Marliss obviously had sources inside the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. I wondered who those sources might be. Rather than asking, though, I simply raised my bottle of O’Doul’s and clinked it on her glass.

“See there?” I said. “Since you already know so much about it, I don’t understand why you need to talk to me at all.”

“All right,” she admitted, dropping her ploy of fake innocence for the moment. “I know who you are and where you’re from, but I still don’t know why you’re here. Is it because your boss…?”

“Ross Connors,” I supplied. “He’s the Washington State Attorney General.”

“Are you here because Mr. Connors has no faith in Sheriff Brady’s ability to bring this case to a successful conclusion?”

Marliss Shackleford waited for my answer with her pen poised over a small notebook and with her eyes sparkling in anticipation, like a cat ready to spring on some poor unsuspecting sparrow. She clearly wanted me to say that I thought Sheriff Joanna Brady was incompetent. And, much as I might have liked to – much as I thought Joanna Brady to be an arrogant little twit – I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was incapable of saying so to a reporter, much less to a newspaper columnist.

“From what I can see,” I told her guardedly, “Sheriff Brady is doing a credible job, especially since her department is so short-handed. She seems to have only one detective on the job, and he’s having to deal with two separate homicides. Her plate is pretty full.”

Marliss’s eager expression faded to disappointment. She put down her pen. “Ernie’s on vacation,” she told me unnecessarily.

“Ernie?” I asked.

“Ernie Carpenter. He’s the sheriff’s department’s other detective. He and his wife, Rose, are off on an anniversary trip – their thirtieth.”

Bully for them, I thought. God spare me from living in a small town.

“So you think the county investigators are doing a good job?” Marliss continued.

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

“And your function is?”

“I’m here as an observer,” I told her. “An interested observer; nothing more.”

“I see.” She frowned briefly, then added. “I understand Latisha Wall’s sister is in town. Have you talked to her?”

“I’m not sure there’s any reason for me to talk to her,” I fudged. “As I said, I’m observing, not investigating.”

Marliss tried coming at me from another direction. “I believe the sheriff’s department investigators interviewed a suspect today.”

The columnist certainly did have an inside track. Now it was my turn to play innocent. “Really?” I asked.

She nodded. “The guy’s a local, someone who’s lived around here for years. His name is Bobo Jenkins – LaMar Jenkins, actually. He and Latisha were a romantic item for several months. I suppose there’s a possibility that Latisha Wall’s death could have resulted from some kind of domestic dispute. What do you think of that idea?”

Cops don’t talk to the press about critical aspects of ongoing investigations. Those are words I’ve lived by for most of my adult life. Joanna Brady’s actions may have provoked me beyond endurance, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that much of a flip-flop.

“I don’t think I should comment about that one way or the other.” I said.

“You think it’s true then?”

“No. I said, ‘No comment.’ There’s a difference.”

The desk clerk came through the doorway and poked his head into the bar. “Hey, Marliss,” he said, “I’ve got a call for you. Want to take it here or in the lobby?”

“Lobby,” she said.

Marliss got up and left me sitting alone. On this cool Saturday night the bar was filling up with people, most of whom seemed to know one another. I was relieved that none of the bikers from the Blue Moon were in evidence. Alone in that crowded room, I thought about what it might be like to be a homicide cop in a small burg like this – a place where almost every victim and suspect would be someone known to you and where every move you made would be accomplished under the glaring spotlight of local reporters who knew you, the victims, and the perps. That kind of case-solving was definitely not for me.

And I also thought about having a drink, just one, maybe, in honor of my birthday. But before I made up my mind one way or the other, Marliss returned looking flushed and excited.

“That was Kevin,” she explained breathlessly. “He’s our reporter. He just heard that the second victim has been identified. Tentatively, of course. Not officially.”

“Really,” I said nonchalantly.

If I had acted as though I were vitally interested in the information, I doubt Marliss would have told me. Since I gave every indication that I couldn’t care less, she eagerly filled me in.

“Her name is Deidre Canfield,” Marliss said in a stage whisper that was entirely unnecessary since no one in the bar was paying us the slightest visible attention. “Dee owned an art gallery here in town. She and Latisha Wall were friends. This is all confidential, of course. It’s totally on the QT until there’s been an official notification of next of kin. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Of course not,” I agreed.

“But I have to go back to the paper and check something out,” Marliss added. “I did a profile of Dee Canfield a year or so ago, when she first came to town. I’ll be able to reuse some of that material. I won’t print anything prematurely, you understand, but if I write it right now while it’s all still fresh, then the column will be ready the moment the coast is clear.”

As I said before, between living in big cities or little towns, give me the city any day of the week.

Fourteen

AFTER MARLISS SHACKLEFORD LEFT, I found I needed either a drink or some air and space. Upon reflection, I took myself for a walk. It was well after dark by then and much chillier than the toasty daytime temperatures would have led me to expect. I was glad I was still wearing my wrinkled blazer as I wandered through narrow, crooked streets. The two- and three-story buildings I saw reminded me of those in downtown Ballard back home in Seattle. I wondered what Bisbee must have been like back in its heyday, back when domestic copper production was still a moneymaking proposition.

Here and there streetlights revealed ghostly traces of old signs painted on the sides of brick buildings, just barely still legible. They testified to the more abundant and diverse commercial past in small-town America – Western Auto, Woolworth’s, JCPenney. But those bedrock businesses had long since deserted Bisbee, just as they had deserted countless other communities across the nation. Now the buildings had different occupants. It looked as though the current crop of merchants and organizations catered to tourism – a mining museum, an antiques mall, and a mostly used bookstore. The bars, of course, hadn’t gone away. Maybe you couldn’t buy a hammer and nails on Main Street in Bisbee, Arizona, anymore, but Coors on tap was readily available.

Naturally, as I walked, my mind strayed back to Anne. Had she walked this winding canyon street as a little girl? Had she bought an Etch A Sketch in Woolworth’s or an Easter outfit in JCPenney?

And, as often happens when I think of Anne, I see her again as I did that very first time. It’s a cloudless spring afternoon in Seattle’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Wearing that bright red dress, she’s striding across the green grass toward Angela Barstogi’s open grave. The dowdily dressed mourners from Faith Tabernacle all stand aside to let her pass, parting before her commanding presence as the waters of the Red Sea did for Moses.

She stops only when she reaches the grave. Her hair is long and dark. A slight breeze ruffles it around her face, and I realize I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful or so undeniably sad.

The crowd is dumbstruck, and so am I. No one moves. Even the overbearing Pastor Michael Brodie is stunned to silence. Then slowly, gracefully, she raises her hand. A single rose drifts away from her open fingers and falls gently onto the casket of a small, murdered child.