J. Jance - Devil’s Claw

“Does Butch know?”

“He knows about the will. He doesn’t know that Reba Singleton has hired Dick Voland. I don’t think he’ll be thrilled when he finds out.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Absolutely. It’ll give us something to talk about-while we’re cleaning the oven and wiping down cabinets.”

“What about a ride home?” Marianne asked.

Joanna shook her head. “Mother already offered,” she said. “I’m sure it’s just a ploy to fill my head with a whole other list of things that have to be done before the wedding. Still, I’d better ride with her and give her that much of a shot at me. I haven’t exactly been sitting still this week.”

“You never do,” Marianne said.

“Look who’s calling the kettle black,” Joanna pointed out. “We’re both card-carrying members of the Women Who Do Too Much Club. Speaking of which, what are you going to do after the baby gets here? Have you and Jeff found a live-in sitter yet?”

Marianne frowned. “We haven’t, and I don’t know what we’re going to do. We can’t really afford a nanny, but I know Jeff won’t be able to keep track of Ruth and the baby at the shop. I’ll have a few weeks of maternity leave right after the baby is born. What we’ve decided to do is not worry about the sitter situation until it’s closer to time.”

“In other words, cross the bridge when you come to it.”

Marianne nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “You should probably try doing the same thing with Reba Singleton and her going to the FBI. Don’t worry about it until it happens.”

Great advice, Joanna thought. Easier given than taken-in both directions.

The ride home with Eleanor Lathrop Winfield proved to be just what Joanna expected. Eleanor wanted to present her daughter with a complex litany of things that had to be done in the course of the next week, along with a detailed schedule by which each one of those assigned tasks had to be accomplished. Eleanor remained willfully oblivious to the fact that her daughter might have a few other concerns in her life in addition to her upcoming wedding.

“You’re treating this whole thing far too casually,” Eleanor complained. “An event like this doesn’t come together without a little effort and cooperation, you know.”

“I’ve told you before, Mother,” Joanna said. “You need to talk to Butch about all these details. He’s the one who’s in charge of wedding plans and logistics on our end. I have my hands full just doing my job.”

“What about your hair?”

“My hair?”

“Have you made your appointment at Helene’s yet? Or has he made one for you? If the wedding starts at four, you should be in a chair in Helen Barco’s shop no later than eleven. And since the wedding is going to be on a Saturday, somebody had better call for an appointment pretty soon because she could be all booked up.”

“Mother,” Joanna replied. “I’m sure I can fix my own hair that day without having to visit an adequate shop.”

“I beg your pardon? A what?”

“I know Helen calls her place a beauty shop, but my results are usually adequate rather than beautiful. I prefer calling Helene’s an adequate shop.”

Eleanor Winfield gave a disapproving shake to her head. “There you go again,” she sniffed. “You’re just like your father-always making jokes. You’re so like him at times, Joanna, I can hardly stand it. Part of the time Big Hank Lathrop was your basic a-number-one clown. The rest of the time he was out trying to save the universe, even if it meant leaving his own family out to dry.

“I almost feel sorry for Frederick at times,” Eleanor added after a pause. Even now, less than a week before the wedding, Joanna’s mother still refused to call Butch Dixon by anything other than his given name. “I doubt the poor man has any idea of what he’s letting himself in for.”

“I believe you’re wrong there, Mother,” Joanna said quietly, thinking back over the events of the last two nights. Both times she had left Butch minding the store, and both times he had come through like a champ. “Butch is nobody’s dummy. I’m pretty sure he knows what’s coming.”

Nine o’clock Monday morning found a bleary-eyed Sheriff Brady in her office and trying hard to concentrate on work. She had barely made her way through the first two letters by the time Chief Deputy Frank Montoya showed up for his morning briefing.

“How’s the bride?” he asked cheerfully, popping his head in the door. “And how was the shower?”

“The shower was fine,” Joanna replied, rubbing her eyes. “As for the bride, she’s not doing all that well at the moment. Butch and I had a hell of a fight last night. Since I have yet to hear from him this morning, I have to assume we’re still not exactly on speaking terms.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Frank said, setting a stack of incident reports down on the corner of Joanna’s desk before easing himself into one of her two captain’s chairs. “Pre-wedding jitters, I assume?”

“Some people would call it that, I suppose,” Joanna replied.

The previous evening the oven had been sparkling clean and she and Butch had tackled cleaning grout on the kitchen counter when she had happened to mention Dick Voland’s visit at the end of the shower.

Butch’s reaction to the news had been instantaneous and in hindsight, quite predictable. “You can’t be serious!” he had exclaimed. “You mean you’re actually going to cooperate with that jerk?”

“Of course I’m going to cooperate,” Joanna replied. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Ignore him.”

“Butch, I can’t do that,” an exasperated Joanna had explained. “I’ve got nothing to hide. Besides, if I refuse to give him what he needs, it’ll make matters that much worse.”

“I don’t see how. I think he’s got a hell of a lot of nerve-”

“Dick Voland stopped by Daisy’s to let me know what was going down,” Joanna said. “It was quite nice of him, considering.”

“And you’re so naive, you fell for it.”

“Fell for what?”

“The nice-guy routine,” Butch growled. “Dick Voland wasn’t being nice. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. He’s a disgruntled ex-employee who came by to let you know that he’s about to stab you in the back. And while he’s at it, he wanted to ask you if you’d mind giving him a hand.”

“That’s not how it was,” Joanna said.

“Right.”

“Butch, I happen to know Dick Voland better than you do.”

“I’m sure that ‘s true.”

That was where the conversation had ended, and the evening, too. A few minutes later, Butch had stalked out of the house and left for home. Energized by anger, Joanna had kept on cleaning right up until midnight. She was angry with Butch for flying off the handle and angry with herself for not managing the issue in a more diplomatic fashion. The last thing she had wanted to do the week before her wedding was quarrel with Butch over Dick Voland. But the more she scrubbed and cleaned and the more she thought about it, the more she began to wonder if perhaps Butch was right. Joanna had assumed a mutual respect existed between her and her former colleague. Was it possible that respect was totally one-sided?

Finally, worn out by work and worry both, she had gone to bed but not to sleep. In fact, she had tossed and turned until almost time for her alarm to sound.

Frank took a sip of his coffee. “Don’t your new in-laws arrive today? I’ve heard rumors that they’re always good for at least one fight.”

“This has nothing to do with Butch’s family,” Joanna said. “The beef was over Dick Voland.”