Judgment Call (23 page)

“Which granddaughter?” Joanna asked. “The one who's going to school in Flagstaff?”

Eleanor nodded.

“How would she know about any of this?” Joanna asked. “She doesn't even live here.”

“She was here last summer,” Eleanor explained, “and was hanging around with some of the kids from the high school. She … let me see, what's it called again? Oh, yes, that's right—she friended some of the kids in Marliss's neighborhood. When the granddaughter went off to Flag, she let Marliss take over her account, the one she used for her summer friends here in Bisbee.”

“So she's been going to the various sites all this time, pretending to be her granddaughter?”

“I believe that's what she's been doing,” Eleanor agreed. “Marliss says she gets all kinds of insider information that way, especially from the cheerleaders' page. She says paying attention to what the kids are saying to each other gives her a head start on what's really going on here in town. It's not against the law.”

Joanna happened to know that in Arizona impersonating someone on the Internet with the intent to harm, even with the other person's permission, could be grounds for being charged with a class four felony. Whether something like that would hold up in court was another issue. Not wanting to push Eleanor into defending her friend, Joanna mentioned none of that.

“It strikes me as unethical,” Joanna said. “I wouldn't have expected Marliss to stoop to that kind of behavior. I would have thought she'd have higher standards.”

Eleanor looked alarmed. “You're not going to go see Marliss, are you?”

“Yes,” Joanna said, carefully setting her cup down on the coffee table. “I believe I am.”

“If you tell her I told you—”

“Don't worry, Mom. I won't rat you out. As far as Marliss is concerned, she'll think I figured it out all by myself.”

Marliss Shackleford and Dick Voland lived on a steep street in Old Bisbee. Once Joanna left her mother's place, she headed straight there. Driving up Tombstone Canyon, however, she spotted Marliss's Toyota RAV4 parked on Main Street, just down from the offices of the
Bisbee Bee
. It may have been Saturday, but Marliss was evidently hard at work.

Joanna got out and hiked up the narrow stretch of Main Street with its wall of brick-fronted buildings on either side. Storefronts that used to house clothing or furniture or jewelry or hardware stores had morphed into art galleries or antiques shops. The
Bisbee Bee
still had offices in its original location, but the hulking press that used to rumble away in the back had been removed. The paper's layout and printing functions were now handled in a newer facility in Sierra Vista, while circulation, advertising sales, and reporting were still done out of the old office in Bisbee.

The door was unlocked, but when Joanna let herself in, there was no one at the reception desk. Instead, she found Marliss alone in the back of the office and hunched over a computer on an old-fashioned wooden desk where the printing press had once stood. She looked up in surprise when she saw Joanna walking toward her.

“What are you doing here?”

“Not ‘How are you?' or ‘How can I help you?'” Joanna asked. “Is that any way to treat someone who's come to call?”

Had they been in a public venue, Joanna had no doubt that Marliss would have exuded charm. In private, however, she didn't bother.

“What do you want?”

Without waiting for an invitation, Joanna took a seat on the chair next to Marliss's desk. “You knew the identity of our victim before there was any public announcement,” Joanna said. “I want to know how you gained access to Jenny's photo.”

“So you admit it was Jenny's photo? You gave her open access to the crime scene?”

“Jenny found the crime scene,” Joanna corrected. “Yes, taking the photo and sending it to someone didn't show very good judgment on her part, but she's a teenager, after all. Occasionally teenagers do stupid things. So do grown-ups.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Masquerading on the Internet as somebody else isn't smart, either,” Joanna said. “I'd guess that some of the kids you've been fooling by pretending to be your granddaughter would be upset if they found out who their trusted correspondent really is.”

“Who told you that?” Marliss demanded. “Your mother?”

“I may not be an official detective,” Joanna said, “but I'm smart enough to put two and two together. When you came out to the crime scene yesterday morning, you knew more than you should have. Then when you were leaving, you asked about Jenny. That seemed out of character. So later in the day, when I found out about the photo, it wasn't difficult to make the connection.”

“I haven't broken any laws,” Marliss said. “It's not like I'm a child predator or something.”

“A court of law might have a different take on that,” Joanna said. “But since you're married to a former cop, you probably already know all about that, and you've decided it's worth running the risk.”

Marliss said nothing.

Joanna had come here for the express purpose of lighting into Marliss and setting her straight. Now, however, it dawned on Joanna that having access to what the town's teenagers were up to through Marliss's involvement in their social networks might prove beneficial to both Joanna and her department in the long run. Rather than threatening Marliss Shackleford with arrest, Joanna decided to back off and attempt to enlist the woman's help.

“As far as the kids at school are concerned,” Joanna said, “my investigators are running into a brick wall. The kids know stuff, but they won't talk to us. With your unique access to that particular community, you might be able to help us.”

“I'm a journalist,” Marliss objected. “I'm supposed to report what's going on. I'm not supposed to be involved in it.”

Joanna shrugged off her concern. “Journalists have confidential sources,” she said. “Cops have confidential informants. That's what I'm asking you to do—to use your granddaughter's identity to function as a CI and give me some access to a few of those kids' private lives. I'd consider it a huge personal favor. I'd owe you one, and you might even help keep one of those kids from being wrongly accused of murder.”

Joanna knew that Marliss was into power trips in a big way. The idea of being one up on Eleanor's daughter would be tempting. Being able to consider herself the hero of the piece would be more than she could resist.

“What do you want me to do?” Marliss asked guardedly.

