Downfall

by J. A. Jance

  “So Travis told you this on Friday?” Joanna asked.

  “Yes,” Kevin said. “We were shooting hoops after school, and then, all of sudden, he blurted it all out. Just hearing about it made me feel sick inside. And then I saw that message on Mom’s e-mail—the one setting up the interviews. As soon as I saw that, I was sure Trav was the one who had done it.”

  “Believing your best friend may have committed murder is a big burden to carry around,” Robin suggested.

  Kevin nodded gratefully at that small expression of sympathy. “Yes,” he agreed. “I was scared.”

  “Scared of what?” his mother asked.

  “That Trav might do something drastic.”

  “Like what, kill her?”

  “Like maybe kill himself,” Kevin answered. “That’s what Trav said he was going to do if she wouldn’t agree to marry him—commit suicide. Now that she’s dead and the baby’s gone, too, I’m afraid Trav may kill himself anyway, just because.”

  With that, Kevin dissolved into a spasm of anguished sobs. What happened next took Joanna’s breath away. In a split second, Colonel Thomas stopped being a tough-talking career army officer and transformed into a loving mother. Stepping up to her brokenhearted son, she gathered him into her arms.

  “Shhh,” she crooned over the top of his head. “It’s all right, Kevie. It’s all right. We’ll take care of this. It’s not your problem anymore.”

  CHAPTER 17

  SOMETIME LATER, ONCE KEVIN THOMAS PULLED HIMSELF TOGETHER, it was his mother, not the colonel, who gently escorted him from the room. Joanna followed the pair as far as the door.

  “If you need anything more,” Colonel Thomas said, “I want to be present when you speak to him.”

  “Of course,” Joanna agreed. “He’s already been through too much. But there is one more thing, Kevin.”

  “What?”

  “How tall would you say Travis Stock is?”

  The boy shrugged. “About my size, I guess,” he said.

  “So around six feet, give or take?”

  Kevin nodded. “About that,” he said.

  Once Kevin and his mother walked out of the library, Joanna turned back to Robin Watkins, who had remained seated at the table. “Sounds like we have a new person of interest,” she said quietly.

  Joanna nodded. “Who happens to be the son of one of my deputies.”

  “What do you suggest?” Robin asked.

  “Normally, due to conflict-of-interest concerns, I’d call in another agency to do a preliminary investigation. Except it so happens an officer from another agency is already involved—namely you. Unless I’m sadly mistaken, six feet is about the size of the guy who walked Susan Nelson out of her classroom on Saturday afternoon.”

  “Do we happen to know if Travis Stock is right- or left-handed?”

  Closing her eyes, Joanna recalled the sign-in process earlier that morning during the interviews, but she couldn’t remember. “I’m not sure,” she said. “In any case, we’re going to have to accomplish a preliminary investigation without tipping our hand to Deputy Stock. The best possible outcome would mean being able to eliminate his son as a suspect without ever having to bring Deputy Stock and his wife into the equation.”

  “Because you’re not ready to tell them about their son’s relationship with Susan Nelson?”

  “Exactly,” Joanna said, passing her hand over her eyes. “This is a nightmare. The possibility that he may have committed a double homicide is bad enough. The fact that the boy has previously been victimized by a pedophile makes the situation that much worse.”

  “Let’s put first things first,” Robin suggested. “If we can verify Travis’s alibi for Saturday afternoon and evening—if he really did go to the game—then we know for sure that he wasn’t responsible for the kidnapping and probably not for the homicides, either. I’m pretty sure it was a nighttime game, so it wouldn’t have been over until ten o’clock or even later, which doesn’t leave enough time for him to get back to Bisbee, a hundred miles away, and then be on Geronimo in time to commit the murders.”

  Picking up her iPad, Robin scrolled through her notes. “Here’s what I was looking for. Travis told me during the interview that he and some buddies left for the football game early in the afternoon. They were planning to stop for pizza somewhere along the way, before they went to the game.”

  “Did he happen to mention the buddies’ names?”

  “Nate and Jack. No last names. My bad for not getting them in the first place,” Robin said. “Do you remember seeing any Nathaniels or Jacks on the list of students here at the SVSSE?”

