Paradise Lost (35 page)

“That’s not true,” Joanna said. “Dora wasn’t happy at all. Hive you talked to Jenny today? Have you spoken to Butch?”

Eleanor shook her head. “No,” she said. “I haven’t spoken to anyone. I was too ashamed.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Joanna told her. “The reason Dora didn’t want to go with the woman from Child Protective Services was that she had already made arrangements for her boyfriend to conic pick her up later that same night at her mother’s house up in Old Bisbee.”

“He was?” Eleanor asked. “Her boyfriend really was going to come get her?”

“Yes. At least that’s what we were told. His name is Christopher Bernard. He’s sixteen years old and lives up in Tucson. Ernie Car-penter and Jaime Carbajal will be interviewing hiss tomorrow afternoon.”

“Do they think he may have had something to do with Dora’s death?”

“Possibly,” Joanna said. “Although, at this point, no one knows anything for sure.”

“Oh, dear,” Eleanor said. “That poor girl, that poor, poor girl.” With that, Eleanor once again burst into uncontrollable sobs.

Joanna was baffled. She had thought that what she had said would make her mother feel better, but it was clearly having the opposite effect. For several minutes, she let her mother cry without making any effort to stop her. Finally Eleanor took a deep shud-dering breath and the sobs let up.

“Mother,” Joanna said. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you see?” Eleanor pleaded. “George told me Dora was pregnant. Thirteen and pregnant. Unfortunately, I know exactly how that felt. Of course, I was a little older than that when it hap-pened to me, but not all that much older, and every bit as alone. Your father loved me and would have married me then, if my par-ents would have stood for it and given permission, but they wouldn’t. I’ve never felt so lost, Joanna. Never in my whole life. And knowing that’s what was going on with poor Dora Matthews brought it all back to me, that whole awful feeling of not knowing where to go or what to do or whom to turn to for help.

“I’ve spent the rest of my life blocking out that terrible time, but when George told me about Dora, a floodgate opened and it all came rushing back. Like it was yesterday. No, that’s not true.

Like it was today, like it was happening to me all over again. I know George didn’t mean to upset me when he told me about Dora. He couldn’t have seen how I’d react, but I just had to get away for a while, and not just from him, either. I had to get away from every-one. I had to be off by myself so I could think things through. You do understand, don’t you, Joanna? Please tell me you do.”

Joanna shut her eyes momentarily to squeeze back her own tears. She had once been through the
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exact sane anguish when she, too, had found herself pregnant andunmarried. She had been old enough that she and Andy had been able to marry without parental consent, but at the time and for years afterward, it had never occurred to Joanna that her mother might possibly have lived through a similar ordeal. She had needed her mother’s help and had been no more able to ask for it than Eleanor had been to give it.

Joanna and Eleanor had battled over all kinds of things in the years after Joanna’s overly hasty marriage to Andy Brady, but the underlying foundation for most of those hostilities had been Joanna’s feeling of betrayal, Joanna’s belief that Eleanor hadn’t been there for her when she had needed her most. For years she had endured Eleanor’s constant criticism without realizing that her mother’s finger-pointing had been a ruse to conceal her own long-held secret—the baby Eleanor had borne and given up for adoption prior to her marriage to Big Hank Lathrop. It wasn’t until that long-lost child, a grown-up and nearly middle-aged Bob Brundage, had come searching for his birth parents that Joanna had finally learned the truth as well as the depth of her mother’s hypocrisy.

Instead of forming a bond between mother and daughter, Bob Brundage’s appearance had made things worse. For Joanna, learning of her brother’s existence and her mother’s youthful indiscre-tion constituted yet another betrayal on Eleanor’s part. And now, after years of continual warfare, Eleanor Lathrop Winfield had come suing for peace and pleading for understanding, asking for the kind of absolution she herself had never been able to grant.

Joanna’s first instinct was to say, “No way!” But then she thought about Marianne Maculyea.

For years her friend had been estranged from her own mother. Only now, after years of separation, Evangeline Maculyea had finally come around. It had taken the death of one grandchild and the birth of another, but Mari-anne’s mother had finally opened the door to a reconciliation. It was, as Marianne had told Joanna, “the right thing to do.” And so was this.

“I do understand,” Joanna said quietly.

