by J. A. Jance
“That’s not my number,” Karen announced brusquely when she heard it. “You reversed two of the numbers.”
“I’m so sorry about this,” Joanna said. “Things have been really hectic. I must have been suffering from momentary dyslexia and written them down wrong, but I have my calendar right here with me. If we could go ahead and reset—”
“I’ll let you know,” Karen Oldsby interrupted. “My week is pretty hectic, too. If it looks like I’ll have time to schedule another interview, Sheriff Brady, I’ll be in touch. But since we’ve already missed this week’s deadline, I don’t know when we’ll be able to squeeze you in.”
With that, Karen Oldsby hung up. Brimming with indignation, Joanna stuffed her calendar back into her purse. Then she walked far enough away to be out of Edith Mossman’s earshot before she redialed her home number.
“Oldsby just hung up on me,” Joanna told Butch when he answered. “I evidently wrote her number down wrong, so when I called and left my message, she didn’t get it. I tried to apologize, but the woman acted like I committed a federal offense.”
“Don’t worry about it, Joey,” he said. “She’ll get over it eventually, but tell me. Who’s dead?”
“A woman named Carol Mossman. Her place is out here by the river, just off the Charleston Road. George is inside. The victim’s grandmother and I are waiting for him to bring the body out so she can make the formal ID. After that, I’ll need to drop her off at her assisted-living facility in Sierra Vista on my way home.”
“Can’t someone else to drop her off?” Butch asked. “Think about it, Joey. It’s late. You’ve already put in a full day at the office. When are you going to give yourself a break?”
“When Edith let her cab go, I told her I’d see to it that she got home,” Joanna told him. “And I will. It won’t take that long.”
“Suit yourself,” Butch said. “I’ll see you when you get here.” Then he, too, hung up.
Exasperated by what felt distinctly like two separate dressing-downs, Joanna turned her phone’s ringer on “silent” and stuck it in her pocket. If anyone else called, she didn’t want to talk to them. They could damn well talk to her machine.
After all, Carol Mossman had been murdered. Finding her killer was far more important than chatting on a cell phone.
Three
While Joanna had been juggling phone calls, Deputy Raymond had removed a gurney from the back of George Winfield’s van. Now, unfolded, it sat outside the front door of the mobile home waiting to be taken inside and loaded.
“They’ll be bringing the victim out soon and taking her over to the ME’s van,” Joanna told Edith Mossman. “Do you think you could walk that far, or should I have them bring her over here?”
“I may have to use a walker, but I’m not helpless,” Edith said.
“I’m perfectly capable of walking from here to there.”
As Joanna and Edith started their slow progress toward George Winfield’s minivan, Deputy Raymond pushed the gurney into the house. By the time Joanna had guided Edith to the back of the van, Matt Raymond and Debra Howell had rolled the gurney back out through the front door and eased it down the wooden steps. They headed for the van with the medical examiner close on their heels. Once the gurney came to a stop, George Winfield stepped forward and held out his hand to Edith.
“I’m Dr. George Winfield,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“My name’s Edith,” she answered. “Edith Mossman. Carol’s my granddaughter.”
“If you don’t want to do this here…” he began.
“No. There’s no sense in putting it off,” Edith replied. “I need to know for sure, and so do you.”
“Deputy Raymond,” George said, “would you please bring one of the trouble lights out here?”
Nodding, Matt Raymond hurried into the trailer. Back beside the gurney, he held the light aloft while George unzipped the body bag, immediately letting loose the foul stench of rapidly decomposing human flesh.
Joanna knew what to expect. She looked warily at Edith Mossman, worried that the awful odor, combined with seeing her granddaughter’s dead face, might cause the woman to faint again, but she didn’t. Leaning on her walker, Edith studied the face for a moment. Then she nodded.
“It’s her,” she said. “It’s Carol.” With that, she turned to Joanna. “If that’s all you need, Sheriff Brady, I’d like to go home now. There are people I’ll need to call.”
