only thing on it that’s written in English well enough so I could make it out.”
“What else?”
“What do you mean, what else?”
“I mean what else can you remember about the tattoos?”
“There were a couple of rattlesnakes, a hang man’s noose, a rodeo rider, and, I think, a rose. There may have been some other things, but I don’t necessarily remember them. Why? What’s so important about that?”
“With all the problems we’ve been having with the Russian mafia, somebody over at the FBI is a known expert at decoding Russian prison tattoos,” Adam York answered shortly. “Let me check this out with him and see what he has to say. I’ll also get in touch with some guys I know at INS.”
“I don’t think that’ll work,” Joanna said. “My guys already tried it that way from this end and were told hands off. So if you nose around about him, don’t say I sent you.”
“And don’t you go wandering into any dark alleys with this character,” Adam York warned. “Those Russian mafiosi are dangerous as hell. And if he’s walking around wearing a hangman’s noose on his chest, you can pretty well figure he didn’t get sent up for stealing chicken feed.”
When Joanna got off the phone, she retreated to her bedroom, taking both Officer Down and the People magazine along with her. She glanced at the book but put it aside. She was too tired for any thing but the most mindless of articles.
After hearing all the local fuss about the People story, Joanna was disappointed when she finally read it. There was some discussion of Holly Patterson, but the article focused more on Hollywood hypnotherapist Amy Baxter and several of her clients, all of whom had taken on their once abusive parents with sometimes greater and sometimes lesser degrees of financial success.
Joanna’s last thought, as she put the magazine down and drifted off to sleep, was that some career choices were stranger than others.
In the morning, she overslept. She was still sawing logs at seven when Jenny tapped on her bed room door, poked her head inside, and said, “Mom, aren’t you awake yet? It’s late.”
In a mad scramble, Joanna raced outside to feed and water the animals, then dived into the shower.
She was still drying her hair when Jenny came back into the bathroom.
“Do you want me to ride my bike down to catch the bus this morning?”
“That would be a big help,” Joanna said. “It’s not going to look good if the new boss starts out by coming to work late.”
Once again she wore one of Andy’s old T-shirts under the bulletproof vest. Then, expecting to spend most of the day in her office, she did pull on Eleanor Lathrop’s favorite, the pearl-gray skirt and blazer.
The outfit gave her a dignified, businesslike look, and the blazer was roomy enough that both the Kevlar vest and Andy’s shoulder holster disappeared beneath it.
Careful not to speed, Joanna drove to the Cochise County Justice Center and parked in her own designated spot. Armed with a newly assigned, push-button door code she had unearthed in the mail, she let herself into her office through the private back entrance. Propping the outside door open, she went back to the Eagle and retrieved her box of treasured office mementos. She had barely started unpacking them when the door to the reception area opened, and Dick Voland entered her office.
Startled, he stopped short when he saw her. “I didn’t know you were here,” he said.
“I came in the back way and decided to un pack,” she explained, holding Jenny’s Bible-school hand print plaque up to the light and rubbing some accumulated dust out of the ends of the tiny finger impressions. “What can I do for you?”
Voland had lumbered into the room carrying an envelope, which he now attempted to shove into his shirt pocket. Pausing in the doorway, he seemed embarrassed, unsure of what to do next.
“Did you need something?” Joanna prodded.
He fumbled the envelope back out of his pocket and handed it over to Joanna. Her name was the only thing typewritten on the outside. “What is it?” she asked.
“My letter of resignation,” Dick Voland answered. “Effective immediately.”
Without opening it, Joanna dropped the envelope onto her desk.
Stunned, she backed up far enough to find her way into the leather chair behind her. “Why?” she asked.
“Have you read your mail yet?”
Joanna glanced at the new stack of mail Kristin had placed on her desk. “Not yet. I wanted to unpack first. Why? What’s in there now that I should have read?”
Voland reached out, pawed through the pile on her desk, pulled out a newspaper, and tossed it down in front of her. “You probably ought to read this,” he said gruffly.
Joanna glanced down at a copy of that day’s Arizona Sun. “The whole paper?” she asked. “Or some article in particular?”
He thumbed the paper open to the second section, the one that focused on statewide news. With the paper folded in half, Joanna could only see the bottom half of the page. Just below the fold was a two-column wide, two- line headline that read, OLD cops vs. NEW SHERIFF/NO CONfiDENCE, by Arizona Sun staff writer Sue Rolles.
Joanna quickly scanned the article: “The people of Cochise County may have elected Arizona’s first ever female sheriff on Election Day last Tuesday, but that doesn’t mean longtime law-enforcement veterans of the County Sheriff’s Department are happy with the outcome.
“In a move many regard as a vote of no confidence for incoming sheriff Joanna Brady, Martin Sanders, Cochise County’s deputy for administration, yesterday submitted his resignation amid widespread speculation that other
