“Let’s see. Your brother and sister-in-law fly in from D.C. this afternoon. Your mother will meet them at the airport, and then they’re scheduled to have dinner with the Winfields. My folks want to take us out to eat tonight. It’ll just be the five of us—you, Jenny, me, and the two of them. We’ll probably go somewhere here in town. Mother had heard about the Copper Queen and wanted to eat there. I told her that would be fine.
“Tomorrow night will be the whole group of out-of-towners—sort of a pre-rehearsal-dinner dinner. I’m voting for pizza for that one—probably out at your place, since you have more room than I do. Friday’s the real rehearsal dinner and—”
“Stop,” Joanna interrupted. “It’s too much. Let’s just stick to one day at a time. All I want to know is yes or no—are you taking care of Jenny after school today?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s leave it at that. You can tell me everything else I need to know from the whatever-the-hell-it-is chart when I need to know it.”
“Gantt chart,” he repeated. “With two t’s. But are you okay?” he asked after a pause. “You sound stressed.”
I am stressed! she wanted to shout at him. I’m stressed beyond bearing!
“I’m all right,” she answered carefully. “And I’m sure Jenny will be relieved to have a little bit of ordinariness back in her life for today at least.”
“You’re sure you’re not mad at me or anything, are you?” Butch asked.
“I’m not mad, but I am on my way to work. I’m about to be late, and I’m worried about how I’ll ever get caught up enough to be gone for a whole week. Do we have to stay away that long? Couldn’t we come back a day or two early—maybe in time for Jenny’s birthday?”
“No, we can’t, Joanna. Definitely negative on that. I’ve talked it over with Jenny, and she’s cool about us missing her actual birthday. Not only that, as your newly designated husband, I’m making it my first priority to see to it that you don’t work yourself into an early grave. I’m going to start by insisting that you actually take your vacation time as vacation. Working vacations like sheriffs’-conference trips don’t count.”
“All right,” she said. “If you’re going to insist on taking care of me, the least I can do is stop griping about it.”
“Good decision,” he said.
Joanna made it to her desk right at eight, but when no one showed up for the morning briefing, she gathered up a collection of files and went searching for Frank Montoya and her two detectives. In the reception room outside Joanna’s office, Kristin was at her desk and sorting mail when Joanna walked in. “Where is everybody?” she asked.
“The conference room,” Kristin replied. “Chief Deputy Montoya said that since the Double Cs are coming, the conference room would be a better fit for the briefing than your office.”
Joanna grabbed a cup of coffee on her way past the corner pot and then hurried into the conference room in time to hear Frank Montoya say, “We’ll have to leave that up to Sheriff Brady.”
“What are you leaving up to me?” she asked.
“Contacting Bill Forsythe, the new sheriff up in Pima County,” Detective Carpenter replied. “If we’re going to have any kind of information sharing on Melanie Goodson’s death, OD or otherwise, we’re going to have to let them know what we’re up against on our end. What’s more, the only way it’s going to happen is from the top down, because it sure as hell isn’t going to happen from the bottom up.”
“I’ll work on it as soon as we finish up here,” Joanna said. “Now, what else have I missed?”
“Nothing much,” Frank replied. “We were just sitting around jawing and waiting for you to show up.”
Joanna took her place at the head of the table. The morning’s stack of incident reports sat in front of her. She moved that aside in favor of Frank Montoya’s Thomas Ridder file, which she had carried into the conference room along with her coffee cup.
“All right, gentlemen. Where do we stand on the Ridder murders, assuming of course that Melanie Goodson is connected? I’m guessing we still haven’t found any trace of Lucy?”
Frank shook his head. “Other than her busted-up bicycle, no. S and R, along with Terry Gregovich and Spike, spent all day yesterday combing the rest area and the adjoining part of Texas Canyon. In the hills above the rest area they found a spot where it looked as though she might have camped out for a day or so. Then they followed a trail down as far as the highway, where it disappeared. S and R offered to go back out there today, but I told them not to bother. My guess is she’s long gone.”
“She got into a vehicle,” Joanna suggested.
“Presumably, yes.”
“What about the bird? Didn’t Catherine Yates tell us that Big Red wouldn’t be caught dead riding in a car?”
Frank nodded. “She did say that,” he agreed. “But maybe Big Red is dead. After all, things do happen to hawks, especially around busy highways. And it’s not what he’s used to. Interstate Ten is a whole lot busier than the roads that lead to Cochise Stronghold.”