J. Jance: Dead to Rights

“Like hell,” Bucky replied.

Not wanting the potentially volatile situation to deteriorate any further, Joanna chose that moment to step into the fray. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said calmly. “What seems to be the problem here?”

“Sheriff Brady.” Deputy Pakin’s face brightened considerably with the arrival of some backup. “Mr. Morgan, here, and Doc Buckwalter seem to be having a little disagreement… “

“It’s hardly a little disagreement,” the man with the sign interrupted. “Dr. Amos Buckwalter killed my wife. He could just as well have murdered her in cold blood. Now he’s back home with his life and his business intact, while Bonnie’s life is over. Mine, too, for that matter.”

That was when Joanna finally caught sight of the sign. “Point 28,” it said. “A license to kill.” From there it took only a second to realize what was going on. Joanna wasn’t entirely sure of the date, but she did remember the incident.

Early the previous year-maybe as far back as January or February-Bucky Buckwalter had gone off to an annual veterinarians’ gathering being held at the convention center in downtown Phoenix. Smashed to the gills after partying too much, he had smashed his pickup into a woman crossing a street at an intersection. She had been killed on impact. Point two-eight was what he’d blown into the Breathalyzer two hours after the incident. That long after the incident, his blood alcohol level had still been almost three times the.10 that Arizona law deems legally drunk.

“Look, Morgan,” Bucky said. “I’m sorry as hell about your wife. But I’ve paid my debt to society-spent my two months baking in an unairconditioned tent at the Maricopa County Jail. I went through six weeks of court-ordered in-patient treatment. Now I’m attending court-ordered AA meetings and doing my community service. My new truck had to go back and I’ve had to mortgage my clinic just to pay the fine, the lawyers, and the treatment. What else do you want from me?”

“Bucky,” Terry Buckwalter called from the door to the clinic. “What’s going on out there?”

If Doc Buckwalter heard his wife call to him, he didn’t acknowledge it. He and the other man had eyes and ears solely for one another.

“I’ll tell you what I want,” Morgan returned. “You may have paid the state, but you haven’t paid me. Bonnie’s gone. What about her? What about me? What about our life together?”

“The court ordered me to pay a fine and to get treatment. I’ve done that,” Bucky Buckwalter replied stiffly. “If you want to take me to civil court, fine. Go ahead. That’s up to you. In the meantime, I’ve got a business to run, Mr. Morgan, so why don’t you get the hell out of here and let me do it? And if you so much as set one foot on my property, I swear I’ll have you arrested.”

With that, Dr. Amos Buckwalter turned his back on the group and stalked off toward the building’s entrance where his wife still stood waiting for him. When the man with the sign made as if to follow, Joanna stepped in and stopped him. “Excuse me, Mr. Morgan. Maybe we should talk about this. ”

Morgan spun around and turned on her. His dark brown eyes flashed with barely suppressed fury. “What’s there to talk about?” he demanded. “And who the hell are you?”

Obviously Morgan hadn’t been paying much attention to Deputy Pakin. “I’m Joanna Brady,” she answered coolly. “Sheriff Joanna Brady.”

“How many cops did that jerk call? I’m surprised he didn’t have someone issue an all-points bulletin.”

“Nobody called me,” Joanna replied, matching the severity of her tone to his. “And there’s no APB, either. My dog got into a porcupine last night. I came by to drop him off so Dr. Buckwalter can pull out the quills. What are you doing here, Mr. Morgan?”

“Picketing,” he replied more evenly, making a visible effort to calm himself. His troubled eyes met and held Joanna’s questioning gaze. “This is the first time I’ve had a whole week off since he got out of jail and treatment. And if this is what I want to do with my spare time, no one’s going to stop me. ”

In that tense atmosphere, when Morgan’s hand disappeared into a jacket pocket, Deputy Pakin made as if to reach for his own holstered weapon. Instead of a gun, however, Morgan’s hand emerged from his pocket holding a fanfold of brochures. While the deputy breathed a sigh of relief, Morgan handed one of the brochures to Joanna.

“It’s informational picketing only,” he added. “I’m passing out literature for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. There ’s no law against that, is there?”

Joanna looked down at the brochure. On the cover was the cap-and-gown high school graduation portrait of a sweet-faced young woman. “Danielle Leslie Mitchell,” the caption read. “Born June 17, 1976. Died June 18, 1994.” That was all it said, but it was enough. For Danielle Leslie Mitchell, eighteen years had been an entire lifetime.

Joanna raised her eyes once more and met Morgan’s challenging stare. “There’s a law against this,” she said, nodding toward the picture. “But not against picketing, as long as you do as the deputy said and don’t disrupt traffic or trespass on private property. Understood?”

Morgan said nothing, but he nodded. She turned to the photographer. “I think you can stop now, Kevin. The incident’s over. And Deputy Pakin, since it looks as though everything’s under control, you might as well go on to your next call while I take my dog into the clinic.”

“Right, Sheriff Brady,” Lance Pakin said. “Thanks for the assist.”

Joanna returned to her Blazer, turned off the flashing lights, and drove across the cattle guard. As she passed the man with his sign, she paused and rolled down her window. “Please accept my condolences about your wife, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “You must have loved her very much.”

For the space of a second or two, the mask of anger dropped away from the man’s face, leaving behind nothing but an expression of naked, unaffected grief. That painful look was one Joanna Brady recognized all too well. Some-thing very much like it reflected back at her every time she gazed into a mirror. However long Mr. Morgan’s wife had been dead, the man’s overwhelming grief was still close enough to the surface to be noticed by even the most casual observer.

“Thank you,” he murmured and then turned away, wiping at his eyes with the back of his sleeve. It was possible that a sudden gust of wind had blown some dust or grit into his eye, causing it to tear, but Joanna didn’t think so. Anger was all that had held Morgan together during his heated confrontation with Doc Buckwalter. With that gone, the slightest kindness-even something so small as an expression of condolence-made him fall apart. That was something else Joanna recognized. That, too, had happened to her-more than once.

Shaking her head, Joanna drove on through the gate and into the clinic parking lot. Poor guy, she thought. There’s som e-body who’s in worse shape than I am.

“Not Tigger and the porcupine again,” Terry Buckwalter said, peering over the reception desk as soon as Joanna le the quill-sprouting dog into the animal clinic’s waiting room

Joanna leaned down and rubbed the dog’s ears. “I’m sure it hurts, but he doesn’t seem to mind the quills as much we do. Still, you’d think he’d wise up after a while.”

“Some dogs can be pretty hardheaded,” Terry said.

Joanna laughed. “To say nothing of expensive. For what we’ve spent on porcupine quills, we probably could have ended up with a purebred puppy, as opposed to this ugly mutt. But Jenny loves him to pieces, and he’s great at catching Frisbees.”