer.

Helen’s eyes widened. “Really? Why, forever more! Who would have thought it! The strain musta been too much for the old duffer’s ticker for him to just up and keel over like that. You wait right here, Joanna. I’ll go get you that magazine.”

Because flat lots are at a premium in Bisbee, Helen Barco’s house was built on a hill. The shop, built in what was formerly the garage, was in the basement, while the living quarters were upstairs.

Huffing and out of breath from climbing stairs, Helen returned to the shop a few moments later and handed Joanna the dog-eared issue of the magazine. Written across the front cover in red Magic Marker were the words DO NOT REMOVE.

“You’re sure you don’t mind if I take this?” Joanna asked.

“Like I told you before, Joanna, honey,” Helen said. “You can take it wherever you like, just so long as you bring it back. I mean, after all, you’re the sheriff, aren’t you? If you can’t trust the sheriff…” Helen broke off in sudden confusion, thinking no doubt, of Walter V. McFadden who hadn’t been nearly as trustworthy as he appeared. “Well, anyway,” she continued. “I’d sure like to have it back when you finish with it. That issue could end up being a collector’s item someday. You’re positive you won’t let me do something about that face of yours?”

“No,” Joanna said, heading for the door. “Not today. I’m in too much of a rush.”

It was well after one by then, and Joanna’s growling stomach was complaining too much to be ignored. She resisted the temptation to go straight back to the department. After all, even the sheriff deserved a lunch break. With as much haste as the posted limits allowed, she hurried out to the High Lonesome, stripped out of her clothing, grabbed one of the world’s shortest showers, and gulped down a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

Still eating the last half of the sandwich, she headed for the Cochise County Justice Center dressed in some of her old insurance agency work clothes.

This business of what to wear and what not to wear was fast becoming a pain in the neck.

Once at the Sheriff’s Department, she noticed that several news vehicles were parked in front of the building. Driving around back, she pulled into the reserved parking spot marked SHERIFF. It was empty and waiting for her Eagle.

It would have been nice to use her own private entryway, but no one had as yet given her the push-button code. Instead, she had to buzz before she could be allowed in through the common entryway marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. She walked into the reception area of the back suite of offices just in time to catch Dick Voland railing at the unfortunate Kristin.

“Don’t ask me what to do with all those reporters out in the lobby. It’s not my problem anymore. Ask Sheriff Brady.”

“Ask me what?”

Voland turned the focus of his irritation on her.

“We’ve got a swarm of killer-bee media out there in the lobby, all of ‘em wanting to know what the hell’s going on. Somebody should have called a press conference.”

“What a good idea,” Joanna said amiably. “Why don’t you go ahead and do it?”

“Me?” Dick Voland objected. “Why me?”

“Why not you? Didn’t you handle media relations back when Walter McFadden was in charge?”

“Yes, but…”

“And you can do it again,” Joanna interjected. “With a major story like this, we’re a lot better off having someone experienced controlling that aspect of things. Kristin, call out front. Have them tell the reporters there’ll be a press conference in fifteen minutes. By the way, where’s Ernie? Is he back yet?”

“He’s in his office,” Kristin put in. “He said he wasn’t to be disturbed. I think he’s working on his paper.”

“Tell Ernie to come to my office anyway. It won’t take long, but I want to see him before Chief Deputy Voland’s press conference. I want you there as well, Dick. Before you talk to those reporters, the three of us need to put our heads together.” Without waiting for either a reply or an argument, Joanna headed for the private corner office, the one she knew belonged to the sheriff. She more than half expected to find it still occupied by Dick Voland’s messy paraphernalia, but she was wrong. Overnight the piles of stacked papers and accumulated junk had entirely disappeared. Even the collection of Al Freeman yard signs was gone. The wooden surfaces of the desk, credenza, and coffee table were all polished to a high gloss. The over flowing, freestanding ashtray had been replaced by a heavy, velvet-bottomed marble one that sat in clean and solitary splendor on the upper right hand corner of the desk.

