Leaning forward, he saw the stack of clipped-together bills that had fallen out of the envelope. Picking up the paper money, he thumbed through it. “Where’d all this come from?” he asked. “Looks like a bundle. How’d Hannah lay hands on so much money?”
Joanna glanced at the listing on the outside of the envelope. “It’s five hundred fifty-six dollars and eleven cents in all,” she said. “Hannah told me she had saved it. She claimed she had more than that set aside, so she must have spent some of it on her way to my house.”
“Why’d she do that?” Philip Dotson asked, his eyes narrowing. “That’s what my Aunt Franny wants to know. II Hannah was just gonna do herself in anyways, why’d she come all that way down here to see you first, Sheriff Brady? Why not just do it at home and get it over with and save everybody the trouble?”
“She said she wanted to talk to a woman,” Joanna answered slowly. “She said she wanted somebody to hear her side of what happened.”
“And what did happen?”
“According to what she told me, Hannah wanted to watch a particular program on TV, but your uncle took the remote control and ran off outside with it. Hannah went after him, trying to get it back. When she caught up to him, I think she went over the edge and started hitting him.”
“She told you then, didn’t she,” Dotson said. “About my uncle. About how mean he was.”
Joanna nodded.
“And you believed her?”
“Yes, I did,” Joanna said. “If her case had gone to trial, I don’t think there ever would have been a homicide conviction. Manslaughter, maybe. Considering the extenuating circumstances, maybe not even that.”
Without another word, Philip Dotson started scooping the money and the few other loose items back into the envelope.
“Don’t you want to count the money first?” Tom Hadlock objected. “I need you to sign for it. You should make sure it’s all there before you do.”
“It don’t matter none,” Philip Dotson said. “However Much it is, it’s not enough to fight over.”
With careful concentration he signed the form Tom Hadlock handed him, then Dotson stood up. Holding both the envelope and his hat in one hand, he reached out toward Joanna with the other.
“Thank you, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “I thank you, and so does my Aunt Franny. She’s been cryin’ for twenty-four hours straight now, beratin’ herself somethin’ fierce on account of no one ever listened to Hannah or done nothin’ about her. But it turns out now that somebody did listen, and we’re mighty grateful. Can’t none of us vote for you, on account of we’re up in Graham County instead of in Cochise. But we’ll all be prayin’ for you. Aunt Franny’s especially good at that.”
“Thank you,” Joanna said. “And tell your Aunt Franny thank you as well. Any and all prayers are greatly appreciated. After all, they’re part of the glue that holds us all together.”
Isn’t that right, Jim Bob? Joanna thought as she watched Philip Dotson amble out of her office. Lunches and prayers, both.
Through the remainder of the afternoon she continued to wade through the paperwork jungle. She tried several times to reach Larry Matkin, but to no avail. He evidently hadn’t returned to his office after leaving the parish hall. The next time Joanna’s phone rang, the caller was Butch Dixon. “Are we all set for dinner?” he asked. “What time and where?”
“There’s a place called the Pizza Palace out in Don Luis. How about if we meet there around six?”
“Don Luis?” Butch repeated. “Where’s that? I thought we were having dinner here in town.”
Joanna laughed. “We are. Don Luis is part of town. It was incorporated into Bisbee in the fifties, along with Warren, Bakerville, and Lowell. The thing is, all those individual neighborhoods have retained their original names, even though they’re all a part of Bisbee proper.”
“The Pizza Palace,” Butch repeated.
“Do you need directions?”
“No, thanks. I’m sure someone here at the Grand Hotel will be able to tell me how to find it.”
Once Joanna was off the phone, she tried Larry Matkin’s number once again for good measure. Still there was no answer. About four, Kristin came in with a stack of typed letters for Joanna to sign. “By the way, Deputy Voland told me to tell you he was taking off early this afternoon.”
“Did he say when he’d be back?”
“I’m sure he’s gone for the day,” Kristin said, a trifle too quickly.
Joanna regarded Kristin Marsten with a penetrating look. “I’m sure he won’t be coming back to work,” Joanna said. “But did he say whether or not he was coming back to sleep?”
Kristin flushed to the roots of her light blond hair. “So you did know about that?” Joanna pressed. Kristin nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The young secretary shrugged. “I guess I was afraid he’d get in some kind of trouble.”
“Kristin,” Joanna said. “Police officers are a lot more likely to get into trouble if we don’t know what’s going on in their personal lives. As my secretary, you’re my eyes and ears around here. Your job is to let me know things that are going on that may have some bearing on the performance of any member of my department. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” Kristin replied. “I see.,”
“Good.”
Kristin went out then. As Joanna sat putting her signature at the bottom of the typed letters, she thought about what she had just told Kristin. What she had said was true. But didn’t it go further than that, further than just needing to know what was going on? Now that she was aware of the situation in the Voland household, didn’t she have some responsibility to do something about it?
Closing up her desk, she took the signed letters out to Kristin to put in the mail. “I’m heading out early, too,” she said.
Except, instead of driving directly to Eva Lou and Jim Bob Brady’s to pick up Jenny, Joanna drove out to San Jose Estates. Ruth and Dick Voland lived in a four-bedroom stuccoed rambler with a magnificent view of the stately mountain peak several miles south of the border in Old Mexico from which the development took its name.
It was a long time after Joanna rang the bell before the mahogany door opened. Ruth was a heavyset, jowly woman in her early forties. Wearing sweats, she was panting, as though she’d been interrupted in the middle of a workout. Ruth paled as soon as she saw Joanna standing there. “It’s not Dick, is it?” she demanded. “Has something happened to him?”
“No,” Joanna said. “I came to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“You’re making a terrible mistake,” Joanna said. “Dick and I work together. That’s it. There is absolutely nothing going on between us.”
Ruth stood back and opened the door, gesturing Joanna into the house. She shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter if there is or it there isn’t,” she said.
“Of course it mailers,” Joanna returned. “He’s out right now, looking for an apartment. Catch him before he rents one. Have him come back home. You guys have two kids, don’t you?”
Ruth Voland nodded. “One in high school and the other in junior high.”
“Those kids need their father. Dick is my chief deputy, but when it comes to romance, you don’t have a thing to worry about.”
“I already told you,” Ruth asserted, “it is too late. I got sick and tired of listening to him talk about Joanna Brady this and Joanna Brady that twenty-four hours a day. I’ve found someone else. Kenneth is the coach of my son’s bowling team out in Sierra Vista. Ken’s already divorced, and I will be soon.”
Joanna was stunned. She had somehow thought all she’d have to do was walk up to the door, talk to Ruth Voland a few minutes, and the whole thing would be set to rights.
“You’re filing for a divorce?”
“Sure I am,” Ruth Voland replied. “Ken and I want to get married as soon as we can.”