She smiled. “Of course I mean now.”
Without moving, Dick Voland stared back at her. Joanna stood still and waited.
“Oh, all right,” he grumbled irritably, reaching for the hefty key ring that dangled from his belt.
“This way.” Frowning, Voland unlocked the door, opened it, and then stepped back, holding it open for Joanna to enter. “After you,” he said with a slightly exaggerated and too-polite bow.
Joanna recognized the implications at once. It was a none too-subtle issue of control, of who was in charge and who wasn’t. Someone who hadn’t grown up as the daughter of a sheriff might not have paid any attention, might not have caught it but Joanna did.
In the world of law enforcement, prisoners walk in front; guards follow. Suspects walk in front; police officers follow. The person in the back is the one in charge, the one calling the shots. Nobody ever forgets that, not for a moment.
“No,” she said, still smiling and stepping aside, “You lead the way.”
Seconds passed-it might have been eons while neither of them moved and while the whole office waited to see the outcome. Finally, with a disgusted shake of his head, Dick Voland gave in and lumbered off ahead of her.
Not daring to let down her guard, Joanna kept her shoulders ramrod straight as she followed him down the hall. She might have won the first minor skirmish. No doubt, the people in the front office would be talking about it for days to come. But it was a damn long way from winning a single battle to winning the war. And it was another long way from winning the election to winning your stripes.
Joanna followed Dick Voland down a hallway to the far back corner of the building, where he led her into a suite of comfortable offices built around a common reception area. The upholstered couch and several side chairs were from the nouvelle Southwest school of roses and browns and turquoises. Brass and glass coffee and end tables created the atmosphere of an upscale attorney’s office. Everything about the place was a far cry from what Joanna remembered of D. H. Lathrop’s old industrially furnished courthouse days. Back then, scarred wooden chairs and battered gray metal desks had been the order of the day.
A slim blonde sat at a spacious desk in the common reception room, busily typing on a computer terminal. As she typed, she leaned forward and frowned nearsightedly at the screen. Joanna assumed that she needed glasses but was too vain to purchase them.
Sensing that someone had entered the room, the young woman glanced up from her screen. Seeing Dick Voland, she grinned at him knowingly as soon as he walked through the doorway. “Well?” she said with a coyly raised eyebrow. “How’d it… go with the dragon lady?”
Joanna managed to glimpse the almost imperceptible movement of Dick Voland’s head. The warning shake may well have been accompanied by a covering wink. If so, it was outside Joanna’s sight line. Obviously, the secretary had missed it as well.
“Kristin,” Dick Voland said hurriedly, “I’d like you to meet Joanna Brady. The new sheriff. At least she will be.”
Instantly, the grin disappeared from Kristin’s impeccably made-up face. “Oh,” she said, scrambling uncertainly to her feet as Joanna came into view. “Glad to meet you.”
I’ll bet, Joanna thought.
When the long-legged young woman stood up, the hem of her eye-popping leather miniskirt barely skimmed the surface of her desk. Joanna sometimes wore short-shorts that were longer than that almost nonexistent skirt.
Pointedly leaving the staring to Dick Voland, Joanna held out her hand. For a moment, a look of utter confusion washed over the younger woman’s startled features. Obviously, the “dragon lady” hadn’t been expected to venture uninvited down the hall. When Kristin finally came to her senses, she had presence of mind enough to offer her own hand.
After the weeks she’d spent practicing on the campaign trail, Joanna’s handshaking skills were considerable. She took no small pleasure in firmly grasping Kristin’s limp, flaccid fingers. Smiling cheerfully, Joanna thoroughly ground Kristin’s knuckles into one another. She pretended not to hear the satisfying crunch of bone on bone and seemed not to notice the surprised wince of pain that darted across the younger woman’s petulant features.
“What did you say your name was?” Joanna asked.
“Kristin Marsten.”
“And how long have you been working here, Miss Marsten?” Joanna inquired formally.
“I started out as a clerk/intern last summer,” Kristin answered. “The old secretary/receptionist quit a few weeks ago. Mr. Voland asked me to work in here for a while, to fill in on a temporary basis.”
“I see,” Joanna said. And she did, too.
She glanced around the room, assimilating all the details at once. Several separate doors opened off the reception area. A light was on in the far corner office, the one with the private walkway and private door leading in from the sheriffs designated parking place. Without having to be told, Joanna knew that was the office she was looking for, but she asked anyway, just for form’s sake.
“Which office is mine?”
“This way,” Dick Voland muttered, heading off in that direction.
The northwest corner office was spacious and bright with a pair of spotlessly clean windows set in each outside wall. Those windows afforded a spectacular and unobstructed view of the surrounding desert.
Joanna noticed that the furnishings in the room carried Walter McFadden’s distinctly masculine stamp. A long leather couch occupied one wall, while a matching wingback chair sat casually off to one side.
Walter McFadden’s parking place wasn’t the only thing Dick Voland had appropriated for him self. Next to the chair was a freestanding ashtray, filled to overflowing with the smelly leavings of several potent cigars. The fine grains of the cherry wood desk and matching credenza were difficult to see beneath a hodgepodge of jumbled papers frosted by a shaky layer of opened newspapers. Beside the credenza, a stack of unused Al Freeman yard signs leaned conspicuously against the far wall.
Joanna stood in the center of the room and pivoted slowly, examining everything around her while Voland stood apprehensively beside the desk. “Good,” she said when she finished her 360 degree turn. “That’s all I wanted to know for now.”
Without waiting to be escorted from the room and ignoring both Kristin and Voland, Joanna stalked across the reception area, down the hall way, and let herself back out into the public lobby area.
She had come to the sheriff’s office that morning with nothing at all in mind other than signing that damn statement. By being there, however, by seeing it in person, she had learned things that were far more important and disturbing.
Predictably, the typed statement still wasn’t ready to be signed. Employee productivity was yet another thorny departmental issue. For now, it was Dick Voland’s problem. Eventually, it would be Joanna’s….
WHEN SHE left the justice complex, Joanna drove straight to the new county administration offices on Melody Lane. Her arrival there was much different from that at the Sheriff’s Department.
Without an officially scheduled appointment, Norbert DeLeon himself hurried out from his inner office as soon as his secretary announced Joanna’s name over the intercom. A warm, cordial smile beamed across Nor bert’s face as he held out his hand in welcome. “I believe congratulations are in order,” he said ushering Joanna into his office. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’ve had enough caffeine already this morning.”
“What can I do for you then?” he asked, easing himself down behind his desk-a light oak-veneer affair that didn’t come close in quality to the genuine cherrywood desk that graced Sheriff McFadden’s former office.
“I came to ask you to either verify or squelch a rumor I’ve heard.” A concerned frown creased Norbert’s face. “We’ve had lots of rumors around here in the last few months. I hope it’s nothing bad.”