Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [84]
“Roast-beef hash,” Butch answered.
“In that case, the tuna sandwich was hours ago and I’m starved.”
“By the way,” Butch added, “Dr. Lee called today. Tommy said that his feelings are permanently hurt that he had to read all about your pregnancy in the Bee. He wants to know when you’re going to show up at his office for your first prenatal checkup.”
Dr. Thomas Lee, a Taiwanese immigrant, had come to Bisbee right out of medical school. He had planned to stay long enough to pay off his student loans. Ten years later, he was still there. Joanna had known him first as patient to doctor, but through his friendship with Jeff and Marianne Maculyea he had become friends with Joanna and Butch as well. Tommy Lee was also an exceptional cook who had set out to teach his group of new friends the fundamentals of Chinese cooking, which they were all still learning.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you’ll call for an appointment next week.”
“Fair enough.” Joanna went into the bedroom and slipped into shorts and a T-shirt. More comfortable now, she returned to the kitchen. “Anything else?” she asked.
“Nothing much. You remember we’re having dinner with Jim Bob and Eva Lou after church tomorrow?”
“Thanks for the reminder,” she said. “I had forgotten all about that.”
After dinner Joanna and Butch enjoyed a quiet evening together. Joanna Brady reveled in just watching TV, while several of Butch’s O-gauge trains chugged around and around the room on the shelf that had been built for them just over the tops of the windows and doors. Frank Montoya never called her, and for a change Joanna resisted calling him. If there was nothing that pressing demanding her attention, she was better off lying low. And tomorrow or the next day would be time enough to write up her reports and pass along to her investigators the information she had gleaned from her trip to New Mexico. The past few days had been hell for her department. She figured they all needed a bit of a break.
At nine-thirty, though, the phone rang. It was late enough that Joanna was tempted not to answer, but when she saw the call was coming from Jeannine Phillips of Animal Control, Joanna took it.
“What’s up?” she asked, worried that some of the AWE activists had decided to picket the Animal Control offices.
“How’s Blue Eyes?” Jeannine asked.
“You mean Lady?” Joanna returned. “Jenny renamed her, and she’s settling in fine. She’s great with the other dogs, and she’s even starting to accept Butch.”
“Good,” Jeannine said awkwardly. “That’s good.”
There was a long pause. “Is that all you wanted?” Joanna asked. “To check on the dog?”
“Well, not really.”
“What then?”
Jeannine took a deep breath. “I just wanted to thank you,” she said. “For what you said about us—about Animal Control. It was nice. When I saw it on the news, I felt like…well…like somebody had finally noticed what we’re doing here. And how.”
“You’re welcome, Jeannine,” Joanna said. “You are doing a good job.”
There was another strained pause. It seemed as though there was something else Jeannine Phillips wanted to say, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.
“It’s about hoarders,” Jeannine said. “We used to call them collectors. Now we call them hoarders. What exactly do you know about them?”
Joanna gathered her thoughts. “As I understand it, it’s a kind of mental disorder, an obsessive-compulsive disorder that causes people—women, mostly—to gather animals in hopes of taking care of them, of protecting them. The disorder can be controlled with medication and it comes back without it.”
“But do you know what causes it?”
“No,” Joanna said. “Not really.”
“The women almost always have one thing in common,” Jeannine Phillips said.
“Really. What’s that?”
There was another long pause. “They almost always have a history of childhood sexual abuse.”
For a moment Joanna had nothing to say.
“If I didn’t have this job, Sheriff Brady, I’d be one, too,” Jeannine added softly. “In fact, I guess I am one. It’s just that I don’t take the animals here to my own place. It’s why I do what I do, Sheriff Brady. But it’s