Joanna Brady 01 - Desert Heat (v5.0)

by J. A. Jance

  “Sure thing,” Ken Galloway replied easily, swinging off the highway onto the exit. “Hang on. We’ll have you both home in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  Tony Vargas was in an expansive mood when he came home in the middle of the afternoon. He rousted Angie out of the pool for a quick fuck on the living room floor in front of the mangled television set. This time he had no difficulty achieving an erection. As he grunted above her, Angie was grateful she’d been so meticulous about cleaning up all the shattered glass. Otherwise her bare back and buttocks would have been full of it.

  Finished, he rolled off her and then lay beside her, leaning on one elbow and absently toying with her nipple. “We’ll go out to dinner,” he said. “I feel like celebrating.”

  She didn’t dare ask him what they were celebrating. She was smarter than that. Eventually he headed for the bathroom to shower. She went into the kitchen, squeezed fresh grapefruit, mixed drinks, and then followed him into the bedroom. He had evidently switched on the small television set on the dresser. The local edition of the evening news was just starting. The lead story told that Andrew Brady, the wounded deputy and candidate for Cochise County sheriff, had died at University Hospital in Tucson earlier that afternoon.

  Transfixed by what she was hearing, Angie stood in the middle of the room holding the two drinks. It had been bad enough, earlier that afternoon when her vague suspicions about Tony’s “consultation business” had once and for all solidified into harsh reality. Then, he had broken the television in a blinding rage when he heard the news that Andrew Brady was still alive. Now, with the announcement that the very same man had died, Tony was taking her out to dinner. To celebrate.

  With horror, Angie realized that somehow Tony Vargas had gone to the hospital and finished what he had set out to do, just as she had known he would. And by not doing something to prevent it, Angie realized that she, too, was somehow responsible.

  And with that sickening realization came another one as well. Angie had always imagined that somehow she’d find a way to slip away from Tony and leave him, but now she understood that wouldn’t be possible. He’d never let her go. And if he ever discovered how much Angie really knew about him, she, too, would be living under a death sentence.

  The water shut off, and Tony stepped out of the shower.

  “Hey, Angie, where the hell’s my drink?” he demanded as he began toweling himself dry. “I thought you went out to the kitchen to make me a Sea Breeze.”

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the narrow bathroom beside him. He ran his hands over the bare skin of her buttocks as she set both drinks down on the bathroom counter.

  “Nice ass,” he said, then he slapped her hard with the flat of his hand before she could move out of reach. That was something he liked to do occasionally—leave a hand print on her backside just for the hell of it. He liked to see how long the imprint lasted.

  Without saying a word, Angie stepped into the shower, pulled the door shut, and turned on the water full blast, hoping the steaming water would somehow clear her head.

  As a working whore in L.A., she had been busted more times than she could count—often enough to have learned the cops’ tired right-to-remain-silent speech by heart. In fact, she could recite the whole thing from beginning to end without any prompting.

  But now we were talking about murder, and this was far more than just a right to remain silent. Silence was now an absolute necessity. Not only would anything she said be held against her, in the wrong hands, it could also prove deadly.

  Silently, standing under the running water, Angie Kellogg began to cry, because, for the first time since that long-ago night in Battle Creek, Michigan, when her father’s unspeakable violation had turned her little-girl world upside down, she was utterly terrified.

  Nine

  COMING DOWN Tombstone Canyon with Jennifer in the back seat of Ken Galloway’s Bronco, Joanna guiltily remembered their ten head of cattle for the first time. There was plenty of water for them in the stock tank, and she had fed them the night before, but between then and now she hadn’t given them another thought. There was still some forage left over from the summer’s rainy season, but not much. By now they were probably very hungry.

  Joanna doubted her mother had thought about the cattle or made arrangements to feed them, either. And why should she? They weren’t her responsibility; they were Joanna’s. Eleanor had made it abundantly clear that she was a confirmed town-dweller who had little patience with Joanna and Andy’s “cockamamie” decision to take over what remained of the Brady family holdings.

