Dry Death in Arizona

By Elizabeth Bruening Lewis

What do the sinking of Mussolini's plane in Lake Roosevelt, Arizona (the dictator unfortunately not being aboard), the placement of a house of ill repute in Globe, Arizona, and the events of December 24th, 1944, (in what is now Papago Park, partially in Phoenix), have in common? They are all part of the history of Arizona and the bedrock upon which Dry Death in Arizona is founded. However, the action takes place in the real world of Arizona today, which is given color and depth by the real world of Arizona's yesterday.

One would think that trying to rebuild a life shattered by kidney disease and adapting to the demands of dialysis would be enough of a challenge for anyone. However, when someone attacks former Vassar professor of Anglo Saxon Studies, Abby Taylor, on her own patio, she fears that she has been targeted for an immediate death which has nothing to do with renal problems. But why would anyone want to kill her? And why would anyone murder a local nephrologist with a "killer kidney?" Or shoot an annoying acquaintance of Abby's with a classic rifle? Mysteries compound, and Abby, together with her faithful Corgi dog, Francis, and the intriguing, ever dearer David Neale, find themselves once again drawn into a maelstrom of mayhem and murder...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466932753

Elizabeth Bruening Lewis

Elizabeth Bruening Lewis has written three interrelated works of suspense fiction, yet by no means are they all fiction. Fans say that her work should be read both for fast-paced entertainment and for many hard facts it contains. Romance and humor play their part as Abby Taylor, David Neale, and their little corgi dog dodge evil ones and are pursued by murderers. Yet these fictional characters navigate a very real world with threats to the environment, incurable kidney disease, dialysis, and other challenges. Lewis combines a background as varied as the challenges her characters face. She is a journalist, a PhD historian, has taught at the university level, and has been an active volunteer in her community, including her nine years on the board of the Arizona Nature Conservancy. In her writing, Lewis also draws on her own personal experience including hiking much of Arizona, dialysis, and kidney transplant. She has published five books, three fiction and two nonfiction, and has won three national awards. Lewis and her husband of forty-seven years, along with their corgi Terrwyn, divide their time between Phoenix and Prescott. They have two children and four grandchildren.

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Copyright 2004, 2012 Elizabeth Bruening Lewis.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Cover by Mark Mohlenbrock

Book Design by Hal Sandy

isbn: 978-1-4669-3275-3 (e)

Trafford rev. 04/19/2012

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

To my father,

Joseph H. Bruening,

Patricia Uhlmann Rich,

and all those who have been

so supportive of my writing.

INTRODUCTION

Through an exciting adventure story involving mayhem and murder, Elizabeth Lewis has woven some critical environmental issues. One of these is the state of our forests.

Arizona’s forests are suffering from more than a century of mismanagement that has included overzealous fire suppression, improper land use, and severe drought conditions. The trees are in a weakened state, which is why they are succumbing to the bark beetle in a way we have not seen in decades, maybe ever. To add to the problem, the state is facing unprecedented development not just in the desert valleys, but also in forested areas at higher elevations. The growth in the cooler, forested climates of Arizona includes second home development as Phoenicians and Tucsonans seek a break from the summer heat and the opportunity to enjoy winter. Arizona’s forests are suffering from the forest equivalent of the perfect storm.

The debate over how best to restore our forests has a substantial Federal nexus. After all, in Arizona alone, of the 944,000 acres of forest burned since 2000, nearly 828,000 were on Federal land. In 2003 alone, 176,000 of the 179,000 acres of land that have burned are Federally controlled.

If there was any good to come of the 2003 wildland fires, it was that most of them occurred in the back country and posed little threat to people, structures, and private property. Firefighters contained those back country fires that posed a concern to forest health fairly quickly; and those fires that were not raging out of control were used as tools of restoration.

Unfortunately, we had two notable exceptions—the Aspen Fire near Tucson, Arizona, and most recently the Kinishba Fire on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. Both threatened people and property. The Aspen fire destroyed more than 320 homes and 7 businesses—70 percent of the mountaintop hamlet of Summerhaven. The Kinishba Fire required the evacuation of approximately 5,000 people and threatened more than 30,000 residents of communities in northern Arizona such as Pinetop—Lakeside, Hon Dah, McNary and Show Low.

The Kinishba started in a remote area of the forest on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. The good news is that fire fighters knew from experience they could rely on the areas near the northern communities, which had been treated by the White Mountain Apache tribe, to help them gain control of the fire before it ravaged the towns. The bad news is that many of the Federal lands in this area and around other forested communities have been virtually untouched and require substantial treatment.

