by J. A. Jance
“In a move many regard as a vote of no confidence for incoming sheriff Joanna Brady, Martin Sanders, Cochise County’s deputy for administration, yesterday submitted his resignation amid widespread speculation that other well-respected and long-term departmental employees may soon follow suit.
“Although Sanders was a political appointee who served at the pleasure of the sheriff, he had nonetheless functioned in that capacity for two separate administrations and had been expected to play a pivotal part in the orderly transition to the administration of the new sheriff who was elected this week.
“One departmental employee who spoke only on condition of anonymity said, ‘I’m afraid a woman is just going to cave in under the pressure. I mean, she’s been in office two days, and already we have two homicides’. (See above article.)”
Joanna turned the paper over enough to see that the headline at the top of the page dealt with the two separate Cochise County slayings. But that wasn’t the article Dick Voland had handed her, so she turned back to the other one and resumed reading.
“Chief Deputy Richard Voland, another political appointee, actively campaigned for Al Freeman, the former chief of police from Sierra Vista who also ran for the position of sheriff. Citing Joanna Brady’s lack of law-enforcement experience, Voland emphasized that the county needed a professional law-enforcement officer to take charge of the Sheriff’s Department.
“‘Joanna Brady’s a nice lady,’ Voland says, ‘but she’s never been a cop. And that’s what this county needs more than anything right now—someone who knows the score.’”
Joanna glanced at Dick Voland over the top of the newspaper and found him regarding her anxiously. “That quote’s from one of your campaign speeches, isn’t it? The one about me not being a cop?”
Dick Voland nodded glumly. “That’s right,” he said, “but the woman who wrote the article makes it sound as though I said it yesterday, as though I’m out on the streets right this minute trying to undermine you.”
Without reading any more, Joanna closed the paper, folded it back up, and placed it on her desk. She left the unopened envelope lying where it fell.
“Mr. Voland,” she said, “I think it’s only fair for you to know that this article is written by Sue Rolles, a reporter I personally threw out of my office late yesterday afternoon. Now tell me why you’re leaving. Are you really convinced that I’ll never be able to hack it in this job?”
“No. That’s not it at all.”
“What is it then?”
“With this kind of crap showing up in the media, I’m worried about a total breakdown in the chain of command, and that could put officers’ lives in jeopardy. It seems to me you might be better off with a slate of people of your own choosing. Out with the old, in with the new.”
“Are you saying you don’t think you can work with me?”
“No, but that may be the public perception. Especially after people read this. And anything that causes confusion; anything that makes one officer second-guess another, undermines the efficiency as well as the safety of the department.”
Joanna considered what he was saying. “Let me ask you a question, Dick. Considering I’m a rookie, was there anything about my behavior at the crime scene yesterday that was out of order?”
“No, you did fine, but…”
“But if there had been, would you have let it pass, or would you have pointed it out to me so I wouldn’t look quite so dumb the next time?”
Dick Voland met Joanna’s searching gaze and didn’t look away. “If something had been way out of line, I believe I would have told you.”
“Good.” Joanna picked up the envelope, tapped the edge of it on the desktop, but still made no move to open it. “I’ll take this matter under advisement,” she said. “I’ll give it some thought, but for the time being, you need to understand that I have not yet accepted your resignation. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, then, aren’t I supposed to have some kind of early-morning briefing about what went on in the county overnight?”
“Two brothers got all drunked up at a birthday party over in Kansas Settlement and beat the crap out of one another with wooden baseball bats. One of them is in the county hospital down in Douglas. There were two domestics in the county overnight, one out in Elfrida and the other in Miracle Valley. Three DWIs, one runaway juvenile from Pirtleville, and a carload of illegals who ran out of gas between Tombstone and St. David. The deputy held them long enough for the Border Patrol to show up and take them into custody.”
“That’s all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Voland replied.
“What about Ernie Carpenter? Any developments there?”
“Nothing new overnight that I know of, except that Ivy Patterson and that Russian of hers did go ahead and tie the knot. I can tell you that one’s raised a few eyebrows around town. Other than that, things are pretty quiet.”
Voland headed for the door. “Wait, Dick,” Joanna said. “There’s one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you have any suggestions about who to get to fill Martin Sanders’ position?”
Voland shook his head. “Not right offhand. It’s a funny situation, neither fish nor fowl. It would be a big promotion for most of the guys out on patrol, but that person essentially functions in a staff capacity, totally cut off from any direct contact with the public.
“Not only that, it’s a paper-intensive job. The person who takes it is agreeing to serve as point man for every ugly can of worms that walks in the door—from police-brutality complaints to wrangling with the board of supervisors over budget cuts.”
“You’re saying most of the people currently in the department would take one look at the job description and run like hell in the opposite direction?”
“That’s right.”
“Including you, I presume?” Joanna asked.
“Most definitely,” Voland answered. “I wouldn’t have that job on a bet.”
