Paradise Lost

“Even you?” she asked.

“I’m a big boy,” Butch said.

In the silence that followed, Joanna thought about what had been said. She couldn’t remember her father ever asking for her opinion about whether or not he should run for office. Fathers did what they did. Discussion from outsiders was neither solicited nor accepted. Joanna had always idolized her father and been slightly embarrassed that her mother had never “worked outside the home” or had what Joanna would have considered a “real” job. Instead of being grateful for having a stay-at-home mother, Joanna had chafed under Eleanor’s ever-vigilant attention.

“I’ll ask her,” Joanna agreed finally.

The miles flew by on the almost deserted roadway. As they neared Flagstaff, fiat desert gave way to mountains and forest. As soon as they were within range of a signal, Joanna’s cell phone began to squawk. Butch plucked it off the seat.

“Who is it?” she asked.

Butch examined the caller ID. “It says Winfield,” he answered, “so it’s either George or your mother.”

“I’m voting for George,” Joanna said, as she took the phone, but it wasn’t.

“Has your phone been turned off, or what?” Eleanor Lathrop Winfield demanded when she heard her daughter’s voice. “I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour.”

“We’re between Page and Flagstaff, Mother,” Joanna replied. “The signal’s just now strong enough for the call to come through. What’s up?”

“What in the world were Jim Bob and Eva Lou thinking! For all they knew, Dora Matthews is a juvenile delinquent who could have stabbed them to death while they slept.”

“Dora spent the night?” Joanna asked.

“You mean you haven’t talked to them yet?”

“We’re driving, and we left the hotel bright and early. If anyone’s been trying to call me, they’ve had the same luck you have. The last I heard, Jim Bob and Eva Lou were taking Dora home because no one could locate her mother.”

“And they still haven’t!” Eleanor huffed. “The woman went oil without telling anyone where she was going or when she’d be back, so Jim Bob and Eva Lou kept Dora overnight, which I think was completely unnecessary—and at your house, too,” Eleanor pointed out. “That’s why this county has foster homes, you know—licensed foster homes—to care for just those kinds of children. And what kind of influence do you suppose that little hooligan is exerting on Jenny? Cigarettes! Why, of all things!”

“Mother,” Joanna managed, “Jenny and Dora found a body. Someone had been murdered. When you think of what might have happened to them, trying a cigarette loses some of its impact, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think anything of the kind,” Eleanor returned. “And I don’t care if Dora’s grandparents were pillars of the Presbyterian Church up in Old Bisbee. The daughter and granddaughter are totally out of control. A child like that shouldn’t be associating with our sweet little Jenny and leading her astray. You don’t put a good apple in with a bunch of bad ones in order to make the bad ones better, now do you? Life doesn’t work that way.”

As Eleanor continued to rail about the cigarettes, Joanna’s own temper began to rise. “Mother,” she said, trying to sound unflap­pable. “There’s no use trying to blame the whole thing on Dora Matthews. Jenny has some culpability in this situation, too. Dora didn’t exactly force Jenny to take that cigarette. Dora offered it, and Jenny took it of her own volition. She told me that herself.”

“But the point is, Dora should never have had cigarettes at a Girl Scout camp-out in the first place,” Eleanor continued. “That isn’t the way Girl Scouts worked when I used to be involved. What kind of a soft-headed leader is Faye Lambert anyway?”

“She happens to be the only person who stepped up and volun­teered for the job,” Joanna returned. “She’s the one person in town who was willing to say she’d take over the troop when it was about to be dissolved for lack of a leader, remember? She’s also someone who’s volunteering because she thinks Girl Scouting is important and not because she happens to have a girl of her own in the troop.”

“That’s my point