In light of the years it took to get to the perfect storm, restoring western forests to a healthy condition cannot happen overnight. Proper pragmatic priorities must be established to make the best use of limited resources.

As we plan and implement projects, we must give priority to the treatment of forests surrounding threatened forest communities. Indeed, we have a public safety responsibility to direct the resources to protect these communities.

Prioritizing the areas surrounding communities does not, however, exclude the treatments deeper in the forest so that entire forest ecosystems can be restored and protected from the eventuality of a megafire. These projects must be based on good science with the primary purpose being the restoration of forests to sustainable health. All of this will require a Congressional commitment to put resources into our forests.

We cannot afford not to invest in restoring our forests, because hard experience has already taught us that without this investment, we will pay far more in the future in fire suppression, disaster recovery, and loss of forest habitat.

To be successful, we must do three things:

• Prioritize initial resources and efforts to those areas that pose a threat to people and property;

• Embrace a collaborative process to identify and plan projects that will lead to more successful implementation;

• Make the necessary investment to get the job done.

Arizona, like most Western states, lacks the infrastructure for industry to offset the cost—we will work with industry, but we shouldn’t have to wait. While there may be no perfect solutions to abate the perfect storm, there are pragmatic ones. While there is a place for industry, we must shift the focus of forest management from managing for industry to managing for the long-term health of our forests. With that goal in mind, we will be able to restore our forests and leave them in a much better, healthier and safer condition for our children and grandchildren. That should be the goal for all.

The Honorable Janet Napolitano,

Governor, State of Arizona

Dry Death in Arizona

An Abby Taylor Mystery

Sequel to To Live or Die in Arizona

First place winner in the National Federation of Press Women’s 2003 communication contest.

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CHAPTER 1

Had she been a man, she probably would have been dead. But women learn to walk cautiously, to be constantly aware. Had a slight crunch on the brick surface of the patio alerted her? The faintest whiff of sweating male? Or perhaps the almost imperceptible darkening of the twilight glow as someone had moved up behind her?

But these thoughts came later. For the moment only fragmented impressions rained down on her like fallout from an explosion. The sound of a swish and grunt heard as she instinctively pivoted away from the unknown assailant. Her own rising shriek which almost drowned out a masculine roar of pain. The resounding crash of something heavy and metallic slamming against the bricks of the patio. A volley of deep-throated barks intermixed with cursing. The thud of running feet. A lightning bolt of fear which coursed through her whole body.

No, she yelled at Francis, whose leash she still miraculously retained. Stay! she commanded the dog, who lunged forward trying to break free and pursue the attacker. Corgis might be small dogs, but they had great strength, mighty hearts, and a full sized mouth of sharp teeth, as someone had just found out to his peril, thank God.

What happened? gasped Maggie Lyall, her next door neighbor in the townhouse complex, as she rushed in through the patio gate.

Abby Taylor caught her breath and, momentarily paralyzed, stared dumbly at the tire iron lying on the bricks. I think somebody just tried to kill me, she said in stunned surprise.

She hardly recognized the flat, uninflected voice as her own. But that’s the way she handled extreme emotion, tucked everything tidily away like hospital corners on a bed. Wrapped it up and secreted it somewhere in her innermost being until she had achieved the distance and equilibrium to pull it out and see what was there without danger of falling apart.

Here, sit down. The older woman gently grasped her arm and guided her to a cushioned chair on the small patio. Are you hurt?

No, I don’t think so, Abby answered hesitantly. In so far as she could tell in her present state of shock, everything seemed to be in working order. I guess somebody didn’t count on Francis. Hearing his name, the little dog looked up at her and cocked his head.

And what do you mean, somebody tried to kill you? Maggie asked, her voice rising high and tense as the enormity of what Abby had said belatedly hit her. Oh, my God! Robbery, perhaps? she suggested hopefully.

Abby hesitated a moment to let the wild pounding of her heart subside a little and to organize her thoughts. She tried to calm her mind by concentrating on irrelevant details: the hum of traffic some distance away, the pungent odor of steaks being grilled on a neighbor’s barbeque, the gentle glow of the complex’s outdoor lighting, which switched on automatically as the sun sank in the west. The ordinary, hence the reassuring.

Robbery? I don’t think so. I’m not carrying a purse. Nor, she admitted to herself with chagrin, even the politically proper plastic sack to take care of any droppings left by Francis. Not a good show, but somehow the mundane thought of a plastic sack comforted her anyway.

