J. Jance - Dead to Rights

When the door closed for the second time and stayed closed, Joanna breathed a sigh of relief. For that one evening at least, Jenny had seemed like her old self. That was some-thing to be grateful for, something to appreciate. It made her hassles with both Eleanor Lathrop and Marliss Shackleford pale in significance.

Smiling to herself, Joanna picked up the phone once more. This time she dialed Angie Kellogg to let her know that being selected for jury duty wasn’t the end of the world. At least this time when Angie showed up in a courtroom, it would be with the prospect of someone else going to jail. That ought to be some small consolation.

“ There you go, Sheriff Brady,” Dr. Reginald Wade said the next morning as a red-eyed Bebe Noonan led Tigger out into the reception area on a lead. As soon as he saw Jenny, the dog went crazy. Reggie, a long, tall drink of water with a crooked grin and an easygoing manner, leaned back against the counter and watched the dog’s joyous reunion with his tiny mistress.

“You’d think he’d been locked up here forever,” he said

“At home the two of them are inseparable,” Joanna said “except, of course, when Tigger takes it into his head to go chasing after porcupines.”

The vet nodded. “Speaking of which,” he said. “It must have been close to twenty-four hours from the time that dog of yours and the porcupine started mixing it up before I was able to get after those quills. Fortunately, Bucky had Tigger under sedation and on an IV, so he came through it like a champ. By the way, I noticed that his chart called for a rabies vaccination. I gave him one while we were at it.”

Looking from Dr. Wade to Bebe Noonan, Joanna reaches into her purse to retrieve her checkbook. “Who do I pay, then?”

“Pay Terry, by all means,” Reggie Wade said. “I’m just helping out. Filling in until Terry has a chance to sort things out. Had our situations been reversed, I’m sure Bucky would have done the same for me and my furry patients. Putting Terry’s mind at ease about the animals is the least I can do.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Joanna said. “Thanks.” She turned to Jenny. “Go ahead and get Tigger in the car. If you want to have breakfast before I drop you off at school, we’re going to have to get a move on.”

Jenny reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a car-rot. “I brought this along for Kiddo. Do I have time to take it to him?”

“Sure,” Joanna said. “But hurry.”

Jenny raced out the door, taking Tigger with her. Meantime, Bebe came hurrying into the reception area along with yet another client, a young mother who had come to collect her family’s newly neutered basset-hound pup.

While Joanna paid Tigger’s bill, Reggie Wade helped discharge the basset. His kindness in doing so made a real impression on Joanna. It seemed to her that was what small-town America was all about-neighbors helping neighbors even when, under normal circumstances, they might have been considered natural competitors rather than allies.

As Joanna made to leave, Reggie met her at the door, pulling a business card out of his pocket. “If Tigger tangles with that porcupine again, here’s my address down in Douglas. I’m just north of the fairgrounds.”

“Thanks,” Joanna said, taking the card. “You think he’ll do it again, then?”

Dr. Wade shrugged. “Who knows?” he said. “You never can tell. How many times is it now? ”

“‘Three so far.”

“It sounds to me as if Tigger and that porcupine have a grudge match going. There’s always a chance the porcupine will decide to move along. Barring that, I don’t think any-thing short of a baseball bat is going to get Tigger to leave him alone. He’s convinced he’s going to win.”

Joanna put the card in her pocket. “In that case,” she said, “I’d best keep your address handy. You’ll probably be hearing from us again real soon.”

On the way back out to the ranch, Jenny sat in the back seat with Tigger’s head cradled in her lap. “What’s going to happen to Kiddo?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You should have seen him when I gave him his carrot. He seemed so sad.”

Joanna bit back the urge to explain to Jenny that horses don’t get sad, but Jenny was already hurrying on with her own agenda. “Couldn’t we buy him, Mom? Please? We’ve got plenty of room. I’d help take care of him. Honest, I would.”

“Buy a horse?” Joanna choked. Another animal to care for was the last thing she needed.

“Don’t you remember?” Jenny wheedled. “Daddy told me I could have a horse someday.”

“Someday maybe,” Joanna said. “But not right now.”

After that, Jenny drifted into a morose silence that lasted all the way out to the ranch and back into town. Unfortunately, the mood was catching. As Joanna looked out at miles of winter-blackened mesquite it seemed to her as though the whole hundred-mile-long expanse of the Sulphur Springs Valley was dead; as though the landscape would remain barren and forlorn forever.

Just like the two of us, Joanna thought.

By eight, Jenny had picked her dispirited way through an order of French toast at Daisy’s, and Joanna had dropped her off at school. With the morning’s somber mood still hanging over her, Joanna arrived at her office in the Cochise County Justice Center.

Joanna’s secretary, Kristin Marsten, wearing her signature short skirt, had just presented Joanna with a stack containing two days’ worth of untended correspondence when Deputies Voland and Montoya came into her office for their early morning briefing.

The two of them could have been Mutt and Jeff. Voland was big and burly and loud-prone to throwing his considerable weight around. Frank was slight and quiet, tending more to negotiation than to barking orders. Their only common physical trait came from seriously receding hairlines.

From day one, relations between the two chief deputies had been as much at odds as their physical characteristics. “Oil and water” was the best way to describe it. Voland’s long history with the department made him the consummate insider. It usually meant he stood firmly behind doing things the way they had always been done. Montoya, a former Willcox City Marshal, had been one of the two men who had run against Joanna in the contest for sheriff. People had been surprised when one of her first acts upon assuming office had been to draft a former opponent, appointing him to be one of her two chief deputies. Most longtime sheriff’s department employees, Dick Voland included, regarded Montoya as a rank outsider.

At the time of the appointment, Joanna had made it clear to Frank that she wanted him aboard so she could he assured of having at least one sure ally in the department. In the months since, Drank had served her in that regard both cheerfully and adeptly. Outside the department, he acted as a public lightning rod. Inside, he functioned as a behind-the-scenes departmental barometer.

On this particular morning, as Voland and Montoya took their usual places at the conference table in Joanna’s office, she was dismayed to see that the usually upbeat Frank seemed downright glum.

“So what’s been happening?” Joanna asked, opening the session with the customary question. Dick Voland complied, quickly delivering the department’s unvarnished overnight statistics.

“Five U.D.A.’s (undocumented aliens) picked up between Douglas and Bisbee along Border Road and two more just outside Tombstone on Highway 80. Turned them over to the Border Patrol. Two drunk drivers. One domestic. A single-vehicle, alcohol-related rollover just south of Elfrida. That’s about it. Pretty quiet, even for a Tuesday.”

“Anything on the Buckwalter case?” Joanna asked.