J. Jance - Partner In Crime

“What’s this?” he asked.

Joanna pointed to a massive brown stucco mansion lurking behind a curtain of twenty-foot-high oleander. The house stood at the top end of what had once been the lush green of Vista Park. Now the park was little more than a desert wasteland – a long, desolate expanse of dry grass and boulders with houses facing it on either side.

“I thought you’d want to see this,” Joanna told him quietly. “This was Roger Rowland’s house. It’s where Anne Rowland Corley grew up.”

She saw him swallow hard. Tears welled in his eyes. A sob caught in his throat. There was nothing for her to do but try to comfort the man. As she wrapped her arms around him, hot tears dribbled down his cheeks and ran through her hair. His arms closed around her as well. As they stood there holding each other, it seemed to Joanna like the most natural thing in the world.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT came over me. It was more than a momentary lapse. I remember crying like that when my mother died of breast cancer, and again when my first wife, Karen, succumbed to the disease, too. But Anne Corley had been gone for a very long time.

I should have thought that by now the hurt of losing her would have been scabbed over and covered with a protective layer of scar tissue. Still, seeing the house she grew up in – a mansion of a place that must have seemed more like a prison than a home – hit me hard. It sat there obscured behind a thick, decades-old oleander hedge. That planted green barrier had provided far more than simple privacy for the troubled family that had once lived behind it. Evil, murder, and incipient insanity had resided there along with the woman I loved.

It was only when I started to pull myself together that I realized I was standing in broad daylight with both arms wrapped tightly around Sheriff Joanna Brady. And with her arms wrapped around me, too. It was a shock when I noticed I didn’t want to move away. Pulsing electricity seemed to arc between us.

I started to push her away, but she wouldn’t let go. Then a call came in on her car radio.

“Sheriff Brady?” the dispatcher asked.

With a sigh, Joanna loosened her grip on me and returned to her Crown Vic. “What’s up?” she asked.

“I have Governor Hickman on the phone. Do you want me to patch him through?”

While Joanna talked to the governor, trying to convince him that he needed to negotiate with Mexican authorities for the return of Jack Brampton’s body, I stood beside the car and tried to get a grip. Several cars rolled past, slowing when they saw the Crown Vic with its flashing yellow hazard lights pulled over on the narrow shoulder. To a person, every driver eyed me curiously, probably trying to figure out what kind of miscreant I was. Fortunately, they couldn’t tell by looking.

I remembered all too clearly that it was only due to some Bisbeeite’s nosiness that we had come to focus our investigative efforts on Jack Brampton and his suspicious pay-phone calls. If making a simple phone call had been enough to raise an alarm, what would people think if they had observed my unexpected and entirely unauthorized embrace with the sheriff of Cochise County? I also wondered how long it would take for that juicy tidbit to become public knowledge.

It probably already has , I thought grimly. I didn’t know Marliss Shackleford well, but I guessed that would be just the kind of item she’d love to lay her hands on. Even so, I still wanted to hold Joanna Brady again and feel her surprisingly strong body against mine and her curved cheek grazing my shoulder.

When she finally ended her radio transmission, I climbed back into the car. “What’d the governor have to say?” I tried to sound nonchalant, but I was embarrassed and ill at ease. She’d been nothing but kind – offering me comfort and a shoulder to cry on. Obviously, I had taken it the wrong way – read something into it that hadn’t been intended.

“He’ll see what he can do,” Joanna said without meeting my gaze.

“In other words, you’re supposed to take an old cold tater and wait.”

“I guess.” Joanna sighed. “We’d better go,” she said.

“You’ve got that right.”

She shot me a defiant look then. Her green eyes pierced right through me. “I’m not sorry,” she said.

I was astonished. What did that mean? That the flash of desire I had felt flowed in both directions? That right there in broad daylight, Joanna Brady had wanted me as much as I wanted her? Unbelievable !

“I’m not, either,” I agreed, and that was the truth. Sorry didn’t apply. Confused? Yes. Concerned? You bet; that, too.

Joanna was driving again, faster than she should have. I watched the speedometer spike upward – ten miles over the posted limit. Ten, then fifteen, then twenty.

“Maybe we should slow down,” I suggested quietly. She jammed on the brakes hard enough that the seat belt dug into my collarbone. The truth is, I wasn’t talking about the car – and she knew it.

It’s probably a function of age rather than wisdom, but I’ve finally outgrown my need to play chicken the way we used to down along the railroad tracks in Golden Gardens when I was a kid. My need for Joanna Brady was a speeding locomotive. It was time to get the hell off the tracks or pay the price.

Another call came in on the radio. “Sheriff Brady?” I recognized Frank Montoya’s voice.

“Yes.”

“Serenity Granger is here at the department,” Montoya said. “I told her Jack Brampton is dead. I also told her that, although we can’t be absolutely sure at this point, we’re fairly certain he’s the one who murdered her mother. Serenity wants to know if it’s possible for her to have access to Castle Rock Gallery. While she’s here waiting for Doc Winfield to release Deidre Canfield’s body, she wants to clear up some of her mother’s affairs. Latisha Wall’s paintings were on consignment. Serenity wants them crated up in time to ship home with Cornelia Lester. She’s worried about a liability problem if something were to happen to them.

“I told her that the house out in Huachuca Terraces is clearly a crime scene and that’s still off limits, but I agreed to check with you about the gallery.”

“What do you think, Frank?” Joanna asked.

“Those paintings are probably worth some serious money,” he returned. “Sentimental value to the family would make them priceless. If we force Serenity to leave them hanging in the gallery and something does happen to them – if they end up being damaged in a fire or stolen – we could end up being liable, too.”

“You don’t think releasing them will have an adverse effect on the rest of the investigation?”

“I can’t see that it will.”

“All right, then,” Joanna said, making up her mind. “Tell Ms. Granger to go ahead. Someone will have to go to the gallery to let her in, but we should probably have someone on-site while she’s doing the packing just in case something turns up.”

“Okay,” Montoya said. “I’ll handle it.” He paused for a moment. “By the way,” he added, “I heard about Ken Junior. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks,” Joanna said. “I’ll try not to.”

I had heard the name Ken Junior mentioned in passing several times. I knew he was a member of Joanna’s department, and I wondered if something had happened to him.

“Ken Junior is one of your deputies, isn’t he?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation into less dangerous territory. “Did he get hurt or something?”

“He’s running for office against me,” Joanna replied. “That reporter you met, Marliss Shackleford, is a great supporter of his.”

I may have had to deal with Maxwell Cole on occasion, but not while I was running for public office. “Not good,” I said.