“You came here to get drunk?”
Butch grinned. “No. I came to see if there’s any difference. I’ve been to Globe and Miami and Superior. I’ve even been to Ajo and Morenci before, but I’ve never been to Bisbee. If you and Jenny don’t have plans for the evening, I thought maybe I could take my favorite lady cop and her daughter out for pizza or something.”
Joanna shook her head. “Sorry, Butch,” she said. “No tonight. A call just came in. I’ve got to go to Tombstone right away. It’s a traffic incident that will probably take most o the evening.”
Disappointment washed briefly across Butch’s face, but that was followed by a good-natured grin. “Maybe tomorrow, then,” he said cheerfully. “I’m staying at the Grand Hotel from now through Monday. Give me a call and let me know.”
Joanna was disappointed, too. Butch Dixon had been an Interesting, fun person to be around. An evening of light hearted conversation and pizza would have been just what the doctor ordered after this impossibly grueling week.
She smiled. “It sounds good,” she said. “I’m sorry about tonight, but…”
“I know,” Butch said. “Don’t worry about it. When duty calls, you’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
With that, Butch grabbed his helmet and book and left, leaving Joanna both relieved and sorry he was gone. Sle turned, then, to the priest: a white-haired, gaunt figure of a man. Behind thick steel-rimmed glasses his gray-blue eyes were at once piercing and kind.
“I’m Sheriff Brady,” she said, offering her hand. “What can I do for you, Father McCrady?”
“I’m a friend of Hal Morgan’s.”
Joanna nodded. “I know,” she said. “From M.A.D.D. Mr. Morgan told me about you. I’d be happy to speak to you, but as you heard, there’s been an emergency…”
“Yes,” he said, “I understand. But what I have to say won’t take long. I just wanted to thank you for putting Hal Morgan in touch with Burton Kimball. Hopefully it won’t be necessary for Hal to utilize Mr. Kimball’s services. Still, it was very kind of you to make that connection for him.”
“I’ll say it was,” Dick Voland growled. The chief deputy, hat in hand, had entered the reception area just in time to hear what Father McCrady had to say. “Sheriff Brady seems to be celebrating Random Acts of Kindness Week a little early this year,” he said.
Joanna turned on him. “I believe that’s enough, Dick.”
“I’m on my way to Tombstone, Kristin,” he said with a glower. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.” He headed for the door.
Joanna stopped him. “Wait a minute, Dick,” she said. “I’m going there, too. Maybe we should ride over together. It’ll give us a chance to talk. You and I seem to have more than one topic to discuss.”
“But I was leaving right now,” Voland objected. “So am I,” Joanna returned.
Voland sighed. “Which car?” he asked. “Mine or yours?” Joanna realized that if she and her chief deputy were about to have a battle royal, it was important that Joanna Brady be the one in the driver’s seat. “Mine,” she said, then she turned back to Father McCrady. “If you’ll excuse us, we have to go now.”
“One more thing, Sheriff Brady,” the priest said. “Hal isn’t actually charged with anything at the moment, is he?”
“Not yet,” Joanna replied. “My chief detective has been occupied with a number of other cases, but that could change. The Buckwalter incident is still being actively investigated.”
“That being the case, is it really necessary to have a police officer following him around everywhere he goes? Hal is finding that very disturbing.”
Joanna glanced in Dick Voland’s direction. He nodded back at her. Urgently. “Homicide is also disturbing,” Joanna said evenly. “At this time we still believe a police presence is necessary.”
“But why?”
“Because he’s a flight risk,” Voland put in, answering Father McCrady’s question in Joanna’s stead.
Father McCrady peered around Joanna and let his eyes settle on her chief deputy. “I can assure you that Hal Morgan didn’t kill that man. Nevertheless, he has given me his word of honor that he’ll make no effort to leave Bisbee until the Investigation is complete and he has been fully exonerated.”
“Hal Morgan’s word may be good enough for you,” Dick Voland said. “But it doesn’t mean much to anyone else. We’re working on physical evidence.”
“What physical evidence?” Father McCrady asked.
“Obviously we can’t reveal that,” Joanna said. “What Mr. Voland and I are both saying, Father McCrady, is that the guard stays for the time being.”
Hurrying back into her office, Joanna called Jenny at her grandmother’s house. “I’ve got to go to Tombstone,” she said. “It’s a serious car accident. I may he very late. Would you please ask Grandma and Grandpa Brady if you can spend the night?”
Any other night, Jenny would have been thrilled at the prospect of sleeping over. Tonight was a different story. “Oh, Mom,” she whined. “Do I have to?”
“Yes,” Joanna said. “Now hurry and ask.”
Minutes later, Joanna and Dick Voland were in the Blazer. With siren wailing and lights flashing, they headed for Tombstone. Voland sat on the rider’s side, with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. Maneuvering through town, Joanna concentrated on her driving. As they started up the Divide, however, before Joanna had a chance to say a word, Voland surprised her with an unexpected apology.
“Sorry about that Random Acts of Kindness comment,” he said. “I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. And thanks for backing me up on the Morgan surveillance, too. I’ve just got a feeling about this Morgan guy. I can’t explain it.
“You’ve been checking him out?”
Voland nodded. “I have. That’s what worries me. Nobody has a bad word to say about him. Nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Trust him with my life. Honest as the day is long.”
Joanna thought of her own meeting with Hal Morgan. That was how he had struck her, too. Honest.
“Maybe the people who are telling you those nice things about him are right. Maybe he didn’t do it.”
“And maybe he did,” Voland insisted glumly.
Joanna spent the rest of the trip to the accident scene recounting to her chief deputy what she had learned in the course of the day. She told him about Terry Buckwalter’s plan to sell her husband’s practice and leave town as soon as possible. She also told him about Bebe Noonan’s pregnancy. Voland whistled when he heard that.
“I know Ernie was out talking to the Rob Roy guy this afternoon,” Voland said. “So he may have found out about the golf stuff, but the pregnancy bit is something else. How’d you find that out if Ernie didn’t?”
There was a certain grudging respect in Dick Voland’s voice, something Joanna had never heard there before. “Just lucky, I guess,” she said.
Several miles passed before Dick Voland spoke again. “The last time I remember seeing Terry and Bucky together was at a football game last fall. They seemed just fine-as normal as apple pie. There was no way to tell all this other stuff was going on, but that’s the way life works. You think people are fine, and then one day they blow up in your face.” He paused. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” he added.
“Yes,” Joanna agreed. “It certainly does.”
In the course of the next four hours, Joanna learned far more than she had ever wanted to know about triage. Nothing she had read in textbooks could have prepared her for the carnage waiting in a gully off a narrow dirt track east of the Tombstone Municipal Airport. Eighteen adults had been locked in the back of the speeding van when it flipped. Two were dead at the scene. Two more were in critical condition and had been airlifted to trauma centers in Tucson. Neither of those two victims was expected to make it. Others, less seriously injured, had been stashed, under guard, in three different hospitals in Cochise County, and two in Tucson. The remaining five, people with injuries no more serious than cuts and bruises, had been booked into the Cochise County Jail.