Concerned but unwilling to show it, Joanna made at least three separate turns, following the old truck route back to the highway and keeping her eye on the narrow pair of headlights that duplicated her every maneuver. By the third turn, Joanna knew she was in trouble. She realized that the men tracking Becker must have worked their way through the same assumptions Joanna had and decided that they, too, would attend Alice Rogers’ visitation. The question now was: What to do about them?
Had Joanna been in her own Blazer, she would have had a spare Kevlar vest for Jonathan Becker to slip on and wear. As it was, she didn’t.
“Don’t turn around, Mr. Becker,” she said evenly, “but someone is following us. I’m going to call for backup. As soon as we have another car or two to make a squeeze play, I’m going to pull over and try to trap this guy. When I do, you’re to hit the floor and stay there. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
Calling into Dispatch, Joanna learned there were no county units available anywhere in the near vicinity, other than the two deputies who had been left guarding Dena Hogan at the hospital. One could be spared, but at best he would be a good ten minutes away.
“What about Douglas cops, then?” Joanna asked. “Are any of them available?”
Two minutes later, just after Joanna had crossed the road to Pirtleville, a city of Douglas patrol car met Joanna. The cop flashed his lights briefly, and then pulled a U-turn as a second car came sliding to a stop in the left-hand lane and cut off all means of escape. Joanna jammed on the brakes, and so did everyone else. Within seconds, the desert lit up with the glare of flashing red lights.
Joanna remained in the Bronco long enough to make sure Jonathan Becker had hit the floorboard and would stay put. By the time she stepped out of the vehicle, the Douglas cops had already wrestled the suspect out of his vehicle and had him pinned flat on the pavement. One of them was just snapping shut a pair of handcuffs when Joanna arrived on the scene.
“Here he is, Sheriff Brady,” one of the Douglas cops announced proudly, shining a flashlight down on the suspect’s shiny bald head. “He never had a chance.”
“I’ll say!”
Joanna recognized Butch’s voice the moment he spoke. Finally, without the headlights glaring in her eyes, she recognized his Outback, too. “Butch, what on earth are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I was following you,” he said sheepishly. “I was worried. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“You know this guy?” one of the Douglas officers asked. “Unfortunately, yes,” Joanna Brady said. She was grateful that in the pulsing glow of lights it was impossible for anyone to see the vivid blush that had flooded her face. “His name’s Butch Dixon. He’s my fiancé.”
“I guess that means we should let him up?” the patrol-man asked.
“I guess so,” Joanna said.
Furious and embarrassed both, Joanna turned on her heel and marched back to the Bronco to tell Jonathan Becker that everything was under control. Meanwhile the two Douglas officers helped Butch to his feet and removed the cuffs. They were still apologizing and brushing the dirt off Butch’s clothing when Joanna returned.
“It’s all right,” Butch said to them impatiently. “I’m fine.”
“You only think you’re fine,” Joanna corrected. “What the hell were you thinking of?”
“What were you thinking of?” Butch returned. “You said you were going to the hospital, but when you left there, instead of going home you took off in the opposite direction. What was I supposed to think?”
“That I was doing my job.”
“And I suppose that includes laying a trap for me-having a whole squad of cops pull me over, handcuff me, and throw me on the ground?”
“I happen to have an endangered witness in my car,” Joanna told him. “A witness somebody’s gone to a lot of trouble to get rid of. When I saw your car, I thought someone had followed me and was going to try to kill him.”
“So who is he?” Butch grumbled. “Shouldn’t I at least get to meet the guy?”
Something in the way he said the words touched Joanna’s funny bone. She stopped being mad and started to laugh. The release of tension was catching. Within moments, Butch was laughing uproariously too, as were the two Douglas cops.
Holding her sides, Joanna staggered up to the door of the Bronco and opened it. “Jonathan Becker,” she gasped. “I’d like you to meet Butch Dixon-the man I’m going to marry.”
Butch temporarily stifled his laughter. With dead-pan seriousness he shook Jonathan Becker’s hand. It was enough to make Joanna giggle that much harder. Only when two cars came by, passing carefully and gawking, did Joanna realize how ridiculous they all must have looked.
“We’d better get out of the road before someone does get hurt,” she said.
“Where to?” Butch asked.
“Let’s go to High Lonesome Ranch instead of my office,” Joanna said. “And if Dick Voland happens to be there, it’ll make it that much more interesting.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Friday dawned clear and cold. Joanna awakened bone-tired and completely alone. After hours of strategic planning, Butch had taken Jonathan Becker into town and booked him into a room at the Copper Queen. Both Junior and Jenny had spent the night with Jim Bob and Eva Lou.
During the contentious discussions that followed their arrival at High Lonesome Ranch, Butch Dixon hadn’t been shy about voicing his opinions. With Becker and possibly Joanna in danger, Butch had been in favor of scrubbing the whole idea. To be fair, Joanna herself had wavered back and forth a dozen times. On the one hand, using Becker as bait seemed like a daring enough plan that it just might work. On the other, if Alice Rogers’ funeral was stocked with cops on loan from jurisdictions all over southeastern Arizona, how would it be possible to tell all the strangers apart? How would anyone be able to separate good guys from bad guys?
The drug-selling activities of the rogue North Las Vegas cops were enough to justify calling in the DEA, and in the end it was Adam York, Joanna’s friend at the DEA, who tipped the scales in favor of mounting the operation when he offered Joanna the use of one of his crack squads of undercover agents. That way, all the visiting officers would be known to one another and, hopefully, unknown to whatever bad guys might show up.
At one o’clock in the morning, when Butch and Jonathan Becker had left, the outlined game plan had seemed feasible enough. At seven-thirty that same morning and in the cold, harsh light of day, it didn’t seem like nearly such a good idea.
Stiff, sore, sluggish from lack of sleep, and with her two black eyes glowing like purple beacons despite a dusting of Coverup, Joanna straggled into the office at ten after eight. When she tore off the topmost sheet on her desk calendar, it didn’t help her mood when she saw that the date was Friday the thirteenth. Leaving her purse on her desk, she hurried out into the lobby in search of a cup of coffee. She found Frank Montoya waiting by Kristin’s desk, a cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of paperwork in the other.
“Whoa,” he said when he caught sight of Joanna. “That’s a matched pair of shiners if I ever saw one.”
“Thanks,” she said. “That’s not exactly what I wanted to hear.”
By the time Joanna returned to her office with her own cup of coffee, Frank was already seated at the conference table and sorting through copies of incident and contact reports. Joanna stopped by her desk and picked up two messages. Drew Gunderson’s name and telephone number was on one. The other was from Detective Hank Lazier with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
“What’s this?” Frank asked when she set Gunderson’s message in front of him.