succumbed to gunshot wounds within days of one another.
In the ensuing investigation, the community had been shocked to learn that several long-term members of the Sheriff’s Department had been deeply involved in drug-trafficking. By the time the smoke cleared, Joanna Brady- widow of one of the dead men-had agreed to run for sheriff in her husband’s stead. For the past two months, the murders, the investigation, and the subsequent campaign for sheriff had been front-page news.
Only Holly Patterson’s forthcoming legal battle with her father had finally displaced the Sheriff’s Department from top position on the front pages of the Bisbee Bee.
Joanna Brady was someone Harold Patterson remembered as the feisty daughter of yet another Cochise County sheriff, the long-dead D. H. “Big Hank” Lathrop. Big Hank had once played poker with Harold on a fairly regular basis. The other two current candidates from Wilcox and the other from Sierra Vista-weren’t people Harold knew personally. In fact, standing in the voting booth, he barely remembered their names.
What he remembered best about Joanna Lathrop Brady was seeing her as a sprightly little red haired imp in a freshly pressed Brownie uniform standing outside one or the other of the Phelps Dodge Company stores. She had been a capable businesswoman even way back then, selling him Girl Scout cookies and carefully counting back the change. That long-ago child with her two missing front teeth deserved far better cards than the tough ones life had dealt her with disturbing frequency.
When she was a high school sophomore, Joanna’s father had died in a tragic automobile accident. Now, somewhere under thirty years of age, she was already the widow of a gunned-down police officer, but she wasn’t ready to give up and quit. By agreeing to run in her husband’s place, she showed plenty of grit and determination, Qualities Harold Patterson both possessed himself and admired in others.
To Harold’s way of thinking, a vote for Joanna Brady was a vote for continuity, for the way things ought to be.
In the space provided for write-in candidates, Harold used a stubby pencil to write in Joanna Brady’s name. Then, squaring his shoulders, he emerged from the voting booth and dropped his ballot into the box. Voting for Joanna Brady felt good. It almost made the stop at the church worth while; almost balanced the scales for his having to put up with the likes of Tottie Galbraith and Marliss Shackleford.
Almost, but not quite.
Harold left the church before anyone else could corner him into a conversation. He certainly didn’t want to hang around long enough to risk running into Ivy when she came in to vote.
After all, it was bad enough that Harold was forced to undergo public attacks from one of his two daughters. He worried that if Ivy saw him there in the church and simply cut him dead, that would be almost as bad or worse than a noisy row with Holly. That would give the ladies of the United Christian Prayer Fellowship so much to talk about that they wouldn’t shut up for a week.
Harold Lamm Patterson, one tough old bird, could handle just about anything, but the prospect of having Ivy-his favorite spurn him in public was more than he could endure.
BisBEE As it is known now was created in the fifties when several different hamlets, including Old Bisbee, incorporated into a single entity. Forty years later, the old lines of demarcation still persist.
That election morning, seven miles down the road in the Warren business district, not much work was being conducted at the Davis Insurance Agency on Arizona Street. When Joanna arrived, she found two baskets of “good wishes” flowers from clients waiting on her desk. A box of glazed doughnuts and a percolator of coffee covered most of the surface of the receptionist’s desk. The receptionist herself, a young woman named Lisa Connors, fielded an occasional business phone call between serving coffee and doughnuts to the steady parade of drop-by well- wishers.
Milo Davis himself, flushing with good humor from the tip of the resin-imprisoned scorpion on his bob tie to the top of his shiny bald pate, had, shook hands, and told people he wasn’t losing an office manager, he was gaining a sheriff.
Milo’s shoulder-whacking jest was made with the best of intentions, but it bothered Joanna all the same.
From high school on, this building with its single, three-office suite was the only workplace she had ever known, and Milo Davis had been her only boss. If she won the election, all that would change. Joanna felt like a reluctant and uncertain fledgling about to be shoved from the nest, regardless of whether or not she could fly. And yet she did want to win, didn’t she?
At nine, Milo left for a nine-thirty appointment.
Moments after he left the office a call came in from a newspaper reporter from the Arizona Sun in Tucson. When Lisa put the call through to Joanna, the woman explained she was calling for an Election Day comment from the woman who might possibly be Arizona’s first female county sheriff. The reporter’s questions were the sort Joanna had come to dread during the course of the campaign.
As far as the media were concerned, the election of the Cochise County sheriff was newsworthy primarily because Joanna Brady, one of the three candidates, was a woman. And no matter how she answered the questions, the way the articles were written generally made Joanna sound like a wild eyed, gun-toting feminist-an unlikely cross between Dirty Harry and Gloria Steinem.
Finished with the call, Joanna was sorting through a stack of home /office underwriting requirements and correspondence when Harold Lamm Patterson appeared at Lisa’s desk. Standing politely with a damp and battered Stetson in hand, he asked to see Milo right away. Joanna heard Lisa tell Harold that Milo was out for most of the morning, and she saw the look of grave disappointment that washed across the old man’s leathery features. Like everyone else in town, Joanna knew Harold Patterson had his hands full with his ring-tailed bitch of a daughter back home and making trouble. There was no reason to add to the old man’s woes.
Getting up, Joanna wandered to the outer office and stopped beside Lisa’s desk. “If it’s something, urgent, Mr. Patterson,” Joanna suggested, “perhaps I could be of help.”
I would appreciate it, ma’am,” Harold Patterson said sincerely.
“I surely would.”
When ushered into Joanna’s office, Harold took the seat she motioned him into. Like a wary old bird poised for sudden flight, he perched uneasily on the chair with his hat balanced precariously on one knobby knee. He squinted at her through narrow, lidded eyes.
“You’re Hank Lathrop’s little girl, aren’t you? The one who’s running for sheriff?”