“Would that boy have married Dora, do you think?” Eleanor whispered, making Joanna wonder if she had even heard. “Not right now, of course,” Eleanor added. “Dora was only thirteen, so she would have been too young. But maybe later, when she was older, this Chris could have married her the same way your father married me.” She paused before saying what before would have been unthinkable. “The same way Andy married you.”

Joanna wanted to answer, but her voice caught in her throat. She thought about what Jaime had said on the phone about Christopher Bernard and his family. Much as she would have liked to believe in the fairy tale, it didn’t seem likely that Chris Bernard was cut from the same cloth as either D. H. Lathrop or Andrew Roy Brady.

“I don’t know, Mom,” Joanna finally managed. “I honestly don’t know”

“I hope so,” Eleanor returned, wiping new tears from her eyes. “I hope he cared about her that much. I suppose that’s a stupid thing to say, isn’t it. George said something about my being overly emotional about this, and it’s true. But I hope Christopher really did care. I hope Dora found someone to love her even for a little while because it doesn’t sound as though that mother of hers has sense enough to come in out of the rain.”

Joanna sighed. This was far more like the Eleanor Lathrop Winfield she knew. “I hope so, too,”

she said.

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Eleanor straightened now, as though everything was settled. The emotional laundry had been washed and dried and could now be safely folded and put away.

“Well,” she added, “I suppose I ought to head home now. You said George had been called out to a crime scene? How late do you think he’ll be?”

“Most likely not that much later. Because of where the body is, they probably won’t be able to retrieve it before morning.”

“Had he eaten any dinner before he left?” Eleanor asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Probably not. The man’s smart as a whip, but when it comes to sensible things like eating at reasonable hours, he’s utterly hopeless. So I’d better be going then,” Eleanor continued. “That way I can have a little something ready for him when he gets home.”

She turned to Joanna, took her daughter’s hand, and squeezed it. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I’m glad we had this little talk. I’m feeling ever so much better.”

Joanna reached over and gave her mother a hug. “I’m glad we had this talk, too. Now go on home. George was worried sick about you. He’ll be delighted to find you at home. Just don’t tell him I told you so.”

Eleanor frowned. “Do you think I should try explaining any of this to him? I’m afraid he’ll think I’ve lost my marbles.”

“Try him,” Joanna Brady urged gently. “As you said, George is a very smart man. He might just surprise you.”

Without another word, Eleanor got out of the car. She marched back to her Buick, got in, started it and drove off without a second glance. Shaking her head in wonder, Joanna turned and watched her drive away. Then, starting the Civvie, Joanna headed up the dirt road that led into the ranch. Before she made it all the way into the yard, Sadie and Tigger reappeared to reprise their earlier greeting.

By the time Joanna had parked the car, Butch was standing on the back porch waiting for her.

“It’s about time you got here,” he said. “The dogs went rushing off a little while ago. I thought it was you coming, but then the dogs came back without you.”

“It was me,” Joanna said.

“But that must have been fifteen or twenty minutes ago,” Butch aid. “What did you do, stop to read the mail?”

“Eleanor was there waiting for me.”

“What for?”

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“She needed to talk.”

“What about?”

“Dora Matthews.”

“I suppose she still thinks it’s all her fault.”

Joanna thought about that. Butch was a good man and, in his awn way, every bit as smart as George Winfield. And yet, Joanna wasn’t the least bit sure he would understand what had happened that night between Joanna Brady and Eleanor Lathrop Winfield any more than George had understood what was going on with his own wife.

“Something like that,” Joanna said, peering around the kitchen. “Now is there anything around here to eat? I’m starved.”

That’s when she saw the blueprints unrolled all over the kitchen able. It was also when she belatedly remembered that evening’s scheduled appointment with Quentin Branch. “Oh, Butch,”

she aid. “I’m so sorry. I forgot all about it.”

“I noticed,” he said. “But the way things are going, I guess I’d better get used to being stood up.”

It was a quarter past seven when Butch shook Joanna awake the next morning. “Time to rise and shine,” he said. “Coffee’s on the nightstand, and breakfast is in five.” Grateful that he wasn’t holding a grudge over last night’s missed appointment, she gave him a warm smile. “Thanks,”

she said.

