Dead Wrong

Tazewell had the good grace to look chagrined. “Sorry,” he said. “I flew over to see if the landing strip was still here and usable. It was, so I landed. I just…”

“I don’t care why you came. Now you’re leaving.”

“But-”

“No buts. You’re leaving now!”

“All right,” Tazewell agreed reluctantly. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

Frank, hurrying up the sidewalk, passed by a retreating Tazewell on the way. “What’s wrong?” Joa

“There’s more trouble over at San Simon,” Frank answered. “Evidently a dogfight was scheduled there for later on this afternoon. When the first group of attendees arrived, they found a dead woman, an apparent gunshot victim, lying in the front yard. The people who found her had come in from the New Mexico side, and they must have thought they were still on that side of the state line. They left the scene and called an anonymous 911 tip from a pay phone at Road Forks. Randy Trotter’s people forwarded the call to us. Debbie and Jaime are on their way to the scene from Tucson. Dispatch says our crime scene people are also en route. You and I should probably go there, too.”

Joa

She was here looking for answers in the Bradley Evans homicide. It was a case she urgently wanted to solve, and she didn’t want to be pulled away from it yet again. And if Aileen Houlihan was lingering close to death, the time for finding answers to those questions was in danger of slipping away right along with her.

Leslie Markham was obviously someone who kept her life carefully compartmentalized. When she put on her professional persona, she left the caregiving part locked up at home. But now, without her work face on and having just endured a fierce confrontation with her father, Joa

“No, Frank,” she said. “You go. I want to stay here for a little while and talk to Leslie.”

“But we’re in the same vehicle,” he objected. “How will you get back?”

“I’m a big girl, Frank,” Joa

“You’re sure you won’t change your mind?”

“I’m sure.”

“If you do, call.”

Joa

Shaking his head, Frank left the porch and headed for the Crown Victoria, while Joa

Leslie came into the living room wearing a pair of scrubs and drying her hands on a paper towel. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “My mother isn’t accepting visitors, and neither am I. And why did you send my father here? He had no right to show up after all this time.”

“I didn’t send him,” Joa

“But he did anyway.”

“Yes, I know. He was just leaving when I arrived.”

“He wanted to see her,” Leslie continued, “but Mother wouldn’t want that. She was a very beautiful woman once. She doesn’t want anyone to see her like this, especially not him.”

“She never married again after the two of them divorced?” Joa

“Why would she?” Leslie said. “She knew what was coming. She didn’t want to put him through it. That’s what’s good about being married to Rory. He’s old enough that he doesn’t want kids, and maybe he’ll be long gone before it happens to me.”

“Before what happens to you?” Joa

Leslie’s face was a study in bleak hopelessness. Finally she shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said ungraciously. “You could just as well come in and sit down. Do you want something to drink?”

Even coming from the shaded front porch, Joa

“Thanks,” Joa

“So my father told you about that?” Leslie asked.

“Yes,” Joa

“It’s hereditary,” Leslie said. “Since my mother has it, there’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll have it, too.”

Except that isn’t true, Joa

Sitting there, Joa

“Can’t they check for that these days?” Joa

“My mother wanted me to be tested years ago when those tests first became available,” Leslie answered, “but I refused. For me, knowing would be far worse than not knowing. I actually prefer being in the dark, and since I have no intention of ever having children, it doesn’t matter. Besides, if I knew for sure that Huntington‘s was bearing down on me someday, I’d be holding my breath over every tweak in my body, over every mood swing, and wondering if that was the begi

Falling off a cliff, Joa

“If I were in your shoes, maybe I couldn’t either,” Joa

“Before she got sick?”

Joa

“She was fun,” Leslie answered. “And wild. She taught me to ride almost as soon as I could walk. We’d go riding for hours. Sometimes we’d take a packhorse and ride up into the mountains to camp out under the stars, just the two of us. We’d build a campfire and cook our food over an open flame. It made me feel like I was a pioneer. That was my first clue that Mom’s HD was starting-when she stopped being fun.”

“How long ago was that?” Joa

“When I was eleven.”

“That’s a long time,” Joa

“It’s typical,” Leslie replied. “Fifteen to twenty years or so of steady decline with no way to stop it.”

“And you’ve been taking care of her ever since?”

“Most of the time. Not by myself, mind you. Dolores has been here from the start.”

“Dolores?” Joa

“Dolores Mattias,” Leslie answered. “She and her husband, Joaquin, have worked here on the ranch for as long as I can remember. Since before I can remember. I wouldn’t have been able to manage without them. Joaquin looks after the ranch. Dolores comes in every day to look after my mother when I’m at work and on weekends as needed. And Dolores’s niece, Juanita, helps out, too. She goes to Cochise College by day and sleeps here overnight on a daybed in Mother’s room so she can call me immediately in case something happens.”