Joanna’s voice dropped a full octave.
“You’re not listening to me, Walter.”
Of all the people in the room, only Jenny knew enough to be wary. Experience had taught her that when her mother’s voice fell that low in pitch, something was bound to happen.
“Somebody tried to murder my husband,” Joanna continued. “I want you and the rest of your goddamned department to find out who did it.”
Oblivious to the danger signals, Walter McFadden raised both his hands. “Look, little lady, I don’t know what…”
He never finished the sentence. With a lightning grasp, Joanna’s hand lashed out, grabbed his outstretched thumb, and forced it back into his wrist. Searing pain from the nerve shot up his arm. Without knowing quite how it happened, Sheriff Walter McFadden found himself down on one knee in the middle of the room with Joanna Brady standing over him.
“Don’t you ever ‘little lady’ me again, Sheriff McFadden,” she hissed. “And don’t tell me to shut up and mind my own business, either. This is my business. Somebody tried to kill my husband last night. According to the doctor, whoever it was did a pretty damn thorough job of it, too. Liver damage, intestinal damage. Even if Andy lives, he may be paralyzed from the waist down.”
She let go of McFadden’s thumb and stepped back two paces before turning her back on him and walking away. One of the men in the room made as if to come help him get back up, but McFadden motioned him aside. “I’m all right,” he grunted sheepishly. “Let me be.”
With both knees cracking in protest, the sheriff of Cochise County lurched to his feet. No one had ever done that to him before, and the fact that a little slip of a woman had tumbled him like a tippy-toy galled him down to the toes of his snakeskin boots. More curious than angry, he hobbled after Joanna. “How in the hell did you do that?”
She spun around and faced him again. “I’m warning you, Walter, don’t close the book on this case without finding out who did it.”
“Joanna, be reasonable,” he countered, testing his thumb, trying to determine if it was broken. Despite the fact that it hurt like hell, it was probably only sprained.
“Reasonable!” she stormed. “My husband’s in there dying, and you expect me to be reasonable? I can outshoot half the men in your department. My dad and my husband both saw to that. And I can handle myself, too. It’s your job to find out who attacked my husband, but if you don’t solve this thing, I will.”
Just then Jennifer escaped Marianne Maculyea’s clutches. She rushed over to where Joanna and McFadden stood in nose-to-nose confrontation. The child’s face was beaming. “Mom, that was great. It worked just like you said it would.” She turned to Walter Mc-Fadden. “Mommy taught me how to do it, too. Want me to show you?”
Jennifer’s unexpected interruption took the edge off the situation, although it didn’t defuse it completely. In spite of himself, Mc-Fadden smiled down at the child. “No thanks,” he said. “Not right now, but do me a favor, Jennifer. Go get that box off the table for me, would you?”
While she did as he asked, McFadden turned back to Joanna. “If I were in your place, I’d probably be mad as hell, too. I don’t blame you, Joanna, not a bit, but in the end you’re going to have to leave the investigation to the professionals.”
“And take your word for it?”
“Yes,” Walter McFadden said. “That, too.” Jenny walked up to them with the box in hand. “Is it a present?” she asked.
“I think so,” McFadden nodded, “an anniversary present from your dad for your mother.”
Jennifer held out the package, but Joanna made no move to take it. “Maybe you can get her to open it,” McFadden said to Jenny. “After all, I only had to beat off half my department to bring that box up here this morning. The very idea sent Dick Voland straight through the roof. He wanted it for his investigation. They all think I need to have my head examined.”
Once more Jennifer held out the package. This time, reluctantly, Joanna took the box and slid off the red ribbon. She handed the ribbon to Jenny then carefully lifted the lid and folded back a layer of delicate green tissue paper. Inside on a bed of ferns lay two dozen beautifully formed apricot-colored roses. She had always preferred apricot ones to the more traditional, dark red kind.
A huge lump formed in Joanna’s throat. “Oh, Mommy,” Jenny exclaimed. “They’re beautiful! Can I hold them?”
Joanna nodded and started to hand the box over to her daughter. “There’s a card,” Jenny pointed out. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
The card was nothing more than one of those tiny envelopes found on florist counters everywhere. Andy wasn’t one to spend money on lavish, gold-embossed, flowery greeting cards. Joanna’s name was scrawled on the out-side of the envelope in Andy’s careless hand-writing.
With trembling fingers, Joanna tore open the envelope. Inside, on an equally tiny note card with a single red rose in the upper right hand corner were the following words:
“JoJo. Sorry it took ten years. Love, Andy”
She looked at the words, read them through twice more, but they didn’t make sense, so she handed the card over to Walter McFadden. “What does it mean?” he asked.
Joanna shook her head. “I don’t have any idea.”
Meanwhile, Jennifer had placed the box back on the table and was slowly lifting the individual roses out of their tissue wrapping, counting aloud as she went. “Mommy,” she said suddenly, “come look at this.”
Joanna hurried to her daughter’s side. From the bottom corner of the flower box, Jennifer extracted a tiny, velvet-covered jeweler’s box which she placed in her mother’s hand. Joanna flipped up the lid. Inside lay a diamond engagement ring with a single emerald-cut stone.
“Oh, Mommy,” Jennifer squealed. “It’s beautiful. Put it on.”
The ring consisted of a single diamond on a gleaming gold band. Joanna pulled it out of its velvet-lined bed and slipped it on her finger where it fit perfectly, snuggling up against her plain gold wedding band. She held out her hand and the fluorescent overhead light fixture set the flawless stone gleaming.
Walter McFadden peered down at the ring through his bifocals. “It’s pretty all right,” he said. “It’s just about as pretty as it can be.” But then, when Marianne came to admire it, the sheriff walked away. He stopped at the door and looked back, shaking his head.
Joanna turned and caught his eye. “Be sure and tell Dick Voland about this,” she said, holding up her hand and waving it defiantly so the diamond winked in the light. “Ask him if this looks like what you’d expect from a de-pressed, unhappy, suicidal man. Ask him, sheriff, and let me know what he says.”
FIVE
That day had all the distorted and nightmarish reality of time spent at a carnival fun house. Hours dragged. The seconds and minutes stretched into eternity, except for those few precious moments each hour when Joanna was allowed to sit at Andy’s bedside. Those brief interludes passed in a fast-frame blur that was never long enough.
Nature abhors a vacuum. As the hours passed, the waiting room filled and emptied of people. Neighbors from home stopped by, people Joanna knew from work or school or church. Her boss, Milo Davis, showed up with the first contingent. In a genuine show of sup-port, all of them had willingly taken time to make the two-hour, hundred-mile, one-way drive from Bisbee to Tucson. Each time Joanna emerged from Andy’s room, some of the earlier arrivals would have disappeared only to be replaced by a new crop.
The visitors eddied and flowed around her, offering hugs and nervous murmurs of small talk. Someone had evidently leaked the information that the previous night’s shooting incident was now being investigated as a possible suicide attempt. That was hot news in Bisbee, and most of the visitors that morning were well aware of the ugly rumor. To each other, Joanna’s visitors spoke indignantly about how terrible it was that Andy Brady could do such an awful thing to his wife, child, and parents. To Joanna, they said only how very sorry they were and how she should let them know if there was anything at all they could do to help.