Shoot / Don't Shoot

“Have the Roundhouse Special then,” Butch said, writing her order down on a ticket. “It’s the best buy. How do you want it?”

“Medium.”

He nodded. “And seeing as how you’re new, I’ll throw in the Caboose for free.”

“What’s a Caboose?” Joanna asked.

“A dish of vanilla ice cream with Spanish peanuts and chocolate syrup. Not very imaginative, hut little kids love it.”

He came back a few moments later and dropped a napkin-wrapped bundle of silverware in front of her. “Just move here?” he asked.

There seemed to be a slight lull among the cus­tomers at the bar right then, and Joanna decided it was time to make her move. For an answer, Joanna shook her head and then pulled one of her business cards from her jeans pocket. She handed it to him.

“I’ll only be here for a few weeks. I’m attending police academy classes at the APOA just down the road,” she said.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, shoving the card into his pocket without bothering to look at it. “Some of those folks show up here now and then. For din­ner,” he added quickly. “Most of ‘em hang out in the dining room rather than in the bar, if you know what I mean. I guess they’re all afraid of what people will think.”

Joanna took a breath. “Actually, I came here today to talk to you.”

“To me?” Butch Dixon echoed with a frown “How come?”

“It’s about Serena Grijalva,” Joanna said quietly

Butch Dixon’s eyes hardened and the engaging grin disappeared. From the expression on his face, Joanna expected him to tell her to get lost and forget the Roundhouse Special. Just then someone a few stools down the bar tapped his empty beer glass on the counter.

“Hey, barkeep,” the impatient customer muttered. “A guy could thirst to death around here.”

Dixon hurried away. Thinking she had blown her chances of gaining any useful information, Joanna sat forlornly at the bar with her half-empty glass in front of her and wondered if there would have been a better way to approach him. Eventually, he came back with a platter laden with food.

“How come the sheriff of Cochise County is interested in Serena Grijalva?” he asked. “And why bother talking to me instead of Carol Strong, the detective on the case? Besides, you won’t want to hear what I have to say any more than she did.”

“This isn’t exactly an official inquiry,” Joanna answered. “I just wanted to check some things out.”‘

“Like what?”

“According to what it said in the paper, you were one of the last people to see Serena alive.”

“That’s right,” Butch Dixon answered. “Me and Serena’s ex-husband and a whole roomful of other people. Serena and her ex were having themselves a little heart-to-heart. We all heard them. You can see how private it is in here.”

Once again Butch was called down the bar while Joanna bit into her hamburger. That one bite told her that the Roundhouse Special lived up to its glowing advance billing.