Dead to Rights

voice to sound as normal as she could make it under the circumstances.

“Hitchhiked some.” Hannah’s terse answer was little more than a grunt. “Walked the rest of the way.”

“But why did you come here?” Joanna asked. “Why come to my home instead of my office?”

“Didn’t plan on comin’ here at all,” Hannah said. “Not at first. When I left the house, to my way of thinkin’, I was lightin’ out for Old Mexico. Changed my mind, though. Got halfway there and decided crossin’ the border was a bad idea. That’s just like me, though. Changin’ my mind. Daddy always said that was one of the reasons I’d never amount to nothin’. He said I never stuck to any one thing long enough to make it work.” There was a slight pause before she added, “Not till now.”

“Why were you going to Mexico?” Joanna asked.

“Come on, Sheriff. I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid,” Hannah said. “I thought I could run away. Go down there and hide. Like they do in the movies sometimes-they go to another country and lie low for a while. The cops are lookin’ for me, aren’t they? That Detective Carpenter?”

Joanna didn’t answer. Just then Sadie and Tigger appeared in the middle of the road, racing toward the Blazer. Two pairs of bouncing, glowing eyes caught in the beans of the headlights. When the dogs finally reached the vehicle, they gamboled around it, barking in a joyous ritual of greeting before once again racing off toward the house.

“Heard them dogs earlier,” Hannah Green said. “They was raisin’ a ruckus. I didn’t want to have nothin’ to do with ‘em. That’s how come I waited back there, back by your mail-box.”

“Mom,” Jenny began, but Joanna shushed her.

“Why are you here, Mrs. Green?” Joanna asked, returning to her original line of questioning. “What do you want?”

“To talk, I guess,” the woman answered sadly. “To tell somebody my side of the story for a change. I thought, you bein ‘ a woman and all, that maybe you’d understand why I done it. Why I had to go an’ kill him. I sure enough did. He deserved it, though. That man was meaner ‘an a snake. Some folks get nicer when they get old, sorta sweet and quiet-like. Not him, not my daddy. He just got meaner ‘n’ meaner, only he was real mean to begin with.”

Saying that, Hannah Green subsided into a brooding silence Joanna found even more unnerving than her self- incriminating words. Jenny, eyes wide, shot her mother a questioning look. Grimly Joanna shook her head, hoping that single, unspoken warning would be enough to stifle any further questions or comments from her daughter.

As the Blazer rounded the last curve in the road and pulled into the yard, Joanna’s newly installed motion detector snapped on, bathing the whole area in light. Looking at Hannah Green over the top of Jenny’s frizzy blond head, Joanna saw a weary, grim-faced woman. She had to be in her late sixties at least. Her lank, shoulder-length iron-gray hair wriggled with natural curls as though from a recent, unset permanent. What must have been several missing molars gave her left cheek a hollow, crushed-in look. Her eyes stared straight ahead with the eerie stillness of someone under the influence of a hypnotist. Or of drugs.

Joanna looked out at the yard and at the dogs cavorting in happy circles around the Blazer, waiting for it to stop and for the passengers to climb down. Their ecstatic welcome did nothing to lighten Joanna’s growing sense of foreboding. Never had the High Lonesome seemed so isolated. Never had her neighbors seemed so distant. For all the good it did her, town could just as well have been light-years away.

Shutting off the ignition, Joanna removed the key. In the process, she gave Jenny’s knee what she hoped was a reassuring pat. In the passenger seat, Hannah Green sat still as death. Finally Joanna reached for the door handle.

“It’s cold out here,” she said, forcing into her voice a composure she didn’t feel. “We’d better go on inside.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Hannah said, heaving herself out the other side of the truck.

