J. Jance - Desert Heat

Why would someone be following her, she wondered. At home in Bisbee, she wouldn’t have hesitated to walk up to the car and ask what the hell was going on, but this was Tucson, a big city by comparison, and only the night before, person or persons unknown had tried to murder her husband. Feeling isolated and vulnerable, she looked around her for someplace to turn for help. The houses nearby all seemed large and forbidding, mansions almost. The way she was dressed, in her blood-stained clothing and clumsy boots, she couldn’t see herself running up to the front door of any of those houses and asking for help. They’d take one look at her, call the cops, and have her arrested.

Ahead of her she saw the pink-and-blue wall of what at first seemed to be the largest house of all, but then, upon closer inspection, she realized the building was a hotel, a public building. Small blue letters on the side of the building announced, “Arizona Inn.”

She personally had never set foot inside the place, but she had heard of it. The Arizona Inn was some kind of posh resort. Maybe here she could disappear into a crowd of tourists. At the very least, she’d be able to find a telephone and summon help.

She ducked into the first available door. Looking around to get her bearings, she found herself standing in front of a small, densely stocked gift shop. Joanna had hoped for a crowd, and there was none, but perhaps the gift shop might have a pay phone she could use. Quickly, she slipped inside. The sales clerk behind the small counter was busy with someone else-a well-dressed older lady. Overhearing their conversation, Joanna learned the woman was making complicated arrangements to send gifts back home to her several grandchildren in Dubuque, Iowa.

While waiting impatiently for the clerk to finish with her customer, Joanna caught sight of a rack displaying a few end-of-summer items-bathing suits and smock-like beach jackets. Looking at them, she grew more self-conscious about the way she looked and about how out of place her bloodied, filthy clothing was in her present circumstances. She examined the clothing on the rack more closely.

At the far end of the rack was a vivid yellow smock. That particular shade had never been one of Joanna’s favorites, but the size was medium, and so was she. Joanna pulled the garment off the hanger and held it up to her body, checking the price tag in the sleeve as she did so. Even at half off, the price was enough to raise her eyebrows, but at least the smock didn’t have any bloodstains on it.

Joanna peeled off the denim jacket and rolled it up into a wad. On a shelf near the door sat a small collection of leather huaraches, Mexican-made, sandal-type shoes that visiting tourists from back East loved to take home as much for their comfort as for their value as genuine Southwestern conversation pieces. Hoping her luck would hold, Joanna edged over to the display. Sure enough, she saw a pair that was half a size too big, but half a size off was close enough for huaraches. She kicked off the boots and slipped on the floppy leather shoes.

By the time the saleswoman finished with her first customer and turned to Joanna, the boots and jacket were securely wrapped together in a compact bundle. Hoping to imitate the anchorlady she had seen on the news, Joanna smiled her most sincere smile.

“I think I’ll wear both of these, if you don’t mind,” she said.

If the woman had any private thoughts about the suitability of the yellow smock with Joanna’s torn dress and skin coloring, she diplomatically kept them to herself as she clipped off the sales tags and put Joanna’s bundled jacket in a flimsy bag.

“Maybe I should double this,” she said, hefting the weight.

“Good idea,” Joanna agreed.

She held her breath while she wrote out the check, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t bounce. Friday was payday for both Joanna and Andy. Maybe their paychecks would make it to the bank before this check did. Or, if they didn’t, maybe Sandra Henning, the manager, would cover it for a day or so until Joanna could make it good.

“Can you tell me where to find a phone?” Joanna asked.

“Down the hallway,” the woman answered. “Beyond the bellman’s desk, across from the library.”

Joanna scuttled across the old-fashioned lobby and found the tiny telephone alcove. Seated in front of the phone, she paused for a moment, wondering who exactly she should call and what she should tell them. Not knowing who else to ask for help, she finally dialed the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department and asked to speak to Walter McFadden. When told he wasn’t in, she asked for Dick Voland instead.

“Hi, Dick,” she said curtly when he answered. “This is Joanna Brady. Where’s Sheriff McFadden? I want to speak to him.”

Voland cleared his throat uneasily. “He’s not here right now.”

“Where is he?”

“I can’t say, Joanna. We haven’t heard from him. What do you need? Can I help?”

As Joanna tried to frame an answer, a man entered the lobby from outside and walked past her. When he stopped at the bellman’s desk to ask a question, she recognized the distinctive profile and realized it was the man from the Taurus, the same one who had been following her.

“Joanna?” Dick Voland said. “Are you still there? Do you want me to take a message?”

Joanna’s hand shook and her heart hammered in her chest. “No,” she said softly, lest the man overhear. “No message.”

Carefully, she put down the phone. She had no idea who this man was or what he wanted, but it was clear that he was trailing her openly, in broad daylight as if he had a perfect right to do so.

The long lobby was nearly deserted. An old man sat on a bench next to the wall far beyond the registration desk, but except for him, the bellman, and the man who was following her, there were no other people in the lobby. The sounds of laughter and tinkling glassware came floating to her from someplace else, from a room that sounded like a dining room.

Her pursuer had stepped closer to the bell-man’s desk and was reading one of the news-papers lying there. The door to the dining room was just around the corner from the public telephone. Maybe if she went through the dining room, she could disappear outside through another exit.

Joanna got up and bolted around the corner, almost colliding head-on with a dining room hostess. “One for lunch?” the woman asked.

Joanna glanced back over her shoulder. Something, maybe the sudden flurry of movement, had caused the man to look up from the papers. Their eyes met, and he started toward her.

“One for lunch,” Joanna said hurriedly. “No smoking.”

“This way please.”

The large dining room with its old-fashioned cane-backed chairs was only half-full, but the room hummed with a relaxed, convivial atmosphere. Joanna followed the hostess to a windowed table that looked out on a small patio.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Coffee,” Joanna murmured. “Just coffee. Black.”

Sitting with her hands clenched in front of her chin, Joanna watched as the hostess ushered the man into the room and seated him a few tables away. A busboy delivered the coffee and Joanna’s hands were shaking badly enough that some of the coffee spilled the first time she raised the cup to her lips.

What should she do, she wondered. Make a run for it out a side door and hope to elude him long enough to get back to the hospital? She took another sip of coffee and tried to calm herself. Surely there was some way out of this if she could just force herself to think clearly.

“What can I get for you today?” a smiling waiter asked.

Joanna hadn’t intended to stay, much less eat, but she felt trapped. Not eating would make her even more conspicuous. Without even bothering to check the price on the menu, she ordered a club sandwich.