An hour later, at lunch with Butch, Joanna told him about the personality clash with her neighboring sheriff. “So basically, you’re mad because you regard yourself as a woman scorned,” Butch philosophized. “Professionally scorned, but scorned nonetheless.”
“Forsythe wouldn’t have talked to me that way if I were a man,” Joanna declared. “Men get mad; women get hysterical. Men are aggressive; women are pushy.”
“Isn’t there a chance you’re being overly sensitive about this?”
Joanna thought about it. “Maybe,” she finally admitted reluctantly, “but what do you suggest I do?”
Butch shrugged. “Seems to me like you already have a handle on that.” He grinned back at her. “Solve the two murders and then whip Forsythe’s ass at poker. What could be better than that?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing at all.”
CHAPTER 21
Joanna was back from lunch and hard at work early that afternoon when Frank popped his head in her office. “What’s happening?” she asked.
“Nothing much.” Frank shut the door and came on into the office, settling into one of the chairs. “I faxed what information we had on the Tom Ridder murder weapon to the Department of Public Safety firearms expert at the lab up in Tucson. I just now got off the phone with the guy.”
“What did he say?”
“That it’s possible to get a match, but he won’t be able to tell for sure unless he can put both bullets under the microscope.”
“What are the chances of that happening?” Joanna asked.
Frank Montoya shrugged. “That depends on whether or not Tucson PD kept a bullet from that long ago. And, if the bullet does exist, stashed away in their evidence room, it further depends on whether or not anyone can lay hands on it for us in a timely fashion. I have someone up there looking for it, but she wasn’t very encouraging. She said she’d get back to me, but she wanted to know if I understood that working on a closed ten-year-old case takes a backseat to working on something current. I tried convincing her that ours is a current case, but I don’t know how successful I was. We’ll have to wait and see.”
He paused before continuing. “How’d you do with Bill Forsythe?” he added.
Joanna shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
“That good,” Frank mused.
“He wanted us to give him whatever we had, including the name and address of that neighbor of Melanie Goodson’s, the one Jaime and Ernie talked to yesterday afternoon. Once we tell him everything we know, Forsythe will decide whether or not in his opinion we’re worthy of having his department’s cooperation.”
“That’s certainly big of him.”
“Right,” Joanna said. “That’s what I thought. I guess we’ll have to do this without him.”
Just then Joanna’s intercom buzzed. “Sheriff Brady,” Kristin said. “There’s someone out here to see you. Her name is Sister Celeste. I know she doesn’t have an appointment, but she says she’s driven down from Tucson to see you.”
Joanna took her finger away from the intercom, muting her side of the conversation. “What do you think?” Joanna asked Frank.
“Is this the disappearing nun the Double Cs have been trying to make an appointment with for at least two days?” Frank asked.
Joanna nodded. “She’s the one.”
“How about if I scoot out the back door,” Frank suggested, nodding toward Joanna’s private entrance. “That way you can see her alone.”
“That’s not necessary, Frank,” Joanna said. “Stay. We’ll hear what she has to say together.”
Seconds later, Kristin opened the door and ushered a tall, spare, horse-faced woman into the room. Wearing jeans, sweatshirt, and hiking boots, the woman looked as though she might have been an extremely physically fit phys-ed teacher in her late fifties or early sixties. She held out a strong, lean-fingered hand and shook Joanna’s, pumping it forcefully.
“Sheriff Brady,” she announced. “As your secretary told you, I’m Sister Celeste. I’m afraid I was a bit abrupt with you on the phone the other day, and I apologize. I was on my way into a faculty meeting that afternoon, and I didn’t want to be late. But the truth is, in addition to being late, I also didn’t want to speak to you right then.”
“This is Frank Montoya, my chief deputy,” Joanna said, motioning toward the chairs. “Won’t you have a seat?”
Sister Celeste smiled. “I suppose when you heard a nun was outside, you expected someone in a habit. I do wear mine at work during the school week, but now that habits are optional, the rest of the nuns at Santa Theresa’s and I have taken to having dress-down days occasionally. Sort of like casual-dress Fridays in the rest of the world. And the truth is, there are times when jeans and sweatshirts make a lot more sense.”
“Yes, there are,” Joanna agreed.