“I don’t know what to think. I’m doing some checking. I’ll let you know.”
“Fair enough. Should I tell Juanita you’re looking to it?”
“For right now, don’t tell anybody anything.”
“Sure thing, Joanna,” Frank Montoya answered. “You’re the boss.”
There was no hint of teasing in Frank Montoya’s voice now. Joanna knew that he really meant what he said.
“Thanks,” Joanna said. “And thanks for keeping an eye on things while I’m gone.”
Once off the telephone, Joanna headed for her room. In the breezeway outside, she almost collided head-on with Leann Jessup. The other woman was dressed in tennies, shorts, and a glow-in-the-dark T-shirt. “I’m going for a run,” she said. “Care to join me?”
The idea of going for a jog carried no appeal. “No, thanks,” Joanna replied. “I’m saving myself for that first session of physical training tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to shower, hit the books, and then try to get some sleep.”
For a moment Joanna watched Leann’s stretching exercises, then she glanced at her watch. It was almost eleven-thirty. “Isn’t this a little late to go jogging?”
Leann grinned. “Not in Phoenix it isn’t. Most of the year it’s too hot to go out any earlier. Besides, I’m a night owl—one of those midnight joggers. Actually, this is early for me.”
Joanna laughed. “Where I come from, coyotes are the only ones who go jogging this time of night.
Back in her dormitory room, Joanna quickly stripped out of her clothing and headed for shower.
Standing under the torrent of pulsing hot water, Joanna marveled at the unaccustomed force of the water. Back on the High Lonesome, a private w ell, temperamental pump, and aging pipes all combined to create perpetual low pressure. Reveling in the steamy warmth, she stayed in the shower far longer than she would have at home.
When she finally emerged from the shower, she once again found her bathroom tinged with cigarette smoke. The bath towel she used to dry her face, the one she had brought from home, stank to high heaven.
Her nose wrinkled in distaste. Ever since she’d been forced to use high school rest rooms that had reeked of smoke, she had been bugged by the people who hid out in bathrooms to smoke. Why the hell couldn’t they be honest enough to smoke in public, in front of God and everybody? She thought. Why did so many of them have to be so damned sneaky about it?
With the exhaust fan going full blast, the mirror cleared gradually. As the steam dissipated, Joanna’s body slowly came into focus. Back home, with Jenny bouncing in and out of rooms, standing naked in front of a full-length mirror wasn’t something Joanna Brady did very often. Now she subjected her body to a critical self-appraisal—something she hadn’t done for years. In fact, the last time she had looked at herself in that fashion had been nine years earlier, just after Jenny’s birth. She had been concerned about whether or not she’d get her pre-pregnancy figure back.
She had, of course, within months, thanks more to genetics than to dietary diligence on Joanna’s part. Even in her sixties, Eleanor Lathrop remained pencil thin, and Joanna had inherited that tendency. Now, except for two faded stretch marks—one on each breast—there were no other physical indications that she had ever borne a child. Her breasts were still firm. Her small waist curved out into fuller hips. Her figure suffered some in comparison with that of someone as elegantly tall as Leann Jessup. For one thing, Joanna was somewhat heavier. So be it. Joanna wasn’t a daily—or nightly—jogger. Her muscle tone came from real work on the ranch—from wrestling bales of hay and long-legged calves—rather than from a prescribed program of gym-bound weight lifting.
Moving closer to the mirror, Joanna examined her face. She still wasn’t sleeping through the night. She hadn’t done that regularly since Andy died, but she was getting more rest. Her skin was clear. The dark circles under her eyes were fading. The new hairdo Eleanor had badgered her into on the day of the election was an improvement over her old one. Even though she still wasn’t quite accustomed to the shorter length, Joanna had to admit it was easier to care for. She found herself using far less shampoo, and the time she was forced to waste waving her hairdryer around in the bathroom been reduced from ten minutes to five.
Standing there naked, Joanna Brady finally saw herself for the first time as someone else might see her, the way some man who wasn’t Andy might see her. A man who ...
With a start, she remembered Butch Dixon staring at the rings on her fingers. She saw him standing there talking to her, leaning against the bar obviously enjoying her company. She saw again the pleased look on his face when she had walked back into the Roundhouse after her trip down to the Maricopa County Jail. She remembered how quickly he had apologized when he’d inadvertently stumbled onto Andy’s death, and how he’d jumped down the throat of the poor guy he thought might have insulted her.
Certainly Butch Dixon wasn’t interested in her, was he?
Joanna barely allowed her mind time enough to frame the question.
“Nah!” she said aloud to the naked image staring back at her from the mirror. “No way! Couldn’t be!”
With that, pulling on her nightgown, Joanna headed for bed. She fell asleep much later with the light on and with the heavy textbook open on her chest—only thirty pages into Dave Thompson’s seventy-six-page reading assignment.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Because Jim Bob and Eva Lou were both early risers, Joanna had read another twenty pages and was down in the student lounge with the telephone receiver in hand by ten after six the next morning. Her mother-in-law answered the phone.
“Is Jenny out of bed yet?” Joanna asked.
“Oh, my,” Eva Lou replied. “She isn’t here. Your mother invited her to sleep over in town last night. I didn’t think it would be a problem. I know Jenny will be sorry to miss you. If you want, you might try calling over to your mother’s.”
“Except you know how Eleanor is if she doesn’t get her beauty sleep,” Joanna returned. “And by the time she’s up and around, this phone will be too busy to use. I’ll call back later this evening. Tell Jenny I’ll talk to her then.”
“Sure thing,” Eva Lou replied. “As far as I know, she plans on coming straight home from school.”
Relinquishing the phone to another student, Joanna poured herself juice and coffee and a toasted couple of pieces of whole wheat bread. Then she settled down at one of the small, round tables, flipped open Historical Guide to Police Science, and went back to her reading assignment of which she still had another twenty-six pages to go.
“Mind if I sit here?”
Joanna looked up to find Leann Jessup standing beside the table. She was carrying a loaded breakfast tray. “Sure,” Joanna said, moving her notebook and purse out of the way. “Be my guest. There’s plenty of room.”
Leann began unloading her tray. Toast, coffee, orange juice, corn flakes, milk. She set a still-folded newspaper on the table beside her food.
“Not much variety,” Leann commented. “By Christmas, the food in that buffet line could become pretty old. But I shouldn’t complain,” she added. ‘It’s food I don’t have to pay for out of my own pocket.
“How close are you to done with that stupid reading assignment?” Leann asked, nodding in the direction of Joanna’s textbook as she sat down.
Joanna sighed. “Twenty pages to go is all. History never was my best subject, and this stuff is dry as dust.” While she returned to the book, Leann Jessup picked up the newspaper and unfolded it. Moments later she groaned.
“Damn!” Leann Jessup exclaimed, slamming the palm of her hand into the table, rattling everything on its surface. “I knew it. As soon as she turned missing, I knew he was behind it.”