Authors: J. A. Jance
Downfall (32 page)
        Â
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN PRETTY MUCH FOREVER, JOANNA STAYED
home for an entire weekend. Everyone who had wanted to drop by had done so on Friday afternoon. Bob and Marcie left on Saturday morning to fly back to DC. On Sunday, Jenny left early to drive back to Flagstaff.
Joanna spent a lot of time that weekend soaking in her own beautiful tub. As the pain of her aching muscles eased in the hot water, her overwrought emotions seemed to dissipate just like the mountains of bubble floating on the water's surface.
At some point in the middle of Sunday afternoon, she was sitting in the tub, almost dozing, and thinking about her mother's many unsung acts of kindness, when another piece of divine inspiration came to her. She crawled out of the bath, dressed, and went looking for Butch and Denny. She found them in the dining room working on what looked like an impossibly complex LEGO project.
“I'm going out for a while,” she said.
“Promise me that you are not going into the office,” Butch said.
“I promise. But where's that purchase agreement from the cemeteryâthe one Bob gave you?”
“On my desk,” Butch answered. “In the in-box. But why do you need it?”
“Because I think I know someone who would love to have itâmake that someone who deserves to have it.”
She drove past the Justice Center without even being tempted to turn in. She drove past the traffic circle and Lavender Pit and wound her way up into Old Bisbee. Only when she put the Enclave in park in front of Mona Tipton's modest clapboard house on Quality Hill did she have second thoughts. Maybe she should have called ahead. Maybe she shouldn't have come at all.
Too late to reconsider,
Joanna told herself.
It's now or never.
She climbed up the wooden stairway. The handrail was a bit rickety. It probably needed a handyman's attention. She punched the button on the old-fashioned round doorbell and heard it buzz inside the house. A few seconds later, slow footsteps creaked across linoleum-covered floorboards.
The woman who opened the door was the same one Joanna had seen some time ago when she had come here to let Mona know that Joanna's father's deathâMona's lover's deathâlong thought to be an accident, had actually been murder-for-hire.
Mona was dressed the same way she'd been on that other occasion. Even on a hot and quiet Sunday afternoon in early September, she looked as though she was ready to walk out the door and head off to work. She wore a neatly pressed white blouse and a long-out-of-fashion double-breasted suit that was fraying at the
cuffs. Sensible heels and a pair of panty hose completed her ensemble. What was different was her hair. It had been gunmetal gray the last time Joanna had seen her. Now it had gone completely white.
“Why, Joanna,” Mona said in genuine surprise, pushing open a flimsy wood-framed screen door. “What in the world are you doing here? I should think you'd have your hands full this weekend.”
“I have, but things have quieted down a little,” Joanna replied. “I have something I wanted to drop off. May I come in?”
“Of course. Please. What can I get you?”
“Nothing, thank you,” she said.
Inside, a noisy swamp cooler kept the house reasonably cool.
Mona settled slowly into a swaybacked easy chair. “Is something the matter?” she asked.
“Not really the matter, no,” Joanna said. “It's just that when my mother and George died, there was some confusion about cemetery arrangements. It turned out we ended up with an extra burial plot, one that wasn't needed.”
“An extra plot?” Mona asked with a frown.
“Yes, my mother and brother were arranging to purchase one without my knowledge, and now we have this one.” She reached into her purse, pulled out the purchase agreement, and held it out to Mona over the shiny wooden surface of an intervening coffee table.
“I want to offer it to you,” Joanna said, “if you're interested, that is. I know how much you cared for my dad, and I know he cared for you, too. If you'd like to be buried in the family plot with him, now's your chance.”
“Why on earth would you do such a thing?” Mona asked. “And what would people say?”
“After all these years, does it matter what people say? And I'm doing it because it seems like the right thing to do.”
Tentatively, Mona reached for the piece of paper. Once it was in her hand, she put on a pair of reading glasses and scanned it all the way through.
“I don't know what to say,” she said finally, clutching the paper to her breast. “I think this is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Of course, I'll accept. It means the world to me. Thank you.”
“You're welcome,” Joanna said. “But there is one small detail that may make you change your mind.”
“What's that?”
“The Rojas plots are on the far side of my mother, so you wouldn't actually be next to my dad, you'd be next to Eleanor.”
There was a moment of silence before Mona Tipton's face broke into a sad smile. “I can't think of anything more appropriate,” she murmured. “Eleanor always came between D.H. and me. This way she still canâforever and ever.”
Joanna drove home feeling as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. For dinner, they had leftovers from the barbecue. Not long after Dennis hit the hay, they did, too.
“It's been a hell of a couple of weeks,” Butch said as they lay side by side in the dark. “I'm glad it's over.”
“Me, too,” she said. Butch hadn't asked about the purchase agreement, and she hadn't told him. Maybe it was time to take another page out of her mother's playbookâdo good works and keep quiet about them.
“Much as I hate to admit it,” Butch said, “I was dead wrong about Tom Hadlock being your chief deputy. When the chips were down, he really stepped up. You always said you saw something
in him that nobody else did, and I'm here to say, you were right.”
“Thanks,” Joanna said. “He did step up, and now, with a fully functioning chief deputy in place, when Eleanor Sage Dixon is born, I intend to take a whole month of maternity leave, whether or not I win the election.”
“Sure you will,” Butch replied with a laugh, “but only when hell freezes over.”
J. A. JANCE
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, and five interrelated thrillers about the Walker Family as well as a volume of poetry. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.
J. P. BEAUMONT MYSTERIES
Ring in the Dead: A J. P. Beaumont Novella
Stand Down: A J. P. Beaumont Novella
JOANNA BRADY MYSTERIES
The Old Blue Line: A Joanna Brady Novella
Random Acts: A Joanna Brady and Ali
Reynolds Novella
WALKER FAMILY NOVELS
Dance of the Bones
: A J. P. Beaumont and Brandon Walker Novel
ALI REYNOLDS NOVELS
Web of Evil
Hand of Evil
Cruel Intent
Trial by Fire
Fatal Error
Left for Dead
Deadly Stakes
Moving Target
A Last Goodbye: An Ali Reynolds Novella
Cold Betrayal
No Honor Among Thieves: An Ali Reynolds/Joanna Brady Novella
Clawback
POETRY
After the Fire
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover photograph © Bradley Sauter / Alamy Stock Photo
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DOWNFALL
. Copyright © 2016 by J. A. Jance. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition September 2016 ISBN 9780062297730
ISBN 978-0-06-229771-6
16Â Â 17Â Â 18Â Â 19Â Â 20Â Â Â Â
RS
/
RRD
    10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007