Joanna had known Bucky Buckwalter for years, not only as the family vet but also as an insurance client at the Davis Insurance Agency, where she had worked for years, both as office manager and as saleswoman, prior to her election to the office of sheriff. Bucky had always struck her as an egotistical, overbearing blowhard. As an employee of the Davis Insurance Agency, Joanna Brady had endured his tantrums because it was in the company’s best interests for her to do so. Now, though, she was out of the insurance business. Glossing over Bucky’s bad behavior was no longer necessary. Amos Buckwalter was accustomed to pushing people around. Sheriff Brady decided it was high time someone pushed back.
“That’s right,” she replied firmly. “You’re to do nothing at all. Leave Hal Morgan alone. And just to be on the safe side, don’t water down your parking lot as long as he’s out there, either. Some of that icy spray just might make it over the fence into the public right-of-way. That would be unfortunate. Don’t forget, Dr. Buckwalter, harassment is a two-way street.”
Before Bucky could respond and before Joanna could complete her exit, the clinic’s front door slammed open. A disheveled woman darted inside. Joanna recognized her as Irene Collins, a retired schoolteacher who lived up Tomb-stone Canyon in Old Bisbee. One arm cradled a huge calico cat. The other hand clutched one of Hal Morgan’s M.A.D.D. brochures.
“Oh, Dr. Buckwalter!” Irene exclaimed. “I’m so glad you’re here. Murphy Brown has some kind of bone stuck in her throat. I’ve been trying for almost an hour to get it out with a pair of tweezers, but I can’t do it myself. She just won’t hold still long enough so I can grab it.”
“Come on,” Bucky said at once, holding open the door to one of the examining rooms. “Bring Murphy right on in here. I’ll see what I can do for her.”
Irene Collins dropped both her purse and the brochure on the counter as she hurried toward the examining room. Terry Buckwalter left the purse where it was, but with a glance in her husband’s direction, she snatched up the brochure and tossed it into the trash. She wasn’t quite fast enough at removing the offending piece of paper. Bucky had already seen it. They all had.
Irene and the ailing Murphy Brown disappeared into the examining room. Shaking his head, the vet stalked after them. Joanna turned back to the door.
“I’m sorry about all this,” Terry Buckwalter called after her. “It’s so embarrassing.”
Terry was clearly stuck in a no-win situation. Maybe Bucky Buckwalter didn’t feel any regret over the death of Hal Morgan’s wife, but Joanna was convinced that his wife did. “Don’t worry about it, Terry,” Joanna said. “It’s no big deal. Besides, you’ve got nothing to apologize for. It’s Bucky’s problem.”
Terry Buckwalter’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s where you’re wrong,” she mumbled. “It’s a problem for both of us.”
Joanna left the clinic then. As she drove through the gate, she gave Hal Morgan a passing wave, but she didn’t stop to talk. Instead, she headed straight for the county administration building on Melody Lane, where the board of supervisors meeting was already in session. Frank Montoya, Chief Deputy for Administration, had saved a seat next to him in the far back row.
“How’s it going?” she whispered.
“It’s a good thing you got here when you did,” he said. “You’re up next. From the treasurer’s report of another downturn in expected tax revenues, it isn’t going to be any kind of picnic.”
And it wasn’t, either. Joanna spent the better part of the next three hours in the hot seat being grilled about exactly how she intended to reduce her departmental budget by the required seven and a half percent across-the-board cuts that were being demanded of all of Cochise County ’s department heads. When twelve o’clock rolled around, she was relieved to head for Daisy’s Cafe in Bakerville for a quiet lunch with the Reverend Marianne Maculyea, her pastor and also her best friend.
Their friendship had started with their first day in seventh grade at Lowell School. During lunch recess, one of the boys had made the mistake of calling Marianne Maculyea a half-breed. Marianne’s Hispanic mother and Irish father had met and married in Bisbee at a time when such unions were regarded with a good deal of disapproval. Marianne’s two younger brothers had inherited both their mother’s lustrous dark hair and brown eyes. Like her brothers, Marianne had come away with Evangeline Maculyea’s hair, but that was combined with Timothy Maculyea’s arresting gray eyes as well as his volatile temper.
The half-breed comment had been a typical grade school taunt, delivered with casual indifference and with zero expectation of consequence. What Marianne’s hit-and-run tormentor failed to realize was that Marianne Maculyea was a confirmed tomboy and the fastest sprinter ever to come out of Horace Mann Grade School up the canyon in Old Bisbee. The boy-a year older and half a head taller than his victim-never anticipated that she would turn on him in pint-sized fury, chase him to the far end of the playground, capture him by his flapping shirttail, and then proceed to beat the crap out of him. Joanna Lathrop, a fellow seventh grader and also a confirmed tomboy, witnessed the whole drama, cheering for Marianne at the top of her lungs. Once Marianne escaped her sentence of detention in the principal’s office, Joanna had been the first to offer her congratulations. They had been best friends ever since.
The Maculyeas had moved to Safford by the time Marianne announced her intention of leaving the Catholic Church to become a Methodist minister. Eventually, Marianne had been appointed pastor of Canyon Methodist Church. When she returned to town, bringing along her easygoing husband, Jeff Daniels, the two women had resumed their long-term friendship as though the ten intervening years of separation had never existed.
“You look like you’ve been through a meat grinder,” Marianne said as Joanna sat down across from her and slid wearily across the booth’s sagging orange bench seat.
“I’m sorry it shows that much,” Joanna said with a rueful shake of her head. “But meat grinder just about covers it. Actually, slaughter of the Christians might be more apt.”
Joanna paused long enough to study Marianne’s face. Usually, Marianne Maculyea’s whole being radiated a kind of glowing confidence. Today the glow was missing completely. Marianne’s tan skin had a sallow look to it. The sparkle had disappeared from her eyes.
“Besides,” Joanna added. “Who’s calling the kettle black? You don’t look all that chipper yourself.”
“You’ve got me,” Marianne said with a grin.
Daisy Maxwell, the cafe’s rail-thin, seventy-year-old owner, plunked an empty cup and saucer down in front of Joanna. Knowing her regular clientele’s habits and preferences, Daisy poured two cups of coffee from the regular pot without having to ask if coffee was what they both wanted.
“It’s Tuesday,” she announced, setting the pot down on the table and pulling a pencil from her towering beehive hairdo and a tablet of tickets from the pocket of her uniform. “The lunch special today is two tacos with a side of beans. That, or meat loaf and gravy.”
Joanna and Marianne both ordered tacos.
“You go first,” Marianne said, once Daisy had taken the pot and their order and headed back to the kitchen. “What’s going on?”
“If the board of supervisors wanted me to do a seven and-a-half percent across-the-board budget cut,” Joanna groused, “why didn’t they tell me that before I took delivery on all those new Crown Victorias? They were all contracted for last year by Walter McFadden’s administration. It seems to me it would have been easier to renege on the purchase of several vehicles than it’s going to be to cut head count in either patrol or jail personnel. I’ve got a fifteen percent increase in caseload and an eighteen-percent increase in jail population, but I’m supposed to handle all of it with seven and a half percent less money than we originally budgeted. And that, I might add, was far less than the department should have had to begin with.”