SEVEN
Seven miles away at the Arizona Inn, Joanna Brady was just finishing her club sandwich. The spacious room with its graceful tableware and bud vases of fresh dahlias had a calming, quieting effect on her. As the food found its way into her system, she felt her strength being renewed and with it her ability to think.
For the first time, she remembered what Dr. Sanders had said much earlier in the day when he had warned her about the reporters camped out in the lobby waiting to talk to her. Maybe, she thought hopefully, this man was one of those. After all, he hadn’t tried very hard to conceal the fact that he was following her.
While she was eating her sandwich, she had caught him looking at her several times. The last time, he stared at her openly. She couldn’t escape the feeling that she had seen him somewhere before, that he was someone she knew but couldn’t quite place.
She observed that he hadn’t bothered to eat anything. He drank only a glass of iced tea while she wolfed down her sandwich and two cups of coffee. When the waiter dropped off his ticket, the man stood up immediately. Joanna breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he was going to leave. Instead, after leaving money on his table, he walked directly over to hers.
“Mrs. Brady?” he said.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt you until after you had finished your meal, but I wondered if I could have a word with you?”
Without waiting for her to answer, he pulled out the chair opposite her and eased himself into it.
“Who are you?” Joanna asked.
He reached into the vest pocket of his well-cut suit jacket, pulled out a thin leather wallet, and handed it to her. Inside was a gold badge and an identification card showing the man’s picture.
‘My name’s Adam York,” he said, when she handed the wallet back to him. He pocketed it quickly before anyone else in the room had a chance to see it. “I’m the local agent in charge of the DEA. Glad to make your acquaintance.”
He held out his hand, and she shook it.
“What can I do for you, Mr. York?” she asked.
He smiled what seemed to be an ingratiating smile. She noticed that his skin was evenly tanned. His teeth were straight and very white. His expensive suit and tie to say nothing of his wrinkle-free white shirt made her acutely aware of the garish yellow smock she wore over the stained and ragged blue dress.
“Call me Adam, Joanna,” he said cordially enough, leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs, and watching her expectantly. His impeccable clothing was bad enough. Combined with a haughty smile and indulgent manner, they were infinitely worse. Everything about the man set Joanna’s teeth on edge.
“Haven’t I seen you someplace before, Mr. York?” Joanna asked, ignoring his given name and keeping the conversation on a strictly formal basis.
“No,” he said. “I don’t believe so.”
But just then she realized when and where she had seen him before. He had been in and out of the ICU waiting room during the morning, mingling with the people waiting there. She had assumed he was connected to one of the other families, but now it was clear that wasn’t the case.
She regarded him levelly across the bud vase with its single vibrantly pink dahlia. “That’s not true, Mr. York. I saw you in the waiting room this morning. Why didn’t you speak to me there?”
Caught in the lie, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I thought you’d prefer to meet with me privately,” he said. “I didn’t want to cause you any embarrassment in front of your family and friends.”
“Why would I be embarrassed?” she asked.
“We are meeting under very unfortunate circumstances. I don’t want to be insensitive to your needs, Joanna, but in view of your husband’s activities, I need to ask you some questions.”
“Like what?”
When Joanna Brady had panicked and dashed into the Arizona Inn, Adam York was sure she’d be an easy interview once he had a chance to question her. Now he wasn’t so sure. Somehow she’d ditched most of her dirty, bloodied clothing. Among the brightly colored plumage of Arizona ’s early winter season tourists, her vivid yellow smock didn’t seem all that out of place. She had sat in the dining room calmly eating a sandwich as if she hadn’t a care in the world. And now she was staring back at him with a steady, unflinching gaze that successfully put him on the defensive.
He realized too late that he had lost the advantage. Somehow she had managed to take the interview initiative away from him, and he needed to get it back.
“I like your ring,” Adam York said casually, without breaking eye contact. His unexpected sideways approach, geared to throw people off guard, worked as expected. Involuntarily Joanna glanced down at the unfamiliar ring on her finger as if to verify that it was still there.
“As I’m sure you know, it was a gift from my husband,” she said evenly. “An anniversary present, but then you already know that, don’t you? You were probably right there in the room when I opened it. What about my ring?”
“It looks expensive.”
“Maybe it is. I wouldn’t know about that,” she returned. “As I told you, it was a gift.”
“Do you know where your husband got it?”
Joanna shrugged. “From Hiram Young, I suppose. In Bisbee. That’s what the box said. Young’s Fine Jewelry.”
Adam York smiled his white-toothed smile. Joanna remembered the lyrics from “Mack the Knife,” that old song from Threepenny Opera, “Oh the shark has pearly teeth, dear…” Adam York was definitely a shark.
“Oh, come now. Aren’t we being a little obtuse?”
Joanna felt the danger, as though she were about to be pulled over an abrupt edge into some terrible, unknown abyss. All around her, oblivious to what was going on, the other diners in that gracious old room continued their leisurely luncheons, punctuating their genial conversations with polite laughter.
Joanna took a deep breath and studied her adversary. One of Big Hank Lathrop’s lessons came back to her from the far distant past. Eleanor had hated it, lobbied against it, even when it was happening, but her husband had stubbornly persisted in teaching the daughter he called Little Hank the finer points of playing poker. Over and over he had stressed that the secret of winning lay in never, ever showing your opponent that you were scared. Remembering her father’s words, an eerie sense of tranquility seemed to settle over her.
She signaled the busboy to bring more coffee. When he did, she picked up the cup with both hands, letting her ring finger rest casually around the brim of the cup. The ring was hers. It had been given to her and she had nothing to hide. She was gratified to see that her hands didn’t betray her with even the slightest tremor.
She offered Adam York a thin smile. “Obtuse?” she asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you have any idea how much that ring of yours cost, Joanna?”
“I told you before, it was a gift. When someone gives you a present, it isn’t polite to ask how much it cost, or didn’t your mother ever teach you that?”
“It cost three thousand four hundred fifty three dollars and twenty two cents,” he said deliberately. “One of my agents checked that with Mr. Young himself in Bisbee early this morning. He let us have a copy of the receipt. It’s paid in full.”
“I don’t understand why the DEA should be interested in the cost of my anniversary present, Mr. York. It seems to me you’d have better things to do with your time.”
He had expected her to crumple then and start spilling the information that would make it easy to nail Andrew Brady once he was fit to stand trial. Instead, Joanna stood firm and brazened it out. York had pictured her as one of two things, either the innocent and most likely wronged wife, one who had no inkling of her husband’s extracurricular activities, or as a guilty co-conspirator. And despite what had been said so far, Adam York still had no idea which was which. Either way, she was very good at fighting back.