  Preoccupied with berating herself over neglecting the cattle, Joanna barely noticed when Ken turned off the highway onto Double Adobe Road. Then, as they crossed the first cattle guard onto High Lonesome, her heart filled with sudden dread. Traveling down the dirt road, they were fast approaching the bridge, the place where she had found Andy lying wounded and dying in the sand. Concerned not only about what she might see but also her reaction to it, Joanna breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that in the deepening twilight nothing at all was visible. For now, at least, she didn’t have to look at whatever physical evidence remained of that horrible ordeal.

  “Somebody’s here,” Jennifer announced when they caught sight of lights from the house glimmering through the surrounding mesquite. A hundred yards into the ranch proper, Sadie appeared in the slice of headlights ahead of them, racing toward the Bronco at full throttle. Jennifer rolled down the window and called to her, urging the dog to keep pace. When they pulled into the yard, two extra vehicles were parked next to Joanna’s Eagle in the brassy glow of the solitary yard light—Grandma and Grandpa Brady’s Honda and Clayton Rhodes’ ancient Ford pickup.

  Clayton Rhodes, a wizened eighty-six-year-old neighbor from up the road, stood on Joanna’s back porch with his thumbs hooked through his belt loops. When Ken Galloway’s car stopped in front of the gate, Eva Lou and Jim Bob Brady, Andy’s parents, came out through the backdoor and joined him. By then Sadie was barking and running around the Bronco in madly joyous circles. As soon as the wheels stopped turning, Jennifer tumbled out of the truck and threw herself at the dog.

  For a moment all the adults stood still, watching the antics of the girl and the dog, then Eva Lou hurried forward to greet Joanna while the two men hung back. Tears streamed down the older woman’s round cheeks as she gathered her daughter-in-law into her arms.

  “I can’t believe it,” she murmured over and over. “I just can’t believe it.”

  Joanna was glad to see Eva Lou. Her relationship with Andy’s mother was far more cordial than with her own. The elder Bradys were rock-solid, salt-of-the-earth-type people whose very presence comforted her.

  “How did you hear?” Joanna asked, pulling back from Eva Lou’s embrace. “Did my mother call?”

  Eva Lou shook her head, and wiped her tears on the tail of her borrowed apron. “Jimmy and I were on our way home from Tulsa when a police car pulled us over in Lordsburg. At first we couldn’t figure out why they were stopping us, if Jimmy was speeding or what. But then the officer told us what had happened. It was such a shock. Someone from the sheriff’s department here must have called over to Lordsburg and asked them to keep a lookout for us.

  “When he told us we were already too late, we just pulled over on the side of the road and bawled like a couple of babies. That young officer was so nice. He waited right there with us and wouldn’t let us leave town without buying us a cup of coffee.”

  Ken Galloway had walked up beside the two women and stood there awkwardly, holding Joanna’s single suitcase. “Should I take this on inside?” he asked.

  Joanna nodded. “Yes, please. Come on, Jenny,” she called to her daughter. “Leave Sadie out here for now. She’s way too excited to be in the house. Come inside and get her food ready.”

  “Oh, we’ve already fed the dog,” Eva Lou said quickly as they trooped toward the house. “After Lordsburg, we didn’t see much point in going on to Tu
cson. We thought we’d just come on over here and look after things for you. But Clayton got the jump on us. He was here and had the cattle fed and watered. He was about to take Sadie home with him to feed her as well.”

  Joanna stopped in front of Clayton Rhodes, a man who had befriended several succeeding generations of owners on the High Lonesome Ranch. A lifelong resident of Cochise County, Clayton Rhodes was bowlegged and bent, with a limp that came from some long ago bronco-riding mishap. Clearly a relic from an earlier age, he was a genuine, old-fashioned cowboy who had spent much of his life in the company of livestock. Small children were drawn to him because of his ability to tell tall tales, and they were fascinated by the set of ill-fitting dentures he usually carried in his shirt pocket, but Clayton Rhodes was terrifically shy around adults.

  “Thanks so much, Mr. Rhodes,” Joanna said. “It was very thoughtful of you to stop by and look after the animals.”

