Judgment Call (41 page)

“Not that I can think of. Why?”

“He was the superintendent of the mines here in Bisbee. He never steered any business in your direction?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Tell me about the woman who hired you.”

“She told me her name was Liz Hanson.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“At a bar in Sierra Vista—the Sundowner. It's long gone now. A few years after I got out of prison, I tried tracking her down. I just wanted to know who she was, but I was never able to find her.”

Liz, Joanna was thinking, as in Elizabeth Stevens, maybe? Suddenly Fredericks's story was starting to make a lot more sense.

“Did she ever say what she had against the supposedly crooked cop?”

“Some kind of family problem. Something to do with a teenage daughter, I think. She was a little vague about that. I figured the guy had probably knocked up the kid.”

“If I could show you a photo of someone named Liz, would you recognize her?”

“I don't know if I'd recognize her now. After all, it's been more than twenty years, but I do have one thing.”

“What's that?”

“The note she gave me with the down payment.”

“A handwritten note? You still have it?”

“It says, ‘There's ten more where this came from.' Once I got out of prison, I had it laminated so I could keep it in my wallet. It's still there. It's one way of making sure I never forget where I came from.”

Joanna took a deep breath. “If I could locate this Liz person, would you be willing to testify as to her part in the conspiracy to kill my father?”

“Absolutely, Sheriff Brady,” Dave Fredericks said. “The law says I've paid my debt to society, but I don't believe it's true. I owe that much to you, and I certainly owe it to your mother.”

JOANNA WENT TO BED RIGHT AFTER THAT. NOT SURPRISINGLY, SHE
didn't go to sleep—at least not right away. She lay awake thinking about her mother and Mona Tipton. Her father had assumed Eleanor knew nothing about his indiscretion, but it turned out that assumption was wrong. Eleanor had known enough to ban Mona from attending D. H. Lathrop's funeral. Which brought Joanna right back to Nelda Muncey. How much had she known, and when had she known it?

Butch was right, of course. Bringing all this up and having the late Mad Dog labeled as a confessed killer was bound to bring plenty of heartache into Nelda Muncey's life, but maybe not as much as might be expected. What if she had known about it all along—like Eleanor had known about Mona? Looking at it that way, Joanna was finally able to go to sleep.

She slept because she had finally decided what she was going to do, and she was at peace about it. Her father had been right, this was a judgment call. She was making it—for him, for Fred and Abby Holder, and maybe even for Nelda Muncey.

When Joanna emerged from the bedroom showered and dressed the next morning, breakfast was well under way. “Your oatmeal is in the microwave,” Butch told her as she poured a mug of coffee. “What time is the morning briefing?”

“Eight,” she said.

“You have time then. Carol will get Jenny and the boys down to the bus stop.”

The luxury of Butch usually having breakfast on the table when she came out of the bedroom was one of the side benefits of being married to the man, and one that she didn't take for granted, either. She zapped her oatmeal long enough to reheat it, then brought it to the table.

“You must have been awake a lot last night,” Butch observed. “When I got out of bed, you were still sound asleep.”

“I tossed and turned some,” Joanna admitted, “but I'm good now.”

“You've made up your mind about what you're going to do?”

She nodded.

“You're not going to tell me?”

She shook her head. “No, because you might not approve.”

“Okay then,” Butch said. “I hope it works. Be safe out there.”

Joanna arrived at the Justice Center with five minutes to spare. She and her people were gathering in the conference room when Arlee Jones bounded into the room hours earlier than his usual Justice Center arrival time. He looked rumpled and disheveled—as though he had slept in his clothes—but there was no mistaking the triumphant look on his face.

“Got it,” he said gleefully, slapping a sheaf of papers down on the table. “Signed, sealed, and delivered, complete with a handwritten confession and a plea agreement. Mr. Cameron claims he did it because, according to him, it was all his sister's fault that their father killed himself. He came here looking to hold her accountable for destroying their family. He's convinced that since there was never a trial about Daddy being a spy, his father was innocent. By the same token, I'm sure he's convinced that by doing a plea bargain, he's no more guilty than his father was.”

“He really is a nutcase then,” Joanna observed.

“Probably,” Arlee agreed, “but what matters is that he took the deal. He was more than ready to kill other people, but he isn't willing to face the death penalty himself.”

“His grandmother called him a coward to his face,” Deb said. “She was right.”

“Works for me,” Arlee said. “Now I'm heading home to get some sleep. I haven't done an all-nighter like this since I was in law school.”

He hustled out then, leaving the conference room in stunned silence. Deb Howell summed it up in a single word. “Unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head, and that pretty well covered it. There was a palpable feeling of letdown in the room. Everyone had come to the staff meeting prepared to go to war, only to find that Arlee Jones had stolen their thunder.

“So it's back to business as usual,” Joanna said after a moment's pause. “I want you to pull your paperwork together. It's time to do CYA in a big way. Let's be sure that everything we did or didn't do is properly documented. The county attorney seems to think that once he has his plea bargain in place, there's no way it'll be appealed or reversed. Unfortunately, in my experience, Arlee Jones doesn't always have all his ducks in a row.”

Joanna turned to Tom Hadlock. “In other words, we still want to have that DNA report from the crime lab as soon as we can get it. We still want to connect all the dots on Debra Highsmith's murder and on Maggie Oliphant's.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said.

“Did you go by TMC last night?”