He left then. For some time afterward, Joanna stared at the closed door, then she went back to the newspaper article. This time she read it all the way through. Going over the story, she realized why it was Sue Rolles had seemed so familiar to her. She didn’t remember her from any kind of meeting at the hospital in Tucson the day Andy died. She could barely remember anything at all about that awful day. But she had seen Sue Rolles here and there as she traveled the campaign trail around the county, attending various civic meetings in advance of the election.
Sue Rolles must have been following every twist and turn of the campaign for months. Reading the article carefully, Joanna could tell that some of the quotes from disgruntled departmental employees were new and legitimate. There were bound to be others besides Kristin Marsten who were actively provoked at having a new female boss. But most of the quotes attributed to Richard Voland were fragments of things she recognized as campaign rhetoric, sound bites taken out of context and edited to seem like up-to-the-minute, post-election gritching.
It was easy to see now how the pieces fit together. Joanna realized that the article might have had an entirely different slant and focus if she hadn’t summarily thrown Sue Rolles out of her office. The reporter was plainly pissed, and she was seeing to it that Joanna Brady paid dearly for her little tactical error.
From out of her past, she could almost hear D. H. Lathrop’s New Mexican drawl telling Joanna and her mother, “Newspaper reporters are just like rattlesnakes. You’re better off keeping them out in the open where you can see what they’re doing.”
Live and learn, Joanna told herself, and don’t make the same mistake twice.
Thirty-One
JOANNA SPENT the next half hour studying every word of the articles in the Sun that had anything to do with her department, including the one that dealt with the two Cochise County homicides.
That story was primarily a harmless recitation of the facts as they were known and disseminated at the time of Dick V
oland’s early-afternoon press conference. News about the tentative identification of Thornton Kimball’s remains hadn’t made it into Tucson prior to press time.
One for them, one for us, Joanna thought.
She turned then to the rest of the mail. There, among that day’s collection of memoranda and bulletins, she found a copy of that morning’s Bisbee Bee. That one did contain news of the Thornton Kimball I.D. Not only that, some enterprising reporter had managed to track down copies of old Bisbee High School yearbooks. Pictures of Harold Patterson and Thornton Kimball, both as much younger men and both dressed formally in white shirts, jackets, and ties, stared out from the front page of the newspaper.
Seeing them together like that, dressed in the outdated attire of an earlier era, it was interesting to note how much Burton Kimball took after his mother’s side of the family. He looked far more like a much younger version of Harold Patterson than he did his own father.
“Miss Kellogg to see you,” an abrupt Kristin announced over the intercom.
When Angie sauntered into Joanna’s office, she headed straight over to the window where she stood looking out. “You need to put a bird feeder in that mesquite tree and a ground feeder for the quail underneath,” she said.
In two short months, Angie’s knowledge of and devotion to Bisbee’s native wild-bird population had become encyclopedic. The yard of her tiny house in Bisbee’s Galena neighborhood had become a bird-feeding emporium and looked to outsiders like an aviary. Armed with her treasured copy of Birds of North America, she spent her time off work happily watching and cataloging her feathered visitors.
“I haven’t exactly had time to think about birds,” Joanna replied with a laugh. “What brings you here?”
Angie turned toward Joanna, her face suddenly somber. “I almost didn’t come at all,” Angie said. “I wanted to, but when I got as far as the parking lot, I almost chickened out and didn’t come inside. My whole body started to shake. I’ve never walked into a place like this on my own before or without having my hands cuffed behind my back. It brought back lots of bad memories.”
“I’m sure it did,” Joanna said.
Angie left the window and stood briefly behind one of the chairs as if still too nervous to sit down. “The girls in L.A. would never believe it. I can hardly believe it myself.”
The fact that Angie could number a county sheriff and a Methodist minister among her friends was, in a word, unbelievable. Nothing in Angie’s troubled past as a runaway teenager who survived by her own wits would have pointed toward that possibility.
“I came to show you something,” she said. Reaching into the back pocket of her pants, she pulled out a credit-card-sized piece of plastic. “Here,” she said, handing it over. “Look at this.”
The plastic card was an Arizona driver’s license—Angie Kellogg’s first driver’s license ever—complete with one of the best-looking driver’s I.D. photos Joanna had ever seen.
“You passed,” she said. “Congratulations, and it’s a good picture, too. Must be beginner’s luck.”
Angie smiled smugly. “And I passed on the first try,” she said. “In fact, I just came from there. I was afraid I might end up having to take the driving part more than once, but the guy who rode with me was great.”
Looking at the lush, blond Angie, Joanna thought it wasn’t surprising to think that a driving examiner might have somehow overlooked a minor miscue or two. An early loss of innocence had robbed Angie of the ability to see her own physical beauty. What was lost on her most likely hadn’t been missed by the male licensing official.
Joanna was often perplexed by Angie’s odd mixture of toughness and naïveté. She was at once both young and old; innocent and jaded. How could someone who had made her living by prostitution be so seemingly unaware of her own beauty and of the physical impact she made on those who met her?
Angie was experiencing some difficulty in making the transition from an economy in which her body had been the sole medium of exchange to one in which her paycheck paid the bills. With help from people like Bobo Jenkins and Jeff Daniels, she was only now learning that it was possible to have male friendships that didn’t automatically lead to sex, and that real freedom existed in the privilege of saying no.