Joanna paused in the doorway and then turned back to the receptionist’s desk where both Dick Voland and Kristin Marsten still stood motionless as if frozen in place.

“And, Kristin,” Joanna added, “after you give Ernie my message, I need a supply of yellow pads, pens, and pencils in here.”

Joanna waited long enough to see whether or not the young woman would move. With a defiant scowl and an extra toss of her big hair, Kristin turned and bent over to use her telephone. “Detective Carpenter,” Joanna heard her say a moment later. “The sheriff wants to see you in her office. Right away.”

Leaving the door open behind her, Joanna walked over to the desk and sat down in the massive leather chair behind it. The outsized chair was far too big for her. The tall back made her feel dwarfed and inconsequential. The office had the expectant, empty feel of a vacant apartment, but now was no time for Joanna to bring in her meager box of possessions or to think about putting her own personal stamp on the place. That would have to wait.

Moments later, the miniskirted Kristin flounced into Joanna’s office and unceremoniously dumped a stack of legal pads and three pens on the desk.

“We’re out of pencils,” she mumbled through a mouthful of gum.

“Who’s in charge of ordering supplies?” Joanna asked.

“I am.”

“Well, order some then. I want pencils.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. I want you to have whoever is in charge of Motor Pool to make arrangements for me to have a vehicle, one with a radio.”

“What else?”

Joanna studied the young receptionist. Twenty two or twenty-three at the most, Kristin Marsten bristled with ill-disguised hostility. Up to a point, Joanna understood that. It was a necessary part of the way politics worked. When someone new won an election and took over the helm of an elected office there was always a period of adjustment with the staff, a time when, although loyalties were shifting, the work still had to be done.

“Have you ever worked for a woman before?” Joanna asked.

Startled, Kristin lowered her eyes and shifted on her feet. “Not really. Why?”

“I was just wondering,” Joanna said. “You enjoyed working for Mr. Voland, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Kristin said. “Very much.”

“Let me ask you a question. When he was in this office, did you ever bring him coffee?”

“Yes. Sometimes. He likes his black.”

“And Ernie Carpenter?”

“He takes his black, too.”

“I see,” Joanna said, leaning back in the chair.

“That makes three of us. All black. We’ll just continue the tradition then, if you don’t mind. And since the three of us have already had a very long morning, why don’t you bring in three cups of black coffee as soon as Ernie and Dick get here.”

Kristin started toward the door. “Is that all?”

“One more question. Why exactly did you come to work here?”

Kristin shrugged. “It was a job, I guess. But I kinda thought it would be interesting, being in law enforcement.”

“And is it?”

“Have you ever thought about doing anything more around here rather than just working as a receptionist? Have you thought about maybe being a deputy or doing something in Dispatch? Something responsible that would give you a chance at better pay?”

Kristin shook her mane of hair. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, being a dispatcher is really serious stuff. Nobody ever takes me seriously. I’m not really an airhead, but you know all those blonde jokes, and I…”

“It’s difficult for men to take you seriously when they’re spending all their time trying to look down your blouse or up your skirt,” Joanna returned. “By the way, that’s a very nice set of underwear you have on today. I particularly like that shade of turquoise, especially for a bra and matching panties. I’m sure the guys around here like them, too. I’ve noticed several of them looking. It’s possible, though, if you want the men to take you seriously, that a longer skirt would help.”

Shocked, Kristin opened her mouth, but no words came out. Blushing furiously, she spun around and nearly ran over Dick Voland in her rush to escape Joanna’s office and her steady, appraising gaze.

“What’s the matter with Kristin?” Dick asked, as he shambled in and sank down into one of the side chairs.

“I believe it’s called culture shock,” Joanna replied. “Where’s Ernie?”

“He’ll be here in a minute.”

“Thanks for having the office ready for me to move into, Dick,” Joanna said. “That was thoughtful of you. I don’t know when you had time.”

