Pushed beyond bearing, Joanna cut off Kristin’s objection. “No buts,” she said. “You’re being paid be
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, is Frank Montoya around?”
“He’s not in his office. He’s over in the jail talking the cook. Want me to see if I can put you through to the kitchen?”
“No, thanks. What about Dick Voland?”
“Yes.” Joanna could almost see Kristin’s tight lipped acquiescence in the single word of her answer. Moments later, Dick Voland came on phone.
“Hello,” he said. “How are you, Sheriff Brady and what’s the matter with Kristin?”
“I’m fine,” Joanna answered. “Kristin, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be having a very go day.”
“I’ll say,” Dick returned. “I thought she was going to bite my head off when she buzzed me about your call. What can I do for you?”
Joanna listened between the words, trying to tell if anything was wrong, but Voland sounded cordial enough. “How are things?” she asked.
“Everything’s fine. Let’s say pretty much everything. The prisoners are all pissed off about quality of their grub, but Frank tells me he’s working on that. We’ve had a few things happening, but nothing out of the ordinary. How are your classes going?”
“All right so far,” Joanna answered.
“Is my ol’ buddy, Dave Thompson, still do’ the bulk of the teaching up there?”
“You know him?”
“Sure. Dave and I go way back. I’m talking years now. We’ve been to a couple national conferences together, served on a few statewide committees. He fell on a little bit of hard times after his wife divorced him. Ended up getting himself remoted.”
“Remoted?” Joanna repeated, wondering if she’d heard the strange word correctly. “What’s that?”
Voland chuckled. “You never heard of a remotion? Well, Dave Thompson was always a good cop. Spent almost his whole adult life working for the city of Chandler. But about the time he got divorced, while he was all screwed up from that, he worked himself into a situation where he was a problem. Or at least he was perceived as a problem. So they got rid of him.”
“You mean the city fired him?”
“Not exactly,” Dick answered. “The way it works is this. If the brass reaches a point where they can’t promote a guy, and if they don’t want demote him, they find a way to get him out of their hair. They send him somewhere else. The more remote, the better.”
“The gutless approach,” Joanna said, and Dick Voland laughed.
“Most people would call it taking the line of least resistance.”
