Desert Heat Read online

  With a grateful sigh she took a first tentative sip of coffee, letting the hot liquid warm her chilled body from inside out. She drank with-out ever taking her eyes off the path that emerged from the wash just at the end of the bridge abutment.

  “I can’t believe it,” Ken Galloway was saying, although Joanna was paying little attention. “I saw him right around five when he got off shift. He was fine when he left the office. What the hell happened? Where did all the blood come from? Did he drive off the bridge and run the steering wheel through him?”

  “The truck was locked and he was outside it,” Joanna said numbly. “I think somebody shot him.”

  “No. You gotta be kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding.”

  Ken Galloway shook his head. “Jesus, Joanna. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Sorry as hell.” For a moment Galloway stood there as if vacillating over whether to stay or go. “I’ll go back down and check again,” he said quietly. “If I stay here, I’ll make a damn fool of myself.”

  With that, Ken Galloway hurried away. Left alone on the sidelines, Joanna saw people she knew coming and going in an eerie glow of flashing blue and red lights. Even though they saw her and knew she was there, for the most part they ignored her. One or two of them nodded in her direction, but to a man they found themselves tongue-tied and shy in the face of Joanna Brady’s looming personal tragedy. Aghast at the extent of Andrew Brady’s injuries, none of them wanted to be trapped into telling Joanna exactly how bad it really was. Unfortunately, their wary silence was something she recognized all too well.

  Joanna had heard that same terrible silence once before in her life. She had been ignored exactly the same way the night of her father’s accident. Sheriff D. H. Lathrop, Hank for short, had been bringing a group of girls back from a camping trip in the Chiricauhuas when he stopped to change a flat tire for a stranded female motorist. He had been struck from be-hind by a drunk driver and had died at the scene with his thirteen-year-old daughter looking on helplessly from the sidelines. Now, fifteen years later, Joanna was once again trapped in similarly ominous silence.

  With eyes glued to the top of the path, Joanna was only dimly aware that another vehicle had arrived on the scene. Within minutes, Sheriff Walter V. McFadden himself, Stetson in hand, loomed up beside her out of the darkness.

  “Dick Voland called me at home,” he said gruffly. “I can’t believe this. I came as soon as I could, Joanna. How are you?”

  “All right,” she whispered.

  “And Andy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why the hell didn’t they leave the engine running in this damn thing? It’s colder ‘an blue blazes. Want to come sit in my truck? It’s warmer there.”

  Joanna shook her head. “No. I can see better from here. In case… in case…” She didn’t finish the sentence, but Walter McFadden understood what she meant.

  “Here. Give me your cup,” he said. “I’ll go get you a refill on that coffee.”

  McFadden returned and handed her a second cup of coffee, this one far stronger than the first. Joanna accepted it gratefully. “What happened?” he asked.

  Joanna shook her head. “I still don’t know. I found him here. His truck was locked, but I have an extra key. I got in and radioed for help.”

  “Somebody told me he’s been shot. How bad?”

  Joanna swallowed hard. It was what she herself had suspected, but this was the first official confirmation. “Real bad, I think,” she replied.

  “Damn! Could he still talk when you got here? Did he say anything at all? Tell you who did it?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “You got in the truck?” McFadden asked. Joanna nodded. “Did you touch anything?”

  “The doors, I guess. And the radio. That’s all I remember touching.”

  “I’ll be right back,” McFadden said. He marched away from her and disappeared into the wash. He returned a few minutes later, puffing with exertion.

  “I checked the Bronco,” he said. “There’s still a set of keys in the ignition. Are they yours or Andy’s?”

  “They must be Andy’s,” Joanna replied. “Mine are right here in my pocket.”

  She pulled the heavy key ring from her jacket pocket. It jangled heavily with its collection that included house, work, and car keys as well. Andy had often teased her that her key ring looked like it would have been more at home on a school janitor’s belt rather than in a woman’s purse.

  “You say the doors were locked when you got here?”

  “Yes. Both of them. Who would do this, Walter?”

  “I don’t have any idea, Joanna, but believe me, we’re going to find out.”

