A chill that had nothing to do with the weather passed through Joanna’s body. “What’s wrong?” Joanna asked. “Has something happened?”
“A woman was hurt earlier this morning in an automobile accident,” Carol Strong answered. “She was hit by a car.”
“Leann?” Joanna asked, feeling almost sick to her stomach. “Leann Jessup?”
Carol Strong frowned. “Do you know her well?”
“We’re friends,” Joanna began raggedly. “At least we’re starting to be friends. She was supposed to come to the Hohokam this afternoon to have Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Is she all right?”
“At the moment she’s still alive,” Carol answered. “She’s been airlifted to St. Joseph’s Hospital and admitted to the Barrow Neurological Institute. She should be out of surgery by now.”
As if not wanting to hear any more, Jenny slipped her hand out of Joanna’s and walked away. She stood on the grassy patch in the middle of the jogging track, watching a long freight train head south along the railroad tracks. Shaking her head, Joanna stumbled over to the edge of the breezeway and sank down on the cold cement.
“I warned her not to go jogging so late at night,” Joanna said miserably. “I tried to tell her it was dangerous.”
“What’s your name?” Detective Carol Strong asked, sitting down on the sidewalk’s edge close to Joanna but without crowding her.
“Joanna Brady. I’m the newly elected sheriff down in Cochise County.”
“And you’re a student here?”
Joanna nodded, giving the detective a sidelong glance. “Leann and I are here attending the APOA basic training course. Classes for this session started last Monday.”
Carol Strong seemed to consider that statement for a moment. “And you’re also staying in the dorm?”
“My room’s just beyond Leann’s, between hers and the student lounge.”
A slight, involuntary twitch crossed Carol Strong’s jawline before she spoke again. “I see,” she said. “I suppose that figures.”
Then, after a pause and a brief look in Jenny’s direction, she added, “Is there anyone over at the hotel right now who could look after your little girl for a while?” she asked. “If so, I’ll be happy to give you a lift long enough to drop her off. Then we can go by my office to talk. I’m going to need some information from you. The sooner, the better.”
“Jenny’s grandparents are there, but I don’t understand why ... “
“Sheriff Brady,” Detective Strong began, and her voice was grave. “It’s only fair for you to know that we’re not investigating a simple traffic accident. Your friend Leann wasn’t injured while she was out jogging. She was hit by a car after falling of a moving pickup. She was naked at the time. Both hands were tied behind her back with a pair of pantyhose.”
That shocking news washed over Joanna with the same wintry impact as if she’d been splashed with a bucketful of ice-cold water. “You’re saying it’s attempted murder then?”
“At least.”
As the last train car rumbled past, Jenny turned back and waved at her mother. There was something trusting and wistful and heart-breaking in that wave, something that brought Joanna Brady face-to-face with her responsibilities, not only to her child, but also to her newfound friend.
She stood up. “Come on, Jenny,” she called. “We have to go now.”
Jenny came trotting toward them. “So I can go swimming?” she asked.
Joanna nodded. “Most likely, and so I can go to work.”
“But it’s Thanksgiving,” Jenny objected. “You never work on Thanksgiving.”
“I do today,” Joanna said.
But the plan to leave Jenny at the hotel with her grandparents fell apart back at the hotel, where Eva Lou and Jim Bob Brady were nowhere to be found. “You’ll have to come with me, then,” Joanna told her disappointed daughter.
“Couldn’t I just stay here by myself? I promise, I won’t go swimming until they get back, and I won’t get into any trouble. I could watch my tapes on the VCR and—”
“Why not bring the tapes along?” Carol Strong suggested. “There’s a VCR in the training room. You can watch a movie in there while your mother and I talk in my office. It’ll make it easier for her concentrate.”
“Should I go up to the room and get one?” Jenny asked.
Joanna nodded. As Jenny skipped off toward the elevator, Joanna shot Carol Strong a wan smile. “It won’t just make it easier for me to concentrate,” she corrected. “It’ll make it possible.”
They left the hotel minutes later and followed Carol Strong to her office. The Peoria Police Department was located in a modern, well-landscaped complex that included several buildings that seemed to have grown up out of recently harvested cotton fields.
“Why’s that statue giving God the finger?” Jenny asked, as Joanna guided the Blazer into the parking lot. Turning to look, Joanna almost creamed lumbering VW bus that was the only other vehicle in the city parking lot that holiday morning.
“What are you talking about?” Joanna demanded.
Looking where Jenny was pointing, Joanna saw a towering piece of metal artwork—a male nude figure with upraised arm fully extended—that dominated a central courtyard and fountain. Viewed from where the Blazer was situated in the parking lot, the statue did indeed appear to be making an obscene gesture.
“I’m sure he’s really reaching for the sky,” Joanna said. “And wherever did you learn about giving somebody the finger?”
“Second grade,” Jenny answered.
Pulling into a parking place, Joanna shook her head, sighed, and turned off the ignition. “Get your tape and come on.”
When Joanna opened her purse to toss the Blazer keys into it, she caught sight of the video Leann Jessup had given her the day before. That carefree exchange in the student lounge and their lighthearted lunch at the Roundhouse afterward seemed to have happened forever ago. Yesterday, Leann Jessup had been a vital young police officer and a dedicated if foolhardy midnight jogger. Today, she was a crime victim, a surgical patient at the Barrow Neurological Institute, fighting for life itself.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Joanna pulled the out of her purse and handed it over to Jenny. “‘This was on the news the other night. You may want to see it. Leann said I was on it. We both were.”
Jenny stopped in mid-stride and looked her mother full in the face. “Do you think your friend is going to be all right?” she asked.
Joanna gave her daughter a rueful smile. “I hope so.” After a pause she added, “You’re a spooky kid sometimes, Jennifer Ann Brady. Every once in a while, it feels like you can read my mind.”
“You do it to me,” Jenny said.
“Do I?”
Jenny nodded. “All the time.”
“Well, I guess it’s all right, then,” Joanna said. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Cute kid,” Carol Strong said, leading the way down a long, narrow hallway. They had left Jenny in the Peoria PD training room, happily ensconced in front of the opening credits of E.T.
“Thanks,” Joanna replied.
“Your husband was the deputy who was killed a few months back, wasn’t he?”
Joanna nodded.
Carol turned into a small office cluttered with four desks. On entering, she immediately kicked off her shoes. Shrugging off her tweed blazer, she turned to hang it on a wooden peg behind her chair. Only then did Joanna note both the slight bulge of the soft body armor Carol wore under her cream-colored silk blouse as well as the Glock 19 resting discreetly in its small-of-back holster in the middle of the detective’s slender waist. Joanna had
considered purchasing an SOB holster for herself but had nixed the idea because she thought it would be too uncomfortable. The gun and holster didn’t seem to bother Carol Strong, however. Crossing one shapely leg over the other, she massaged the ball of first one foot and then the other.