Shoot / Don't Shoot

“If the case is so weak they don’t think they’ll be able to get a conviction, they may go for a plea bargain as the best alternative to letting the guy walk. Maybe that’s what’s happened here.”

“Wait a minute,” Butch said. “Do you think that’s possible? Maybe the case is weak and that’s why they’re going for a plea bargain?”

“It isn’t really my case, but that’s what I’m trying find out,” Joanna said. “If it’s a strong case or if it isn’t.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Butch Dixon exclaimed, beaming at her. “I figured you were just like all the others. You let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, you hear?”

Joanna nodded. “Sure thing.”

He had paused long enough that now he was behind in his duties. Joanna finished her ice cream nil waited for some time, hoping he’d drop off her check. Finally, she waved him down. “Could I have my bill, please?”

“Forget it,” he said. “It’s taken care of.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ever been divorced?”

Joanna shook her head.

“I have,” Butch Dixon said. “Twice. Believe me, no matter what, the man is always the bad guy. I get sick and tired of men always getting walked on, know what I mean?”

“What does that have to do with my not paying for my hamburger?”

“Any friend of Jorge Grijalva’s is a friend of mine.”

CHAPTER NINE

Walking from the bar into the parking lot, Joanna was surprised by how warm was. Bisbee, two hundred miles to the south and east, was also four thousand feet higher in elevation. November nights in Cochise County had a crisp, wintery bite to them. By comparison, the evening air in Phoenix seemed quite balmy.

Once in the Blazer, Joanna sat for some time, not only considering what she had heard from Butch Dixon, but also wondering about her next move. Obviously, Butch was no more a disinterested observer than Juanita Grijalva was. Something in the bartender’s own marital past had caused him to be uncommonly sympathetic to Jorge Grijalva’s plight. Had he, in fact, called the man’s public defender with an offer to testify on Jorge’s behalf? That’s what Dixon claimed. In an era when most people don’t want to get involved, that in itself was rema­rkable.

So, in addition to his mother, Jorge Grijalva has at least one other partisan, Joanna thought. Despite Butch Dixon’s professed willingness to do so, how­ever, he would never be called to a witness stand to testify. Plea bargain arrangements don’t call for either witnesses or testimony. There would be no defense, and that seemed wrong. Somehow, without Joanna quite being able to put her finger on the way he had done it, Butch Dixon had caused the smallest hairline crack to appear in her previous conviction that Juanita Grijalva was wrong. Maybe her son was about to plead guilty to a crime he hadn’t committed.

It was only seven o’clock. The sensible thing to do would have been to head straight back to the dorm and put in a couple of hours reading the next day’s assignment. Instead, Joanna reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the detailed Phoenix Thomas Guide Jim Bob Brady had insisted she bring along. Even as she did it, Joanna knew what was happening. She was wading deeper and deeper into the muck. Inevitably. One little step at a time. Just like the stupid dire wolves at the La Brea tar pits, she thought.

Switching on the overhead light, she studied the map until