  He shied away from her thanks like a spooked pony. “Nothin’ to it,” he mumbled reticently, tipping his hat and edging off the steps toward the safety of the gate. “Nothin’ to it a-tall.”

  On the top step of the back porch, Joanna paused long enough for Jim Bob Brady to enfold her in a bearhug, then they went on into the kitchen. The room was warm and inviting, filled with the enticing aroma of Eva Lou Brady’s mouthwatering, baking-powder biscuits. On the counter a newly made pot of coffee was just finishing brewing.

  “I didn’t know if you and Jenny would be hungry,” Eva Lou was saying, “but biscuits and honey are always good, even when people can’t think about eating anything else. Would you like a cup of coffee, Ken?” she asked, taking the suitcase from his hands. “It’s fresh.”

  Ken Galloway shook his head. “No, thanks. Appreciate the offer, but I’ll just head on home.”

  “Now, Mama,” Jim Bob Brady warned. “Don’t go pushing food and drink on people. They just this minute stepped inside. Give them a chance to catch their breath.”

  Joanna looked at her father- and mother-in-law with a combination of appreciation and amazement. That afternoon she had lost a husband and Jenny a father, but these two wonderful old people had lost a son—their only son. And yet, here they were only a few hours later, bustling around, pitching in, and taking care of everybody else. It was astounding and yet so like them. Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady were the exact antithesis of her own mother. That was one of the things Joanna liked about them.

  “Well,” Eva Lou said, ignoring her husband’s caution. “Are you hungry?”

  “I am,” Jenny declared.

  Joanna shook her head. “Not me. I’m more dirty than hungry. I want to take a shower.”

  With her suitcase in hand and still carrying the precious plastic bag holding only pitiful reminders of the man who had owned its contents, Joanna made her way through the kitchen and dining room and on into the bedroom. Just walking into that now too-familiar room took her breath away. Everything there reminded her of Andy, from the rolltop desk with its broken, patched-together chair, to the frayed cowboy hat that he wore around home, to their bed. Especially the bed. She couldn’t face it. She dropped the plastic bag on the desk, then, gulping for air, she grabbed her robe and retreated into the bathroom.

  There she clambered into the old-fashioned, claw-footed tub with its make-do shower and turned on the water full blast. She stood under the water for a long, long time, letting the steamy spray mingle with the tears on her face while the roar in the pipes muffled the sound of her sobs. Usually, Joanna was conscientious about taking three-minute showers. This time, she came to her senses only when all the hot water was gone. By then she was no longer crying. It was as though the well of tears inside her had finally run dry.

  She toweled herself off and felt a surprising rush of gratitude that she was doing so in the familiar surroundings of her own bathroom in her own home. At least that part of her life was the same, and it would continue to be so. In Tucson, at the hospital, she had focused totally on dealing with the immediate problem of paying the hospital bill, but now she realized that through the insurance she owned, life insurance on both of them which Milo Davis had encouraged them to buy and helped them keep, she and Jenny would be able to stay in their own home for as long as they wanted. In fact, she could probably pay Eva Lou and Jim Bob off completely if she wanted to. But if the choice lay between having the house paid for and having Andy back…

  Hastily pushing that thought aside, she tied the belt on her robe and emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her wet hair. In her absence, both Eleanor Lathrop and Marianne Maculyea had appeared. They, along with Jenny and the Bradys, were seated at the dining room table. For a few moments, Joanna stood silently in the hallway door without anyone noticing her.

  Hollow-eyed, Jenny sat listening while her Grandmother Lathrop recounted her version of her son-in-law’s death while the Bradys, too, heard the story for the first time. Eleanor, reveling in the attention of her audience, warmed to the telling.

  “So when the doctor came back out,” she was saying, “I left Margaret sitting there watching television and went over to ask him how Andy was. I mean, Joanna had been gone for some time by then, and none of the rest of us had been allowed in to visit. The doctor said that everything was just fine, that we shouldn’t worry about a thing, but then, a few minutes later, some kind of alarm went off. After that there were all kinds of people rushing in and out of the room. I’ve never seen anything like it, but by then it was too late. They just couldn’t bring him back.”

