High in Trial - By Donna Ball Page 0,15

chasing after the maybes when you’ve got a suspect sitting in your cell. Maybe that’s not right. But that’s the way it is.”

Buck chewed thoughtfully. “You said ‘at the time’ you thought you had the right man. Something happen to change your mind?”

He hesitated, then shook his head, frowning at the file on the table between them. “Nope,” he said. “I didn’t see a thing in that file to make me think we got the wrong man.” He drained his cup and stood. “Or that we got the right one, either.”

Buck swallowed quickly. “Hey, wait a minute. That’s it? Judge Stockton wanted to keep an eye on this guy. He must’ve had his reasons. Don’t you think we should do some kind of follow-up?”

“I don’t know what. Jon is the one who wanted to keep up with him, and he’s dead. I guess his reasons died with him.”

“Maybe.” Buck put down the sandwich and opened the front flap of the file again. “But I think I’ll give his parole officer a call anyway.”

“You do what you think’s best.” Roe smiled and clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. “That’s why they’re paying you the sheriff’s money, son, not me.”

~*~

FIVE

Twenty-one hours before the shooting

My mother used to say that you can learn more from playing games than from anything else in life, as long as you pay attention. For example, from chess you learn patience, from tennis you learn how to keep your eye on the ball, from soccer and basketball you learn no one wins by himself, and from football you learn good financial planning because your career will very likely be short. I’ve learned a lot from running agility, but perhaps the most important thing is not to give up until you cross the finish line, because in this game it really isn’t over until it’s over.

The average person might think that once your dog has knocked you off your feet and given you a bloody nose the game is over and, all things considered, that might be a good time to give up. But the average person, not having competed with Cisco for almost two years, would have no way of knowing that we’d been in much worse spots than that. I barely hit the ground before I sprang up again, shouting Cisco on. Cisco took the last two jumps and crossed the finish line on his way to answer Brinkley’s tempting call, and that’s how I came now to hold a blue ribbon in my hand. Not red, not green, but blue. In dogs, as in life, you don’t always have to be the best to win; sometimes all it takes is for everyone else to be worse than you are. And sometimes the gods just smile on you. Cisco and I had taken first place in our jump height, and I suspect the reason was a combination of the two.

“It’s probably not broken,” Miles said, gently placing a paper towel-wrapped plastic bag of ice across the bridge of my nose, “but you’re going to have a shiner. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the emergency room?”

I just grinned at him, hugging my furry golden hero with one arm while I admired the blue ribbon I held in the other hand. “Did you see him? He was a magic dog! Like lightning! Did I tell you what our time was? 58.3! And that’s with the course fault, which means he really ran it in 53.3 seconds! What do you think of that?”

“I think you may have a concussion. You sound delirious.”

I laughed and hugged Cisco again. Cisco obligingly swiped my face with his tongue and grinned at me proudly. He knew he’d done good.

Miles sank into a camp chair beside me and scooped out a soft drink from the cooler. We’d returned to our temporary day campsite in the shady open-air livestock barn, where I’d snagged one of the private stalls by being there before the gates opened that morning. The stalls were clean and concrete floored, big enough for four or five dogs and a couple of people in each one, along with crates, coolers, camp chairs, and all the other paraphernalia required for a dog show. And, most importantly, they were gated, so Cisco could wander around free while we were there. It was almost as good as having an RV. Cisco’s travel bag, with his training treats, toys, collapsible bowls, pick-up bags, a chamois square for drying muddy paws, and