money on a .357 Magnum,” he said from the porch of his mountaintop home.
Much the same sentiment was echoed hours later by Matilda Hirales-Steinowitz, spokeswoman for a group called MAVEN, the Maricopa Anti-Violence Empowerment Network, an umbrella organization comprising several different battered women’s advocacy groups.
“Handing a woman something called a protective order and telling her that will fix things is a bad joke, almost as bad as the giving the emperor his nonexistent new clothes and telling him to wear them in public. If a man doesn’t respect his wife—a living, breathing human being—why would he respect a piece of paper?”
Ms. Hirales-Steinowitz stated that crimes against women, particularly domestic-partner homicides, have increased dramatically in Arizona in recent years. According to her, MAVEN has scheduled a candlelight vigil to be held starting at eight tonight on the steps of the Arizona State Capitol building In downtown Phoenix.
MAVEN hopes the vigil will draw public attention not only to what happened to Rhonda Norton but also to the other sixteen women who have died as a result of suspected domestic violence in the Phoenix metropolitan area in the course of this year.
Michelle Greer Dobson, a friend and former classmate of the slain woman, attended Wickenburg High School with Rhonda Weaver Norton. According to Dobson, the victim, class valedictorian in 1983, was exceptionally bright during her teenage years.
“Rhonda was always the smartest girl—the smartest person—in our class when it came to cracking the books. She went to Arizona State University on a full-ride scholarship. As soon as she ran into that professor down there at the university, she was hooked. I don’t think she ever looked at another boy our age.”
According to Ms. Dobson, Rhonda Weaver met Professor Norton when she took his class in microeconomics as an ASU undergraduate student nine years ago. Norton divorced his first wife the following summer. He married Rhonda Weaver a short time later. It was his third marriage and her first. They have no children.
Leann Jessup finished reading and put the paper down on the table. “This crap makes me sick. We should have been able to do more. I agree with what the man in the article said. The system let down, although I guess it’s not fair to second-guess the guys who took those other calls. After all, we weren’t there. If I had been, maybe I would have done something differently.”
“Maybe,” Joanna said. “And maybe not. In that shoot/don’t shoot scenario yesterday, I evidently pulled the same boner the responding officer did. If that had been a real life situation, I would have plugged that poor little kid, sure as hell.”
Folding the paper, Leann shoved it into her purse and then stood up. “It’s almost time for class,” she said. “We’d better get going.”
Joanna glanced around the room and was surprised to find it nearly empty. Only one student remained in the room, a guy from Flagstaff who was still talking on the telephone. He and his wife were having a heated argument over what she should do about a broken washing machine while he was away at school. The public nature of the lounge telephone made no allowances for domestic privacy.
Joanna and Leann cleared their table and head for class. Determinedly, Leann Jessup changed the subject. “It’s going to be a long day,” she said. “I’ve been up since four. The train woke me.”
“What train?” Joanna asked. “I didn’t hear any train.”
“You must have been sleeping the sleep of dead,” Leann said. “It was so loud that I thought we were having an earthquake.”
Outside the classroom a small group of smokers clustered around a single, stand-alone ashtray. Grinding out his own cigarette butt, Dave Thompson began urging the others to come inside. Other than the guy from Flagstaff, Joanna and Leann were the last people to enter.
Something about the searching look Dave gave her made Joanna feel distinctly uneasy. Leann evidently noticed
