“You shot him yourself?”

Joanna nodded. “It was ruled self-defense, so there was never any trial, but if I had needed a defense attorney, Burton Kimball is the one I would have called.”

Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute; a little while ago you said you believed me.”

“I do,” Joanna answered. “But just because I do doesn’t mean everyone else will.”

Hal Morgan reached out and retrieved Joanna’s business card. It was only when he was holding it in his hand, examining it, that she noticed his fingers and saw that Hal Morgan was still wearing his wedding ring. Three weeks under a year after his wife’s death, he had yet to take his off. Terry Buckwalter’s was already history. The contrast was telling.

Morgan was still looking at the card when he spoke again.

“I’m sorry about your husband,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

‘‘Thank you,” she returned.

“Is that why you’re helping me?” Hal Morgan asked.

Joanna shrugged. “Maybe,” she said, standing up. “If nothing else, I know how you feel.”

“Won’t it cause trouble for you?^” he asked. “With your people, I mean?”

She smiled. “It could. On the face of it, there’s certainly potential for a conflict of interest. That’s why I’m not pulling the deputy, even though I personally don’t believe you need an armed guard.”

“It’s okay,” Morgan said. “I understand.” Then, after moment, he added, “Your homicide dick isn’t going to like it when he finds out you’ve referred me to a local defense attorney.^”

“Who’s going to tell him?”

For the first time there was the slightest hint of a smile lurking under Hal Morgan’s gray-flecked moustache. “Not me,” he said, holding out his hand. “Thanks for everything.”

Joanna shook hands with him, then walked as far as the door, where she stopped, pausing with one hand on the lever. From a law-enforcement standpoint what she had done made no sense. On a personal level she was incapable of doing anything else.

“You’re welcome,” she told him. “And good luck wit Burton. He’s a good man.”

Once back in the Blazer, Joanna radioed the department and asked to be patched through to Dick Voland. “I’ve just from the hospital,” she told him.

“You went to see Morgan?”

“That’s right,” Joanna said. “And I talked to Deputy Howell, too. She’s due to get off at three. Do you have an officer scheduled to relieve her?”

“Not yet,” the chief deputy returned. “I was was waiting for marching orders from you. Now that I know you’re not pulling the guard, I’ll definitely have someone there by three.”

“Still no overtime, though, Dick,” Joanna cautioned. “I want you to utilize people from the regular patrol roster.”

“Right,” Voland agreed. “No overtime.” He paused. “I’m really glad you’ve come around to my way of thinking on this one, Joanna. I was afraid Morgan would stage some kind of miraculous recovery and just walk out of the hospital. Ex-cop or not, I don’t want to lose this guy. Neither does the county attorney.^”

Dick Voland’s voice on the radio was surprisingly cordial.

No doubt that had something to do with his mistaken belief that Joanna, too, had now joined the others in their conviction that Hal Morgan had murdered Bucky Buckwalter, that the case was as good as closed. It seemed a shame to let him know otherwise.

“Where’s Ernie?” Joanna asked.

“He and Jaime Carbajal are still up at Sunizona. Things are hopping up there. Doc Winfield called a few minutes ago wanting to talk to him as well, but Ernie’s come up with some kind of hot lead in the Carruthers case. I just sent Dave Hollicker hightailing it up to Sunizona with a search warrant. It sounds like Ernie’s convinced that the daughter, Hannah Green, did her old man in. The problem is, right this minute no one can find her.”

Since Ernie already had the Carruthers autopsy results in hand before he left town, Joanna knew that whatever the coroner was calling about had to have something to do with Bucky Buckwalter.

“Doctor Winfield is done with the Buckwalter autopsy then?” Joanna asked.

“Sounds like. It’s not typed up or anything. That won’t happen until tomorrow, but Winfield was willing to brief Ernie on the results in the meantime.”

“What time will Ernie be getting back to town?” Joanna asked.

“No idea whatsoever,” Voland answered. “But most likely it’ll be late. You know what Ernie’s like once he gets his nose to the ground. I told the Doc that he probably won’t turn up any before tomorrow morning.”

That news disappointed Joanna on two fronts. For one, without Ernie talking to Winfield, the department wouldn’t have access to even the most preliminary autopsy results until noon the next day at the earliest. Not only that, if Hal Morgan’s version of the events leading rip to Bucky’s murder was correct, someone besides Morgan had visited the crime scene.

Joanna needed someone to check that out, to go canvassing the Buckwalters’ Saginaw-area neighbors searching for any kind of corroboration. She had hoped that job would fall to Ernie. But there were time constraints. The questions had to be asked while details were still fresh in people’s minds, before they forgot something they had seen without any comprehension of its potential importance. If Detective Carpenter was otherwise occupied, someone else would have to pick up the slack and do the shoe-leather work-someone from Dick Voland’s Patrol Division. That was bound to blow Joanna’s cover with her chief deputy. But that was what she’d been elected for-to take the flak.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’m almost at the traffic circle, Instead of coming straight back to the department, I’ll stop by Doc Winfield’s office and see what he has to say. In the meantime, when you start passing out today’s assignments I want you to send at least one deputy over to Saginaw to talk to Bucky Buckwalter’s neighbors. I want to knov whether or not anyone saw a strange vehicle parked near the house or clinic around noon yesterday.”

There was a moment of dead air over the radio. When Dick Voland spoke again, all trace of cordiality was gone from his voice.

“Why on earth would we want to do that?” he demanded.

“Because we need to,” Joanna replied. “And we need do it A.S.A.P.”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Don’t tell me. I’ll bet Hal Morgan passed along his ‘second man’ pile of crap. He led me that same line of bull. Don’t fall for it, Joanna. It’s nothing but a sucker ploy designed to throw us off track.”

We’re off track, all right, Joanna thought, but somebody else put us there. When she spoke, though, she made sure her voice stayed calm and even.

“Whether or not I fell for something is immaterial, Dick,” she said. “I want Hal Morgan’s story checked out.”

“But I thought…” Voland sputtered. “… with your leaving him under guard…”

“We’re keeping a guard on the suspect because you seem to feel it’s necessary,” Joanna said. “But just because you and the county attorney happen to be convinced of Hal Morgan’s guilt doesn’t necessarily make it so. Our department has an obligation to check out all the evidence, to bring it to a court of law, and then let a judge and jury decide. For today, I want one officer from the day shift and one from the night shift working the problem right up until nine o’clock, or until the ends of their respective shifts, whichever comes first.”

“But, Patrol is already spread so thin-”

Joanna didn’t give Voland time to finish voicing his objection. “Just do it, Dick,” she interrupted. “That’s an order. I’ll see you as soon as I finish up with Doc Winfield.”

The Cochise County Coroner’s office was in Old Bisbee, halfway up Tombstone Canyon, beyond the courthouse in what had once been a grocery store. During the mid-eighties and long out of the milk-and-bread business, the derelict but still serviceable old building briefly had been brought back to life to house what was purported to be a low-cost, prepaid Funeral service-Dearest Departures.