Judgment Call

by J. A. Jance

  “You were absolutely right to interrupt,” Joanna said. “Send her in. You don’t need to bring her back. Tell her to come to my office rather than to the interview room.”

  When Sue Ellen appeared in the room, she was wearing the same clothing she’d worn the last time Joanna had seen her. Although she may have taken a room at the hotel, Joanna doubted she’d slept much. The poor woman looked exhausted.

  Joanna introduced her all around and then invited her to have a seat at the table.

  “We haven’t had a chance to access Ms. Highsmith’s e-mail accounts, but we were wondering, did you correspond with her over the Internet?”

  “The Internet?” Sue Ellen asked, shaking her head. “No. Never. We sent letters back and forth, but no e-mail.”

  “Do you have an e-mail address?”

  “Of course,” Sue Ellen said. “I have one. Debra just didn’t use it, that’s all.”

  “What about phone calls?”

  “None of those, either.”

  “Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

  “It’s just the way she was,” Sue Ellen said with a shrug. “For as long as I knew Debra, she was shy around phones. When e-mail came along, she preferred using the U.S. Postal Service to stay in touch. She told me once that just because the world had changed didn’t mean she had to.”

  “I’ve told the people here what you mentioned to me last night—that your brother, your adopted brother, Michael, is Debra Highsmith’s biological son. Is there a chance that his biological father might be behind what happened to her?”

  “That worthless creep?” Sue Ellen said. “I don’t think he even knows he has a son. I know for sure that Debra never would have told him.”

  “He may have found out some other way,” Joanna said. “We need to be able to rule him out as a possible perpetrator.”

  Sue Ellen considered for some time before she finally answered the question. “His name is Ryan—Kenneth Ryan. I’ve kept an eye on him through the years because I always worried he might show up and cause trouble for Debra or for my folks.”

  “Do you know where he is right now?”

  “He dropped out of college his sophomore year. He’s been married and divorced three times so far. He runs a low-class sports bar in Las Cruces called the Goalpost. Could you do me a huge favor? I understand that you’ll probably have to talk to him to find out if he was involved, but if he hasn’t already figured out about Mikey, could you try to keep from telling him? Considering what’s just happened to the poor kid, I don’t want any more piling on, and I’d like to spare my parents some additional grief over this. If someday Mikey asks me about his father, I’ll be the one to tell him, but not right now. Not until he’s ready.”

  Joanna glanced around the room. “Can we do that, people?”

  There were nods all around.

  “No promises, then,” Joanna said, “but we’ll do our best. If we can discreetly rule Ryan out of the homicide, then contacting him directly might not be necessary. You need to know, however, that I have been in touch with Debra’s grandmother.”

  Sue Ellen’s eyes widened. “You found Isadora?”

  “She’s flying into Tucson tonight. She’ll be here in the morning. Do you know if she’s aware that Debra had a child?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Someone will have to let her know,” Joanna said. “Do you want to do it, or should I?”

  “I suppose I should do that, too,” Sue Ellen said. “She’s coming here?”

  Joanna nodded. “To make funeral arrangements.”

  “We were planning to do that, too,” Sue Ellen said.

  “You’ll have to sort that out among you,” Joanna said.

  “Now that I think about it,” Sue Ellen said, “maybe it would be better if you told her about Michael. That way she’ll have some advance notice.”

  “All right,” Joanna said, looking at her watch. “This is the kind of news that’s probably best given in person rather than over the phone, but right now she’s already in transit.”

  “Okay.” Sue Ellen rose to her feet. “Now, if you don’t need anything more from me, I’ll head home. I want to be there before Mikey arrives.”

  Sue Ellen hustled out the door. Joanna turned back to her investigators. “There you have it,” she said. “Sue Ellen is Debra’s best friend in the world. Her parents are the people who raised her son, yet she makes no phone calls to them and sends no e-mails even though e-mail is readily available. What do you think?”

  “If Debra Highsmith didn’t use e-mail for correspondence, that means she made a serious effort to maintain a low profile on the Net,” Deb said. “No wonder she was so provoked when Marty Pembroke posted the ‘Die, Bitch’ video that ended up going viral.”

  “Wait,” Joanna said. “When was that exactly?”

  “Two weeks ago. The same night the school board ruled in Marty’s favor. Why?”

  “Do we have a date for when Debra Highsmith applied for her concealed weapons permit?”

  “The permit is dated eight days after the school board meeting. There’s no waiting period in Arizona for concealed carry permits, but that’s still lightning-fast service. How did she make that happen?”

  “I understand the Bisbee Police Department helped her obtain it,” Matt Keller put in. “Debra Highsmith wasn’t officially part of city government, but she was a prominent person in town.”

  Joanna nodded. “What about the dog? When did Giles turn up on the scene?” she asked. “Call Dr. Ross and find out when Debra Highsmith brought Giles in for his first visit.”

