side. They’re really even and neat. On the second side the stitches get a little longer and a little more ragged. By the third side it’s even worse. On the last side, there were barely enough stitches to hold the batting inside.”
“In other words, it’s pug-ugly.”
“Right. That’s why she wanted me to throw it away. But I maintain that if I’m going to keep mementos for her, I should keep both good stuff and bad. It’s what Eleanor did for Inc. I knew Faye Lambert had put sit-upons on the list of required equipment for the camp-out. Knowing Jenny’s feelings on the matter, I had planned to just ignore it, but Eva Lou isn’t the kind to ignore some-thing if it happens to be on an official list of required equipment.”
“That’s right,” Butch agreed with a laugh. “Eva Lou Brady’s not the ignoring type.”
He wrapped an arm around Joanna’s shoulder and pulled her five-foot-four frame close to him. “The poker game was obviously an unqualified success. How did the rest of your day go?”
Joanna sighed. “I spent the whole afternoon in a terminally boring meeting run by a nerdy little guy who’s never been in law enforcement in his life. His job—as an overpaid ‘outside’ consultant from someplace back East—Massachusetts, I think—is to get us to sign up our departments for what his company has to offer.”
“Which is?”
“They do what he calls ‘team building’ workshops. For some exorbitant amount of money, everyone in the department is cycled through a ‘rigorous outdoor experience’ where they learn to ‘count’ on each other. What the hell does he think we do out there day after day, sell lollipops? And what makes him think I can afford to pay my people to go off camping in the boonies instead of patrolling the county? He claims the experience ‘creates an atmosphere of trust and team spirit.’ I felt like telling him that I’m a sheriff, not a cheerleader, but some of the other guys were really gung-ho about it.”
“Bill Forsythe’s such a cool macho dude,” Butch offered. “‘That program sounds like it would be right up his alley.”
“You’re on the money there,” Joanna said. “He and a couple of the other guys are ready to write the program into their budgets the minute they get back home. Maybe their budgets can handle it. Mine can’t. I’ve got my hands and budget full trying to deal with the ten thousand Undocumented Aliens who come through Cochise County every month. What about you?”
Butch grinned. “Personally speaking, I don’t have a UDA problem.”
Joanna whacked him on the chest. “You know what I mean. What did you do today?”
She glanced at the clock. In anticipation of the late-night poker session, she had drunk several cups of coffee during dinner. Now, at almost two in the morning, that dose of late-in-the-day caffeine showed no signs of wearing off.
“Nothing much,” Butch replied.
“You mean you didn’t go antiquing with the wives?”
Butch shook his head. “Nope. You know me and antiques. I opted out of that one.”
“Golfing, then? I heard somebody raving about the golf course here.”
Butch shook his head. “No golfing,” he said.
“Did you go someplace then?” Joanna asked.
“We drove up to Page in a county-owned vehicle,” Butch reminded her. “‘That makes it a vehicle I’m not allowed to drive, remember?”
Joanna winced. “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot. So what did you do?”
“I finished.”
“Finished what?”
“The manuscript.”
For over a year Butch had been working on his first novel, hanging away at it on his Toshiba laptop whenever he could find time to spare. He had even taken the computer along on their honeymoon trip to Paris the previous month. He had spent the early morning hours working while Joanna had reveled in the incredible luxury of
