“Oh,” Joanna offered casually. “You mean like the prisoner petitions asking me to fire the cook or the domestic assault out at the Sunset Inn?”
“Well . . . yes,” Kristin stammered. “I guess so. How did you know about those?”
Hearing the surprise in Kristin’s voice, Joanna allowed herself a smile of grim satisfaction. She resented being drawn into playing useless power-trip games, but it was nice to know she could deliver a telling blow when called upon to do so. After all, Joanna had been schooled at her mother’s knee, and Eleanor Lathrop was an expert manipulator. The sooner Kristin Marsten figured that out, the better it would be for all concerned.
“A little bird told me,” Joanna answered, “but I shouldn’t have to check with him. Calling you ought to be enough.”
Bristling at the reprimand, Kristin did at last cough up some useful information. “Adam York called,” she said curtly.
Adam York was the agent in charge of the Tucson office of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Joanna had met him months earlier when, at the time Andy’s death, she herself had come under suspicion as a possible drug smuggler. It was due Adam York’s firm suggestion that she had enrolled in the APOA program in the first place.
“Did he say what he wanted?” Joanna asked. “Did he want me to call him back?”
“Yes.”
“Where was he calling from?” Joanna asked. “Did he leave a number?”
“He said you had it,” Kristin replied. “He said for you to call his home number. He has so fancy kind of thingamajig on his phone that tract him down automatically.”
Not taking down telephone numbers was another part of Kristin’s game. Joanna had Adam York’s number back in the room, but not with her. Not here at the phone where and when she needed it. Her level of annoyance rose another notch, but she held it inside.
“What else?” Joanna asked.
“Well, there was a call from someone named Grijalva.”
“Someone who?” Joanna asked impatiently. “A man? Woman?”
“A woman,” Kristin said. “Juanita was her name. She wouldn’t tell me what it was all about. She just said to tell you thank you.”
Joanna drew a long breath. There was very little point in lighting into Kristin over the telephone. What was needed was a way to make things work for the time being.
“I’ll tell you what, Kristin,” Joanna said. “From now on I’d like you to bag up all my correspondence and copies of all phone calls that come into your office. My in-laws are coming up here tomorrow for Thanksgiving. Bundle the stuff up in a single envelope. I’ll have my father-in-law stop by the office to pick it up tomorrow the last thing before they leave town.”
“You want everything?”
“That’s right. Even if you’ve passed a call along someone else to handle, I still want to see a copy of the original message. That way I’ll know who called and why and where the problem went from ere.”
“But that’s a lot of trouble—”
