Dead to Rights

TWENTY

As they headed east on Highway 80, Joa

They didn’t have all the answers yet. So far, there were no proved links between Matkin and Wade. Other than Joa

Once the deal on the clinic closed, Reggie Wade would have bought himself a fortune for the price of a small-town animal clinic. Joa

The desultory chatter on the radio told Joa

On either side of the highway, the winter-blackened mesquite stretched for miles. The trees looked as though they were dead forever, but Joa

Speaking into the radio, Joa

Joa

She was just passing the Cochise College campus, halfway to Douglas, when another call came over the radio. Joa

“What is it, Larry?” she asked.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said. “Up in Pinery Canyon in the Chiricahuas. An explosion of some kind. I’ve contacted ties Voland and Carbajal. They were just leaving Elfrida, which puts them better than halfway there.”

Something in the tenor of the words punched through Ernie’s drowsing consciousness. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and was instantly on full alert. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“There’s been an explosion of some kind,” Joa

Taking the mike from her, Carpenter pushed the “talk” button. “Okay, Larry. What have we got?”

“A guy named De

“Parrots!” Ernie exclaimed impatiently. “What do parrots have to do with the price of peanuts?”

“Ed Hacker is a naturalist who works for the Audubon Society. He has something to do with parrots-raising them or setting them free or something.”

“I know about that,” Joa

Ernie shook his head. “Enough about parrots,” he growled. “What do we know about the explosion? Do we know who owns the cabin?”

“We’re working on that,” Larry Kendrick returned. “It’s one of the places on Forest Road 42, but we’re not sure yet which one. There are eight or nine cabins located out that way. Hacker’s too focused on his birds to know much about his two-legged neighbors.”

“Figures,” Ernie said.

“What should I tell Deputy Voland? Will you and Sheriff Brady be heading there?”

Ernie looked to Joa

Nodding, Ernie passed that information along to Dispatch, then put the microphone back in its clip.

They drove in silence for a moment or two. “By the way,” Joa

Looking uneasy, Ernie Carpenter shook his head. “I left it in my car back at the department,” he said. “As far as I knew, we were on the way to the hospital to watch somebody do a composite drawing. Why would I need a bulletproof vest there?”

Most of the younger deputies had responded favorably to Joa

“Besides,” Ernie grumbled, “I seem to have gained a little weight. It doesn’t fit me like it used to.”

“That extra weight is mostly between your ears,” Joa

“It’ll never work,” Ernie objected. “I must outweigh what Andy did by a good forty pounds.”

“Too bad,” Joa

Without another word, Ernie fished out Andy’s old vest. He took off his jacket, buckled the vest on outside his shirt, and then put the jacket back on.

“But I can barely breathe in this thing,” he objected. “And it’s wrinkling hell out of my clean shirt.”

“Let that be a lesson, Ernie,” Joa

“Seven hundred bucks? Are you kidding?” Ernie groused. “We’ll see. It would have to be pretty damned good to be worth that much.”

The bullet-resistant-vest discussion had carried them inside the Douglas city limits. Traveling without emergency lights, Joa

Like the Buckwalter Clinic in Bisbee, Wade Animal Clinic on Leslie Canyon Road was outside the city boundaries. North of the county fairgrounds, Joa

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Ernie said.

Wade Animal Clinic, like other small town veterinary practices, was part of an all-purpose compound that included both a residence and clinic facility. The clinic, consisted of two cobbled-together mobile homes, sat near the roaf. The house, a low-slung brick affair with a deeply shaded front porch, sat farther back, nestled in among a grove of towering cottonwoods.

“Maybe not,” Joa

She pulled up and parked beside an empty Dodge Ram pickup. Both Joa

“I wouldn’t come any closer it I were you.”

As one, both Joa

“The porch,” Ernie said. “There’s somebody sitting there n the shadow.” Shifting his weight in the seat, Ernie managed to tug his 9-mm Beretta from an underarm holster. Joa