Struggling out of bed, Joanna staggered into the bathroom. She felt as though she had tied one on the night before, although she’d had nothing at all to drink. But between the forced-march hike and climbing up and down the cliff face, there was no part of her body that didn’t hurt. Not only that; tired as she’d been, once she went to bed, she hadn’t slept. Instead, she’d once again tossed and turned for a long time before finally drifting into a fitful sleep.

She showered hurriedly and then, with her hair still wet, went into the kitchen where a bowl of steaming Malt-o-Meal was already on the table. “I really don’t have time to eat ...” she began, looking at the clock.

“Yes, you do,” Butch insisted. “‘This way you’ll have at least one decent meal today.”

Knowing he was right, Joanna sat and ate. She was in her office by ten after eight and pressing the intercom button. “Good morn-ing, Kristin. Would you let Chief Deputy Montoya know that I’m here?”

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“He’s not,” Kristin said. “He called a little while ago and said to tell you he’ll be a few minutes late.”

“Good,” Joanna said. “Maybe you could come in and help me make some sense of all this new paper.” She said nothing at all about the previous batch, which was still stowed in her unopened briefcase.

When Kristin entered the office, Joanna was shocked by her secretary’s appearance. Her nose and eyes were red. She looked almost as bad as Joanna felt, and she walked as though she had aged twenty years overnight.

“Kristin,” Joanna demanded, “what’s wrong?” as the younger woman deposited a new stack of papers on one corner of Joanna’s desk.

“Nothing,” Kristin mumbled, turning away.

“Come on,” Joanna urged. “Something’s not right. Tell me.”

“It’s Terry,” her secretary replied with a tearful sniffle. “What about him?”

“He didn’t come in until four o’clock this morning. He tried to tell me he was working overtime, but I looked on the schedule after I got here. He wasn’t cleared for any overtime. He tried to tell me he was teamed up for some special operation with Deputy Howell. It was a special op, all right. I think he’s sneaking around with her behind my back and—”

“Theywere on a special operation,” Joanna interrupted. “I per-sonally authorized the overtime last night. From now until we catch that I-10 carjacker, I want them ruising the freeway rest areas for as many hours a day as they can stand.”

Kristin’s face brightened. “Really?” she said.

Joanna sighed. “Really.”

Kristin shook her head. “I don’t know what’s gotten into Me. Terry tried telling me the same thing, but I didn’t believe hint.”

“It’s hormones, Kristin,” Joanna said patiently. “They’re all out of whack when you’re pregnant.” As she spoke, Joanna couldn’t help realizing that she had made the exact same kinds of accusations with Butch on Sunday—and without the benefit of hor-monal imbalance to use as an excuse. “You’d better call Terry and apologize,” she added.

“I can’t. He’s asleep right now.”

“Well, when he wakes up later, call and apologize.”

“I will,” Kristin promised. “I’ll call as soon as I can.”

It was almost nine o’clock before Frank came dragging into Joanna’s office carrying yet another sheaf of papers, this one con-taining the stack of incident reports that would constitute the morning briefing.

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“Sorry I’m late, Boss. With both of us out of the office all afternoon and half the night, there were a lot of pieces to pull together.”

“Don’t worry about being late,” she assured him. “If you think your desk is a disaster, look at mine. So what’s on today’s agenda—other than Rob Whipple’s murder and the Texas Canyon carjacking?”

“Burton Kimball cut a deal for Sally Matthews.”

“What kind of deal?”

“He played the sympathy card big-time—as in, officials of the State of Arizona have already cost Sally Matthews die life of her only daughter. Consequently, she shouldn’t he punished further, et cetera, et cetera. Phoenix PD busted Sally’s boyfriend, B. B. Ardmore, while he was making a drug sale in downtown Phoenix yesterday afternoon. If Sally agrees to turn state’s evidence and if she tells investiga-tors everything she knows about B. B.’s organization and his associates, she’s off the hook. She also has to agree to enter rehab as soon as pos-sible after Dora’s funeral, which is currently scheduled for Friday afternoon at two o’clock.”

“Are you telling me Sally Matthews has been cut loose?” Joanna demanded. “Sally Matthews was running a meth lab—an illegal and dangerous meth lab inside the city limits. She broke any number of laws, one of which should be child neglect. Nonetheless, she gets to turn Dora’s death into a get-out-of-jail-free card. That’s not right.”