“Without that layer of red dust, you clean up very well,” he told her, “but is something wrong? You look upset.”
“Yes, something’s wrong,” Joanna answered stiffly. “I am upset, and I’m here to tell you, Jennifer Ann Brady is in deep caca!”
“What’s caca?” Dennis asked, smiling up at his mother over a last fistful of taco.
“Mommy will tell you later,” Butch assured their son.
Joanna knew she’d just been thrown under the bus. Since she was the one who had used the term, that was only fair.
“What did Jenny do?” Butch asked.
Joanna shook her head. “I’d better not talk about it right now. Obviously, little pitchers have big ears. Am I too late for lunch?”
Butch moved over far enough so Joanna could sit down next to him. He passed her a glass of iced tea. “This is yours,” he said. “Your chimichanga is ready, but I told Daisy to keep it under the salamander until you got here. She’ll bring it out in a minute.”
“After we have our ice cream, we’re going to the park,” Jeff said. “Can you come, too?”
“No,” Joanna told him. “I have to go to work.”
Daisy Maxwell arrived at the table, personally delivering a platter with Joanna’s steaming chimichanga on it. Daisy set the plate down in front of Joanna and then started away from the table without saying a word. Her customary smile was missing in action. Seams of worry lined her face.
“I’m sorry to hear Junior is under the weather,” Joanna said. “Let him know we’re sending him get-well wishes.”
Daisy paused long enough to nod her thanks. “I’ll tell him,” she said, but clearly Joanna’s words had done little to lighten the woman’s burden of worry as she marched back to the kitchen.
Joanna pushed a fork into the chimichanga’s crusty tortilla shell, letting some of the steam leak out into the air. She wished she could let some of the steam out of her head at the same time.
“You heard about Junior, then?” Butch asked.
Joanna was grateful he had changed the subject. “Just what Eva Lou said.”
“I’ve been noticing it for the last few weeks,” Jim Bob told them. “It used to be whenever Eva Lou and I came in, he greeted us by name. Now he acts as though he’s never seen us before. This morning, the people next to us asked him for water. He said he’d bring it. When the guy reminded him—and that’s all he did and not even in a mean way—Junior went ballistic. It was out of character and completely over the top. Daisy had to come out of the kitchen and talk him down. He was so upset that she had to take him back to the kitchen with her. When the next set of customers came in, Eva Lou decided it was time to help out.”
“She’s doing a fine job of it, too,” Jeff Daniels added.
Their waitress came by, checking to see if any additional tacos were needed. Fortunately all three of the kids had reached their taco limit. By the time they were done with their single servings of ice cream, Joanna had gobbled down half of her chimichanga and had the rest of it boxed up to take back to the office.
“In other words,” Butch said, when she stood up to leave, doggie bag in hand, “we shouldn’t be surprised if you’re late for dinner.”
On a day that had started out with a homicide investigation, that was a good guess. Joanna was grateful that he didn’t say anything more than that, something that might have turned their private discussion into fodder for the local gossip mills, which were already operating at full capacity.
She leaned down and gave him a kiss, picking up the collection of checks on the table as she did so and making the move before either Jeff Daniels or Jim Bob could object.
“See you when you get home,” Butch said. “Are you going to stop by the clinic to see Jenny?”
Joanna nodded.
“Don’t be too hard on her,” Butch said. “Whatever it is, she probably didn’t do it on purpose.”
IT TOOK a while to exit the restaurant. Joanna was leaving at the same time the thirty diners from the back room were paying for their lunches, separate checks all around. A man in his sixties, dressed in a red flannel shirt topped by a brown vest, seemed to be in charge. He hustled around trying to hurry the process.
Eva Lou was a willing worker, but that kind of crush was more than she could handle. Eventually Daisy herself had to emerge from the kitchen and take charge of the cash register.
Most of the participants seemed to be much the same age as their leader, fifties to sixties or even older. They were all chatting away, discussing their plans for the afternoon and evening. One of them who seemed to be several decades younger than his fellows gave Joanna a sidelong look through a pair of fashionable wire-framed glasses.
She had been on the receiving end of looks like that numerous times. Usually the look was followed by a rude comment that had something to do with the unlikelihood of women being qualified to serve as sheriffs. She often responded to those folks with a flip comment about getting her badge out of a Cracker Jack box and her uniform from a costume shop. This time, before she had a chance to say a word, he nodded at her and smiled.
“Nice hair,” he said. The man was the last customer in the Plein Air line. He had short reddish hair and a matching well-trimmed beard. His unexpected compliment took Joanna by surprise, and she found herself blushing.
“Thanks,” she said. “Yours isn’t bad, either.”
“Yes,” he agreed with a grin. “Redheads rule.”
He left then, allowing Joanna to step forward with her several checks in hand.
“How was your lunch?” Daisy asked.
“Better than the rest of my morning,” Joanna said. “It sounds like yours wasn’t all smooth sailing, either.”
“I’ve been happy to have the extra business this week,” Daisy said, “but I think that’s what pushed Junior over the edge. He’s used to all the regulars, but couldn’t handle so many strangers.”
“He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” Joanna asked.
Daisy shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. His doctor says he believes it’s early-onset Alzheimer’s. It’s not that unusual in cases like Junior’s.”
Daisy’s eyes filled with sudden tears as she punched the numbers into the register. Joanna wanted to offer some kind of comfort, but as two additional customers stepped into line behind her, she kept quiet rather than risk upsetting Daisy even more.
Back in her dust-covered Yukon, Joanna put the vehicle in gear, backed out of the parking lot, and headed for Dr. Millicent Ross’s veterinary clinic in Bisbee’s Saginaw neighborhood.
In the early fifties, before the opening of Lavender Pit, clusters of frame houses that had dotted the hillsides and canyons of Upper Lowell, Lower Bisbee, and Jiggerville had stood in the way. One at a time, the houses were pried off their foundations, loaded onto axles, and then trucked through town, where they were attached to new foundations that had been dug on lots that had formerly been company-owned land in neighborhoods that would ultimately come to be known as Bakerville and Saginaw.
As far as Joanna was concerned, this was all ancient history—almost as lost on her as the fact that townspeople in Bisbee had once sheltered in mines when Apaches had threatened to ride through town causing trouble. Joanna remembered