Tom nodded. “Michael Hirales was flying back to Albuquerque from Tucson. He needed to be in class this morning. Sue Ellen is staying in Tucson for the duration. Isadora's surgery is scheduled for sometime today. It's probably happening as we speak. She signed over a power of attorney to Michael. That way he and Sue Ellen will be able to start making final arrangements for Debra Highsmith.”

“Speaking of which, what's happening on that?” Joanna asked.

Jaime raised his hand. “Machett already released Debra Highsmith's body to the Higgins Funeral Home. They're expecting that the funeral or memorial service or whatever will be held sometime later this week, possibly in the high school auditorium.”

Tom Hadlock nodded. “We won't know about Maggie Oliphant's arrangements until after her daughter arrives in town later today.”

The remainder of the meeting was devoted to routine issues. When it was over and people started filing out, Joanna asked Deb Howell to hold up.

“What do you need?” Deb asked.

“I want you to do something for me,” Joanna said. “I want you to go up to the
Bisbee Bee
and see if they have any stock photos of Elizabeth Stevens, preferably something from twenty-five or thirty years or so ago. She and her husband were in the top stratum of Bisbee society, so there should be pictures of them at events—balls at the country club or charity events of one kind or another.”

“Elizabeth Stevens?” Deb asked. “Why?”

“It's a piece of unfinished business,” Joanna replied. “Once you find one of her, I want you to locate photos of four other women taken around the same time so they're more or less contemporary in terms of clothing and hairstyles. Have them blown up so they're all the same size.”

“This sounds suspiciously like we're putting together a photo montage.”

“We are,” Joanna said, “but don't mention that to Marliss Shackleford.”

“Once I have the photos, what happens then?” Deb asked.

“Call me,” Joanna answered. “By then I'll know what the next step is.”

“You've got it, boss,” Deb said. “On my way.”

“I'm going to be out for a while,” Joanna told Kristin as she headed from the conference room to her office.

“Any idea about when you'll be back?”

“None,” Joanna said. “I may be gone for the rest of the day.”

“What about calls from the media?”

“Send them to Chief Deputy Hadlock. Ball's back in his court.”

Before Joanna headed out, she was forced to resort to using an old-fashioned phone book to locate Nelda Muncey's address. With that in hand, Joanna let herself out through the back door, got in the Yukon, and headed for Briggs. The house was situated on Cottonwood Street. An aging Honda sedan parked in the driveway served notice that Nelda Muncey was home, and the blue handicapped sticker dangling from the rearview mirror went a long way toward explaining why the tiny front yard was a weed-choked wasteland.

When the houses in Briggs and Galena had been built as company housing in the fifties, it was during a period when modest two- and three-bedroom bungalows were the order of the day. Stepping up on the small front porch, Joanna realized that Nelda Muncey's home was still a modest bungalow. A sign over the doorbell said it was out of order, so Joanna rapped sharply on a front door marred by sun-damaged varnish. There was a long pause before she heard movement inside the house. Finally the door cracked open.

“Who is it?”

“Sheriff Brady, Mrs. Muncey,” Joanna said. “May I come in?”

There was no reply, only the sound of movement again as the woman walked away from the door, which remained open.

Joanna gave it a small push and opened it wider. “May I come in?”

“Help yourself.” It was a grudging invitation, but an invitation nonetheless.

The living room Joanna entered was small and shabby and dimly lit. The faded flower pattern on the wooden-armed sofa was barely discernible. There was a battered wooden coffee table, covered with outdated magazines. Nelda Muncey sat in one of those ejection-seat recliners with a walker and several TV trays positioned close at hand. One held a collection of prescription medications; one held a coffee cup and a thermos of coffee; while the third held a Kindle.

Nelda caught Joanna eyeing the one thing in the room that didn't match.

“I love to read,” she explained, “but these days it's hard to get out to buy books or even go to the library. By the way, I read your husband's first book,” Nelda added. “Liked the story, don't much like his name. It must have been hell growing up with a fruity name like Gayle.”

Because Butch's fictional protagonist was female, both his agent and his editor had advised him to use a non-gender-specific pen name—Gayle Dixon rather than Frederick W. or even FW. Joanna was already feeling ill at ease due to the nature of her business with Nelda, and the woman's unsolicited comments about Butch and his work didn't improve things. Besides, Joanna thought, how could a woman who had spent her married life with a guy named Mad Dog have nerve enough to complain about someone else's name?

“I'll pass that along,” Joanna said. “May I sit down?”

Nelda gestured toward the couch. “As I said before, help yourself.”

Joanna sat. Nelda was a relatively thin woman who, Joanna assumed from the extra folds of skin on her chin and neck, had once been far larger than she was now. She was dressed in a pair of knit pants topped by a brightly flowered print blouse. On her feet were a pair of bright green high-topped Keds. Maybe wearing running shoes was her way of thumbing her nose at the fact that she was now reduced to using a walker. Her thin white hair was pulled back in a pair of long, neat braids that wrapped around her head. Nelda might have had trouble walking, but braiding evidently wasn't a problem. She peered at Joanna inquisitively through a pair of thick glasses.

“What's this all about?” Nelda asked.

“It's about my father,” Joanna said.

Nelda nodded but said nothing.

“I believe he came to the hospital to see your husband a few days before he died.”

“Before they both died,” Nelda pointed out. “Your father died on Saturday. Edward died a week later, also on a Saturday.”

Edward? Joanna wondered. That was the first time she had ever heard or known Mad Dog Muncey's first name.

“Did you have any idea what they talked about?”