Judgment Call (8 page)

“Maybe I should go ask them about it,” Joanna suggested.

“Maybe so,” Eva Lou agreed.

Veering off in another direction, Joanna dodged away before Dennis saw her coming. She hurried toward the booth where the group of teenagers seemed to be preparing to leave. Joanna stopped in front of their booth and then pulled over an extra chair from a nearby table, effectively blocking their exit.

“I'm Sheriff Brady,” she said. “Good morning, or is it afternoon already? Mind if I join you?”

She recognized at least three of the kids. Two of them—Tiffany Brazile and Dena Carothers—were on the cheerleading squad. Billy Stout was a big man on campus, a key player in every sport. The other boy, tall and skinny, was someone Joanna didn't know. Faced with her uniformed presence, the four teenagers exchanged guilty glances. The expressions on their faces said they did mind having Joanna join them, but none of them had nerve enough to say so. Without waiting for an invitation Joanna sat down.

“I understand that a little while ago, you were overheard discussing one of our ongoing investigations—the disappearance of Ms. Debra Highsmith. Do you mind sharing whatever information you might have?”

“We don't really know anything,” Tiffany said too quickly. “We were just looking at a picture on Facebook. It's no big deal.”

“Excuse me, but it is a big deal,” Joanna corrected. “You seem to be in possession of details concerning the investigation that have not yet been released to the public. I need to know exactly what you know about my case and how you came to have that information.”

“What if we don't want to tell you?” The speaker was the boy in the corner.

“This is a homicide investigation,” Joanna said flatly. “So far this is simply an informal conversation. If you would prefer something more official, I could always throw all of you in the back of a couple of patrol cars and take you on a field trip out to the Justice Center. In that case, we'd be having this discussion in one or two of my department's interview rooms. Your call.”

“If I ended up in jail, my parents would kill me!” Tiffany exclaimed. “Go ahead, Marty. Show her the picture.”

“My parents would do the same thing,” Dena said. “Show it to her.”

Shaking his head, the boy named Marty pulled an iPhone out of his shirt pocket. After scrolling through several pages, he handed the device over to Joanna. She recognized both the scene and the subject—Debra Highsmith, lying dead, struck down by a hail of gunfire on the rock-strewn shoulder of High Lonesome Road.

Sheriff Brady prided herself on her ability to maintain a poker face, but it took a superhuman effort for her to keep her facial features utterly neutral in the face of that damning photo. She knew that photo could have come from only one source—her daughter, Jenny.

“You believe this to be …?” Joanna prompted.

“That's Ms. Highsmith, our principal,” Dena said quickly. “That's her hair, and she's wearing her favorite suit. She wore it to school every week.”

Joanna turned her unblinking gaze on the owner of the iPhone. “What's your name?” she asked. “I don't believe I've seen you before.”

“Marty. Martin Pembroke. My dad's the new doctor at the hospital.”

“I'm glad to meet you, Marty,” Joanna said without offering her hand. “My source tells me you weren't exactly overwhelmed with grief when you learned Ms. Highsmith might be dead. My source says that you seemed downright gleeful and said something to the effect that the wicked witch is dead.”

“She was a witch,” Marty said.

“I'm assuming that means she wasn't one of your faves,” Joanna said.

These kids already knew Debra Highsmith was dead. There was no point in Joanna's trying to maintain otherwise, so she didn't bother.

“Earlier this year she suspended me for ten days for no reason,” Marty Pembroke grumbled. “If my father hadn't appealed to the school board, I wouldn't have been able to make up the work and might not have been able to graduate with my class.”

“Well, boo-hoo-hoo,” Joanna said, making zero effort to tone down the sarcasm. “You claim she suspended you for no reason? Really?”

“It was all because some jerk put a can of beer in my locker. The beer wasn't even mine. It was one of my friends' idea of a joke. She blew it all out of proportion.”

“Excuse me,” Joanna pointed out, “but being a minor in possession of alcohol is against the law.” She passed the phone back to him. “Saying you were suspended for no reason isn't exactly being fair to Ms. Highsmith. It turns out there was a reason for your suspension—and a valid one at that. As for having a beer at school? That certainly compounds an already difficult issue. Did you mention to Ms. Highsmith that you thought someone else had put it there?”

“No,” Marty said. “What do you think I am, some kind of snitch?”

“There you are,” Joanna said agreeably. “You didn't rat out your pals, and you're the one who got suspended. Fair enough. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Still, does a ten-day suspension warrant being glad someone is dead?”

“All we were doing here was talking, and just because I said it doesn't mean I meant it,” Marty muttered. “Besides, all any of us know about what happened is what we saw in the picture—just her body lying there.”

The intervening conversation had given Joanna a chance to get a grip on herself. It didn't matter whose Facebook site had the photo on it; Joanna knew the origin of the original. It had to have come from either the killer or Jenny. Unfortunately, between those two options, Jennifer Ann Brady as the source of the photo seemed the more likely, although Joanna wasn't aware that her daughter even had a Facebook page.

“Tell me about Facebook,” she said. “Where is that photo posted? Whose account?”

“We don't have to tell you that,” Marty Pembroke replied. “Isn't that like freedom of speech or something?”

“If you won't tell her, I will,” Dena said. Obviously Marty's reluctance to be a snitch didn't extend to Dena. “It's Anne Marie Mayfield's page. She's the one who posted it. She didn't like Ms. Highsmith, either. Neither did I.”

“What was your beef with her?” Joanna asked.

