Downfall (14 page)

BY THE TIME THE EIGHT-THIRTY BELL RANG AT THE SIERRA VISTA
School for Scholastic Excellence—it was more a droning buzzer than a bell—announcing the start of classes, members of Joanna's joint homicide task force were already situated in the library. Ian Waters's request for separate rooms had been nixed based on the physical reality of the school having no such rooms available. Instead, rolling whiteboards had been moved into the library. Those, when combined with the library's movable bookshelves and tables, created at least the illusion of separate interview spaces even if there was less privacy than anyone would have liked.

With five trained homicide investigators conducting the actual interviews, Joanna functioned as a self-appointed Harry Potter–style sorting hat, checking people off on a master list provided by school authorities, noting the kids who presented signed
parental permission slips and keeping same. Kids who appeared with parental units present were given priority when it came to the interviews themselves. By the time one student left an interview appointment, Joanna had the next one checked in and lined up to take his or her place. Frank Montoya took it upon himself to move back and forth between the library and the office, ironing out any thorny issues that arose.

When Travis Stock showed up in Joanna's line, there was enough of a family resemblance for her to recognize him as Deputy Stock's son before he even gave her his name.

“You're here by yourself, Travis,” she noted. “Do you have a permission slip?”

“No,” he said. “My mom told me she's coming. She should be here any minute.” He looked back over his shoulder. Following Travis's lead, Joanna did the same in time for them both to see Deputy Stock enter the room. Dressed in his sheriff's-department uniform and carrying his Stetson, he made straight for the sign-in table.

“Morning, ma'am,” he said, nodding in Joanna's direction.

“What are you doing here?” Travis demanded. “I thought Mom was coming.”

Joanna couldn't help but notice that there was something off in Travis's tone of voice—something uneasy—that indicated he would have much preferred that his mother be present for the interview. It was probably, she concluded, just some kind of family dynamic, a father/son sort of thing, not unlike some mother/daughter relationships, hers included.

“I'm hoping Sheriff Brady here will give me permission to go on duty late today,” Jeremy explained. “This way Mom won't have to take any time off.” He looked at Joanna. “If Allison leaves
work during the day, her paycheck gets docked. I'm hoping that won't happen to me.”

Joanna smiled. “Don't worry,” she said. “It won't. Thanks for coming.”

After checking Travis's name off the list, she looked up in time to see a solo student exiting Agent Watkins's interview area. Thinking it best to avoid even the appearance of favoritism, Joanna sent Travis and Deputy Stock straight to Agent Watkins. That way the interview would be conducted by someone with zero connection to Joanna's department and people.

Generally speaking, the interviews proceeded in an orderly and fairly efficient fashion. The first kids—the debate team students—mostly stayed for the full half hour and occasionally even longer. That made sense since Susan Nelson had been more than simply a classroom teacher in their lives. Kids who'd had her for one class or else no classes were in and out in a blink. Two hours in, Joanna called a fifteen-minute break in the action, giving the detectives an opportunity to visit restrooms or grab one of the quickly diminishing supply of doughnuts.

“How's it going?” she asked when Robin Watkins stopped by the check-in desk with a glazed doughnut in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

“All right, I guess,” Robin answered. “I haven't turned up much so far, and I don't think anyone else has, either. I was a little surprised when you sent that deputy's son my way.”

“You shouldn't have been,” Joanna told her. “I thought it would be best to have a stranger-to-stranger interview there. If one of my own people had conducted the interview, someone looking in from the outside might think Travis Stock was given special treatment based on who his father is and what he does. I
didn't want that to happen. I wanted the process to look and be both transparent and fair. Since you didn't know either him or his father, that seemed like the best plan.”

“And the interview was fair,” Robin agreed. “All the same, I think Travis is someone who's worth interviewing again. I suspect he knows more than he's letting on, and I could tell he was very uncomfortable being interviewed in front of his father.”

“I noticed that, too,” Joanna agreed. “Travis seemed taken aback when Deputy Stock showed up rather than his mother. Did anyone else strike you as being off or unduly uncomfortable?”

“Not really,” Robin said. “Everyone else seemed to be shocked and distressed by what happened, but they also seemed to be fairly forthcoming.”

With that, Robin returned to her makeshift cubicle, as did the others, and the game resumed. Most of the faculty members came through during their lunch hours while their students were in the cafeteria.

In the early afternoon, while the task force was dealing with kids who essentially had had zero contact with Susan Nelson, the process moved forward so swiftly that by two
P
.
M
., an hour and a half before school let out, the last of the student interviews had been completed.

“Okay,” Joanna said, calling her troops to an impromptu meeting around one of the computer tables in the center of the room. “What, if anything, have we learned from all this?”

Ian Waters raised his hand first. “The kids in the debate club thought Susan Nelson walked on water,” he said. “She took an active interest in their lives. She didn't just help them with debate and speech issues, she offered tutoring to them because low grades might result in their being dropped from the team.”

“In other words,” Joanna supplied, “it sounds like the general assessment is that she was a competent, caring teacher.”

That statement was followed by nods of agreement all around.

“Agent Watkins found one student she thinks needs to be reinterviewed. Are there any others?”

“Not really,” came the answer. As far as the other investigators were concerned, none of their kids seemed to have raised any alarms.

“How about Susan's fellow teachers?” Joanna asked. “No faculty-based feuds or turf wars?”

That question, too, was met with a circle of head shakes.

“Did any member of the faculty stand out as being especially close to the deceased?”

Again the visible responses were all in the negative.

Deb Howell raised her hand. “I spoke to a number of faculty members who all claimed Susan was a dynamic teacher who was well known for going the extra mile to help her kids,” she said.

“Did anyone mention activities that might have gone on outside the school itself?”

