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“So do I,” Joa
“When?”
“Soon now,” she said. “I hope.”
Junior led her to the table where Butch and his parents were already seated.
“Is he always here?” Margaret asked with a frown and a nod in Junior’s direction as he walked away from the table. “He’s so weird.”
“He’s not weird, Mom,” Butch explained. “Junior may be developmentally disabled, but he’s far less weird than a lot of so-called normal people around here.”
“Still,” Margaret insisted. “It seems to me that having someone like him hanging around all the time would be bad for business.”
“He isn’t hanging around,” Butch said. “He actually works here-as in making a contribution.”
Seeing Butch’s temper fraying, Joa
Junior returned with a glass of water, which he placed in front of Joa
As Junior walked away that time, Joa
“Are you ready to order?” Daisy Maxwell asked.
They ordered and ate, but lunch wasn’t a complete success. Joa
“I doubt Mom will be eager to come back here anytime soon,” Butch said to Joa
“You’re right,” Joa
Butch gri
Back at the Justice Center, Joa
“Any progress?” he asked.
He was asking for progress in the Bradley Evans case. Joa
“Not much,” she answered.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’ve located the person he was stalking,” Joa
“Why not?”
“Because we’re shorthanded, Ted,” Joa
“Oh,” Ted said. “All right. I just wanted to let you know that Brad’s funeral is tomorrow at one o’clock in the afternoon. It’ll be held at the Papago Unit at the prison down in Douglas. People who want to attend need to be on the guest list for security reasons. Do you think any of the detectives on the case will want to go?”
Joa
“Put me on the list,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
“Thanks,” Ted said. He started to leave. As he turned, Joa
“Do the jail ministry guys down in Douglas wear the same kind of name badge?” she asked.
Ted looked down at his. “Sure,” he said. “Why?”
“Do you think you could get someone from there to fax me a copy of Bradley Evans’s ID photo?”
“Probably,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He left. Joa
A few minutes later, when Kristin came into her office carrying a faxed copy of Bradley Evans’s ID photo, Joa
With all the photos now collected in the same envelope, Joa
Something’s got to give, she told herself sternly. And then, as if she had heard it yesterday, she remembered the advice her boss, Milo Davis, had given her years ago when she was working in his insurance agency. “You’ve got to stop majoring in the minors,” he had told her. “Don’t get sidetracked by the little stuff. Do the important stuff first.”
That was good advice then, and it’s good advice now, she told herself. Tomorrow’s the day you start ru
When Joa
When it comes time to sort tomorrow morning’s mail, Joa
Her reverie was interrupted by the baby suddenly launching a drop kick into her lowest rib hard enough to make her Kevlar vest rise and fall. The kicks came along sporadically when she was in the office or out in public, where she mostly managed to ignore them. This time, though, she was alone in a vehicle, and the baby’s movements made her feel incredibly happy. He or she was alive and kicking in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe that meant the child would arrive with an inborn knowledge of the difference between day and night. Having a baby that slept through the night from the begi
Joa
Trying to brush off this negative first impression, Joa
The receptionist studied the card for a long moment. “Can I tell her what this is about?” she asked.
Joa
The clerk went away and returned a few moments later followed by Leslie Markham. Joa