After helping Edith Mossman into the Blazer, Joanna hurried back to the mobile home. Not wanting to have to go through the booties routine, she called Detective Carpenter over to the door and gave him a rundown of the information she had gleaned from talking to Edith.
“Did Deputy Raymond tell you he found several pieces of .45-caliber brass in the backyard?”
“No,” Joanna said. “He didn’t tell me, but I’m glad to hear it.”
“Me, too,” Ernie Carpenter said. “It’s a start, but he and Debbie Howell didn’t have time to do a complete foreign-object search. We’ll have to continue that tomorrow.”
Joanna nodded. “You’ll leave someone here to secure the scene when you go?”
“You can count on it,” Ernie said.
Joanna and Edith Mossman drove into Sierra Vista in virtually unbroken silence. The day’s trauma had exhausted the old woman’s energy, leaving her devoid of speech. Twice Joanna glanced at her passenger, thinking she might be asleep, but Edith was wide awake, staring straight ahead into the beams of oncoming headlights.
By the time they arrived at the Ferndale Retirement Center, Lucky was eager to extricate himself from the confines of Joanna’s shirt. In his eagerness to escape, his tiny sharp claws left long trails of scratches in the skin of Joanna’s chest. After Edith had limped off down the open breezeway to her unit, Joanna took the puppy out, gave him a drink of water, and let him relieve himself once more. She was grateful that he made no effort to run away.
This time, though, when Joanna tried to return him to her shirt, Lucky was in no mood to be locked back up. He had slept long enough. He was ready to be up and exploring—or chewing. Reluctant to let him loose in the Blazer while she drove, Joanna finally emptied the contents out of one of the plastic carrying cases she used to hold equipment. She moved the plastic carton to the front seat and put Lucky inside that. Standing on his hind legs, he was tall enough to peek out over the edge, but not quite tall enough to scramble out.
It was only as Joanna pulled out of the retirement center’s parking lot that she realized she had failed to mention anything at all to Butch about bringing home a puppy. Now, as she headed home, she wished she had given her husband some advance warning.
“Well, sport,” she said aloud to Lucky, “you’ll probably go over like a pregnant pole-vaulter.”
Which immediately brought her to another problem, one she’d been deliberately dodging all day long. Was she or wasn’t she? For someone whose menstrual cycles were as regular as clockwork, Joanna Brady was now a whole week late. She hadn’t worried about it much for the first couple of days. After all, she was on the Pill, wasn’t she? She took one of those every morning right along with the vitamins Butch dished out. But a whole week?
Joanna and Butch had discussed having a child someday, but they had both agreed that now was too soon. They had wanted time to settle into being a married couple. So why exactly had Joanna waited this long to tell him about her suspicions? Was it because she wanted to know for sure before she mentioned it, or was it because she was just a tiny bit worried about how he might react? Was Butch’s saying he wanted a baby the same as really wanting a baby? During the course of the week, Joanna had examined her own varied reactions to the possible pregnancy. She had determined that she was both scared and exhilarated. Worried and happy. Concerned and thrilled.
But what if Butch’s feelings were far more one-sided than hers? What if his reaction was totally negative? What if he turned out to be scared, worried, and concerned
without being exhilarated, happy, and thrilled? Joanna wondered if she would be able to look at his face when she gave him such earth-shattering news and know what was really going on inside that thick skull of his.
And what would Jenny think once she heard she was going to be joined by a baby brother or sister? She was thirteen and about to enter eighth grade. Joanna was afraid Jenny would be mortified when she found out. After all, what better proof could one have that her parents were actually “doing it” than being presented with the inarguable reality of a baby? Joanna knew that at thirteen she wouldn’t have wanted to see either of her parents as a sexual being, so why would Jenny? Even now, as a married adult, she found it difficult to see her mother, Eleanor, making goo-goo eyes at her relatively new husband, George Winfield.
