Judgment Call

by J. A. Jance

  In Bisbee, Arizona, back then, little guy versus company bigwig? Unfortunately, Joanna knew exactly how those things worked. So had her father.

  “Besides,” Nelda added after a pause, “blowing the whistle would have meant letting our kids know about all of it, too. They were grown by then, but I didn’t see any point in my telling them that their father was a two-timing jerk and a murderer besides.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Joanna said. “As far as you know, Elizabeth Stevens was having an affair with your husband and she was the one behind all this rather than her husband?”

  “Husbands or, in my case, wives are always the last to know,” Nelda observed, “but I doubt Wayne Stevens had any idea about what had gone on between Edward and Elizabeth. If he had, I never would have gotten that checkout job. What I don’t understand is why you’re here asking all these questions. It has to be at least twenty years ago. Why bring it up now?”

  “Because there’s no statute of limitations on homicide, or on conspiracy to commit homicide, either,” Joanna explained. “You and my father both believed Elizabeth was behind Fred Holder’s death. I have reason to believe that she may have been responsible for my father’s death as well.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nelda said with a puzzled frown. “I thought D. H. Lathrop was killed by a drunk driver.”

  “So did I,” Joanna said, “and so did everyone else, but it turns out that drunk driver may have been bought and paid for.”

  For a time the room was silent while the impact of Joanna’s words settled around them. Then a slow smile crossed the old woman’s face.

  “I know the pastor would say that I’m not a good person, but when I heard Wayne Stevens had up and died, leaving Elizabeth penniless, I thought she was finally getting what she deserved. That seemed like the best I could hope for, but are you saying that now she might even go to jail?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “She might. The problem is, you may have to be called on to corroborate what your husband told my father. You might have to testify.”

  “With pleasure,” Nelda Muncey said. “Between then and now, my kids have learned that their father didn’t exactly walk on water. It’s not going to kill them to find out the rest of it. After all, it didn’t kill you to find out about your father and Mona Tipton, did it?”

  Nelda’s question rocked Joanna, and she couldn’t help but blush. It seemed that everyone in town, including her own mother, had known about what was going on between her father and Mona Tipton. Joanna felt as if she was the only person involved who had been left in the dark.

  “No, it didn’t,” Joanna agreed at last, “although I have to admit it was a real shock to the system.”

  “I’m sure it was,” Nelda said kindly.

  “You don’t think this will be too hard on you—your possibly having to testify?”

  “Oh, no,” Mad Dog Muncey’s widow replied. “Not at all. Your mother weathered that whole ruckus with your father like a champ. I expect the same thing will be true for me. I’ll be fine. I’m not so sure about Elizabeth Stevens,” she added with a broad smile. “We’ll have to see about that, won’t we.”

  When Joanna went outside, she sat in the Yukon for several long minutes before turning the key in the ignition. She was still sitting there with the gearshift in park and thinking about her mother when her phone rang.

  “Okay, boss,” Deb said. “I’ve got the pictures you wanted. They’re not very good. Newspaper photos have changed a lot since the old days. What do you want me to do now?”

  “Drive over to Sahuarita,” Joanna said. “You’re going to go see a guy named David Fredericks. Get Records to give you his name and address. I want you to show him the photos, and then call me with the results.”

  “Who is he?” Deb asked.

  “He’s the man who killed my father.”

  “That was years ago,” Deb objected. “I thought it was an accident.”

  “So did I,” Joanna said, “but it turns out the guy driving the car was a hired hand.”

  “Are you saying you think Elizabeth Stevens was behind your father’s death? Is that even possible?”

  “We’ll know once Mr. Fredericks sees the photo. He’s already spent years in prison for the crime, while the person who started this whole thing has been in the clear and free as a bird.”

  “It’s a long way back and forth to Sahuarita. What are you going to be doing in the meantime?” Deb asked. “You’re not going to go see her on your own, are you?”

  “No,” Joanna said. “I’m not going anywhere near Elizabeth Stevens without having backup in place. What I’m going to do instead will be a lot tougher than talking to her.”

  “What would be tougher than that?” Deb asked.

  “I have to go talk to my mother,” Joanna said. “She needs to know that what we both always thought was an accident was really cold-blooded murder.”

  CHAPTER 29

  JOANNA WAS TEMPTED TO CALL FOR BACKUP TO GO SEE HER mother, too. Butch would have been her first choice for that, but she didn’t want to have to face up to his inarguable I-told-you-so. After all, this was exactly what Butch had suggested might happen—that in pursuing the possibility that D. H. Lathrop had been murdered, Joanna would bring all that painful history back into focus and reopen all the old wounds. Mad Dog’s affair with Elizabeth Stevens would be out in the open, but from what Nelda had just said, so would D. H. Lathrop’s relationship with Mona Tipton. Bisbee’s gossipmongers would have a field day. With gossip, as with homicide, there is no statute of limitations.

  It had now been several years since Joanna had first learned about her father’s infidelity. Up to that point, whenever she had thought about her parents’ relationship, she had always assumed that her father had been the wronged party. After finally realizing that her father, too, had feet of clay, she had come to appreciate how the two women involved—her mother and Mona—had survived the aftermath of the death of the man they had both loved.

