Dead to Rights

and possibility. Even now, the future still didn’t look all that bright, but at least Joanna could see that she had a future. Hannah Green did not.

Joanna Brady had Jenny to live for, but she had something else as well-something beyond simply being needed. As an upholder of law and order, she still possessed a good deal of faith in the justice system. Just as Joanna had told Jenny, she would have expected Hannah Green to have her day in court. A court-appointed attorney would have been at her side. She would have had the opportunity to tell her story to a jury.

Having heard it all the years of casual and debilitating meanness Reed Carruthers had inflicted on his daughter surely no jury would have convicted I Hannah Green of first degree murder. Maybe not even of manslaughter.

Had Hannah Green only lived long enough to hear that verdict read in court! But she had not. Instead, she had short-circuited the justice system by taking her own life. She had come to Joanna and willingly confessed to the crime of murder because she had already made up her mind. Long before she climbed into Joanna’s Blazer she had known that whatever confession she made to Sheriff Brady was all the unburdening she would ever have a chance to do.

So why didn’t I order a suicide watch for her? Joanna demanded of her reflection in the mirror. Why didn’t I see it corning?

Did that mean it was her fault? Was it a natural outgrowth of her own lack of experience? There had been other, far more experienced, officers involved in what had happened, but Hannah Green had died on Joanna’s watch. So, although Joanna might not be directly to blame, responsibility for what had happened rested squarely upon her shoulders.

She was just finishing combing her hair when Angie Kellogg drove into the yard. It should have taken a full twenty minutes for her to drive from the Blue Moon in Brewery Gulch to High Lonesome Ranch, but her Oldsmobile Omega stopped outside Joanna’s gate in just under fifteen. Joanna stifled the barking dogs and then rushed into the yard to meet her.

“What’s going on?” Angie asked. “You sounded upset.”

“One of the inmates committed suicide at the jail,” Joanna answered. “I’ll probably be gone the rest of the night, so when you get tired, go ahead and bed down in my room. If I get home before you’re up and out, I can always sack out on the couch.”

“Are you sure?” Angie asked.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Joanna said. “After all, you’re the one who’s doing me the favor. Thank you.”

“Go and don’t worry,” Angie said. “I’m glad to help out,”

A few minutes later when Joanna pulled into the Cochise County Justice Center, the place was alive with people moving around in the clear, chill night. The driveway was thick with a clot of vehicles. She recognized most of the emergency equipment. Picking her way up the drive, she came around to the back of the building. There, she pulled into her reserved parking place.

When she opened the car door, she was momentarily blinded by the flash of a camera. “Who the hell is that?” she demanded as spots of light continued to dance in her eyes.

“Kevin Dawson with the Bisbee Bee,” a voice said out of the darkness. “Any reason you’re sneaking in the back door, Sheriff Brady?”

“This happens to be my parking place,” Joanna snapped back at him.

“Do you have any comments about what happened in the jail tonight?”

“My comment, Mr. Dawson, has to do with the fact that this parking lot is off limits to the public. I suggest that you get back around to the front of the building where you belong.”

“Come on, Sheriff Brady. I’m just doing my job.”

“So am I,” she told him. “Now get moving.”

She stood and watched until he disappeared around the corner of the building. To steady herself, she paused long enough to take several deep breaths. She gazed up at the canopy of stars and tried to prepare herself for what was conning. This would be an ordeal for all concerned. Kevin Dawson was only the beginning of it.

Using her combination on the push-button lock, Joanna let herself into the building through the private door that led directly into her office. When she switched on the lights, she found to her surprise that the room was already occupied. Ernie Carpenter was sitting in one of the captain’s chairs opposite her desk. He looked up at her. His face was bleak, his skin ashen.

“I blew it,” he said.

“You had no way of knowing,” Joanna told him, dropping her purse on the corner of the desk and then coming around to stand leaning against it. “Don’t blame yourself, Ernie. I’ve been thinking about it all the way here. It’s not my fault, and it’s not yours, either.”

“But it is,” Ernie insisted. “Don’t you understand? Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I’m usually a better judge of people than that-better at reading what’s going on with them. I’ve always prided myself at being able to tell in advance if someone’s going to turn violent on me or go gunny-bags. I didn’t see this one coming, not at all.”

“How long had Hannah Green been in her cell before it happened?” Joanna asked.

Ernie shook his head. “Not long. No more than half an hour or so. She waived her right to a lawyer, so Jaime and I stayed long enough to get the whole interview down on tape. I’d just managed to drag my ass home and crawl into bed when the call came in saying she was dead.”

“Did she leave a note?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Not nothing, Ernie. Her confession to you and Jaime, her confession to me was a note of sorts.”

“I realize that now,” Ernie agreed. “I should have picked up on it at the time. But I didn’t. That’s why I’m quitting.”

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the leather wallet with his badge in it and tossed it on Joanna’s desk. Joanna could barely believe her eyes or her ears. “Quitting?” she echoed.

“That’s right.^”

“Over this? Over Hannah Green?”

Ernie nodded. “If you want me to, I’ll go write my letter of resignation right now. That’s why I was waiting for you here in your office. I wanted to talk to you alone. Without Dick Voland hanging around. He’ll try to talk me out of it.”

“You don’t think I will?”

“Why should you? Look, there are other, younger, guys coming along. I’ve put in my twenty-plus years. This wasn’t a fatal error for me, but it sure as hell was for Hannah Green. By the time we had finished talking to her, I could see that if she was telling us the truth about her father, we’d have a problem when it came to charging her with murder one. Maybe we could get voluntary manslaughter. Maybe even second-degree homicide. Whatever the charges might have ended up being, they wouldn’t have amounted to a capital offense. She may have committed a crime, but she shouldn’t have died for it. The fact that she did is my fault plain and simple. Who’s to say that the next time I won’t screw up worse and somebody else will die? Jaime Carbajal, for example.”

“You’re overreacting,” Joanna said.

“The hell I am.”

Joanna picked up the wallet. The leather was still warm to the touch from being in Ernie’s pocket. She flipped it open and studied the badge. The picture was of a somewhat younger man. A man with a less florid, less careworn face. “Detective Ernest W. Carpenter,” the card said. “Cochise County Sheriff’s Department.”

“You’ve been here a long time,” Joanna said softly. “Since my father’s time.”

Ernie nodded. “That’s right. Your dad is the one who hired me. That’s so long ago it seems like ancient history.”

“How many times, in all the years you’ve been here, have you had two homicides and a suicide in three days?” Joanna asked.

Ernie looked up at her quizzically. “Never,” he said.

“Is there a chance that you’re spread too thin right now? That you’ve been doing too much? Could that account for your not reading Hannah Green the way you might have under ordinary circumstances?”

“I suppose it could,” Ernie allowed grudgingly. “Jamie and I have both been working our tails off.”

“What about Jaime?” Joanna asked. “Do you think he’s ready to step into your shoes? Is he capable of doing