Desert Heat Read online

  She regarded him levelly across the bud vase with its single vibrantly pink dahlia. “That’s not true, Mr. York. I saw you in the waiting room this morning. Why didn’t you speak to me there?”

  Caught in the lie, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I thought you’d prefer to meet with me privately,” he said. “I didn’t want to cause you any embarrassment in front of your family and friends.”

  “Why would I be embarrassed?” she asked.

  “We are meeting under very unfortunate circumstances. I don’t want to be insensitive to your needs, Joanna, but in view of your husband’s activities, I need to ask you some questions.”

  “Like what?”

  When Joanna Brady had panicked and dashed into the Arizona Inn, Adam York was sure she’d be an easy interview once he had a chance to question her. Now he wasn’t so sure. Somehow she’d ditched most of her dirty, bloodied clothing. Among the brightly colored plumage of Arizona ’s early winter season tourists, her vivid yellow smock didn’t seem all that out of place. She had sat in the dining room calmly eating a sandwich as if she hadn’t a care in the world. And now she was staring back at him with a steady, unflinching gaze that successfully put him on the defensive.

  He realized too late that he had lost the advantage. Somehow she had managed to take the interview initiative away from him, and he needed to get it back.

  “I like your ring,” Adam York said casually, without breaking eye contact. His unexpected sideways approach, geared to throw people off guard, worked as expected. Involuntarily Joanna glanced down at the unfamiliar ring on her finger as if to verify that it was still there.

  “As I’m sure you know, it was a gift from my husband,” she said evenly. “An anniversary present, but then you already know that, don’t you? You were probably right there in the room when I opened it. What about my ring?”

  “It looks expensive.”

  “Maybe it is. I wouldn’t know about that,” she returned. “As I told you, it was a gift.”

  “Do you know where your husband got it?”

  Joanna shrugged. “From Hiram Young, I suppose. In Bisbee. That’s what the box said. Young’s Fine Jewelry.”

  Adam York smiled his white-toothed smile. Joanna remembered the lyrics from “Mack the Knife,” that old song from Threepenny Opera, “Oh the shark has pearly teeth, dear…” Adam York was definitely a shark.

  “Oh, come now. Aren’t we being a little obtuse?”

  Joanna felt the danger, as though she were about to be pulled over an abrupt edge into some terrible, unknown abyss. All around her, oblivious to what was going on, the other diners in that gracious old room continued their leisurely luncheons, punctuating their genial conversations with polite laughter.

  Joanna took a deep breath and studied her adversary. One of Big Hank Lathrop’s lessons came back to her from the far distant past. Eleanor had hated it, lobbied against it, even when it was happening, but her husband had stubbornly persisted in teaching the daughter he called Little Hank the finer points of playing poker. Over and over he had stressed that the secret of winning lay in never, ever showing your opponent that you were scared. Remembering her father’s words, an eerie sense of tranquility seemed to settle over her.

  She signaled the busboy to bring more coffee. When he did, she picked up the cup with both hands, letting her ring finger rest casually around the brim of the cup. The ring was hers. It had been given to her and she had nothing to hide. She was gratified to see that her hands didn’t betray her with even the slightest tremor.

  She offered Adam York a thin smile. “Obtuse?” she asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Do you have any idea how much that ring of yours cost, Joanna?”

  “I told you before, it was a gift. When someone gives you a present, it isn’t polite to ask how much it cost, or didn’t your mother ever teach you that?”

  “It cost three thousand four hundred fifty three dollars and twenty two cents,” he said deliberately. “One of my agents checked that with Mr. Young himself in Bisbee early this morning. He let us have a copy of the receipt. It’s paid in full.”

  “I don’t understand why the DEA should be interested in the cost of my anniversary present, Mr. York. It seems to me you’d have better things to do with your time.”

  He had expected her to crumple then and start spilling the information that would make it easy to nail Andrew Brady once he was fit to stand trial. Instead, Joanna stood firm and brazened it out. York had pictured her as one of two things, either the innocent and most likely wronged wife, one who had no inkling of her husband’s extracurricular activities, or as a guilty co-conspirator. And despite what had been said so far, Adam York still had no idea which was which. Either way, she was very good at fighting back.

