Dead to Rights

capable of remaining upright. In fact, the remains of what may once have been a barn had blown over on its side, leaving behind a knee-high stack of gray, tinder-dry wood.

The house itself was a ramshackle clapboard affair seemingly held together by little more than multiple layers of peeling paint. A sagging front porch teetered drunkenly to one side. The remains of a screen door, permanently stuck open, sagged on a single hinge. A long-legged mongrel dog lay in front of the closed front door. He sat up, scratched himself deliberately, then came to the edge of the porch, barking without much enthusiasm or threat. That changed, though, once the faded front door opened and a middle-aged woman in worn jeans and a man’s flannel shirt stepped outside. The trashy house, the weed-choked yard, the woman herself conveyed the same air of uncaring hopelessness and disrepair.

As soon as the woman appeared, the dog went through a sudden ominous transformation. His hackles came up. Now each deep-throated bark was accompanied by a threatening show of teeth.

Wary of the dog’s sudden change in personality, Joanna rolled down the window. “I’m looking for Bebe,” she said. “Does she live here?”

“Out back,” the woman answered. “Take this driveway and go on around to the back of the house. Her place is the trailer, not the bus. You go on ahead. I’ll keep Buddy here with me.”

Buddy, of course. That’s was exactly the name people like that would give to a vicious dog.

Following the directions, Joanna drove around the house. The Blazer’s passing sent a flock of chickens scurrying in all directions. Out back, positioned at either end of a no longer functional clothesline in a yard randomly punctuated by any number of dead appliances, sat a small camper/trailer and a converted school bus. Halfway down the side of the bus a stovepipe, belching smoke, stuck up out of the roof. From the looks of the moldering rubber tires, both formerly mobile vehicles had been marooned in place for a very long time.

Bebe Noonan’s Honda was parked beside the door to the camper. Taking a deep breath, Joanna crawled out of the Blazer and walked up to the door.

Bebe answered her knock. “What do you want?” she demanded, standing in the open door and barring Joanna’s way.

“I need to talk to you,” Joanna said.

Bebe shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to anyone. Leave me alone.”

“Do your parents know about the baby?” Joanna asked, ignoring Bebe’s attempted dismissal. “Or are you still trying to keep it a secret?”

Bebe’s face registered shock, then dissolved into a torrent of anguished tears. “Oh, please. You didn’t tell my mom, did you?^”

“No,” Joanna said. “I didn’t tell anybody. Not yet. Let me in.

Wordlessly Bebe complied. Moving away from the door, she allowed Joanna to step inside. The room was impossibly hot. The windows were covered with a thick layer of steam. “Please don’t tell my parents,” the young woman begged, pulling the door shut and following Joanna to a tiny table with two bench seats. “Please.”

Uninvited, Joanna sat down. Bianca Noonan sank down opposite her. “How did you find out about it?” she continued. “Did Terry tell you?”

“You didn’t see me at the clinic a little while ago?” Bebe shook her head.

“I’m not surprised,” Joanna said. “I was just outside the door when you came rushing out. You and Terry were arguing when I got there. I couldn’t help overhearing what was said. It’s true then? You are pregnant?”

Bebe nodded.

“And Bucky Buckwalter is the father?”

Instinctively, as if to protect her unborn child from Joanna’s prying question, Bebe’s hand went to her belly. “What if he is?” she asked. “Terry can’t take it away from me, and neither can you.”

“You’re planning on keeping the baby?”

“Yes,” Bebe whispered. “Of course. I want this baby. So did Bucky.”

“He knew about it then?”

Bebe hesitated. “He was happy about it. Glad.”

“Wasn’t that awkward for him, having you turn up pregnant with his baby while he was still married to Terry?”

Bebe’s chin jutted out determinedly. “They were married, but he didn’t love her anymore. And she didn’t care about him, either. Ask her. She’ll tell you. She was always busy with other stuff, like golf every afternoon. Even when she was there at the clinic, she was mean to him. Sometimes she said such ugly things to him, I was surprised he didn’t hit her. And she wouldn’t have kids. He wanted to, but she wouldn’t. Did you know that?”

And there it was. As simple as that. Bucky Buckwalter had lied to this young woman, betraying her as well. “Terry Buckwalter couldn’t have children,” Joanna said softly. “She had a complete hysterectomy several years ago. I know because I helped handle the insurance claim.”

Dismay washed across Bebe’s face. “But…”

“That’s not what he told you, is it,” Joanna said.

Bebe considered for a moment, then seemed to gather her resources. “It doesn’t matter what he said. Bucky wanted a baby, and now he’s going to have one.”

Expecting contrition, Joanna wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. “Maybe,” she suggested. “Are you sure?”

“You mean, am I sure I’m pregnant? Yes. I haven’t been to a doctor, but I know.”

“No,” Joanna said. “Are you sure he wanted it?”

Bebe’s tough facade crumpled. “No, I don’t know,” she wailed. “I was going to tell him, but I never got a chance. My appointment to see the doctor isn’t until next week. I was sure, but I wanted it to be official. But I know Bucky would have wanted it.”

“And you thought he’d divorce Terry to marry you?”

“Yes. He would have, too.”

“How many other people know about this?” Joanna asked.

“Other people? Terry and you, I guess.”

“No one else?” Joanna asked. “No old boyfriends who might be jealous? No male relatives who might take exception to Bucky Buckwalter for taking advantage of you?”

Joanna waited a moment to let those words register. Bebe’s lower lip trembled. Her eyes filled with tears once more. “I never had any other boyfriends,” she said. “Bucky was it. For me, he was the only one. I loved him, and I’m sure he loved nee, too.^”

No, he didn’t, Joanna thought. But she didn’t say it. Didn’t contradict. Instead she sat back on the chair. “Tell me about him,” she said.

And Bebe Noonan did.

FOURTEEN

In the course of the next hour and a half, as Joanna talked Bebe Noonan, she learned something else about the stark realities of being a police officer. Yes, she had signed up to catch bad guys and do paperwork and do battle with the board of supervisors. But she had also signed up to share other people’s pain. Bebe Noonan was in pain.

Her tidy little camper was totally at odds with the rest of the Noonan place. The trailer may have been small and cramped and hot, but it was also spotlessly clean. The chrome faucet gleamed. Covers on the neatly made bed were absolutely straight. No hint of dust or dirt marred the cracked linoleum floor. The room’s sole decoration was a hand-painted ceramic wall plaque that announced, “Jesus loves you.”

Bebe’s trailer constituted a small, pitiful piece of order bravely wrested from the utter chaos around her. Listening lo Bebe talk, Joanna realized that Bebe’s sense of desolation went far beyond the physical ugliness and apparent poverty of her surroundings. Her isolation was emotional as well as physical.

Bianca Noonan lived on her parents’ place, but she lived separate from them as well. As she told her story, it was plain to see that she lived there out of necessity rather than choice or out of some sense of warmth and family togetherness. As Janna listened to Bebe talk, she was surprised to notice, for the first time, that this plain young