“I didn’t actually talk to Bobo today,” Jaime said. “What I got instead was a call from Burton Kimball. He says he’ll be along for the ride when Bobo Jenkins comes to talk to us at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Joanna was surprised. “Bobo’s bringing Cochise County’s premier defense attorney along for the interview? How come?”

“You tell me. I told Mr. Kimball all we want is to ask Bobo a few routine questions. Burton hinted that he thought our reasons for wanting to talk to his client were possibly politically or racially motivated.”

“Politically or racially motivated?” Joanna repeated. “What kind of nonsense is that?”

“I’ve heard talk that Bobo Jenkins is thinking of running for mayor,” Jaime offered.

“He can run for governor, for all I care,” Joanna shot back, angered by the implication. “Bobo is one of the last people who saw Latisha Wall alive. He was also raising hell in Castle Rock Gallery yesterday morning, not long before Dee Canfield and Warren Gibson disappeared. Of course we need to talk to him. That’s not race or politics; that’s police work. If Bobo feels a need to have Burton Kimball along to hold his hand, it’s his problem, not ours.”

There was a pause. “Are you okay, boss?” Jaime asked.

“What do you mean, am I okay?” Joanna demanded, trying not to sound as irritable as she felt. “Of course I’m okay.”

“Kristin told me that you went home early, which, you have to admit, isn’t like you,” he said. “She thought you weren’t feeling well, and you do sound a little…”

“A little what?”

“Well… cranky,” Jaime replied reluctantly.

Joanna didn’t want to sound cranky. Or unreasonable. “I’m fine, Jaime,” she assured him, deliberately softening her tone. “What time is that Bobo Jenkins interview again?”

“Ten.”

When her other homicide detective, Ernie Carpenter, had asked to take a full week of vacation all at once, it hadn’t seemed like that big a deal. “When’s Ernie due home?” she asked.

“Monday.”

“I wish it was sooner, but that’s the way it is. All right, then. If Bobo is bringing the big guns in with him, you’d better have some backup as well. Call Frank Montoya and ask him to be there with you.”

“Will do,” Jaime agreed.

“All the same,” Joanna added, “I’ll be in the office. When you’re done with the interview, come tell me how it went.”

“Okeydokey,” Jaime Carbajal responded. “Who needs weekends anyway?”

He hung up and Joanna turned back to Butch. “What was that all about?” he asked.

Joanna explained as best she could.

“Dee Canfield,” Butch said. “The woman who disappeared. Who’s she again?”

“She owns the gallery where Rochelle/Latisha’s art was going to be exhibited. Even with the artist dead, she was going to go through with the grand opening last night, but then she didn’t. Jaime Carbajal tried to go to the party himself, but the gallery was closed up tight, and it still is, more than twenty-four hours later.”

Butch lifted a pot lid to check on the potatoes. “I can hardly wait to read next week’s paper,” he said. “No doubt Marliss will figure out a way to make all of this your fault as well.”

At that moment Jenny meandered into the kitchen. “What’s your fault?” she asked, opening the refrigerator door and examining the contents. “What’s for dinner?” she added. “It smells good, and I’m starved.”

“Pork chops and gravy,” Butch replied. “Along with mashed potatoes, string beans, and apple sauce.”

“Great,” Jenny said. “Everything except the string beans.” Butch’s fried pork chops were her unqualified favorite. Reaching for a clean glass, she poured herself some milk.

“So what’s your fault, Mom?” Jenny asked, sipping her milk and studying her mother’s face over the rim of the glass.

“At the moment, one person is dead and two others are missing,” Butch explained. “I was saying that in Marliss Shackleford’s next column, she’ll probably try to blame all of it on your mother. That’s Marliss’s usual modus operandi.”

“Oh,” Jenny said, taking her half-empty glass and heading into the dining room. “Is that all? I thought you guys were back to talking about putting a train track in the family room.”

Butch shot Joanna a quizzical look. Joanna sighed.

Thanks, Jen, she thought. You’ve just provided a perfect ending to a perfect day!

Eight

IT WASN’T A PARTICULARLY NICE WAY to begin celebrating my birthday. For one thing, I had to be up and out of Belltown Terrace by five in the morning in order to make that 7 A.M. Alaska Airlines flight to Tucson. It was pitch-dark as I climbed into a cigarette-smoke-saturated cab driven by a non-communicative maniac. I wasn’t about to give the state of Washington access to the condo’s communal limo.

The rain was pouring down as we headed for the airport, but I didn’t regard that as any kind of ill omen. After all, it was the last week in October. Everybody knows it rains like mad in Seattle in October. And maybe that’s why the seven-o’clock plane to Tucson was loaded to the gills. It was full of people wanting to trade chill autumn rain for one last glimpse of sun along with a whole wad of purple-and-gold-bedecked rowdy Husky fans on their way to a U Dub/U of A football game.

When I reached my row, I discovered I was in the back of the plane in the middle seat, squashed between two very large men. I’m not exactly a lightweight, but these two guys dwarfed me. One was a twenty-something weight lifter with massive shoulders. The other was in his mid-to-late seventies and had probably never been in a gym in his life. His shoulder muscles had come about the old-fashioned way – by doing hard physical labor. He was an old codger with several missing teeth and amazingly bad breath. He read every word of his in-flight magazine, moving his lips constantly and showing off those missing teeth as he did so.

Resigned to two and a half hours of misery, I settled into my seat as best I could, closing my eyes and hoping to nap my way to Arizona. I willed myself into unconsciousness and thought about the previous evening’s night on the town with Naomi Pepper.

We’d had a nice-enough dinner. The food at Bis on Main was wonderful and the service impeccable. Even so, the evening hadn’t turned out to be the complete success either Naomi or I had envisioned. I could tell when I stopped by the mall to pick her up after work that Naomi wasn’t a happy camper.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s my mother,” she said.

In the month or so that Naomi Pepper and I had been hanging out together, I had gleaned bits and pieces of information about her mother, Katherine Foley. Putting those pieces together, I had determined Katherine was something of a handful. Twice widowed and once divorced, she had now been abandoned by her most recent boy toy.

Some of Katherine’s wilder antics – like insisting on doing her weekly shopping at midnight in her local Albertson’s in full evening-wear regalia – verged on Auntie Mame behavior. It’s easier to deal with Auntie Mame when the person in question is some distant relative, preferably a second cousin. When the kook turns out to be your very own mother, all bets are off. That evening I realized that being Katherine Foley’s daughter had turned into tough duty for Naomi Pepper.

“What about her?” I asked.

To my surprise, Naomi’s eyes filled with tears. “Let’s not talk about it right now,” she said. “We’re having a fun birthday celebration. I don’t want anything to spoil it.”

“Tell me about your mother,” I insisted.

“She wants to move in with me,” Naomi said finally, after taking a deep breath. “She’s just this week been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. She’s worried about continuing to live on her own now that Geoff has taken off for parts unknown. I don’t know much about Parkinson’s disease, but I suppose she has a point. But she’s so incredibly bossy, Beau. She’s forever trying to run my life by remote control. If I let her move in…”