Rape? Not unless the fellow has some very strange necrophilic fantasies. If that blow had connected with my skull, well, he would have been dealing with a corpse. And suddenly she realized that she’d been wrong; her attacker hadn’t missed altogether. The weapon had scraped her right arm, which was beginning to sting like hell.

What happened? What an awful noise. The voice of Mrs. Snippen from down the way rang with disapproval. Abby gave a small groan. That woman was the bane of the townhouse complex, which she appeared to patrol day and night. Always popping up, seemingly out of nowhere. Always ready with a mean-spirited comment. Now why hadn’t the tire iron wielder gone after her? Done the other residents a favor.

Someone attacked Professor Taylor, Maggie responded coldly.

Are you all right? asked Fred Hammersmith, who was right behind Mrs. Snippen. I called 911.

Thank you. I’m mostly just shaken. Abby decided not to mention the arm. Dear Fred! He was the kindest man in the world, and if she said anything about an injury he would probably have her over to Scottsdale Memorial Hospital before she could protest.

Young women should not wander about unaccompanied at night, sniffed Mrs. Snippen.

Young women? The comment was so absurd that, despite the gravity of the situation, Abby wanted to laugh. She, who had passed the big four zero, a young woman? She, who had been a full professor of English—specifically Old English or Anglo-Saxon—at Vassar College until circumstances beyond her control had forever changed her life. She, who . . . . Well, enough of that, she told herself sternly.

Mrs. Snippen, it was only twilight, and I was walking the dog, she snapped back, venting her fury and frustration at the attack on the unpleasant woman confronting her. After all, this is a nice neighborhood, or you wouldn’t be living here, now would you? Not a place where you would expect gang-related drive-by shootings like some areas on the west and south sides of Phoenix. Or men with tire irons, she added to herself. She shivered in spite of the heat of the October night, for in the few minutes since the attack, night had slipped in upon them in the sudden, unexpected way of the desert, an unheralded intruder dousing the light.

Before Mrs. Snippen could come back with one of her usual caustic remarks, other neighbors crowded onto the patio. A police siren ululated down Camelback Road, then along 40th Street. Amateur speculation time was over. It was now the turn of the trained professionals.

* * *

Tea? Brandy? Maggie asked when the officers had left Abby’s townhouse, and left with darned little, Abby thought disconsolately. The tire iron would be fingerprinted, but the handle, wrapped with an old piece of cloth, would probably yield nothing. There had been no witnesses, and there was nothing much Abby could tell the police except that her attacker had been a white male without a discernible accent. Perhaps 5’ 9" or so, just a hair’s breadth taller than she. She’d had the impression of a stocky build. No suggestion that the person was anyone she knew. She did not, as she told the officers, generally collect enemies, and the ones she did have were safely in jail. At least she sure in hell hoped they were.

Abby? Maggie questioned again.

Tea with a small dollop of brandy would be wonderful, she roused herself to reply. Perhaps the brandy would sooth her still quivering insides. Evidently she had not managed to bury her emotions quite deeply enough. Her voice might remain calm, but for the rest of her, it felt like she was being assailed by the aftershocks of an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale.

As Maggie bustled into the small kitchen off the living room/dining room combination, Abby sighed, a sigh which just missed turning into a sob. And to think that she had believed she had found a sanctuary. When her declining health made college teaching no longer viable, her sister, Becky, had insisted she move to Phoenix, move close to Becky and her family. Becky had even decorated the townhouse, and beautifully to Abby’s mind. She looked around her. Oriental rugs which had been their parents’ covered glossy parquet floors. A leather couch large enough for a catnap, together with a couple of deep, inviting armchairs made for comfortable seating. Cream-colored walls whose subdued shade provided just the right backdrop for the blue, green, gold, pale pink, deep red and touch of lilac of the chairs’ abstractly woven upholstery. And, de rigueur for any academic, practicing or not, a built-in bookcase crammed with books.

Her sanctuary, now violated!

Abby pulled a lap rug more tightly around her as she sank into the buttery softness of the couch, its pale yellow cushions cradling her sore and shaken body. Not that Phoenix had really cooled down noticeably in early October, but the feel of the soft cashmere-wool blend offered comfort. And comfort was what she needed now. Lots of healing comfort. She reached out a hand to stroke Francis’ silky head.

Her sanctuary. The words throbbed in her head.

Thank you, Abby said when Maggie handed her the mug, then took her own and seated herself in one of the armchairs.

