This time the sharp but unmistakable intake of breath was on the other end of the line. “How do you know about that?” Tammy Sue managed. “Maybe I was wrong. I never should have called.”

Joanna could tell that her lucky guess about the money was causing Tammy Sue to lose heart. “Please, don’t hang up,” Joanna put in quickly. “Maybe we can work something out. Where are you?”

“But if you know about the money…”

“That doesn’t matter. You’re right about me. There’s nothing I want more than putting this Tony, whoever he is, away. Where are you? Let me come see you. We’ll talk. I do know people around here. If you can help me find Andy’s killer, if you can help me put him where he belongs, then I should be able to help you with your problem.”

“And you won’t tell the cops about me?” There was something vulnerable and plaintive in the way Tammy Sue asked the question, something that reminded Joanna of junior high-school-aged girls, telling one another tales of adolescent love and swearing each other to secrecy.

“Were you ever a Girl Scout?” Joanna asked.

“No.”

“I was, and I give you my word of honor that I won’t tell the cops. Where are you?”

“At a place called the Copper Queen.”

“You’re here in Bisbee? Why didn’t you say so? I can be there in ten minutes. What room are you in?”

“Four twelve.”

Joanna didn’t want to give Tammy Sue time to change her mind. “Stay right there,” she said^. “ I’ll be up as soon as I can.”

She slammed down the phone and leaped to retrieve her shoes. Just then there was a tentative knock on the door, and Jenny popped her head in.

“Grandma Lathrop wants to know if you want some cocoa and toast.”

‘“No. I’ve got to go back uptown.”

“Can I go along?”

^“No. I’ll have to go alone. Ask Grandma if she can stay here with you until I get back.”

“I’ll go ask.”

Jenny disappeared while Joanna tracked down another denim jacket, a new fleece-lined one that she had given Andy the previous Christmas. Andy wouldn’t be wearing it now, but putting it on made him feel closer to her somehow in a way Joanna couldn’t explain. She picked up her purse then stood in the middle of the room, looking at the desk, torn by indecision.

All her life she had lived in a small town, insulated from some of the harsher realities of life in other places. But this past week violence had touched her life and home. Her husband was dead, murdered, and she was going to meet with a woman, a stranger, who claimed to know Andy’s killer. Clayton Rhodes had given her a gift, a weapon, an equalizer, that could help deal with any number of unexpected contingencies. Could she, in good conscience, afford to thumb her nose at his gift?

Shaking her head, Joanna went back to the desk, extracting the key from her pocket as she did so. Once the loaded.44 was out of the drawer, she stuck it into her purse which, in its own way, was every bit as spacious as Molly Rhodes’s apron pockets. She was well aware that she had no permit to carry a concealed weapon, but, considering the circumstances, that was a risk she’d have to take.

The gun had no more than disappeared into the purse when Jenny returned. “Grandma says she’ll stay, but she wants to know where you’re going.”

The house was one of the old Sears Crafts-man homes, a Somerset, that had come West by rail in the early teens-precut and premilled, ready to be assembled. By current standards, the two-bedroom house may have been small, but it did have both a front and back door. The front door was seldom used on a day-to-day basis, but it was available. Maybe the rules between Joanna and her mother still hadn’t changed all that much.

Slinging the purse over her shoulder, Joanna headed for the front door with Jenny trailing along behind. “But you still haven’t said where you’re going,” the child objected.

DESERT HEAT

Joanna stopped, leaned down, and pulled Jennyy to her in a brief but fierce hug. “Tell Grandma that I’m going out to see a man about a white horse.”

Jenny frowned. “You’re going to buy a horse in the middle of the night?”

Joanna laughed. “Not really. It’s what Grandma always used to tell me when I was your age.”

“But what does it mean?”

“It means that where I’m going is none of Grandma’s business.”

With that, Joanna hurried out of the house. Sadie tried to follow, but Joanna shooed the dog back inside and locked the door. Not wanting to waste a moment, she ran to the Eagle, jumped in, and gunned the motor when she started it.

The absolute irony of the situation wasn’t last on Joanna Brady. Here she was, racing off to a clandestine meeting with a woman who had most likely been her husband’s mistress. Yet she was rushing to get there and feeling good about it besides, because Joanna knew instinctively that Tammy Sue Ferris or whatever her name was had the information Joanna Wanted. At last she was going to get some straight answers, and answers, no matter how hurtful, were better than the terrible pain of not knowing, of being left totally in the dark.

Rushing to her appointment, Joanna was in such a single-minded hurry that she didn’t even notice the car with its lights off that was parked a dozen yards or so north of the ranch turnoff on High Lonesome Road. And when she paused briefly at the stop sign at Grace’s Corner, if she saw the vehicle pull out of High Lonesome Road onto Double Adobe Road be-hind her to come racing after her, she didn’t pay any attention.

She didn’t notice, but she should have.

EIGHTEEN

Melvin Williams, although a relative newcomer to Bisbee, had made it his business to meet as many of the townsfolk as possible. He and his wife, recent purchasers of the Copper Queen Hotel, were able to eke out a respectable enough living from that aging dowager of a place only so long as they did most of the work themselves. Melvin handled the front desk, Kitty managed the restaurant, and Gary, their son, ran the bar.

As a result, Melvin himself was manning the front desk when Joanna Brady, after lucking into a parking spot directly out front, came dashing into the hotel. Instead of waiting for the creaking elevator, Joanna headed directly for the red-carpeted stairway.

“Can I help you?” Melvin asked.

Joanna shook her head. “I’m on my way to see Tammy Sue Ferris,” she said, hurrying by. “1 already know the room number.”

Halfway up the first flight of stairs, however, she looked up in time to see Adam York coming down. She stopped short, trying to conceal her confusion and dismay.

It shouldn’t have been that much of a shock to find him there. After all, if the DEA agent was in town conducting an investigation, there weren’t many places to stay in Bisbee besides the Copper Queen. But how could she maintain any kind of composure in the presence of someone she was almost sure was a crooked cop and possibly a murderer besides? Not only that, if Tammy Sue became aware of York’s presence and identity, she might erroneously assume Joanna had brought him with her.

“Hello, Joanna,” York said, cordially enough. “Were you looking for me?”

Hardly, she thought. “An old friend came to town for the funeral,” she replied, thinking on her feet as she continued on up the stairs. “With all the other people around, this may be the only chance we’ll have to visit by our-selves.”

“You still haven’t told me how you happened to know about those autopsy results,” York said from behind her. “Do you maintain some kind of private information line in and out of the sheriff’s department?”

Joanna stopped at the landing, turned, and looked back down at him. “Why are you so interested in my sources, Mr. York? It seems to me you should be more interested in finding the person or persons who murdered my husband.”