The chief deputy shrugged grudgingly. “No big thing,” he said. Although Joanna knew it was.

Ernie appeared moments later. The man may have spent the entire morning grubbing around at a crime scene in a pair of much-used sweats and tennies, but by the time he appeared in Joanna’s office, he was wearing a well-pressed suit, a tie, and a stiffly starched white shirt, to say nothing of highly polished wing tips. Looking at him, Joanna was glad she’d taken the time to go home and clean up.

“What’s going on?” he asked irritably. “I’m busy as hell.”

“I’m sure you are, but we’ve got a press conference coming up in a few minutes,” Joanna told him.

“Since when?”

“Since I called it. This is a big case, and we’re going to handle it in a way that won’t have the press tearing us apart. Dick will be running the show, but I want a united front on what he says and what he doesn’t.”

Kristin walked in right then, bringing the three cups of coffee. Wordlessly, she delivered Joanna’s cup to the desk. When she turned back to the two men, she paused for a moment in front of the coffee table, struggling to find a way to deposit the cups on the low surface of the table without having to bend over to do it. She finally solved the problem by passing the cups directly to their hands.

“So where do we stand?” Joanna asked, once Kristin left the room.

“Two stiffs for the price of one,” Ernie Carpenter replied. “I’ve got Harold Patterson’s body pulled up to the surface. The coroner has taken charge of him, and we’ve packed out most of the skeleton in a body bag. The sump pump is doing the job, but it’s still too wet down there to finish searching the bottom of the glory hole.”

“Any possible I.D. on the skeleton?”

“None.”

“Cause of death?”

“Looks like a rock to the head to me, but that’s Just a wild guess.”

“Do you have any leads on either case?”

“Not really. But how could I? For Pete’s sake, I’ve been down in that damn hole mucking around in the mud all morning long.”

Joanna turned from Ernie Carpenter to the chief deputy. “All right then, Dick. That’s what you tell the press.”

“What?”

“Two separate homicides. One positive I.D one John Doe. No specific leads in either case at this time.”

“That’s all? You call a press conference and just give ‘em that little snippet of information? They’ll tear me apart.”

“Some information is better than no information,” Joanna countered. “They’ll have to make do. Tell them when we know more, they’ll know more.”

Shaking his head, a disgruntled Dick Voland took his coffee and headed out of the office. Ernie Carpenter made as if to follow, but Joanna stopped him. “Wait a minute, Ernie.”

Ernie sighed and reluctantly sat back down. “What now?”

“I picked up a few tidbits of information out at the Rocking P this morning,” she told him.

“Tidbits?” he asked with a disinterested shrug. “Like what?”

Joanna got up from behind her desk, walked over to the door and closed it. “Like who might have killed Harold Patterson,” she answered firmly. “And why.”

CARPENTER stayed in Joanna’s office for more than an hour. Once she started relating all she had learned out at the Patterson place and during her stop at Cosa Viejo, Ernie appropriated one of Joanna’s legal pads and pens and began scribbling notes.

When she finished telling him everything she could remember, Ernie studied his notes in silence for several moments. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, chewing one end of the pen, “what you’ve told me tallies with some of the things I picked up.”

“For instance?”

“For instance,” he replied, “near as I can tell, there were several sets of tire tracks in and out of that place for days. The only trouble is, they’re all from the same vehicle.”

“Which one?”

“Harold Patterson’s Scout.”

“That stands to reason.”

“But only up to a point,” Ernie said. “He could have driven it in one last time, but he sure as hell didn’t drive it out. According to the coroner’s preliminary look-see, he guesstimates time of death as sometime Tuesday or Wednesday, but Burton Kimball says he came to the Election Night party looking for his uncle because he saw his car in the convention-center parking lot.”

“So the question is, how did it get from the glory hole to the parking lot?”

“No way to tell, but presumably the killer drove it there.”

Ernie shook his head thoughtfully. “The part about all this that doesn’t add up is Ivy and her boyfriend spending the night in the Scout with Harold lying there dead a matter of a few feet away. That one just flat-out takes the cake!”

