a rookie as any of the others, she was also a newly elected county sheriff.
“Well?” Thompson urged impatiently.
“My father was a police officer,” she said flatly. “So was my husband.”
Thompson frowned. “That’s right,” he said. “I remember your daddy, old D. H. Lathrop. Good man. And your husband’s the one who got shot in the line of duty, isn’t he?”
Joanna bit her lip and nodded. Andy’s death well as its violent aftermath had been big news back in September. Both their pictures and names had been plastered in newspapers and on television broadcasts all over Arizona.
“And unless I’m mistaken, you had something to do with the end of that case, didn’t you, Mrs. Brady? Wasn’t there some kind of shoot-out?”
“Yes,” Joanna answered, recalling the charred edges of the single bullet hole that still branded the pocket of her sheepskin-lined jacket.
“So it would be safe to assume that you’ve used a handgun before—that you have some experience?” The rising inflection in Dave Thompson’s voice made it sound as if he were asking a question, but Joanna understood that he already knew the answer.
A vivid flush crept up her neck and face. The last thing Joanna wanted was to be singled out from her classmates, the other academy attendees. Dave Thompson seemed to have other ideas. He focused on her in a way that caused all the other people in the room to recede into the background.
“Yes,” she answered softly, keeping her voice level, fending off the natural urge to blink. “I suppose it would.”
Thompson smiled and nodded. “Good,” he said. “You come on up here then. We’ll have you take the first shot, if you’ll excuse the pun.” Visibly appreciative of his own joke, he grinned and seemed only vaguely disappointed when Joanna didn’t respond in kind.
Unsure what the joke was, Joanna rose resolutely from her chair and walked to the front of the classroom. Her hands shook, more from suppressed anger at being singled out than with any kind of nervousness or stage fright. Weeks of public speaking on the campaign trail had cured her of all fear of appearing in front of a group of strangers.
The room was arranged as a formal classroom with half a dozen rows of tables facing a front podium. Behind the podium stood several carts loaded with an assortment of audiovisual equipment. As he spoke, Thompson moved one cart holding a video console and VCR to a spot beside the podium. He knelt for a few moments in front of the cart and selected a video from a locked storage cabinet underneath. After inserting the video in the VCR, Thompson reached into another locked storage cabinet and withdrew a holstered service revolver and belt.
“Ever seen one of these before?”
The way he was holding the weapon, Joanna wasn’t able to see anything about it. “I’m not sure; she said.
“For your information,” Thompson returned haughtily, “it happens to be a revolver.”
His contemptuous tone implied that he had misread her inability to see the weapon as total ignorance as far as guns were concerned. “It’s a thirty-eight,” he continued. “A Smith and Wesson Model Ten military and police revolver with a four inch barrel.”
He handed the belt and holstered weapon to Joanna. “Here,” he said. “Take this and put it on. Don’t be afraid,” he added. “It’s loaded with blanks.”
Removing the gun from its holster, Joanna swung open the cylinder. One by one, she checked each of the rounds, ascertaining for herself that they were indeed blanks, loaded with paper wadding, rather than metal bullets. Only after reinserting the rounds did she look back at Dave Thompson,
