Dead to Rights

he said. “I could just as well go to work on something. God knows there’s enough for me to do.” Joanna had hoped he would go home to get some sleep, but she decided not to argue the point.

Turning to Voland, she realized that the sudden spurt of anger toward Governor Hickman’s deputy had helped clear her own head. “Anything from Patrol I should know about?” she asked.

“Dr. Lee dismissed Hal Morgan from the hospital a little while ago,” Voland answered. “According to Deputy Howell, he’s gone hack to his motel room, to the place he rented when he first came to town several days ago.^”

After the intervening crisis with Hannah Green, Hal Morgan seemed worlds away. It took a few seconds for Joanna to switch gears. News that Hal Morgan had been turned loose meant that soon the heat would be turned back up on the Buckwalter murder investigation.

“What motel?” Joanna asked.

“The Rest Inn, out in the Terraces.^”

“There’s still a deputy with him?”

“So far. Deputy Howell again.”

Joanna turned to Ernie. “Have you made arrangements to talk to Helen Barco yet?” she asked.

Ernie had been sitting there with his bloodshot eyes half-closed. Now they came open. “Why on earth would I want to talk to Helen Barco?”

Joanna turned back to Dick Voland. “Didn’t you tell him what I told you?”

Voland shook his head. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Things got so hectic around here that it must have slipped my mind.”

“What slipped your mind?” Ernie asked.

“Sheriff Brady is under the impression that Terry Buckwalter may have something going with Peter Wilkes, the golf pro out at the Rob Roy,” Voland said.

There was no sense in Joanna’s making a fuss about Dick Voland’s neglecting to pass along her lead to Ernie Carpenter. They were all so tired and so overworked right then that it was to be expected that some things would drop through the cracks. Still, she wasn’t going to sit there quietly and let Voland discount her suggestions.

“I know they’re up to something,” Joanna said. “Ernie, the reason I want you to go see Helen is that Terry Buckwalter had a complete makeover at Helene’s yesterday morning. She did it early enough so she could go out and play a round golf afterwards-the day after Bucky’s death. I’m under the impression that Terry told Helen something of her plans fl the future. Those plans need to be checked out.”

Joanna returned to Dick Voland. “Is there anything mo happening in the Buckwalter case? Anything else Ernie should know about?”

Eager to make his escape, Voland stood up. “Not that can think of,” he said, heading for the door. “That shot’ dust about cover it.”

Once the chief deputy was gone, however, Ernie Carpenter made no move to get up. “I need to talk to you about this,” he said.

“About what?” Joanna asked.

Ernie sighed. “Look,” he said, “I’ll be happy to run out to the Rest Inn and interview Hal Morgan. And I’m more than happy to drive out to the Rob Roy and talk to this Pete Wilkes. No problem. But I can’t go talk to Helen Barco. I won’t.”

“Why not?” Joanna asked.

There was a long pause. “Because she won’t speak to me,” Ernie Carpenter answered.

“She won’t speak to you? Of course she will. You’re detective. Talking to people is your job.”

Ernie considered for some time before he answerer “Years ago, I dated Helen’s daughter Molly. Did you ever hear anything about that?”

“No,” Joanna answered. “I didn’t even know Helen has a daughter.”

“Had, not has,” Ernie corrected. “And not many people do. Molly Barco and I went to high school together. We dated for a while. I was older than she was by a good three years. After graduation, I went away to college. That’s where I met Rose. It was love at first sight. The real thing, not just some kind of puppy love. When I came back to Bisbee at homecoming to break the news to Molly that Rose and I were going to get married, she more or less went haywire. She had always been a little on the wild side. She took off. Went to San Diego to live with her cousin. She died two months later, three months shy of her seventeenth birthday. A sailor on leave stabbed her to death just outside Balboa Park. He claimed she was a prostitute and that when she pulled a knife on him, he stabbed her in self-defense. He was tried, but he got off.”

“That’s why Helen Barco doesn’t speak to you?” Joanna asked. “She blames you for what happened to her daughter?”

“Helen has every right to blame me. I blame myself,” Ernie said. “Molly was an only child. She was young and sweet and vulnerable, and far more in love with me than I was with her.”

Joanna thought of the many times she had been in Helen Barco’s beauty shop and the countless times Eleanor Lathrop had gone. Yet Joanna did not remember ever hearing any mention of the Barcos’ murdered daughter.

“That’s one of the reasons I became a cop,” Ernie continued. “And a detective, too. I always felt as though I owed Molly that much-to do what I could to help others, even though I couldn’t help her. I’ve run into Slim around town on occasion. He’s always civil, if not pleasant. Helen cuts me dead whenever she sees me. It would be useless for me to try to talk to her about Terry Buckwalter.”

The room grew still. “Should I go see her?” Joanna suggested at last.

Ernie nodded. “That’s probably a good idea,” he said. “If you don’t mind, that is. Otherwise, I could ask Jaime Carbajal to do it, but I just sent the poor guy home to get some shut eye himself.”

“I don’t mind,” Joanna said. And then, because Ernie looked so beaten up, she tried to lighten his load. “I’ve been needing a haircut for weeks anyway. This would be a good excuse, and subtle, too, don’t you think? Sort of like going in undercover?”

Ernie Carpenter stood up and gave Joanna the ghost of a grin. “You may be able to get away with that line,” he said, “but it wouldn’t work for me. Not in a million years.”

Once back in her office, Joanna picked up the phone and dialed Helene’s Salon of Hair and Beauty. The first time she dialed the number, the line was busy. While waiting to dial again, she thumbed through her newest stack of correspondence. Halfway down, she found that morning’s issue of the Bisbee Bee.

Curious, Joanna picked it up. There staring back at her was her own picture. The photographer had caught her in the flash of the camera as she exited her Blazer. Next to that was a very uncomplimentary mug shot of Hannah Green.

The caption under Joanna’s picture said, “Sheriff Joan, Brady returns to her office by a back entrance following the suicide of a Cochise County Jail inmate.^”

“That wormy little son of a bitch!” Joanna said.

‘Fussing the paper aside, Joanna dialed Helen’s numb once again. This time it rang. Helen Barco herself answered the phone.

“Joanna Brady here,” Joanna said. “‘There isn’t a chance you could work me in for a haircut sometime today, is there?”

“How soon can you be here?” Helen returned. “Lonnie Taylor canceled just a few minutes ago because she has to take her mother out to Sierra Vista to see the doctor. If you can be here in the next twenty minutes or so, I can work you in with no problem. Otherwise, you’re out of luck.”

“I’m on my way,” Joanna said. “Hold the chair for me.”

She drove into town feeling as though she were privy to something she didn’t want to know-to a part of Ernie’s history as well as of Helen Barco’s that shouldn’t have been any of Joanna Brady’s business. But it was. She felt as though, with her newfound knowledge, she owed Helen Barco the courtesy of a condolence. And yet, since Helen herself hadn’t mentioned her daughter, Joanna realized that her saying anything at all about Molly Barco would be a rude intrusion.

When Joanna walked into the beauty shop that day, she felt weighted down by all that secret knowledge. The eye-watering smells of permanent-wave solution and chemicals made her want to run for cover. A woman Joanna didn’t recognize sat enthroned under a beehive-shaped dryer with a dog-eared People magazine thrust in front of her face. She looked up and nodded in greeting when Joanna opened the door.