  As the widow of a slain police officer, Eleanor had maintained the field advantage of being able to put on a public show of bearing her grief bravely, while leaving her daughter puzzling over why she never saw her mother shed so much as a single tear over her husband’s death. Now Joanna understood that her mother’s behavior had been as much about fury and betrayal as it had been about grief, but public sympathy had always been on Eleanor’s side.

  If Nelda Muncey had known about D. H. Lathrop’s affair, other people in town must have known, too, but when he died, there had been no public groundswell of sympathy for Mona Tipton. She had done her grieving in private. Some women would have left town. Mona didn’t. She had continued to live in her house on Quality Hill, dealing with her grief in almost reclusive solitude. If the two women had run into each other at some time in the intervening years—in the bank or the post office or at a restaurant in town—there had been no words between them, no impropriety that would have brought anyone’s attention to the situation. To the best of their ability, both of the women in D. H. Lathrop’s life had tried to put him and his tragic death behind them.

  Now they would both have to learn that his death hadn’t been accidental at all. Joanna knew enough about human emotions to understand that the kind of closure people talk about in the aftermath of a sudden death is a figment of the public’s imagination. Wounded souls scab over eventually. Broken hearts mend after a fashion, but there are always scars left behind. Joanna knew that when cold cases were suddenly solved—when, after years of nothing, a long-sought killer finally faced justice—“closure” was the word that was always on everyone’s lips. Finding out at this late date that D. H. Lathrop had been murdered would bring two women the exact opposite of closure.

  It would all be Joanna’s doing.

  She called her mother from the Traffic Circle. “Hey, Mom,” she said, as cheerily as she could manage. “I was wondering if I could stop by for a cup of coffee?”

  Eleanor wasn’t exactly overjoyed to hear
from her. “You’d think after the kind of difficult weekend we’ve had around here that a person could rest on her laurels for a single day at least, but that’s not happening. Some of the women from the art league think we should donate the leftover refreshments from yesterday’s tea to the funeral reception for Maggie. You don’t know anything about what arrangements are being made, do you?”

  “I’ll see what I can find out on that,” Joanna said, although she already knew no arrangements for Maggie’s funeral had as yet been set. “Still, is it okay if I drop by for coffee?”

  “Is something wrong?” Eleanor asked. “This is twice now in the last couple of days when you’ve stopped by for no apparent reason. I’m worried something’s amiss.”

  “We’ll talk about it when I get there,” Joanna insisted.

  “Oh, no,” Eleanor said, automatically drawing a worst-case-scenario conclusion. “Don’t tell me. Butch is leaving you!”

  “Mother,” Joanna insisted, “it’s nothing like that. Things are fine with Butch and me.”

  “All right, then,” Eleanor said, “but it sounds serious. Should George be here?”

  Joanna thought about that. “It might be better if he wasn’t.”

  It was only a few minutes later when she stopped outside her mother’s place on Campbell. George was outside finishing painting the fence. He waved as Joanna went past, but she was relieved that he made no effort to join them.

  Eleanor met Joanna at the front door. “What on earth is going on, Joanna Lee Brady?” she demanded frantically. “I’ve been dying a thousand deaths since you called. Is there something wrong with Jennifer? Is Dennis sick?”

  “It’s about my father,” Joanna said quietly. “There’s something you need to know.”

  “Your father!” Eleanor replied, lurching slightly and sitting down heavily on the arm of the sofa. “What about your father?”

  Joanna took a deep breath. “We’re reopening the investigation into his death,” she said softly. “There’s a good chance he was murdered.”

  In the past six years, Joanna had been involved in numerous next-of-kin notifications. Even though the momentous events in question were twenty years in the past, the news still came as a shock. Joanna delivered the information as best she could, determined not to be derailed by her mother’s reaction. Nonetheless, she was amazed to see her mother dissolve into a spasm of unapologetic grief. Eleanor buried her face in her hands and wept in great gulping sobs. Gradually the sobs subsided.

  “So you’re saying this was all about Freddy Holder’s death, then?” Eleanor asked at last. “I knew your father was back working on that again, but he’d been doing that for years. I never thought anything would come of it. I told him time and again that he had to stop obsessing about that case—that he needed to let it go.”

  “It looks as though once Dad went to see Wayne Stevens, all bets were off. Elizabeth Stevens must have been terrified that this time he’d finally be able to do something about it. When the drunk driver who hit Dad tried to tell people that someone had hired him to do it, no one believed him. No one ever bothered to look into the possibility that he was telling the truth.”

  “Are you going to arrest her?” Eleanor asked.

  “I’m in the process of having my detectives pull together some other pieces of evidence, but you need to know that there’s a good chance that Dad’s journal from that time will have to be placed in evidence, too. Nelda’s testimony can corroborate what Mad Dog told Dad about Freddy Holder’s death, but the journal would need to be there. They’re two different sources telling the same story. That’s why I wanted you to know about this now. If you want me to drop it …”

  “Heavens no!” Eleanor said. “If that woman has gotten away with murder all this time, you have to do this. You must. No question. Reliving all of it won’t be a picnic for anyone, but it’s about time somebody put her away.”