  “Not right off the bat,” Joanna answered. “That means that they may be friends from town rather than friends from school, which also means they wouldn’t have been on our to-be-interviewed list.”

  “I’ll see what I can do to locate them,” Robin offered.

  “Good,” Joanna said. “I just wish there were some way we could get a sample of Travis’s DNA without giving any of this away.”

  “Why?”

  “Because before I drop any of the pedophilia issue on Jeremy and Allison Stock, I’d like to know for sure if their son is the father of Susan Nelson’s unborn baby.”

  She paused for a moment, thinking, and then added, “Wait. Maybe there is a way. After the school shooting incidents, many schools, especially private ones, have taken the position that students are allowed the use of school lockers, but that the lockers are owned by the schools and therefore must be accessible to school officials at all times. It’s almost five. With any luck, Mr. McVey will still be here, and with even more luck, this will be one of the schools that maintains legal authority over the contents of student lockers.”

  Joanna was relieved to find Mr. McVey still in his office and to learn that the school was indeed one of the ones she’d hoped it would be. In order to use a locker, each student at SVSSE agreed to use only school-approved combination locks. In addition, students were required to sign a waiver that allowed school officials full access to the locker at any time and for any reason. After a little convincing and a few minutes later, Mr. McVey led Joanna and Robin Watkins to the locker assigned to Travis Stock. Once there, Mr. McVey used a master key to open the padlock and swing open the door.

  “What exactly are you expecting to find?” he asked.

  Donning a pair of latex gloves, Joanna peered inside without answering the question. Books and notebooks were all neatly arranged. On the bottom of the locker, between the books and next to the metal wall, was an assortment of items—pencils, pens, a tiny pocketknife, and an unopened packet of condoms. Ignoring those, Joanna sorted through the items, finally selecting the well-chewed nub of a number two pencil.

  “This will do,” she said, slipping the pencil into an evidence bag.

  “That’s all?” Mr. McVey asked.

  “For right now.”

  “Does this mean Travis Stock is a suspect in Susan’s murder?” McVey asked. “He’s a great kid—a scholarship kid—but still a real asset to the school. I can’t imagine that he or any of our students, for that matter, could be in any way responsible for what happened.”

  “At the moment, Travis Stock may or may not be a person of interest in the homicides in question,” Joanna replied. “And for the time being, I’d very much like you to keep that information confidential.”

  “Of course,” McVey agreed. “I understand completely.”

  Joanna and Robin left the locker and headed straight back to the parking lot. “I’m not sure that’s going to pass scrutiny as a legal search or if the resulting evidence will hold up in court,” Agent Watkins said dubiously. “Yes, the school ostensibly has the right to search the students’ lockers at any time, but I think a good defense attorney will be able to make a case for claiming that the school’s property rights don’t supersede the suspect’s rights to the assumption of privacy.”

  “Presumably this pencil has Travis Stock’s DNA all over it,” Joanna said gri
mly, “and I do not intend to have whatever we find here end up in a court of law. This is for informational purposes only—my informational purposes. Sooner or later I’m going to have to show up at Allison and Jeremy Stock’s house with the news that, without their knowledge, their son has spent years being victimized by a pedophile. When it comes time for that, I’m going to want to know for sure if Travis was also the father of Susan Nelson’s unborn baby.”

  “But what if Travis committed the murders?” Robin asked. “What then?”

  “At that point we’ll have to find some other way to prove that he was responsible,” Joanna said. “Because this pencil sure as hell isn’t it.”

  It was ten after five by the time she got back into her Yukon. She called Butch the moment she was under way.

  “You’re still in Sierra Vista?” he asked crossly when she told him where she was. “Our dinner reservation is in less than an hour.”

  “I know,” Joanna said. “I’m on my way, and I’ll come straight to the restaurant, but I’m going to have to make one more stop before I do.”

  “Joanna,” Butch reasoned, “can’t you do whatever it is after dinner instead of before?”

  “I’ll be on time,” she said. “I promise.”

