“I saw the house you redid in Saginaw,” Joanna told him. “I’m sure whatever decisions you make will be fine with me.”

“Still,” he said. “There are things we should talk about. Marriages don’t work well when one person makes too many unilateral decisions. I’m not going ahead until you’ve officially signed off on everything, from countertops to cabinets.”

Joanna wanted the new house. She was looking forward to living in it, but she dreaded the process of getting there. If only she could bring herself to tell Butch how she had grown up listening to her parents squabble endlessly over one of D.H. Lathrop’s grindingly slow remodeling projects after another.

“All right,” she said, and sat down.

They had eaten lunch and were making good progress through the various blueprints until they got to a detailed rendering of the family room. “What’s this?” Joanna asked, pointing to a line that went all the way around the room, just above the doorjambs and window frames.

“That’s the train shelf,” Butch told her proudly.

“The what?”

“Remember the O-gauge Lionel trains I used to have on display up at the Roundhouse? They’ve been in storage ever since I came to Bisbee. I decided the family room would be a great place to put them out again – in sight but not in the way. And by putting it in now, during the building process, the wiring can be built into the conduit in the walls behind the shelf.”

As he spoke, Butch brimmed with enthusiasm. Now he stopped and glanced sharply at Joanna’s face. “Don’t you like it?”

“A train in the family room?” she asked uneasily.

“Several, actually,” Butch answered. “I have six. There won’t be enough room to have all of them out at once, but…”

“Wouldn’t it be better to have just a television set, some sound equipment, and a couch and some chairs in there?” Joanna asked tentatively. “Having pictures on the walls would be fine, but trains?”

Butch’s face fell. “All right,” he said glumly. “I’ll get rid of it, but at this rate, I might just as well get rid of the trains, too.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well,” he said, “why not? If I’ve got no place to display them – if I have to leave them packed up and in storage all the time – what’s the point of having them?”

“Butch, please, I never said you should get rid of your trains.”

“It sounded like it to me.”

Joanna’s cell phone rang. Butch rolled his eyes and crossed his arms as she plucked it out of her pocket to answer it. Detective Jaime Carbajal was on the line. “What’s up?” she asked.

“According to Doc Winfield, we just ran into a problem,” Jaime said.

More than one, Joanna thought, looking at Butch. Scowling, he had returned to studying the family-room blueprint. “Like what?” she asked.

“Our victim’s name isn’t Rochelle Baxter,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Latisha Wall, originally from Macon, Georgia.”

“Okay,” Joanna said. “She went by a different name. How come? Does she have a record?”

“No.”

Joanna was losing patience playing Twenty Questions. “What’s the deal?”

“The ME tracked down one Lawrence Baxter, supposedly her father and the person the DMV lists as her next of kin. Turns out he doesn’t exist, either. Doc Winfield ended up talking to some guy in the Washington State Attorney General’s Office in Olympia. His name’s O.H. Todd, and he claims he’s Latisha Wall’s case manager. She was evidently in a witness protection program.”

“They gave her a new name and identity and set her up to live down here in Arizona?” Joanna asked.

“That’s right,” Jaime said. “Except now she’s dead. Doc Winfield said the guy in Olympia almost had a coronary when he heard what had happened.”

“What was she a witness about?”

“Todd wasn’t saying, at least not to Doc Winfield,” Jaime replied. “Said he had to check with his superiors before he could release any information to anyone, including us. However, he did request that he be kept informed about all aspects of the investigation. He gave Doc Winfield the name, phone number, and address of Latisha’s mother and sister back home in Georgia. The father is deceased, and the mother is in poor health. The ME says authorities from Washington will contact the next of kin.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Joanna said. “What about the preliminary results from the autopsy?”

“Inconclusive. No wounds of any kind. No bruises or abrasions. No defensive wounds that would indicate a struggle, and no sign of disease, either. Doc’s not willing to say she died of natural causes, though. He’s ordering a full set of toxicology tests. You know how long those take.”

“Weeks,” Joanna murmured.

“Right,” Jaime said. “So where does that leave us?”

Joanna thought for a moment before she answered. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll handle this case like a full-blown homicide investigation until we know otherwise. If we learn later that Latisha Wall took her own life or died from some kind of accidental poisoning, all we’ll be out are the man-hours we’ve devoted to the investigation. But we have to pay attention right now, while the evidence is fresh. If someone did murder her and we wait for toxicology reports, the trail will be cold by the time we start looking for the perp.”

“What should I do then?” Jaime asked.

“Go back to the crime scene,” Joanna said without hesitation. “Make sure Dave and Casey went over every inch of that place without missing anything. I want you to check with the alarm company and see if there was anything the least bit out of kilter in the last few days or weeks. Talk to people. Canvass the neighborhood.”

“I’m on it, boss,” Jaime said. “Anything else?”

“Yes. You should interview Bobo Jenkins up in Old Bisbee, since he and Rochelle Baxter had something going. Bobo told me he was in her home last evening. He must be the last person to have seen her alive.”

“You think he’s involved?” Jaime asked.

“He and Shelley Baxter were romantically involved,” Joanna replied. “But if you’re asking if I think he killed her, the answer is no. I personally told him about what had happened. He was absolutely devastated.”

“He could have been acting,” Jaime suggested.

“Wasn’t,” Joanna returned.

“All right,” Detective Carbajal said. “I’m on my way.”

Joanna shut off the phone and turned back to Butch. He had sat down in front of the family room blueprint. The disappointed expression on his face made her feel as though she’d just told some unsuspecting kindergartner that there was no Santa Claus.

“Butch, if you really want to have a train shelf, it’ll be fine. I can live with it.”

“You’re not supposed to live with it,” he countered. “You’re supposed to love it.”

“The rest of the house is great,” Joanna continued. “And I do love the kitchen and the bathrooms. There’ll be so much more space than we have now. My problem is that I want the house to be sort of… well, normal,” she said finally.

“Normal as opposed to bizarre,” he said. “You’re right. It’s a dumb idea. I should just grow up.”

“We’ll find a place for your trains,” she assured him. “I promise we will.”

“Where? Not in the house. None of the other rooms are big enough.”

“We’ll sort it out. Isn’t that what marriage is all about – compromise?”

“I guess.” Butch began reassembling and rolling up the set of blueprints. “Sounds like you need to go,” he added.

“I do,” she said. “But not like this. Not if we’re quarreling.”

“We’re not quarreling,” Butch returned. “You were right; I was wrong. The train shelf’s out of there.”

“But you really wanted it.”

“Look, Joey,” he said. “You can’t have it both ways. The train shelf was an oddball idea. You happen to want normal. That’s reasonable enough. You win. We’ll have normal.”

“But I don’t want to win,” Joanna objected. “I want us both to be happy with the house.”