“It’s sick, all right,” Joanna agreed.

“And they’re getting married tonight?”

Joanna nodded. “That’s what they said. Seven o’clock at the Canyon Methodist parsonage. Marianne Macula is officiating.”

“I call that really rushing it,” Ernie said, frowning. “I mean, the old guy’s not even cold yet, and his daughter’s out banging her boyfriend in Daddy’s car. Next thing you know, she’s getting married. Couldn’t she hold off the celebration at least until after the funeral? And you say Burton Kimball didn’t know anything at all about the wedding until today?”

“That’s how it sounded-as though he’d never even heard of Yuri Malakov,” Joanna told him.

“So the Russian and Ivy were already engaged, but maybe no one in the family knew anything about it, including the old man.”

“Why keep your engagement a secret?” Joanna asked.

“Because you figure someone’s going to object,” Ernie answered. “So the next question has to be why there’d be an objection in the first place.”

Joanna nodded thoughtfully. “According to Marianne, Yuri is applying for U.S. citizenship. Wouldn’t Immigration have an application with fingerprints on it?”

“And with any criminal record as well,” Ernie said.

“Can we get a copy?”

Ernie laughed. “Supposedly, but nobody rushes those guys down at INS. I’ve gone to them for records before. Just getting an answer to a simple question could take months, even with the MJ boys working on it.”

The Multi-Jurisdictional Force was a recently created task force designed to counter criminal activity along the Mexican border, including unlawful enterprises that often crossed jurisdictional boundaries. One MJ squad was based out of the Cochise County Justice Center. Joanna knew about it, but only distantly. It was one of those aspects of her new job that she had expected to have time to research between Election Night and being sworn in sometime in January.

“Maybe you can get someone from there to pull a string or two,” she suggested.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Ernie said sourly, getting up. “But I’ll give it a whirl.”

He was already at the door when Joanna remembered the magazine.

“You don’t read People by any chance, do you?”

Ernie shook his head. “Not me. I’m more into Smithsonian and Home Mechanix,” he smiled. “Last month they had a great article on building decks. Why do you ask?”

Joanna leaned down, reached into her purse, and was about to haul out Helen Barco’s dog —eared magazine when she thought better of it.

“Never mind,” she said. “There’s an article in one of them I thought you should read, but you already have enough to do. I’ll try to scan it some time tonight. If it looks as though it has any bearing on the case, I’ll get it to you first thing in the morning.”

“Good,” Ernie said, heading out the door “What I don’t need is one more thing that has to be done tonight.”

The intercom on Joanna’s desk buzzed loudly. Without having been given proper operating instructions, Joanna wasn’t able to figure out how to make it work. Giving up, she finally walked over to the door and threw it open.

“Yes?”

“There’s someone out here waiting to see you.”

“Who?”

Before Kristin could answer, a young woman rose from one of the chairs across the room and hurried forward, hand extended. Short, stocky, well dressed, and very businesslike, she seemed vaguely familiar, although Joanna couldn’t quite place her.

“Sue Rolles,” the woman said with a winning smile. “I’m a reporter for the Arizona Daily Sun.”

“A reporter. I’m afraid you need to talk to Chief Deputy Voland. He’s the one handling the press on today’s glory-hole cases.”

“This isn’t about those,” Sue Rolles said. “It’s something else entirely.”

Joanna led the way back into her office and motioned the visitor into a chair. “Have we met be fore?” Joanna asked. “You look familiar.”

“We didn’t exactly meet,” Sue Rolles replied. “We ran into one another back in September in the lobby at University Hospital in Tucson. But we were never properly introduced. Since then, I’ve spent a good deal of time here in Cochise County working on a special assignment.”

“What kind of assignment?”

“The sheriff’s race.”

Joanna Brady had been in office for only one day but she had been around law enforcement long enough to suspect ambush journalism.

“That’s funny,” she said. “I don’t remember your ever asking for an interview with me.”