Joanna had hoped the process of opening the car door would force Hannah to remove her right hand from her jacket pocket, revealing once and for all whether or not she was armed. Instead, she once again let go of Jenny long enough to reach across her own body to manipulate the door. Then, after shoving it open, Hannah once again locked her puffy fingers around Jenny’s arm, dragging the unprotesting child with her across the seat. As the two of them exited through the right-hand side of the Blazer, Joanna was grateful that Jenny had sense enough not to struggle.

Knowing she had to keep herself focused and absolutely clearheaded, Joanna let her breath out slowly. She stepped down onto the ground only to be subjected to Tigger’s and Sadie’s ecstatic greetings. Wildly wagging and whining in welcome, neither of the dogs seemed to pay any attention to the stranger in their midst. Joanna could see the dogs’ primitive logic. Joanna and Jenny had brought the stranger home. Therefore, she must not pose any danger.

Thanks, guys, Joanna thought. Some watchdogs you turned out to be.

Joanna moved toward the tailgate. “We have groceries in the back,” she announced. “I have to get them out.”

“You go right ahead and do that,” Hannah Green said. “I come this far. I’m not in no hurry.”

With Jenny walking between them, the two women made their way from the Blazer to the fenced yard and up the walk-way. It was cold enough for Joanna to see her breath. Both she and Jenny had been wearing warm clothing, even in the heated vehicle. Hannah Green had been outside in the terrible chill with bare legs and only that thin jacket.

She must be frozen, Joanna thought. How long had she been waiting there, I wonder?

Once on the back porch, Joanna had to put down the two bags of groceries. Mustering every bit of courage she possessed, she stepped forward, keys in hand, to unlock the door. That process meant turning her back on Hannah Green, and Joanna did it with an almost sickening sense of dread. It took three tries below she finally managed to fit the key in the lock. At last the door swung open. Joanna breathed a sigh of relief.

“Come in,” she said, picking up the groceries and stepping over the threshold. Hannah and Jenny followed her in-side, bringing the cavorting dogs with them.

“You must be freezing,” Joanna said as she switched on the overhead light.

“I am just a little cold,” Hannah Green replied. “Not too bad, though.” She stopped in the middle of the floor and stared down at the dogs, who were still milling around the room. Jenny dropped to the floor with them, threw both arms around Tigger, and buried her face in the flowing golden fur on the back of his neck.

“Daddy wouldn’t never let me have a dog,” Hannah was saying, as Joanna placed the bags of groceries on the counter. “He hated having animals inside the house. Said they was filthy.” For a space she stood there watching Jenny and the dogs. “What do you call ‘em?” she asked at last.

When Jenny didn’t answer, Joanna did. “The bluetick hound is called Sadie. The funny looking one with the white patch around his eye is Tigger.”

“And they won’t hurt me?” Hannah asked.

“No,” Joanna said reassuringly. “They’re fine.”

The two women stood facing each other across the kitchen over the heads of Jenny and the dogs. Hannah’s hair hadn’t been washed in a very long time. Neither had the rest of her.

“You sure them dogs won’t bite?” Hannah asked.

“I’m sure,” Joanna said.

Tentatively, Hannah reached out her hand. “Come here, doggy,” she said. “Nice doggy.”

Sadie was the first to notice Hannah’s outstretched hand. With her head cocked Io one side and with her nose quivering an inspection, she stood up and came over to where Hannah was standing. As Hannah ran her hand flown the dog’s smooth, blue-black coal, a strange look passed over her bedraggled, wrinkle-scored face. It was a look of almost child-like wonder.

“I never knew a dog would be this soft!” she exclaimed.

Jenny pulled away from Tigger’s neck and looked over at Hannah with a disbelieving blue-eyed stare. “You mean you’ve never even touched a dog before?” Joanna cringed at the arch skepticism in Jenny’s voice. Joanna was afraid the very tone of it would upset the woman.

“Jenny,” Joanna hissed. “Mind your manners.”

Hannah, however, was so preoccupied with petting the dog that she didn’t seem to notice. Tigger, always eager to receive his share of attention, stood up and came to collect some petting for himself. While Joanna