“But I just got here,” Eleanor objected petulantly. “Can’t you stay around long enough to tell me what’s happening?”
“It’s time for me to go see him,” Joanna explained. “They only let me in the room once an hour for five minutes at a time. You’ll barely know I’m gone.”
Five minutes later when Joanna returned to the waiting room, Eleanor was engrossed in Noontime Edition, Tucson ’s local version of the noon news. “It’s a good thing you got back in time,” she said. “You’d better come watch. When this commercial is over, they’re going to have something on about Andy.”
Joanna hurried over to the television set. “Really? About Andy? On the Tucson news?”
“That’s right.”
The commercial ended and the screen switched to the newsroom set. A female anchor with a beauty-pageant smile turned her charm full on the camera.
“From Bisbee, this morning, we have learned that a Cochise County Sheriff’s Deputy, who is also a candidate for the office of sheriff, has been hospitalized in critical condition with a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound. In addition, the injured man is currently being investigated for alleged connections to Wayne M. “Lefty” O’Toole, a suspected drug-runner, found shot to death near Guaymas last week.
“Sources close to the investigation say that evidence linking Andrew Brady with the murder victim had been found by Mexican officials at the crime scene north of Guaymas. Brady is a declared candidate in a contest to oust longterm Cochise County Sheriff, Walter V. McFadden.
“For more on that, here’s Noontime Edition’s on-the-scene correspondent, Roger Cannon, speaking to you from the courthouse in Bisbee.”
Not believing her ears, Joanna sank into a chair next to her mother.
“What in the world are they talking about?” Eleanor asked.
“Hush,” Joanna hissed. “Listen.”
The picture on the screen switched to a young man posing in front of Bisbee’s copper-toned Iron Man, the statue of a barechested man-a well-muscled miner-wielding a sledgehammer and drill.
“Late last night and early this morning, this small southern Arizona mining community was shocked to learn that a well-respected local police officer who is running for the position of sheriff, Deputy Andrew Brady, had been wounded in what investigators now say was an apparently unsuccessful suicide attempt. Brady was rushed to University Hospital in Tucson where he remains in guarded condition.
“Earlier this morning federal Drug Enforcement Agency officers notified the Cochise County Sheriff’s department that they were beginning a wholesale investigation of Brady’s possible involvement with slain convicted drug runner, Lefty O’Toole, who also hails from the Bisbee area.
“O’Toole, who once served as Andrew Brady’s high school football coach, was a man who, in recent years, was suspected of utilizing his Vietnam-era piloting experience in the lucrative field of transporting illegal drugs across the Mexican border.
“People here in town have told me that O’Toole taught at Bisbee High School briefly in the late seventies, but his teaching contract was terminated over an alleged drug violation. He was living near Guaymas at the time of his death. The exact nature of the connection between Andrew Brady and Lefty O’Toole is not known at this time.”
“Why, did you ever!” Eleanor Lathrop exclaimed. Joanna waved her to silence.
“I’m speaking now with Richard Voland, Chief Deputy for the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department,” the reporter continued. “Mr. Voland, before this morning was anyone in your department aware of the DEA’s possible investigation into the activities of Deputy Brady?”
Richard Voland’s face appeared on the screen looking tired and angry. “No,” he said. “Absolutely not. We had no idea.”
“Is it possible that Andrew Brady somehow learned of the impending investigation and that’s what prompted last night’s unfortunate events?”
“It’s possible, of course,” Richard Voland agreed, “but I don’t see how Andy could have known since we didn’t find out ourselves until mid-morning today.”
“Cochise County Sheriff, Walter McFadden, is well known statewide for his outspoken op-position to drugs. How has he reacted to the news that one of his deputies may have some involvement with a known drug-runner?”
“I’d rather not comment on that, if you don’t mind,” Richard Voland said. “You’ll have to ask Sheriff McFadden himself when he’s available.”
“Has your department taken any action against Andrew Brady at this time?”
Voland glared at the reporter. “Andrew Brady is currently on sick leave,” he replied. “If and when we have access to the DEA’s so-called evidence, we’ll review it and then see if any further action is necessary.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Voland. Back to you, Donna.”
The picture returned to the newsroom set. Once more the smiling woman’s face beamed out at them, but Joanna could no longer hear what the news anchor was saying over the roar of blood pounding in her own ears.
“Why, forevermore!” exclaimed Eleanor Lathrop. “That’s the wildest thing I’ve ever heard of. How can they get away with saying such nonsense?”
Shocked, Joanna lurched to her feet. For a moment she stood over her mother, but she didn’t open her mouth for fear of what might come out. She grabbed up her purse, flung it over her arm, and headed for the door. “I can’t breathe in here,” she said. “I’ve got to get some air.”
“Where are you going now?” Eleanor wailed.
“For a walk.”
“Can’t I come with you?”
“No. I’ve got to think.”
“Well, you should at least change clothes before you go out. You look terrible.”
“Tough,” Joanna said to herself as the door swung shut behind her, stifling whatever last minute advice or orders her mother might have been issuing.
Joanna paused in the hallway long enough to look down and examine her clothing. She could easily have passed for a bag lady. She was still clumping around in the pair of frayed, pull-on work boots. The Levi’s jacket was bloodstained and torn besides. Under it, the once lovely blue dress, the one she had bought for their anniversary getaway at the Copper Queen, was also stained and tattered. Now, less than twenty-four hours later, that unkept date seemed a lifetime ago. She was embarrassed by her appearance, but she re-fused to go back into the waiting room and face her mother in order to retrieve the suit-case. Staying dirty was the lesser of two evils.
She fled down the hallway. When the elevator didn’t come right away, she pounded down the stairway with the sound of her boot heels reverberating in the stairwell. Reaching the first floor, she galloped through the lobby, almost crashing into a delivery man carrying two huge bouquets of flowers. Once she reached the sidewalk outside, she stood for a minute in the early afternoon sun.
The air conditioner had been running full blast in the waiting room. Outdoors it was still surprisingly hot. Reflected heat from the September sun rose off the driveway’s blacktop in shimmering waves, but the warmth didn’t penetrate Joanna’s frozen core. Instead of peel ing off the jacket, she pulled it closer around her and plunged her hands deep in the pockets.
Not caring where she went, she headed across an expanse of green lawn toward Campbell Avenue. “I won’t cry,” she told her-self determinedly. “I will not cry!”
She had already cried enough. Besides, crying would interfere with the thinking process, and that was what she had to do now. Think.
How was it that Lefty O’Toole had emerged from the dim, dark reaches of the past to some kind of suspected illegal involvement with Andy? Who the hell was Lefty O’Toole any-way? Her only real recollection of him was from a poor black-and-white photo of a necktie-clad man in the faculty section of Andy’s senior-year
Lefty O’Toole had been fired from his teaching position at Bisbee High School the year Joanna was a freshman. The place on the year-book’s faculty page where his picture should have been was blank. O’Toole had been present in Andy’s book, missing in hers. Now, here he was back again. It was as though the man was some kind of terrible ghost who had returned years later to haunt her and tear Joanna’s life to pieces. How was it possible? How could it
