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?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Whatever the provocation, I think it’s bad form to slam doors until after everyone in the office has had a chance to finish at least one cup of coffee.”
Frank did leave Joanna’s office fairly soon after that. Between then and nine-fifteen, when it was time for her to leave for Bucky Buckwalter’s funeral, Joanna at last had some time to make a little progress on the paper debris that covered her desk. As she shuttled through the messages once again, she threw away the ones from her mother and Marianne Maculyea. When she rediscovered the one from Larry Matkin, the mining engineer, she tried to return the call. He had left only one number, however, and there was no answer.
At thirty-five years of age and a height of six feet six, Little Norm Higgins was both the youngest and the largest of Norm Higgins’ three sons. He collected Joanna Brady at the door of Higgins Funeral Chapel and Mortuary. Taking her arm and speaking in low, respectful tones, he led her to the third row of seats, a place evidently reserved for dignitaries unrelated to the deceased. She was seated between Agnes Pratt and Alvin Bernard, Bisbee’s mayor and chief of police, respectively.
Agnes had a tendency to develop skin cancer. On doctor’s orders, she always wore hats, although the wide-brimmed, flowered and/or feathered affairs she favored might not have been exactly what her dermatologist had in mind. The one she preferred to wear to funerals was an enormous black straw contrivance with a velvet ribbon and single peacock leather. Over time the feather had become quite bedraggled. Her Honor inclined her head as Joanna slipped past her into an empty seat. “So sad,” Agnes murmured. “So very sad.”
Seated as close as she was to the front of the chapel, it was impossible for Joanna to see who all was present. From the noise level it was clear that the place was jammed to the gills. Joanna wondered if the attendance was due to Bucky’s prominent position in the community or if, somehow, word had already leaked out that the murdered vet was about to become a posthumous papa.
Shortly before the Reverend Billy Matthews from the First HU~Ie Baptist Church took to the podium, Little Norm was forced to go to the front of the chapel. There, in his whispery, bowling announcers’ voice, he urged people to move closer together in order to allow a few more attendees to squeeze in at the end of each cushioned pew.
As the organist droned on and on, playing something mournful but totally unrecognizable, Joanna wondered how Billy, pinch-hitting for Marianne Maculyea, would be able to pull together a meaningful service. If Terry Buckwalter wasn’t particularly grief-stricken over her husband’s death, would anyone else be?
It turned out that the answer was yes. Any number of people had been touched and saddened by Bucky’s passing, and a few of them were willing to come forward and say so. The selection of speakers wasn’t exactly standard funeral fare, but they all did well.
First to step forward was an adorable little girl named Winnette Jeffries who also happened to be Agnes Pratt’s great-granddaughter. Barely able to see over the podium, a breathless Winnette told how Dr. Buckwalter had saved her puppy after someone had fed the animal poison.