“Not much. Evidently Susan showed up occasionally at TGIF or Girls Night Out bashes during the course of the year, but no one mentioned her being close pals with anyone in particular.”

Jaime took the floor. “One of the math teachers, Mr. Briggs, mentioned that he and Susan Nelson were supposed to be advisers for last spring's junior/senior prom. They'd only had one meeting with the committee before Drexel Nelson showed up at school and raised hell with the principal, demanding that Mr. McVey remove Susan from the prom committee because it was his personal belief that dancing of any kind was the devil's own handiwork.”

“What happened?” Joanna asked.

“Susan bowed out, of course, but Mr. Briggs said she told him later that although her husband may be a ‘man of God,' he could also be a real jerk on occasion.”

“Which is to say,” Agent Watkins added, “Reverend Nelson is somewhat controlling.”

“Make that very controlling,” Ernie added. “To say nothing of hot-tempered and strong—all of which are elements often involved in domestic-violence-related homicides.”

“Which this might very well be,” Joanna agreed, “except for the presence of the second victim. If Susan Nelson and Desirée Wilburton maintained some kind of relationship of which Reverend Nelson disapproved, that might be motive enough for him to go after both of them.”

“Yes,” Deb said, “but so far we've established no direct links between the two women whatsoever. I can't find any connections between them via phone records, e-mails, or texts. There's nothing showing on social media, either. If the two of them were in contact, it would have had to be by smoke signals or snail mail because it's completely under the radar as far as electronic communications are concerned.”

“Did Drexel Nelson grow up in Bisbee?” Robin Watkins asked suddenly.

The question seemed to come from way out in left field. All heads turned as one toward the newcomer in the room, the person who had asked the question. “Not as far as I know,” Joanna answered. “Why?”

“Because yesterday, when we were on Geronimo, you told me that climbing the mountain is an iconic activity for young people growing up in Bisbee. It's pretty clear that Susan Nelson
was abducted in Sierra Vista and then transported to the location where the homicide actually occurred. Why would that be? I think that suggests that either she or her killer must have had some kind of prior knowledge about or connection to that particular place.”

At that juncture, Joanna's phone buzzed in her pocket. She had silenced the crowing ring tone during the interviews and hadn't turned it back on. After checking caller ID, she answered it anyway. “Hey, Larry,” she said when Larry Kendrick, her daytime dispatcher, came on the line. “What's up?”

She listened for a minute. “Okay,” she said. “I'll send Deb and Dave Hollicker. We're spread pretty thin around here right now, so one detective and one CSI are all I can spare.” Breaking off, she turned back to the room. “We've got a domestic situation up in Sun Sites. Assault with intent. The victim is being transported to Tucson Medical Center. If he dies, the case may turn into a homicide, so deputies on the scene are requesting an investigative unit. Can you go, Deb, or should I send someone else?”

“I can go. Maury will be back in Bisbee this afternoon. He'll look after Ben once school gets out.”

Joanna got back on the phone. “Did you hear that, Larry? Detective Howell is leaving now, coming from the far side of Sierra Vista. Once she's under way, you can radio her the details. And please go ahead and let Dave know that he's on a callout. Under most circumstances, I'd show up at the scene as well, but right now, when I'm caught between two confirmed homicides and one potential, I'm going to stick around here and deal with these. If anything changes on the other one, let me know.”

By the time the call ended, Deb was already headed for the
door. Joanna glanced at her watch. She wanted to go home and change into something a little more dressy before dinner. “Anything else?” she asked, turning back to the others. “I believe we still have a secretary, a couple of custodians, and a groundskeeper that we need to talk to before we call it a day. The groundskeeper doubles as a bus driver, so he won't come in until after he drops kids off at the end of school.”

“I'll handle the leftovers,” Agent Watkins offered. “The rest of you probably have family obligations. I don't.”

The room cleared at once with everyone but Agent Watkins hurrying out. As Joanna gathered up her goods to leave, a last straggling student, with her mother in tow, showed up to be interviewed. Joanna sent them to Agent Watkins, then she cleared out herself, stopping by the office, where she sought out Mr. McVey.

“I know this was a huge inconvenience for you and your people today,” she said. “Thank you for making the effort.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Nothing for certain,” she replied, “but having the chance to speak to most of the people who knew Ms. Nelson in one place at one time, without having to chase them down individually, was a huge help.”

“Very glad to be of service,” Mr. McVey said, seeming to have forgotten that Joanna had threatened him with a media firestorm if he hadn't complied. “Any word on when and where Susan's services will be held? Most likely at Reverend Nelson's church, of course, but I'm sure a number of students and faculty members from here will be interested in attending.”

With Drexel Nelson's declaration that he had no interest in claiming his wife's remains, the timing and place of a funeral
service—if any—were entirely up in the air. Fortunately, that was one bullet that wasn't Joanna's to dodge.

“All of that is up to the family,” she said. “I have no information in that regard at all.”

She left then, heading for the Yukon. Because she had arrived just before the eight-thirty bell, her parking place was at the far end of the parking lot, near a basketball court. There was only one person visible on the court—a long, lanky kid, practicing dribbling and short jump shots. When Joanna clicked her key fob, the Yukon's lights flashed and a beep sounded as the doors unlocked. With her attention on the vehicle, she didn't notice at first that the dribbling had stopped.

“Sheriff Brady?” It was a young male voice—tentative, uncertain. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Stashing her purse on the front seat, Joanna turned around. The kid from the court approached her warily, holding the ball in front of him, almost as a shield. Out on the court, seeing him in the glare of the sunlight behind him, his features had been invisible. Now she recognized him. He had come to the Justice Center to interview her for an article he was doing as an assignment for his journalism class. It took a moment for Joanna to recall his name, but remembering names is something every politician has to learn sooner or later, and eventually it came to her.