Butch shrugged. “Like I said. It’ll take some getting used to.”

Daisy came back with their drinks. Coffee and water for Joanna and Butch and the milk shake for Junior. “I’ll bet chocolate is your favorite,” she said, as she placed the whipped-cream-topped shake in front of him.

Nodding and beaming, Junior reached for the paper-wrapped straw on the plate beside the shake. In his eagerness, his hands trembled so much that he wasn’t able to free the straw from its wrapper. After watching him struggle for the better part of a minute, Butch reached across the table, unwrapped the straw, and stuck it into the drink.

“There you go, Junior,” Butch said. “Have a ball.”

Halfway through lunch, Junior once again announced the fateful word, “Go.” This time there was no mistaking the message. Butch instantly hustled him off to the rest room. When they returned after successfully completing the mission, Joanna met Butch with a smile.

“You’re right,” she said. “This isn’t the most romantic of engagement lunches, but I have to say, from where I’m sitting, the prospective groom is making a very good impression on the prospective bride.”

“Thanks,” he said.

When it was time to leave, the three of them gathered around the cash register near the front door while Daisy rang up their bill. “You know,” she said, “I was thinking. A couple of years ago for Christmas, our kids gave us one of those big coffee-table books, America the Beautiful, I think it’s called. It’s full of pictures from all over the country. You know, the kind of stuff people recognize-like San Xavier Mission in Tucson or the Space Needle in Seattle. I wonder if we showed it to Junior, would he recognize anything?”

“He might,” Butch said. “It’s a long shot.”

“Well, Moe’s at work up at the post office right now,” Daisy said. “As soon as he gets off, I’ll have him drop the book off here at the restaurant. That way, you can stop by and pick it up whenever you like.” She looked at Junior. “Moe’s my husband,” she explained. “He has a book-a very pretty book-with all kinds of pictures in it. Do you like pictures?”

Junior smiled and nodded. “Like pictures,” he said.

“Good, then. The book will be here waiting for you, and you can look at it however much you like.”

Some other people came in the door, and Butch led Junior out to his car. “He’s just as sweet as he can be, isn’t he,” Daisy commented, looking after them.

“Yes,” Joanna said, thinking of Butch. “He is sweet.”

“What do you suppose happened to his family? And why haven’t they come back for him? Surely they didn’t leave him on purpose, do you think?”

“It looks that way,” Joanna said.

“That’s awful,” Daisy said. “What kind of a low-down snake would do such a thing?”

Joanna thought about the trunk of Elvira Hollenbeck’s Subaru. “Actually,” she said, “I don’t think snakes would. They’re probably more honorable than that.”

Back in her office, Joanna settled down to work. Dick Voland had taken charge of the squad of deputies patrolling Oak Vista Estates. Since he was perfectly capable of handling the situation, there was no need for Joanna’s added presence. Not only that, after spending two days on the road, there was plenty of work for her to catch up on.

She had labored in peace for the better part of an hour and felt that she was starting to make some real progress when the phone rang. “Yes, Kristin. What is it?”

“Someone to see you, Sheriff Brady. She says her name’s Monroe. Jessie Monroe. She wants to talk to you about her sister.”

“Who’s her sister?”

“Alice Rogers,” Kristin answered.

With a swipe of her arm, Joanna cleared the remaining clutter of paperwork from her desk. “Show her in,” she said.

The woman Kristin ushered into her office was a stooped, bird-boned woman who leaned almost bent double on a walker. She was tiny and frail, but the piercing eyes she focused on Joanna were sharp and uncompromising. “Sheriff Brady?” she said, peering out crookedly from under a permanently ducked head.

“I’m Sheriff Brady,” Joanna said. “What can I do for you?” “You’re in charge here?”

“And you’re investigating my sister’s death-Alice Rogers’ death?”

“I’m not doing that personally,” Joanna said. “I have two detectives who are handling the case.”

“I suppose they’ve already spoken to that worthless niece and nephew of mine.”

“Susan Jenkins and Clete Rogers?” Joanna said. “Yes, they’ve both been spoken to, but I doubt they’ve been interviewed in much detail so far. It’s still too early in the investigation for that.”

“But you will be talking to them.”

“My detectives will.”

“Well, then,” Jessie Monroe said. “I want you to give them a piece of my mind.”

Jessie’s walker had what looked like a bicycle basket attached between the two handles. At that point, Jessie reached into the basket, pulled out a clothbound book and dropped it onto Joanna’s desk.

“What’s this?”

“What does it look like?” Jessie demanded. “It’s a book.”

Joanna picked it up and examined the cover. “My Life and Times,” it said. “By Alice Monroe Rogers.”

“Your sister wrote this?” Joanna asked.

Jessie Monroe nodded. “Paid good money to have it printed, too. She wanted people to know about her, about who she really was. I watch all those programs on TV,” Jessie continued. “You know the ones-’Law and Order’ and all those other things they call police dramas. It seems to me, the dead people never get to tell their side of the story. The people in authority only learn what the people who are left want to tell them, which may or may not be the truth. I wanted someone to know what Alice thought instead of hearing what her kids think she thought. There’s a big difference, you know. A big difference.”

“Won’t you please sit down,” Joanna said, motioning Jessie Monroe toward one of the captain’s chairs on the far side of her desk. “Would you care for something to drink? Coffee? A soda?”

“A glass of water would be nice. I am feeling a bit parched.”

Joanna summoned Kristin and asked her to bring water. Then she turned back to her guest. “You don’t sound particularly fond of your niece and nephew.”

“Fond? Absolutely not. They’re both next thing to worthless. Cletus never amounted to a hill of beans. How he ever got himself elected mayor is more than I’ll ever know. Susan always drank like a fish. Still does, as far as I know. And then she went and married that long-haired freak who sells cars out in Sierra Vista. Have you ever seen him?”

“I’ve met him,” Joanna said.

“He doesn’t do a thing for me,” Jessie Monroe announced. “Thinks he’s something of a ladies’ man-like that weird guy who does all those margarine commercials on TV. Stringy hair all the way down to his shoulders. Girl’s hair. Twice as long as Susan’s. Wears it in a ponytail some of the time. For the most part, it just hangs loose around his ears. One of those guys with a Custer complex.”

“Custer?” Joanna asked.

“General George Armstrong Custer. Except I don’t suppose he ever wore earrings,” Jessie sniffed. “Ross Jenkins does, you know. Two or three to an ear.”

Kristin came in with water. Jessie took the glass, emptied it with several long unladylike gulps, and then handed it back. “Thank you,” she said. “Much obliged. Now, then, to get back to Alice. She was the baby of the family. I’m the oldest. Eleven years difference between us. But even with the age difference, we were always friends and I always looked out for her. Some of my brothers and sisters I can pretty much take or leave, but Alice and I were good friends. You know what I mean?”

Joanna nodded. “I think so,” she said.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Jessie Monroe’s eyes misted with tears. She groped in her pocket and found a hankie. “You’ll have to excuse me. I still haven’t quite accepted the idea that she’s gone. I always assumed I’d be the one who’d go first, you see. Anyway, Susan called me this morning. She’s the ‘full of business’ one in the family. She called to let me know what had happened. She said Alice had been killed up near Tucson. She said the authorities seem to think some young Mexican boys did it, although Susan seems to have her own ideas on that score.”