“You had to go to the reception, Joanna,” Marianne reminded her. “It’s your job.”

“I know,” Joanna said hollowly. “But I sure didn’t like it.”

There was another pause. In the background on Marianne’s end of the phone, Joanna heard a murmur of voices. “I’d better run,” she said. “Jeff needs help with baths. I just wanted to be sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” Joanna said with more conviction than she felt, because she wasn’t fine at all. And what was bothering her most was something she wasn’t ready to discuss with anyone – including Marianne Maculyea. Or with Butch Dixon, either, for that matter.

Putting down the phone, Joanna wandered into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator door and peered inside. The ladies’ auxiliary of St. Dominick’s had put on an amazing spread, but Joanna had eaten none of it. And now none of Butch’s carefully maintained leftovers looked remotely appetizing, either. Giving up, she pulled a carton of milk out of the fridge and then rummaged in the pantry for a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. Armed with cereal, a bowl, and a spoon, she settled into the breakfast nook. After a few bites she lost interest in the cereal and found herself staring, unseeing, at the game CD taped to the outside of the box.

“Damn Ken Galloway anyway!” she muttered.

He was the main reason she had been heartsick at the funeral reception. Joanna was sure it was due to arm-twisting on his part that so few deputies from her department had been in attendance. In addition to Frank Montoya, only one other deputy – a relatively new hire named Debra Howell – had defied peer pressure and come to the reception.

Not that the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department hadn’t been represented. All jail personnel who weren’t on duty had turned up, including the two guards who had escorted the inmates to the funeral earlier. And there had been plenty of representation by support staff – the clerks and secretaries who worked in the offices, crime lab, and evidence room. Casey Ledford, Joanna’s fingerprint technician, had been there, along with all but one of the emergency dispatch operators. And there were plenty of officers from other jurisdictions who had shown up out of courtesy. As a group, however, the deputies from Cochise County were notable in their absence.

Only half of Joanna’s detective division had shown up, but that was understandable. Jaime Carbajal’s eleven-year-old son, Pepe, played on the same Little League team as Yolanda Cañedo’s older son, Frankie. So Jaime and his wife, Delcia, had both been there. Detective Ernie Carpenter’s absence had nothing to do with Ken Galloway’s political machinations; he was on vacation. Ernie had reluctantly agreed to take his wife, Rose, on a weeklong trip to Branson, Missouri, in celebration of their thirtieth wedding anniversary.

So Ken Galloway hadn’t managed to keep everyone away. Still, at a time when Joanna needed the entire department to pull in the same direction, she was upset that the head of the deputies’ union local seemed determined to drive wedges among members of her department. She worried that eventually those small wedges might splinter her employees into warring factions.

The phone rang. As Joanna picked up the extension on the kitchen counter, she caught sight of the Cochise County Dispatch number on the caller ID. “Sheriff Brady here,” she said. “What’s up?”

“A 911 call came in a little while ago from down in Naco,” Dispatch operator Tica Romero reported. “When the EMTs arrived, they found a nonresponsive African-American female. They transported her to the hospital and did their best to revive her, but she was DOA.”

Joanna Brady felt the familiar clutch in her gut. Something bad had happened in her jurisdiction. It was time to go to work. “Any sign of foul play?” she asked.

“No. The general assumption is natural causes. The victim had evidently been terribly ill. There was no sign of forced entry – until the EMTs had to break in to get to her, that is. The place was locked up tight, and the screeching security alarm almost drove the medics nuts while they were working on her.”

“They closed everything back up once they left?” Joanna asked.

“The night-watch commander is sending a deputy out to make sure that’s taken care of.”

“Good,” Joanna said. “What about the body?”

“The woman’s young,” Tica Romero replied. “Somewhere in her thirties. The hospital has asked Doc Winfield to take charge of the body and do an autopsy, just to make sure that whatever she had isn’t transmittable. Since the ME’s been called out on the case, he’ll handle next-of-kin notification.”

Joanna allowed her body to relax. Dr. George Winfield, Cochise County ’s medical examiner, was married to Joanna’s mother, Eleanor. Unfortunately, George would have more on his hands than simply unmasking the cause of death, communicable or not, and locating next of kin. He’d also have to explain to his demanding wife why he was going back to work at eleven o’clock on a weekday evening.

“Better him than me,” Joanna murmured.

“Have to go,” Tica said urgently. “Another call’s coming in.”

Joanna took the phone back over to the table with her. By then, her once-crispy Cheerios had turned soggy. She went out to the laundry room and dumped the remainder, dividing it evenly between the two dog bowls. She was straightening up from doing that when Butch’s Outback pulled into the yard. She waited on the porch, watching as he opened the luggage-gate door, letting Sadie and Tigger bound out onto the ground. Together the dogs raced to the water dish and eagerly lapped up what sounded like a gallon of water each.

“You’re spoiling them,” she said, kissing Butch hello. “Sadie and Tigger are ranch dogs, remember? They’re supposed to run, not ride.”

“They ran from here over to Clayton’s place,” Butch said.

That was how they still, months after his death, referred to the ranch Joanna’s octogenarian handyman, Clayton Rhodes, had left them in his will.

“When it was time to come home,” Butch continued, “Tigger was the only one hot to trot. Sadie wasn’t interested. Once I let her into the car and Tigger figured out she was riding, he wanted a ride, too.”

“Sibling rivalry,” Joanna said with a smile. “But like I said, you’re spoiling them. Did you eat anything?”

“I had a sandwich when I got home from the funeral. What about you?”

“I just fixed myself a bowl of cereal.”

“Not very substantial,” Butch observed.

“It was all I wanted.”

He studied her face closely. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Joanna shrugged. “Going to law enforcement funerals isn’t exactly my favorite afternoon pastime.”

Butch opened the refrigerator and took out a beer. “Do you want anything?”

“Nothing,” Joanna said. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I just got off the phone with Dispatch,” she replied. “The EMTs hauled a DOA up to Copper Queen Hospital from Naco a little while ago.”

“Does that mean you have to go back out?”

Joanna shook her head. “No. Tica Romero said it looks like natural causes. The woman was evidently terribly sick. She’s George’s problem now, not mine.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Butch muttered.

“What’s going on with the house? Have you been working with Quentin all this time?”

Quentin Branch was the contractor Joanna and Butch had hired to build their new rammed-earth home.

“No,” Butch said. “The meeting didn’t last that long, but there were things I needed to do. Puttering, mostly. Making myself useful.”

While Joanna was having trouble at work with Ken Galloway, Butch Dixon was dealing with his own identity crisis. He had yet to adjust to his relatively new role as stay-at-home spouse. He had completed writing his first mystery novel, but now, while he lived through the interminable months of waiting to see if a literary agency would agree to handle his work, Butch had tackled the job of overseeing construction on the house.