“Arc you kidding? I don’t believe Junior would hurt a fly, not on purpose.”

“You know that,” Joanna said. “And I know that, but try convincing Marliss.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Butch asked.

“Fill the moat and raise the drawbridge. If she comes by the house and tries talking to Junior, don’t let her near him. Period.”

“With pleasure,” Butch said. “I can hardly wait to see her try.”

Reassured that Marliss wouldn’t be hassling Junior, Joanna spent the next half hour concentrating on the correspondence. Then, when she had worked her way through the worst of it, she dropped a completed stack off on Kristin’s desk for filing, duplicating, typing envelopes, and mailing.

“I’ll be out of the office for the next little bit,” she told Kristin. “Probably until late afternoon. I’m heading out to Sierra Vista to check on things.”

“Will you be seeing Deputy Gregovich?” Kristin asked. “Probably,” Joanna said. “Why?”

Kristin sighed. “He’s so cute,” she said dreamily.

Cute? That was hardly the term Joanna herself would have used to describe Deputy Gregovich. He was tall, gangly, and moved with the loose-jointed jerkiness of a drunken marionette. There was nothing about the man that was remotely cute.

Frowning, Joanna studied her secretary. At twenty-four, Kristin Marsten was probably six or seven years younger than Deputy Gregovich. She was a good-looking, leggy, natural blonde who favored skirts with hemlines several inches above the knee. Although Kristin had never lived anywhere but in Bisbee proper, she was forever putting on airs of being worldly and sophisticated. Terry Gregovich came across as something of a small-town hick, even though he had done two separate tours with the Marine Corps, including time overseas and in the Gulf War, where he had served as an MP.

Had Joanna been picking out likely romantic pairings in her department, Kristin Marsten and Terry Gregovich would never have made the list. Furthermore, on a morning already overloaded with complications, the idea of a blossoming romance between Joanna’s newest deputy and her secretary was almost more than she could handle. It wasn’t just the idea of having two of her subordinates get involved that caused Joanna difficulty. There was always the distinct possibility that later they might become uninvolved, which could prove even worse.

“For a rookie,” Joanna said, choosing her words carefully, “I think Deputy Gregovich is a pretty capable officer.”

She made the comment in hopes of stressing the law enforcement nature of Terry Gregovich’s job. She also wanted to make Kristin aware that, as sheriff, Joanna would have more than a casual interest in that kind of entanglement. Those subtleties, however, sailed over Kristin’s smooth blond tresses without making any noticeable impact.

“And don’t you just love the way Terry and Spike get along?” Kristin continued adoringly. “I mean-you know-it’s like they really like each other.”

Joanna knew all too well that the relationship between Deputy Gregovich and his dog represented hours, days, and weeks of grueling training as well as the expenditure of a big chunk of that year’s officer-education budget. Joanna couldn’t step back and see Terry Gregovich and Spike as a man and his dog. For her they were a K-nine unit-an important investment in her department’s future.

While Kristin continued to gush, Joanna felt suddenly old and wise and very, very official. “‘Terry and Spike are both still quite new at their respective jobs,” she said finally. “We have to do our best to make sure nothing happens to disturb their concentration.”

Kristin stopped short. “Are you telling me I shouldn’t have anything to do with him?” she asked.

“No. What I’m saying is that at this time Deputy Gregovich really needs to have his mind on the job. He can’t afford any distractions.”

“Which I am, I suppose?” the secretary asked with a pout.

“Kristin,” Joanna said. “You’re young, you’re blond, and you’re very pretty. Of course you’re a distraction.”

Kristin had to think about Joanna’s comment for a moment. She wasn’t sure how to take it-as a compliment or as something else. “Thank you,” she said stiffly after a pause. “I think.”

Joanna went back into her office, collected her purse and her To-Do list, and then headed for the car. She had arrived at the Justice Complex too late to stop by Motor Pool before the morning briefing. She had parked the Crown Victoria in her usual place. Now, the sun had spent two hours shining in through the window and onto the urine-soaked front seat. When Joanna opened the car door, the odor inside the vehicle was almost overpowering. Not wanting to leave the onerous job of moving the car to someone else, she got in and drove straight to the garage.

When Joanna walked into the cavelike service bays, at first she thought no one was there. “Anybody home?” she called.

About then she caught sight of a pair of work boots sticking out from under the midsection of the jail’s utility van. Seconds later, Danny Garner, chief mechanic in charge of Cochise County Sheriff’s Department Motor Pool, rolled out from ruder the van on a creeper. “Morning, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got a little problem with my Crown Victoria.”

“Not another water hose.”

“Not a hose,” Joanna told him, “but it is a water problem.”

When Joanna left the garage a few minutes later, one of the jail trustees, armed with an upholstery shampooer, was already scrubbing away at the front seat. Joanna returned to the back parking lot and collected her Blazer. Heading for Sierra Vista, she had thirty minutes to organize her thoughts.

Other people claimed to see things in their mind’s eye. Joanna exercised her mind’s ear. Driving west on Highway 92, she rehearsed possible conversations with both Mark Childers, Oak Vista’s developer, and with Dena Hogan, Alice Rogers’ attorney. She wanted to let Childers know that members of her department would do what they could to protect his property and equipment while, at the same time, trying not to interfere with private citizens’ rights to assembly and free speech. That meant that Joanna’s people would be walking a tightrope between Childers’ interests and those of the demonstrators. She also wanted to let him know that she wasn’t about to be cowed by a cozy romantic relationship between him and a member of the board of supervisors.

As far as Dena Hogan was concerned, Joanna wondered how she could encourage the attorney’s cooperation. She would have to finesse her way into the needed information and find out about Alice Rogers’ newly written will or lack of same. Not only that, discovering a few pertinent details about Alice’s financial situation would give everyone concerned a better idea of what the stakes were.

That was how far she had gone in her thinking process as she drove across the San Pedro at Palominas, where a blazing column of golden-leafed cottonwoods followed a meandering path through unexpectedly lush green river-bottom farmland in the middle of an otherwise parched desert.

Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed Fran Daly’s office in Tucson. One of the things Joanna appreciated about Fran’s down-to-earth way of doing business was that she usually answered her own calls.

“Daly here,” the assistant medical examiner growled into the phone in her gravelly smoker’s voice.

“It’s Joanna-Joanna Brady.”

“Should have known,” Dr. Daly grunted. “You must operate on radar. I only finished the autopsy ten minutes ago. Detective Hemming was here during, but I haven’t talked to Detective Lazier yet. He’s going to be pissed as all hell when he finds out I talked to you before I talked to him.”

“Tough,” Joanna said. “Then again, on second thought, maybe you shouldn’t tell him.”

“There are some really good people working for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department,” Fran Daly told her. “Hank Lazier just doesn’t happen to be one of them. He and I have gone nose-to-nose on several different occasions. But since I believe in picking my fights and this one doesn’t seem worth it, I probably won’t-tell him, that is.”