Partner In Crime

ONCE THE DOOR CLOSED BEHIND HIM, Joanna went back to her desk and sat down. Of course she remembered Anne Rowland Corley. Who wouldn’t? People in Bisbee thought about Anne Rowland Corley’s guilt or innocence the way lots of people think about O. J. Simpson’s: She was a killer who had gotten away with it.

It had happened only a year or so before Joanna’s father had been elected sheriff. The saga of the Rowland family’s series of tragedies was one that wouldn’t go away. Anita and Roger Rowland had two daughters, Patricia and Anne. The older girl, Patty, was developmentally disabled and died after an accidental fall in their Warren neighborhood home. Shortly after that, Roger Rowland too was dead of a single gunshot wound to the head. Because both deaths had occurred inside the city limits, the cases had been investigated by the Bisbee Police Department. Joanna remembered her father fussing about that.

“Roger Rowland and Chuck Brannigan have been asshole buddies for years,” Joanna remembered D.H. Lathrop complaining. “If Chief of Police Brannigan were actually smart enough to think his way out of a paper bag, he would have recused himself and let someone else take charge of the investigation.”

But Brannigan hadn’t removed himself from either case, and neither had the then Cochise County Coroner, Bill Woodruff, who was another of Roger Rowland’s cronies. Brannigan and Woodruff were two good old boys working together. Their hasty but official determinations of “accident” and “suicide” had stuck despite the fact that, shortly after Roger Rowland’s funeral, his younger daughter, Anne, had claimed she had fired the shot that had killed her father. That claim had never been investigated. Instead, Anne had been packed off to a private mental institution somewhere in Phoenix.

One of the city detectives from that time, a man named Dan Goodson, had left Bisbee PD shortly thereafter to work for Joanna’s father, Sheriff D.H. Lathrop. He had told his new boss that he had quit Bisbee PD partly out of disgust at the way the Rowland cases had been handled.

“Anne Rowland isn’t crazy,” Joanna’s father had reported an outraged Danny Goodson as saying. “Not a bit of it. She’s a killer, and with Chuck Brannigan’s and Bill Woodruff’s help, she’s getting off scot-free.”

Although rumors about Anne Rowland’s guilt continued to swirl around town, the coroner’s rulings had remained unassailable.

Joanna vaguely remembered hearing or reading that Anne Rowland Corley had died a violent death somewhere out of state several years earlier, but she couldn’t recall any details. Now it turned out that this same woman had once been married to Detective J.P. Beaumont?

Lost in thought, Joanna jumped reflexively when the phone on her desk rang.

“Mom?” a tearful Jenny sobbed into the phone.

“Yes. What’s the matter?”

“It’s Sadie,” Jenny wailed. “Something awful’s wrong with her. I just got home from Cassie’s. Her mom dropped me off. Sadie’s lying on the back porch. She won’t get up.”

“Where’s Butch?” Joanna asked.

“At the other house. He left a note that he’d be back by one, but he isn’t. I need someone here now. She’s real sick, Mom. Is she gonna die?”

Joanna closed her eyes and remembered how, the last few days, Sadie hadn’t been quite herself. How she hadn’t wanted to run home to the ranch. How she hadn’t wanted to eat the Cheer- ios or the green chili casserole. No doubt something was wrong with Sadie. Joanna hadn’t paid enough attention to notice.

“I don’t know, Jen,” she told her daughter. “But you hold tight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

With everything else forgotten, Joanna grabbed her purse and dashed out the back door into the parking lot.

Ten

JOANNA PULLED INTO THE YARD at High Lonesome Ranch and stopped the Civvie in a cloud of dirt and gravel. As she raced home, she had expected to find Jenny in hysterics, but that wasn’t the case. She found her daughter and both dogs grouped on the back porch. Tigger leaped off the porch and came to greet her while neither Jenny nor Sadie moved. Jenny sat with the dog’s head cradled in her lap, gently stroking Sadie’s long, floppy ears. The dog’s sides heaved as she struggled to breathe.

Stepping close to her daughter, Joanna saw there was ample evidence that Jenny had been crying, but she wasn’t crying now.

“She doesn’t like it when I cry,” Jenny explained. “It upsets her, so I stopped. And I already called Dr. Ross’s office. She says we should bring Sadie right over.”

Sadie was a big dog – seventy-five pounds at least, Joanna estimated. “How will we get her to the car?” she asked.

“We have to, that’s all,” Jenny replied.

“Wait here while I go get the keys to the other car,” Joanna said. “Sadie will be more comfortable in the Eagle than in the Civvie.”

Jenny nodded. “Hurry,” she said.

Joanna dashed into the house, grabbed the keys to the Eagle, and hurried back outside. Sadie and Jenny hadn’t moved.

“I tried giving her some water, but she wouldn’t drink it,” Jenny said. “That’s a bad sign, isn’t it.”

It was a statement, not a question. Joanna blinked back her own tears. “Probably,” she agreed.

Years of hefting hay bales had served both mother and daughter in good stead. As soon as they lifted the dog, though, it was clear Sadie no longer weighed what she once had.

When did she lose so much weight? Joanna wondered. Why didn’t I see what was happening?

Once Sadie was loaded into the car, Tigger wanted to go along. “No!” Jenny told him. “You stay.”

With his tail between his legs, the dejected mutt retreated into the yard and curled up, moping, on the porch. Joanna got in and turned the key in the ignition. The Eagle was driven so seldom nowadays that she worried if the battery was charged, but it started right away. Once the engine was running, Joanna expected Jenny to clamber into her seat. Instead, blond hair flying behind her, she darted back into the house. She emerged moments later carrying Sadie’s blanket.

“Good thinking,” Joanna said. For the remainder of the drive into town, neither mother nor daughter said a word.

Veterinarian Millicent Ross’s office was only a mile or so past the Cochise County Justice Center. Joanna was there less than ten minutes after leaving home. Millicent was a broad, more-than- middle-aged woman who had returned to college to become a vet only after her three children had graduated.

She came out to the parking area to meet them, bringing along a gurney that had been designed with animals in mind. Sadie, who had never liked going to the vet, started to struggle as Dr. Ross began to transfer her to the gurney. Jenny held Sadie’s head and spoke soothingly until Dr. Ross was able to strap the dog down. As they rolled the gurney toward the building, Joanna’s cell phone rang. She stayed outside to take the call and was grateful to hear Butch’s voice.

“Where are you?” he asked. “I came home and found your Civvie here, but no Eagle, no Joey, no Jenny, and no note. What’s going on?”

“It’s Sadie,” Joanna said brokenly. “She’s sick. We’ve brought her to Dr. Ross’s office. I’m afraid she’s not going to…” Her voice faltered. She couldn’t continue.

“I’ll be right there,” Butch said.

Hanging up, Joanna turned off her phone. For once her family’s needs would take precedence over the people of Cochise County. If something important came up, somebody else would have to handle it.

Inside the office waiting room, Jenny sat disconsolately on a chair, clutching Sadie’s blanket to her chest. “Dr. Ross took her into the back for X rays,” Jenny explained matter-of-factly. “To see if she can find out what’s wrong.”

Joanna sat down on the chair next to Jenny’s. “That was Butch on the phone,” she said. “He’s back at the house. He’ll be here as soon as he can.”