  “I want to help,” Joanna whispered fiercely.

  McFadden looked down at her and shook his head. “You already did enough just getting help here as soon as you did. Your job right now is to be there for Andy. Let us handle it, Joanna. Answer the questions when the detectives get around to talking to you, but other than that, leave well enough alone. He’s one of our own. We’ll take care of it.”

  Joanna gazed up at him. “You will, won’t you?”

  “Damned right,” McFadden responded. “You’d better believe it.”

  Just then a small, frail voice came wafting through the cool desert air. “Mommmmy,” Jennifer called from somewhere back down the road in the direction of the house. “Mommmy, where are you?”

  “Dear God in heaven,” Joanna exclaimed.

  “It’s Jenny. What in the world is she doing out here?”

  “Jenny?” Walter McFadden asked. “Your little girl?”

  Joanna nodded. She put down the coffee cup and threw off the blanket that had been wrapped around her legs while McFadden squinted up the darkened roadway. “There she is,” he said, pointing.

  Joanna peered into the darkness and caught sight of a small figure running toward them. “She probably saw the lights and came to see what was happening. We’d better head her off.”

  With Joanna leading the way, they rushed past the parked Eagle where a confined and miserable Sadie whined and bayed, wanting to go along. When they intercepted Jennifer, she was sobbing and out of breath.

  “What happened?” she demanded. “Is it Daddy? Is he all right?”

  Joanna gathered the frantic child into her arms. “Hush,” she said. “Stay here. It’s Daddy. They’re working on him right now. We mustn’t disturb them.”

  Jennifer struggled hard and tried to get free, but Joanna held her fast. “How’d you get here? Is Grandma coming?”

  The child gave up trying to escape and sobbed against her mother’s breast. “No. She sent me to bed so she could watch TV, but I saw the lights and snuck out through the window. I didn’t ask her if I could come. I knew she wouldn’t let me. Is Daddy okay? Is he dead?”

  Joanna shook her head. “I don’t know.” Jennifer turned to Walter McFadden. “Do you?” she asked accusingly.

  “No, ma’am,” McFadden returned in his soft east Texas drawl. “I don’t know either. You stay here with your mama, and I’ll go back down and see what I can find out.”

  Walter McFadden hurried away from them. Jennifer clung more tightly to her mother, and Joanna wrapped the remaining blanket around both of them. Maybe she couldn’t protect her child from anything else, but at least she could ward off the cold.

  “What happened?” Jennifer asked. “What happened to Daddy?”

  Joanna faltered momentarily before she could answer. “I think somebody shot him.” “Who did, a crook?”

  When Andy Brady regaled his fascinated daughter with stories about his work life, the bad guys were always “crooks” or “black hats” and the police officers were always “good guys” or “white hats.”

  “Maybe,” Joanna said. “We won’t know that for a while. There’ll be an investigation.”

  “But why would someone shoot my Daddy?” Jennifer asked. “Were they mad at him?”

  Joanna groped for an answer. “I guess,”
she said. “I don’t know why else they’d do such a terrible thing.”

  Walter McFadden returned from his intelligence-gathering mission. Joanna turned to him questioningly, but he bent down so his lean, weather-beaten face was on the same level as Jennifer’s.

  “Is that your dog over yonder in your Mama’s car?”

  Jennifer wiped the tears off her face. “Yes, sir. Her name is Sadie.”

  “See that truck over there, the one there by the sign?” Jennifer nodded. “The man driving it is one of my deputies,” McFadden continued, speaking directly to the little girl as though no one else existed. “Do you think you could help your Mama by going with him and taking that Sadie dog of yours back to the house?”

  Jennifer stiffened and scrunched closer to her mother. “Why? Where’s my Mom going?”

  “They’re about to load your daddy into the ambulance,” Walter McFadden said softly. “They’ll be taking him into the hospital in Bisbee for evaluation. From there he may go by helicopter to Tucson.”

  “I want to go, too.”

  Walter McFadden shook his head firmly. “No,” he said. “Tonight your Mama’s going to have enough to worry about without having to look after you as well. Did I hear you say your grandmother’s back there at the house?”