  “I hope your agent showed Mr. Young the kind of respect he deserves,” she continued deliberately. “Hiram Young is a sweet, frail old man. I’d hate to think one of your henchmen gave him a hard time.”

  “I can assure you that my agent was unfailingly polite,” Adam York replied.

  “I’ll just bet,” Joanna said with what sounded like a trace of sarcasm. She took an-other sip of coffee.

  “Would you like to see a copy of the receipt?”

  “No, thank you. That’s not necessary.” She, too, could be unfailingly polite. “I’m happy to take your word for it.” This time there was no mistaking the sarcasm.

  “So. Is giving your wife a diamond ring for an anniversary present a criminal offense these days, Mr. York? You said the DEA was investigating my husband, but all you’ve been interested in so far is this ring.”

  “And where the money came from to buy it,” he said. “Have you checked your bank balance lately, Joanna?”

  Adam hoped that by continuing to use her first name, he might annoy her into a telling emotional outburst, but somehow she seemed to have turned off the weakness he was sure he had detected earlier.

  Her green-eyed gaze drilled into him. “Actually, Mr. York, I’ve been a little too busy lately with what you might call life-and-death matters to give a tinker’s damn about my checking account balance, so the answer is no. I have no idea.”

  Adam York reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Allow me to enlighten you. Here’s your balance as of ten o’clock this morning.”

  He held up the paper. She didn’t even glance at it much less take it, but he could tell from the sudden jutting of her chin that he had finally landed a solid blow.

  “How did you get that?” she demanded.

  Again he smiled. “It’s all perfectly legal. You can check with the branch manager down there in Bisbee. When federal officers show up at a bank’s head office with court orders in hand, bankers usually jump to give us whatever we need.”

  “Then suppose you tell me what my balance is.”

  “Five thousand eight hundred seventy one dollars and five cents. That’s after the checks for the ring and the flowers both cleared.” He gave her another of his overly tolerant smiles. He thought he detected the smallest twitch in the corner of her left eye, but afterward he couldn’t be sure.

  “Are you in the habit of keeping that kind of money in your checking account, Joanna?” he continued smoothly. “That seems like a sizeable amount for a struggling young couple like you and your husband.”

  She stiffened at that remark, but she didn’t say anything at first. Instead, she leaned forward in her chair and stared back at him with those disconcerting green eyes.

  “Mr. York,” she said at last, her voice drop-ping almost to a whisper. “My father was a police officer once, and my husband still is. I am a person who has always been in favor of law and order, one who has utmost respect for officers of the law, but I will tell you here and now that if you are any indication of the kind of people currently serving in the capacity of federal police officers, then this country of ours is in big trouble.”

  With that she pulled a ten dollar bill from her purse, slappe
d it on the table, and pushed hack her chair. This wasn’t exactly the kind of reaction Adam York had expected, and it caught him by surprise. He got up and trailed after her, catching her by the elbow as she stepped up into the dining room’s doorway.

  “Look,” he said, “if you’re going back to the hospital, I could just as well give you a ride.”

  She wrested her arm away from him. “I don’t ride in cars with strangers,” she responded frostily. “It’s a very dangerous practice.”

  She strode away from him, but then, sensing that he was still staring after her, she stopped, turned, and came back.

  “By the way,” she said, “if you or any more of your so-called agents show up in the ICU waiting room this afternoon, I promise you, I’ll throw the sons of bitches out. And if you think that’s an empty threat, you might check with Sheriff Walter McFadden.”

  “Oh, Miss,” the busboy called to her from across the dining room. “You forgot your bag.

  He came over to her, lugging the heavy shopping bag with its bulky load of boots and jacket. She took it, murmured a quick thank you, then turned on her heel and marched away.

  “She’s a cool one, all right,” York muttered to himself without realizing the busboy was still listening. He, too, was watching Joanna Brady make her way through the long, narrow lobby.

