Exit Wounds by J. A. Jance Page A

release, she had stayed on as chief cook, now as a paid employee.
    “Good thinking,” Joanna said. “Tell her to make enough sandwiches for the guards and the extra deputies as well. In the meantime, Frank, liberate some money from petty cash and go get a load of chilled watermelons from Safeway. Everyone seems to be behaving themselves. Why not reward them? And, since we seem to be having a jailwide picnic anyway, it might just as well include some genuine picnic fare.”
    Frank gave Joanna a questioning look, complete with a single raised eyebrow that meant he didn’t necessarily agree. “Okay, boss,” he said. “If that’s what you want, I’ll get right on it.”
    Half an hour later, Joanna was back in her office. Watching the clock edge toward five, she realized the day had slipped away without her ever calling her best friend, Marianne Maculyea, to deliver the earth-shattering news that Joanna was pregnant. She reached for the phone but then put it down again without dialing.
    Butch is right. Better not tell anyone else until after we tell Mother.
    “Come on, whoever you are,” she said to the dog. “It’s time to go home and face the music.”

 
    Five
    L eaving Chief Deputy Montoya to oversee the outdoor jail operation, Joanna took her family’s latest canine member and headed home right at 5 P.M. It surprised her a little to realize what she was doing. In those first frantic months after being elected sheriff, she had hardly slept whenever her department had been sucked into a homicide investigation. Wanting to be more than a figurehead sheriff, she had thrown herself into each and every case. No one had placed greater demands on Joanna Brady than she herself had.
    That was still true now, she realized. She had personally been to the scene of Carol Mossman’s murder, but it pleased her to realize that she no longer had to be there in person in order to keep her finger on the pulse of every aspect of the investigation. Gradually she was learning to delegate. She was also learning to separate her personal life from her work life. In that regard, she had her stepfather, George Winfield, to serve as an example.
    As Cochise County Medical Examiner, George dealt with many of the same cases Joanna did and more besides, doing doctor-and relative-requested autopsies for deaths where the victims had not died as a result of foul play. But when George Winfield wasn’t actively at work, he lavished his wife—Joanna’s mother, the demanding Eleanor—with devoted attention. He did his work at work and he left it there. Just because he had to deal with dead bodies during the day didn’t mean he couldn’t go to a classical music concert in Tucson that evening. Not only go—but go and enjoy as well.
    For years Joanna hadn’t left her office without a briefcase full of homework, but soon after their wedding Butch had raised an objection.
    “Look,” he had said, “you work long hours, and I don’t mind that. And I don’t mind that you get called out evenings and on weekends. But when you’re home, you should be home. When it comes to getting your attention, Jenny and I shouldn’t always have to be last in line.”
    And then George Winfield himself had pushed her over the edge. He and Joanna had been doing dishes after Easter Sunday dinner when he brought it up.
    “You work too hard,” he said.
    Joanna had paused, dish towel and glass in hand. “Who put you up to saying that?” she asked. “Butch or Eleanor?”
    “Neither,” he had said. “I came up with the idea on my own.”
    “How come?” she asked.
    “When I was a young doctor in private practice, I was ambitious as hell and wanted to be the very best there was. I wanted to make plenty of money so I could support Annie and Abigail in style. But then, once I lost them both, I found out the money didn’t mean a thing, Joanna. Not a damn thing! Life doesn’t always give people second chances, but it seems to me you have one. And now you have to