Milo studied his listener’s face, waiting to if D. H. Lathrop’s daughter would smile at the joke. She didn’t. Joanna Brady was way beyond smiling.
“It seemed funny back then,” he said with sigh. “Maybe you had to be there.”
By the time Joanna finished that one glass wine, she had moved beyond her ability to socialize as well. She tracked Eleanor down in a small group in the dining room. “Are you going home tonight, or are you going to stay here?” Joanna asked.
“I thought I’d stay, if you don’t mind.”
“Do whatever you want, but I have to go to bed. I can’t hold my head up any longer.”
In the past, that kind of announcement would probably have provoked an argument on the impropriety of Joanna’s abandoning her guests. This time it didn’t.
“I’m sure you’re tired,” Eleanor said. “I don’t think people will mind if you disappear.”
Joanna headed toward her bedroom. She expected her mother to stay in the dining room chatting with the guests. Instead Eleanor followed Joanna into the bedroom.
“Can I talk to you a minute?”
Expecting another lecture, Joanna tried to hide the impatience in her voice. “What about?”
“Your father.”
“Everybody seems to be thinking about him tonight.”
Eleanor smiled. “He used to call you Little Hank just to drive me crazy. It did, too, I think. And then, when he taught you how to shoot a gun, my word, I wondered what the world was coming to.”
Joanna walked over to the closet and began taking off her clothes. The blouse she was wearing was one of her favorites, but it buttoned down the back. Without Andy to help with the buttons, Joanna didn’t know if she’d he able to wear it very often from now on. She worked her way down the row until she reached the button in the middle of her back, the one that was hardest to reach. Just then, Eleanor came over and unbuttoned it for her.
“It’s hard to let go of a daughter,” she said awkwardly. “Even when she’s all grown up. Just wait until it happens to Jenny. You still think of her as a little girl in braids, and then one day, she’s standing there doing something like washing dishes or canning peaches, and you know she’s not little any more.”
“Mother,” Joanna interrupted, but Eleanor shook her head.
“It didn’t seem fair to me that when he had such a beautiful little girl your father still always wanted a boy. That’s one of the things we fought about. He made you act like a boy, and I was always mad at him over it. But last night, Joanna, I saw he was right. If you hadn’t been just the way your father raised you, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Joanna felt tears welling up in her eyes no matter how hard she tried to blink them back, but Eleanor didn’t seem to notice.
“I’ve heard people talking around town today, at Helene’s, when I went to have my hair done and in the grocery store. They’re all saying you should run for sheriff.”
“Don’t worry, Mother. I already told Milo I wouldn’t do it.”
“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Eleanor said. “I think you should. I used to believe that when your daddy died, it was all his fault. After all, since he was sheriff, he deliberately put himself in danger. I thought that he had wanted it somehow and that when it happened, it was sort of divine retribution. Over the years, I guess I’ve finally figured out that wasn’t right.
“When it came time to bury him, I went ahead and let them dress him in his uniform even though I hated that uniform with an abiding passion. I did it that way because I knew it’s what he would have wanted. I kept one part of his uniform back though, just one thing
Eleanor Lathrop reached into her pocket and pulled out a tarnished silver star. “It’s your daddy’s badge, Joanna,” Eleanor said softly. “I saved it for you because I thought you might want it someday. I’m giving it to you now because I think you’ve earned it.”
With that, after pressing the badge into Joanna’s hand, Eleanor fled the room.
Stunned, Joanna took the badge to the bed and sank down on it, examining the etched star in careful detail and marveling. After all those years, she was holding her father’s badge. As she was growing up, if she could have had one thing that had belonged to her father, this would have been it, but that was always a secret, selfish wish, one she had never dared share with her mother. That would have been too disloyal.
Joanna stared down at the badge for a long, long time, until her eyes began to blur, then she reached over and picked up the phone. She had dialed the number so many times in the past few days that she knew it by heart.
The town mortician’s newest son-in-law and newest employee was the one stuck with night duty. He was also the one who answered the phone.
“This is Joanna Brady,” she said. “I’m calling to ask a favor. Andy’s wearing his badge right now, but I’d like you to take it off and put it in an envelope for me. Would you do that?”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Brady. No problem.”
“And put my daughter’s name on the out-aide. Jenny. Jennifer Brady. She may want to have that badge someday as a keepsake.”
“Right, Mrs. Brady. It’ll be at the desk for you in the morning. Anything else?”
“No. That’s all.”
Putting the phone down and turning out the light, Joanna lay down crosswise on the bed and wrapped the heavy bedspread around her. She had been dreadfully sleepy earlier, but now sleep seemed far away.
Milo Davis, Marianne Maculyea, her mother-all of them thought she should run. All of them, including Adam York, seemed to think she could do it. Could she, Joanna wondered. Maybe. What would it hurt to try?
And moments later, while that embryonic thought still lingered in her head, and still holding tight to her father’s precious badge, Joanna Brady fell into a dreamless but untroubled sleep.
She woke up in the morning with the sun streaming in through the window and with Jenny tiptoeing across the room to snuggle into bed beside her.
“What’s this?” Jenny asked, seeing the badge in her mother’s hand. “Is it Daddy’s?”
“No,” Joanna explained, “it was my daddy’s, your grandfather’s.”
“Grandpa Lathrop’s? But what are you doing with it?”
Joanna looked down at Jenny and suddenly knew what she had to do.
“Grandma gave it to me,” Joanna said. “For right now, I’m going to put it away in my jewelry box. If I ever get it out again, it’ll be time to put it on and wear it.”
Jennifer Brady looked at her in wide-eyed astonishment. “For real? You mean you’d be sheriff?”
“I’d try,” Joanna answered. “It would mean we’d have to go on with the election campaign only this time I’d be the candidate. It would mean that no matter how hard it was, we’d have to go out and do all the things we would have done if your daddy was still running. It would be hard work because now there are only the two of us. Would you be willing to help me? Do you think we could do it?”
“Yes.” Jennifer Ann Brady answered without the slightest hesitation.
Joanna hugged her child close. “Well then,” she said huskily, “I guess we’ll have to try. If enough people in Cochise County want me to be their new sheriff, that’s exactly what I’ll be.”
About the Author
J.A. Jance is the author of the J.P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, and two standalone thrillers. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington.
