Free The Edge of Justice by Clinton McKinzie

will rule on them while the jury continues to deliberate.
       
    I sit on the bed with the window open, skimming distractedly through the reports one more time and wondering where I should begin. Even in my room I can smell the dry dust in the air, lifted off the chaparral plains by the wind as it spins across the summer-baked earth. It reminds me again of my grandfather's ranch, where on our visits there I wrestled in the dirt with my brother over who would have the privilege of the first attempt on a new climbing problem we'd discovered around the red cliffs near the main house. Older and stronger, he always won. At that age it seemed I only got to climb where others had been before. That was something I strove to remedy in later years.
    Starting an investigation is like spilling the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle onto a broad table. Or like staring up at a climb, trying to unravel the mysteries of the moves it will require to gain the summit. No matter how good you are at putting them together, you're always a little unsure where to begin. You hesitate and wonder if it's worth the risk and the trouble. The sagebrush smell and the memory make me recall my father's often-repeated advice about starting a climb. “Be prepared,” he would say, “then be creative.”
    My father was once on an expedition in Pakistan when he and his partner ran out of food while waiting for the weather to clear. They were afraid to make the three-day journey to the nearest village for supplies because a team of Russian climbers had established a base camp close by and were obviously eyeballing my father's intended route. So late one afternoon, while his partner guarded the line, my father hiked down into the valley where he remembered having seen a herd of sheep.
    In the midst of stalking a young ewe, he realized he was being watched. A native herder sat beneath a rock's overhang just a hundred feet away, pointing an old muzzle-loading rifle at the poacher. Dad was creative: He grinned at the herder and gestured at the sheep while he pantomimed a lewd motion with his hands and his hips. The native had smiled back in comprehension, probably thinking that this was just another of those strange, lonely foreigners. Dad ended up trading a pair of binoculars for the ewe and receiving a wink and a slap on the back from the herder. Resupplied, he and his partner finished the route ahead of the Russians. When telling Roberto and me the story out of our mother's earshot, he'd concluded it with a wink of his own. “Be creative,” he repeated.
    Like climbing, the simplest way to start an investigation is from the bottom, talking to the initial witnesses. But in this case the witnesses are potential suspects, and I'm worried about how politics may have played a role in the Sheriff's Office's shoddy investigation. With the County Attorney's and future governor's son as the boyfriend of the deceased, and the sheriff as his campaign manager, I consider that the case may have been intentionally dogged. Before I talk to the partyers who were up there that night, I want to get a better feel for what is going on.
    So I need to start with the officers on the scene and see what kinds of vibes I can pick up from them, but I'm more than a little reluctant to talk to Sergeant Bender due to our history. Deputy Knight will have to be my starting point. I call the Sheriff's Office and learn that both Knight and Bender work the swing shift; they are off duty until the evening. After I explain my need to speak with Deputy Knight, I wait for ten minutes while the duty sergeant verifies my credentials with the Attorney General's Office and calls the deputy with my number at the hotel. Outside my window, more reporters and tourists are starting to gather in the deck chairs by the pool as they hopefully await word of an early verdict. Rebecca Hersh is still not among them. I imagine that she's somewhere around town, ambitiously pursuing a human interest angle. Finally the phone