With her mother gone, Joanna quickly finished clearing off the top surface of her desk, then she stood up and went to Milo ’s door. Apparently lost in thought, he sat with his back to his desk, staring out the window. At sixty-three, Milo Davis was completely bald. Only the very top of his perpetually sun-burned head was visible over the top of his executive chair.
Joanna announced herself by tapping lightly on the door frame, then she stepped over the threshold into his office, pulling the door shut behind her. When he swiveled around to face her, Milo Davis’s usually engaging grin was missing.
“Hello, Joanna,” he said somberly. “Sit down.”
She eased herself into one of the two client chairs in front of his desk. “Please don’t say you didn’t expect to see me today,” Joanna began. “Three people have already given me that same line. I just stopped by long enough to complete those three underwriting memos.”
Milo nodded. “Thanks for taking care of them. You’re absolutely right. They shouldn’t have been left hanging for a whole week. Chances are I wouldn’t have remembered them, either. I’m so used to you taking care of those kinds of details that I just don’t think about them anymore.”
For a moment he examined her face. “How are you doing, really?” he asked.
“Really?” Joanna shrugged uncomfortably and bit her lower lip. “Okay, I guess. It’s all so sudden.”
Milo nodded. “It’s going to be hard as hell, Joanna,” he said kindly. “And it’s going to take time. This is a terrible tragedy, not just for you and Jenny, but for the whole town. Feelings are running high. Don’t be surprised if folks choose up sides and throw stones.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s times like this when you find out who your friends really are, Joanna, and I want you to know you can count on me. Is there anything I personally can do?”
She looked him squarely in the eye. “There Is, Milo. Tell me what’s going on. I was here when Adam York came out of your office. What was he doing here? What did he want? Was he asking you about Andy’s and my insurance?”
Milo Davis frowned. “Not really, although I guess that was part of it. I didn’t tell him much, but I’ll have to eventually. He threatened to come back with a court order to examine my records, and my guess is he’ll make good on it.”
“What kind of records?”
“Payroll. Sales records. He wanted me to tell him exactly how much you make, to the penny. He asked about both of you, but it seemed to me he was actually more interested in you than he was in Andy.”
“Why me? Did he say?”
“I tried to press him on that, but he got real cagey about then.” Milo ’s face was shadowed with concern. “My guess is that he’s looking for extra cash, unexplained expenditures that are over and above what you and Andy could afford on what you both make. My guess is that he thinks you’re involved in some kind of drug dealing.”
“That’s preposterous!” Joanna exclaimed.
“That’s exactly what I told him.”
Joanna took a deep breath. “I caught up with him in the parking lot, and he gave me some kind of song and dance about insurance fraud. But the DEA’s conducting a war on drugs not insurance fraud.”
“Damn!” Milo thundered. He slammed one meaty fist down on his desk top so hard that his crystal paperweight-a prize from the home office for some long-forgotten sales campaign-skittered dangerously close to the edge. Joanna caught it and returned it to its rightful place.
For almost a minute the room was silent. “He’s a formidable adversary, Joanna,” Milo said at last. “Formidable and smooth. He’s one of those operators who, once he decides to send someone up the river, probably has enough horses behind him to pull it off. I’d be very careful around him if I were you.”
“I’ll be careful, but I’m going to stop him.”
“How?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know yet. First I have to find out why he’s after me. He must have something that makes him believe I’m involved. I just can’t for the life of me think of what it might be.”
“He did ask me about that ring of yours,” Milo said thoughtfully. “The one Andy gave you for your anniversary.”
“You knew about that?” Joanna asked in surprise.
“You’re the only one in the office who didn’t. Andy brought it by to show to me as soon as he picked it up from Hiram. He wanted us to put a jewelry rider on your homeowner’s policy. He asked me to handle it personally so you wouldn’t find out about it.
“I told York flat out that I thought he was harking up the wrong tree concentrating on that ring. If Andy’d had anything to hide, he would have been a hell of a lot more secretive about it than he was. As far as I can tell, he told everybody in town but you, and that’s as it should be.”
Hearing Milo talk about the ring brought it hack to Joanna’s attention. She twisted it on her finger. “What else did you tell him?” she asked.
“Mostly just general stuff. I told him Andy grew up in my Boy Scout troop, from the time he was a little shaver with a crew cut in Cubs right up through him getting his Eagle badge in high school. I told him Andy was one of the finest young men to ever grow up around these parts. I told him both of you were fine, upstanding, honest, hardworking young people.”
“Tell me again exactly what he wanted to know about me.”
“How long you’ve worked here, whether you’ve taken any long vacations, that kind of thing. I told him you’ve been here for over ten years now, since before Jennifer was born. In fact, I gave him a whole earful on that score, about how you worked for me and put both Andy and yourself through school at the same time. I told him how you used to commute back and forth to Tucson three days a week. I think he was impressed. He should have been.
“And just before he left, I told him that this smear campaign about you and Andy had by God better come to a stop. It’s absolutely unconscionable.”
Joanna’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Thanks, Milo,” she murmured.
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s the truth. I told York that, and I said the same thing to Jim Bob Brady when I ran into him at the post office at little while ago. These so-called experts from out of town come waltzing in here in their fancy cars and throw their weight around, when they don’t know up from down about what’s really going on. And it sounds to me…”
There was a sudden urgent tapping on the door. Lisa stuck her head inside. “There’s a phone call for you, Joanna. Nina Evans from school. I tried to handle it myself, but she insists on talking to you personally.”
Joanna’s heart went to her throat. “The principal? Is something the matter with Jenny?”
Lisa nodded reluctantly. “They’ve got her in the office. Something about fighting.”
“Jenny? Fighting? That doesn’t sound like her.” Joanna hurried to the phone. “This is Joanna Brady.”
Mrs. Evans sounded relieved. “I’m glad you’re there. We need you to come take Jenny home right away. She’s totally out of control, and I don’t think she ought to be in school today.”
“What’s wrong?”
“She got in a fight at recess.”
“Jenny never gets in fights.”
“Tell that to the two boys she lit into on the playground.” Mrs. Evans returned. “One of them had a bloody nose, and the other’s at the emergency room right now because of his thumb. She dislocated it. I’m surprised she didn’t pull it completely out of the socket.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Joanna put down the phone and turned to see Milo Davis, standing in his doorway. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“It’s Jenny,” Joanna replied. “She seems to have dislocated a little boy’s thumb in a fight at recess.”