  Jim Bob Brady nodded solemnly and patted his wife’s hand while she wept quietly into a hanky. Jennifer pushed back her chair and hurried to Eva Lou’s side where she clung to the old woman’s neck and helplessly patted her shoulder. By then Jenny was crying, too.

  “Sounds like everybody did just about everything they could do,” Jim Bob observed. “Some things can’t be helped, now can they.”

  Looking from one face to the other, he happened to glance up and see Joanna hovering dry-eyed but grim-faced in the background. “Are you all right, Joanna?” he asked.

  She wasn’t all right. In fact, she was furious. She hadn’t wanted Jenny to be subjected to her Grandmother Lathrop’s version of things, but it was too late now. The damage, if any, was already done.

  “I’m okay,” Joanna answered. “Just a little tired, that’s all.”

  The old man hurriedly started to rise to his feet. “We can get out of your way and head on into town right now if you like,” he said.

  “No. Don’t rush off. We need to talk, all of us.” She glanced at Marianne. “What are you doing here, Mari?” Joanna asked, not unkindly. “Jeff told me you had a board meeting.”

  “I skipped out,” Marianne answered. “When I told them I was coming here, everyone understood.”

  Joanna took a seat at the head of the table, effectively shutting down Eleanor’s story before she could embellish it any further. “As long as Marianne’s here, we could just as well start making plans for the funeral. I understand Norm Higgins is waiting to hear from us in the morning so he can move forward on the arrangements. How soon can you schedule it, Marianne? What about Saturday?”

  Reverend Maculyea shook her head dubiously. “That may be too soon, what with the autopsy and…”

  “Autopsy?” Eva Lou echoed in dismay. “Do you mean to tell me that they’re doing an autopsy on my boy? Why on earth would they need one of those?”

  “They’re routine, Mrs. Brady,” Marianne explained. “When someone dies within twenty-four hours of being admitted to a hospital, an autopsy is pretty much standard procedure. They call them coroner’s cases.”

  Eva Lou Brady remained unconvinced. “I don’t care what they call them,” she insisted. “From what I’ve heard, everybody knows Andy died of a gunshot wound. I don’t see any good reason for them to go cutting him up that way, no reason at all.”

  “Can we do it Saturday at the church?” Joanna put in, wanting desperately to steer the discussion awa
y from the subject of autopsies. “I’d really like to have the funeral as soon as possible. I want to get it over with.”

  Marianne made a note in her calendar. “I’ll check on it in the morning.”

  “Will I be able to come?” Jennifer asked.

  “I’ve never been to a funeral before.”

  “You’ll be there,” Joanna told her. “You and I will be there together.”

  For the next two hours or so, the five adults huddled over the dining room table, choosing music and scripture passages, selecting people to give eulogies and to serve as pallbearers. It was a painful but necessary process. With every small decision, Joanna felt the reality of it inevitably settling into her soul. Andy really was dead.

  By nine, suffering from emotional overload, Jennifer put herself to bed. Jim Bob and Eva Lou left for home in town around eleven, and Eleanor Lathrop followed suit a few minutes later. When Joanna went into the bedroom to check on Jenny, she emerged in time to find Marianne setting two ice-filled glasses and an unopened fifth of Jack Daniels on the dining room table.

  “Where’d that come from?” Joanna asked, staring at the bottle while Marianne Maculyea twisted open the top.

  “I’m not naming any names,” the pastor returned, “but one of my most faithful parishioners gives Jeff and me one of these every Christmas whether we need it or not. And don’t think I’m not grateful. I could never afford to buy this stuff on my salary. We save it for special occasions, and this seems special to me. I figure if anyone ever needed a drink, you do tonight. Here.”

  Marianne Maculyea handed Joanna a glass filled with amber liquid, took hers, and held it up in a toast. “To Andy,” she said.

  Joanna nodded. “To Andy,” she repeated, and took a long sip, feeling the whiskey warm her throat and chest as she swallowed. Tears brimmed in her eyes and she sank into the nearest chair.

  “How do I go on?” she asked. “How do people do it?”