Then, of course, Joanna had her job to think about. Butch had told her early on that if they ever did have a baby, he’d be more than happy to stay home and take care of it. His first novel remained unsold, but he was convinced he could work on a second or third and look after a baby at the same time. Joanna had to acknowledge that Butch was a pretty capable guy. It was more than likely that he’d do a great job of being a stay-at-home father to a newborn. After all, he had negotiated the dicey minefield of stepparenting Jenny with little apparent difficulty. Still, Joanna remembered what it had been like having a newborn baby in the house. She wondered if Butch had a realistic idea of the nitty-gritty involved.
And what about the people of Cochise County, the ones who had elected Joanna three and a half years ago? Would they go for having a sheriff whose newborn baby was being cared for by a stay-at-home father? Outside the metropolitan areas, Arizona voters were a pretty staid and conservative bunch. Could they be persuaded to vote for a sheriff’s candidate who was already four or five months pregnant on election day? What if she kept it quiet? Wouldn’t it be dishonest to get herself elected without telling her constituents what was really going on? Didn’t the voters have the right to know a candidate was pregnant before they marked their ballots one way or the other? Election rules obliged Joanna to fill out any number of financial disclosure forms. Shouldn’t she also be obliged to disclose this?
Lost in thought, Joanna turned off Highway 80 onto High Lonesome Road. Then, without thinking, she automatically turned into the driveway that led to High Lonesome Ranch—the old driveway to the old house, the one where she used to live, rather than the new driveway a mile up the road that led to the new house on what had once been Clayton Rhodes’s place. Joanna Brady and Butch Dixon’s new rammed-earth house had been completed two months earlier. They had lived in it now for almost a month and a half. It was a sign of how distracted Joanna was that she made the wrong turn.
You’d better get a grip, she told herself sternly.
Their old house had a detached garage. The new one had attached garages—two of them, his and hers. Joanna could open the garage door with a wireless remote control and then walk from the car into the laundry room without ever having to set foot outside. Butch had installed a weapons safe next to the laundry room door so she could remove her two Glocks and put them away without bringing them into the house proper. Butch had designed the whole project, down to the tiniest detail. Every part of it had been done with utter practicality and convenience in mind.
And with a new puppy around, Joanna thought as she took the time to remove her weapons, it’s a good thing we have mostly Saltillo tile on the floors rather than carpet.
Prepared for the worst, she went back to the Blazer, retrieved the puppy-laden carton, and headed into the house. Butch sat at the kitchen counter, laboring over his laptop. There was an office in the house—a spacious, nicely furnished office off the dining room, but that was used mostly as Joanna’s at-home office. Butch preferred to work in the kitchen, where he could write and keep tabs on the laundry and the progress of dinner at the same time.
He looked up from the screen when she came in. “What’s this?” he asked, spying the carton. “Surely you didn’t bring home more work to do—” He broke off in midsentence when Lucky poked his tiny black nose up over the edge of the box. Butch’s jaw dropped. “Don’t tell me you brought home a puppy!”
“I couldn’t help it,” Joanna explained quickly. “The woman who was murdered had a whole bunch of dogs, including Lucky’s mother…”
“You’ve already named him?” Butch asked. “That sounds a whole lot like we’re keeping him.”
“Lucky’s the only survivor—the other dogs all died, Butch,” Joanna told him. “They were locked in an overheated mobile home with Carol Mossman. We think the heat did them in.”
“Which is why he’s Lucky, I suppose,” Butch said, reaching out and lifting the squirming black fuzz of a dog out of the box.
“By the way, where’s Tigger?” Joanna asked, suddenly worried how their resident half pit-bull, half golden retriever mutt might react to the interloper’s presence.
“In Jenny’s room,” Butch replied, stroking the puppy’s ears. “She has tennis in the morning, so she and Tigger went to bed early. Has this little guy eaten, by the way?”
“Not recently,” Joanna answered. “He had some milk earlier this afternoon.”
“We’re a bit shy on Puppy Chow at the moment,” Butch said. “And he’s way too little for Dog Chow, so let’s see what we can do.”