“So would you like to go for a ride? Maybe have lunch?” Angie asked, her face alive with disarming enthusiasm. “Today’s my morning off. I don’t have to be at work until six.”
It was still early. With two homicides hanging over her head, Joanna felt as though there was something she should be doing besides going to lunch. The only trouble was, right that minute she had no idea what it was. In the end, she went.
With considerable pride, Angie escorted Joanna outside to where her cream-colored 1981 Olds-mobile Omega was parked in front of the building. They ate an early lunch at Daisy’s, leaving well before the noontime crowd started arriving. Afterward, Joanna asked Angie to help her ferry the Eagle back home to the ranch so she’d have only one vehicle parked at the office rather than two. Angie was glad to help out. They stopped by the Justice Center long enough to pick up the car.
The trip out to the ranch didn’t take more than twenty minutes—ten in one direction and ten back, although to a white-knuckled passenger, the ride back seemed much longer. Angie might have passed her driving exam with flying colors, but she was still a very inexperienced driver. The Omega tended to first cling to the shoulder of the highway as she met approaching vehicles and then to meander back to ride the centerline as soon as the road ahead was clear.
Joanna gripped the armrest and tried to keep her mouth shut. She remembered all too well how much she had resented Eleanor’s backseat driving, but after years in the insurance business, she also understood why it is that inexperienced drivers have to pay much higher premiums for auto insurance.
“So how’s it going?” Angie asked suddenly. “Is being sheriff what you thought it would be?”
If Angie Kellogg had ever given much thought to possible career choices, a position in law enforcement would never have crossed her mind.
“It’s hard work,” Joanna said. “With two homicides on the books since Tuesday night, I could do with a whole lot less excitement.”
“I heard about those,” Angie said. “The people in the bar hardly talk about anything else.”
“By the way, has Detective Carpenter been by to talk with you about those?” Joanna asked.
Startled, Angie turned to stare at her passenger. During the momentary lapse of attention, the wheels on the rider’s side of the Olds veered off the road. As a cloud of rock and gravel spewed up behind them, she managed to wrestle the car back onto the pavement.
“About the murders?” she managed, while the color drained from her face. “I don’t like detectives. Why would one of them want to talk to me?”
Clearly Angie’s old life carried some bad experiences into her new one. Joanna hastened to reassure her.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Joanna said. “It’s just that a person of interest in one of the murders supposedly spent the better part of Tuesday afternoon in the Blue Moon. I know you were scheduled to work on Tuesday, so I thought you might have seen him.”
“One of my customers is a suspect?” Angie asked, still bewildered. “Which one?”
“I didn’t say that. He’s just someone we need to check on. His name is Burton Kimball,” Joanna went on. “He’s a lawyer.”
“Oh, him,” Angie said suddenly contemptuous as she switched on the turn signal to turn into the Justice Complex. “What about him?”
“His uncle was murdered sometime that afternoon or evening. Burton Kimball isn’t known to be that much of a drinker, but he evidently got himself plastered on Tuesday. In a murder case, you always look at people close to the victim and note anything unusual, including uncharacteristic behavior.”
“You’re right,” Angie agreed. “He’s not much of a drinker. That’s why it was so easy to get him drunk. Couldn’t hold his liquor wort
h a damn.”
“You got him drunk? On purpose?”
“You bet.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted him so smashed that he wouldn’t be able to drag his ass out of bed the next day to go defend that dirty old man of an uncle of his.”
“Wait a minute here, Angie. How do you know Burton Kimball? For that matter, what makes you think Harold Patterson was a dirty old man? Did you even know him?”
“I know about him,” Angie replied. “I know enough. He was a child molester, wasn’t he? One of those creeps who fucks his own kids. Those guys always find some slick lawyer to get them off!”
Angie’s voice trembled with suppressed rage. “You’re damn right I got him drunk, and I’d do it again in a minute. I wanted the son of a bitch so blind drunk that he wouldn’t be able to hold his head up, but he left too soon. Just got up and walked out.”
“You’re lucky he wasn’t involved in an accident, Angie,” Joanna said. “Bartenders can be held accountable, you know. You could have lost your job.”
“I didn’t think about that,” Angie insisted stubbornly. “Still I’d do it again if I had a chance.”
By then the Omega was parked and idling in the front parking lot of the Justice Center, sitting astraddle a white line, occupying half of two full spaces.
“But why would you do such a thing?” Joanna asked. “Why run that kind of risk?”
Angie sat with her hands gripping the wheel and with her eyes focused on some invisible middle distance. She didn’t answer for such a long time that Joanna wondered if she’d even heard the question.
“How could a man defend someone like that?” Angie asked at last. “How could he try to get him off? As far as I’m concerned, that makes the lawyer as bad as the father. Maybe even worse. The father could be sick or crazy, but the lawyer is just doing it for money, working for the person who has all the cards. The little girls are the ones who have nothing, no one to turn to. They’re the ones who need someone to defend them, to help them.”
