“As I said, there’s no way to know.”
Another car pulled up and stopped. This one was a cherry-red Chrysler Sebring convertible with an auburn-haired woman at the wheel. She, too, parked without first bothering to move her vehicle entirely out of the path of traffic. She jumped out of the car. Leaving her door ajar, she came striding up to where Joanna and Clete Rogers stood.
“What’s going on here?” she asked.
Clete turned to Joanna. “If I’m not supposed to be here, why is she?” he demanded. “Who told her?”
An angry woman marched up until she stood within inches of Clete Rogers’ face. Belligerently she stared up at him. “She’s my mother, too,” she stormed. “And it happened just the way I said it would. 1 tried to tell you the guy was bad news-that he was trouble. But you’re always so much smarter than anyone else. You knew all about this long before I did, but you didn’t bother to lift a finger. If you had told me what was really going on, I might have prevented this from happening, but oh no. Not you. And now Mother’s dead because of you, because you’re such a closed-mouthed son of a bitch. I hope you’re happy.”
“Wait just a damned minute here!” Clete railed back at his sister. “You’re saying what happened is all my fault? No way!”
“You should have made her break up with him.”
Clete hooted with laughter. “Sure,” he said. “Me make her. When did anybody ever make Mother do anything she didn’t want to do?”
Joanna remembered what Frank Montoya had said about the previous day’s incident in the Grubsteak, about the two-sided fight between Susan Jenkins and her brother, and the scuffle that had included a table’s worth of flying crockery and glassware. Before they could start whaling on one another, Joanna attempted to soothe the raging waters.
“Excuse me,” she began calmly, holding out her hand. “You must be Susan Jenkins. I’m the-”
“You stay out of this,” Susan snarled back. “Who the hell do you think you are? If I want to tell my brother he’s a jackass, it’s nobody’s business but ours. Now leave us alone.”
“A jackass!” Clete choked. “Why, of all the-” He clenched one massive fist and drew back, as if preparing to deliver a brain-crushing blow.
Joanna’s mind echoed with all the police academy cautions about the danger of stepping into the middle of a domestic dispute. She knew the statistics involved-the textbook recitations of cops killed and injured nationwide when summoned to intervene in family disturbances. Even so, as Clete Rogers wound up to deliver a haymaker to his sister’s skull, Joanna had no choice but to act.
“All right, you two,” she said, stepping into the fray and inserting her own body between the bristling pair, both of whom towered over her. “Knock it off!”
Surprisingly enough, Clete complied immediately. Susan Jenkins, however, held her ground. “I told you to leave us alone.”
“And I said knock it off!” Joanna repeated.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are-”
“I’ll tell you who I am,” Joanna told her. “I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady, and I’m ordering you back to your vehicle. Now!”
“Why? If my brother’s allowed to be here, I should be able to-”
“Return to your vehicle immediately, Mrs. Jenkins. Otherwise I’ll be forced to place you under arrest.”
“Under arrest!” Susan screeched. “Me? My mother’s dead. My worthless brother turned a deaf ear and let her boyfriend kill her, and you’re telling me I’m the one who’s under arrest?”
But even as she objected, Susan Jenkins took a backward step. Joanna stepped after her, hoping to keep her moving in the right direction. “All the way to the car, Mrs. Jenkins,” Joanna urged. “I want you to stand behind your vehicle. Spread your legs and place both hands on the trunk.”
The big danger in domestic disputes is always the possibility that both combatants will stop fighting with one another and turn on the police officer. Concerned that Clete Rogers might come at her from behind, Joanna glanced over her shoulder. She was relieved to see that rather than joining in, he had moved away, backing up until he collided with the rear bumper of Fran Daly’s van. It took mere seconds for Joanna to see that he posed no threat, but that momentary lapse of attention was enough for Susan Jenkins to launch a full-scale attack. By the time Joanna realized what was happening, the enraged woman was almost on top of her.
Dodging to one side, Joanna reached out, grabbed Susan by one arm and then tossed her over an outthrust hip. One moment Susan, bent on attack, was rumbling forward. The next she was sailing skyward and flipping end over end. She landed on her back with a thump that sent the air whooshing out of her lungs. For several long moments she didn’t breathe. She simply lay there, staring bug-eyed into the sky.
With her own heart pounding, Joanna placed one foot on her opponent’s shoulder. She was in the process of wrestling her Glock out from under the billowing duster when another car-a familiar white Econoline van-stopped beside her. Her burly, middle-aged homicide detective, Ernie Carpenter, vaulted from his vehicle and into the fray. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.
“Cuff her, Ernie,” Joanna ordered, moving away. “I don’t think she’s armed, but you’d better check.”
By then, Susan was coughing and gasping for breath. Ernie reached down, hauled her to her feet, and then spun her around to secure her wrists behind her. Meanwhile, Joanna hurried to check on Clete Rogers, who was leaning against Fran Daly’s van. His face had gone dangerously white.
“Are you all right?” Joanna asked.
He nodded. “I’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ve got some medication in my truck. Just help me back to it.”
With him leaning against her for support, Joanna led him back to his pickup. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?” she asked. “I can call for an ambulance and have them take you to a hospital in Tucson.”
He waved her away and then reached for a lunch-box-sized cool chest on the seat beside him. “No,” he said, as he opened the lid. “Just let me be for a little. I’ll be fine.”
Sergeant Mallory appeared at that moment. “What’s going on?” he demanded, looking from Joanna to a dust-covered but still belligerent Susan Jenkins.
“I want that woman arrested,” Joanna said, pointing at Susan. “She’s to be charged with assaulting a police officer.” “Who is she?” Mallory asked.
“Susan Jenkins, the dead woman’s daughter.”
Mallory looked puzzled. “I thought the son was the one who was on his way.”
“They’re both here,” Joanna told him. “Clete Rogers is over there in his truck. Somebody had better check on him. He may need medical attention.”
Mallory whistled. “Nice family.”
“Isn’t that the truth!”
While Mallory went to check on Clete Rogers, Ernie walked over to Joanna. His thick, bushy eyebrows were beetled into a frown. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“As I drove up, I saw what was happening,” Ernie continued. “The woman was coming right at you, Joanna. She’s so much bigger than you are, I thought for sure you were a goner. The next thing I knew, though, she was flying through the air like some kind of rag doll. Nice move. Who showed you that one?”
As relief flooded through Joanna’s body, she remembered those countless summertime sessions out in the yard at High Lonesome Ranch where Andy had taught both his wife and daughter a collection of self-defense moves. He had taught them to use a thumbhold that could bring even the most burly opponent to his knees. Not only that, Andy had shown Joanna and Jenny how an attacker’s own body weight could be used against him. Or her, as the case might be.
On wrestling mats Andy had borrowed from one of his old high school coaches at Bisbee High, they had practiced time and again until they had perfected their technique-until Joanna could throw Andy and until Jenny, in turn, could throw her mother. At the time it had seemed like little more than a game-something inexpensive that the financially strapped family could do together. Back then it had never occurred to Joanna that those very skills might one day mean the difference between life and death-between walking away from a fight as opposed to being carried away on a stretcher.