“Figures,” Ernie said.
“What should I tell Deputy Voland? Will you and Sheriff Brady be heading there?”
Ernie looked to Joanna for an answer. She shook her head. “Not right away,” she said. “We’ll make one quick stop in Douglas first.”
Nodding, Ernie passed that information along to Dispatch, then put the microphone back in its clip.
They drove in silence for a moment or two. “By the way,” Joanna asked some time later, “are you wearing your vest?”
Looking uneasy, Ernie Carpenter shook his head. “I left it in my car back at the department,” he said. “As far as I knew, we were on the way to the hospital to watch somebody do a composite drawing. Why would I need a bulletproof vest there?”
Most of the younger deputies had responded favorably to Joanna’s insistence that officers wear Kevlar vests at all times while on duty. Where she had met resistance was from the old guard-from guys like Voland and Carpenter-the very ones who should have known better.
“Besides,” Ernie grumbled, “I seem to have gained a little weight. It doesn’t fit me like it used to.”
“That extra weight is mostly between your ears,” Joanna shot back. “Right now we’re on our way to interview a possible homicide suspect. Reach into that plastic container that’s right behind my seat. I keep Andy’s old vest in there, just in case.”
“It’ll never work,” Ernie objected. “I must outweigh what Andy did by a good forty pounds.”
“Too bad,” Joanna said with considerable lack of sympathy. “You’ll just have to suck it in and make it work.”
Without another word, Ernie fished out Andy’s old vest. He took off his jacket, buckled the vest on outside his shirt, and then put the jacket back on.
“But I can barely breathe in this thing,” he objected. “And it’s wrinkling hell out of my clean shirt.”
“Let that be a lesson, Ernie,” Joanna told him. “Spring for the seven hundred bucks and get yourself a new one. Have it custom-made so it fits.”
“Seven hundred bucks? Are you kidding?” Ernie groused. “We’ll see. It would have to be pretty damned good to be worth that much.”
The bullet-resistant-vest discussion had carried them inside the Douglas city limits. Traveling without emergency lights, Joanna drove through town at the posted limits. After all, since Joanna Brady and Ernie Carpenter weren’t calling for local backup, there was no need to advertise their presence in someone else’s jurisdiction.
Like the Buckwalter Clinic in Bisbee, Wade Animal Clinic on Leslie Canyon Road was outside the city boundaries. North of the county fairgrounds, Joanna turned into the driveway, only to find the way blocked by a homemade sandwich board sign. Hastily written block letters announced the clinic was closed. Disregarding the sign, Joanna drove around it.
“Looks like nobody’s home,” Ernie said.
Wade Animal Clinic, like other small town veterinary practices, was part of an all-purpose compound that included both a residence and clinic facility. The clinic, consisted of two cobbled-together mobile homes, sat near the roaf. The house, a low-slung brick affair with a deeply shaded front porch, sat farther back, nestled in among a grove of towering cottonwoods.
“Maybe not,” Joanna said. “There’s a pickup parked over by the house. Let’s try there first.”
She pulled up and parked beside an empty Dodge Ram pickup. Both Joanna and Ernie opened their respective doors and started to get out of the truck.
“I wouldn’t come any closer it I were you.”
As one, both Joanna and Ernie returned to the Blazer, leaving the car doors open. “Who said that?” Joanna demanded. “And where did it come from?”
“The porch,” Ernie said. “There’s somebody sitting there n the shadow.” Shifting his weight in the seat, Ernie managed to tug his 9-mm Beretta from an underarm holster. Joanna did the same with her Colt.
She took a deep breath to steady herself. “It’s Sheriff Brady and Detective Carpenter,” she called through the open door. “We’re here to talk with Dr. Wade.”
“You’re a little late.”
The voice was familiar, but Joanna couldn’t place it. Just then, the radio crackled to life.
“Sheriff Brady,” Larry Kendrick said. “Aren’t you on tour way to see Dr. Wade down in Douglas?”
“That’s right,” Ernie responded. “We’ve got a probem-”
But Kendrick rushed on. “We’ve got more info on that explosion. The cabin belongs to the same guy-Reginald Wade. A Mazda Miata registered in his name was found outside. So was Terry Buckwalter’s T-Bird.”
Earlier, in order to hear the radio over the road noise, Ernie had turned up the volume. Now, in the silence of the clinic yard, the transmission was so loud that not only did Joanna and Ernie hear it, so did the man on the porch.
“See there, Sheriff Brady?” Larry Matkin said. “You should have returned my call right away. If you had, maybe you could have prevented some of this. I wouldn’t have found out she was playing me for a sucker. Maybe they’d all still be alive.”
“Who would be alive?”
“Terry and Reggie, for starters,” Matkin answered. “And me, too.”
Ducking behind the dashboard so as not to be visible while he did it, Ernie lowered the volume on the radio and then spoke urgently into the mike, giving their location, calling for backup. Meantime, Joanna knew it was her job to keep the man talking.
“But you are alive, Larry,” she argued.
“Just barely,” he said. “And not for long.”
“Are you hurt, then?” Joanna asked. “And are you armed?”
“Hurt? You’re damned right, I’m hurt. She really did it to me. Pulled the wool right over my eyes. ‘Nobody will ever have to know,’ she said. ‘Once we have the money, they’ll never be able to prove a thing.’ I trusted her, for God’s sake. I believed every word she said.”
With one ear, Joanna was trying to make sense of what Larry Matkin was saying. At the same time, she was trying to keep track of what arrangements Ernie was making over the radio.
“Who are we talking about?” Joanna asked. “Terry Buckwalter?”
“Who else?”
“And what are we talking about proving?”
“I did it for her,” he said. “I faked all those assay reports. There’s ore there, but not as much as I said. The Don Luis site would be better, but she said as long as she and the doc had their money, they’d make sure I’d get a cut and no one would be the wiser.”
“What doe?” Joanna asked. “Dr. Wade or Dr. Buckwalter?”
“Funny you should ask,” Matkin said with a derisive nigh. “I never thought she’d kill him to get it, but that only goes to show how wrong a guy can be. As soon as Bucky died, I started wondering about it. Everybody seemed to think that guy Morgan did it, but not me. It was just too damned neat. The company attorney is due in town next week to offer a fortune for the mineral rights, and Bucky up and dies. I figured Terry had to be behind it, but I couldn’t figure out how she did it. She had to have had some help. She couldn’t have done it all by herself, because she wasn’t there when he died. She was with me.”
“You’re saying Terry and Reggie Wade killed Bucky?”
“If you want, I can have Terry tell you herself. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
By then Joanna’s eyes had adjusted enough to the shadows that she could see him sitting there. He reached down and then hauled something up with one hand. At first Joanna sought it was a lifeless mannequin, but then she realized it was Terry Buckwalter, tottering but upright. Her arms were bound to her body by thick strands of rope. There was a gag round her mouth.
“Tell ‘em,” Larry Matkin said, shoving the gag aside so he could talk. “Go on. Tell Sheriff Brady what you told me.”
“Oh, my God!” Terry Buckwalter pleaded. “You’ve got to help me. He’s already killed poor Reggie. He’s crazy. He’s got dynamite all over the place. Here on the porch, in the house. Dynamite and blasting caps, both. He’s going to blow us all to kingdom come.”