“Someone mentioned last night that since the position of sheriff is vacant, the board of Supervisors was considering filling that office as soon after the election as possible.”
“Oh, that,” Norbert DeLeon said, dismissively. “Well, there had been some talk, but now that the election is over, no one wants to push you too hard. We’re all well aware of what you’ve been through these past few months. The final consensus was that we should give you a chance to rest up, give you a bit of a breather before you take on your new duties in January.”
“In other words, if Al Freeman or Frank Montoya had won the election, the board would have gone ahead and sworn in either one of them right away. But since I won, they won’t?”
DeLeon nodded. “I guess that’s about right.”
“Does that seem discriminatory to you?”
The county manager looked shocked. “Well,” he faltered, “I suppose it could be interpreted that way, but believe me, no one meant any harm. They were all looking out for you. I mean, you’ve had such a difficult time with Andy’s death and all….”
“Norbert,” Joanna interrupted firmly. “The supervisors may have my best interests at heart, but I doubt that decision is necessarily beneficial to the people of Cochise County.”
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“I was elected sheriff to solve the problems that currently exist in the Sheriff’s Department. That’s exactly what I intend to do, and I’d like to get started as soon as possible.”
DeLeon steepled his fingers under his chin and regarded her appraisingly. “When would you like to go to work?”
“The sooner, the better.”
“I see. Today?”
“Suits me.”
“But what about Milo Davis? You’ve worked for him a long time. Won’t you have to give him some kind of notice?”
“Milo’s already been working on a contingency plan,” Joanna replied. “Believe me, that won’t be a problem.”
“All right then,” Norbert said, nodding and reaching at once for his telephone. “Hold on here a minute, Joanna. I’ll make a few calls and see what I can do.”
As a result of those phone calls, Joanna Lee Lathrop Brady was sworn into office as the first female sheriff of Cochise County at two o’clock that afternoon: Wednesday, November 7, one day after her election.
The hastily organized ceremony was held in the chambers of Superior Court Judge Cameron Moore, with Jennifer Ann Brady holding her mother’s worn Bible.
Joanna, dressed in a well worn navy-blue blazer, was surprised to see tears in her mother’s eyes as Eleanor pinned Hank Lathrop’s old but newly polished badge over Joanna’s left breast pocket.
Eleanor was disappointed that no Tucson television stations or newspapers sent reporters to Bisbee to cover the event. Joanna didn’t mind at all. By then the purplish bruise under her eye had turned a full-fledged black.
After the swearing-in, the whole crew-minus Judge Moore trooped down to the Davis Insurance Agency in Warren to celebrate. There they sipped champagne and devoured a special, hastily decorated-to-order cake topped with an artfully designed chocolate-frosting sheriff’s badge.
A beaming Milo Davis proposed the first toast.
“All I can say is,” he said, raising his glass, “I sure know how to pick a winner.”
Joanna gazed around the crowded rooms. Winning was fine, but the prospect of leaving the homey office saddened her somehow. This was a place where she had grown to adulthood, advanced from a giddy high school part-timer to a responsible and self-assured businesswoman. With Milo’s help and support, she had worked for him all the while she commuted the hundred miles back and forth to the university in Tucson to earn her B.A.
The happy crew of supporters, jammed together wall-to-wall, consisted of both family and friends-Eleanor Lathrop and Jenny, Marianne Macula and Jeff Daniels, Eva Lou and Jim Bob Brady, Angie Kellogg, Milo Davis, and Lisa Connors. Despite her overnight stay in the hospital, Marianne seemed none the worse for wear. Unlike Joanna, she wasn’t sporting a black eye.
Acting as unofficial master of ceremonies, Milo went around the room asking for comments. He even cajoled Eleanor Lathrop into letting down her hair far enough to drink a second half-glass of champagne. Jenny, sitting cross-legged a little apart from the others and sipping sparkling cider in a champagne flute, was the last person Milo called on to speak. “What about you, Jenny?” he asked. “Care to propose a toast?”
Struck suddenly shy, Jennifer rose to her feet and raised her glass the way she had seen the others do. “Even if you are sheriff,” she said, “I’m glad you’re still my mom.”
People smiled and laughed and said, “Here, here!” while Joanna fought to swallow enough of the lump in her throat so she could take the expected sip of champagne.
“Thank you, Jenny,” she murmured.
When post champagne cleanup started, Joanna retreated to her desk and began the process of clearing and emptying. As she sorted and packed Joanna was struck by the oddball bits of memorabilia that had somehow wormed their way into her work space, each bringing with it a separate and sometimes bittersweet echo from the past.
Why, for instance, had she kept Jenny’s orange and green kindergarten-sized handprint on the credenza behind her desk? Why was that tiny plaster-of-paris plaque from Jenny’s Daily Vacation Bible School more important to her mother, more worthy of display, than one of Jenny’s more recent school pictures?
And what about the worn buffalo head nickel Andy had playfully dropped down her bra the night of their first date? Always lurking in the top right-hand corner of her pencil drawer, the nickel served as a talisman, one she picked up and rubbed from time to time. By now the surface designs were worn sufficiently thin that they were only vaguely visible.
And then there was the Montblanc fountain pen Milo Davis had presented to her last summer on the tenth anniversary of the day she went to work for him. When he gave it to her, she had expected to work for the Davis Insurance Agency as long as there was a Davis Insurance Agency. But then, between last summer and now, Joanna’s entire life had been thrown into a whirring blender.
She glanced up as Jim Bob Brady hobbled back to her desk and sank gratefully into a chair.
“These dogs are killing me,” he said. “Mind if I set a spell and kick off my shoes?”
“Go right ahead. You do look tired.”
Her father-in-law nodded. “I’m not nearly as young as I used to be. Just that piddly-assed little bit of tramping around out in them hills this after noon was enough to wear me out. Used to be I could go all day and not think twice about it.”
“Still nothing on Harold?”
“Not by the time I left,” Jim Bob replied. “We mostly worked the lower pastures because that’s where Ivy said she thought he’d most likely be, repairing fences and such. Tomorrow, I guess, if he’s still missing, they’ll head on up toward Juniper flats. Don’t think I’ll go on that one. Terrain’s too rough. Besides, if they haven’t found him by now…”
Jim Bob Brady left off without finishing the sentence. He leaned forward in the chair and began massaging his feet.
“You think Harold Patterson is dead then?” Joanna asked.
“Don’t you?”
Joanna nodded. “I guess so. With the weather as cold as it’s been, if he’s been out in it all this time, I suppose he’s done for.”
“Yup,” Jim Bob agreed. “Like as not he had himself a heart attack or a stroke out there in a pasture somewhere. And if it was me, I couldn’t think of a better way to go. Given my druthers, I’d do the same damn thing. Die with my boots on “I keep telling Eva Lou I don’t want none Of those doctors to get hold of me and keep me hanging on with all those goldurned tubes and ma chines when it’s time for me to go and meet my Maker.”