Free Desert Heat by J. A. Jance

it. “Maybe you can get her to open it,” McFadden said to Jenny. “After all, I only had to beat off half my department to bring that box up here this morning. The very idea sent Dick Voland straight through the roof. He wanted it for his investigation. They all think I need to have my head examined.”
    Once more Jennifer held out the package. This time, reluctantly, Joanna took the box and slid off the red ribbon. She handed the ribbon to Jenny then carefully lifted the lid and folded back a layer of delicate green tissue paper. Inside on a bed of ferns lay two dozen beautifully formed apricot-colored roses. She had always preferred apricot ones to the more traditional, dark red kind.
    A huge lump formed in Joanna’s throat. “Oh, Mommy,” Jenny exclaimed. “They’re beautiful! Can I hold them?”
    Joanna nodded and started to hand the box over to her daughter. “There’s a card,” Jenny pointed out. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
    The card was nothing more than one of those tiny envelopes found on florist counters everywhere. Andy wasn’t one to spend money on lavish, gold-embossed, flowery greeting cards. Joanna’s name was scrawled on the out-side of the envelope in Andy’s careless hand-writing.
    With trembling fingers, Joanna tore open the envelope. Inside, on an equally tiny note card with a single red rose in the upper right hand corner were the following words:
    “JoJo. Sorry it took ten years. Love, Andy”
    She looked at the words, read them through twice more, but they didn’t make sense, so she handed the card over to Walter McFadden. “What does it mean?” he asked.
    Joanna shook her head. “I don’t have any idea.”
    Meanwhile, Jennifer had placed the box back on the table and was slowly lifting the individual roses out of their tissue wrapping, counting aloud as she went. “Mommy,” she said suddenly, “come look at this.”
    Joanna hurried to her daughter’s side. From the bottom corner of the flower box, Jennifer extracted a tiny, velvet-covered jeweler’s box which she placed in her mother’s hand. Joanna flipped up the lid. Inside lay a diamond engagement ring with a single emerald-cut stone.
    “Oh, Mommy,” Jennifer squealed. “It’s beautiful. Put it on.”
    The ring consisted of a single diamond on a gleaming gold band. Joanna pulled it out of its velvet-lined bed and slipped it on her finger where it fit perfectly, snuggling up against her plain gold wedding band. She held out her hand and the fluorescent overhead light fixture set the flawless stone gleaming.
    Walter McFadden peered down at the ring through his bifocals. “It’s pretty all right,” he said. “It’s just about as pretty as it can be.” But then, when Marianne came to admire it, the sheriff walked away. He stopped at the door and looked back, shaking his head.
    Joanna turned and caught his eye. “Be sure and tell Dick Voland about this,” she said, holding up her hand and waving it defiantly so the diamond winked in the light. “Ask him if this looks like what you’d expect from a de-pressed, unhappy, suicidal man. Ask him, sheriff, and let me know what he says.”

 
    FIVE
     
    That day had all the distorted and nightmarish reality of time spent at a carnival fun house. Hours dragged. The seconds and minutes stretched into eternity, except for those few precious moments each hour when Joanna was allowed to sit at Andy’s bedside. Those brief interludes passed in a fast-frame blur that was never long enough.
    Nature abhors a vacuum. As the hours passed, the waiting room filled and emptied of people. Neighbors from home stopped by, people Joanna knew from work or school or church. Her boss, Milo Davis, showed up with the first contingent. In a genuine show of sup-port, all of them had willingly taken time to make the two-hour, hundred-mile, one-way drive from Bisbee to Tucson. Each time Joanna emerged from Andy’s room, some of the earlier arrivals would have disappeared only to be