all the possible legalities that could complicate his sim-
plistic summation. “Reid might know. Am I still going
to see you in a couple of hours?”
“I’ll be there,” he promised.
I adjourned at 5:30, then got held up to sign some
orders, so that I went downstairs prepared to apologize
for being a little late. I needn’t have worried.
Melanie Ashworth, the department’s recently hired
spokesperson, was holding forth about something to
reporters in the main lobby, so I crossed out of camera
range and asked the dispatcher on duty what was up.
“They just identified all those body parts,” he whis-
pered. “It’s Buck Harris.”
I walked on down the hall. Dwight was in Bo’s office
with a couple of deputies, and they seemed to be dis-
cussing something serious. He held up a with-you-in-a-
minute finger and I signaled that I’d wait for him in his
164
HARD ROW
office. It did not look good for the home team. Even
though Cal and I both needed for me to follow through
on this, I should have known better than to try to set up
an evening with Dwight when he was in the middle of a
sensational murder investigation.
Fortunately, I had brought along some reading mate-
rial, although it didn’t make me happy to read that a col-
league had been reversed on an earlier ruling. She had
ordered the divorced father of minor children to turn
in all his guns until the children were grown. This was
after he himself testified that yes, he did keep a loaded
handgun on the dash of his truck and loaded long guns
in the house and no, he didn’t plan to lock them up in
a gun cabinet or have them fitted with trigger locks be-
cause
The father had appealed and the higher court had
sided with the dad. I just hoped my friend would never
have to send those judges the obituary of one of those
kids with an “I told you so” scribbled across it.
I had rendered a similar judgment almost a month
ago, but so far that father hadn’t appealed. With a little
luck, he might never hear that there were higher courts
that would let him put his preschoolers in harm’s way. I
certainly wasn’t going to tell him.
Dwight was still tied up when I finished reading the
official stuff, so I pulled out
my book club’s selection for March.
I know, I know. My club is always behind the curve,
but hey, sometimes it’s helpful to let the first waves of
enthusiasm wash out what’s trendy and leave what’s
solid. We’ve spared ourselves a lot of best sellers that
