J. Jance - Partner In Crime

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I did what you said,” she told me.

“What’s that?”

“I suggested to Mother that maybe we should look into an assisted-living sort of arrangement for her. I told her about the one you mentioned, the place up on Queen Anne that takes dogs.”

“And?”

“She hung up on me. She even left the phone off the hook so I couldn’t call her back. I was so worried, I finally got in the car and drove over to check on her, just to make sure she was okay. When I got there, she had a whole line of pill bottles set out on the kitchen counter. She told me that if that was how I felt about it – if I didn’t care for her any more than that – there was no reason for her to go on living. If I hadn’t been there, Beau, I can’t imagine what she might have done.”

I was fairly certain that the pill bottles had been strictly for show. She wouldn’t have done a damned thing , I wanted to say, but Naomi was crying now, and I knew the poor woman had been totally outfoxed and outmaneuvered. As I said before, Naomi’s a nice person; her mother isn’t. There was no need for me to add to Naomi’s misery by telling her so.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“The only thing I can do,” Naomi replied shakily. “She’s coming to stay with me. Mother says she’ll call and start getting estimates from moving companies first thing Monday morning. I’ll have to put some of my stuff in storage to make room for hers. You’re not mad at me about this, are you, Beau?”

Heartsick , I thought. And disappointed, but not mad .

“No,” I said. “I’m not mad at all. You have to do what you have to do.”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully. “Thank you so much for saying that.” She seemed to gather herself together. “And now,” she added, “tell me all about your birthday. How’s it going?”

“About as well as can be expected,” I said.

JENNY CAME BACK FROM HER RIDE and headed directly for her room. “Are you going to want dinner?” Butch asked as she passed through the kitchen.

“I’m not hungry.”

“There’s plenty of food in the fridge if you want something later.”

“Okay,” she said.

“What about you?” he asked Joanna.

“I’m not hungry, either,” she said.

“In that case, the cook is taking the night off. We’ll all make do with leftovers.”

Joanna stretched out on the couch and covered her eyes with one hand. She was about to doze off when Cornelia Lester called. It was painful to have to tell the woman that although Joanna’s investigators were making progress on the case, they still had no idea who had murdered Latisha Wall.

“You say she was poisoned?” Cornelia asked in what sounded like disbelief.

“That’s what we believe,” Joanna said.

Cornelia absorbed that information. “What about her paintings?” she asked. “The ones in the gallery. Will I be able to see those anytime soon?”

“I’ll try to make arrangements for you to be allowed inside the gallery,” Joanna said. “But I’m not sure when that will be.”

“In other words,” Cornelia said, “you still haven’t located the gallery owner.”

Cornelia Lester was a stranger who wasn’t a former detective, yet she, too, seemed to be as privy to what was happening inside the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department as J.P. Beaumont was. What would it be like to work in a big city ? Sheriff Brady wondered. To be able to do this job in a place where everyone didn’t mind everyone else’s business ?

“No,” Joanna had admitted with a sigh. “We still haven’t located Dee Canfield.”

“What if you don’t?”

“If we don’t find her?”

“Or what if you do and she’s dead, too?” Cornelia persisted. “What happens to the paintings then?”

“As far as I know, they belonged to your sister,” Joanna said. “If something unfortunate has happened to Dee Canfield – and I’m certainly not saying it has – then the paintings would, either by will or by law, go to Latisha’s heirs. I’m assuming her heirs would be her family members, but let me remind you, Ms. Lester, that we won’t be able to release them to anyone so long as they’re part of an ongoing investigation.”

“Of course not,” Cornelia said. “But I’d still like to see them.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

Joanna put the phone down and had actually fallen asleep before it rang again. This time Butch answered.

“It’s for you,” he said, scowling at the receiver as he handed it over. “Tica Romero.”

“Hello?”

“We just got another 911 call from Naco,” the dispatcher said. “Some kids were playing around in one of the old cavalry barracks down there. They’ve reportedly found a body – a woman’s body. Chief Deputy Montoya and Detective Carbajal are already on their way. Deputy Montoya wanted me to let you know as well.”

“Thanks, Tica,” Joanna said, sitting up and shoving her aching feet back into her shoes. “I’ll be right there.”

Joanna went into the bedroom and slipped on her soft body armor as well as her weapons. Once she was dressed she stopped by Jenny’s room. The door was ajar. When she peeked in, she saw Jenny and Tigger curled up together on the bottom bunk, both of them sound asleep.

Leaving them be, Joanna returned to the kitchen where Butch was at work on his house file.

“Duty calls,” she said when she bent over to collect a good-bye kiss.”

“Don’t say I didn’t tell you so,” Butch said, but Joanna was relieved to see that he was smiling.

“I won’t,” she said.

I HAD HUNG UP after talking with Naomi and was wondering what to do next. It sounded like the Naomi Pepper door in my life was about to be slammed shut in my face. It came as no surprise that I immediately went back to thinking about Anne Corley.

I recognized I’d gone slinking off to Bisbee, Arizona, without mentioning it to my friend Ralph Ames. If I had been willing to ask him questions about Anne Rowland Corley’s history, I’m sure he could have given me answers, chapter and verse. As her attorney, he had known everything about her. Well, almost everything.

The problem with asking Ralph about Anne is that he knew her too well. Not only that, he had cared for her almost as much as I had. Ralph and I are friends, good friends, so whatever he might tell me would automatically go through those two distinctly separate filtering processes. I had no doubt that Ralph would tell me the truth – up to a point – but I suspected he might leave out a detail or two, if only to spare my feelings.

I was wavering between calling him and not, when I heard a siren. I looked up as a patrol car came racing up to the traffic circle from Highway 80. I’m always conscious of cop cars. It’s something I notice wherever I go. While in town, I had spotted several city of Bisbee patrol cars. They were white with a blue shield on the door. The fast-moving Crown Victoria making its way around the traffic circle sported a gold star on the door. That meant it belonged to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department.

I watched it go and wondered about it, but then I heard a second siren coming from the direction of Old Bisbee. This one was a cumbersome Ford Econoline van, but the same star was emblazoned on the outside. Something was up, something serious. The sheriff’s department was being summoned en masse.

Should I follow or not ? I wondered.

Then, barely seconds later, a third vehicle came along – this one a second Crown Victoria. It followed the same path as the first one. As it slowed to negotiate the curve of the circle, I caught a glimpse of bright red hair behind the wheel. This Crown Vic was being driven by Sheriff Brady herself. Whatever had happened was serious enough to summon her away from her family emergency. That did it. Moments later I was in the Sportage and trying to catch up.