  Although they talked for another half hour, Joanna and Eleanor never did get around to having coffee. It was only as Joanna was leaving that her mother dropped the real bombshell.

  “Are you going to go tell Mona Tipton?” she asked.

  Joanna was thunderstruck. Going to see Mona had been the next thing on her list, but she’d had no intention of mentioning that to her mother.

  “Yes,” Joanna said uncertainly. “I thought I should.”

  “Good,” Eleanor replied. “Having all of this come back up will be far worse for her than it is for me. After all, I have George and the kids and you. I don’t believe that poor woman has anyone.”

  Joanna had been about to step off the front porch. Instead, she turned around, went back, and gave her mother a heartfelt hug.

  “That’s very kind of you, Mom,” she said.

  “Maybe age is finally catching up with me,” Eleanor said with a shrug. “Maybe I’m finally getting older and wiser.”

  CHAPTER 30

  DEB HOWELL CALLED WHILE JOANNA WAS ON HER WAY UP THE canyon to see Mona. “Okay,” she said. “I’m on my way—halfway back to Benson. David Fredericks picked Elizabeth Stevens’s face out of the montage without a moment’s hesitation.”

  “You recorded his making the ID?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I videoed it with my iPhone. Sent it to Dave Hollicker. Fredericks also gave me the laminated note he told you about. We can have a handwriting expert work on verifying that.”

  Joanna glanced at her watch. “How can you already be halfway back to Benson?” she asked. “You didn’t leave that long ago.”

  “When I called Fredericks, he asked to meet me at the Triple T. Yes, he’s glad to help—he told me that again—but I think he wanted some time to break the news to his family. We did our business, and I headed home. What’s the next step?”

  Joanna looked at her watch. It was a little past noon. She had no idea whether the high school would be on a full-day schedule or a partial-day schedule, but she was hoping to stop by the house and deal with Elizabeth Stevens before her daughter came home from work.

  “I’m running an errand right now,” Joanna said, without any additional information. “When I finish that, I’ll go back to the office and work on my paperwork jungle. Call me as you come through the tunnel. We’ll meet at Abby Holder’s place.”

  She pulled up in front of Mona’s house on Quality Hill. The last time Joanna had come here and spoken to Mona, she had done so out of purely selfish reasons. This time it was different. This time she had something other than either curiosity or retribution in mind. This time she was here on an errand of mercy.

  When Mona opened the door, however, it was as though no time had passed between Joanna’s first visit and this one. Her father’s onetime mistress was dressed in the kind of clothing she might have worn to work back in the day—a well-maintained suit that was years out of fashion, a carefully ironed white blouse, panty hose, and a pair of sensible heels.

  “I’m sorry to show up unannounced,” Joanna apologized. “If you’re expecting someone …”

  “It’s fine,” Mona Tipton said, opening the door wider. “I’m not expecting anyone. Please do come in and have a seat.”

  Like Nelda Muncey’s living room, this one, too, was furnished with period pieces, ones that predated the fifties, but were in far better condition.

  “What brings you here?” Mona asked when they were both settled.

  “It’s about my father,” Joanna began.

  Again she delivered the same painful information she had given her mother. When Mona heard the news, she didn’t burst into tears. She simply nodded. “I always thought there was something to that guy’s story,” she said at last. “To the drunk driver’s story, I mean, but everyone else’s mind was made up about what had happened. They saw what they wanted to see and didn’t bother looking any further.”

  “I wanted you to know about this in advance,” Joanna said.

  “Because you’ll most likely have to use your father’s journals as evidence against Elizabeth Stevens?”

&nbs
p; “Exactly,” Joanna said.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Mona said. “I’ve lived with a scarlet A embroidered on my clothing for the last twenty years. Having it come out in public isn’t going to bother me. Who knows, it might even help. Maybe people will finally figure out that there’s a reason I’ve lived alone all this time. I really loved your father, Sheriff Brady. I wake up every morning of my life sorry that he’s gone.”

  Somehow it was easier for Joanna to sit and talk to Mona Tipton than it had been to talk to her own mother. Eventually Mona went into the kitchen, returning with a tray laden with coffee, coffee cups, and saucers.

  “I seem to remember you drink your coffee black, right?” she asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” Joanna said. “Black is fine.”

  She had just finished drinking her second cup when her phone rang. It was Deb. “I just came through the tunnel,” she said.

  “I’ll be right there,” Joanna said. “Don’t go near the house until I get there.”

  She stood up.

  “You’re on your way to see Elizabeth Stevens now?” Mona Tipton asked.

  Joanna nodded. “Yes,” she said. “That’s the next step.”

  “Do be careful,” Mona advised. “Your father always said that a cornered rattlesnake was far more dangerous than one on the loose.”

  Joanna paused in midstep with a sudden catch in her throat. “He did always say that, didn’t he?”