Damage Control (8 page)

“Why not?” Frank returned. “If this is a result of a deliberate action on Alfred Beasley’s part, what have we got to lose? Did Ms. Edwards tell you who handled her parents’ last will and testament?”

“She didn’t,” Joanna said. “From what she said, I doubt she knows.”

“I’ll try to find out,” Frank said. “I’ll contact whoever it was and try to get the ball rolling. The worst that will happen is we’ll be turned down and end up having to pay the bill. I’m betting if we turn the county attorney loose on this, though, that he’ll be able to make it happen.”

Joanna had known Arlee Jones, the Cochise County attorney, for years. Other than having an uncanny ability for getting himself reelected, Arlee didn’t come with a long list of career accomplishments. Joanna thought Frank’s assessment of the man’s capabilities in this particular instance seemed wildly optimistic.

“Maybe so,” Joanna said doubtfully. “But for the record, I’m declaring you point man on this scheme, Frank. From here on, I’m out of it.”

“Don’t you worry about a thing, boss,” Frank said with his most reassuring smile. “I’m on it.”

BY NOON JOANNA HAD THINGS AT WORK AS MUCH UNDER CONTROL
as they were going to be. With a Department of Public Safety arson investigator being dispatched from Tucson and with her own people handling what needed to be done, Joanna wanted to be home to give Butch a much-needed break.

When she was ready to head out, Frank offered her a lift. On the road up to the house, Joanna was relieved to see that the water had finally quit running. The tire tracks from Deputy Raymond’s four-wheel-drive Explorer were still clearly visible on either side of the sandy wash, but so were the imprints of another set of tires. A passenger vehicle of some kind had plowed its way through the wash when it still had water in it.

Once at the house, Joanna was surprised to see that her mother’s robin’s-egg-blue Buick was parked next to the backyard fence.

Joanna wasn’t overjoyed to see it. If Butch was trying to work, the last thing her husband needed was having Eleanor Lathrop Winfield wandering in and out and gumming up the works.

Frank saw the car and recognized it at the same time Joanna did. Having worked together with Joanna for years, her chief deputy had a fair understanding of his boss’s complicated relationship with her mother.

“Did you know you were having company?” he asked.

“Not until just now,” Joanna said.

“Good luck, then,” Frank said cheerfully as she got out.

Joanna laughed. “Thanks. I’m probably going to need it.”

She let herself in through the garage. The counter in the laundry room was stacked full of folded laundry, enough to indicate that someone had run several loads through both the washer and dryer. With the time clock ticking on the due date for Butch’s reviewed manuscript, it seemed unlikely that he would have devoted his morning to getting the laundry done. That didn’t make sense. And the fact that Tigger, Lucky, and Lady didn’t come racing to meet her struck Joanna as odd as well.

“Hello,” Joanna called out in her best
I Love Lucy
fashion. “Honey, I’m home.”

Butch didn’t answer, but Eleanor did. “In here,” she called from the living room.

Joanna followed the sound and found her mother sitting in the rocking chair with Dennis in one hand and a nearly empty bottle of formula in the other. Naturally, the baby was asleep.

“Where’s Butch?” Joanna asked.

“In the office,” Eleanor said. “Working. He needed some peace and quiet in order to get anything done. This little guy isn’t big on peace and quiet.”

“Oh,” Joanna said. “And Jenny?”

“She took the dogs and went for a ride up in the hills,” Eleanor told her. “So if you’re home this early, does that mean George is done working as well?”

Joanna sat down on the couch. “Most likely not,” she said. “He had at least one autopsy to do this morning. There was also a fatality fire down by Double Adobe, but the debris from that was still too hot to handle earlier. I believe that’s where he’s headed next—to the site of the fire to retrieve whatever human remains can be found in the ashes.”

Eleanor grimaced. “He spends so much time at work I don’t know why he doesn’t just move into his office and forget about me.”

Joanna bit back the temptation to apologize. Why should she? After all, it wasn’t her fault that Cochise County had turned into murder/mayhem central for the weekend. Besides, George Winfield had taken on the job of medical examiner all on his own and long before he knew either Eleanor Lathrop or her daughter.

“Busy weekend” was all Joanna said.

“I noticed,” Eleanor groused. “But with George out of the house and totally preoccupied, why should I spend the whole day hanging around on my own? When I talked to Jenny and heard she was going to be stuck babysitting all day long, I decided to come over and pinch-hit.”

