"So you haven't seen anyone?" Joanna asked.
"Like I told you, nobody except those yahoos from Rattlesnake Crossing," Alton answered.
"What about you?" Joanna turned to Ryan. "Have you seen anyone?"
"No, ma'am," he replied. "Not a soul. Dad and I are working pretty much sunup to sunset, so I don't have time to see anybody."
"There you are," Alton said with a shrug.
"Well," Joanna concluded, "keep your eyes open, and don't hesitate to call if you see anyone or anything suspicious. Right now my detectives are all tied up with crime-scene investigation. When they finish up with that, they'll be around asking questions. Detectives Carpenter and Carbajal will be spearheading the investigation, but they may be joined by officers from Pima and Maricopa counties as well, just so you'll be prepared."
"All right," Alton Hosfield said, clapping his hat back on his head. "I'll expect 'em to be dropping by in the next day or so. In the meantime, Sheriff Brady, I appreciate your taking the time to bring me up to speed. I was beginning to feel just a little paranoid." He paused and grinned. "If you ask Sonja, she'll probably tell you maybe even a bit more paranoid than usual. See you around."
With that he turned on his dusty Tony Lama hoots and returned to his truck. Joanna went back to the Blazer.
It was so late in the afternoon when she reached Benson that she should have driven past the ongoing press conference at the Quarter Horse Cafe without a trace of guilt. She had already put in a very long day after several other very long days. But her father, D. H. Lathrop, had imbued his daughter with his own fierce work ethic. In addition, Joanna Lathrop Brady had been raised in her mother's spotless household, where free-floating guilt outnumbered dust motes three to one. So she did drive past, but not without suffering a few guilty pangs over the fact that she was some-how shirking her duty.
She was still battling her attack of guilt when she reached the Rita Road overpass on I-10. That was when inspiration struck. Belle Philips. As soon as the woman's name crossed her mind, Joanna reached for her radio. Then, realizing that a dozen reporters probably had their all-hearing scanners tuned to Cochise County frequencies, she fumbled for her phone instead.
Dispatcher Tica Romero took the call. "Where's Detective Carbajal?" Joanna asked.
"Still at the Triple C crime scene, as far as I know," Tica replied. "Do you want me to put you through to him?"
"No. Ask him to contact me by phone rather than radio. Cell phones may not be one hundred percent secure, but they're better than broadcasting everything we say over the airwaves."
"I'll have him get right back to you," Tica said. And she did. Joanna was on the horn with Jaime Carbajal before she had made it as far as Tucson's Wilmot Road.
"What's up, Sheriff Brady?" he asked.
"Jaime, have you had a chance to interview Belle Philips yet?"
“Are you kidding? We've been so busy since the medics hauled her away in the ambulance that I've barely given the woman another thought. Why?"
"Where is she?"
"University Medical Center," he replied. "At least that's where I understood they were taking her."
"It happens that I'm on my way there myself," Joanna told him. "That's where Marianne Maculyea and Jeff Daniels' daughter had surgery today. I was thinking, though, as long as you and Ernie are still tied up with the crime scene, I could just as well stop by and see Ms. Philips. She might actually know something about her husband's business."
"It couldn't hurt," Jaime agreed.
Armed with both official and unofficial reasons for being in Tucson, Joanna fought her way through rush-hour traffic and drove straight to the hospital. After stopping in the gift shop long enough to buy a small bouquet of daisies, she headed upstairs. As the elevator rose through the building, Joanna was grateful that the pediatric ICU was in a different part of the hospital from the adult surgical ICU, where Andy had died. That meant Jeff and Marianne would be in a different waiting room.
Expecting to find one or the other of them inside, Joanna stepped off the elevator and pushed open one of the swinging doors that led into the waiting room. To her surprise, the first person she encountered was Butch Dixon. "What are you doing here?" she asked.
He had been working on a small laptop computer. As soon as he saw Joanna, he closed the lid. "I've been waiting for you," he said.
"What's going on? Are you on your way back to Peoria?"
"Not exactly," he replied. "When Kristin called and said you were coming here to visit Jeff and Marianne, I decided I would, too. That may be the only way I'll have a chance to see you-to turn up wherever you are-sort of like a bad penny. You're not avoiding me, are you?"
"No. Of course not." Joanna was flustered by finding him there. To her consternation, she could feel a hot-faced blush blooming at the base of her neck. "And we did have lunch today," she reminded him.
"That wasn't what I call having lunch," Butch objected. "You breezed in and sat down, but before we had a chance to exchange two words, that woman…"
"Marliss," Joanna supplied. "Marliss Shackleford."
"Whatever-her-name-is showed up and monopolized the conversation for as long as you were there."
"I'm sorry," Joanna said. "That's what she's like. Pushy."
"And you're skittish," Butch said.
She nodded. "Well, I suppose I am. I'm afraid people will talk, I guess. Afraid of what they'll think."
"What will they think?"
"That you and I are involved. Seriously involved."
"Are we?"
Butch was making it tough for her. Standing there with the little vase of daisies in her hand, while she fielded his questions like a complete ninny. "Yes, we're involved," she said. "But I'm just not ready to be serious. You understand what I mean, don't you?"
"I'm trying," he said. "So far, the signals are a little mixed. Look, Joanna, I want to have a chance to talk." He glanced around the waiting room. "As far as I'm concerned, this isn't the place to do it. How about dinner? Eight o'clock. I'll pick you up here, and we can go someplace nice. The Arizona Inn is just a few blocks away…"
Along with the hospital itself, the Arizona Inn was an-other place that held painful memories for Joanna Brady. She'd been there, in the dining room talking to Adam York of the DEA when Tony Vargas had walked into Andy's hospital room to finish the job he had started a day earlier in a wash off High Lonesome Road.
"No," Joanna said quickly. "Not there."
"I'll figure it out, then." Butch stood up and headed for the door. "See you here at eight. No excuses."
Joanna nodded. "But where are Jeff and Marianne?"
"Jeff's in Esther's room for this hour's ten minutes' worth of visiting. He should be out any time. Marianne's at their hotel taking a nap. See you."
Butch turned and walked out, leaving Joanna still standing and holding the flowers. She wasn't exactly alone. There were at least two other clumps of people, family members commiserating in low, solemn voices. A chill ran down Joanna's spine; she knew the kinds of crises they must be enduring where the only thing they could do was to keep their long, helpless vigils-waiting, hoping, and worrying.
Jeff Daniels burst into the waiting room. "Joanna," he said. "You're here."
"How's Esther?"
"All right so far," he replied. "They're keeping her pretty well sedated."
"And Marianne? How's she?"
"She's hardly slept for days," Jeff said. "I finally convinced her to go back to the room to nap. I called and found out she'd left a wake-up call for five. I canceled it. I want her to sleep until she actually wakes up. She's been running on adrenaline for months now, ever since the girls got here. She's tough, but the strain is starting to show."