Free Judgment Call by J. A. Jance Page A

“Whatever it is, she probably didn’t do it on purpose.”

CHAPTER 5
    IT TOOK A WHILE TO EXIT THE RESTAURANT. JOANNA WAS LEAVING at the same time the thirty diners from the back room were paying for their lunches, separate checks all around. A man in his sixties, dressed in a red flannel shirt topped by a brown vest, seemed to be in charge. He hustled around trying to hurry the process.
    Eva Lou was a willing worker, but that kind of crush was more than she could handle. Eventually Daisy herself had to emerge from the kitchen and take charge of the cash register.
    Most of the participants seemed to be much the same age as their leader, fifties to sixties or even older. They were all chatting away, discussing their plans for the afternoon and evening. One of them who seemed to be several decades younger than his fellows gave Joanna a sidelong look through a pair of fashionable wire-framed glasses.
    She had been on the receiving end of looks like that numerous times. Usually the look was followed by a rude comment that had something to do with the unlikelihood of women being qualified to serve as sheriffs. She often responded to those folks with a flip comment about getting her badge out of a Cracker Jack box and her uniform from a costume shop. This time, before she had a chance to say a word, he nodded at her and smiled.
    “Nice hair,” he said. The man was the last customer in the Plein Air line. He had short reddish hair and a matching well-trimmed beard. His unexpected compliment took Joanna by surprise, and she found herself blushing.
    “Thanks,” she said. “Yours isn’t bad, either.”
    “Yes,” he agreed with a grin. “Redheads rule.”
    He left then, allowing Joanna to step forward with her several checks in hand.
    “How was your lunch?” Daisy asked.
    “Better than the rest of my morning,” Joanna said. “It sounds like yours wasn’t all smooth sailing, either.”
    “I’ve been happy to have the extra business this week,” Daisy said, “but I think that’s what pushed Junior over the edge. He’s used to all the regulars, but couldn’t handle so many strangers.”
    “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” Joanna asked.
    Daisy shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. His doctor says he believes it’s early-onset Alzheimer’s. It’s not that unusual in cases like Junior’s.”
    Daisy’s eyes filled with sudden tears as she punched the numbers into the register. Joanna wanted to offer some kind of comfort, but as two additional customers stepped into line behind her, she kept quiet rather than risk upsetting Daisy even more.
    Back in her dust-covered Yukon, Joanna put the vehicle in gear, backed out of the parking lot, and headed for Dr. Millicent Ross’s veterinary clinic in Bisbee’s Saginaw neighborhood.
    In the early fifties, before the opening of Lavender Pit, clusters of frame houses that had dotted the hillsides and canyons of Upper Lowell, Lower Bisbee, and Jiggerville had stood in the way. One at a time, the houses were pried off their foundations, loaded onto axles, and then trucked through town, where they were attached to new foundations that had been dug on lots that had formerly been company-owned land in neighborhoods that would ultimately come to be known as Bakerville and Saginaw.
    As far as Joanna was concerned, this was all ancient history—almost as lost on her as the fact that townspeople in Bisbee had once sheltered in mines when Apaches had threatened to ride through town causing trouble. Joanna remembered seeing photos of the houses being moved, but that was all. By now, those houses had been in place on their “new” lots long enough that mature trees and bushes had grown up around them.
    On arriving in town Dr. Millicent Ross had bought two adjoining houses in a part of Saginaw that fronted on the highway. She lived in one with her partner, Jeannine Philips, who was head of Joanna’s Animal Control unit. The other housed Millicent’s