“I want you to go online and see if anyone has posted anything about Martin Pembroke's whereabouts the night Debra Highsmith was murdered.”

“What if I don't?”

“I might be tempted to let it be known around town what you've been pulling all this time.” She had more ammunition than that, but for the time being, she held on to it.

“Isn't that blackmail?”

“It's more like exerting pressure than it is blackmail,” Joanna said. “Sort of like what you're doing is investigative journalism rather than identity theft, but you might want to be a little more careful. When you let the cat out of the bag about someone's upcoming divorce, you were leaking private information a troubled young woman was confiding to what she thought were a few close friends. She didn't expect that one of those supposed friends would broadcast news about her parents' upcoming divorce to the whole world. Come to think of it,” Joanna concluded, “that shows almost as bad judgment as Jenny did in passing along the crime scene photo.”

For several moments, Marliss stared at her computer screen without replying. Joanna knew from the look on her face that she had landed a telling blow.

“All right,” Marliss said finally. “What do you want to know?”

“Because of his Web postings about Debra Highsmith, Martin Pembroke is high on our list of suspects. He may have an alibi for that night, but when we asked about it, he lawyered up instead of just coming out and telling us. If he's got a verifiable alibi, he's off the list.”

Marliss didn't have to go online to give Joanna her answer. “Dena Carothers,” she said.

“One of the cheerleaders?” Joanna asked.

Marliss nodded. “According to what Dena posted, she and Marty were going at it hot and heavy down at the Rifle Range until the wee hours.”

“In the middle of the night on a school night?”

Marliss nodded again.

“What do you mean, hot and heavy?” Joanna asked.

“What do you think I mean?” Marliss returned.

“Dena's only a junior,” Joanna objected. “That means she's underage. They both are.”

“Well, duh!” Marliss said. “Why do you think he didn't want to tell you?”

Now that Joanna had the information, it was something she really didn't want to know. Certainly, she had no room to talk, other than to pass along the old saw “Do as I say, not as I do.” She herself had gotten pregnant at seventeen and had married at eighteen. When Eleanor learned about the pregnancy, she could easily have had Andy charged with statutory rape. Instead she had given Andy the choice of doing the right thing—or else. Once he did so, Eleanor had taken charge of putting together a hurry-up shotgun-style wedding.

Now Marty Pembroke was faced with a similarly complex choice. If he and Dena had been together doing whatever at the Rifle Range, then he might have an alibi that would remove him as a suspect in the Debra Highsmith homicide. If that information somehow got leaked to Dena's parents, he ran the risk of being charged with statutory rape and spending the rest of his life labeled as a sex offender. Joanna wondered if Dr. Pembroke knew about that. It could explain why he had opted for an attorney.

“What are you going to do now?” Marliss asked, breaking into Joanna's reverie.

“I'm not sure,” Joanna said, “but thank you. I appreciate the help.”

As she walked out of the
Bee'
s office, she should have felt proud of herself, but she didn't. Yes, Joanna had talked her way around Marliss Shackleford. Yes, she was going away with the information she needed, but if Marliss was in the wrong for having the information, didn't that make Joanna even more wrong for using it?

Her former father-in-law, Jim Bob Brady, was forever talking about “the pot calling the kettle black.”

If Marliss was the kettle, that made Joanna the pot. Unfortunately, for someone who liked to think of herself as being on the side of the angels, it felt uncomfortably close to being a hypocrite.

JOANNA WAS SITTING IN HER YUKON, WONDERING WHAT SHE WAS
going to do next, when someone tapped on her passenger window. Her best friend, Reverend Marianne Maculyea, was standing on the sidewalk, grinning at her.

“Hey,” she said when Joanna opened the window. “Your eyes were open, but you were a million miles away.”

“I was,” Joanna conceded. “It's been a tough couple of days.”

“You are going to the gala tonight,” Marianne said, “aren't you?”

“How'd you know that?”

“A little bird told me. One of our parishioners bought tickets and now can't attend, so she gave her tickets to Jeff and me. I called out to the house, hoping to hire Jenny to come babysit, only to be told that she's already taken.”

“Sorry,” Joanna said. “Did you find someone else?”

“Yes, Jeff called one of the ladies from church. Is Butch really going to wear a tux?”

Joanna nodded. “My mother would wring his neck if he didn't.”

“I told Jeff that since he doesn't own a tux and since the invitation says ‘black tie optional,' he should take them at their word and do optional. Is there assigned seating?”

“Not as far as I know,” Joanna said.

“Good,” Marianne said. “Maybe the four of us can sit together. I know Jeff will be happier being at a table with the two of you than at a table full of strangers.”

“We're committed to being at my mother's table,” Joanna countered.

Marianne grinned. As Joanna's friend and pastor, she knew where the bodies were buried in Joanna's challenging relationship with her mother.

“I'll check with her, then. Your mother doesn't bother me,” Marianne added. “I can handle her a lot better than I can my own mother. Are you working, or do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

“Working,” Joanna said. “I'd better pass. See you tonight.” Because while Joanna had been talking to Marianne, she had also reached a conclusion. She drove a short way up the canyon, made a legal U-turn, and then stopped her Yukon directly outside the door of the
Bee
. With her flashers on, she hopped out and poked her head in the front door. Marliss was still alone in the room and still seated at her desk.

“Any idea where I'd find Dena Carothers today?” Joanna asked.

Marliss didn't have to surf through any Web pages to answer the question. “The cheerleading squad is having a car wash to raise money for camp.”