“It’s not that kind of article,” Sue Rolles said quickly.

“I see. Exactly what kind is it then?”

Sue Rolles shrugged. “You know how it is. people are free to say things before elections that they can’t or won’t say afterward. My editors wanted me to survey some of the people who work here to get an insider’s view of how people would react depending on which of the three candidates was actually elected.”

“In other words,” Joanna interjected without humor, “you’ve been out stirring up a hornet’s nest in advance of my taking office.”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

“What, then?”

“Since you’re the first woman to hold this office in the state of Arizona, there’s a good deal of interest, especially since most of the officers who will be reporting to you are men.”

“So?” Joanna asked warily.

“Do you see a problem with that?”

“Not particularly. I’ve addressed that question on numerous occasions during my election campaign. Crime is the problem. Gender is not the problem.”

“Even though some of your officers might be vocally critical of your… law-enforcement abilities?”

“The voters of this county didn’t expect me to know everything the first day I walked into this office,” Joanna countered. “You and I both know there’s a learning curve on any new job. I believe the people who elected me were bargaining for a hard worker. They want me to uncover any problems that may exist in this agency and to find solutions to them. That’s what the people wanted and it’s what I expect to give them.”

“Do you think your election combined with what happened to the previous sheriff will make for a continuing morale problem in the department?”

Joanna Brady wasn’t eager to discuss Walter V McFadden or the role she herself had played in his death.

“Any change of administration or supervision always comes with the potential for ‘morale’ problems. That goes for the private sector every bit as much as it does for governmental agencies. I didn’t come in here expecting to do a wholesale house cleaning. My intention is to give officers under me a fair crack at showing me what they can do. I assume they will grant me the same courtesy.”

“You know about Martin Sanders’ resignation then?”

Martin Sanders, deputy for administration, was Dick Voland’s counterpart on the administrative side. He had always been a background player.

While Dick had been out actively campaigning for Al Freeman, Martin Sanders had been at work minding the store. He was someone Joanna naturally would have expected to meet during the course of her first full day in office had two separate homicides not taken precedence.

“He resigned?” Joanna demanded in surprise. “Since when?”

Sue Rolles looked startled as well. “I thought you knew all about that. My understanding was that he turned in his letter of resignation sometime early this morning. I wonder if it would be fair to characterize his action as a vote of no confidence.”

Joanna could barely contain her irritation. “Since I haven’t seen the letter yet,” she snapped, “I don’t believe it’s fair to characterize it one way or the other. My answer on that issue is no comment. Period!”

“What about Chief Deputy Richard Voland?”

“What about him?”

“Do you have anyone in mind as his replacement?”

“Replacement? Who says he’s leaving?”

Sue Rolles shrugged. “Well,” she said disingenuously, “both he and Martin are political appointees, patronage workers who serve at the discretion of the sheriff. And since Voland actively supported your opponent…”

Joanna cut the reporter off in mid-sentence. “Ms Rolles,” she said, “did you attend Dick Voland’s press conference earlier this afternoon?”

“Yes, but…”

“Then you are well aware that this agency is currently in the midst of coping with not one but two separate homicides in addition to handling the regular workload of calls.”

“Yes.”

“From the tenor of your questions, it appears to me this interview is heading in a direction I don’t especially like. I believe it’s designed to undermine my new administration, to create ill-will and disharmony at a time when we all need to pull together to get the job done. With that in mind I have nothing more to say at this time.”

“But…”

Impatiently, Joanna punched a button on the intercom. Luckily, it was the right one, and Kristin answered. “Yes?”

“Miss Marsten,” Joanna said. “Ms. Rolles is just leaving. Would you please show her out? And would you mind bringing in my mail? I’ve been told there are some items lurking in there that require my immediate attention.”

While she waited for Sue Rolles to leave and for Kristin to bring in the mail, Joanna turned and looked out her window. Not that many offices in the building boasted private windows.

