When Joanna got off the phone, she retreated to her bedroom, taking both Officer Down and the People magazine along with her. She glanced at the book but put it aside. She was too tired for any thing but the most mindless of articles.
After hearing all the local fuss about the People story, Joanna was disappointed when she finally read it. There was some discussion of Holly Patterson, but the article focused more on Hollywood hypnotherapist Amy Baxter and several of her clients, all of whom had taken on their once abusive parents with sometimes greater and sometimes lesser degrees of financial success.
Joanna’s last thought, as she put the magazine down and drifted off to sleep, was that some career choices were stranger than others.
In the morning, she overslept. She was still sawing logs at seven when Jenny tapped on her bed room door, poked her head inside, and said, “Mom, aren’t you awake yet? It’s late.”
In a mad scramble, Joanna raced outside to feed and water the animals, then dived into the shower.
She was still drying her hair when Jenny came back into the bathroom.
“Do you want me to ride my bike down to catch the bus this morning?”
“That would be a big help,” Joanna said. “It’s not going to look good if the new boss starts out by coming to work late.”
Once again she wore one of Andy’s old T-shirts under the bulletproof vest. Then, expecting to spend most of the day in her office, she did pull on Eleanor Lathrop’s favorite, the pearl-gray skirt and blazer.
The outfit gave her a dignified, businesslike look, and the blazer was roomy enough that both the Kevlar vest and Andy’s shoulder holster disappeared beneath it.
Careful not to speed, Joanna drove to the Cochise County Justice Center and parked in her own designated spot. Armed with a newly assigned, push-button door code she had unearthed in the mail, she let herself into her office through the private back entrance. Propping the outside door open, she went back to the Eagle and retrieved her box of treasured office mementos. She had barely started unpacking them when the door to the reception area opened, and Dick Voland entered her office.
Startled, he stopped short when he saw her. “I didn’t know you were here,” he said.
“I came in the back way and decided to un pack,” she explained, holding Jenny’s Bible-school hand print plaque up to the light and rubbing some accumulated dust out of the ends of the tiny finger impressions. “What can I do for you?”
Voland had lumbered into the room carrying an envelope, which he now attempted to shove into his shirt pocket. Pausing in the doorway, he seemed embarrassed, unsure of what to do next.
“Did you need something?” Joanna prodded.
He fumbled the envelope back out of his pocket and handed it over to Joanna. Her name was the only thing typewritten on the outside. “What is it?” she asked.
“My letter of resignation,” Dick Voland answered. “Effective immediately.”
Without opening it, Joanna dropped the envelope onto her desk.
Stunned, she backed up far enough to find her way into the leather chair behind her. “Why?” she asked.
“Have you read your mail yet?”
Joanna glanced at the new stack of mail Kristin had placed on her desk. “Not yet. I wanted to unpack first. Why? What’s in there now that I should have read?”
Voland reached out, pawed through the pile on her desk, pulled out a newspaper, and tossed it down in front of her. “You probably ought to read this,” he said gruffly.
Joanna glanced down at a copy of that day’s Arizona Sun. “The whole paper?” she asked. “Or some article in particular?”
He thumbed the paper open to the second section, the one that focused on statewide news. With the paper folded in half, Joanna could only see the bottom half of the page. Just below the fold was a two-column wide, two-line headline that read, OLD cops vs. NEW SHERIFF/NO CONfiDENCE, by Arizona Sun staff writer Sue Rolles.
Joanna quickly scanned the article: “The people of Cochise County may have elected Arizona’s first ever female sheriff on Election Day last Tuesday, but that doesn’t mean longtime law-enforcement veterans of the County Sheriff’s Department are happy with the outcome.
“In a move many regard as a vote of no confidence for incoming sheriff Joanna Brady, Martin Sanders, Cochise County’s deputy for administration, yesterday submitted his resignation amid widespread speculation that other well-respected and long-term departmental employees may soon follow suit.
“Although Sanders was a political appointee who served at the pleasure of the sheriff, he had nonetheless functioned in that capacity for two separate administrations and had been expected to play a pivotal part in the orderly transition to the administration of the new sheriff who was elected this week.
“One departmental employee who spoke only on condition of anonymity said, ‘I’m afraid a woman is just going to cave in under the pressure.
I mean, she’s been in office two days, and already we have two homicides.” (See above article.)” Joanna turned the paper over enough to see that the headline at the top of the page dealt with the two separate Cochise County slayings. But that wasn’t the article Dick Voland had handed her, so she turned back to the other one and resumed reading.
“Chief Deputy Richard Voland, another political appointee, actively campaigned for Al Freeman, the former chief of police from Sierra Vista who also ran for the position of sheriff. Citing Joanna Brady’s lack of law-enforcement experience, Voland emphasized that the county needed a professional law-enforcement officer to take charge of the Sheriff’s Department.
“‘Joanna Brady’s a nice lady,” Voland says, ‘but she’s never been a cop. And that’s what this county needs more than anything right now. someone who knows the score.’”
Joanna glanced at Dick Voland over the top of the newspaper and found him regarding her anxiously.
“That quote’s from one of your campaign speeches, isn’t it? The one about me not being a cop?”
Dick Voland nodded glumly. “That’s right,” he said, “but the woman who wrote the article makes it sound as though I said it yesterday, as though I’m out on the streets right this minute trying to undermine you.”
Without reading any more, Joanna closed the paper, folded it back up, and placed it on her desk.
She left the unopened envelope lying where it fell.
“Mr. Voland,” she said, “I think it’s only fair for you to know that this article is written by Sue Rolles, a reporter I personally threw out of my office late yesterday afternoon. Now tell me why you’re leaving. Are you really convinced that I’ll never be able to hack it in this job?”
“No. That’s not it at all.”
“What is it then?”
“With this kind of crap showing up in the media, I’m worried about a total breakdown in the chain of command, and that could put officers lives in jeopardy. It seems to me you might be better off with a slate of people of your own choosing. Out with the old, in with the new.”
“Are you saying you don’t think you can work with me?”
“No, but that may be the public perception. Especially after people read this. And anything that causes confusion; anything that makes one officer second-guess another, undermines the efficiency as well as the safety of the department.”
Joanna considered what he was saying. “Let me ask you a question, Dick. Considering I’m a rookie, was there anything about my behavior at the crime scene yesterday that was out of order?”
“No, you did fine, but…”
“But if there had been, would you have let it pass, or would you have pointed it out to me so I wouldn’t look quite so dumb the next time?”
Dick Voland met Joanna’s searching gaze and didn’t look away. “If something had been way out of line, I believe I would have told you.”