Desert Heat

Joa

“You say she drove up to the bank?”

“That’s right. In one of those cute little Geo Storms, one of the turquoise blue ones. It had Nevada plates. I noticed that much.”

“How old was she?”

“Not very old. Early twenties.”

Joa

A storm of tears came bubbling to the su r-face. Joa

“Cora,” she murmured, standing up. “Cora from Nevada, a girl with no last name.”

Sandra met Joa

“Believe me,” Joa

Outside, Je

“I’m okay,” Joa

“But you’re crying.”

“I’m all right.”

Je

Joa

“No,” she said. “We have to make one more op along the way.”

“Where?” Je

“Before we go home, we’re going to go see Sherriff McFadden.”

SIXTEEN

Walter McFadden’s house sat at the top end of Arizona Street, less than half a block from where town gave way to open desert. Usually he wouldn’t have been there at five o’clock, but Dick Voland had already told Joa

As Joa

“Good catch,” Je

“Well,” Joa

Walter McFadden stood up and sauntered off the porch to greet them, carrying an open can of Coors, a Silver Bullet, in one hand. He walked over to the gate with the dog at his heels.

“Howdy, Joa

“Can we come in?”

“Sure.”

Stories about the sheriff’s ugly mutt were legend in Bisbee. The dog, an improbable mixture of half-golden retriever/half-pit bull, had destined for destruction before Walter Fadden had come to the animal’s rescue. As a puppy, the dog had belonged to an escaped felon who was discovered and apprehended while living in an abandoned shack in Old Bisbee. When the man was picked and sent back where he belonged, the dog, a starveling pup, was sentenced to death and would have been put down if the sheriff, newly widowed and terribly lonely, hadn’t intervened.

“Are you sure the dog will be okay?” Joa

The sheriff gri

Je

Walter McFadden smiled and nodded. “That’s right. How’d you know?”

“When I was little,” Je

“It still is one of mine,” McFadden said, “al-though I don’t have anyone to read it to now that my own little girl is all grown up.”

“What kind of dog is it?”

“I always say that Tigger’s a pit bull wearing a golden retriever suit,” McFadden replied seriously. “I’m not sure which was which, but either his daddy or his mama must’ve been a pit bull. That’s where he gets the square nose and that godawful circle around his one eye. The rest of him’s pretty much golden retriever. I don’t know where the jumping comes from.”

“Can I try throwing for him?” Je

McFadden glanced quizzically in Joa

McFadden handed the tooth-pocked Frisbee over to Je

“I found out where the money came from,” she said. “Sandra He

“The woman, you mean?”

Joa

“Why didn’t you tell me about her?” Joa

“Fact of the matter is, I didn’t know about myself, not until I got back home yesterday afternoon. The DEA guys turned most of that stuff up when they got the court order to at your account. My department’s been playing catch-up ball ever since.”

“So everybody in town knew about her but me,” Joa

“Maybe there’s not that much to know,” adden suggested.

And maybe there is,” Joa

“What’s Ernie Carpenter after really, Waiter’ Andy’s dead. It’s bad enough to lose him, but is anyone interested in finding out who killed him or are they just interested in dragging his name through the mud? If Andy was having an affair, it hurts, hurts like hell to find out about it now. I would a whole lot rather not have known about it at all, but to my way of thinking, that doesn’t matter nearly as much as who killed Andy and why. Those preliminary autopsy results…”

“Whoa, down, Joa

“Benefit of the doubt?” Joa

“Joa

“Ernie Carpenter isn’t investigating Andy’s death nearly as much as he’s investigating what he believes Andy did wrong. There’s a big difference.”

“See there?” McFadden pointed out. “You’re doing it again.”

“And what about Adam York? What’s his game?”

“Federal drug enforcement’s no game,” McFadden reasoned seriously. “If you think it is, you’re crazy.”

“Right, but if Adam York’s busy waging a war on drugs, why’s he nosing around town asking questions about me? This morning when I tackled him about it, he gave me some lame song and dance about possible insurance fraud, but as you just told me, that’s not his job. So what’s going on? There must be some reason he’s after me specifically, and I want to know what it is.”