She had been agonizingly honest when she told Jenny that she too had liked things better the way they were before Andy’s death. It was two months now since Joanna had found Andy lying wounded and bleeding in the sand beside his pickup. There were still times when she couldn’t believe he was gone, when she wanted to call him up at work to tell him about something Jenny had said or done. Times Joanna longed to have him sitting across from her in the breakfast nook, drinking coffee and talking over the day’s scheduling logistics. Times she wanted desperately to have him back beside her in the bed so she could cuddle up next to his back and draw Andy’s radiating warmth into her own body. Even now her feet were so distressingly cold that she wondered if she’d ever be able to get to sleep.
Minutes later, despite her cold feet, Joanna was starting to drift off when the telephone rang. She snapped on the light before picking up the receiver. It was almost eleven. “Hello?”
“Damn,” Chief Deputy for Administration Frank Montoya said, hearing her sleep-fogged voice. “It’s late, isn’t it? I just got home a few minutes ago, but I should have checked the time before I called. I woke you up, didn’t I?”_
“It’s okay, Frank,” Joanna mumbled as graciously as she could manage. “I wasn’t really asleep. What’s up?”
Frank Montoya, the former Willcox city marshal, had been one of Joanna’s two opponents in her race for he office of sheriff. In joint appearances on the campaign trail, they had each confronted the loud-mouthed third candidate, Al Freeman. Those appearances had resulted in the formation of an unlikely friendship. Once elected and trying to handle the department’s entrenched and none-too-subtle opposition to her new administration, Joanna had drafted fellow outsider Frank Montoya to serve as her chief deputy for administration.
“I had dinner with my folks tonight,” Frank said. “My cousin’s getting married two weeks from now, so my mother had one of her command performance dinners in honor of the soon-to-be newlyweds. I was on my way out the door when she pulled me aside and asked me what are we go to do about Jorge Grijalva. ‘Who the hell is Jorge Grijalva?’ I asked.” Frank paused for a moment. “Ever heard of him?”
“Who, me?” Joanna returned.
“Yes, you.”
Joanna closed her eyes in concentration. She ha been so caught up in her own troubles that it was hard to remember someone else’s, but it came her a moment later. “Ceci’s father,” she breathed.
“Ceci?” Frank asked.
“Ceci Grijalva. She was in school and Brownies with Jenny last year. I believe her parents must have gotten a divorce. The mother and the two kids moved to Phoenix right after school got out. The father worked at the lime plant down by Paul Spur until the mother turned up dead somewhere outside Phoenix. It happened about the same time Andy was killed, so I didn’t pay that much attention. As I understand it, Jorge is the prime suspect.”
“Only suspect,” Frank Montoya corrected.
Joanna sat up in bed so she could think better. “Didn’t the detectives on the case pick him up at work down in Paul Spur? A day or so after I was sworn in, I remember seeing a letter from the chief of police up in Peoria. He sent a note to the department, thanking us for our cooperation. Since it happened on Dick Voland’s watch, I passed the letter along to him. That’s all I know about it.”
“You know a lot more than I did, then,” Frank Montoya returned. “You’re right. The family had been living in Bisbee for a while, but Jorge is originally from Douglas. Pirtleville, actually. And it turns out that Jorge’s mother, Juanita, is an old friend of my mother’s. They used to work together years ago, picking peaches at the orchards out in Elfrida. According to Mom, Juanita thinks Jorge is being sold down the river on account of something he didn’t do. She asked me if I...I mean, if we... could do anything to help.”
“Like what?” Joanna asked.
“I don’t know. All I can tell you is his mother swears he didn’t do it.”
“Mothers always swear their darlings didn’t do it.” Joanna countered. “Didn’t you know that?” “I suppose I did,” Frank agreed, “but if we could just…”
“Just what?”
“Listen to her,” Frank said. “That’s all Mom wanted us to do—listen.”
Joanna shook her head. “Look, Frank,” she said. “Be reasonable. What good will listening do? This case doesn’t have anything at all to do with Cochise County. In case you haven’t noticed, Peoria, Arizona, happens to be in Maricopa County, a good hundred and forty miles outside our jurisdiction.”
“But you’re going up there tomorrow,” Frank argued. “Couldn’t you talk to her for a few minutes before you go?”
“It was a domestic, Frank,” Joanna said. “You know the statistics as well as I do. What could I say to Juanita Grijalva other than to tell her that the cops who arrested her precious Jorge are most likely on the right track?”
“Probably nothing,” Frank Montoya agreed somberly. “But if you talk to her, it might help. If nothing else, maybe she’ll feel better. Jorge is her only son. No matter what happens afterward, if she’s actually spoken to someone in authority, she’ll at least have the comfort of knowing she did everything in her power to help.”
Frank Montoya’s arguments were tough to turn aside. Knowing she was losing, Joanna shook her head. “You should have been in sales, Frank,” she said with a short laugh. “You sure as hell know how to close a deal. But here’s the next problem—scheduling. I go to church in the morning. We finish up with that around eleven-thirty or so, then we come rushing home because my mother-in-law is cooking up a big Sunday dinner. We’ll probably eat around two, and I’ll need to light out of here for Phoenix no later than three. When in all that do you think I’ll be able to squeeze in an appointment with Juanita Grijalva?”
“How about if I bring her by the High Lonesome right around one?” Frank asked. “Would that be all right?”
“All right, all right,” Joanna agreed at last. “But why do you have to bring her? Tell her how to find the place, and she can come by herself.”
“No, she can’t,” Frank said. “Not very well. For thing, Juanita Grijalva doesn’t have a car. For another, she can’t drive. She’s legally blind.”
Joanna assimilated what he had said. “There’s nothing like playing on a person’s sympathy, is there?”
Now it was Frank Montoya’s turn to laugh. “I had to,” he said sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Joanna, but if you hadn’t agreed to talk to Juanita, I never would have heard the end of it. Once my mother gets going on something like this, she can be hell on wheels.”
Joanna stopped him in mid-apology. “Don’t worry about it, Frank. It’ll be fine. I’ve never met your mother, but I have one just like her.”
“So you know how it is?”
“In spades,” Joanna answered. “So get off the phone and let me get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow. Around one.”
Joanna put down the phone. Once again she switched off the lamp on her bedside table. In the long weeks following Andy’s murder, sleeping properly was one of the most difficult things Joanna Brady had to do. Loneliness usually descended like a smothering cloud every time she crawled into the bed she and Andy had shared for so many years. Usually she tossed and turned through the endless nighttime hours, rather than falling asleep.
This time, Joanna surprised herself by falling asleep almost instantly—as soon as she put her head back down on the pillow. It was a much-needed and welcome change.
“Last call,” the bartender said. “Motel time.”
At ten to one on a Sunday morning, only the last few Saturday night regulars were still hanging out in Peoria’s Roundhouse Bar and Grill.
“Hit me again, Butch,” Dave Thompson said sagging over the bar, resting his beefy arms along the rounded edge. “The last crop of students for this year shows up this afternoon. Classes this session don’t end until a couple of days before Christmas. With the holidays messing things up, this on is always a bitch. You can’t get ‘em to concentrate on what they’re supposed to be doing. Can’t keep ‘im focused. Naturally, the women are worse than the men.”