  “Yes. Grandma Lathrop.”

  “Good,” McFadden said. “You stay with your grandmother tonight. Believe me, hospitals are no place for little kids in the middle of the night. In the morning, I’ll come get you myself and take you there.”

  Jennifer started to object, and so did Joanna, but she knew Walter McFadden’s assessment was correct. It was going to be a long night of waiting and worrying. She’d be better off alone.

  “That’s right, Jennifer,” she said. “You go on back to the house.”

  “But I want to help,” Jenny insisted. “I want to be with you.”

  “You heard Sheriff McFadden. Taking Sadie back home will be a big help. She can’t stay here in the car all night.”

  Meantime the emergency medical technicians had carried Andrew Brady’s stretcher down the wash to a place where the bank wasn’t quite as steep. The ambulance moved down the road and met them where they emerged from the brush.

  Once again Jennifer tried to pull away. “I want to go see my Daddy,” she insisted, but Joanna didn’t let go.

  “No, Jenny. You can’t.”

  Within a matter of seconds the stretcher was loaded into the ambulance and the vehicle pulled away with its siren gearing up to full-pitched howl.

  Walter McFadden took Jennifer’s hand and led her toward the pickup. “You know Deputy Galloway, don’t you Jennifer? He’s a good friend of your daddy’s.”

  Jenny nodded. “Good,” McFadden continued. “He’s the one who’ll take you and Sadie home. Will that dog of yours bite?”

  “No. She’s not mean.”

  “Well, let’s go get her then.”

  Together the three of them hurried back to the Eagle where Joanna released the imprisoned dog. Sadie was ecstatic to see Jennifer, but she was also wary of going anywhere near Ken Galloway’s pickup. Only when Jenny finally climbed into the bed of the strange vehicle and called to the dog did Sadie allow herself to be coaxed into it as well. Jennifer grabbed the dog around the neck and held her close.

  “I’ll ride here in back with her,” the child announced. “That way she won’t be scared.”

  Joanna bit her lip. “That’s good,” she managed to murmur as Ken Galloway’s pickup pulled away taking both the dog and the child with it. Down the road they heard the already speeding county ambulance rumble over the last cattle guard on High Lonesome Road and turn onto the Double Adobe Cutoff. Seconds later, after crossing the last cattle guard there as well, it turned onto Highway 80. The noise of the siren faded behind the foothills.

  “We’d better hurry,” Walter McFadden urged. “Come on.”

  Together they made their way to his 4 x 4 which was parked just off the road with its light bar still flashing. Once they reached it, McFadden helped her inside before racing around to open his own door.

  “You talked to the medics,” she said quietly as the pickup lurched into reverse and circled back onto the roadway. “What did they say?”

  “Lots of internal damage,” McFadden re-plied, pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor.

  “Is he going to make it?” Joanna asked.

  “They don’t know. Nobody does. Like I told your daughter, they’ve called for a helicopter to meet them in Bisbee. They’ve managed to stabilize him enough to move him. That’s a good sign. I told them I’d take you directly to University Medical Center.”

  “Shouldn’t we stop in Bisbee for me to sign surgical releases.”

  McFadden shook his head. “Not necessary. When somebody’s hurt this bad, they don’t wait for releases.”

  “Can’t I go along in the helicopter? Wouldn’t that be faster?”

  McFadden shook his head. “It might be faster, but with the EMTs along there’s not enough room. Don’t worry, Joanna. They may beat us to the hospital, but it won’t be by much.”

  With siren blaring, they roared past the newly opened county jail, up Highway 80, around the traffic circle, and on through town. Joanna glanced at the speedometer. They were doing sixty-five when they rounded the long, flat curve by the open-pit mine, and the needle hit seventy as they headed up the long straightaway. After that, she gripped the arm-rest and avoided looking at the dashboard. She knew they were going fast. She didn’t need to know any more than that.

