part of the corrupt administration that had preceded Joanna’s. He had died as a result of injuries suffered in a car accident during a high-speed car chase. A coroner’s inquest had ruled his death accidental, but years later, many members of the Galloway clan still held Joanna Brady personally responsible for his death.
At the time of his uncle’s death, Ken W, as he was called, was fresh out of the academy. He was still far too young and naive to have been involved in any of his uncle’s underhanded dealings. After her election, Joanna had allowed Ken W. to stay on with the department. He had been a capable enough deputy, but he had never made any pretense of loyalty to Joanna or her administration. His obvious antipathy to Joanna made him a natural for membership in and eventual leadership of Local 83 of the National Federation of Deputy Sheriffs, where he had recently been elected president.
Months earlier, one of Joanna’s decisions had resulted in saving Deputy Galloway’s life, but if she had thought that would make her relationship with the union leader any smoother, she had soon been disabused of the notion. More than half hoping Frank wouldn’t find the man, Joanna returned to the morass on her desk.
One whole stack was devoted to requests for civic appearances: Rotary and Kiwanis meetings where she was asked to be the guest speaker; a call-in talk show on a radio station in Sierra Vista, where she would be joined on the air by a group of Latino activists who were concerned about racial profiling by various members of the law enforcement community, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department included; and Elfrida High School, which wanted to know it she would be the main speaker at its career-day program.
As Joanna penciled one obligation after another into her rapidly filling calendar, she realized that even without having officially announced her candidacy, as far as the people of Cochise County were concerned, she was already running for reelection. Every appearance put her in front of voters. Eventually she would have to make an official announcement one way or the other. Right that minute she wasn’t sure what she would do. The morning’s confrontation between Butch and photographer Owen Faulk of the
Butch Dixon had yet to come to terms with the idea that being married to Arizona’s only sitting female sheriff meant giving up all claim to anonymity. The incident with Owen Faulk wasn’t the first time Butch had bridled at the unaccustomed and unwelcome intrusion of the press in their lives, but it was certainly the most serious. The fact that Butch had been protecting Jenny made it easy for Joanna to forgive his overreaction, but she doubted that the rest of the world would be equally understanding.
Dealing with that volatile situation had required Joanna’s personal intervention and all her diplomatic skill. First Joanna had had to persuade Butch to cool it. Then she’d had to soothe Jenny, who, after her grueling interview with the Double Cs, was even more traumatized. And, after all that, she’d had to smooth Owen Faulk’s ruffled feathers, managing to dodge a potential liability suit in the process. She had offered assurances that Faulk’s expensive equipment, if broken, would be repaired or replaced. Since the photographer had accepted her offer without any argument, Joanna surmised that Owen Faulk realized that he, too, had been out of line.
So that thorny problem was solved for the time being, but dealing with it had taken Joanna’s attention away from her job and away from the conference room, where Sally Matthews, with Burton Kimball present, was still being interviewed by Raul Enemas, a detective with the City of Bisbee Police Department, and Frank Bonham, one of the officers from the Multi-Jurisdiction Force, along with a representative from the county attorney’s office. By the time Joanna had finished handling the photographer uproar, the interview with Sally Matthews had been in process for well over an hour. Joanna had known better than to walk in and interrupt, and it bothered her that, all this time later, it was still going on without her.
Realizing she’d have to content herself with reading the transcript, Joanna had gone into her office and tackled her logjam of waiting correspondence, only to be interrupted shortly thereafter by Casey Ledford poking her head into her office.
“Mr. Haskell is outside,” Casey told Joanna. “Kristin suggested I bring him back by here so one of the detectives could interview him.”
“That would be great except for one small glitch,” Joanna replied. “At the moment we’re fresh out of detectives.”
“What should I do with him then?”
“Let me talk to him.”
Ron Haskell looked up when Joanna entered the lobby. “Both my detectives are busy this afternoon,” she told him. “Are you planning on going back out to Pathway to Paradise?”
Haskell shook his head. “Amos Parker gave me the boot. He said that since I had violated Pathway rules and was insisting on leaving again without completing my course of treatment, that he’s keeping my money, but I’m not welcome to return. He had me
