“I love roadrunners,” Angie Kellogg was saying when Joanna tuned back into the conversation. “Growing up back in Michigan, I used to think they weren’t real, that the people who made the Roadrunner/Coyote cartoons had just made them up.”
“I like those cartoons, too,” Jenny said, scrambling out of the breakfast nook. “But I always feel sorry for the coyote.”
Without having to be told, she took her dishes as far as the sink, rinsed them, and loaded them into the dishwasher. Then she headed for the bathroom to brush her teeth.
“Thanks for doing the dishes,” Joanna said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t mind,” Angie answered with a laugh. “It was fun-almost like playing house. And it’s so peaceful here. I never knew there were homes like this.”
Over the months, Joanna had heard bits and pieces about Angie Kellogg’s past, about the sexually abusive father who had driven his daughter out of the house. For Angie, life on the streets in the harsh world of teenaged prostitution had been preferable to living at home. Only now, living in her own little house, was she beginning to learn about how the rest of the world lived. Joanna looked around her clean but familiar kitchen and tried to see it through Angie’s eyes. The place didn’t seem peaceful to her. There was still a hole in it, a void that Andy’s presence used to fill.
“I didn’t know where all the dishes went,” Angie continued. “I told Jenny that if she’d put them away for me, I’d give her a ride to school.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Joanna said.
“Why not?” Angie returned. “Greenway School is just a little out of the way. It won’t take more than a couple of minutes for me to drop her oil. That way you can go to bed. You look like you need it.”
Unable to argue, Joanna stood up. “If anything,” she said, “I feel worse than I look.”
She staggered into the bedroom and dropped fully clothed onto the bedspread. Jenny stopped by on her way to her own room. “Aren’t you going to get undressed?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Joanna said, pulling the bedspread up and over her. “I’m too tired.”
Sound asleep, she didn’t stir when Jenny and Angie left the house a few minutes later. The phone awakened her at eleven. “Sheriff Brady?” Kristin Marsten asked uncertainly.
Joanna cleared her throat. Her voice was still thick with sleep. “It’s me, Kristin,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Dick Voland asked me to call you. There’s going to be a telephone conference call with someone from the governor’s office at eleven-thirty. Can you make it?”
“I’ll be there,” Joanna mumbled as she staggered out of bed. Showering and dressing in record time, she headed for the office. The governor’s office, she thought along the way. Why would Governor Wallace Hickman be calling me?
As Joanna drove into the Justice Center compound, she saw that the front parking lot was once again littered with media vehicles, including at least one mobile television van from a station in Tucson. Fortunately, out-of-town reporters, unlike Kevin Dawson of the Bisbee Bee, had no idea about the sheriff’s private backdoor entrance. Joanna took full advantage of that lack of knowledge. Without having had the benefit of a single cup of coffee, she wasn’t ready to face shouted questions from a ravening horde of reporters. For them, Hannah Green’s life and death meant nothing more than a day’s headline or lead story. For the police officers involved, Joanna Brady included, Hannah Green’s death meant failure.
Climbing out of the Blazer, Joanna heaved out her briefcase as well. She had dragged it back and forth from the office without ever unloading it or touching what was inside. No doubt today’s batch of correspondence was already waiting for her. Any other day, the thought of all that paperwork would have been overwhelming. Today, Joanna welcomed it. By burying herself in it, perhaps she’d be able to forget the sight of a massive, lifeless Hannah Green slumped at the end of her jailhouse bunk, the air choked out of her by the tautly stretched elastic of a grimy bra that had been wrapped around and around her neck and finally around the foot rail of her upper bunk.
As soon as Joanna was inside, Kristin Marsten brought her both the mail and a much-needed cup of coffee.
“What’s happening?” Joanna asked. “And who all is here?”
“Mr. Voland, of course,” Kristin answered. “He was here when I arrived. Detective Carpenter showed up a few minutes ago, along with Tom Hadlock.” Tom Hadlock was the jail commander. “Deputy Montoya is here, but he probably won’t be included in the conference call. He’s out front dealing with the reporters.”
“Better him than me,” Joanna said grimly.
Cup in hand, feigning a briskness she didn’t feel, Joanna marched into the conference room with five minutes to spare. Ernie Carpenter, Dick Voland, and Tom Hadlock were al-ready there. Grim-faced and red-eyed, none of them seemed any better off than Joanna felt.
Joanna looked questioningly at Dick Voland. “What’s this ill about?”
Voland shrugged. “Politics as usual,” he said. “It’s no big thing. Whenever something off the wall happens, Governor Hickman wants to be in on it. He probably wants to be reassured that this isn’t something that’s going to come back and bite him in the butt during the next election.”
“What’s going to bite him?”
“Hannah Green’s death.”
“How could what happened to Hannah Green hurt Governor Hickman?”
Voland shrugged. “You know. Allegations of possible police brutality. Violations of constitutional rights. That sort of thing.”
Joanna could feel her temperature rising. “Are you saying Hickman may try to turn that poor woman’s death into a political football?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Ernie said. “And it sure as hell won’t be the last.”
When the phone rang, Joanna punched the speaker button. “Yes,” she said.
“Lydia Morales with the governor’s office is on the phone,” Kristin said.
“Put her through.”
Lydia Morales sounded young-about Joanna’s age, perhaps-and businesslike. “Governor Hickman wanted me to get some information on the incident down there last night,” Lydia said. “He’ll have access to the Department of Public Safety’s files, of course, but he did want me to ask a question or two. For instance, the victim, this Hannah Green, she wasn’t black by any chance, or Hispanic, was she?”
“Black or Hispanic?” Joanna repeated. “What does dial have to do with it?”
Lydia paused. “Well, certainly you understand how, when a prisoner dies in custody, there can always be questions of racism or police brutality or…”
“Or violation of constitutional rights,” Joanna finished.
“Right,” Lydia Morales confirmed brightly.
Hearing Lydia’s response, Joanna knew Dick Voland was right. This really was politics as usual. Lydia Morales and Governor Hickman had no real interest in Hannah Green’s tragic life and death. They were looking for votes, plain and simple. They were checking to see if there were any political liabilities involved or gains to be made in the aftermath of what had happened the night before in the Cochise County Jail. How many constituents would be adversely affected, and could the governor be held accountable?
“You never answered my question about Hannah Green,” Lydia persisted.
Joanna tumbled then. In the minds of the governor’s political strategists there were, presumably, both a black voting block and an Hispanic one as well. Unfortunately for her, Hannah Green fit in neither category.
“Hannah Green was an Anglo,” Joanna said tersely “Good,” Lydia returned. “That will probably help.”
“Help what?” Joanna asked.
“How this thing is handled,” Lydia returned. “The kind of press it’s given. Believe me, trying to fight a racism charge is tough. Definitely lose/lose all the way around.”