Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [133]
Joanna sighed. “It’s the best we can do. If we can put the heads of the syndicate out of business and hand some of them jail time, maybe we can keep some other poor families from being slaughtered the same way.”
She stood up then. Her whole body ached. She was still paying the price for the three hours she had spent the night before lying on hard rocky ground. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “I’m so tired I can barely hold my head up.”
She went into the bedroom and slept so soundly that she never heard Butch come to bed. During the night she dreamed she was out on High Lonesome Road, attempting to plant a flower-covered cross in the middle of the road at exactly the same spot where she’d discovered Andy’s helpless body all those years ago—where she’d found her husband unconscious and lying in a pool of his own blood.
Again and again she tried to pound the cross into the hard, unyielding ground. Again and again, the rock-hard caliche rejected it. When Joanna awakened, the sun was just coming up, and her face was wet with tears. She looked across the bed to the spot where Butch lay, snoring softly. It was a dream Joanna didn’t understand, but she knew, whatever it meant, she probably wouldn’t be telling Butch about it.
Lady lay on the rug on Joanna’s side of the bed. The dog sensed Joanna was awake, and she raised her head warily as if she expected a mad dash to the bathroom, but it didn’t come. For some reason, the nausea was in abeyance that morning. Joanna reached down and patted Lady’s head, then she motioned for the dog to join her on the bed. Carefully, without disturbing Butch, Lady eased herself up onto the covers. Then, after circling three times, she nestled herself against Joanna’s body and, with a contented sigh, fell back asleep.
Moments later, Joanna did, too.
Twenty
On Friday morning, when Joanna arrived at the county offices for the weekly board of supervisors meeting, she was astonished to find the usually empty parking lot crammed full of vehicles, which forced her to park at the far end of the lot. On her way to the door she was greeted by a milling group of protesters, all of them carrying placards. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS UNFAIR TO ANIMALS several of them said. Others said SEVENTEEN TOO MANY. And then she knew. The folks from Animal Welfare Experience were at it again, only this time they were targeting someone besides her.
At the door to the building, Tamara Haynes was busy berating Charles Longworth Neighbors, the newest and Joanna’s least favorite member of the board of supervisors. “Have you even been to Animal Control?” Tamara demanded. “Do you have any idea how shorthanded they are?”
Joanna was gratified to see the AWE activist tackling somebody else for a change. And now that Sally Delgado, one of the first office clerks, had quit the department to work full-time on Ken Junior’s campaign, Joanna was relatively sure her information leak had been plugged.
“Ms. Haynes,” Neighbors began as Joanna edged past them, “you have to understand—”
But Tamara Haynes was on a roll, and she paid no attention. “And why did you deep-six that animal-adoption program they wanted to start—the one that would have taken strays to various shopping centers in hopes of finding owners? We need to get unwanted animals off death row, and if you think we don’t vote, Mr. Neighbors, you’re in for a rude awakening. Right, folks?”
The last comment was greeted by cheers all around.
For the first time, Joanna was forced to consider that perhaps Tamara Haynes did care about animals, after all. Perhaps the demonstration outside the Cochise County Justice Center had been something more than a strictly political plot to further Ken Junior’s chances of winning the election.
“Really, Ms. Haynes,” Neighbors was saying, looking decidedly uncomfortable, while his eyes remained focused on the little diamond sparkler winking at him from Tamara Haynes’s very much exposed belly button. “As I said,” he continued awkwardly, “I’m already late for a meeting. You’ll have to excuse me.”
He broke away from his