Page 4 of The Girl from Devil's Lake
The driver, one Antonio Rodriguez-Otero, an illegal immigrant with no valid driver’s license, was now being held in the Cochise County Jail, charged with nine counts of felony vehicular homicide, one count of assaulting a police officer, and one count of driving a stolen vehicle. Since he was an obvious flight risk, no bail had been offered, and he had waived his right to a speedy trial. In other words, there was no telling how long he would continue to languish in Joanna’s lockup before his court date.
Unfortunately, Antonio was anything but your ordinary, man-on-the-street kind of illegal immigrant. He was a hardened criminal and a full-fledged member of the Sinaloa Cartel, and someone who much preferred his own company to anyone else’s. Whenever he was allowed to mingle with the general population, he’d pull some stunt to land himself in solitary confinement. Two weeks ago, he had used a fork to attack another inmate standing in line in the mess hall.
With Mr. Rodriguez-Otero pretty much permanently ensconced in the jail’s only solitary-confinement cell, Joanna had been forced to embark on carving out spaces for two more solitary units from an area that had once held a total of ten inmates. The process of obtaining permits for electrical and plumbing for the jail remodel was a bureaucratic nightmare. Not only that, with overcrowding now that much worse, tempers among the inmates were at a boiling point.
After two near riots the week before, Joanna had finally asked the governor for help. Seven members of the Arizona National Guard had been dispatched to the Cochise County jail to help maintain order.
That morning Joanna found Tom Hadlock in the jail’s administration office where he was huddled with the new jail commander, Terry Gregovich. For years Terry, Kristin’s husband, had served as the department’s K-9 officer. Once his knees gave out and he could no longer keep up with his dog, Mojo, Joanna had brought both man and beast inside. With everything that was going on, having a jail commander with a trained K-9 assistant at his side seemed like a good idea.
“Hey, guys,” Joanna said, letting herself into the room. “How’s it going, Mojo?”
The dog thumped his tail but didn’t raise his head.
“You’ll notice she didn’t ask either of us how it’s going,” Tom grumbled to Terry.
“How is it going?”
“We made it through breakfast without any incidents,” Terry reported. “I guess that’s something.”
“How are the National Guard guys working out?” Joanna asked.
“Fairly well,” Terry said. “Two of them speak fluent Spanish, so that’s a help, and our regular guys who’ve been having to work double shifts really appreciate having a little breathing space.”
“What are you doing here?” Tom asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to Peoria for Jenny’s graduation?”
“I am,” Joanna replied. “I just wanted to stop by to see how things were.”
“For right now, we’ve got it covered. The construction crew is due any day to start digging the trenches for the new water and power lines. Listening to a jackhammer all day will probably put everybody’s teeth on edge.”
“In that case, I’m glad I won’t have to be here to listen to the racket. So I’ll head out then.”
“And I’ll come with you,” Tom said.
As they walked back through the security doors, Tom was shaking his head. “I remember when Jenny was just a cute little towheaded kid with her hair in braids. It seems impossible that she’s already old enough to be graduating from the police academy.”
“Time flies, Tom,” Joanna said. “I can barely believe it myself.”
“Tell her congrats from me,” Tom said. “It’s a crying shame she couldn’t come work here instead of signing up with Pima County.”
“Nepotism and all that,” Joanna told him with a smile. “Having her on the job here would never have worked.”
Minutes later, Joanna was back in the car and underway. On this bright November day, as she drove through the Mule Mountain Tunnel at the top of the Divide, she looked forward to the flash of bright blue sky that she knew would await her on the far side. On sunny days like this, it was always there, seemingly with a promise of good things to come. In this instance, with Jenny’s graduation ceremony scheduled for ten a.m. on Friday morning, good things really were in the offing.
Years earlier, the first time Joanna had made the two-hundred-mile trip from Bisbee to the Arizona Police Officer Academy in Peoria, northwest of Phoenix, things had been far different. As a recently widowed single mom who had just been elected sheriff, she’d had no idea that her stay at the academy would mark the beginning of a whole new life.
Now, with Jenny taking the same course, Joanna’s daughter was on track to become the fourth law enforcement officer in thefamily, following in the footsteps of her maternal grandfather, Cochise County Sheriff D.H. Lathrop; her father, Deputy Andrew Brady; and now her mother, Joanna, too. Although this wasn’t an outcome Joanna had ever expected, she was proud of it all the same. She was especially proud that, as an APOA graduate herself, she had not only been invited to speak at the graduation ceremony, she would also be there to pin Jenny’s badge on her brand-new Pima County Sheriff’s Department uniform.
Joanna had been driving for some time, and the miles had been rolling by, so she was on the bridge crossing the San Pedro in St. David when her thoughts stalled on the wordgraduation, because her graduation from APOA had been Joanna Brady’s one and only.
By the middle of the second semester of Joanna’s senior year at Bisbee High School, she was already a married woman with a baby bump that was becoming more obvious by the day. Late in April she had received a letter from the superintendent of schools, notifying her that “due to her delicate condition” she wouldn’t be allowed to participate in any of the high school ending ceremonies—class night, baccalaureate, or graduation.
Incensed, Joanna had wanted to fight the administration’s decision and had gone to her mother for help, insisting that nothing would show under her cap and gown anyway. Unsurprisingly, Eleanor Lathrop had sided with the superintendent of schools. As a consequence, Joanna’s high school career had ended with none of the customary rites of passage enjoyed by her classmates, and her diploma had come to her in the mail a week after everyone else received theirs.
As a result, when Jenny had graduated from Northern Arizona University a year and a half earlier, it had been cause for a joyous celebration. The entire family—Joanna, Butch, and Jenny’s half-siblings, Dennis and Sage—had all been in attendance at the J. Lawrence Walkup Skydome in Flagstaff to watch Jenny walk across the stage and receive her bachelor of science degree in criminology and criminal justice. After that she’d been offered a coveted yearlongpaid internship with MMIV—the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Victims—Task Force based in Denver.
When it came time for her to apply for a job with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, she’d already had a whole year of law enforcement experience under her belt. It also helped that, while still at NAU, she’d been instrumental in helping solve a long-cold homicide case that had originated in Tucson. All of which meant that, unlike her mother, Jennifer Ann Brady was coming into her law enforcement career with a running start.
Butch and Joanna had decided that Jenny’s graduation ceremony from APOA would be all about her. Not wanting Dennis and Sage to be a distraction, they had ruled out removing the younger kids from school for the occasion. That meant this trip was strictly a mother/daughter event. Tonight she and Jenny would have a quiet dinner together at the hotel. Tomorrow would be another story. By then it would be a full crowd. Jenny’s steady boyfriend, Nick Saunders, would be in attendance as would his mother and her new husband.