It was after four. Already the late fall sun was fast disappearing behind the Mule Mountains to the west. The hillside outside her window was spiked with gray sticks of spindly, thorny ocohllo branches. At first glance, the ghostly dumps of twigs seemed dead or dying, but the slanting after noon sunlight revealed a faint tinge of green out lining the stalks. Even though winter weather was fast approaching, pale new leaves sprouted among the spiny thorns.

In order to survive in the harsh desert climate, ocohllos spend most of the year looking parched and barren. But whenever the shallow roots are blessed with rain, short-lived leaves appear on seemingly dead branches. New crops of leaves can come and go several times in the course of a single year.

Why couldn’t people be more like ocotillos? Joanna wondered, envying the hardy desert candle wood its natural resilience. Humans didn’t necessarily have that same kind of toughness, the same ability to withstand and recover from terrible dry spells.

Holly Patterson had gone off to Hollywood and created a career for herself, but the pain of what had happened to her as a child had somehow robbed her of all ability to enjoy it. She sat in a darkened room, rocking back and forth, hating her father and yet blaming herself for his death.

Ivy Patterson, too, had been damaged by the family troubles. Her once seemingly placid existence of faithful daughterly duty had erupted in a geyser of anger that made murder possible. Her late-blooming rebellion against her father made even the natural and mundane acts of falling in love and getting married take on sinister and un natural overtones.

And before you go throwing too many stones, Joanna Brady thought to herself, what about you?

With Andy gone, she didn’t expect the branches of her own heart ever again to leaf out in full springtime glory.

Toward evening, Isabel Gonzales went into the darkened bedroom to collect the dinner tray and straighten the tangled covers on the bed. Holly Patterson was back in her chair, rocking back and forth and staring out through a space between the curtains at the towering black shadow of the dump. “What’s up there?” she asked.

Isabel almost jumped out of her skin. For days she had come to this room, dropping off food trays, taking them away, making the bed while the room’s sole occupant seldom spoke or even acknowledged her existence.

“Up where?” Isabel asked.

“On the dump. Is it smooth? Is it lumpy?”

Isabel walked over to the window and held the curtain aside. Eventually, the moon would come up, and the few hardy mesquite and scrub oak that had managed to scrabble up through the barren waste would show up as shadows against the lighter shades of rock and dirt. For now the whole thing was still an ink-black man-made mesa.

“That’s funny,” Isabel said. “For years, when we were first married, my husband, Jaime, drove a dump truck out there. I always worried about him driving down into the pit, loading up the back of the truck with all those huge boulders, and then driving out here on the dump. I was always afraid he’d back up too close to the edge and fall off. He never did, though. He drove a truck like that for years, but I never asked him what was up there. Maybe I didn’t want to know.”

Holly turned her gaunt face away from the window for once and studied the older woman’s sturdy features. “Wouldn’t you like to know what’s up there now?” she asked.

Isabel Gonzales smiled wisely and shook her head. “Jaime doesn’t drive dump trucks any more,” she said. “And if it wasn’t so important to me back then, it sure isn’t now. Are you done with your tray? You must not like my cooking. You’ve barely touched it.”

“I’m done with it,” Holly Patterson said. “Your cooking’s fine. I’m just not hungry.”

The receptionist DUMPED Joanna’s mail unceremoniously on her desk. “There’s someone else here to see you,” she said.

With all these interruptions, how the hell did anyone ever get any work done? Joanna wondered. “Who is it this time?” she asked.

“Linda Somebody-or-other,” Kristin answered. Obviously still offended by the bra-and-panties discussion, Kristin was doing her best to get even. Joanna knew how that game worked. In office politics, passing along incomplete or inaccurate information to the boss constitutes one of the milder forms of a surly receptionist’s catalog of revenge.

“Linda who?” Joanna pressed.

“I don’t know.” Kristin shrugged petulantly. “She didn’t say.”