Why? Maggie asked, as she abstractedly readjusted the reading glasses which were perched on top of a dark brown French twist shot through with silver. Why would anyone want to harm you?

I don’t know. It struck Abby like a blow to the solar plexus that not knowing, the uncertainty of it all, might be even worse than the sense of violation. I just don’t know. Her formerly even, uninflected voice wobbled up into a higher range. Somebody, who knows who and who knows why, invades my home. . . .

The patio, Maggie corrected. Having raised a couple of daughters, seen a beloved husband through the final stages of cancer, and stepped out boldly to create her own life as a widow, Maggie had learned, as Abby had found, to keep things firmly in perspective.

Oh, shit, so the patio. The control which had kept her going with the neighbors and the police had begun to crack like one of the huge dams in the mountains east of Phoenix. She took a gulp of the brandy-laced tea and tried to steady herself.

Anyway, this person tries to kill me. But why, why, why? The only people who really hate me are behind bars.

Could they have hired someone?

Why take the chance? They’re in enough trouble as it is, and they’re not stupid. As much as they might enjoy the thought of something happening to me, I sincerely doubt they’d do anything to cause it.

Maggie gazed at her thoughtfully with blue-grey eyes bright with intelligence and intense with concern. Abby could sense she was weighing her assessment and silently agreeing with it.

Shit! Abby repeated. Wouldn’t you think that discovering you had some strange, almost unheard of kidney disease would be enough? Wouldn’t you think that being able to live only because you have access to dialysis would satisfy the malicious demons of fate? And now, for no reason whatsoever, some bastard is trying to kill me!

Oh, Abby, Maggie commiserated. A random act of violence? Or just some nut case. Maybe he saw in you his ex-wife or his abusive mother.

Someone wandering around with a tire iron looking for a substitute for the person who gave him the wrong sort of potty training? Oh, puh-lease! That is definitely too strange to swallow. Dropping into undergraduate lingo, she added, Totally weird!

Abby shared these sentiments with Fred Hammersmith, whom she met the next morning on the way back from giving Francis a short walk. Thankfully the walk had loosened her tense nerves a bit. The air seemed somewhat cooler, although the temperature would have rated as high summer anyplace else. The pollution had lifted a modicum, or perhaps just shifted to another part of the Valley of the Sun. Francis had pranced along in high spirits, doing everything a little dog could be expected to do. (This time Abby had brought along the plastic sack, thank heavens.) On the down side, although she had slathered her arm with Neosporin, it still stung. However, the discomfort was something she could live with. She wasn’t so sure about the not-knowing part of all this.

Random violence, eh? Could be, could be. Too many people around here, too much traffic, too much pollution, Fred observed, as with one accord they started on a stroll around the complex. Francis, delighted to have an extension of his walk, sniffed happily at all the familiar smells. I’d try to settle Florence down in Tucson, but she’s gotten involved here in a church, found friends. Well, you know how it is. Fred shrugged.

Better than he could ever guess, Abby reflected.

According to Maggie, Fred had been a successful contractor in Chicago, where the Hammersmiths still owned a large house, before retiring and buying a condo in Phoenix for the winters. But his wife Florence’s arthritis had them spending more and more time in Arizona. Abby was glad that Florence was managing to make a new home. A real nester there, she sensed.

Oh, yes, she herself knew all about displacement. Abby thought with a bitter sensation of loss about Poughkeepsie, friends and colleagues, the elegant sweep of the beautiful Hudson River Valley. But then she, too, had started to establish a new base here, a sanctuary . . . Oh, that word again. Ricocheting back to haunt her.

The police learn anything? Fred asked her. His broad, kindly, serious face, the exact color of her dark parquet floors, contrasted oddly with the undisciplined tufts of white hair above. They seemed to float there gaily like the jaunty little cumulus clouds that suggested the coming of the monsoon season without really promising anything.

Not that I could see. They were sharp, trying hard, well-trained. But there wasn’t much, if anything, to find. I checked this morning. No fingerprints. Except for the tire iron, totally generic, no dropped objects or other clues. I couldn’t give them much of a description, and no one else saw the fellow. So what’re they supposed to do?

You’re right. Not much there. Fred shook his head and the white tufts bounced merrily. They walked on a bit in silence.

