J. Jance - Desert Heat

She nodded slowly. “I see,” she said. “So it’s like that, is it?”

Joanna nodded as well. “Yes.”

The woman reached out and patted Joanna’s arm with a gnarled, arthritic hand. “It will take time, my dear,” she said kindly, “but someday things will be better for you. Just you wait and see.”

Leaning on her cane, the old woman escorted Joanna as far as the hotel lobby. There, swinging the braced leg off to one side, she sauntered off into the dining room while Joanna stopped short in front of the telephone alcove. Much as she dreaded the prospect, it was time to tell Jenny. Past time if Joanna wanted to deliver the news herself. Unless she wanted Grandma Lathrop to do it in her stead, then there wasn’t a moment to lose.

Quickly she placed a long-distance call to the Methodist parsonage in Bisbee. Jeff Daniels answered.

“Hello, Jeff,” Joanna began, trying to observe at least a vestige of good manners. “I need to speak to Jennifer.”

“You sound upset, Joanna,” Jeff returned. “Are you all right? How are things?”

She tried to answer but at first the words caught in her throat. “Andy’s dead,” she managed finally. “It happened earlier this afternoon. Please don’t tell Jenny when you call her. I want to be the one to break the news.”

“She’s outside with Marianne right now,” Jeff said. “Hold on. I’ll go get them both.”

While she waited, Joanna dug her finger-nails deep into the palms of her hands. It hadn’t been necessary for anyone to tell her of her own father’s death. She had been right there on the shoulder of the road and had seen it all for herself firsthand. Now, though, she found herself praying for strength, for the ability to find the right words to say. Moments later Jenny’s cheerful, childish voice came on the phone.

“Hi, Mom. Reverend Maculyea and I have been outside playing on her swing. I think she’s weird. And Jeff, too. They have a swing, but they don’t have any kids.”

“Jenny…” Joanna began and then stopped when she heard the unmistakable tremor in her voice.

And clearly her distress was obvious, even to a nine-year-old. “What’s the matter, Mom?” Jenny asked. “You sound funny. Are you all right?”

Joanna took a deep breath. “I’m okay, but your dad’s not,” she said. “He’s dead, Jenny. Daddy’s gone.”

Her announcement was met with shocked silence. For a moment she thought maybe she’d been disconnected. “Jenny,” Joanna said. “Are you still there? Did you hear what I said?”

“Is he really?”

“Yes, really, honey. I’m sorry.”

Again the phone seemed to go dead in a baffling, achingly long silence, one Joanna had no idea how to fill. Finally Jennifer said, “Why were those nurses so mean to us? Why wouldn’t they let me see him? I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“I know, Jenny. Neither did I. Hospitals have rules, I guess, and everybody has to go by them, even if they don’t always make sense to anybody else.”

Jennifer began crying then. For almost a minute the only sound was that of Jenny sobbing brokenly into the phone. Joanna longed to be in the same room with her daughter. She wanted to hold her close and shield her from the hurt, but from one hundred miles away there was nothing she could do but listen. The sound of Jennifer’s broken-hearted weeping tore Joanna apart.

At last, in the background, she heard Jeff Daniels speaking soothingly. After a shuffle, the phone was handed over to someone else while Jenny’s disconsolate sobbing moved away from the receiver.

“Jeff told me,” Marianne Maculyea said when she came on the line. “How did it happen? After listening to Dr. Sanders, I thought he was doing all right.”

“So did I, but according to the nurse he went into another episode of cardiac arrest. This time they weren’t able to bring him back. Two separate doctors came in and certified that he was brain dead. And then they took him away. I wasn’t even there.”

“I’m so sorry, Joanna. Do you want me to come back up to Tucson? If you need me, I can be there in less than two hours.”

“No. I’d much rather have you there with Jenny right now. I’m all right, really. I had to leave the hospital for a little while to try to get myself sorted out, but I’m on my way back there now. I’ll come home as soon as I can.”

“Call if you need me,” Marianne told her. “I’ll stay by the phone.”

“Thanks, Mari. I will.”

After hanging up, Joanna detoured through the hotel restroom where she used a handful of tissues to wipe her face and blow her nose. Looking at her image in the mirror, she was shocked by what she saw there-by the deep, dark circles under red, puffy eyes, by the gray pallor of her skin, by her lank, dirty hair. She still hadn’t had a chance to shower or change out of the blue dress and the yellow smock, and her teeth were crying for a toothbrush. But all that would have to come later. For now she had to go back to the hospital and handle whatever needed to be handled.

Again, the walk back to the hospital seemed to take forever. As she entered the lobby, she felt shabby and dirty and ill at ease. She felt even more so when a well-dressed young woman fell into step beside her.

“Mrs. Brady. Could I please have a word with you?”

The woman was a stranger yet she seemed to know Joanna by sight. “Who are you?” Joanna asked.

“Sue Rolles. I’m a reporter with the Arizona Daily Sun.”

“What do you want?”

“About your husband’s suicide…”

“Murder,” Joanna interrupted, correcting the reporter the same way she had corrected Dr. Sanders hours earlier.

“But I was under the impression that the case was being investigated as a suicide.”

Joanna stopped in mid-stride and turned to face the reporter. Hurt and rage, the two war-ring emotions that had simmered hot and cold inside her all morning long, combined into a volatile mixture and came to a sudden boil. “You can talk about suicide all you want,” she declared, “but not to me, and not about my husband. Do I make myself clear?” The re-porter nodded.

“Andrew Brady was murdered,” Joanna continued. “He was an experienced police officer. Cops know all about how guns work. When they set out to commit suicide, they know how to get the job done-they usually blow their brains out. I believe that’s a statistic l read in an article in your very own newspaper.”

“I’m here to tell you that Andrew Brady never shot himself in the gut. He wouldn’t have done something like that in the first place, and even if he had, he never would have done it where I’d most likely be the one to find him.”

Properly chastised, the reporter moved back a step just as Ken Galloway materialized out of nowhere.

“What’s going on?” he asked, extricating himself from a crush of homeward-bound people exiting an elevator.

Joanna turned on him as though he were as much an enemy as the reporter. “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” she said. “Andy’s dead and I’m sick and tired of people telling me he committed suicide. I don’t want to hear it anymore. I won’t listen.”

“Who’s this?” Ken asked, nodding toward Sue Rolles.

“A reporter,” Joanna answered. “With the Sun.”

“Maybe you’d better go,” Ken Galloway said hurriedly to Sue Rolles. “I think Mrs. Brady has had about all she can handle for one day.” To Joanna he said, “Your mother sent me down to see if I could find you. She’s waiting for you upstairs. Come on.”

He started away, but Joanna didn’t move. Right that moment there were few people Joanna wanted to see less than she wanted to see her own mother, but she could hardly tell Ken Galloway that. When Joanna didn’t move, Galloway came back.