J. Jance - Skeleton Canyon

Just as Joanna was wondering how she would ever manage to escape Marliss Shackleford’s clutches, Jenny came to her rescue. “Can’t we go now, Mom?” Jenny insisted. “It’s almost dark. I don’t want to miss the fireworks.”

Joanna glanced at her watch and then back at Marliss. “Please excuse us,” Joanna said. “I’m due at the ballpark in an hour. On a night like this, parking will be a mess. ”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Marliss said. “You go ahead. I’ll be right behind you, but I do want to say a few words to that charming brother of yours before I go.”

Gratefully, Joanna reached down and took Jenny’s hand. “Where’s Butch?” she asked, as they started across the yard.

“He’s out back,” Jenny answered. “Throwing the Frisbee for Tigger.”

Walking through the remaining guests took time. Joanna had to stop here and there long enough to chat and say hello.

“Mom,” Jenny said, when they finally cut through the last of the crowd. “Did Marianne call Grandma an awful wife?” “Awful,” Joanna repeated, as if in a daze.

Suddenly she burst out laughing. “Oh, honey , that’s not what Marianne said. She said lawful, not awful,” she corrected a moment later, just as they came around the corner of the house.

Butch Dixon paused in the act of tossing the Frisbee. “All right, you two,” he said. “I heard you laughing. What’s so funny?”

“Jenny’s way of hearing what’s said isn’t always on the money. She spent years of her life thinking the Lord’s Prayer had something to do with leading a snot into temptation. Now she’s worried that Mother is George’s awful wedded wife.”

Butch laughed, too. Jenny was offended. “You guys are making fun of me,” she objected, sticking out her lower lip.

“No, we’re not,” Butch told her. “Not really. We’re enjoying you. Now, what’s up?”

Joanna checked her watch again. Surprisingly, it was far later than she expected. “We’re going to have to leave pretty soon,” she said. “The fireworks are due to start at eight-thirty. I have to be on tap a little earlier than that. The dedication service is due to start about eight-fifteen.”

To her surprise, Butch turned his attention away from her and back to the panting and one-track-minded Tigger, who was watching his hand with unwavering interest, waiting to see if the Frisbee would once again fly through the air. Butch wound up and gave the Frisbee an expert toss, sending it into a complicated spin. The throw came with an extra bounce that faked the dog out twice before he finally managed to catch it on the fly.

“Why don’t you two go ahead,” Butch said as Tigger came sprinting back for yet another throw. “I’ll hang around here and help Jim Bob and Eva Lou clean up.”

“You mean you don’t want to see the fireworks?” Jenny demanded, her voice stiff with disbelief. “I thought everybody liked fireworks.”

“I do like fireworks,” Butch insisted. “It’s just that someone ought to stay here to help.”

Joanna turned to Jenny. “Go on into the house and get my purse and keys,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the car in a few minutes.”

Jenny hurried away while Joanna looked back to Butch. “Is something the matter?” she asked. “Did my mother say something to hurt your feelings?”

“Your mother?” Butch asked. “Nothing of the sort. Eleanor is fine. I just want to stay here, that’s all.”

Joanna’s own disappointment was clearly audible in her objection. “But I thought we’d go into town together,” she said. After spending the whole day in what had seemed like a three-ring circus, she had looked forward to having some time alone with Butch-some quiet time for the two of them to talk and decompress-before taking him back uptown to his hotel.

“Jenny’s been asked to spend the night with a girlfriend,” she said. “After the fireworks, I thought maybe we’d hang out for a while, just you and me.”

To Tigger’s dismay, Butch dropped the Frisbee, letting it fall without bothering to throw it. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Of course, I’m sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Butch looked uneasy. “Didn’t you tell me that this was your and Andy’s first date years ago-Bisbee’s Fourth of July fireworks? I thought you and Jenny would want to go by yourselves.”

Inexplicably, Joanna’s eyes filled with tears. Butch was right. Years before, the fireworks had been the occasion for her first date with Andrew Roy Brady, but in the busy rush of the day’s events, she had forgotten all about it. It touched her deeply to realize that not only had Butch remembered, he had also made allowances.

“That’s sweet of you,” she said, smiling mistily up at him. “But it’s not necessary. I really want you to go with me tonight. There are people in town I’d like to introduce you to. I want to show you off.”

“In that case,” Butch said with an affable grin, “your wish is my command.”

As he followed her toward the car, she gave him a sidelong glance over one shoulder. “You know,” she told him, “for a non-Wedgwood kind of guy, you’re not bad.”

“Non-Wedgwood?” he asked with a puzzled frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind,” Joanna said. “It’s an ‘in’ joke.”

Minutes later the three of them headed into town in Joanna’s Eagle. She had decided that if she and Butch were going out on the town later that evening, she didn’t want to he seen driving around in a county-owned car. Besides, if an emergency did arise, Dispatch could always reach her through the brand-new cell phone safely stowed in her blazer pocket.

“Did you know Mom had to have the air-conditioning fixed before she could come get me at camp?” Jenny asked from the backseat.

“I know,” Butch replied. “She told me all about it on the phone.”

Jenny shook her head. “You guys must talk all the time. ”“I guess we do,” Joanna said.

At the ballpark, Jenny took charge of Butch and disappeared into the grandstand while Joanna was led to the flag-draped platform that had been erected in the middle of the baseball diamond. It was close enough to starting time that the platform was already crowded with VIPs. Agnes Pratt, Bisbee’s mayor, might not have been sufficiently recovered from her appendectomy to ride a horse, but that didn’t keep her away from the platform, where she stood chatting with several members of the city council.

On the far side of the platform, near the top of a ramp that had been built to accommodate a wheelchair, sat David O’Brien. He was involved in a conversation with Alvin Bernard, Bisbee’s chief of police.

It was the first time Joanna had seen David O’Brien since Brianna’s funeral, a week and a half earlier. During and after the service Joanna had heard a few mumbled questions concerning the surprising absence of Katherine O’Brien, who had chosen not to attend her own daughter’s funeral. However, since David O’Brien had refused to give any explanation concerning his wife’s whereabouts, neither had Joanna.

Two days after Brianna’s funeral, Bisbee’s Fourth of July celebration had been dealt an almost fatal blow when the fire-works budget had come up $10,000 short of the money necessary to release the fireworks package from the supplier. With the evening’s celebration on the brink of cancellation, David O’Brien had stepped into the fray. Saying that his daughter had always loved fireworks, he had coughed up the missing financial shortfall. Not only that, he had agreed to provide a sizable ongoing endowment in Brianna O’Brien’s name that would guarantee the continuation of Bisbee’s fire-works display for many years into the future. This, then, would be the occasion of the First Annual Brianna O’Brien Memorial Fireworks Display.