card or flowers. Or like offering to look after the kids during off-hours to give Leon and the grandparents a break. Or like showing up at one of the boys’ Little League games to cheer them on.”
Deputy Galloway shrugged. “Why should we?” he asked. “Yolanda doesn’t even belong to the local. Besides, she’s a ...”
“She’s a what?” Joanna asked.
“She’s just a matron in the jail.”
“Yes,” Joanna replied evenly but her green eyes were shedding sparks. “She is, and it turns out all the jail inmates and the people who work there got together to send her get-well wishes. It seems to me the deputies shouldn’t do any less.”
“You can’t order us to do anything.” Galloway bristled.
“Who said anything about ordering?” Joanna said. “It’s merely a suggestion, Deputy Galloway. A strong suggestion. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a team here. Yes, Yolanda Canedo is a jail matron. In your book that may make her somehow less worthy, but let me tell you something. If it weren’t for the people running our jail, you’d only be able to do half your job, and the same would hold true for every other deputy out on a patrol. You wouldn’t be able to arrest anyone, because there wouldn’t be anyplace to put them. So what I’m strongly suggesting, as opposed to ordering, is that some of the deputies may want to make it their business to see that some cards and letters go wending their way to Yolanda in care of University Medical Center in Tucson.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ken Galloway said, standing up. His face was flushed with anger. “Will there be anything else?”
“No,” Joanna said quietly. “I think that just about covers it.”
Galloway strode out of her office. With her hands still trembling with anger, Joanna cleared her desk by swiping the remaining paperwork into her briefcase, then she took a stack of correspondence due for mailing and/or filing out to Kristin.
“Frank and I are leaving for Bowie,” she told her secretary. “If either Jaime Carbajal or Ernie Carpenter calls in, tell them to try reaching me by cell phone.”
“When will you be back?”
“That remains to be seen,” Joanna said. “How about that bunch of reporters? Are they still parked outside?”
Kristin nodded. “I thought the heat would have driven them away by now, but so far they haven’t budged.”
“Call over to Motor Pool and have Frank pick me up at the back door,” Joanna said. “When we take off, I’d rather not have a swarm of reporters breathing down our necks.”
Back at her desk, she paused long enough to marshal her thoughts before dialing her mother’s number. Three rings later, the answering machine came on. It seemed unlikely that leaving a recorded message would qualify for keeping her promise to George Winfield. She certainly wasn’t about to launch into any detailed discussion of the Dora Matthews situation.
“Hi, Mom,” Joanna said in her most noncommittal and cheerful voice. “Just calling to talk for a minute. I’m on my way to Bowie with Frank Montoya. Give me a call on my cell phone if you get a chance. Bye.”
She was waiting in the shaded parking area a few minutes later when Frank came around the building.
“I was thinking,” he said, once she was inside with her seat belt fastened. “We may be making too much of this telephone thing. We don’t know for sure that Alice Miller or whatever her name is really made that second call.”
“Who was it billed to?” Joanna asked.
“It wasn’t. The call to Quartzite East was paid for in cash. The problem is, Alice Miller could very well have put the phone down and someone else was standing next to the phone waiting to pick it up.”
“You could be right,” Joanna said a moment later. “I guess we’ll see when we get there.”
They drove past the collection of air-conditioned press vehicles that were parked in front of the building and from there out through the front gate and onto the highway.