Joanna started to say,
Jenny likes taking care of her baby brother, and we actually pay her for it.
But Eleanor was on a roll, and she kept going.

“She’s only a child, too, you know,” Eleanor added disapprovingly. “She shouldn’t have to pay for your mistakes.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, Joanna,” her mother said. “You know that for someone with a small baby, you’re working way too many hours. As for expecting Jenny to look after the baby so Butch has time to do his work? It’s just not right. And what’s going to happen when September rolls around, when Jenny’s back in school and Butch has to go off on tour? How do you plan on handling your childcare dilemma then?”

The fact that Joanna worked outside the home had been a bone of contention between Joanna and Eleanor for all of Joanna’s adult life. Although she had loads of experience in dealing with her mother’s constant interference, this was entirely new territory. Joanna couldn’t quite get her mind around the idea that Eleanor had come riding to Jenny’s and Butch’s rescue and Joanna was now cast as the bad guy. This was so unusual that Joanna was momentarily stunned to silence.

“It’s what your father always did,” Eleanor continued, undeterred. “I haven’t forgotten him, you know, and I haven’t forgiven him, either. Hank was a great one for hiding out at work. He put in plenty of hours that were entirely unnecessary. All he was doing was keeping himself out of the house.”

And out of harm’s way,
Joanna thought.

By then she was gearing up to deliver a heated response of her own—one that would defend both her father and herself—but something held her back. For one thing, Hank Lathrop had been dead for years. It seemed likely to Joanna that Eleanor’s current tirade had far less to do with her daughter’s working or with her first husband’s long-ago marital transgressions than it did with some of George Winfield’s current ones.

“What’s going on, Mom?” Joanna asked.

Just then, Dennis gave an involuntary little jump. It wasn’t
enough to awaken him, but it was enough of an interruption to allow Eleanor to fall silent in an attempt to disregard her daughter’s question.

“Mom?” Joanna insisted.

To Joanna’s astonishment, Eleanor’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She set the baby bottle down on the side table next to the rocker and plucked a tissue from a nearby box.

“I just wanted to spend the weekend with my husband, that’s all,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “It feels like I’m living through exactly the same thing—same song, second verse.”

Seeing her mother dissolve into tears of self-pity was almost as unexpected as hearing Frank Montoya lose his temper on the telephone. In Joanna’s experience, both were wholly unprecedented.

“Mom, I’m sorry things are so busy right now,” Joanna said placatingly. “And I’m sure George is, too. Four unexplained deaths occurred inside our jurisdiction this weekend. Four. All of them are George’s and my responsibility. I have a whole department of people working for me. George has to make do with one full-time clerk, weekdays only, and one assistant who’s currently off on a two-week vacation.”

“Madge doesn’t do all that much,” Eleanor said. “She’s next to useless. George should definitely have more people working for him—more qualified people.”

Tell that to the Board of Supervisors,
Joanna thought. “Yes, he should,” she agreed.

“At his age, he shouldn’t be working so hard,” Eleanor added.

He likes working this hard,
Joanna thought.
He actually enjoys it.
“He likes being useful,” she said aloud.

“Well, so do I,” Eleanor said. “That’s why it’s a good thing I
was able to come here and help out today—so I can feel useful, too. You’re almost out of laundry detergent, by the way.”

As Eleanor made the sudden shift back to business as usual, the effect on her daughter was jarring. Joanna didn’t think there was any purpose to be served in mentioning that Butch was the one who handled most of the grocery shopping and that their need for laundry detergent should be added to his list rather than hers.

“Thanks,” Joanna said. “I’ll make a note of it.”

“And I gave the rest of that dead pizza to the dogs. It looked ghastly.”

That one hurt. With a growing teenager in the house, leftover pizza was an unusual and welcome treat. Joanna had been hoping there might still be a single piece of double-pepperoni lingering in the fridge that she could grab for her lunch.

Eleanor turned her attention back to the sleeping baby. “Have you noticed that Dennis looks just like you?” she asked. “Those long reddish-blond eyelashes. That funny half-smile when he’s sleeping. George thinks he looks like Butch, but then George didn’t know you when you were a baby.”

First the tears and now this?
Joanna wondered. Sentimentality on her mother’s part was totally out of character.

“Mom,” Joanna said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Eleanor said abruptly. “Nothing at all.”

Her sharp-toned denial was enough to startle Dennis out of his doze. His bright blue eyes popped open, and he looked around. Focusing on his grandmother’s face, which was familiar but not familiar enough, he started tuning up for a good bawl. Before he managed that, however, Eleanor rose to her feet and handed him over to his mother.

