During the course of Dave Thompson’s long lecture, Joanna almost succeeded in staying awake by forcing herself to take detailed notes. As the midmorning break neared, she once again found herself counting down the minutes like a restless school kid longing for recess.
When the break finally came, Joanna raced out of the classroom and managed to beat everyone to the student lounge. She poured herself a cup of terrible coffee from the communal urn and then made for the pay phone and dialed her own office number first. Kristin Marsten, her nubile young secretary, answered the phone sounding perky and cheerful. “Sheriff Brady’s office.”
“Hello, Kristin,” Joanna said. “How are thing?”
Kristin’s tone of voice changed abruptly as the cheeriness disappeared. “All right, I guess,” she answered.
Kristin’s tenure as secretary to the Cochise County sheriff preceded Joanna’s arrival on scene by only a matter of months. Kristin started out the previous summer in the lowly position of temporary clerk/intern. Through a series of unlikely promotions, she had somehow landed the secretarial job. Joanna credited Kristin’s swift rise far more to good looks than ability. No doubt in the pervasively all-male atmosphere that had existed under the previous administrations, blond good looks and blatant sex appeal had worked wonders.
By the time Joanna arrived on the scene, Kristin had carved out some fairly cushy working conditions. Because Joanna’s reforms threatened the status quo, the new sheriff understood why Kristin might view her new female boss with undisguised resentment. Given time, Joanna thought she might actually effect a beneficial change in the young woman’s troublesome attitude. The problem was, between the election and now there had been no time—at least not enough. Kristin’s brusque, stilted replies bordered on rudeness, but Joanna waded into her questions as though nothing was out line.
“Is anything happening?” she asked.
“Nothing much,” Kristin returned.
“No messages?”
“Nothing happening. No messages. Joanna recognized the symptoms at once. Kristin was enjoying the fact that her boss was temporarily out of the loop. The secretary no doubt planned to keep Joanna that way for as long as possible.
“Something must be happening,” Joanna pressed. “It is a county sheriff’s office.”
“Not really,” Kristin responded easily. “I’ve been sling things along to Dick ... I mean, to Chief Deputy Voland, or else to Chief Deputy for Administration Montoya.”
“What kind of things?”
“Just routine,” Kristin answered.
Joanna had to work at keeping the growing annoyance out of her own voice. She knew there was no possibility of effecting a miraculous adjustment Kristin’s attitude over long-distance telephone lines. But if Kristin wanted to play the old I-know-and-you-don’t game, it was certainly possible to II her bluff.
“Oh,” Joanna offered casually. “You mean like the prisoner petitions asking me to fire the cook or the domestic assault out at the Sunset Inn?”
“Well . . . yes,” Kristin stammered. “I guess so. How did you know about those?”
Hearing the surprise in Kristin’s voice, Joanna allowed herself a smile of grim satisfaction. She resented being drawn into playing useless power-trip games, but it was nice to know she could deliver a telling blow when called upon to do so. After all, Joanna had been schooled at her mother’s knee, and Eleanor Lathrop was an expert manipulator. The sooner Kristin Marsten figured that out, the better it would be for all concerned.
“A little bird told me,” Joanna answered, “but I shouldn’t have to check with him. Calling you ought to be enough.”
Bristling at the reprimand, Kristin did at last cough up some useful information. “Adam York called,” she said curtly.
Adam York was the agent in charge of the Tucson office of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Joanna had met him months earlier when, at the time Andy’s death, she herself had come under suspicion as a possible drug smuggler. It was due Adam York’s firm suggestion that she had enrolled in the APOA program in the first place.
“Did he say what he wanted?” Joanna asked. “Did he want me to call him back?”
“Yes.”
“Where was he calling from?” Joanna asked. “Did he leave a number?”
“He said you had it,” Kristin replied. “He said for you to call his home number. He has so fancy kind of thingamajig on his phone that tract him down automatically.”
Not taking down telephone numbers was another part of Kristin’s game. Joanna had Adam York’s number back in the room, but not with her. Not here at the phone where and when she needed it. Her level of annoyance rose another notch, but she held it inside.
“What else?” Joanna asked.
“Well, there was a call from someone named Grijalva.”
“Someone who?” Joanna asked impatiently. “A man? Woman?”
“A woman,” Kristin said. “Juanita was her name. She wouldn’t tell me what it was all about. She just said to tell you thank you.”
Joanna drew a long breath. There was very little point in lighting into Kristin over the telephone. What was needed was a way to make things work for the time being.
“I’ll tell you what, Kristin,” Joanna said. “From now on I’d like you to bag up all my correspondence and copies of all phone calls that come into your office. My in-laws are coming up here tomorrow for Thanksgiving. Bundle the stuff up in a single envelope. I’ll have my father-in-law stop by the office to pick it up tomorrow the last thing before they leave town.”
“You want everything?”
“That’s right. Even if you’ve passed a call along someone else to handle, I still want to see a copy of the original message. That way I’ll know who called and why and where the problem went from ere.”
“But that’s a lot of trouble—”
Pushed beyond bearing, Joanna cut off Kristin’s objection. “No buts,” she said. “You’re being paid be my secretary, remember? To do my work. For as long as I’m gone, this is the way we’re going to handle things. After tomorrow’s batch, you can FedEx me the next one Monday morning. After at, I want packets from you twice a week for as long as I’m here. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, is Frank Montoya around?”
“He’s not in his office. He’s over in the jail talking the cook. Want me to see if I can put you through to the kitchen?”
“No, thanks. What about Dick Voland?”
“Yes.” Joanna could almost see Kristin’s tight lipped acquiescence in the single word of her answer. Moments later, Dick Voland came on phone.
“Hello,” he said. “How are you, Sheriff Brady and what’s the matter with Kristin?”
“I’m fine,” Joanna answered. “Kristin, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be having a very go day.”
“I’ll say,” Dick returned. “I thought she was going to bite my head off when she buzzed me about your call. What can I do for you?”
Joanna listened between the words, trying to tell if anything was wrong, but Voland sounded cordial enough. “How are things?” she asked.
“Everything’s fine. Let’s say pretty much everything. The prisoners are all pissed off about quality of their grub, but Frank tells me he’s working on that. We’ve had a few things happening, but nothing out of the ordinary. How are your classes going?”
“All right so far,” Joanna answered.
“Is my ol’ buddy, Dave Thompson, still do’ the bulk of the teaching up there?”
“You know him?”
“Sure. Dave and I go way back. I’m talking years now. We’ve been to a couple national conferences together, served on a few statewide committees. He fell on a little bit of hard times after his wife divorced him. Ended up getting himself remoted.”