  Deb picked up her phone and called the vet’s office. She asked a single question, waited for an answer, and then put the phone down. “The receptionist says Giles’s first visit was on April sixth.”

  “In other words, right about the same time,” Joanna mused. “Okay, guys, let’s hit the bricks. It’s looking more and more like the situation with the Pembrokes may have triggered Debra Highsmith’s taking defensive measures. The question is, was she scared of them or was she scared of someone else?

  “By this afternoon, I want to know everything there is to know about the Pembroke family—where they came from, how long they’ve been in town, if Marty had any run-ins with the law prior to their moving here. They don’t have any concealed weapons permits, do they?”

  “Nope,” Jaime said. “I already checked.”

  For the next few minutes, the detectives discussed who would handle what. As they filed out of Joanna’s office, she picked up her phone. The call to Guy Machett went straight to voice mail. She left a message letting him know that the next-of-kin notification had been accomplished and gave him the details she had about Isadora Creswell and Mike Hirales. Her next call was to William Farraday. That one also went to voice mail. Joanna had no intention of opening a discussion about having access to the school’s e-mail accounts in a voice mail message. Finally she dialed her mother’s number.

  “Hey, Mom,” she said brightly. “I was wondering if you’d mind if I stopped by for a cup of coffee.”

  Eleanor was immediately on the defensive. “Joanna Lee,” she began. Her use of Joanna’s full name usually indicated the beginning of a tirade. “Don’t you dare think you can just drop by to deliver some cockamamie excuse for backing out of going to the gala tonight—”

  “No,” Joanna said quickly. “It’s nothing like that. I told you yesterday that Butch and I are coming to the gala, and we are. Right now, though, I’m looking for a little information on a case.”

  There was a small hesitation before Eleanor spoke again. “The Highsmith homicide, maybe?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Joanna answered. “That’s the one.”

  She tried to make sure that her reply sounded like a grudging admission on her part. She did that deliberately in the hope that her seeming reluctance would set the hook. There was nothing Eleanor Lathrop Winfield liked more than being in the know. In this case, it worked like a charm.

  “If
you’re coming right now,” Eleanor said, “I’ll go straight to the kitchen and start a new pot. That way it’ll be ready by the time you get here.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Joanna said. “Looking forward to it.”

  She called out to the lobby. “I’m leaving,” she told Lisa Howard.

  “Will you be back?”

  As sheriff, she didn’t qualify for overtime no matter how many hours she put in. Joanna knew that if she didn’t grab a nap sometime during the day, she’d be a mess when it came time to show up for her command performance at the gala.

  “That depends,” she said. “I was here late last night. I’m going out to chase down a lead in the Highsmith case. If it doesn’t pan out, I may call it a day.”

  CHAPTER 14

  FOR AS LONG AS JOANNA HAD BEEN ON THE PLANET, HER MOTHER had lived in the house on Campbell Avenue, in a blue-collar part of Bisbee’s Warren neighborhood. Initially Eleanor had lived there with Joanna’s father, D. H. Lathrop. For a number of years after his death, she had lived there with her daughter, followed by an even longer period of living there alone. Now the long, narrow house, built on a long, narrow lot, belonged to Eleanor and George Winfield together.

  After Joanna’s father’s death, Eleanor had allowed the place to turn into a time capsule. Nothing changed. The furniture remained the same. It was quality stuff and well cared for, but over the years it had gradually gone out of fashion. The humdrum fifties-era kitchen remained a fifties-era kitchen. For years Eleanor had made do, working around the one burner on the electric stove that no longer functioned. There was no dishwasher. Had there been one, the house’s aging wiring and glitchy plumbing probably would have caused problems.

  All that had changed once George and Eleanor tied the knot. Upon first moving in, he had installed a replacement burner in the kitchen stove, then he had dusted off D. H. Lathrop’s long unused patio grill and put it to good use. George knew his way around tools, and he made remaking his wife’s house the focus of his retirement. Working mostly by himself, he had updated the kitchen with new cabinets, plumbing, wiring, and state-of-the-art appliances. He had redone both bathrooms, and managed to talk Eleanor into furnishings that were far more modern and far more comfortable that the ones she’d had originally. His most recent efforts included a brand-new roof and a new coat of exterior paint on both the house and the fence.

  That morning, walking up to the house and seeing how the flaking old paint had been scraped away and replaced, Joanna found herself marveling at George Winfield’s energy and industry, to say nothing of his patience. She wasn’t sure how he had managed to persuade Eleanor to make all the necessary decisions surrounding those changes, but he had. In the process, George Winfield had put his own particular stamp on the place. It was now his house every bit as much as it was Eleanor’s.