  Once through town the nighttime desert swept by outside the windows, washed by the alternating red and blue flashes from the light bar overhead. Joanna ignored the intermittent crackle of voices on McFadden’s two-way radio. She heard only the jumble of unanswerable questions roaring in her head. Would Andy live or not, and if he did, would he be all right? What would she do if he died? What would she do if he didn’t quite die but if he couldn’t ever go back to work, either?

  With help from the bank they were buying the High Lonesome Ranch from Andy’s parents, Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady, who had moved into a small two bedroom house in Bisbee proper. Joanna knew full well that it took all of Andy’s and Joanna’s joint efforts to keep things afloat. The monthly payments they made on the ranch constituted a major portion of the elder Bradys’ retirement income. What would happen to them if Joanna and Andy could no longer keep up the payments? Joanna squeezed her eyes shut and refused to think about it anymore.

  “Somebody told me that today was your anniversary,” Walter McFadden was saying.

  Joanna nodded. “We had a date. We were supposed to have dinner and spend the night at the Copper Queen. In fact, my suitcase is all packed. It’s right by the kitchen door. Maybe you could have someone bring it to Tucson for me in the morning.”

  “Sure thing,” McFadden answered. “Glad to do it.” For a moment there was silence in the speeding truck before Walter McFadden asked, “How many years?”

  Joanna’s thoughts had strayed, and it took a few seconds before she answered. “Ten.”

  “You kids eloped, as I recall,” McFadden continued. “Made Eleanor mad as all get out.”

  It still does, Joanna could have added, but she didn’t. Her mother had never liked Andy to begin with, and when she had learned he was interested in law enforcement, Eleanor Lathrop had predicted this very kind of outcome.

  “If you let him become a policeman,” Eleanor had warned, “you’ll end up raising Jennifer alone, the same way I had to raise you.” Remembering her mother’s dire prophecy, Joanna’s fingers tightened around the armrest.

  Again Joanna and Walter McFadden fell silent. Several miles sped beneath the vehicle’s tires before the sheriff eventually asked, “Was Andy having trouble with anybody?”

  “Trouble?” Joanna repeated dully. “What do you mean trouble?”

  McFadden shrugged. “I don’t know. At work possibly or with any of the neighbors. When you live out in the country thi
s way, you can run into some surprising complications. Remember that case down by Bisbee junction where two of Old Man Dollarhyde’s cattle drowned in those new people’s fancy swimming pool? I thought World War III was going to break out over that one for sure.”

  Joanna thought of her neighbors. The closest ones, Charlene and Bill Harris, lived a mile farther down High Lonesome Road on the right. They had two high school-aged girls who sometimes baby-sat for Jennifer. Then, across the road and up a shallow canyon was the Rhodes’s place which belonged to a spry octogenarian named Clayton Rhodes who still rode his fence line on horseback each year rather than using his aged pickup truck. Beyond the Harris place was that of a fairly re-cent arrival, Adrienne West with her fledgling herd of llamas. Among the neighbors on High Lonesome Road there had never been even the smallest hint of difficulty.

  “No,” Joanna replied. “Nothing like that. Besides, no one out here in the valley can afford a swimming pool.”

  “What about work?” McFadden asked.

  “None except…”

  “Except what?”

  Embarrassed, she shrugged. “You know. The election and all that.”

  Andrew’s decision to run against Sheriff McFadden had caused a good deal of consternation in the Cochise County Sheriff’s department as well as in the community at large. Walter McFadden had already announced that this was the last time he would run for sheriff. As a result, most people felt that he shouldn’t have had any real opposition. Surprisingly, despite her husband’s determination to run, Joanna Brady was inclined to agree with that same general opinion. After all, McFadden had been her father’s undersheriff and hand-picked successor. Joanna still felt a good deal of loyalty to the man, but once Andy had committed to the race, Joanna had thrown herself into the campaign with all the fervor she had once devoted to her father’s re-election efforts.

  Joanna realized all this now as the truck sped on through the night. Regardless of what happened at University Medical Center, this year’s election campaign for Cochise County Sheriff was over for Andrew Brady.

  “You’re not thinking I had something to do with this, are you, Joanna?” the sheriff asked.