Free Desert Heat by J. A. Jance Page B

hour for five minutes at a time. You’ll barely know I’m gone.”
    Five minutes later when Joanna returned to the waiting room, Eleanor was engrossed in Noontime Edition, Tucson’s local version of the noon news. “It’s a good thing you got back in time,” she said. “You’d better come watch. When this commercial is over, they’re going to have something on about Andy.”
    Joanna hurried over to the television set. “Really? About Andy? On the Tucson news?”
    “That’s right.”
    The commercial ended and the screen switched to the newsroom set. A female anchor with a beauty-pageant smile turned her charm full on the camera.
    “From Bisbee, this morning, we have learned that a Cochise County Sheriff’s Deputy, who is also a candidate for the office of sheriff, has been hospitalized in critical condition with a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound. In addition, the injured man is currently being investigated for alleged connections to Wayne M. “Lefty” O’Toole, a suspected drug-runner, found shot to death near Guaymas last week.
    “Sources close to the investigation say that evidence linking Andrew Brady with the murder victim had been found by Mexican officials at the crime scene north of Guaymas. Brady is a declared candidate in a contest to oust longterm Cochise County Sheriff, Walter V. McFadden.
    “For more on that, here’s Noontime Edition’s on-the-scene correspondent, Roger Cannon, speaking to you from the courthouse in Bisbee.”
    Not believing her ears, Joanna sank into a chair next to her mother.
    “What in the world are they talking about?” Eleanor asked.
    “Hush,” Joanna hissed. “Listen.”
    The picture on the screen switched to a young man posing in front of Bisbee’s copper-toned Iron Man, the statue of a barechested man—a well-muscled miner—wielding a sledgehammer and drill.
    “Late last night and early this morning, this small southern Arizona mining community was shocked to learn that a well-respected local police officer who is running for the position of sheriff, Deputy Andrew Brady, had been wounded in what investigators now say was an apparently unsuccessful suicide attempt. Brady was rushed to University Hospital in Tucson where he remains in guarded condition.
    “Earlier this morning federal Drug Enforcement Agency officers notified the Cochise County Sheriff’s department that they were beginning a wholesale investigation of Brady’s possible involvement with slain convicted drug runner, Lefty O’Toole, who also hails from the Bisbee area.
    “O’Toole, who once served as Andrew Brady’s high school football coach, was a man who, in recent years, was suspected of utilizing his Vietnam-era piloting experience in the lucrative field of transporting illegal drugs across the Mexican border.
    “People here in town have told me that O’Toole taught at Bisbee High School briefly in the late seventies, but his teaching contract was terminated over an alleged drug violation. He was living near Guaymas at the time of his death. The exact nature of the connection between Andrew Brady and Lefty O’Toole is not known at this time.”
    “Why, did you ever!” Eleanor Lathrop exclaimed. Joanna waved her to silence.
    “I’m speaking now with Richard Voland, Chief Deputy for the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department,” the reporter continued. “Mr. Voland, before this morning was anyone in your department aware of the DEA’s possible investigation into the activities of Deputy Brady?”
    Richard Voland’s face appeared on the screen looking tired and angry. “No,” he said. “Absolutely not. We had no idea.”
    “Is it possible that Andrew Brady somehow learned of the impending investigation and that’s what prompted last night’s unfortunate events?”
    “It’s possible, of course,” Richard Voland agreed, “but I don’t see how Andy could have known since we didn’t find out ourselves until mid-morning today.”
    “Cochise County Sheriff, Walter