  “She’s beautiful,” the busboy breathed fervently. “Who is she? Someone on TV?”

  “Not yet,” Adam York replied grimly. “But keep watching the news. She may turn up there real soon.”

  Joanna kept her shoulders back and her head high as she walked away from him. She felt betrayed and wounded by the system. How dare they go nosing around Bisbee, asking Hiram Young questions about the ring? How dare they contact the bank about their balance? People couldn’t really believe that Andrew Brady was involved in drug trafficking. That wasn’t possible!

  The walk back to the hospital was only a matter of blocks, but it seemed like miles. The too-large shoes slapped clumsily on the sidewalk, and it was all Joanna could do to put one foot in front of the other. Mid-afternoon sun burned down unmercifully through her double layer of clothing. The twine on the heavy shopping bag cut at her fingers, and she felt sweaty and dirty. More than that, Adam York had left her feeling helpless and violated.

  Why had he treated her that way, she wondered miserably. As a police officer’s wife, Joanna knew that in the aftermath of an attempted murder, family members would be expected to provide answers to painfully uncomfortable questions. She knew those questions would be coming soon enough from whatever investigators Dick Voland had assigned to Andy’s case. That was no surprise. And in the light of the television news broad-cast, questions from the DEA as well as the Mexican federales were also to be expected.

  But this hadn’t been the kind of kid-gloves type interview to which she should have been entitled. Even if they suspected Andy of wrongdoing, Adam York hadn’t acted at all as though Joanna were an innocent bystander. His whole demeanor and attitude told her that she, too, was under suspicion. For what, she wondered. For taking the ring? For accepting a present that might very well be the last thing her husband ever gave her?

  She shifted the heavy bag from one hand to the other. As she did so, the sun caught the sparkling diamond in a flash of light. So where had the ring come from, she asked herself for the first time. Andy Brady didn’t have that kind of money stowed away, certainly not money hidden from her. And as for the extra almost six thousand dollars in their checking account? That had to be a simple bookkeeping error. It might take Sandy Henning a day or two to figure out where it came from, but eventually the money would be credited to the proper account, and the Brady account balance would tumble back down to its usual level of nearly crashing and burning.

  Joanna had retraced her steps back up Elm to Campbell which she crossed at the light. As she started up the sidewalk along the hospital driveway, she thought she caught sight of her mother’s purple dress in the shadow of the portico. Sure enough, as she got closer, she saw Eleanor pacing back and forth in the small patch of shade.

  The moment Eleanor saw her daughter, she motioned to her frantically and then came rushing down the sidewalk to meet her. As her mother approached, Joanna was surprised to see that her mother’s mascara was smudged. Obviously she had been crying.

  “What’s the matter, Mother,” Joanna asked. “He’s gone.”

  “Who, Andy? Where’d he go? Did they move him somewhere else?”

  Eleanor Lathrop was puffing and out of breath. “You don’t understand, Joanna,” she said. “Andy’s dead.”

  Joanna stopped short, thunderstruck. “He’s dead? No. When did it happen? How?”

  Eleanor shook her head. “After you left, my good friend Margaret Turnbull stopped by. She and I were sitting there watching “The Young and the Restless” when some kind of alarm went off and people started running around and yelling ‘code red’ over the loud-speaker, whatever that means. Pretty soon some doctor comes out and says to me that it’s all over, that Andy’s dead.”

  Joanna dropped the bag, pushed past her mother, and raced into the building. She sprinted through the lobby and shoved her way inside an elevator just as the doors were closing. She stood there shaking her head, not believing it had happened. It couldn’t be true.

  Andy couldn’t be gone, not without her being there to say good-bye.

  On the ICU floor she slammed open the door to the waiting room. A little knot of people stood near the painting on the far side of the room. They turned to look at her when the door opened. Ken Galloway separated himself from the group and started toward her, but she dodged around him and darted into Andy’s room. The machines were eerily quiet. The bed was empty. He really was gone.

