After church, with Nick and Jenny gone, the house went quiet. Joanna and Butch spent the afternoon watching NFL football. Dinner that night was Thanksgiving dinner revisited. This time there was no engagement ring on anyone’s slice of leftover pumpkin pie.
Chapter 7
Bisbee, Arizona
Monday, November 27, 2023
On Monday morning, Joanna arrived at work a fewminutes late and a little bleary-eyed. She had spent a good part of the night worrying about Jenny’s working the graveyard shift. Obviously nothing out of the ordinary had happened or Joanna would have heard about it by now. She headed straight to Tom Hadlock’s office. Her chief deputy was already at his desk.
“How are things?” she asked.
Tom checked his watch. “Everybody’s packed and ready to go.” His phone rang. He picked it up, listened for a moment, and then said. “Okay, I’ll be right there.” Standing up he told Joanna, “Gotta go. Chain Gang’s waiting in the sally port.”
With that he hustled out of his office, and Joanna returned to her own. Chain Gang was Arizona law enforcement’s moniker for a network of fifteen-passenger vans that traveled the state, transporting incarcerated individuals from one location to another. Today ten of Joanna’s nonviolent long-term inmates would be traveling from the Cochise County Jail to Saguaro Hills, a recently opened but privately operated medium-security penal facility north of Phoenix. Joanna wouldn’t have known that was even an option had she not attended Jenny’s graduation.
During the reception following the ceremony, Joanna had spotted Sheriff Fellows with his wheelchair parked at a table. She had met him before—and had actually played poker with him at a couple of the statewide Sheriff’s Association gatherings, but those events had been strictly professional. Now he was Jenny’s boss, so as Joanna had approached his table, she wasn’t quite sure how to handle the situation.
“Hey, there, Sheriff Brady,” Fellows said when he saw her. “How are things down in Cochise County?”
Joanna set her coffee down on the table. “Let’s see,” she said. “My jail inmates are on the warpath because the place is jammed to the gills. Turns out I’m short on space for solitary confinement. The only way to get more of that involves doing a major remodel of the jail. The plans are drawn up, but the planning and zoning folks are driving me nuts.”
Much to Joanna’s surprise, Sheriff Fellows had broken into a burst of hearty laughter. “Tell me about it,” he said, “and just you wait. Once you’ve finished doing battle with planning and zoning, you’ll have to deal with building inspectors out the kazoo.”
“Sounds like you’ve been there and done that,” Joanna observed.
“Actually I have,” Fellows replied with a nod. “Nobody in Pima County ever expected a newly elected sheriff to be someone stuck in a wheelchair. The sheriff’s restroom facilities were anything but handicapped friendly. Supposedly it was reserved for my use only, but I couldn’t get my wheelchair inside it, much less turn it around. Just because the building inspectors work for the same county I do doesn’t mean they gave us any breaks. The bathroom remodel took for damned ever!”
“I’m not alone then?” Joanna asked.
“Hardly,” Fellows said, but by then the laughter had gone out of his voice. “About your overcrowding situation, though, have you heard of a place called Saguaro Hills?”
“Never. What is it?”
“A privately operated medium-security facility that just openednorth of Phoenix. Right now they’ve got lots of bed availability and not enough takers.”
“So?”
“You know about all those twofer deals at Safeway—buy one get one free?”
Joanna nodded.
“Right now, Saguaro Hills has a similar deal—sort of a grand-opening special. You can send five inmates and only pay for four. You’re not the only one dealing with too many inmates and not enough room. I penciled it out. Even after paying to have some of my inmates transported there, with this special deal, the cost’s not much more than housing them at home.”
Joanna had known instantly that shipping out ten of her inmates would go a long way toward solving the problem. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll look into it.”
She had started to get to her feet at that point, but Fellows had motioned her back into her chair.
“There wasn’t any favoritism, you know,” he said. “I didn’t hire Jenny because you and I know each other. Believe me, after that year of working for the MMIV, she was miles ahead of all the other applicants. She’s top-drawer.”
“I did wonder,” Joanna admitted, “so thank you for saying that.”
“You’re welcome,” Fellows said, “and don’t worry, Sheriff Brady. I’m pretty sure my brand-new Deputy Brady will do just fine.”
Settled at her desk, Joanna went to work on her usual Monday morning agenda. Two hours later Detectives Howell and Raymond showed up in her office.
“Autopsy’s over?”
Both detectives nodded.