Joanna counted to ten. “Kristin,” she said, “regardless of whether or not the visitor volunteers the information, it’s the receptionist’s job to find out who wants to be admitted to my office. You’re to tell me who’s waiting out there in the lobby and I decide whether or not I want to see them. Is that clear?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go find out who it is. Ask her.”

The testy Kristin dragged her feet leaving Joanna’s office. The intercom buzzed angrily moments later. “Linda Kimball to see you, Sheriff Brady,” Kristin announced with ice crystals dripping from every word.

“Thank you very much, Kristin. Send her right in.

The door opened seconds later, and a plain-Jane Linda Kimball bustled into the room. Heavyset and not worried about it, Burton Kimball’s wife had a comfortable, down-home, no-nonsense way about her from her ironclad support panty hose to her naturally graying French twist. Some of the other legal-beagle wives in town tended to dress in designer jeans and play endless games of bondage, all the while holding themselves apart from those they considered lesser beings. Inelegant Linda Kimball, on the other hand, was known and appreciated throughout the community for her boundless energy and tireless work on behalf of those less fortunate than herself.

She routinely volunteered as an aide at the community hospital, and she had served as the money-raising spark plug to keep the local Meals on-Wheels program under way while daily serving her own family well-balanced, home-cooked meals. Her two children were well mannered and smart. And each fall the vegetables Linda Kimball raised in her backyard garden walked away with a collection of red and blue ribbons from the Cochise County Fair in Douglas.

In addition to all that, Burton Kimball’s wife had a reputation for being virtually unflappable. As she hurried into Joanna’s office that afternoon, however, her arm was in a sling and distress was written large across her troubled face. But Linda wasn’t there to discuss her injured arm.

“I wanted to talk to Ernie Carpenter, but they told me he’s been called out of the office. I hope you don’t mind my dropping in like this.”

“Not at all, Linda. What can I do for you?”

“I’m in sort of a rush because I left the kids up in Old Bisbee for their piano lessons. I have to be back uptown to pick them up in another half hour, but I needed to talk to someone about what happened out on the ranch today.”

“What’s that?”

Linda Kimball dropped heavily into one of the visitor chairs and took a deep breath. “Burton called me at lunchtime to tell me all about it. I suppose I should have told him what I thought right then, but he was so upset, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

“What you thought about what?” Joanna asked.

Linda’s double chin quivered. “What I thought about the skeleton,” she answered doggedly “About who I think it is. Or, rather, who it was”

“You mean you know?” Joanna demanded, leaning forward in her chair.

Linda nodded miserably. “Yes, I do,” she answered. “At least I have a theory about it.”

“Tell me,” Joanna urged.

Linda sighed as if not knowing where to start. “Burton said the body has been there for a very long time.”

“That’s right. Skeletal remains only.”

“Do you know anything at all about my husband?” Linda Kimball asked. “About his history, I mean?”

Joanna considered for a moment. With only six thousand people in town, residents of Bisbee tended to have some knowledge of one another’s general histories, even for those people they didn’t necessarily know well.

“Some, I guess,” she answered. “Wasn’t he raised by the Pattersons? I seem to remember something about that.”

Linda nodded. “Harold Patterson was Burt’s uncle, his mother’s older brother. When Thornton, Burt’s dad, was discharged from the service after World War II, he and his wife, Bonnie, stayed out on the Rocking P for a while. When Bonnie turned up pregnant, Thornton left her with her brother while he went off to California looking for work. He was supposed to send for her as soon as he found a job and a place to live, but he never did. No one ever heard from him again, and Bonnie Patterson Kimball died in childbirth a few months later. Aunt Emily and Uncle Harold took care of Burton from the time he was born.” Linda broke off, as though just relating her husband’s painful history hurt her as well.

“It sounds like a pretty rough thing all the way around,” Joanna offered by way of encouragement. “He was lucky there was someone to look after him.”

Linda nodded and continued. “They were wonderful to him; treated him just like one of their own. All that ancient family history still bothers my husband, even though it isn’t something he talks about. I mean, being abandoned like that does some damage, leaves scars, although, since it happened before he was born, it isn’t something he personally remembers.”

