Partner In Crime

Knowing Brampton was almost at the border, Joa

Tossing her head, Princess wheeled around and started back toward the Blazer. Meanwhile, Joa

“Hit the dirt!” she ordered. Drawing her weapon, she flung herself out of the Blazer and down onto the sand. On the far side of the Blazer, J.P. Beaumont followed suit.

Princess trotted back toward them and then stood still once more, with her trembling legs spread wide apart and her head drooping. She was close enough to the Blazer that Joa

“Freeze!” Joa

Brampton complied with the order. Joa

“Closer?” Beaumont asked.

Joa

With their weapons drawn, they advanced again. When they ducked for cover the third time, Brampton still hadn’t moved. “He’s either knocked out cold or he’s dead,” she said.

Before they moved forward that last time, a gust of wind blew down the bed of the river, bringing with it a sudden flurry of movement. A cloud of something seemed to rise up ghostlike out of the ground beside the fallen man. It floated toward them, eddying in the breeze. As the mini – dust devil came closer, it separated itself into individual pieces of paper. Only when one of them landed beside her did Joa

Blood money, Joa

Still the suspect didn’t move. “Shall we take him?” she asked.

Beaumont nodded. “Let’s.”

“Go!” she ordered.

Joa

“He must have thought Princess was a jumper,” Joa

Twenty

HINDSIGHT IS ALWAYS twenty-twenty. What Joa

I worked the Seattle PD Homicide Unit for the better part of two decades. In all that time, I never had to bring a dead suspect’s body back across an international border. I was about to get a firsthand lesson, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

Sheriff Brady spoke. Frank Montoya translated. The federales listened and shook their heads. One of them caught sight of the packets of money spilling out of the fallen backpack. At that point the head-shaking became even more adamant. I believe the applicable term would be “No way, José.” Right then I knew how it was going to play out. Without the personal intervention of Vicente Fox, or even God himself, Jack Brampton wasn’t coming back across the border anytime soon. Neither was the money.

Frustrated beyond belief, I went plowing back down the river, gathering hundred-, fifty-, and twenty-dollar bills as I went. I had a whole fistful of them by the time Joa

“Which do you want to take back?” she demanded. “Princess or the Blazer?”

“Princess?” I repeated.

“The horse,” she said impatiently. “The horse’s name is Princess.”

I had far more faith in my ability to drive a Blazer than I did with my skill on a horse. For one thing, just inside the border fence on the U.S. side, I had spotted a reasonably serviceable roadway someone had carved through the desert. I suspected it had been put there for the convenience of passing Border Patrol vehicles and agents, and it looked to be in better condition than either of the narrow tracks I had driven on earlier.

“I’ll drive,” I said. “What about the money?” I added, showing her the wad of bills I held in my hand.

“Give it to Frank,” she said. “He’ll have deputies gather what they can and bring it back to the department. I’ll be more than happy to put it in the confiscated-funds account.”

Without another word, Joa

As a city-born-and-bred boy, I figured the animal would take off. Instead, Princess pricked up her ears, trotted straight over to Joa

“Put it back in the Blazer, would you?”

“Sure thing,” I said.

Watching her ride away, I remembered what Harry I. Ball had said all those days earlier about Joa

JOANNA DELIVERED PRINCESS BACK to the Lozier place. By then someone had contacted Billya

“Thank you so much for bringing her home, Sheriff Brady,” Billya

“You’re welcome,” Joa

Returning the horse safely was the single bright spot in the day’s events. Joa

Not only that, but from the ham-fisted way the federales were handling the situation, Joa