“Hey, barkeep,” the impatient customer muttered. “A guy could thirst to death around here.”
Dixon hurried away. Thinking she had blown her chances of gaining any useful information, Joanna sat forlornly at the bar with her half-empty glass in front of her and wondered if there would have been a better way to approach him. Eventually, he came back with a platter laden with food.
“How come the sheriff of Cochise County is interested in Serena Grijalva?” he asked. “And why bother talking to me instead of Carol Strong, the detective on the case? Besides, you won’t want to hear what I have to say any more than she did.”
“This isn’t exactly an official inquiry,” Joanna answered. “I just wanted to check some things out.”‘
“Like what?”
“According to what it said in the paper, you were one of the last people to see Serena alive.”
“That’s right,” Butch Dixon answered. “Me and Serena’s ex-husband and a whole roomful of other people. Serena and her ex were having themselves a little heart-to-heart. We all heard them. You can see how private it is in here.”
Once again Butch was called down the bar while Joanna bit into her hamburger. That one bite told her that the Roundhouse Special lived up to its glowing advance billing.
Butch came back to stand opposite Joanna’s stool “How’s the burger?”
“It’s great. But tell me about Serena and Jorge Grijalva. They were having a fight?”
“Do you ever read Ogden Nash?” Butch asked.
Joanna was taken aback. “No. Why?”
“If you’d ever read ‘I Never Even Suggested It,’ you’d know it only takes one person to make a quarrel.”
“Only one of them was fighting? Which one?”
“Serena was screaming like a banshee. I guess she had a restraining order on him or something, hut he acted like a gentleman. Didn’t threaten her or anything. Didn’t even raise his voice. I felt sorry for the poor guy. All he was asking was for her to let the kids come to his mother’s for Thanksgiving dinner. It didn’t seem all that out of line to me.”
Again Butch was summoned away, this time by the cocktail waitress again. When he finally returned, Joanna was done with her hamburger. He picked up the empty platter and stood holding it, eyeing Joanna.
“I don’t care what the detectives and prosecutors say, I still don’t think he did it. After she stomped out the door, he sat here for a long time, all hunched over. He had himself a couple more drinks and both of those were straight coffee. He said he had to drive all the way back to Douglas to be there in time to work in the morning. Does that sound like someone who’s about to go knock off his ex-wife?”
Thoughtfully, Butch Dixon shook his head. “I’ll go get your ice cream,” he added. “You want coffee or something to go with it?”
“No. I’m fine.”
He walked away, carrying the dirty dishes. Joanna watched him go. That made two different people who were convinced of Antonio Jorge Grijalva’s innocence—a poetry-quoting bartender and the accused’s own mother.
Butch Dixon returned with the dish of ice cream. “Did the prosecutor’s office talk to you about any of this?” Joanna asked.
Dixon shook his head. “Naw. Like I said, the detective just brushed me off. She claimed that she had enough physical evidence to get a conviction.
“Like what?”
“She didn’t say. Not at the time. Later I heard about a possible plea bargain, and it pissed me off I wanted to see him fight it. I even called up his public defender and offered to testify. He wasn’t buying. I hate plea bargains.”
Thoughtfully, Joanna carved off a spoonful of ice cream. “There are two primary reasons for so many plea bargains these days. Are you aware of what they are?”
Butch rolled his eyes. “I have a feeling you’ going to tell me.”
“The first one is to keep the system moving. If the case is reasonably solid, the prosecutors may decide to go for a lesser sentence just to spare themselves the time and aggravation of going to trial.”
“And the second reason?”
“If the case is so weak they don’t think they’ll be able to get a conviction, they may go for a plea bargain as the best alternative to letting the guy walk. Maybe that’s what’s happened here.”
“Wait a minute,” Butch said. “Do you think that’s possible? Maybe the case is weak and that’s why they’re going for a plea bargain?”
“It isn’t really my case, but that’s what I’m trying find out,” Joanna said. “If it’s a strong case or if it isn’t.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Butch Dixon exclaimed, beaming at her. “I figured you were just like all the others. You let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, you hear?”
Joanna nodded. “Sure thing.”
He had paused long enough that now he was behind in his duties. Joanna finished her ice cream nil waited for some time, hoping he’d drop off her check. Finally, she waved him down. “Could I have my bill, please?”
“Forget it,” he said. “It’s taken care of.”
“What do you mean?”
“You ever been divorced?”
Joanna shook her head.
“I have,” Butch Dixon said. “Twice. Believe me, no matter what, the man is always the bad guy. I get sick and tired of men always getting walked on, know what I mean?”
“What does that have to do with my not paying for my hamburger?”
“Any friend of Jorge Grijalva’s is a friend of mine.”
CHAPTER NINE
Walking from the bar into the parking lot, Joanna was surprised by how warm was. Bisbee, two hundred miles to the south and east, was also four thousand feet higher in elevation. November nights in Cochise County had a crisp, wintery bite to them. By comparison, the evening air in Phoenix seemed quite balmy.
Once in the Blazer, Joanna sat for some time, not only considering what she had heard from Butch Dixon, but also wondering about her next move. Obviously, Butch was no more a disinterested observer than Juanita Grijalva was. Something in the bartender’s own marital past had caused him to be uncommonly sympathetic to Jorge Grijalva’s plight. Had he, in fact, called the man’s public defender with an offer to testify on Jorge’s behalf? That’s what Dixon claimed. In an era when most people don’t want to get involved, that in itself was remarkable.
So, in addition to his mother, Jorge Grijalva has at least one other partisan, Joanna thought. Despite Butch Dixon’s professed willingness to do so, however, he would never be called to a witness stand to testify. Plea bargain arrangements don’t call for either witnesses or testimony. There would be no defense, and that seemed wrong. Somehow, without Joanna quite being able to put her finger on the way he had done it, Butch Dixon had caused the smallest hairline crack to appear in her previous conviction that Juanita Grijalva was wrong. Maybe her son was about to plead guilty to a crime he hadn’t committed.
It was only seven o’clock. The sensible thing to do would have been to head straight back to the dorm and put in a couple of hours reading the next day’s assignment. Instead, Joanna reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the detailed Phoenix Thomas Guide Jim Bob Brady had insisted she bring along. Even as she did it, Joanna knew what was happening. She was wading deeper and deeper into the muck. Inevitably. One little step at a time. Just like the stupid dire wolves at the La Brea tar pits, she thought.
Switching on the overhead light, she studied the map until she located the Maricopa County Jail complex at First and Madison. Then, she turned on the Blazer’s engine and pulled out of the parking lot, headed for downtown Phoenix.