  When Joanna rang the bell, Eleanor came to the door with a telephone in her hand. She let Joanna into the house and used hand motions to indicate that there was coffee in the kitchen and that Joanna should go get some. Joanna poured herself a mug and then returned to the living room where her mother was still on the phone.

  “You can’t take it so personally, Maggie,” Eleanor was saying. “You probably need to make the admission requirements stiffer. When you advertise it as a ‘master’ class, people need to understand that a certain level of expertise is expected. It’s not fair to Mr. Coleman or to the other participants to have rank beginners involved in the classes and wasting everyone’s time.

  “The problem with rank beginners, of course, is that they have no idea how bad they are,” Eleanor added. “As that old proverb says, ‘They who know not, know not they know not.’ Delusions of adequacy and all that. Having a panel of judges vet the work of all the applicants before they’re admitted may seem cumbersome, but it would prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future.”

  There was a drawn-out pause on Eleanor’s end as Maggie Oliphant spoke at some length. While she listened, Eleanor mimed that Joanna should bring her a cup of coffee, too. Following directions, Joanna returned to the kitchen, poured a second cup, and doctored it with her mother’s dollop of cream and two spoonfuls of sugar.

  “No,” Eleanor was saying when she returned. “You don’t need to worry about any of that. It’s handled. I’ve been in touch with Myron Thomas out at Rob Roy Links several times so far today. There will be plenty of food. If more people than expected show up, he’ll have a table in reserve that can be brought out and set up in a blink. Myron’s a professional. He won’t let us down. As for the floral centerpieces, they should be delivered sometime in the next hour or so.”

  Joanna waited through another long pause.

  “That’s probably a good idea,” Eleanor said eventually. “Take one of those pills and then lie down and treat yourself to a nap, but only if you’re sure the antidepressant won’t knock you on your butt. I know this week has been tough on you, Maggie, but we need you on your feet tonight, keeping things together. If you fall apart, the gala falls apart. With all the big spenders coming down from Tucson and Phoenix, we can’t afford that kind of bad publicity. We need you, Maggie. Bisbee needs you. Okay. See you tonight.”

  Eleanor put down the phone, covered her eyes with her hands, and shook her head. “Maggie Oliphant,” she explained unnecessarily. “The poor girl is losing it. She’s under tremendous pressure to make things work. Unfortunately, this Plein Air group has been a hassle. One of the so-called artists is so bad, he’s only one step beyond second-grade finger painting. He acts like it’s okay to skip classes completely or else he shows up late. If we’re going to make this idea work long term, we’re going to have to develop a more sophisticated admissions policy.”

  Joanna tried to feign interest, but the current difficulties of the Bisbee Art League weren’t any of her concern. Debra Highsmith’s homicide was.

  Eventually Eleanor must have come to the same conclusion. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to go on so. What was it you said you wanted?”

  “It’s about Marliss and Jenny,” Joanna said. “I suppose you’ve heard about the photo Jenny took yesterday morning.”

  Eleanor nodded. “Then sent it out to all and sundry. I’m afraid I did hear about that. I should have thought you’d have taught her better than to pull a dumb stunt like that.”

  “I should have thought so, too,” Joanna agreed.

  Her mother’s instant assumption that it was all Joanna’s fault was par for the course. “It turns out she didn’t have better sense, but she didn’t send it to ‘all and sundry.’ She sent it to one person only—to her friend Cassie.”

  Joanna didn’t let on that there was a good possibility that Cassie Parks was now Jenny’s former friend. She didn’t want to give Eleanor that kind of ammunition.

  “Cassie is the one who sent it along to someone else, and before you can say chop-chop, Marliss Shackleford shows up at my crime scene already knowing Debra Highsmith is the victim even though we’ve made no announcement to that effect. As she was leaving, she made some veiled comment about Jenny that didn’t make sense to me until later, when I found out about the photo. What I can’t figure out is how Marliss knew about the photo. I understand that the kids are all involved in every social networking site you’ve ever heard of, and some you haven’t, but where does Marliss Shackleford come in? What’s her connection?”

  Joanna stopped then. Maintaining a poker face was a useful skill her mother had never quite mastered. The small twitch near Eleanor’s mouth said Joanna was onto something.

  “Jenny’s not in any trouble, is she?” Eleanor asked.

  “She’s in trouble with me,” Joanna declared. “It could have been a lot worse. Fortunately, we were able to contact Ms. Highsmith’s next of kin before any of them saw the offending photo on the Web, but I still want to know how Marliss knew about that photograph before I did.”

  Eleanor sighed. “If I tell you,” she objected, “I’ll be betraying a friend’s confidence.”

&
nbsp; “How did she know?” Joanna pressed.

  “She’s a reporter,” Eleanor hedged. “Reporters have to know things.”

  “How did she find out?”

  Eleanor sighed again. “Her granddaughter,” she said.

  “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.”