Dead to Rights

Joa

“Dick,” Joa

“I’ll watch her for you,” Butch offered. “You go. I’ll stay right here until you get back.”

Covering the mouthpiece, Joa

“Not at all.”

Joa

Slamming down the phone, Joa

“Like I said yesterday. When duty calls, you’ve got to go. Je

“Thanks,” Joa

She stopped by the bathroom long enough to let Je

“I think he’s adopted me,” he said.

“It does look that way,” she agreed.

“What are all these scabs all over his face?”

“Tigger’s big problem with porcupines is that they can’t outrun him. And once he catches one, he thinks he can win.”

“I know the feeling,” Butch said. “I seem to have the same kind of luck with women.”

Not knowing what to say in response, Joa

He nodded. “I’ll wait here and keep the home fires burning,” he said. “You go do whatever it is you have to do. But be careful, and come back home in one piece, you hear?”

Joa

Nodding, she murmured a quick “I will.” Then she turned away before Butch Dixon had a chance to glimpse how his words of concern had affected her. By the time she vaulted into the Blazer and started down the road, she was crying like a baby.

And the thing that made those tears so very puzzling was that she didn’t really know why she was crying. She had no idea at all.

By the time Joa

“The situation is under control, Sheriff Brady,” the calm voice of Tica Romero, one of the dispatch operators, assured her. “We’ve got it handled.”

Pica’s unruffled response was frustratingly low on information. “I’d like to know exactly how it’s being handled,” Joa

“Deputy Ted Long has the Buick under surveillance. The suspect still hasn’t left the gas station. It looks like he’s headed northbound on Highway 191.”

“What are Deputy Long’s orders?” Joa

“Visual contact only. No hot pursuit. No lights or sirens.”

Joa

“Chief Deputy Voland has authorized establishing a road-block just beyond the Sunizona curve.”

Visualizing the road, Joa

“Can’t we put up the roadblock any sooner than that?” Joa

“Because Deputy Casey can’t get there any faster, for one thing. He’s on his way down from a domestic over in Dragoon. Chief Deputy Voland figures if Deputy Casey can get as far as Township Butte, he can hide behind the butte to put the roadblock in place. That way the suspect won’t be able to see him until he’s right there. When he comes around that curve at Sunizona, it’ll be too late for him to turn off. The two patrol cars will have him in a squeeze play.”

“Where’s Chief Deputy Voland right now?”

“He’ll be leaving the complex as soon as he finishes gathering the response team. Where are you?”

Joa

“Nope. Other than Deputy Casey coming south from Dragoon, you’re the next one up.”

Knowing that, Joa

“He’s moving now,” Tica a

“Which way?”

“North, just like we figured.”

Nodding grimly, Joa

Her departmental patrol division consisted of fifty sworn officers. That sounded like a sizable force but that was before it was parceled out-before those fifty officers had to be divided into five separate shifts and spread over seven twenty four-hour days. Seven days and all those miles. In all, a single patrol officer often was responsible for covering as much as seven hundred square miles.

Considering the fact that a suicidal Hal Morgan had attacked Deputy Howell in making good his escape, he had to be classified as a danger to himself and others. He posed serious threat to the public welfare regardless of where he was and whether or not he was armed. And across all those vast miles of Cochise County, only two responding deputies and Sheriff Joa

Several minutes passed before the radio squawked again. “Sheriff Brady?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve got a problem,” Tica Romero said. “We’ve lost him.”

“Lost whom?” Joa

“Deputy Long. Something’s wrong. We’ve lost radio contact”

Joa