“I’m so sorry,” Joanna murmured.

“Don’t be sorry,” Millicent said. “Just get the bastards.”

“We’re doing our best,” Joanna said. “But how are you managing? Is everything under control at your clinic?”

“Yes. I dropped off all the animals from my clinic-including the little pit bull Jeannine found-with Dr. Tompkins out in Sierra Vista. If I have any emergencies, they’ll be directed to him as well.”

“You’re going to stay there then?” Joanna asked.

“Yes,” Millicent said. “For as long as it takes.”

Kristin came to the door and mimed that Joanna had another call. “Sorry to cut you off,” Joanna said, “but I have to go.” She hung up. “Who is it?” she asked Kristin.

“Tom Hadlock,” Kristin replied.

Tom was Joanna’s jail commander. “We’ve had a little incident,” he said when Joanna came on the line.

Fresh from the disturbing news about Jeannine’s injuries, the idea of any kind of jail incident-little or otherwise-made Joanna’s blood run cold. “What kind of incident?” she asked.

“There was a dustup with some cell-made weapons out in the exercise yard.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Not badly enough for stitches. The guards broke it up right away. The two guys involved are in solitary, and the whole jail is under lockdown while we search for additional weapons. In other words, it’s all under control, but I wanted you to know what’s going on.”

“Thanks, Tom,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

For a few minutes after the second phone call she sat staring into space. Then she picked up the notebook she took to the briefings and wrote: “Discuss with Frank. Need new ACO.”

Moments later, the man himself appeared in her doorway. “Time for the briefing,” he said.

“You heard about the problem at the jail?”

Frank nodded. “It’s a good thing the guards stopped it when they did. It could have been a lot worse, but there is some good news.”

“What’s that?”

“Casey Ledford rides again,” he said with a grin.

“Are you saying she got a hit on AFIS?” Joanna asked. “What kind?”

“She didn’t give me the details,” Frank returned. “She said she’d meet us in the conference room to go over what she’s found.”

Casey, Jaime Carbajal, and Debbie Howell were already assembled by the time Joanna and Frank got there. Dave Hollicker came rushing in a few minutes later as Joanna was giving the group an update on Jeannine’s condition, including the disturbing news that the animal control officer had been raped.

“In other words,” Frank said when Joanna finished, “we’ve got to nail these guys!”

“Exactly,” Joanna said. “Not only the ones who actually did the dirty work, but the ones who are behind it.”

“The O’Dwyers?” Frank asked.

“That would be my guess.” She turned to Casey. “Now, then, I understand you may have found something?”

“I found lots of somethings,” Casey said. “For one thing, I lifted prints from the boulder that was used to smash the window on Jeannine’s truck. AFIS says those prints belong to a guy named Antonio Zavala, a nineteen-year-old gangbanger from Tucson. He’s got a string of moving violations, including driving while suspended. Pima County has a warrant out on him for suspicion of grand theft auto. And the guy who got left behind and drove away in Jeannine’s vehicle? His name is Juan Mendoza. He was released from Fort Grant just two months ago on the occasion of his twenty-first birthday. He was sixteen when he got locked up in juvie for vehicular manslaughter, which probably should have been Murder One. The guy who got run over just happened to be dating Juan’s ex-girlfriend.”

“Do we have addresses on those two guys?” Joanna asked.

“Possibly,” Casey said. “But not for sure. Pima County is in the process of forwarding whatever they have.”

“Back to the prints. Are those the only ones you have?” Joanna asked.

“No,” Casey replied. “There are lots more that I haven’t been able to process yet. Dave collected a whole bunch of rocks where Luminol located blood spatter. Once he gets what he needs from those, I’ll process them to see if I can lift any prints from them as well.”

Joanna turned to Detective Carbajal. “You and Debbie will head up to Tucson?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “As soon as we get the info from Tucson, we’re on our way. Should we go by the hospital while we’re there?” he added. “Is Jeannine in any shape to be interviewed?”

“I doubt it,” Joanna returned. “But since you’re going to be in Tucson anyway, you could just as well check and see. Millicent will be able to say whether or not Jeannine can handle visitors or questions.”

“Millicent?” Jaime said. “Millicent who?”

“Millicent Ross, the vet. She and Jeannine are together.”

Jaime raised an eyebrow. “As in partners?”

“As in,” Joanna returned.

Jaime made a note. “What about the Bradley Evans investigation?” he asked. “Are we dropping it for the time being, or what?”

“Something has to give,” Joanna said. “With Ernie gone, we’re way too shorthanded to do everything. As far as I can tell, no one other than Ted Chapman is particularly upset over Evans’s death, which means no one is going to be pressuring us to solve that case. Jeannine Phillips, on the other hand, is one of our own. She was in the process of investigating possible criminal activity when she was attacked.”

“In other words,” Jaime said, “we’re pulling out all the stops.”

Joanna nodded. “That’s right,” she said.

Around the table Joanna’s grim-faced team of investigators nodded in solemn agreement.

“Is there anything else?” she asked. When no one volunteered anything, Joanna nodded. “All right then, you guys,” she told them. “Go get ‘em.”

The investigators hustled out of the conference room, leaving Joanna and Frank alone. “What are we going to do about Jeannine’s position?” Frank asked.

“Fill it,” Joanna said.

“A temporary fix or a permanent one?”

“Temporary for now,” Joanna said. “Check with the part-timers. Maybe one of them will be able to work full-time for the next little while, but if Jeannine’s injuries are as severe as Millicent said, she may never be able to come back.”

“That’s tragic!” Frank exclaimed.

Joanna nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. I know you’re working on checking phones and credit-card charges on Bradley Evans, but if you have any spare time, see what you can find out about the O’Dwyers. I have a general idea of what they’ve been up to the past few years, but we need specifics. If they sicced that gang of thugs on Jeannine because she was too close to something, I want to find out what that something is.”

“Will do, boss,” Frank told her.

The remainder of their morning briefing took the better part of an hour. After that, Joanna went into her office and dived into the paperwork. It was close to one when the phone rang. “Are you ready for lunch?” Butch asked. “Dad heard it’s pasty day at Daisy’s Cafe. I called and they still have a few left. I put three of them on hold. One each for Mom and Dad and another for the two of us to split.”

“Sounds great,” Joanna said. “I’ll be right there.”

Cornish pasties-meat pies filled with cooked beef, rutabagas, and other vegetables-had migrated from Cornwall, England, to Bisbee, Arizona, along with the miners who had hailed from there. Because pasties were readily portable, miners had taken them underground in lunch pails. Most mining operations in and around Bisbee had been shut down for decades, but the foods the miners had brought with them from all over the world remained part of Bisbee’s traditional fare. Don Dixon had been astonished to find pasties available in southeastern Arizona on a previous visit and had been thrilled to find that the ones served at Daisy’s compared very favorably with the ones he remembered finding in Upper Michigan.

Junior Dowdle met Joanna at the door. “I want to see the baby,” he said with his customary grin.