The automatic watering flipped on. They skirted a spot where a head had gotten out of alignment and the water splattered on the pavement. Mrs. Snippen passed by with barely a nod of the head, her malicious little eyes taking everything in. To give her credit, Abby thought, she’s an equal opportunity hater. She hated the Hammersmiths because of their race, and she hated Abby because she was an unmarried woman who had gone to, and later taught at, a lesbian school. Abby had not bothered to point out to her that Vassar had for many years been coeducational by the time she had matriculated. She had the impression that the woman even hated Maggie for being a widow, although so was Mrs. Snippen. In a moment of mirth, Maggie had quipped that undoubtedly the late Mr. Snippen had been simply dying to rest in peace.

Woo, that woman does have a burr up her . . . up her rear. Abby knew he wanted to say ass but was too polite to do so.

‘Fraid so.

An unhappy person, Fred observed. A very unhappy person. No life of her own. I’ve never seen a friend visit. The super told me there’s a daughter someplace back East. Sends a Christmas present every year—always heavy so the super has to move it. But that’s about it. I don’t know if there’re any grandchildren, but if so, they’ve never been here that I’ve heard of.

Francis paused to check out what he seemed to consider a particularly fragrant Mexican bird of paradise, now burning bright orange with daubs of gold in honor of the coming of fall.

If Mrs. Snippen just didn’t go out of her way to be so nasty! Abby observed.

It would help. It would help indeed, Fred agreed. Only people who can’t be happy themselves don’t seem to want anybody else to be happy either. Best to pay it no mind. He nodded to the accompanying bounce of the white tufts.

They stopped to watch three older women gossiping and laughing while they did water aerobics in the townhouse complex’s pool. One of the women turned and waved; Abby and Fred returned the greeting. Mrs. Snippen aside, most of the townhouse residents were good people, Abby reflected.

Well, you take care and we’ll keep our eyes open around here, Fred said as they completed their circuit. Don’t want any more of this random stuff—no way," he commented darkly as they parted ways.

With Francis in tow, Abby returned to her townhouse, where Maggie joined her for a cup of coffee and a couple of biscotti.

Abby tried to neutralize last night’s horrors by concentrating on the present. It was pleasant, oh so very pleasant, to sit sipping coffee and chatting with her friend in the sun-filled room. The room stretched along the patio, looking quite benign in the bright, still morning. Through Arcadia doors and large windows it absorbed the southern light, which brought out the rich colors of the Oriental rugs and the delicate shades of the upholstery on the chairs. Yes, Becky had done very well by her, Abby gratefully acknowledged.

How do you feel this morning? Maggie inquired with evident concern.

A bit shaky. Still disoriented, I guess, Abby admitted. She would have liked to say that she was great and everything was just fine, but that would never have flown past Maggie.

What luck to have Maggie as a neighbor! Despite an age span of some two decades, the two women had discovered not only that they had many interests in common but also that they were both Vassar alumnae, which strengthened the bond. Abby thought that they even looked enough alike to be sisters. Both tall, slender, with long necks and oval faces. Their hair, although they had chosen different styles, was not dissimilar. Abby’s short, feathered, chestnut-colored hair had a single white streak up the left side; Maggie’s deep, rich brown mane was pulled up into a French twist and laced with silver. In fact, Maggie looked more like her than Abby’s real sister.

Where do we go from here? Maggie asked matter of factly. Abby knew that Maggie liked to problem-solve and sensed that her friend would be much happier when a definite course of action had been mapped out. Unfortunately Abby herself had no idea what that course should be. How could she be expected to succeed in finding anything out when well-trained, well-resourced police couldn’t? It seemed to her, as it had when she was diagnosed with an incurable kidney disease, that often the challenge lay in just carrying on. Maybe in books, life was rational; the smart and observant hero/heroine soon discovered the pattern. But for her of late, most of life was just slogging blindly ahead, doing the best she could.

Well, we’ve told the police everything we know. I’m not sure what more there is to do. Abby thought a moment. I think I’ll look into getting some Mace or a stun gun. A little like locking the stable door when the horse has already been stolen, I realize. But then you never can tell.

So you’re not buying the random thing?

I just don’t know. I really don’t know. Again it was the not knowing that made the bile rise in her stomach.

Random? Deliberate? Who can tell?

