Tombstone Courage (32 page)

T
HINGS BECAME
hazy after that. Gradually, Joanna realized there were emergency lights coming toward them on the road that ran along the outside edge of the dump. The ambulance that arrived was an old one that Phelps Dodge still maintained on its own property.

The next thing Joanna remembered was arriving at the hospital. An emergency-room nurse approached the gurney. Brandishing a pair of scissors in one hand, she had a determined businesslike look on her face, but she spoke like an effusive kindergarten teacher.

“I'll just help you out of those wet things,” she said, starting to peel off the wet layers. “We'll get you wrapped up in some nice warm blankets.”

Joanna looked down at what was left of her torn blouse and once-good wool skirt. The material on both was a yellow, mottled brown. “Don't cut off my clothes,” Joanna said. “I can take them off myself. This is an almost new outfit. I'll have it cleaned.”

“Forget it, honey,” the nurse told her. “What ails these clothes no dry cleaner in the world is going to fix.”

With that, she started with what was left of Joanna's panty hose and began working her way up. Only when she got as far as the bulletproof vest and shoulder holster, was the nurse stymied enough to let Joanna remove them under her own steam.

Jenny arrived at the emergency room, big-eyed and frightened, as the doctor finished cleaning and bandaging Joanna's stained and lacerated feet.

“Mom, are you okay? What happened?”

Two more people were dead—Amy Baxter and Holly in addition to Harold Patterson. Joanna was struggling to figure what part of the responsibility for those two additional deaths was hers alone.

“It's a new job,” Joanna said. “I think it's going to take a while to learn how to do it.”

Eva Lou Brady appeared and said she was taking Jenny home with her and that she'd make sure the dogs got fed. “Thank you,” Joanna told her.

The phone in Joanna's room rang almost before the nurses lifted her off the gurney and loaded her into the bed. “How long are you in for?” Adam York asked.

“Just overnight I think. How did you know to call me here?”

“I tried to call you about Yuri Malakov's prints. He checks out, by the way. According to my sources, there's nothing to worry about as far as he's concerned. When I called your office to let you know, they told me there'd been a problem with you. What the hell happened?”

Joanna told him.

“Tombstone Courage,” he said when she fin
ished. “Not a fatal case, at least not for you, but Tombstone Courage all the same.”

“What's that?”

“Have you started reading that book I sent you?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Where is it?”

“Out at the house.”

“Have someone go get it and bring it to you. You read every word of that book before you leave that hospital. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Marianne Maculyea brought the book to the hospital later that evening along with a suitcase of toiletries. Despite the disapproval of the nurses, Joanna read
Officer Down
all the way through. It was an awful book. An appalling book. One at a time, it listed and gave horrifying examples of the ten fatal errors police officers make.

Number eight was Tombstone Courage. Failure to call for backup. Adam York was right. Sheriff Joanna Brady had been guilty as charged.

 

It was Wednesday of the following week when Joanna had her appointment with Burton Kimball to make arrangements to draw up the guardianship. Once she had asked Jeff and Marianne and they had agreed to serve, she didn't want any time to pass before getting the details ironed out. Joanna knew now that lightning did strike the same place on occasion, and she wanted to be prepared. She was due to leave for Peoria the following Monday to take her six-week county-paid training
course, and she didn't want Jennifer's guardianship hanging fire while she was gone.

When Joanna looked up from signing the last documents, she caught Burton Kimball staring at her. “I'm glad you weren't hurt worse than you were,” he said.

Joanna blushed and looked down at her feet. She was still clunking around with bandages covered by rubber-soled splints.

“I never saw Holly going after Amy Baxter until it was too late. If I had seen her in time, maybe I could have stopped her.”

“No,” Burton said. “Don't blame yourself. It wasn't your fault, any more than it was anyone else's. Everyone did the best they could under terrible circumstances.”

“Was it deliberate, do you think?” Joanna asked. “Or was it an accident?”

“It doesn't really matter, does it?” Burton Kimball said. “What does matter now is that it's over.”

“Is a tragedy like that ever over?” Too many people were dead, Joanna thought. Too many lives were changed.

Burton Kimball sighed and opened his desk drawer. “I think such things can come to an end,” he said. “Ivy gave me this. It's a letter she found in Uncle Harold's safety-deposit box. She told me it was up to me whether or not I showed it to you.”

He put it on the desk, but Joanna made no effort to pick it up. “What is it?” she asked.

“It's Aunt Emily's confession,” he said. “To my father's murder. She didn't want anyone else to be
blamed. She caught my father…” He broke off and couldn't continue.

Joanna picked the letter up and read it. Afterward she gazed thoughtfully out Burton Kimball's window at the gray mountainside. Finally she put the letter back in the envelope.

“I don't think anyone else needs to see that letter, Burton,” she said quietly. “You never mentioned it, and I never saw it. Understand?”

He nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and put the letter away.

“How is Ivy, by the way?” Joanna asked.

For the first time, the somber look on Burton Kimball's face lightened. “She's having a hell of a time with morning sickness. Linda says it'll most likely be a boy. She says morning sickness is always worse with boys.”

Joanna was genuinely surprised. “I don't believe it. Ivy Patterson pregnant? I thought she was tutoring Yuri in
English
!”

Burton grinned. “It is something, isn't it?” he said. “You'd think someone her age would know better than to let that happen, wouldn't you? But I guess she just got carried away. Sowing her wild oats, as they say. Uncle Harold would be thrilled if he knew it. In fact, if it is a boy, I hope they name it after him.”

“So do I,” Joanna said.

 

The following Friday morning, Frank Montoya, formerly the Willcox city marshal and now the newly appointed chief deputy for administration,
was present for his first-ever Cochise County Sheriff's Department briefing.

With Joanna going off to class for six weeks the following Monday morning, she had wanted to fill that position as soon as possible. She wanted someone who was on her side keeping an eye on things in her absence.

She knew now that she could pull her own weight around the department, but in choosing a right-hand man, she had decided on Frank Montoya, her old opponent.

When Dick Voland and Ernie Carpenter left Joanna's office after the briefing, Frank stayed on for a few minutes. “Are you sure Dick Voland won't shoot me in the back while you're gone?” Frank asked with a grin.

“As long as you don't do anything stupid,” she told him. “Both Dick Voland and Ernie Carpenter are real hard on stupidity. That's why those two guys have been around so long. That's why we need them.”

“Whatever you say, Chief,” Frank said.

He went out and closed the door. Joanna leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them and looked down at the worn buffalo-head nickel she was holding in her hand.

All during the meeting, she'd been holding Andy's nickel concealed in the palm of her hand, holding it for luck.

After a moment, she opened her top desk drawer and dropped the nickel back inside. She
wasn't going to take that to Peoria to class with her. She'd leave it there in Bisbee in the sheriff's cherrywood desk.

She'd leave it where it belonged.