“Did you hear from them today?” Joanna asked. “Has she turned in her resignation?”

“Not yet. According to Jeff, she’s talking about maybe seeing a doctor. Talking, but she hasn’t made an appointment yet. Jeff is afraid that if he pushes too hard, she’ll give up on the idea of going at all.”

Butch paused and grinned. “That’s the trouble with women,” he said. “They’re totally unpredictable. You can never tell what will happen when you push.”

They had been sitting at the kitchen table. Now Joanna stood up and walked over to Butch’s chair. Taking his face in both hands, she leaned down and kissed him again squarely on the lips.

“That’s right,” she said. “Women are totally unpredictable.”

As far as Joanna was concerned, Tuesday morning’s briefing was more three-ring circus than anything else. Every officer came to the meeting bringing his own particular piece of the puzzle. The problem was, in addition to business as usual, there were far too many puzzles and not nearly enough people.

Frank Montoya, cut loose from Tombstone for the morning, came tapping on Joanna’s back-door entrance, the private one that bypassed the main lobby and led directly into her office. “What’s going on out there?” he demanded. “The lot is parked full of media vans. Don’t tell me Clete Rogers’ mother’s death merits this kind of full-court press.”

“They’re here about Oak Vista Estates,” Dick Voland said. “That’s the current local hot button.”

“What’s happening at Oak Vista?” Frank asked. “Why don’t I know anything about it?”

“Because you’re so damn busy gallivanting around Tombstone that you aren’t tending to business here at home.” Before Frank could respond, Joanna came to his defense.

“Lay off, Dick,” she said. “Give the man a break. He’s spent the last two days tied up on the Alice Rogers homicide. I’m sure you can bring him up to speed on Oak Vista. In fact, while you’re at it, why don’t you tell us all.”

She glanced around her office. Since the waiting reporters were currently stashed in the staff briefing room, the morning briefing itself had been bounced into Joanna’s private office. Usually Joanna, Dick Voland, and Frank Montoya were the only attendees. This morning they had been joined by Detectives Ernie Carpenter and Jaime Carbajal. In the far corner of the room sat Deputy Terry Gregovich. Peacefully sleeping at his feet lay Spike.

“I suppose you know all about the Monkey Wrench Gang,” Voland said.

Frank nodded. “You mean those enviro-nuts from Tucson who used to go around the state trying to put developers out of business?”

“Forget ‘used to’,” Dick Voland said. “They’re back, or at least we’ve got ourselves a group that could be a carbon copy. Not only are they back, but they’re here-in our very own Cochise County. They’ve been raising hell at Mark Childers’ newest development, Oak Vista Estates. Just last week the contractor started clearing the area, the back side of which butts up against Forest Service land at the base of the Huachucas.

“The developer’s no slouch. He has all his ducks in a row on this one. He’s properly permitted and has submitted all his environmental studies, but that doesn’t mean diddly to some people. Twenty or so of them showed up yesterday afternoon armed with rocks and clubs and a whole bunch of tools which, from what we’ve been able to discover, they planned to use to take apart or disable Childers’ fleet of bulldozers, front-end loaders, and dump trucks.”

“Wait a minute,” Frank Montoya said. “I remember now, Mark Childers is one of the movers and shakers out in Sierra Vista.”

“Right,” Dick Voland said. “As a matter of fact, he turned up at the board of supervisors meeting yesterday morning. At that point, all that had happened was what went on Friday, when the demonstrators formed a human chain to keep him from unloading equipment. Yesterday at the meeting, all he was worrying about was construction delays and wanting to know what we were going to do to protect him and his equipment. After what went down later on in the afternoon, my guess now is he’s mad as hell.

“It turns out some of Childers’ opposition came to the meeting as well. They wanted to know who it was who approved the project in the first place. Actually, for a board of supervisors meeting, it was pretty entertaining since they were the ones in the hot seat for a change.”

“So, what happened?” Joanna asked.

“Nothing. Don’t forget, those folks are politicians, every last one of them. It didn’t take long for them to read the writing on the wall. Since a lot of people are obviously unhappy about the Oak Vista project, the board took about half a minute to pass the buck. They’re blaming the whole mess on the head of Planning and Zoning-Planning and Guessing, if you ask me. Looks like Lewis Flores is going to be elected scapegoat. He isn’t going to like taking it in the shorts. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he ends up handing in his resignation over the deal.”

“That’s too bad,” Joanna observed. “Lewis Flores has alwaysstruck me as a real nice guy.”

“You know what happens to nice guys,” Voland said. “Unfortunately, when the board finishes chewing him up and spitting him out, guess who’s next in line? Us. The sheriff’s department. With Childers pissing and moaning about the county having an obligation to protect his people and equipment, the board had to agree with him. Surprise, surprise! Which is why, when Deputy Gregovich called for help yesterday afternoon, I made sure he had it in a hurry.”

Dick Voland stopped talking long enough to hand each attendee a sheaf of papers-incident reports from all of the deputies who had been summoned to Oak Vista. For the next few minutes, the group read through the reports in silence. Joanna was relieved to see that no one had been hurt in the melee. Twelve individuals had been arrested and hauled off to jail, but not before they had done considerable damage to Mark Childers’ equipment.

Joanna’s heart sank as she read through the list: four punctured oversized tires; the track pried off one of the bulldozers; sugar in the fuel tanks of three dump trucks. She looked at Dick Voland. “This is going to be expensive,” she said.

He nodded. “And you’ll never guess who called me just a couple of minutes ago-Mark Childers’ attorney. He’s putting us on notice that we’re being held responsible; claiming that we acted negligently in not providing adequate protection. According to him, we needed to have more and better-trained officers on the job.”

Joanna had watched Terry Gregovich’s shoulders slump lower and lower under the weight of Dick Voland’s litany. Now, in the silence while everyone read through the various reports, he sat staring at his sleeping dog. Joanna supposed he was wishing he could be somewhere else-anywhere else!

Reading through the reports, Joanna couldn’t see what could have been done differently. Her department didn’t have nearly enough manpower to mount an armed guard around an entire subdivision. Not only that, the protesters had arrived at quitting time, having let most of the day pass without incident and lulling authorities into thinking there would be no further trouble.

When people finally looked up from their papers, Joanna turned to Deputy Gregovich. “Do you have anything to add, Terry?” she asked.

Gregovich leaped to his feet, and Spike did the same. Then, when no direct order was forthcoming from his master, the dog circled three times, heaved a huge sigh, lay back down, and closed his eyes. A part of Joanna envied the dog. She could have used a little more shut-eye herself.

“There were too many of them,” Gregovich was saying. “There must have been ten carloads at least. When they showed up last Friday, it was just one of those nonviolent protests, with people lying down in front of the trucks and that sort of thing. I thought this time it would be the same thing, but it wasn’t. Not at all. These guys came packing crow-bars and sledgehammers and all like that. As soon as I saw they meant business, I called for backup, but there was only so much Spike and I could do. We weren’t able to be every-where at once. We did our best, but I’m afraid…”