“She sent us both home to change clothes,” Dena replied. “She said Anne Marie's skirt was too short, and my neckline was too low. It's like she turned into the fashion police or something. She probably would have been happier if we'd all had to wear uniforms to school.”

“Sounds to me like she was doing her job,” Joanna said.

The four kids in the booth, exchanging a set of disparaging looks, remained duly unimpressed.

With the conversation seemingly at an end, Joanna pulled out a pen and a notebook that she opened to a fresh page. “I'll need your names and phone numbers,” she said.

Dena had struck Joanna as being the weakest link, so she handed the writing equipment to her. Without a word, she wrote down the required information and passed it along. Since Dena had complied without objection, so did everyone else.

When they finished and handed the pen and notebook back, Joanna stood up and returned her chair to the other table. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a packet of business cards.

“You're all welcome to go now,” she said, passing one card to each of the young people in the booth. “You should expect to hear from one of my investigators sometime in the very near future, and if you happen to stumble across any information that might be helpful, please feel free to call.”

As Joanna turned away from the booth, the idea that any of them would call her for any reason at all seemed more than unlikely.

Again she headed for the corner booth. From the sloppy debris field littering the table, Joanna gathered that lunch was mostly over. As she walked up, Butch looked at her and grinned.

“Without that layer of red dust, you clean up very well,” he told her, “but is something wrong? You look upset.”

“Yes, something's wrong,” Joanna answered stiffly. “I am upset, and I'm here to tell you, Jennifer Ann Brady is in deep caca!”

“What's caca?” Dennis asked, smiling up at his mother over a last fistful of taco.

“Mommy will tell you later,” Butch assured their son.

Joanna knew she'd just been thrown under the bus. Since she was the one who had used the term, that was only fair.

“What did Jenny do?” Butch asked.

Joanna shook her head. “I'd better not talk about it right now. Obviously, little pitchers have big ears. Am I too late for lunch?”

Butch moved over far enough so Joanna could sit down next to him. He passed her a glass of iced tea. “This is yours,” he said. “Your chimichanga is ready, but I told Daisy to keep it under the salamander until you got here. She'll bring it out in a minute.”

“After we have our ice cream, we're going to the park,” Jeff said. “Can you come, too?”

“No,” Joanna told him. “I have to go to work.”

Daisy Maxwell arrived at the table, personally delivering a platter with Joanna's steaming chimichanga on it. Daisy set the plate down in front of Joanna and then started away from the table without saying a word. Her customary smile was missing in action. Seams of worry lined her face.

“I'm sorry to hear Junior is under the weather,” Joanna said. “Let him know we're sending him get-well wishes.”

Daisy paused long enough to nod her thanks. “I'll tell him,” she said, but clearly Joanna's words had done little to lighten the woman's burden of worry as she marched back to the kitchen.

Joanna pushed a fork into the chimichanga's crusty tortilla shell, letting some of the steam leak out into the air. She wished she could let some of the steam out of her head at the same time.

“You heard about Junior, then?” Butch asked.

Joanna was grateful he had changed the subject. “Just what Eva Lou said.”

“I've been noticing it for the last few weeks,” Jim Bob told them. “It used to be whenever Eva Lou and I came in, he greeted us by name. Now he acts as though he's never seen us before. This morning, the people next to us asked him for water. He said he'd bring it. When the guy reminded him—and that's all he did and not even in a mean way—Junior went ballistic. It was out of character and completely over the top. Daisy had to come out of the kitchen and talk him down. He was so upset that she had to take him back to the kitchen with her. When the next set of customers came in, Eva Lou decided it was time to help out.”

“She's doing a fine job of it, too,” Jeff Daniels added.

Their waitress came by, checking to see if any additional tacos were needed. Fortunately all three of the kids had reached their taco limit. By the time they were done with their single servings of ice cream, Joanna had gobbled down half of her chimichanga and had the rest of it boxed up to take back to the office.

“In other words,” Butch said, when she stood up to leave, doggie bag in hand, “we shouldn't be surprised if you're late for dinner.”

On a day that had started out with a homicide investigation, that was a good guess. Joanna was grateful that he didn't say anything more than that, something that might have turned their private discussion into fodder for the local gossip mills, which were already operating at full capacity.

She leaned down and gave him a kiss, picking up the collection of checks on the table as she did so and making the move before either Jeff Daniels or Jim Bob could object.

“See you when you get home,” Butch said. “Are you going to stop by the clinic to see Jenny?”

Joanna nodded.

“Don't be too hard on her,” Butch said. “Whatever it is, she probably didn't do it on purpose.”

IT TOOK A WHILE TO EXIT THE RESTAURANT. JOANNA WAS LEAVING
at the same time the thirty diners from the back room were paying for their lunches, separate checks all around. A man in his sixties, dressed in a red flannel shirt topped by a brown vest, seemed to be in charge. He hustled around trying to hurry the process.

Eva Lou was a willing worker, but that kind of crush was more than she could handle. Eventually Daisy herself had to emerge from the kitchen and take charge of the cash register.

Most of the participants seemed to be much the same age as their leader, fifties to sixties or even older. They were all chatting away, discussing their plans for the afternoon and evening. One of them who seemed to be several decades younger than his fellows gave Joanna a sidelong look through a pair of fashionable wire-framed glasses.

She had been on the receiving end of looks like that numerous times. Usually the look was followed by a rude comment that had something to do with the unlikelihood of women being qualified to serve as sheriffs. She often responded to those folks with a flip comment about getting her badge out of a Cracker Jack box and her uniform from a costume shop. This time, before she had a chance to say a word, he nodded at her and smiled.