Daisy, after writing down their order, stuck her pencil back into her beehive hairdo and picked up their menus. “If I were you, honey,” she advised Joanna, “I’d try not to be so predictable. If he already knows you this well and you’ve only been engaged for two days, think what’ll happen after you’ve been married twenty years. It’s better to keep ‘em guessing.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that,” Joanna said.
“And where’s Junior today?” Daisy continued. “I didn’t see him at all yesterday. Isn’t he about due for another chocolate shake? Have you done anything about finding his people yet?”
“We’ve found them all right,” Joanna said. “Butch here is the one who located his mother in a nursing home in Rapid City, South Dakota. I just talked to her attorney a little while ago. The news isn’t good.”
There were other noontime customers coming into the restaurant, but Daisy Maxwell didn’t leave Joanna and Butch’s booth until she had heard the whole story. “Don’t that just beat all,” she said, shaking her head. “Some people are such low-down worms they don’t hardly deserve to live!” With that, an irate Daisy stalked off to the kitchen.
“So do you mind?” Joanna said to Butch after Daisy left.
“Mind what, keeping Junior a few days longer?” Butch asked. “No. Not at all. I suppose we could think about offering to take him permanently. I mean, if the only other alternative is to put him into a home…”
Butch’s voice trailed off. Joanna heard the plaintive tone in his voice and knew they were in real danger. Neither one of them could resist a needy stray, human or otherwise. But Joanna was living a life that was already filled to capacity.
She shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “Absolutely not. Our world is complicated enough already. Besides, we’re not even married.”
“That could be fixed,” Butch suggested with a grin. “No,” Joanna said. “We’re not going to bring that up. Period.”
They ate lunch. “So what’s going to happen then?” Daisy asked, as they stood in front of the cash register after lunch, paying their bill. “Is Junior going to end up being put in a home somewhere?”
“That’s how it looks,” Joanna said, avoiding Butch’s eye. “According to Drew Gunderson, there’s no other alternative.”
Daisy shook her head. “That’s what I call criminal,” she said. “Plain and simple.”
Butch reached for the door and held it open. Before Joanna had a chance to step outside, Marliss Shackleford walked in, followed by none other than Dick Voland.
“Why, Sheriff Brady,” Marliss said brightly. “Imagine running into you this way! Whatever happened to your face?”
“I ran into a door,” Joanna said. Nodding curtly in Dick’s direction, she and Butch stepped outside, where Dick’s old Bronco was parked next to the door.
“What the hell is that all about?”
“I don’t know,” Joanna said. “If those two have their heads together, you can bet it isn’t good. Right this minute, though, I don’t have time to think about it. I need to get uptown and pick up Jonathan Becker.”
Butch leaned inside the car window and gave Joanna a peck on the cheek. “You’ll be careful?”
“I’ll be careful,” Joanna said, “as long as you promise to stay home where you belong.”
“In other words, I’m not quite forgiven.”
Joanna smiled. “Close,” she said, “but not completely.” The death of the mayor’s mother, followed days later by that of the mayor himself, was more excitement than Tomb-stone had seen since the gunfight at O.K. Corral. The street outside Tombstone’s Episcopal Church-billed as the oldest Protestant church in Arizona still operating in its original location-was filled to capacity, with excess mourners spilling out onto the street where people from Garrity’s Funeral Home were busy erecting a bank of temporary speakers.
Adam York and Butch both had suggested that someone besides Joanna escort Jonathan Becker to the funeral, but she had insisted otherwise. This had been her harebrained idea, and now she was going to see it through to its inevitable conclusion.
With Joanna holding tightly to Jonathan Becker’s arm, the two of them were escorted down the aisle. She heard a few whispers as they passed-noticed a few discreet coughs and knowing nods-but nothing out of the ordinary. With each wary step, Joanna glanced from side to side, trying to sort out who was who. Adam York himself stood by the guest book, but if his men were there, they blended in with the locals well enough to be completely invisible. That also went for the killers. If they were there in what was fast becoming an over-heated oven of a sanctuary, they too had melted invisibly into the congregation.
The front two pews of the crowded church had been reserved for family members, but when Joanna and Jonathan Becker arrived, only one person was seated there-Alice Rogers’ sister, Jessie. As soon as she caught sight of Jonathan Becker, she reached out one gnarled hand to him, beaming as she did so.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said. “People have been saying such awful things, but I knew you cared too much to let Ali down.”
“Where’s Susan” Joanna asked, sliding into the pew be-side Jessie.
“She isn’t coming,” the old woman answered. “She’s up in Tucson, staying at the hospital with Ross. If he did even half the things they’re saying he did, I can’t see how she could tolerate being in the same county with the man. I wouldn’t waste another breath on him, but then Susan’s always been different. And I can see how even Susan might not have nerve enough to show up here in town and face people. I doubt I could.”
The funeral had been scheduled to start at two, but it was actually two fifteen before the ushers finished moving people around and cramming rows of extra chairs up and down the side and middle aisles. Once the service finally started, it seemed to take forever. Joanna kept sitting there, waiting for something to happen, and nothing did. It was almost an hour and a half before Alice Rogers’ friends and neighbors finished eulogizing her. By then, Joanna was convinced she had been completely wrong. No one was going to come looking for Jonathan Becker. The Kevlar vest she had lent him was probably completely unnecessary.
At last the service ended. When it came time to walk back down the aisle, Joanna tried to place herself between Jonathan Becker and Jessie Monroe. “Let me walk with him,” Jessie insisted. “If there’s any ugly talk, this should put an end to it.”
And with that, a dignified Jessie Monroe, leaning on her walker, led the procession out of the church. When they reached the door, Joanna took charge of Becker once more, leading him toward the waiting limo that would follow the hearse to the cemetery.
Once Becker was safely in the car, Joanna straightened up in the clear, cold afternoon sunlight just as Adam York moved in beside her. “Got him,” he whispered in her ear. “In fact, we’ve got them both.”
“Are you kidding?”
He smiled. “Nope. The man from Garrity’s told us how many motorcycles were supposed to show up to escort the cortege to the cemetery. As soon as an extra cycle showed up, we took that guy out and handed him over to Ernie Carpenter. Ernie said to tell you he’s got a Nevada driver’s license, two long scratches down the side of his neck, and a nine-mm automatic. He also had an accomplice with a van parked up on Tough Nut Street. As soon as the motorcycle guy did the job, they would have loaded the cycle into the van and disappeared.”
Joanna was both dumbfounded and relieved. “You mean it’s over? That’s all there is to it?” she demanded.
Adam York grinned. “Isn’t that enough?” he returned. “What were you looking for, another shoot-out a la O.K. Cor ral? From the sound of things, I’d say Cochise County has already had more than its share of excitement this week. Good work.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” Joanna objected.
“On the contrary,” Adam said. “You found the dots. All we did was connect them.”
Carried forward by the crowd behind them, Joanna and Adam York moved on into the street. Now, as people spilled toward their vehicles, Joanna caught sight of a photographer moving purposefully toward her, camera in hand. Behind the photographer stood Marliss Shackleford.
Quickly Joanna reached into her purse, grabbed her sunglasses, and slopped them on her face, deftly covering her blackened eyes.
“Sheriff Brady,” Marliss said. “I understand there’s been some police activity here this afternoon. What’s going on?”
Joanna looked up at Adam York before she answered. “No comment,” she said.
