J. Jance - Judgment Call

To Loretta, in memory of Randy.

Semper Fi.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication To Loretta, in memory of Randy. Semper Fi.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Epilogue

About the Author

By J. A. Jance

Read on for an extract from Second Watch

Copyright

About the Publisher

THE CARstopped in the middle of a stretch of rough dirt road. In the silvery moonlight, the road was a light-colored ribbon cutting straight north through a forest of newly leafed mesquite trees. He had hoped to drive much farther before he stopped the car, but his study of Google Maps had let him down. This was a far more primitive road than he had been led to believe it would be. He had managed to pick his way around the boulder-littered crossings at the first two washes, but this one was impossible. The unfamiliar low-slung Passat wasn’t going to make it.

There was a noisy thumping from inside the trunk. That meant she was awake, and that was fine with him. He wanted her to be awake and aware. He wanted her to know what was happening and why. That was the whole point. Otherwise, it would be a lot like being struck by lightning. God reached out and got you and you had no idea what was coming. That wasn’t what this trip was about; wasn’t what he was about. For him this was far more personal.

He pressed the button on the key fob, opened the back hatch, and removed the blanket he had used to cover her. As soon as the blanket came off, she began to struggle. That was all right. They were far enough away from civilization that no matter what she did, it wouldn’t matter. No one would hear her. Out here in the cold night air of the Arizona desert, the two of them were entirely alone except for the occasional mournful cry of a coyote.

“Up and at ’em, sunshine,” he said. “You ready for a game of hide-and-seek?”

She shook her head desperately back and forth and made a whimpering noise that was probably some form of the word “please.” Through the duct tape, that was difficult to tell. Grabbing her by the underarms, he hauled her up and out of the vehicle and stood her upright, barefoot and swaying unsteadily, on the rough surface of the dirt road. She looked up at him. He could see the terror in her wide-eyed stare. He liked that. He had spent years anticipating this moment, and he didn’t want to rush it.

“I’m going to take off the gag,” he said. “You can scream your head off if you want. No one will hear you.”

He had watched enough forensic TV to know that the cops loved looking for DNA on pieces of duct tape, so he had no intention of leaving any of that behind. Ditto for the nylon tie straps he had used to secure her hands and feet. Those had ID numbers that could be traced back to certain retailers. He would take those with him as well. Ditto his brass.

When he peeled off the duct tape, she surprised him. She didn’t scream. “You don’t need to do this,” she said. “Please let me go. Please.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not how this is going to work. I’m going to let you loose now and give you a running start. Who knows? You may be able to run faster than I can shoot. Or maybe I’ll miss.”

“I can’t run,” she said. “I’m barefoot.”

“That’s your problem. If you want to live, you’ll run.”

When he pulled the box knife out of his pocket, she cringed away from him. That was fine. He liked the idea that she was afraid of being cut, but cutting wasn’t what he had in mind. Instead, he used the knife to slice through her restraints and then stuffed them in his pockets along with the duct tape.

“There you go,” he said. “I’ll give you to the count of ten. You run. I shoot. If I miss, you win. If I don’t miss?” He shrugged. “Well, I guess that’s the end of the story.”

“Please,” she begged again. “Please.”

She didn’t need to say any more than that. He knew what she wanted, and he had no intention of giving it to her.

“You’d better get started, because as of now, I’m counting. One!”

She hesitated for only a moment, then she wheeled and started off into the desert, back the way they had come. That surprised him. He had expected her to cross the wash and then stick to the road. That would have given him a clear shot. If she managed to duck into a nearby thicket of mesquite trees, he’d have to go trailing after her.

So he didn’t bother waiting until the count of ten. He got as far as four and then pulled the trigger. The first shot caught her in the leg. Stumbling forward, she fell to the ground as the second shot went over her head. She was still trying to get away, scrabbling forward on the rocky ground, dragging her crippled leg, when he came up behind her. He shot her three more times after that. The shots were meant more to maim than to kill. He had wanted her to suffer. If she died instantly, she missed the point. This was punishment, payback.

While she lay moaning on the ground, he went looking for his brass. He had shot her with a .380. He found all five casings and pocketed them as well.

Immediately after the first gunshot, a stark silence had fallen over the desert. Gradually, though, the night sounds returned. A nearby coyote howled, and another one off in the distance yipped a response. Far away he heard what sounded like a dog barking, but the barking stayed where it was without coming any closer. The shooter wasn’t especially worried about anyone hearing the gunfire. After all, it was three o’clock in the morning, and the killing ground was suitably remote.

He didn’t bother moving the body. For one thing, he didn’t want to bring any blood evidence back into the car with him. Besides, with the coyotes out and about, he was sure they would deal with the body in their own time-honored fashion.

She was still alive and breathing shallowly as he turned to walk away. “Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,” he said. “And it serves you right.”

LATE ONa Thursday afternoon, Sheriff Joanna Brady sat at her desk in the Cochise County Justice Center outside Bisbee, Arizona, and studied the duty roster her chief deputy, Tom Hadlock, had dropped off an hour earlier.

Her former chief deputy, Frank Montoya, had been lured away from her department with the offer of a new job—chief of police in nearby Sierra Vista. Looking for a replacement, Joanna had tapped her jail commander to step into the job. Tom was well qualified on paper, but he had found Frank’s tenure as chief deputy to be a tough act to follow.

When Frank had been Joanna’s second in command, he had handily juggled several sets of seemingly unrelated responsibilities—media relations, routine administrative chores, and information technology issues—with unflappable ease. Now, after more than a year in the position, Tom was finally growing into the job and had a far better handle on what needed to be done than he’d had in the beginning. Unfortunately, he still wasn’t quite up to Frank Montoya standards.