Dead to Rights

“Whatever you do,” Joa

“Are you going to the Buckwalter funeral?” Frank Montoya asked, abruptly switching gears.

“Ernie will be there working, of course,” Joa

Frank nodded. “By all means,” he said.

Just then there was a knock on Joa

“What is it?”

“A court order. Bebe Noonan has gotten herself a lawyer and has formally requested a DNA sample from Bucky Buckwalter’s body as part of a paternity suit.”

“I did know about it,” Joa

“She’s pregnant with Bucky’s baby?”

“That’s right.”

“If you knew about it and Dick knew about it, why the hell didn’t I?”

“I found out yesterday afternoon. I told Dick on the way over to Tombstone last night, but with all the mess over there, I guess we both forgot about it.”

“Thanks a lot,” Carpenter muttered. “Thanks a whole hell of a lot.” With that he, too, stalked out of the office.

Joa

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Whatever the provocation, I think it’s bad form to slam doors until after everyone in the office has had a chance to finish at least one cup of coffee.”

Frank did leave Joa

At thirty-five years of age and a height of six feet six, Little Norm Higgins was both the youngest and the largest of Norm Higgins’ three sons. He collected Joa

Agnes had a tendency to develop skin cancer. On doctor’s orders, she always wore hats, although the wide-brimmed, flowered and/or feathered affairs she favored might not have been exactly what her dermatologist had in mind. The one she preferred to wear to funerals was an enormous black straw contrivance with a velvet ribbon and single peacock leather. Over time the feather had become quite bedraggled. Her Honor inclined her head as Joa

Seated as close as she was to the front of the chapel, it was impossible for Joa

Shortly before the Reverend Billy Matthews from the First HU~Ie Baptist Church took to the podium, Little Norm was forced to go to the front of the chapel. There, in his whispery, bowling a

As the organist droned on and on, playing something mournful but totally unrecognizable, Joa

It turned out that the answer was yes. Any number of people had been touched and saddened by Bucky’s passing, and a few of them were willing to come forward and say so. The selection of speakers wasn’t exactly standard funeral fare, but they all did well.

First to step forward was an adorable little girl named Wi

Maggie Dodd, one of Bisbee’s most outspoken animal-rights activists, told about how the Buckwalters had saved numerous strays from the fate of lethal injection by offering an adoption service alternative to the local animal shelter.

Last of all was Irene Collins. She tottered up the steps to the podium to give a tearful account of how, on the last day of his life, Bucky Buckwalter had removed a stuck chicken bone from the throat of Irene’s poor little kitty, Murphy Brown.

Knowing some of the background, Joa

It was only then, when people congregated outside, trying to decide who would be going from the chapel to the Ladies Aid’s luncheon, that Eleanor Lathrop managed to catch up with her daughter.

“What a wonderful service,” Eleanor crooned. “Very uplifting, for a funeral. Terry’s holding up remarkably well, buy did you see how devastated that poor little Bebe Noonan was? Why, the way she carried on, you’d have thought her heart was broken. Bucky must have been a wonderful boss for her to be that torn up over his death.”

Joa

“You’re right, Mother,” she said. “Bucky Buckwalter certainly was a boss in a million.”

At Evergreen Cemetery, winter had turned the sparse gross yellow. As the vehicles in the funeral cortege emptied, Joa

Bebe Noonan, dressed all in black, continued to carry on in chief-mourner fashion. Her behavior had already sparked several derogatory comments that, Joa