J. Jance - Dead to Rights

“Yes?” he answered.

Joanna opened her leather wallet that displayed her badge. He frowned. “The officer who was here earlier disturbed my patient. He needs rest.”

“Another officer was here?” Joanna asked in surprise. “Who?”

“A big man,” Dr. Lee told her. “Voland, I believe was his name. He, too, carried a badge.”

“Dick Voland is one of my deputies,” Joanna said.

Dr. Lee drew himself up to his full height. “I do not care for his bedside manner,” he declared. “You can tell him from me that he is not to enter the rooms of any of my patients without my permission in advance. Is that clear?”

Joanna nodded. “Perfectly,” she replied. “But would it be possible for me to speak to Mr. Morgan? It’s a matter of some urgency.”

“Mr. Morgan has had a severe blow to the back of his head,” Dr. Lee replied. “He needs his rest. You promise not to take too long?”

“I promise,” Joanna said.

“Very well,” Dr. Lee returned. “I will call Mrs. Embry and let her know.”

When Joanna returned to the nurses’ station, Mavis Embry waved her on by. “I guess you know which door,” she said.

Deputy Debbie Howell, stationed directly outside the door to Hal Morgan’s room, was a single mom and a relatively new hire in the department. As a consequence, she was low-man on Dick Voland’s patrol roster. She greeted Joanna with a pleasant smile. “Good afternoon, Sheriff Brady.”

“Good afternoon, deputy,” Joanna returned. “How’s it going?”

Deputy Howell shrugged. “B-o-r-i-n-g,” she answered. “The only people who’ve been in or out so far are doctors and nurses. No other visitors at all.”

In fact, a printed “No Visitors” sign had been affixed to the door frame. “I’ve spoken to Dr. Lee,” Joanna said, pushing the door open. “I won’t be long.”

Hal Morgan lay on his back on the bed. His head was swathed in bandages. At first Joanna thought he was asleep. He lay with his face turned toward the window, and he didn’t move when the door opened. Walking quietly to the far side of the bed, Joanna was surprised to see that his eyes were open. He was staring out the window. Following his gaze, she looked out through the slight distortion of the green mesh screen that covered the window. Half a mile away, the rusty-red tailings dump reared abruptly into the air, reaching heavenward toward an intensely blue canopy of sky.

“Mr. Morgan?” Joanna asked.

Frowning, he turned to look at her. For a moment Joanna wasn’t sure whether or not he recognized her. With head injuries, she knew there was always the possibility of loss of memory. Short term memory, especially of events that occur within hours of the injury incident, can disappear forever.

“Sheriff… Sheriff…” Morgan struggled.

“Brady,” Joanna supplied. “Sheriff Joanna Brady.”

He nodded and then grimaced, as though even that small movement had pained him. But when he spoke, his voice emerged with surprisingly clarity and force.

“I don’t care what that Voland character says,” Hal Morgan told her. “I didn’t kill Amos Buckwalter.”

There was a single chair next to the window. Joanna sank clown onto it. “What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked.

“Wait a minute, Sheriff Brady,” Morgan said with sudden wariness. “I put in my twenty years. Voland already told me I’m a suspect. There’s an armed deputy stationed outside my door. I’m not talking to anyone-you included-without having an attorney present.”

“Do you have one?” Joanna asked.

Morgan frowned. “Do I have one what?”

“An attorney,” Joanna answered. “By the way, the best defense attorney in town is a guy by the name Burton Kimball.”

Reaching into her pocket, Joanna pulled out one of her business cards-one of the shiny new ones with the words “Joanna Lee Brady, Sheriff of Cochise County,” printed on the front. Turning the card over, she scrawled Burton Kim-ball’s name on the back and then handed the card to Hal Morgan. He squinted al it for a moment as though his eyes weren ’t quite working properly. “What’s this?” he asked.

“The name of that defense attorney,” Joanna replied “You’ll have to call him, though. He’s good, but he’s not likely to show up unless you call him. Ernie Carpenter, my homicide investigator, is bound to be in touch before long. You’ll want to have Burton on tap when that happens.”

Morgan lowered the card and stared at Joanna. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

Joanna looked down at her hands. “Maybe because I believe you when you say you didn’t do it?”

Momentary anger flickered in Hal Morgan’s deep-set eyes. “Look,” he said, “if this is one of those good cop/bad cop deals, forget it. It’s not going to work. I’ve played that game myself a time or two. No matter what you say or do, I still didn’t kill Amos Buckwalter.”

“I didn’t say you did,” Joanna replied. “In fact, I believe I said the exact opposite.”

Looking away, Hal Morgan tossed the card onto his bed-side table. “What are you here for, then?” he demanded.

“To ask a few questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like what do you remember about yesterday?”

“Very little from noon on,” he said.

“But before that?”

“Pretty much the whole thing,” he replied. “I remember meeting you. I remember standing outside the fence at the animal clinic all morning long. Up until noon.”

“And then?” Joanna urged.

“It must have been right around then when Buckwalter’s wife came outside, got in her car, and drove off. I assumed that Buckwalter was alone in the clinic, but a few minutes later he cam outside with somebody else-another man .The two of them walked toward the barn.”

Joanna sat forward on her chair. “What did this other man look like?”

Morgan looked at her quizzically. “You believe me, then?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“When I told Voland the same thing, he made me out to be a liar. He said I made the other guy up in hopes you’d go looking for someone else to pin it on.”

“Did you?” Joanna asked.

Morgan shook his head. “No,” he said. “He was there. I saw him.”

“What did he look like?”

“That I can’t tell you,” Morgan answered. “Not really. I was on the far side of the cattle guard, outside the fence. From that distance, I couldn’t see either one of them very well, but I’m fairly certain one of them was Buckwalter. I recognized his shirt. The other one, I never saw before. I do remember wondering how he could have gotten inside the clinic without my seeing him. One thing for sure, he didn’t come in through the gate.”

“He probably came through the house then,” Joanna supplied. “The Buckwalter house faces another street, but there’s a path that leads back and forth between the house and the back of the clinic.”

“I see,” Morgan said.

“So what happened next?” Joanna asked.

“Both of them, Buckwalter and the other guy, walked into a metal building, a shed that looked like a barn.”

“And then?”

Without answering, Hal gave Joanna a shrewdly appraising look. They were both aware that, over his objections, they had slipped into a mode where she was asking questions, and he was answering them. For a time, Joanna thought he was going to clam up completely, but after a moment he continued.

“Pretty soon I heard someone yelling. It sounded like somebody calling for help from inside the barn, so I left the gate and went running that way. The last thing I remember was going in through the door-going from bright sunlight into a sort of dusky gloom. Then something hit me on the back of the head. The next thing I knew, I woke up here with my lungs on fire and with a killer headache that just won’t stop.”