locate the kind of nursing help we’ve needed. He’s looked after the business end of the ranch all the while he’s been running his own business as well. Rory doesn’t have anything to apologize for. You’re the one who’s a Johnny- come-lately.”
“Of course he’s looking after the ranch,” Tazewell said. “What do you expect? That’s what he’s here for. He’s always wanted the ranch. Don’t you understand, Leslie? Your mother is dying. Marrying you is one sure way for Rory Markham to finally lay his greedy hands on the Triple H.”
“That’s not true. Now get out and leave us alone!” Leslie’s final outburst was followed by the sound of breaking glass. Dodging splintering crystal, Lawrence Tazewell burst out through the screen door, almost flattening Joanna as he did so.
“I told you not to come here,” a seething Joanna Brady told him once she’d righted herself.
Tazewell had the good grace to look chagrined. “Sorry,” he said. “I flew over to see if the landing strip was still here and usable. It was, so I landed. I just…”
“I don’t care why you came. Now you’re leaving.”
“But-”
“No buts. You’re leaving now!”
“All right,” Tazewell agreed reluctantly. “I didn’t mean any harm.”
Frank, hurrying up the sidewalk, passed by a retreating Tazewell on the way. “What’s wrong?” Joanna asked. “Has something happened?”
“There’s more trouble over at San Simon,” Frank answered. “Evidently a dogfight was scheduled there for later on this afternoon. When the first group of attendees arrived, they found a dead woman, an apparent gunshot victim, lying in the front yard. The people who found her had come in from the New Mexico side, and they must have thought they were still on that side of the state line. They left the scene and called an anonymous 911 tip from a pay phone at Road Forks. Randy Trotter’s people forwarded the call to us. Debbie and Jaime are on their way to the scene from Tucson. Dispatch says our crime scene people are also en route. You and I should probably go there, too.”
Joanna stood for a moment thinking. In the background she could hear the sound of the Cessna’s engine warming up for takeoff. In a matter of seconds it was once again airborne.
She was here looking for answers in the Bradley Evans homicide. It was a case she urgently wanted to solve, and she didn’t want to be pulled away from it yet again. And if Aileen Houlihan was lingering close to death, the time for finding answers to those questions was in danger of slipping away right along with her.
Leslie Markham was obviously someone who kept her life carefully compartmentalized. When she put on her professional persona, she left the caregiving part locked up at home. But now, without her work face on and having just endured a fierce confrontation with her father, Joanna knew instinctively that Leslie would be vulnerable and far more susceptible to answering whatever questions Joanna threw in her direction.
“No, Frank,” she said. “You go. I want to stay here for a little while and talk to Leslie.”
“But we’re in the same vehicle,” he objected. “How will you get back?”
“I’m a big girl, Frank,” Joanna said. “I’ll be able to find my way. Call the substation in Sierra Vista and see if they can send someone out to pick me up. If not, I can always call Butch.”
“You’re sure you won’t change your mind?”
“I’m sure.”
“If you do, call.”
Joanna nodded. “I will. Now get going.”
Shaking his head, Frank left the porch and headed for the Crown Victoria, while Joanna began knocking on the screen door. For several long minutes, no one answered. At last Joanna opened it and called inside, “Leslie? It’s Sheriff Brady. I need to talk to you.”
Leslie came into the living room wearing a pair of scrubs and drying her hands on a paper towel. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “My mother isn’t accepting visitors, and neither am I. And why did you send my father here? He had no right to show up after all this time.”
“I didn’t send him,” Joanna said. “In fact, I told him specifically not to come here.”
“But he did anyway.”
“Yes, I know. He was just leaving when I arrived.”
“He wanted to see her,” Leslie continued, “but Mother wouldn’t want that. She was a very beautiful woman once. She doesn’t want anyone to see her like this, especially not him.”
“She never married again after the two of them divorced?” Joanna asked.
“Why would she?” Leslie said. “She knew what was coming. She didn’t want to put him through it. That’s what’s good about being married to Rory. He’s old enough that he doesn’t want kids, and maybe he’ll be long gone before it happens to me.”
“Before what happens to you?” Joanna asked.
Leslie’s face was a study in bleak hopelessness. Finally she shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said ungraciously. “You could just as well come in and sit down. Do you want something to drink?”
Even coming from the shaded front porch, Joanna found the interior of the house dark and gloomy. Heavy curtains were pulled shut. Only a single lamp in the far corner of the room offered a semblance of light. Joanna made her way to an outsize leather couch whose massive size and old-fashioned lines spoke of another age.
“Thanks,” Joanna said. “I don’t need anything to drink, but I need to understand what you mean. Are you saying before HD happens to you?”
“So my father told you about that?” Leslie asked.
“Yes,” Joanna said. “Some. He mentioned that Huntington‘s had affected your grandmother. After what you told me last night about your mother’s being ill, it was easy enough for both your father and me to assume your mother was suffering from the same ailment.”
“It’s hereditary,” Leslie said. “Since my mother has it, there’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll have it, too.”
Sitting there, Joanna was well aware that the photographs of Lisa Evans and Leslie Markham were right there in her briefcase. It would have been easy enough for her to bring them out and set Leslie’s mind at rest about the future, but doing so without having definitive scientific proof from the crime lab seemed irresponsible.
“Can’t they check for that these days?” Joanna asked. “Isn’t there some kind of genetic testing they can do now that will tell you whether or not you’ll fall victim to HD?”
“My mother wanted me to be tested years ago when those tests first became available,” Leslie answered, “but I refused. For me, knowing would be far worse than not knowing. I actually prefer being in the dark, and since I have no intention of ever having children, it doesn’t matter. Besides, if I knew for sure that Huntington‘s was bearing down on me someday, I’d be holding my breath over every tweak in my body, over every mood swing, and wondering if that was the beginning of it. Maybe I’m crazy, but I’d rather walk up to the edge of the cliff and fall off it when I get there rather than anticipating the cliff every moment of my existence. I couldn’t live that way.”
“If I were in your shoes, maybe I couldn’t either,” Joanna conceded. “So tell me about your mother. What was she like?”
“Before she got sick?”
Joanna nodded.
“She was fun,” Leslie answered. “And wild. She taught me to ride almost as soon as I could walk. We’d go riding for hours. Sometimes we’d take a packhorse and ride up into the mountains to camp out under the stars, just the two of us. We’d build a campfire and cook our food over an open flame. It made me feel like I was a pioneer. That was my first clue that Mom’s HD was starting-when she stopped being fun.”
“How long ago was that?” Joanna asked.
“When I was eleven.”
“That’s a long time,” Joanna said.
“It’s typical,” Leslie replied. “Fifteen to twenty years or so of steady decline with no way to stop it.”
“And you’ve been taking care of her ever since?”
“Most of the time. Not by myself, mind you. Dolores has been here from the start.”
