J. Jance - Partner In Crime

Joanna opened the paper and turned to what she knew would be Marliss Shackleford’s latest column. The headline read:

CAN COCHISE COUNTY AFFORD A

SOFT-HEARTED SHERIFF?

There can be no question that Wednesday’s Fallen Officer memorial in honor of Cochise County Corrections Officer Yolanda Cañedo was moving and inspirational, but here’s the question many county residents are asking themselves: Should a dirty dozen of Cochise County inmates have been in attendance with what amounted to minimal sheriff’s department supervision?

There can also be no question that, as a corrections officer, Yolanda Cañedo made a difference in the less-than-exemplary lives of some of those unfortunate inmates. Ms. Cañedo used her off-duty hours to work as an unpaid volunteer with an inmate literacy project. She personally tutored a number of inmates who were working toward GED certificates while being incarcerated.

But the fact remains that these men are prisoners. They’re in the county lockup for reasons that either a judge or a jury could not ignore or excuse. Why, then, were they allowed to attend Ms. Cañedo’s funeral services without any evidence of restraints and with only two off-duty guards and the director of the Cochise County Jail Ministry looking after them?

Not that they did anything bad. From what I could learn, the inmates caused no difficulty. They behaved themselves during the funeral service and afterward were all returned to their cells at the Cochise County Jail without incident. But some people, including yours truly, think that letting those prisoners out at all was a mistake and that having done so sets a bad precedent.

Unnamed sources within the department suggest that Sheriff Joanna Brady herself is the one who made the decision to allow prisoners to attend the service. And why would she do such a thing? Was it a grandstanding effort on her part to let people see that her department is interested in rehabilitating county prisoners, as opposed to locking them up and throwing away the key? Or was it something else entirely?

Since her election, Sheriff Brady has gone to great lengths to prove she’s just as tough and hard-nosed as anybody else. But now, with the beginning of what promises to be a hotly contested reelection campaign only months away, I think it’s possible she wanted to show potential voters her softer, gentler side.

The problem is, if one of those inmates had decided to take off for parts unknown, any number of people could have been hurt, endangered, or even killed in the process. That’s a kind of soft-hearted, soft-headed approach to law enforcement that the people of Cochise County don’t deserve and can ill afford.

Finished reading, Joanna wadded up the paper and tossed it into the trash. For a while she tried to return to her paperwork, but it was no use. Distracted and unable to concentrate, she touched the intercom button.

“I’m going home early,” she said to Kristin. “If anybody needs me, have them call me there.”

“Are you okay?” Kristin asked. “I mean, it’s only three o’clock. You’re not sick or anything, are you?”

“Lots of people go home at three o’clock,” she said. “And today that’s me. I’ve done all I can do, unless there’s an emergency, that is.”

She left her office via the private door. Once back home at High Lonesome Ranch, she changed into a T-shirt, jeans, and boots. Then she hurried out to the barn, where she started mucking out the stall where Jenny kept her sorrel quarter-horse gelding, Kiddo. It was hot, dirty, smelly work – just the thing to take Joanna’s mind off Marliss Shackleford’s latest piece of attack journalism.

She became so involved in her shoveling and cleaning that she lost track of time. When Jenny came home from school and spoke to her from a few feet away, Joanna was so startled, she jumped.

“Mom, what are you doing that for?” Jenny demanded. “I told Butch I’d clean the stall out today, as soon as I got home from school. I haven’t had a chance to do it before because of play practice and-”

“I just felt like doing it myself,” Joanna said. “I was sick and tired of sitting behind a desk. I decided a little physical labor would do me a world of good.”

A look of alarm flitted briefly across Jenny’s face. She paled. “Nothing bad happened at work, did it?” she asked.

“Not really,” Joanna reassured her daughter. “All I’m saying is, my day was rotten. How was yours?”

“Okay, I guess,” Jenny said unenthusiastically.

“Let’s go wrestle a few bales of hay together,” Joanna suggested cheerfully. “Maybe throwing a couple of those around will make us feel better.”

Once the chores were done, Joanna came out of the barn to find Jenny leaning against the topmost rail of the corral with Kiddo nuzzling her jacket pocket, searching for the sugar cubes she routinely carried there. With their matching blond manes, girl and horse leaned on each other in an unspoken communion that made Joanna marvel.

Kiddo had come into their lives not long after Andy’s death. As a single mother with a demanding full-time job, Joanna had been wary of taking on any more responsibilities. She had objected to the idea of Jenny’s having a horse, but on that subject she had been overruled by her in-laws. And rightly so, she realized now.

She had watched in amazement as Jenny and the gelding had bonded. She had also been astonished at how caring for the horse had somehow helped ease Jenny’s terrible grief after her father’s death. In a way Joanna didn’t quite understand, she realized that allowing Jenny to be responsible for this huge, four-legged creature had helped transform her from a child into what she was now – a self-possessed young girl verging on womanhood.

Silently Joanna went over and joined Jenny at the fence, noticing as she did so that she and her daughter stood almost eye-to- eye. Within months, Jennifer Ann Brady would most likely be taller than her five-foot-four mother.

“Did you and Butch have a fight or something?” Jenny asked as Joanna reached out a hand to touch Kiddo’s sleek neck.

“Why do you ask that?” Joanna returned.

Jenny shrugged. “He was real quiet last night when he took me to play practice, and he was gone this morning by the time I got up,” she said. “He usually cooks breakfast, but today he didn’t. I had cold cereal instead.”

“We had a disagreement,” Joanna conceded after a pause. “Not a fight. And it’s all settled now. He said he had a meeting over at the new house this morning. I’m sure that’s the only reason he left the house so early.”

“What was it about?” Jenny asked pointedly.

“The disagreement?”

Jenny nodded.

“About his trains,” Joanna answered, thinking how silly that must sound.

“What about them?” Jenny asked.

“He wants to build a permanent track for them in the family room and run it over the doors and window frames,” Joanna replied. “I want a regular family room with a couch, a couple of chairs, a television set, and no trains.”

“If he’s still mad about it, then I guess you won,” Jenny said.

“It’s not a matter of winning or losing,” Joanna replied. “Being married means you have to discuss things and work out compromises you can both live with. I told Butch we’d find someplace else to put his trains, and we will.”

There was a long pause after that. Joanna assumed the conversation was over. It wasn’t.

“Did you and Dad have disagreements?” Jenny asked.

This was tougher ground. With Andy dead, it might have been easier to pretend that everything between them had always been perfect, even if that wasn’t true.

“Yes,” Joanna admitted finally. “Yes, we did.”