Dead to Rights by J. A. Jance Read Free Book Online Page A

fine.”
    Joanna allowed herself the smallest sigh of relief. Tigger wouldn’t have been anywhere near the barn, so he was obviously fine. “As many emergency vehicles as they have out here, it must be some fire.”
    “That’s because of the body,” Kendrick answered. “One of the deputies on the scene just radioed in asking me to locate Ernie.”
    Veteran Detective Ernie Carpenter was the Cochise County Sheriff Department’s lead homicide investigator.
    “What body?” Joanna demanded. “My pager’s been on. Nobody’s tried to contact me.”
    “There hasn’t been time. The deputy on the scene only called a few minutes ago.”
    Just as he said that, an ambulance pulled out from the clinic grounds and came shooting west along the highway, leaving Joanna no choice but to cut back in between two of the stopped cars lining the right-hand side of the road.
    Sitting there waiting for the ambulance to drive past, Joanna couldn’t help thinking about the confrontation at that same entrance several hours earlier. She had assured Deputy Pakin that everything was fine—under control were the words she remembered using. But if a body had turned up there, Joanna must have been dead wrong about that. She had mistaken grievances under wraps for grievances under control. Now someone had paid for that mistake with his or her life.
    It didn’t take much imagination to figure out that whoever was dead was most likely Bucky Buckwalter. If that was the case, it followed naturally enough that his killer would turn out to be none other than Hal Morgan, the bereaved, sign-wielding protester.
    Joanna’s two-taco lunch staged a sudden rebellion in her gut. If that was true, how much of the responsibility for what had happened would rest squarely on the all too inexperienced shoulders of Sheriff Joanna Brady?
    Too much, she thought grimly, clutching the steering wheel. Too damned much!

 
    THREE
    By the time Joanna bounced over the cattle guard and into the grounds of the Buckwalter Animal Clinic, Richard Voland, the Cochise County Sheriff Department’s Chief Deputy for Operations, was already there. He was standing outside his Ford Bronco, conferring with Captain Ben Lowrey of the Bisbee Fire Department. In the background, thirty yards from the clinic itself, stood the sagging remains of Bucky Buck-waiter’s metal Bild-a-Barn shed.
    The some-assembly-required shed was a mini replica of an old-fashioned barn slapped together over a concrete slab. Beyond that was a corral. At the far end of the corral, tethered to the fence by a halter but dancing nervously from side to side, was Bucky’s winter-coated, eight-year-old quarter horse, Kiddo. A young woman Joanna recognized as Bucky’s veterinary assistant, Bebe Noonan, was with the distressed animal, petting it and trying to calm it. The horse seemed unconvinced.
    “How bad is it?” Joanna asked as she came within speaking distance of Dick Voland and Ben Lowrey.
    A long-time sheriff’s department officer, Voland had served as chief deputy in the previous administration, and he had actively opposed Joanna’s election. Once elected, Joanna’s first impulse had been to dump him. It had taken her only a matter of days, however, to realize that his experience was a vital asset—one her fledgling administration couldn’t afford to ignore. As a result, she had kept Voland on even though their day-to-day working relationship continued to be prickly at best.
    Balding and massive at six-four, Dick Voland shook his head. “Bad,” he said. “We’ve got at least one dead body inside. There could be more.”
    Joanna felt sick. “Bucky Buckwalter?” she asked, dreading the answer.
    Voland shook his head. “Can’t say for sure. Right off the bat, though, the doc would be my first guess.”
    “Who left in the ambulance, then?”
    “The perpetrator,” Voland growled. “I understand the guy’s an acquaintance of yours, Sheriff Brady. Somebody named Hal Morgan. According to Deputy