Joanna realized that Serenity Granger must have traveled most of the night in order to make it from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Bisbee, Arizona, by ten o’clock in the morning. The woman should have looked wrinkled and travel-worn, but she didn’t. The suit showed no trace of unwanted creases. The mass of bleached-blond curls that framed a somber face was in perfect order. Only her makeup, which had no doubt started out as perfection itself, was beginning to show a few ill effects. Her gray eye shadow was slightly smudged, and a speck of unruly mascara had dribbled down one cheek.

“I’m Sheriff Brady,” Joanna said at once, standing up and offering her hand. “I’m so sorry about the loss of your mother. Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you,” Serenity returned.

Removing a small long-strapped purse from her shoulder, she eased herself into one of the captain’s chairs and folded her well-manicured hands in her lap. “I know this is Sunday,” Serenity began. “I’m sorry to interrupt your day off, but this is too important to let go until Monday.”

“What’s too important?” Joanna asked.

Serenity chewed her lower lip. “Please understand,” she said. “This is all very difficult.”

“I’m sure it is. Take your time, Ms. Granger. Can I offer you something to drink – coffee, water?”

“Water would be nice.”

Without Kristin in the outside office, Joanna had no one to fetch it. “Hang on,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

When she returned a few minutes later, Serenity Granger sat in the same position. Now, though, under her still-folded hands Joanna spied a single piece of paper that hadn’t been there before.

“I suppose I don’t have to tell you my mother and I weren’t close,” Serenity began again with a regretful half-smile. “We didn’t have much in common.”

“There’s a lot of that going around these days,” Joanna offered encouragingly. After all, when it came to mother-daughter relationships, she and Eleanor Lathrop weren’t exactly shining examples.

“We were at loggerheads as long as I can remember,” Serenity continued. “Whatever came up, we fought about it. My mother tuned in during the sixties, dropped out, and stayed that way. I couldn’t wait to join the establishment. My mother never completed high school. I did four years of college and finished law school with honors in a year and a half. Mother never voted in her life. According to her, the Democrats are too conservative. Naturally, I’m a card-carrying Republican.” She shrugged. “What else could I do?”

Joanna nodded.

“Anyway, for years we weren’t in touch at all. In fact, for a time I didn’t know if she was dead or alive. Then, about a year ago and out of the clear blue sky, Mother sent me an e-mail. She had come into a bit of money, from my grandfather, I guess. She said she was moving to Bisbee and getting ready to open an art gallery.

“I wasn’t necessarily overjoyed to hear from her. For a while I didn’t bother to respond, but my husband’s a psychologist. Mel finally convinced me that the best thing I could do for Mother and for me, too, was to figure out a way to forgive her. Eventually I wrote back. We started by sending little notes back and forth. To my amazement, e-mail ended up bringing us closer than ever.

“I’m not sure how it happened, but for the first time I can remember we weren’t at each other’s throats. Maybe part of it was not being in the same household and having some distance between us. We’d talk about what was going on in our day-to-day lives. Even though I had been married for seven years, Mother had never met Mel. I told her about him, about our house and garden, and about both our jobs. Mel has a private practice in Cheyenne. I’m a corporate attorney for an oil-exploration company. I thought hearing that would freak her out, but it didn’t. She never said a word.

“She told me about what it was like to live in Bisbee, about the little house she had bought – the first one ever – and about the new man in her life, a guy named Warren Gibson. As a kid, that was one of the reasons I despised my mother. There was always a new man in her life. They came and went with astonishing regularity. But I could tell from the way she talked about Warren, this time things were different. She really liked the guy; really cared about him. I think she was finally ready to settle down to something permanent, and she believed Warren Gibson was it.

“She told me about the work they did together on the gallery, getting it ready to open. She also told me about the upcoming showing of Rochelle Baxter’s stuff. Mother was really excited about it and proud of having discovered someone she fully expected to turn into one of this country’s up-and-coming African-American artists.”

Serenity stopped long enough to sip her water before continuing. “She sent me this e-mail on Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, I was out of town and didn’t read it until yesterday.”

Unfolding the single piece of paper that had been lying in her lap, Serenity Granger handed Joanna the printed copy of an e-mail.

Dear Serenity,

Something terrible has happened. Rochelle Baxter is dead, murdered. She died last night sometime. The grand opening of her show is tonight. The caterer will be here in a little less than two hours. I found out about Shelley too late to cancel the food. Since I have to pay for it anyway, I decided to go ahead with the party.

The problem is Warren. He and I were among the last people to see Shelley before she died. The cops wanted to talk to both of us. Detective Carbajal is with the sheriff’s department. He told me this afternoon that they’ll also need to fingerprint us since we’d both been at Shelley’s place earlier in the day. We went there to collect the pieces from her studio to hang them here in the gallery.

When I told Warren about the fingerprint thing, he went nuts. We ended up having a huge fight. In all the months I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him so upset. He’s off doing some errands right now. I’ve been sitting here thinking about all this – thinking and wondering.

Is it possible Warren could have had something to do with what happened to Shelley? I mean, we were both there in her house. I can’t think of any other reason why the very mention of fingerprints would

The e-mail ended in midsentence. “Where’s the rest of it?” Joanna asked.

“That’s just it,” Serenity returned. “There isn’t any more. It’s like Mother had to hit the ‘Send’ button in a hurry. Warren may have come into the gallery right then, and she didn’t want him to know about her suspicions or about her sending them along to me.

“As soon as I accessed my e-mail yesterday evening, I started trying to call. I called both the gallery and the house several times and left messages. Naturally, there wasn’t any answer. Then, an hour or so later, when a Cheyenne PD patrol car stopped in front of our house, I knew what was up. The officer didn’t have to tell me Mother was dead. I already knew.

“So where’s Warren Gibson, Sheriff Brady? I am convinced he killed my mother, and he must have murdered that other woman as well. I want him caught.”

“I can assure you, Ms. Granger, so do we. Now, please excuse me for a moment while I make a phone call.”

Joanna picked up her phone. It was Sunday, after all. Frank Montoya could have been home or at church. On a hunch, though, she dialed her chief deputy’s office number. He answered after half a ring.

“You’d better come into my office, Frank,” she told him. “Dee Canfield’s daughter is here. I’m sure you and Detective Carbajal will both be interested in what she has to say. Is Jaime in, by the way?”

“No,” Frank Montoya said. “But he will be as soon as I can reach him.”