“See?” Jenny said helpfully. “The straps are long enough so you can carry it over your shoulder. Like this.”
Laughing through her tears, Marianne slipped the diaper bag on one arm. “I guess this makes it real, doesn’t it?”
Crying too, Joanna reached over the beaming Jenny to hold Marianne close.
“Have you named her yet?” Jenny asked.
“Not so far. Sarah’s always been my first choice,” Marianne replied. “But Jeff and I agreed we wouldn’t name her until we both had a chance to get to know her.”
“Oh,” Jenny said.
“Promise you’ll call the minute you get back to town,” Joanna urged.
“I will,” Marianne said. “And thank you. Thank you for the bag and all the stuff you’ve put in it. But most of all, thanks for being my friend.”
The two women hugged once more. “It takes a friend to have one,” Joanna said.
She and Jenny stayed long enough to wave Marianne out of the driveway, then they set off for breakfast at Daisy’s. Marianne’s good news seemed to have put a golden haze over the whole morning. Jenny was bright and chatty.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy,” Joanna said as Jenny plowed through that morning’s stack of French toast. “Maybe after I’ve been doing this job awhile longer, I won’t feel like I have to be everywhere and do everything.”
“It’s all right,” Jenny said brightly. “It’s not like I’m a baby or anything.”
“No,” Joanna agreed. “You’re not a baby at all.”
They were almost at school before Joanna remembered to tell her daughter about Butch Dixon. “By the way,” she said, “a friend of mine from up in Phoenix has invited the two of us out for pizza tonight.”
“What friend?” Jenny asked.
“Butch Dixon. Remember the man you met up in Peoria?”
“The one with the restaurant with all the toy trains?”
“That’s right,” Joanna said. “What do you think?”
“I love pizza,” Jenny said.
Joanna laughed. “So do I,” she agreed.
She walked into her office right on time, only to be greeted by the sound of raised voices. Out in the other room, Dick Voland and Frank Montoya were going at it hot and heavy. She opened her door and walked directly into the melee.
“All right, guys,” she said. “What seems to be the problem? And how about if we come into my office to hash this out over three civilized cups of coffee.”
Stiff-legged, like squabbling little boys separated by a school principal, the two men came into Joanna’s office and took seats at either end of her desk.
“Chief Deputy Voland has deputies stationed in every damned hospital from here to Phoenix,” Frank began. “I keep trying to tell him, we can’t pay for that kind of staffing without blowing the budget come the end of the year.”
“And I keep trying to tell Mr. Montoya that these U.D.A.s are our responsibility. The two that are on life support-one at Tucson Medical Center and the other at University-aren’t much of a threat for taking off. But that’s not true of most of the others-the ones who weren’t so badly injured. The hospital administrators expect some help on this one. They’re worried about the safety of their other patients.”
Joanna sometimes suspected Voland of empire-building, of playing the old my-department-is-more-important-than-your-department game. “Wait a minute,” she said. “These guys are just ordinary wetbacks-field hands mostly, right?”
“Right,” Voland agreed.
“Not an ax murderer in the bunch?”
“Probably not,” Voland allowed. “At least not as far as we’ve been able to ascertain up to now.”
“So why would they pose a threat to any of the other patients?”
“What if they just walk out?”
“What if?”
“Then we lose whatever case we have against the driver.”
“No, we don’t,” Joanna argued. “The accident was witnessed by an officer from the Arizona Department of Public Safety. He has most of it recorded on video. Even if all the walking wounded were to take off for parts unknown or were deported back to Mexico compliments of the I.N.S., we would still have the ones who are physically incapable of leaving.”
“You’re saying I should pull the guards?” Voland asked.
“Dick, Frank is right,” Joanna said. “I don’t think the board of supervisors is bluffing on the budget business. If we don’t take their threats seriously, if we don’t do everything possible to curtail all unnecessary overtime expenditures, come next fall we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll pull them, every last one of ‘em, but I’m going to lodge a formal, written protest. I’m going to say in writing that I disagreed with that decision.”
“You go right ahead and do what you have to do,” Joanna told him.
“And if one of them disappears, or if there’s any other problem., it’s on your head.”
“I accept full responsibility,” Joanna said.
He stood up and stormed off to the door, meeting Kristin Marsten, who was on her way into the room with three cups of coffee,. Voland graphed one of them and hulled off to his own office, leaving Kristin to bring the others inside for Joanna and Frank. Frank waited until Kristin had gone out and shut the door before he said anything.
“What the hell’s the matter with that guy?” Frank Montoya demanded. “He’s been a complete jerk all week long.”
“Give him a break,” Joanna said. “I think he’s having a tough time of it right now.”
“If you ask me,” Frank Montoya said, “he’s always having a tough time of it.”
“Let it go, Frank,” Joanna said. “Now, besides the disaster up by Tombstone, what else happened overnight?”
Without Dick Voland present, Frank went ahead with the morning briefing. “Nothing much,” he said, checking the printed contact sheets himself. “We had so many deputies dragged out of their cars and standing guard duty in hospitals that coverage was a little light county-wide. That’s why I was trying to tell Dick…”
“Don’t beat a dead horse, Frank,” Joanna warned. “Go on.
“Naturally the press is waiting for me to make some kind of statement about this latest incident. As of today, Cochise County is two ahead of Pima in terms of homicide victims for the year. That’s an unwelcome statistic, especially in view of the difference in population. So far this morning I’ve had several calls from Tucson and Phoenix stations, radio and television both, asking what’s going on down here. Everybody seems to think we’re wallowing around in a pool of murder and mayhem.”
“Whatever you do,” Joanna cautioned, “don’t let them talk to my mother. Eleanor Lathrop shares that opinion.”
“Are you going to the Buckwalter funeral?” Frank Montoya asked, abruptly switching gears.
“Ernie will be there working, of course,” Joanna said. “But I think I’d better put in an appearance as well.”
Frank nodded. “By all means,” he said.
Just then there was a knock on Joanna’s door. Ernie Carpenter opened it a crack and stuck his head inside. “Did you know about this?” he asked, waving a piece of paper in the air.
“What is it?”
“A court order. Bebe Noonan has gotten herself a lawyer and has formally requested a DNA sample from Bucky Buckwalter’s body as part of a paternity suit.”
“I did know about it,” Joanna said. “So did Dick Voland.”
“She’s pregnant with Bucky’s baby?”
“That’s right.”
“If you knew about it and Dick knew about it, why the hell didn’t I?”
“I found out yesterday afternoon. I told Dick on the way over to Tombstone last night, but with all the mess over there, I guess we both forgot about it.”
“Thanks a lot,” Carpenter muttered. “Thanks a whole hell of a lot.” With that he, too, stalked out of the office.
Joanna looked at Frank and grinned. “Well,” she said. “I’m two for two. Aren’t you going to stomp out and slam the door shut as well?”