With that, Butch handed Lucky over to Joanna and went prowling in the refrigerator. He returned with a half gallon of milk and some bread, which he crumbled into a cereal bowl. Then he poured milk over it and set the concoction down on the floor in front of the famished puppy, who stepped into it with both front feet.
“That’s one thing I love about you,” Joanna said softly as they both stood watching the puppy eagerly lap up his milk and bread. “You’re totally unflappable.”
“I like to think I try,” Butch said modestly.
“What say we go for broke, then?” she asked, gathering her courage.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “What are you saying? Is there another puppy out in the car that you haven’t brought in yet?”
“Not exactly.”
“What then, exactly?” Butch prodded.
Joanna took a deep breath. “What if I told you I might be pregnant?”
“Pregnant? You’re kidding!”
“No. I’m not kidding. I’m late. Over a week now.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not sure. I mean, I’m sure I’m late, but I’m not remotely sure if I’m pregnant. It’s possible, though.”
Suddenly, Lucky was forgotten. Grinning from ear to ear, Butch grabbed Joanna by the waist and swung her around the kitchen in a series of circles. “Joey, this is wonderful news. It’s great! I can hardly wait to find out for sure. What time is it?”
“It’s nine o’clock. Why?”
“What time does Safeway close?”
“I don’t know—nine or maybe ten. Why?”
“Let’s go right now and get a pregnancy test. You can buy them over the counter, can’t you? I mean, you don’t need a prescription or anything, do you?”
“I don’t think so,” Joanna told him. “But can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
Butch shook his head. “No, ma’am. If I’m going to be a father, I want to know it now, not later. Besides,” he added with a grin, “we need Puppy Chow anyway. Now, are you and Lucky coming along, or are the two of you staying here?”
In the end, Lucky and Joanna rode along while Butch drove like a maniac. Two hours later, they were lying in bed side by side, giddy and sleepless. “A father,” Butch murmured over and over. “I’m going to be a father. I never thought it would happen to me.”
Joanna lay beside him as he rambled on and thought how different this was from when she’d told Andy she was pregnant with Jenny. They’d been at the drive-in theater on Alvernon in Tucson and to this day she had no idea what movie they had gone to see because she had blurted out the news without even waiting for the show to begin. Where Butch was a
lmost delirious with happiness at the news, Andy had been resolved—maybe even resigned. Of course he would marry her. Of course he would do the right thing. But for years, there had always been that nagging little question in Joanna’s mind. And, although they had never discussed it, maybe the same question had plagued Andy as well. Would Joann Lee Lathrop and Andrew Roy Brady have married if she hadn’t been pregnant? Or would they have broken up eventually and lived entirely different lives?
But they hadn’t, and thirteen-year-old Jennifer Ann Brady was very much a part of this new equation.
“We should tell Jenny in the morning,” Joanna said. “First thing. We don’t want her thinking we’ve been sneaking around, keeping secrets.”
“Right,” Butch agreed. “We’ll tell her at breakfast.”
“I thought you said she had tennis early.”
“We’ll get up even earlier. And, in that case, we’d better try to get some sleep.”
And they might have slept. It’s possible they could have slept, except right then, as soon as they stopped talking, Lucky, confined to his bedside carton, set up a mournful wail—the same keening cry that had summoned Manny Ruiz earlier that evening. Within seconds Tigger, at the far end of the hall, began barking his head off and throwing himself against the door to Jenny’s bedroom.
Butch sighed. “Well,” he said, hopping out of bed, “I suppose we’d better get used to it.”
Joanna turned on the bedside lamp. Butch had just grabbed Lucky up and was trying to quiet him when Jenny began pounding on their bedroom door. “What’s going on in there?” she demanded. “What’s that awful noise? Tigger’s having a fit. He woke me up.”
Holding the puppy, Butch jumped back into bed and snuggled Lucky under the covers. “All right,” Butch said. “You can come in, Jen, but you’d better leave Tigger in the hall.”