“There you go,” she said. “Here’s your boy. I’ll head out, and give you some privacy.”

Eleanor let herself out the back door while Joanna turned her attention to Dennis. Did he look like her? The hair, yes. Eyes? No. How he looked when he slept? If that was anything like the way Joanna looked when she slept, it was news to her. But what really puzzled her as she sat there playing with her son was what was going on with his grandmother. Something wasn’t right with Eleanor. Yes, she had always wanted her daughter to be able to be a stay-at-home mom, but this seemed to be more than that. What it was exactly, Joanna couldn’t fathom.

Half an hour later, when Joanna was in the nursery and finishing cleaning up what Dennis’s father liked to refer to as “a complete wardrobe malfunction,” Butch appeared in the doorway. He was holding a FedEx box, sealing it shut, and looking enormously pleased with himself.

“Done!” he announced. “If I leave right now, maybe I can catch up with the FedEx truck as it comes back from Douglas.”

“You can’t e-mail it?” Joanna asked. “Isn’t that what you did last time?”

“That was for the editorial letter. For that one they want an electronic file. For the review of the copyediting it has to be hard copy.”

“Well, do it, then,” Joanna said. “Let’s get it out of here. Maybe we can both take the rest of the weekend off.”

Butch came over and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Mom says we’re out of laundry detergent,” Joanna said.

Butch nodded distractedly. “Maybe not
right
back, then,” he amended. “I’ll stop by the store on the way and pick up some detergent and a few other things we need. It’ll go a lot faster if I
do that on my own. When I’m trying to run errands, buckling the kid in and out of his car seat is a major pain in the butt. It takes forever. Come to think of it, I may stop by the hardware store while I’m out, too. I need some new locks for the other house. Having new keys made isn’t something that’ll be simple if I have Dennis along.”

Joanna remembered very well how doing anything at all with a relatively new baby in tow was always much more complicated than doing the same thing on her own. She picked Dennis up and followed Butch into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry if Mom was in your way while you were trying to work,” she apologized as he pocketed his car keys.

“In my way?” Butch returned. “Are you kidding? Your mother was a regular lifesaver today. I never would have finished working on the manuscript if she hadn’t been here looking after the baby. And she’s done all the laundry, too. Amazing.”

Joanna found Butch’s unstinting gratitude about Eleanor almost as baffling as her mother’s bizarre behavior. “So you don’t mind that she showed up uninvited?”

“Not at all. And she wasn’t uninvited, by the way. I’m pretty sure Jenny told her she was more than welcome to come pitch in. She did and she was—welcome, that is.”

With that Butch took his manuscript and headed for his Subaru. Joanna stowed Dennis in his swing—one of the new battery-operated ones that was not only self-swinging, it also came equipped with lights and music—all of which Dennis seemed to enjoy.

Having him occupied for a time gave Joanna a chance to put away all that folded laundry. In the process she noticed, with some consternation, that the usually brimming ironing basket
was also empty. In the course of several frenetic hours, Joanna’s mother had not only managed to look after the baby, she had also done all the laundry, ironing included. If Eleanor was burning off that kind of excess energy, Joanna suspected George Winfield was in far more trouble than he knew.

Working in fits and starts, she eventually managed to open her briefcase and spread two days’ worth of accumulated paperwork out on the dining room table. She was still attempting to sort that—not easy with a baby on one knee—when Jenny and the dogs came into the house. Panting, Tigger and Lucky flopped down on the cool tile floor next to the wall. Lady came over and lay down at Joanna’s feet. Without a word, Jenny took Dennis from his mother and then sat down with him on the floor, where she initiated a game of peekaboo that sent the baby into spasms of delight.

“Grandma thinks we’re picking on you,” Joanna told her. “She’s afraid we’re forcing you to look after the baby when you don’t want to.”

“But I like taking care of him,” Jenny said. “Besides, you pay me. Where else could I find a job?”

“She thinks we’re taking advantage of you.”

“Mother,” Jenny said. “That’s just Grandma. You know what she’s like.”

Yes,
Joanna thought.
Yes, I do.

“What’s for lunch?” Jenny asked.

Not leftover pizza,
Joanna thought. “Butch isn’t here. He went to mail his manuscript. How about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”

“Sounds good.”

They ate their sandwiches in the dining room. “What about
Danny and Ricky Sunderson?” Jenny asked as she bit into one corner of her sandwich. “Where are they right now?”