Joanna was puzzled about where all this was going, but she knew enough to shut up and let Linda tell the story her way.

“It’s one of the reasons family is so important to him,” Linda continued. “And it’s why that terrible business between Uncle Harold and Holly upset him so. Burton would never say so, but he loved that crotchety old man just as much as if Uncle Harold had been his natural father. It tore him to pieces to think that Holly would come out of no where, armed with her high-priced lawyer and her therapist and all those horrendous stories.”

Linda paused and almost stopped, as though her talking engine were running low on steam. “That’s also why he’s always been so concerned about Ivy,” she added.

“Burton’s worried about Ivy?” Joanna asked

“Wouldn’t you be?” Linda countered. “It sounds to me as though she’s really gone off the deep end. The idea that she’s getting married within hours of her father’s death and without even mentioning it to Burton… It’s breaking his heart. Not that we would have gone, but she didn’t even bother to invite him to the wedding.”

“Why is Burton so upset?” Joanna asked. “I know Ivy’s timing is a little unorthodox and could raise a few eyebrows, but I’d think he’d be happy that she’s finally found someone after all this time.”

“You don’t understand,” Linda said. “Back when those three kids were growing up, Burton always considered Ivy his baby sister. All his life, he tried to look out for her best interests the way a big brother should. Maybe even more than he should.”

Linda paused as if uncertain what to say next. Stifling her inclination to rush her, Joanna kept quiet.

“Getting back to this family stuff. I knew from the beginning that family connections bothered him. I had both my parents still while his natural parents were both gone. For a long time, we didn’t even discuss the subject. Later on, though, when he finally could tell me about it, he admitted that he’d always hoped that someday he’d have a chance to meet his father. He said he wanted to ask Thornton Kimball why he left town. Why he ran away and never came back. Why he never even acknowledged his son’s birth. That dream of someday meeting his father is one he’s carried around in his heart from the time he was just a little kid. When he told me about it, I thought my heart would break just listening to him. It was so sad, so unfair.”

Linda took another breath. “I love him, you see, and I finally had to do something about it.”

“About what?”

“About making that dream come true. I decided to try finding Thornton Kimball on my own, with out telling Burt what I was up to. I wanted to surprise him. I thought that if he finally had the chance to meet and talk to his natural father, it might help him put some of his own personal demons to rest. He’s spent a lifetime blaming him self, you know, not only for his mother’s death but also for his father’s desertion.”

“Any luck finding his father?”

“No,” Linda answered. “None. I’ve checked everywhere. Salvation Army, the V.A the genealogical library up in Salt Lake. Everywhere I go, I keep running into blank walls. It was as though, Thornton Kimball left the Rocking P one day and vanished into thin air.”

Feeling like some dimwitted comic-strip character, Joanna felt the light bulb switch on over her head when she finally made the connection. “You believe the other body in the glory hole might be Thornton Kimball’s?”

Linda nodded. “As soon as Burt told me about the skeleton, this terrible feeling of certainty washed over me. I can’t explain it. I don’t know where it came from, but as far as I can tell, from the time he left here in 1945, no one ever heard a single word from Thornton Kimball. And maybe that’s why-because he never really left.”

Joanna felt a swift rush of rising excitement. Linda Kimball’s theory made good sense. She reached for the phone. “I’ll pass this information along to Ernie Carpenter right away.”

“Wait,” Linda said. “Don’t call him yet.”

“Why not?” Joanna said. “With this information maybe we can get some help from the state laboratory-utilize some of their new DNA technology.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to do that,” Linda Kimball said quietly.

Joanna put down the phone. “Why not?”

Linda shifted uneasily in her chair. “Promise me you won’t tell Burton how you found out. It’s embarrassing. He’d be so angry if he ever found out about it.”

Joanna thought she had been following all the nuances of the twisting story line, but now she was suddenly lost. “If he found out about what?” she asked.