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there was no way to tell what kind of damage might have been inflicted prior to shooting.
    â€œYes,” Joanna agreed. “After.”
    She plucked her phone out of the pocket of her uniform and punched the speed-dial combination that would take her to Dispatch. Larry Kendrick, her lead dispatcher, took the call.
    â€œGood morning, Sheriff Brady,” he said, greeting her by name before she said a word. In the world of nearly universal caller ID that was hardly surprising. “What’s up?”
    â€œI believe Jenny and I have found the body of that missing high school principal. I’ll need a full-court homicide call-out ASAP.”
    Joanna’s homicide unit consisted of three detectives—Ernie Carpenter, Jaime Carbajal, and Deb Howell—as well as her two-person CSI unit, which included Casey Ledford, a fingerprint tech, and Dave Hollicker, her crime scene investigator. Ernie, the senior detective, was off on vacation, taking a Rhine River cruise with his wife, Rose. That left detectives Jaime Carbajal and Deb Howell to pick up the slack.
    â€œDave Hollicker and Jaime are already here at the department,” Larry said. “I’ll send them right out. As for Howell and Ledford? It’s Friday. You know what that means.”
    Joanna did know what that meant. Both Deb Howell and Casey Ledford were single mothers of school-age children whose work lives were impacted by the school system’s four-day week. The two women were generally not scheduled to work on Fridays, and they wouldn’t be able to show up unless and until they were able to arrange for child care.
    â€œTell them to come as soon as they can,” Joanna said. “We’re about three miles north of my place on High Lonesome Road. The road’s a mess. Most of the way the road is wide enough for two cars, but it narrows down to one lane in the dips. Ms. Highsmith’s Passat is blocking the road at the first wash. We’ll need a tow truck to get it out of there. Pass the word that everyone will need four-wheel drive to get here.” Joanna paused and then added, “Oh, and I’ll want the K-9 unit, too.”
    â€œYou got it,” Larry said. “What about the M.E.? Are you going to call him or am I?”
    In the old days, when Dr. George Winfield had been the Cochise County Medical Examiner, the call-out could have come from any number of people inside Joanna’s department. Unfortunately, George had fallen in love with Joanna’s mother, Eleanor, and she had packed him off into a retirement that now included an annual snow-bird migration back and forth between Arizona and Minnesota.
    Both in public and in private, Joanna’s relationship with George Winfield had been businesslike and virtually trouble free even after he’d married Eleanor Lathrop. As sheriff and M.E., they had continued to work together with little difficulty. So it had come as something of a shock to Joanna and to other members of her department to discover that Doc Winfield’s replacement, Dr. Guy Machett, was anything but trouble free.
    For one thing, Dr. Machett—never Doc Machett—insisted that everyone follow a strict chain-of-command hierarchy. If his services were required, he expected the call to come from Joanna herself and not from someone who reported to her.
    â€œThat’s my next call,” Joanna said.
    â€œGood,” Larry said.
    The relief in his voice spoke volumes. Larry had endured more than his share of Guy Machett temper tantrums. He didn’t need another one.
    The clock in Joanna’s cell phone said 8:01 A.M. as she scrolled through her contact list to find Guy Machett’s number. He was nothing if not punctual, so she dialed his office number.
    â€œMedical examiner’s office,” Madge Livingston drawled.
    Forty years of smoking unfiltered Camels had left Madge with a throaty voice that might have been sexy if it hadn’t been punctuated by