claim?”
“Some guys out of Elko,” Uncle Henry said. “They leased it for exploratory purposes, and I gifted half of what they paid to Andy. Those guys’ll have six months with an option for six more after that. I can’t tell if they’re for real or not, but their money was good. If there’s more coming, believe me, you and your little girl will get it.”
“Thank you,” Joanna said. “Thank you very much.”
Not long after that, she headed home, glad to have escaped the crush of people in the mortuary, but knowing that back home at the ranch, there would be more of the same. And she was right. When she drove into the yard, she counted at least ten cars scattered here and there. Inside the house several of the ladies from the church choir were busily trying to find places in the burgeoning refrigerator for yet another donated covered dish.
Joanna paused in the kitchen long enough to pour herself a glass of white wine, then she wandered into the living room. It wasn’t exactly a party. It was her home, but she wasn’t exactly the hostess and she wasn’t exactly a guest either. The women managing the kitchen were most insistent in telling her that she was expected to mingle and not lift a hand to do any of the work.
On the couch at the far end of the room she spotted Milo Davis sitting with Jenny. When she got close enough, she saw that Jenny had dragged out her old copy of
“Hi, Mom,” Jenny said, when Joanna sat down on the couch behind her. “Mr. Davis never heard of Tigger before. Can you believe that?”
Joanna smiled and nodded her head. “I can believe it all right,” she said.
“Did you try any of the lemon chiffon pie that Mrs. Davis sent over? It’s my favorite.”
“Maybe I’ll have some later.”
Eventually Jenny got up and wandered away. Joanna turned to Milo Davis. “They tell me you’re promoting Joanna Brady as a candidate for sheriff. Are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked.
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Milo returned. “It’s just that sometimes the best man for a job is a woman, at least that’s what my mother always used to say. I think she was a little before her time.”
“Milo,” Joanna said seriously, “I don’t want to be sheriff of Cochise County. I happen to
“Who else is going to do it?” he asked. “Look what you did the other night.”
“What I did that night was personal, Milo. Jenny and my mother were at risk. My husband was murdered. Most people in my position would have done exactly the same thing.”
Milo Davis shook his head. “What you did for this county was a lot more than settle a personal score. That drug business and the corruption in the sheriff’s department must have been going on for years, and it would have kept right on if you hadn’t taken a stand and done something about it. And who else knows more about the sheriff’s department than you? One way or the other, you’ve been around it all your life. Maybe there are people who work there who’ve been around longer, but none of them can run, not right now because of the scandal. It’s a wide-open race, Joanna, and we’ve got to have someone who’s squeaky clean. You’re it. You’ll win hands down.”
“ Milo, I don’t want to do this.”
“Neither did your daddy when he took it on, Joanna, but it was a time very much like this, a time when the old administration needed to be swept out with a clean broom.
This kind of thing never would have happened on old D.H.’s, watch, now would it?”
Joanna shook her head. “No,” she agreed. “It never would have.”
“Back then, in your dad’s time, Kiwanis was the thing to do if you wanted to go someplace,” Milo continued. “When he got elected, he joined up and never missed a single meeting until the day he died. We didn’t have women in the club back then, and there was a whole lot more high jinks than goes on today. W e all had a nickname for your dad, a secret nickname. Did he ever tell you about that?”
“No. Not that I remember.”
“The whole time I knew him, he only went by his initials. We were always teasing him and telling him he needed to have a real name. Finally we gave him one. We told them that his real name was Desert Heat on account of him being a cop. It was kind of hokey, I guess, an in crowd joke, but he seemed to get a bang out of it.”
Milo studied his listener’s face, waiting to if D. H. Lathrop’s daughter would smile at the joke. She didn’t. Joanna Brady was way beyond smiling.
“It seemed funny back then,” he said with sigh. “Maybe you had to be there.”
By the time Joanna finished that one glass wine, she had moved beyond her ability to socialize as well. She tracked Eleanor down in a small group in the dining room. “Are you going home tonight, or are you going to stay here?” Joanna asked.
“I thought I’d stay, if you don’t mind.”
“Do whatever you want, but I have to go to bed. I can’t hold my head up any longer.”
In the past, that kind of announcement would probably have provoked an argument on the impropriety of Joanna’s abandoning her guests. This time it didn’t.
“I’m sure you’re tired,” Eleanor said. “I don’t think people will mind if you disappear.”
Joanna headed toward her bedroom. She expected her mother to stay in the dining room chatting with the guests. Instead Eleanor followed Joanna into the bedroom.
“Can I talk to you a minute?”
Expecting another lecture, Joanna tried to hide the impatience in her voice. “What about?”
“Your father.”
“Everybody seems to be thinking about him tonight.”
Eleanor smiled. “He used to call you Little Hank just to drive me crazy. It did, too, I think. And then, when he taught you how to shoot a gun, my word, I wondered what the world was coming to.”
Joanna walked over to the closet and began taking off her clothes. The blouse she was wearing was one of her favorites, but it buttoned down the back. Without Andy to help with the buttons, Joanna didn’t know if she’d he able to wear it very often from now on. She worked her way down the row until she reached the button in the middle of her back, the one that was hardest to reach. Just then, Eleanor came over and unbuttoned it for her.
“It’s hard to let go of a daughter,” she said awkwardly. “Even when she’s all grown up. Just wait until it happens to Jenny. You still think of her as a little girl in braids, and then one day, she’s standing there doing something like washing dishes or canning peaches, and you know she’s not little any more.”
“Mother,” Joanna interrupted, but Eleanor shook her head.
“It didn’t seem fair to me that when he had such a beautiful little girl your father still always wanted a boy. That’s one of the things we fought about. He made you act like a boy, and I was always mad at him over it. But last night, Joanna, I saw he was right. If you hadn’t been just the way your father raised you, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Joanna felt tears welling up in her eyes no matter how hard she tried to blink them back, but Eleanor didn’t seem to notice.
“I’ve heard people talking around town today, at Helene’s, when I went to have my hair done and in the grocery store. They’re all saying you should run for sheriff.”
“Don’t worry, Mother. I already told Milo I wouldn’t do it.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Eleanor said. “I think you should. I used to believe that when your daddy died, it was all his fault. After all, since he was sheriff, he deliberately put himself in danger. I thought that he had wanted it somehow and that when it happened, it was sort of divine retribution. Over the years, I guess I’ve finally figured out that wasn’t right.
“When it came time to bury him, I went ahead and let them dress him in his uniform even though I hated that uniform with an abiding passion. I did it that way because I knew it’s what he would have wanted. I kept one part of his uniform back though, just one thing
Eleanor Lathrop reached into her pocket and pulled out a tarnished silver star. “It’s your daddy’s badge, Joanna,” Eleanor said softly. “I saved it for you because I thought you might want it someday. I’m giving it to you now because I think you’ve earned it.”
With that, after pressing the badge into Joanna’s hand, Eleanor fled the room.
Stunned, Joanna took the badge to the bed and sank down on it, examining the etched star in careful detail and marveling. After all those years, she was holding her father’s badge. As she was growing up, if she could have had
