“So I told her I was picking up some burgers at the Arctic Circle and that she should meet me down at Vista Park. It was while we were there that she finally broke down and told me what was up. I asked her if she knew for sure. She said no, she only
“And?” Joanna prodded.
Kristin looked up through teary eyes and nodded. “It’s true,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”
“So what are you going to do?” Joanna asked.
“It’s not how I wanted it to work out, Sheriff Brady,” Terry answered. “It’s not how either one of us wanted it. But I love Kristin, and she loves me, and both of us want this baby. So if you have to fire one of us, go ahead. You can have my resignation right now. If I go up to Tucson I can probably find another job that will pay as well or better than this one. If I’m going to be a husband and a father in the next little while, you’d better believe I’m going to take those responsibilities seriously.”
Having said that, he reached out for Kristin’s hand and held it tenderly, cradled between both of his.
“So what’s the plan then?” Joanna asked. “Are you going to tell your parents?”
“I suppose,” Kristin said. “I don’t want to. Mother’s going to kill me. And then we’ll get married. I know my mother always wanted me to have a nice, big church wedding. So did I, but I guess we can’t do that now.”
“But we can, Kristin,” Terry objected. “Don’t you see? We can still have just the kind of wedding you want. There’s no law that says you can’t have a nice wedding and wear a long white dress if that’s what you want to do. We don’t have to go running off to some chapel in Vegas or to a Justice of the Peace somewhere. So what if it takes a month or two to put together a wedding? If there are people who stand around after the baby’s born, counting months and pointing fingers, then it’s their problem, not ours.”
Joanna nodded. “Terry’s right, Kristin. You can have as nice a wedding as you want.”
“But how?” Kristin asked tremulously. “Terry and I both work. Weddings take a lot of planning, and I know my mother. She’ll be so mad that she won’t lift a finger.” At that, Kristin once again burst into inconsolable sobs.
“If your mother won’t help us, mine will,” Terry said. “I know we can do it. It’ll work out, hon. I know it will. Don’t cry, please. We’ll be fine.”
Listening to him, he sounded so confident, so sure of himself, that Terry almost had Joanna convinced that it really would be fine.
“Is that what you want, Kristin?” Joanna asked kindly. “To marry Terry and keep the baby?”
“Yes,” she whispered, “but how…”
“Do you attend church regularly?”
“I used to,” Kristin said, sniffling. “My parents go to Cornerstone out in Sierra Vista. I tried it a few times, but I didn’t like it.”
Cornerstone in Sierra Vista was a nondenominational megachurch made up of disaffected evangelicals from many denominations who had coalesced into a separate church of their own. Cornerstone’s fiery pastor had been in the news for first blocking and then physically assaulting an elderly man who, along with his wife, had parked in the church parking lot while attending a weekday luncheon at a nearby senior center. The assault charges were eventually dropped but the incident had left both church and pastor with an unfortunate reputation in the community.
Even Marianne had been constrained to comment, telling Joanna at one of their weekday luncheons, “Cornerstone is longer on judgment and hellfire and brimstone than it is on forgiveness and the milk of human kindness.” Joanna hoped, for Kristin’s sake, that the same didn’t hold true for the young woman’s parents.
Joanna turned to her deputy. “What about you, Terry?” she asked.
He shrugged. “The last time I went to church I think I was about seven years old.”
“So you’re telling me that you’d both like to have a church wedding but neither one of you has a specific church in mind. Is that right?”
Terry Gregovich nodded. “That’s about it,” he said.
Joanna pulled a piece of paper loose from one of several half-used tablets of Post-its and jotted down a telephone number. “This is Reverend Marianne Maculyea’s number up at Canyon United Methodist Church,” she said. “Marianne’s a good friend of mine, and she has a cool head on her shoulders. I’m sure she can help talk you through some of the decisions you both need to be making right now, the bottom line of which is-baby or no baby- do you really love one another enough to get married? Since Marianne doesn’t know either one of you, she should be a truly impartial observer. Then, who knows, if you do decide on a church wedding, maybe Canyon would be a good place to do it.”
Joanna passed the note across her desk. Kristin took it as if grabbing hold of a lifeline.
“Does that mean you’re not going to fire us?” Terry asked.
Joanna shook her head. “It sounds to me as if the two of you were dealing with a life-or-death situation yesterday. Under the circumstances, I wouldn’t call that a firing offense. A lot of people seem to think that police officers are cops first and people later. I happen to believe it’s the other way around. On the other hand, you’re not getting a walk. From now on, I expect your behavior to be above reproach. That goes for both of you. I know love is grand, but it isn’t supposed to infringe on work. No hanging around the office mooning at one another when you’re supposed to be out in the field, Deputy Gregovich. Do I make myself clear?”
“Absolutely. You can count on me, Sheriff Brady,” the deputy replied.
“And if you want to take time off together,” Joanna continued, “it has to be arranged in advance through proper channels. No more of this instant comp time or ”I feel a headache coming on, so I think I’ll go home.“ Understood, Kristin?”
The young woman nodded eagerly.
“Okay, then,” Joanna said, “it’s probably time we all went to work. Terry and Spike need to get over to Texas Canyon to help the Search and Rescue guys look for Lucinda Ridder. And I’m sure Kristin and I have a bale of incoming mail to handle. Right, Kristin?”
“Right.”
Kristin and Terry stood up together. So did Spike. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you,” Joanna said. “If anyone were to track down the records, you’d be able to see that, taking Andy’s and my wedding date into consideration, Jenny was born a lot sooner than she should have been. And since she weighed in at seven and a half pounds, we would have been hard-pressed to convince anyone that she was premature.”
Kristin Marsten caught her breath. “Sheriff Brady, you mean the same thing happened to you?”
“It happens to a lot of people, Kristin, and I’m here to tell you it’s not the end of the world. Talk to your parents about it. They just might surprise you.”
Nodding and holding hands, Kristin and Terry left Joanna’s office, closing the door behind them. Moments later there was a discreet knock.
“Come in,” Joanna called.
Frank Montoya poked his head around the door. “Time for the morning briefing?” he asked, waving a fistful of manila folders.
“Past time,” Joanna said. “Let’s get cracking.”
“I guess you didn’t have a chance to have that little chat with Deputy Gregovich and Kristin,” Frank suggested tentatively.
“But I did talk to them,” Joanna replied. “The two of them left my office just a few seconds ago.”
“Well,” Frank said. “It doesn’t appear that your talk did much good. You’d better give it another shot. When I came into the outer office just now, I caught them in the middle of a great big smooch. They broke it off, but they didn’t even have brains enough to look guilty about it.”
“Kristin Marsten and Deputy Gregovich aren’t guilty, Frank. They’re pregnant. They spent yesterday afternoon finding out for sure that it was more than just a late period and deciding whether or not to have an abortion. I think we can say Kristin was legitimately sick even if she wasn’t home when you went by to check. They were in Tucson seeing a doctor from Planned Parenthood.”
“Whoa! I’d guess that means you’re not going to fire them.”
“And I’d guess you’re right. I told them no more monkey business at work or during business hours, but we can