Abby’s voice suggested she wanted to drop the topic, at least for the time being. For now she just wanted to take comfort in little, incidental things. She gazed out the Arcadia doors. Atop a saguaro cactus beyond the patio wall a cactus wren stridently voiced his opinions about life. A rabbit, long translucent ears quivering, had slipped under the patio gate to enjoy the forbidden fruits within, like the blazing orange-red geranium it now nibbled. A lizard scooted rapidly across the bricks. Lizards, rabbits, cactus wrens. A rhythmic slarp, slarp, slarp sounded as Francis groomed his white paws with his long, pink tongue. The fragrant aroma of coffee filled the air. Despite the sense of unease that pervaded her—like a dull muscular ache which hasn’t yet ripened into real pain—Abby tried to convince herself that life would soon be returning to normal, or at least as normal as it got given her present physical challenges.

The telephone rang.

Abby, Fiona Hight here. As if Abby couldn’t tell from the voice—tight as a wire and as commanding as an army sergeant’s. Abby found herself strongly tempted to tell the woman that she had a guest and couldn’t talk now. But Fiona would catch up with her sooner or later, so she might as well get the conversation over with now.

Yes, Fiona?

Have you talked to Professor Cirlot about his part in the Arizona Historical Foundation’s annual spring lecture series?

I’ve checked with his department. The professor is in Germany for the fall semester. I sent him an E-mail and will try to reach him again if I don’t get a response by the end of the week.

Then you haven’t written your piece for the newsletter? Fiona asked with evident disapproval.

Well, Fiona, there’s no point until I confirm Professor Cirlot’s lecture, Abby told her bluntly. Why, she asked herself, should she be writing up a professor who might or might not be participating in their program until she had a definite confirmation?

Don’t forget that as a member of the board of the Arizona Historical Foundation, more particularly as a member of the committee on the annual Goldwater lecture series, you must have your write-up ready for the winter newsletter in a timely fashion.

And I will, Abby stated firmly. She thought that if Fiona were out to play a game of intimidation, she’d picked the wrong person. Abby had had too much experience with that sort of thing in the academic life. She’d sat on enough committees on which someone was out to dominate the others in order to express his or her ego. Although, to be fair, this wasn’t actually the case with Fiona, or rather not in such a blunt form. The woman was a driving perfectionist. She would make things run on greased wheels simply because that’s the way things should be, not for her own self—aggrandizement.

Fiona Hight, as you could probably tell, Abby said when Fiona had rung off. She took another sip of coffee and ran her fingers back through her hair. Geezooks! The woman runs Hight Mining Equipment, sits on at least five boards, and can find time to gig me about an assignment she only handed out last week? Maggie, what have you gotten me into?

But they both knew the answer to that one. It was part of the Rebuild Your Life Campaign. Another bond, besides common interests and college affiliation, between the two women was a need to restructure shattered lives. Maggie, after losing her husband to cancer, had determined to do something all her own. She’d decided to write a book about old Camelback Inn, a site of considerable historical interest in the Valley of the Sun, in the period between its founding in 1936 and 1956—the first 20 years, as she phrased it. In the process, she had gotten involved with the Arizona Historical Foundation, which could provide some very good source material. The Foundation, in turn, recognized someone who, though not a native Arizonian, had lifetime experience in the area—moreover an organized, achieving woman with a lot of good ideas. They had quickly co-opted her to the board.

And Maggie, realizing that this was a critical time for the Foundation since its former director had just resigned to go into publishing, had brought in Abby. The idea was for Abby, who as a former college professor had in-depth experience with archives, to offer direction and expertise until a new director could be decided upon.

Abby had agreed. After all, with her present physical problems she might not have the energy to carry a full teaching load, but she didn’t have to remain idle. She could fit in somewhere, and the Foundation seemed like both a reasonable place to start and one where she could use her academic skills to good advantage. A much better way to spend her time than moping around trying to figure out how to adjust to life on dialysis.

Does the woman ever sleep? Did anyone give her the lecture on using white gloves for anyone who volunteers to do anything in today’s world? Abby asked, as she took another sip of now-cooling coffee. If she’s going to be a success as president of the Foundation, someone should give her a course in tact.

She can be abrasive, I’ll admit. But cut her some slack, Maggie advised. She just lost her husband, maybe six months ago? Ford Hight. A very nice man.

Oh, I am sorry. Abby had understood that Fiona was a widow, but she didn’t realize that the loss was that recent. How did he die?

An aneurism. All very sudden and totally unexpected.

Abby caught her breath. She knew all too well the pain of losing a loved one without warning. Although in her case she had not lost a husband—Mark and she had decided to finish their graduate studies at Yale before getting married—she had lost the dearest person in the world in the flick of an eye, or rather the moment it took for hot, hard lead to crash into soft, vulnerable human flesh. A drunken, drugged-up townie had decided to shoot up the university, and Mark,