for all.” As he spoke, the sheriff was easing himself through the now-open gate, steadily closing the distance between himself and his renegade deputy.
“Stop right there, Walter,” Galloway warned. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Actually,” Walter drawled, “I do believe I much prefer shooting.”
All the while the sheriff was moving inevitably forward as Galloway backed away. That’s when Joanna realized what McFadden was doing. By pushing Galloway farther into the street, away from the patrol car, he was effectively easing Jenny and Eleanor out of the line of fire. Joanna moved with the two men, taking her part of the triangle along. Meantime lights were coming on all over the neighborhood.
“That way I won’t have to stand around any longer, turning a blind eye to your slimy blackmail deals and murder for hire schemes,” McFadden continued. “I’m looking forward to that, to not having scumbags like you in my life, Ken. Besides, if you do a good enough job, if your aim is good enough, there won’t be enough of me left over to ship off to prison. I never did much like Florence, you know. It’s too damned hot up there.”
With that, Walter McFadden lunged forward, throwing himself toward Ken Galloway’s gun. In the blazing hail of gunfire that followed, both men went down, first Ken Galloway and then Sheriff Walter McFadden.
Joanna heard sirens then. As close as they were, they must have been audible for some time before she noticed them. Still holding the gun, she hurried to where Ken Galloway lay moaning on the ground. She picked up his.357 and handed it over to the first neighbor who appeared on the scene.
“Watch him,” Joanna ordered. “Don’t let him move.”
She rushed to Walter McFadden and knelt beside him. He was pressing his hand to his chest, a hand’s breadth beneath his breastbone. Despite the pressure, blood still oozed up through his fingers.
“Good shooting, Joanna. But then your daddy always said you were a crack shot.”
“Quiet,” she said. “Listen to the siren. The ambulance is on its way.”
“Morphine was the hook-that’s what finally got me,” he whispered. “When the pain got too bad, when Carol was crying for it in middle of the night, I would’ve done anything to get it for her. One buy was all it took. As soon as I stepped out of line, the bastards had me.”
“Shhhhh,” she said, but he ignored her, although his voice was weaker now. She had to strain to hear him over the noise of arriving emergency vehicles.
“They blackmailed me, Joanna.” He took a breath before he could go on. “I didn’t know what all went on or who all was involved. My job was to walk around howdying people and being blind, deaf, and dumb to what was going on in my own department.” He paused again. “Was Andy in on it?”
Tears were coursing down Joanna’s cheeks. She bit her lip and ducked her head. “I don’t know, Walter.”
“I hope not,” Walter McFadden muttered weakly. “For your sake and Jenny’s, I sure as hell hope not.”
And he was gone.
TWENTY-ONE
Joanna stood up. By then the place was crowded with Emergency Medical Technicians and City of Bisbee police officers to say nothing of dismayed neighbors who were struggling to come to grips with exactly what had happened.
Both Tony Vargas and Walter McFadden were beyond help, so all the lifesaving activity centered around Ken Galloway. Joanna walked past the flurry of activity to the patrol car. There, without anyone paying attention, she pressed the door lock and opened the door, freeing both Jenny and her mother. Once they were out of the vehicle, Eleanor and Jenny clung to Joanna as though fearing she might somehow disappear.
“is Sheriff McFadden all right?” Jenny tearfully.
Joanna shook her head. “He’s dead,” she answered. “He died before the ambulance ever got here.”
Bobo Jenkins turned up just then with Adam York in tow. Joanna took Jenny by the shoulders. “Go sit on the porch with Tigger,” she said. “Stay out of the way. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Jenny tiptoed through the gate then ran to the back porch where she flung her arms around Tigger’s neck. The dog, as ordered, was still lying down, waiting for a release signal from Walter McFadden that was never going to come.
“What should I do?” Eleanor asked meekly.
“Stay with Jenny, Mother.”
Eleanor started after her granddaughter then paused. “It was him, wasn’t it,” she said. “The man with the gold in his teeth.”
Joanna looked down at the lifeless body of Tony Vargas. She nodded. “It was him,” she said.
Joanna had spoken gently to both her daughter and her mother, but when she turned to face Bobo Jenkins her face was full of barely repressed fury. “What’s
“I talked to the man, Joanna,” Bobo Jenkins explained. “He followed the bloody footprints down the stairs from the hotel, put two and two together, and came to the hospital. He’s on the up-and-up.”
“Sure he is,” Joanna returned with her eyes narrowing. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
As if on cue, Adam York turned and caught her looking at him. He left the officers and walked over to where she was standing. “Joanna, are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
“Look,” she said, “you may have convinced my friend Bobo, here, that you walk on water, but I’m not buying it. Until I see some proof otherwise, I’m going to continue to consider you part of the opposition.”
“Your husband got Lefty O’Toole to agree to come into the Witness Protection Program,” York said. “Andy had contacted me and told me to expect Lefty within a matter of days. When it all fell apart, when Lefty showed up dead and then Andy suddenly laid his hands on a considerable sum of unexplained money,
I figured the cartel had turned him. Then,when Andy was killed as well it made sense that there was some other traitor pretty close to home.”
“You thought it was me?” Joanna asked.
York shrugged. “Why not? I was casting my net around and you turned up in it. You’re right, I do owe you an apology, and not just over the autopsy results. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Ken Galloway was the one who typed the suicide note in Andy’s file. We’ve known for years that Cochise County was a major conduit of the drug trade and we figured there had to be someone in law enforcement working with them, but it wasn’t until Andy connected with Lefty that we figured we were going to get a break. Now, thanks to you, we finally know who some of those people were.”
“If Lefty knew Galloway was involved, why didn’t he warn Andy?”
“Maybe he did or maybe he didn’t. It’s possible he tried to and Ken intercepted the message. Andy and Ken were supposedly good friends, weren’t they?”
“Supposedly,” Joanna agreed, bitterly. “We thought he was a friend.”
“With Lefty out of the picture, I figured the whole investigation was blown, but now, with this book…”
“What book?” Joanna demanded.
“Angie’s book. She’s scared to death and tired of running. I guess she finally decided she had to trust somebody. She spilled her guts about Tony and his little black book. She even suggested a possible deal.”
“Angie trusted you?” Joanna asked sharply. “Why not?” Adam York returned. “You don’t think I’d cheat her, do you?”
“Until I read that book for myself and make sure your name isn’t in it, I’m not trusting anybody “
York studied Joanna’s face for some time before he nodded. “Considering what you’ve been through,” he said, “that’s probably a very wise position to take. By the way,” he added, “are you aware that you have what appears to be a bullet hole in your jacket pocket? You may want to mention that to the crime le investigators here. Otherwise, they’re not going to understand some of the evidence they’re looking at.”
It was several hours later before anyone made a move to go home. Marianne Maculyea had shown up in her 1967 sea foam-green VW Bug. Jeff Daniels, who kept the old Bug running perfectly, turned up in Joanna’s Eagle, which he had hot-wired to bring down from the hotel. When it was time to go, Joanna loaded her mother into the
