people at those holiday get-togethers than she would have been able to see under ordinary circumstances. But now, at the end of a long day, the prospect of keeping multiple far-flung commitments seemed nothing less than daunting. She wished she had said no more times than she had said yes.
The phone rang. Thinking Kristin would answer it, Joanna let it ring several times before she realized it was a quarter to six. Her secretary, Kristin Gregovich—a young working mother with both an eight-month-old baby girl and a baby-sitter waiting at home—punched out each afternoon at the stroke of five. Sighing, Joanna picked up the phone.
“Hi, Joey,” Butch Dixon said. “How’s it going?”
Just hearing her husband’s cheerful greeting lifted Joanna’s 13
sagging spirits. “My head aches and my feet hurt,” she told him. “Other than that, I’m fine.”
“So it’s off to Sierra Vista?” he asked.
“That’s right,” she said, reading from the calendar notation. “Seven p.m., Karen Oldsby, Sierra Vista Tribune. Interview.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it,” Butch said.
“I’m not,” Joanna agreed. “It’s so hot in this office I could scream.”
“Couldn’t you do the interview by phone?”
“Ms. Oldsby prefers doing interviews in person, but while I’m driving out there I’ll turn the air-conditioning on full blast. That way, by the time I get there, I’ll have had a chance to cool off. Maybe I’ll feel better.”
“Do you want me to hold dinner for you?” he asked.
Other husbands might have suggested Joanna cancel the interview and come straight home. She appreciated the fact that Butch did no such thing. He understood as well as she did that politicking had to be done during off- duty hours, during what should have been considered family time. It was clear to her that it was Butch’s backstopping of her-his being at home, doing chores, cooking meals, and looking after Jenny-that made Joanna’s run for office possible. It had also given her a new understanding of and respect for her mother, Eleanor Lathrop Winfield, who, years earlier, had supplied the same kind of priceless but unpaid behind-the-scenes labor for Joanna’s deceased father, D. . Lathrop, when he had run for and won the same office Joanna now held. However, Joanna’s newfound respect for her mother didn’t make the woman any less annoying.
“Joey?” Butch asked. “Are you still there?”
14
“Yes,” she said quickly, embarrassed to have been caught woolgathering. “I’m here.”
“You never answered me about dinner.”
“Sorry. No, don’t bother keeping anything warm. If I’m hungry, I’ll grab something on my way to Sierra Vista. Otherwise, I’ll dig through the fridge when I get home.”
“Or have a bowl of Malt-o-Meal,” Butch said, making no effort to mask his disapproval.
For years Butch Dixon had run a Phoenix-area restaurant—the Roundhouse Bar and Grill in downtown Peoria. He had hired cooks, but he was also a respectable short-order cook in his own right. Joanna’s propensity for coming home late and having a bowl of cereal or cocoa and toast for a supper drove him nuts.
“Drive carefully,” he said. “See you when you get here.”
“I will,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
In the aftermath of the Twin Towers tragedy, where so many police and fire officers had died, those were words they exchanged without fail every single day. They said the words, and they meant them.
Joanna put down the phone and then scrounged around under her desk for the pair of low heels she had kicked off in the course of the afternoon. Her feet squawked in protest as she tried to slip the shoes back on. Was it possible her feet had grown a full size in a matter of hours? Shaking her head, Joanna limped over to the mirror on the back of the door and did a quick hair and makeup check. Her short red hair would need to be cut soon, and there were deep shadows under her bright green eyes.
I’m a mess, she thought grimly. And, with my luck, they’ll probably want a photo.
After all, the possibility of having her picture taken for the paper was the reason she had chosen to wear a skirt
15
and blazer that morning rather than her uniform. She had wanted to look businesslike and not too official. But that was also before she had put in a full day and then some in her anything but cool office at the Cochise County Justice Center.
Joanna had picked up her purse and was on her way to the door when her phone rang again. She hurried back to her desk to answer. “Sheriff Brady.”
“Oh, good,” dispatcher Tica Romero said. “You’re still there. I was afraid you’d already left the office.”
“Why?” Joanna said. “What’s up?”
“Manny Ruiz is on the line,” Tica said. “He’s out near the San Pedro and needs assistance.
I’m sending him some backup, but I thought you’d want to talk to-“
“Put him through,” Joanna said.
Early in the year, the head of Cochise County Animal Control had left the county to take a better-paying job elsewhere. Struggling to come to terms with an out-of-balance budget, the board of supervisors had decided against replacing her. Instead, they had folded the Cochise County Animal Control unit into Joanna’s department.