  A nurse from the nurse’s station looked up, saw her, and started toward her just as a pair of arms closed around her from behind. “Where is he?” Joanna demanded. “What have you done with him?”

  “Hush now,” Ken Galloway said, holding her, trying to calm her.

  “But where is he?” she repeated, her voice rising. “I’ve got to see him.”

  The nurse was there now, too, reaching out, offering solace, but Joanna was beyond the reach of consolation.

  “I want to see him,” she sobbed. “Where is he? Where?”

  “They took him back to the operating room.”

  Joanna stopped struggling in Ken Gallo-way’s arms. “The operating room? Then he isn’t dead, is he! It’s all a mistake.”

  The nurse shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Brady. We tried to find you, but he went into cardiac arrest. Afterward, we had two doctors in to check him, and they both pronounced him brain dead. The form was there in his file, and everything was in order. We contacted the medical examiner and he gave us permission to go ahead. With harvesting organs, there isn’t a moment to lose. I thought you knew.”

  Before Ken Galloway could stop her, she lunged out of his arms and raced back out through the waiting room. Another grim-faced family was just then filing into the room to start their own vigil of waiting and worrying. Seeing them, Joanna realized that she was separated from those people by a vast, impassable gulf. The ICU and its waiting room were for those who still clung narrowly to life. The place held nothing for her any more. Andy was dead. There was no reason for her to stay.

  In the hallway, her mother was just stepping off the elevator. “Joanna, there you are.”

  Without glancing at her mother, Joanna rushed onto the elevator and pressed the but-ton for the lobby. “Where are you going now?” Eleanor Lathrop asked.

  “I don’t know,” Joanna choked as the door closed between them. “I don’t know at all.”

  Later she would have no remembrance of fighting her way through the lobby or of recrossing the busy intersection at Elm and Campbell. When she came to herself, she was sitting in a tall wooden chair in a shaded patio somewhere on the green, flowered grounds of the Arizona Inn. She had no idea how long she’d been sitting there or how lo
ng she’d been crying, but someone was speaking to her.

  “What seems to be the problem?” a woman was saying. “Are you a guest here?”

  Joanna tried to stifle another sob. The woman, tall and elderly, planted her feet squarely in front the chair. She carried herself with patrician bearing-from her silver hair, cut in a short, elegant bob down to her old-fashioned saddle oxfords. One hand rested sternly on her hip while the other held an old, bentwood cane. Only when she took a step forward did Joanna notice that one leg was en-cased in a heavy metal brace.

  “No,” Joanna managed guiltily. “I’m sorry. I’m not. I’ll leave right away.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” the woman said impatiently. “I didn’t mean to chase you away, but you were crying as though your heart was broken, and I wondered if there was someone I should call for you or if there was anything at all I could do to help.”

  Joanna straightened in the chair and wiped the tears from her cheeks. The woman’s small act of kindness seemed to work some kind of recuperative magic.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I believe you already did.” She stood up.

  “Where are you going?” the old woman asked.

  “Back to the hospital,” Joanna answered with resigned hopelessness. “I’m sure there are papers to sign, arrangements to be made.”

  The gaunt old woman’s skin was wrinkled and parchment thin. She must have been nearing ninety. Age and wisdom both allowed her to see beyond the surface of Joanna’s relatively innocuous words to the real message and hurt behind them.

  She nodded slowly. “I see,” she said. “So it’s like that, is it?”

  Joanna nodded as well. “Yes.”

  The woman reached out and patted Joanna’s arm with a gnarled, arthritic hand. “It will take time, my dear,” she said kindly, “but someday things will be better for you. Just you wait and see.”

  EIGHT

  Leaning on her cane, the old woman escorted Joanna as far as the hotel lobby. There, swinging the braced leg off to one side, she sauntered off into the dining room while Joanna stopped short in front of the telephone alcove. Much as she dreaded the prospect, it was time to tell Jenny. Past time if Joanna wanted to deliver the news herself. Unless she wanted Grandma Lathrop to do it in her stead, then there wasn’t a moment to lose.