“Lila needed to talk about all this, Joey,” Butch continued. “She needed somebody to be there with her, to listen and sympathize. happened to be handy. We talked all night long. I held her, and she cried on my shoulder.”
“You held her,” Joanna said.
“And listened,” Butch said.
“And nothing else?”
“Nothing. I swear to God.”
“And why should I believe you?” Joanna asked.
Butch got off the bed. He came across the room to the table, where he sat down opposite Joanna. As he did so, his lips curved into a tentative smile. “Because I wouldn’t do something like that, Joey. I’m lucky enough to be married to the woman I love. She’s also somebody who carries two loaded weapons at all times and who, I have it on good authority, knows exactly how to use them. What do you think I am, stupid?”
Joanna thought about that for a minute. Then she asked another question. “You said you were pissed at me. Why?”
“That’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
“Tammy and Roy and the rest of the people at the wedding are all my friends,” he said slowly. “I had just finished spending the last three days up at Page being sheriff’s spouse-under-glass. Don’t get me wrong. Antiquing aside, I was glad to do it. But turnabout’s fair play, Joey. I really wanted you to be here with me last night at the rehearsal dinner. I wanted to show you off to my old buddies and be able to say, `Hey, you guys, lucky me. Look what I found!’ But then duty called and off you went.
“As soon as you said you were going, I knew you’d never make it back in time for the dinner, and I think you did, too. But did you say so? No. You did your best imitation of Arnold Schwarzenegger saying, `I’ll be back,’ which, of course, you weren’t. You left in the afternoon and didn’t turn back up until sometime in the middle of the night. I know you weren’t back earlier because I, too, was calling the room periodically all evening long in hopes you’d be back and able to join in the fun. Either you weren’t in yet, or else you didn’t bother answering the phone.”
“You didn’t leave a message,” Joanna said accusingly. “And you could have tried calling my cell phone.”
“Right, but that would have meant interrupting you while you were working.”
Joanna thought about that for a moment. They had both made an effort to reduce the number of personal phone calls between them while she was working. Still, she wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“That’s why you were pissed then?” she asked. “Because I missed the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner and wasn’t around for you to show me off to your old pals?”
“Pretty much,” Butch admitted. “I guess it sounds pretty lane, but that’s the way it was.”
A long silence followed. Joanna was thinking about her mother and father, about Eleanor and Big Hank Lathrop. How many times had Sheriff Lathrop used the call of duty to provide an excused absence for himself from one of Eleanor’s numerous social functions? How often had he hidden behind his badge to avoid being part of some school program or church potluck or a meeting of the Bisbee Historical Society?
Joanna loved her mother, but she didn’t much like her. And the last thing she ever wanted was to be like Eleanor Lathrop Winfield. Still, there were times now, when Joanna would be talking to Jenny or bawling her out for something, when it seemed as though Eleanor’s words and voice were coming through Joanna’s own lips. There were other times, too, when, glancing in a mirror, it seemed as though Eleanor’s face were staring back at her. That was how genetics worked. But now, through some strange quirk in her DNA, Joanna found herself resembling her father rather than her mother. Here she was doing the same kind of unintentional harm to Butch that ll. H. Lathrop had done to his wife, Eleanor. And Joanna could see now that although she had been hurt by her belief in Butch’s infidelity—his presumed infidelity—she wasn’t the only one. Butch had been hurt, too.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I called, too,” she said contritely. “I left messages on the room’s voice mail trying to let you know what was going on—that all hell had broken loose and I was going to have to go to Bisbee. You never got any of them. They were all still listed as new messages when I came in.”
“This sounds serious,” Butch said. “Tell me now.”
And so Joanna went on to tell Butch about going to see Maggie MacFerson and finding the woman drunk in the unlocked house that belonged to her dead sister. Joanna told Butch about the loaded gun and the smashed glass and the bleeding cuts on Maggie’s hands that had triggered a trip to the emergency room. She told him about Eleanor’s blowing the whistle to Child Protective Services and how a zealous caseworker had wrested a screamingly unhappy Dora away from Jim and Eva Lou’s care at High Lone-some Ranch.
“What a mess!” Butch said when she finished. “How’s Jenny taking all this?”
“That’s why I stayed over in Bisbee. To be with Jenny, but she’s okay, I think. At least she seemed to be okay.”
“I read the article on the front page of the Reporter,” Butch said. “How can that woman—Maggie MacFerson—get away with putting Jenny’s and Dora’s names in an article like that? I didn’t think newspapers were supposed to publish kids’ names.”
“They usually don’t with juveniles who are victims of crimes or with juvenile offenders, either. In this case, Dora and Jenny weren’t either. They were kids who found a body. That means their names go in the papers.”
“It wasn’t exactly a flattering portrait of either one of them—or of you, either,” Butch added.
She gave Butch a half-smile. “I’m getting used to it.”
“Is Marianne the only person you talked to?” he asked. “Today, I mean. After the little scene down in the lobby.”
“She’s the only one.”
“That way, even though nothing happened, at least it won’t be all over town that I’m the villain of the piece. Marianne is totally trustworthy. She also seems to be of the opinion that you’re right and I’m wrong. She told me to get my butt in the car and head straight back here, to the hotel.”
Butch shook his head. “I think we were both wrong, Joey,” he said after a pause. “I’m a married man. No matter what, I shouldn’t have been spending all night alone with an unmarried ex-girlfriend, sick or not. And I had no right to want you to take a pass on your job. Being sheriff is important, Joey—to you and to me as well as to the people who elected you. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be jealous on occasion.” He grinned then. “And the same goes for you. I mean, if you want to be jealous of me, have a ball.”
Which, of course, she had been, Joanna realized. More so than she ever would have thought possible.
“I still don’t understand why Lila had to talk to you about all that,” she said. “Doesn’t she have any other friends she could have talked to?”
Butch shrugged. “Bartenders are the poor man’s psychologists. We listen and nod and say uh-huh, and all we charge is the price of a drink or two.”
And Joanna realized that was true as well. One of the things she had always appreciated about Butch was that he was a good listener. He heard not only the words, but paid attention to the sub-text as well.
Just then, Butch glanced at his watch. “Yikes!” he said. “I’m due downstairs in five minutes for pictures. I’d better jump into that tux.” He started toward the bathroom, then stopped. “You will come, won’t you?” he asked. “To the wedding, I mean.”
Joanna nodded. “I’ll be there.”