Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(6)
“As in saving the best for last?” he quipped.
“Not exactly,” she answered.
“What’s going on at work?”
And that’s when Joanna realized she hadn’t told Butch about Ernie Carpenter’s bad news. Ernie might have sworn Joanna to secrecy inside the department, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t share the news with Butch. More accustomed to using a keyboard than writing by hand, Joanna leaned back in her chair to rest her aching shoulder as she told Butch what had happened.
“This is awful news for Ernie and Rose, but it’s also going to leave your detective division pretty shorthanded, won’t it?” Butch observed when she finished.
“Very,” Joanna agreed with a sigh. “I’ll be down to only two detectives, Jaime and Deb.”
Jaime was Jaime Carbajal, Ernie’s longtime partner and the other half of what had always been known as “the Double C’s.” Deb was Deb Howell, who had been promoted from deputy to detective due primarily to Ernie’s careful mentoring.
Joanna had expected Deputy Jeremy Stock to be next up in the detective ranks. He had passed the exam, and she’d been waiting to bring him on board when his hidden life as a fatally abusive husband and father had come to light. Not only had he murdered his remaining family members before taking his own life, he’d come dangerously close to taking Joanna’s as well. And Joanna’s next candidate for promotion, Deputy Daniel Hernandez, had recently left her department in order to take a job with Tucson PD at substantially higher wages.
“Didn’t you tell me Garth Raymond passed the test?” Butch asked.
Joanna nodded. “Yes, with flying colors,” she replied. “The problem is, he’s my youngest deputy. He took the test on a dare because some of the other guys were hassling him about his being a ‘college boy.’ He outscored all of them, so yes, Garth is a ‘college boy’ and smart as a whip, but he’s also been with the department less than two years. If I end up fast-tracking him to detective, I’m worried there’ll be some blowback.”
“Young and smart sounds like a good combination,” Butch observed. “After what Garth did to save that girl out in Skeleton Canyon last year, it seems to me as though he’s also an altogether good human being. In other words, if I were you, I’d discount young and go for smart.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Joanna said.
“And you should probably give Myron a call,” Butch added. “If you’re going to give Ernie an appropriate send-off, the clubhouse at Rob Roy Links is the place to do it right, but with the holidays in full swing his banquet facilities may already be totally booked.”
Myron Thomas had managed to establish and maintain one of the best golf courses in southeastern Arizona, creating a resortworthy facility out of what had once been farmland along the San Pedro River.
“A big party there will cost money,” Joanna said. “The board of supervisors will never approve of having the department pay for it.”
“Then we’ll pay for it,” Butch declared, “as in you and me, babe. Fortunately, I just turned in a manuscript, and that delivery-and-acceptance check is burning a hole in my pocket.”
Butch’s career as a mystery writer had grown into something neither of them had ever anticipated, and having chunks of discretionary cash show up occasionally for them to use as needed was a real blessing.
“Thank you,” Joanna said. “I’ll give him a call first thing tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Butch said, “I’m doing an early-morning TV interview, so I’d best hit the sack. What about you?”
“I’m going to keep plugging away on the cards a while longer,” she told him. “Have a good night. I miss you.”
She did keep plugging. On the nonpersonal side, there were no newsletters to sign and stuff, but the process still took time. Here she could easily have opted for using cards with her signature supplied by the printer, but these messages were going out to many of her supporters and loyal volunteers. Joanna felt that, at the very least, each of these folks deserved the courtesy of a personal signature on their holiday greeting. And that was why the cards had to be done entirely at home. Marliss Shackleford, a local newspaper reporter and Joanna’s personal nemesis, was always on the lookout for the slightest misstep on Joanna’s part, and if there’d been any hint that Joanna was doing politicking while on the job, Marliss would have made sure it was headline news in the Bisbee Bee.
At eleven, and not quite halfway through the second batch, she gave up and put down her pen. There was no sense in staying up any later in an attempt to finish them.
“Come on, dogs,” she said aloud. “It’s time to go get busy.”
Lady, Joanna’s Australian shepherd, got to her feet and headed for the laundry-room door. Lucky, deaf as a post and sound asleep, didn’t move a muscle. Joanna reached down, touched him awake, and then delivered the same command in sign language.
Joanna opened the garage door to let the dogs out and then stood in the open doorway, waiting for them to finish. The night was clear and bitingly cold. The dark sky overhead was alive with glimmering stars. In the shadow of the Mule Mountains, the lights from Bisbee didn’t detract from the nighttime sky, nor did the lights from Douglas and Agua Prieta, twenty-five miles away.