Skeleton Canyon

CHAPTER TEN

Joanna punched the button that ended the call. Putting the phone down on the swing beside her, she picked up the tablet and pen and began to write.

Dear Jenny,

I had to go in to work this afternoon for a little while, so I^’ve only just now come home. If it weren’t for Mr. Rhodes stopping by to feed the dogs on a regular basis, they’d be living on the same kind of crazy schedule I am.

It’s almost eleven o’clock at night, and it’s too hot to be inside, so I’m writing this on the front porch. Even the dogs think it’s too hot. They’re both lying here beside me, panting like crazy. They didn’t much like it when I came home and you didn’t get out of the car. Tigger especially couldn’t quite believe it.

I just took a message off the machine asking me if I could serve as grand marshal of Bisbee’s Fourth of July parade. I don’t know if you heard about it, but Mayor Pratt had an appendectomy last week. She isn’t going to be up to riding in a parade. I’d be happy to sub for her, but I don’t happen to own a horse. I was wondering if you’d consider lending me Kiddo for the day.

Joanna paused, holding the pen to her lips. Jenny had begged for a horse for her tenth birthday. Joanna had resisted, only to be overruled by Grandpa Jim Bob, who had purchased the horse on his own. In the months since, though, Joanna had seen the almost magical changes having a horse to care for had wrought in her grieving daughter. Somehow, taking responsibility for an animal who had lost its former master had helped the fatherless Jennifer Ann Brady immeasurably. There were times when it seemed to Joanna that Jenny was making far more progress at working through her grief than her mother was.

I stopped by Jim Hobbs’s place tonight and made an appointment to have the Eagle fixed. You’ll be happy to know that by the time I come pick you up, we’ll once again have a fully working air conditioner.

Joanna paused again. She had already decided to say nothing at all about work or about the type of case that had occupied the whole of her Saturday afternoon. There was no point in mentioning Brianna O’Brien’s disappearance. Chances were the missing teenager would show up safe and sound the next afternoon. In that case, if she had been off somewhere fooling around with a boyfriend, the less said, the better. On the other hand, if David O’Brien was right and his daughter had fallen victim to some awful fate, then word of that would come won enough for everyone-Jennifer Brady included.

With a shock, Joanna realized that Jenny, at ten, was a mere eight years younger than Bree. Determinedly thrusting that disturbing thought aside, Joanna returned to her writing.

Grandpa and Grandma Brady have invited me over for dinner tomorrow after church. I think they’re afraid that with you gone for two weeks, I’ll dry up and blow away or starve to death.

Speaking of drying up, I can see lightning way off in the distance to the south, somewhere down in Sonora. Maybe the summer rains will get here a little early this year-sooner than the Fourth of July. But not so soon, I hope, that they spoil any of your time at camp.

I guess that’s all for now. It’s so hot inside the house and so nice out here on the porch that I think I’ll do what we used to do on hot summer nights when Dad was alive. Re-member how we’d bring those old army cots out here and sleep on the porch? That way, you’ll be camping out tonight, and so will I.

Love, Mom

Joanna addressed an envelope, sealed the letter inside it, and then carried the letter, the phone, and her writing materials back inside. The three old army cots were stowed in the back of Jenny’s closet. Joanna dragged one out, brought her pillow and a set of sheets, and returned to the porch. For tonight, at least, she wouldn’t be dealing with Reba’s double bed problem.

She was on her way back outside for the last time when the phone rang. That late at night, there were only two real possibilities-something had happened at work, some new emergency that demanded the sheriff’s attention; or else, things had quieted down enough at the Roundhouse Bar and Grill up in Peoria and Butch Dixon had found a spare moment to give her a call.

“Did you get Jenny off to camp safe and sound?” Butch asked. “How did it go?”

Glad to hear the sound of his voice, Joanna slipped onto the chair beside the telephone table and tucked her feet up under her. “It went fine,” she said, giving Butch the benefit of only the smallest of white lies. “No problems at all.”

Later, lying there on the porch, waiting to fall asleep and watching the intermittent flickers of lightning, Joanna reviewed what had gone on during the day. One of the things that stood out in her mind was Ernie’s objection to Joanna’s use of the word enemies in conjunction with Bree O’Brien. Having raised only sons, Ernie was more familiar with little boy kinds of disputes-ones that included straightforward fistfights and uncomplicated rock throwing.

Joanna, however, was acquainted with the kinds of insidious, ego-damaging warfare traditionally practiced on young women by other young women. Joanna Lathrop Brady had been there and done that. Her nemesis at Bisbee High School had been a girl named Rowena Sharp.

Popular and smart and blessed with two doting parents, Stub and Chloe Sharp, Rowena had been everything Joanna Lathrop wasn’t. In fact, now that she thought about it, Bree O’Brien reminded Joanna of Rowena. Going through adolescence is tough enough, but Joanna Lathrop had also been dealing with the loss of her father. For some reason, Rowena had singled Joanna out as the object of unmerciful torment and contempt. Not only that, Rowena’s gal pals had risen to the occasion and joined in the fun, not unlike a flock of cannibalistic chickens pecking to death some poor wounded and defenseless bird that had happened to wander into their midst.

Joanna never knew what she had done to merit Rowena’s scorn, but it was something she had been forced to endure, day in and day out. There had been bitchy remarks about “Miss Goody Two-shoes” in the girls’ rest room and the cafeteria lunch line. There had been numerous and undeniably deliberate pushings in the hall and gym when Joanna’s back was turned to open her locker. It wasn’t until late in their senior year that things had changed ever so slightly.

Rowena had been one of two contenders for the position of salutatorian, but she was having a terrible time grasping the basics of chemistry. On her own, she would have earned a solid B in the course, but a B wouldn’t have done enough for her GPA. She had persuaded one of her friends-a girl who worked in the principal’s office during second period-to lift a copy of Mr. Cantrell’s final exam. Word of the pilfered exam had traveled like wildfire through the senior class. Even Joanna heard about it, and she alone had tackled Rowena on the issue.

“Why cheat?” Joanna asked. “Why not just take the grade you’ve earned on your own?”

“Because it won’t be good enough,^” Rowena shot back. “Be-cause if Mark Watkins is salutatorian instead of me, my parents will just die.”

Not wanting to be saddled with more “Miss Goody Two-shoes” remarks, Joanna had kept her mouth shut. Rowena Sharp received her illicit A and graduated second in their class, with Mark Watkins coming in a close third. As for Joanna, she could never look at that page in her senior yearbook without feeling a stab of guilt whenever she saw Rowena’s smiling face staring back out at her.

The last time Joanna had seen Rowena Sharp Bonham had been at their ten-year class reunion, where the printed bio had announced that Rowena was an attorney practicing law in Phoenix. Clearly, the passage of time hadn’t helped Rowena forget any more than it had helped Joanna. When they encountered one another in the buffet line, Rowena had cut Joanna dead.

Good riddance, Joanna thought as a surprisingly cool breeze wafted over her, letting her drift off to sleep. As Eva Lou would say, good riddance to the bad rubbish.