typed up by this morning so I can sign it.”
“Why one of the deputies instead of one of the city cops?” Marianne asked. “After all, it happened inside the city limits.”
“I think it was so hectic, they just passed out numbers, and whoever drew yours, that was it. Some people got city cops; some ended up with deputies.”
“Speaking of deputies, did you talk to Dick Voland after the final election results came in?” Marianne asked. “You won by such a landslide that he’s probably not a very happy camper this morning.”
“I haven’t seen him since the party. He and Al ducked out as soon as they saw the way the vote was going and that there was no way for Freeman to catch up. Frank Montoya stayed around long enough to concede and shake my hand.”
“I wish I could have seen the look on Dick Voland’s face when he finally figured out you were going to win. Do you think he’ll quit before you take office, or will you have to fire him?”
“Fire him? Why would I do that?”
“Joanna,” Marianne said severely, “haven’t you been listening to all the things that man has been saying about you out on the campaign trail? I have. I’m afraid he’ll try to undermine you every step of the way.”
Joanna had been listening, but most of what Chief Deputy Voland had said in the previous six weeks Joanna had chalked up to campaign rhetoric. Voland had spent years working for the previous administration, much of that as second in command. So far, independent investigators had turned up no connections between Voland and any of the departmental drug-related skulduggery. He had been clean enough for the county board of supervisors to appoint him acting sheriff until a new one could be elected.
Personally, Joanna wouldn’t have given Richard Voland the time of day. Around the department and directly to his face, the chief deputy was referred to by his official title. Behind his back, in - unofficial circles, he was dubbed “Chief Redneck.”
Voland’s “good ole boy” mindset, one that had worked with Walter V. McFadden and would have been compatible with Al Freeman, wasn’t nearly as good a fit with Joanna Brady.
“Dick will be fine,” Joanna answered confidently, glossing over Marianne’s concern as well as her own. “He’s been around the department since my father was there. We’ll wait and see if he’s a problem.”
Joanna and Marianne might have talked longer if one of the nurses hadn’t showed up with a thermometer and a blood-pressure cuff.
Marianne got off the line with only a hint of ill grace. Hospitals were like that.
When Joanna put down the phone, Eva Lou once more refilled their coffee cups. “I get such a kick out of your mother,” Eva Lou said thoughtfully “Eleanor was on the phone here bright and early this morning, excited as a little kid and wondering what kind of outfit I thought you should wear to your swearing-in.”
Joanna laughed. “That’s my mother for you,” she said, but a moment later all trace of laughter was gone.
“Between now and January, there should be plenty of time for us to figure out what I should wear. Not that getting a new outfit will help. Mother had a fit yesterday because she wanted me to look great for the election-night television cameras. But even after she went to all the trouble of sending me to Helen Barco for the full, deluxe treatment, I still managed to show up on the news looking like the tail end of disaster. You’d think she’d finally just give up on me, wouldn’t you?”
Eva Lou Brady shook her head. “No, Joanna, mothers don’t give up,” she said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet? No matter what, we never, ever, quite give up.”
FEELING spoiled by Eva Lou’s breakfast, Joanna drove down the Warren Cutoff and past the huge Lavender Pit tailings dump on her way to the new Cochise County Justice Complex two miles east of town on Highway 80. Built and furnished with the county’s share of confiscated drug moneys, the pink and tan stuccoed buildings nestled in a deft in red iron-tinted hills, while a line of stark limestone gray cliffs marched across the horizon forming a backdrop.
Andy had been working as a deputy when the new complex opened, and the new jail’s ongoing difficulties had been one of the hottest campaign issues. Still, in Joanna’s mind’s eye, the words “sheriff’s office” still meant her father’s cramped and shabby digs in the old Art Dectyle county courthouse uptown.
There, seated at a scarred wooden desk, her father had ruled supreme, running a much smaller but seemingly more effective Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. In terms of crime statistics, Hank Lathrop’s administration put all succeeding administrations to shame.
Just for curiosity’s sake, once Joanna turned off the highway into the County Justice Complex, she played tourist and drove all the way around the whole facility-past the jail with its razor-ribbon lined exercise yards and auto-impound lot, past the building housing the county justice courts, and around to the back parking area where a large posted sign said EMPLOYEES ONLY. The parking lot was only partially full, but directly behind the building the reserved spaces with a shaded canopy over them were 100 percent occupied.
The county Blazer Dick Voland usually drove was parked in the spot marked CHIEF DEPUTY. His personal car-a late-model Buick Regal-sat squarely in the spot reserved for SHERIFF. From that space, a separate and seemingly private walkway led to a door that entered directly into the far back corner of the office complex.
Finding Dick Voland’s car parked territorially in the sheriff’s spot was probably fair enough, Joanna reasoned. He was, after all, the officially designated acting sheriff. But still, something about the way the car was parked there tugged at her, bothered her in a way she couldn’t quite pin down.
Shrugging off that fleeting shadow of doubt, Joanna drove back to the designated visitor parking area at the front of the building. When she went inside and gave her name to the young woman behind the counter, the clerk didn’t seem to make a connection or attach any particular significance to it. Certainly, no one in the outside office had been told to expect a possible visit from the incoming sheriff.
For all the courtesy and attention lavished on her, Joanna Brady might just as well have been a traveling ballpoint-pen salesman, with no advance appointment, wandering in off the high way for a cold call.
The clerk suggested Joanna take a seat, telling her that Mr. Voland was busy on the phone at the moment but that he would be with her as soon as possible. ‘How soon was that?” she wondered as she waited first five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. While Joanna stewed in her own juices, the people behind the counters, apparently intent on their jobs, continued working, barely acknowledging her presence. It was almost as though she were
