Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [134]
“What set them off was having all those animals die at the scene of that homicide last week,” Joanna told him.
“That’s certainly not my fault,” Neighbors grumbled. “I don’t see how they can hold the board of supervisors responsible for that.”
“But they know Animal Control is shorthanded,” Joanna replied. “If we’d had enough personnel to keep an eye on hoarders like Carol Mossman, she might not have ended up with so many animals in her possession at the time of her death.”
“What did you call her?”
“A hoarder,” Joanna said. “Carol Mossman was what’s called an animal hoarder. It’s a mental condition.”
“Really,” Charles Longworth Neighbors said with a concerned frown. “I had no idea. And what’s this about all that adoption nonsense?”
“It’s not nonsense,” Joanna returned. “The more pets we place in adoptive homes, the fewer we have to euthanize.”
They were nearing the boardroom now. Charles Longworth Neighbors appeared to be lost in thought. “How many people do you think were out there?” he asked.
“Out in the parking lot? Fifty, I suppose,” Joanna answered.
“On a Friday morning,” he mused. “That’s quite a few. Do you think they really do vote?”
In that moment Sheriff Joanna Brady understood exactly what was at stake. Charles Longworth Neighbors had been appointed to fill out someone else’s unexpired term. Now he faced the prospect of running for election on his own and based on his own record.
In the years since her election, Joanna Brady had learned a little about politics herself.
“I’d be amazed to think they didn’t,” she said. “Vote, that is. And if they can summon this many folks for a Friday morning rally, who knows how many votes they can muster?”
This was news Charles Longworth Neighbors clearly found disturbing. “We should do something about this,” he said.
“Yes,” Joanna agreed amiably. “We certainly should.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
Yes, Joanna thought, like breaking Animal Control out of the sheriff’s department and putting Jeannine Phillips in charge.
“One or two,” Joanna said.
“Good, good,” Neighbors said distractedly as he held the boardroom door open for Joanna to enter. “Write up something on that and get it to me, would you, please? I’ll put it on the agenda for next week.”
“Sure,” Joanna said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
She took her seat in the room and waited for the meeting to get under way. It was hard not to smile. After all, doing what it took to give the AWE vote to Charles Longworth Neighbors was also going to help Sheriff Brady.
Frank Montoya showed up just as the meeting was called to order. He leaned over to her and asked, “What’s going on? You look like you just won the lottery.”
“Tell you later,” she said.
The meeting that morning wasn’t as bad as meetings sometimes were, but when Joanna emerged just before noon, she wasn’t surprised to see that the protesters had evaporated in the face of the hot sun. She checked her phone and found she had five missed calls. Scrolling through them, she discovered they were all from home. She called there immediately. Jenny answered on the second ring.
“Hi, Mom.”
“What’s going on?” Joanna demanded. “Is anything wrong?”
“No,” Jenny said. “Everything’s fine. Butch and I just got back from taking Lucky to the vet. Dr. Ross says Butch is right. Lucky is stone-deaf. She gave us the name of a book on sign language for dogs. She said we might be able to train all the dogs to respond to hand signals. Wouldn’t that be neat?”
“Yes, it would. Is Butch there?”
“No. He’s in town. He said that if you called, he’d meet you at Daisy’s for lunch.”
“Want to grab some lunch?” Frank asked, coming up behind her.
“Sorry,” Joanna told him. “It turns out I’m having lunch with my husband.”
As she drove to Daisy’s, Joanna had to pull over at the traffic circle to let a funeral cortege go past. She knew whose funeral it was—Stella Adams’s—and she was glad the windows in the limo following the hearse