  Her next call was to Kendra Baldwin. Since it was after five, Joanna didn’t have to talk her way past Madge to reach the ME.

  She got straight to the point. “We’ve learned there’s a good chance Susan Nelson was a pedophile who was screwing around with at least one of her students.”

  “Whoa,” Kendra said. “Not nice.”

  “You can say that again,” Joanna agreed. “One of the possible victims, a juvenile, happens to be the son of one of my deputies. He may also be the father of that unborn baby.”

  “That’s awkward.”

  “Yes, it is, and that’s why I need your help. Before I approach the parents, I want to have some confidence that the story I’ve been told is what really happened. To that end, I’ve obtained a pencil, one I took from a school locker, that I’m pretty sure belongs to the boy in question and—”

  “And you want me to see if I can get a DNA profile off the pencil and match it to the baby’s without your having to use your own departmental channels.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Won’t hold up in court,” Kendra said, echoing the same concern Robin Watkins had expressed earlier.

  “It doesn’t need to,” Joanna replied. “It only has to hold up for me. Before I drop by someone’s house and break a pair of parents’ hearts, I need to know if this is the real deal.”

  “When do you plan to drop it off?”

  “As soon as I can get there. I’m just now leaving Sierra Vista.”

  “Don’t speed and don’t worry,” Kendra said. “I’ll wait right here until you show up. I’ve already sent tissue samples from the fetus to the crime lab. I’ll make sure the pencil gets there tonight, too. Ralph Whetson was about to head out to Tucson to collect the other body. I’ll have him wait here until you drop off the pencil—one trip rather than two.”

  “What other body?” Joanna asked.

  “The one from Sun Sites. The guy from the golf course. I thought you knew about that.”

  “I didn’t know there had been a confirmed death,” Joanna said, “but I do now. See you in about half an hour.”

  During the interview with Kevin and while her phone had been turned on silent, Joanna had felt the buzz of a couple of incoming voice mails, ones she had yet to listen to. She checked the sources but didn’t listen to them now, either. One was from Butch, no doubt worrying about her coming to dinner. The other one was from Detective Howell.

  She called Deb’s number first. “Sorry it took so long to get back to you,” Joanna said when the detective came on the line. “What’s up?”

  “The domestic violence victim died,” Detective Howell announced. “He’s a guy who lived in Sun Sites. He was DOA at the hospital in Tucson.”

  “Right,” Joanna muttered aloud. “Dr. Baldwin just told me.”

  Her two confirmed homicides and one potential had indeed turned into three confirmed, and she hadn’t been there for the third one—hadn’t shown up on the scene. As far as Joanna was concerned, that meant she had fallen down on the job.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “According to witnesses, the couple was playing golf when the wife hauled off and cold-cocked the guy with her pitching wedge.”

  “What’s a pitching wedge?” Sheriff Joanna Brady was great when it came to poker but was completely out of her depth concerning golf.

  “It was a foursome,” Deb continued. “Two couples, all of them retirees. The woman was lining up a wedge shot to pitch her ball up onto the green. According to witnesses, her husband was standing right behind her, explaining that she was doing it all wrong. Instead of hitting the ball with her club, she turned around and smacked him! Knocked him cold. When they couldn’t bring him around, someone called for an ambulance. EMTs arrived on the scene and couldn’t revive him, either. They summoned an air ambulance to transport him to Tucson. He didn’t make it.”

  The whole idea of someone being killed over a golf game seemed almost laughable except for the guy who was dead, and most likely not for the woman who was responsible, either.

  “Under the circumstances, Dave is doing as good a job as possible on the crime-scene investigation,” Deb went on. “The guy who manages the course is understandably eager to know if he’ll be able to be open tomorrow. I told them we’ll have to let him know. In the meantime, we have the woman in cuffs in the back of my Tahoe. I’ll be bringing her to the Justice Center a little later, probably leaving here in an hour or so, about the time it gets dark and after Dave finishes what he’s doing. I’m expecting to do the official interview once she’s booked into the jail.”

  “You’ve read her her rights?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And she hasn’t lawyered up?”

  “Not so far,” Deb replied. “She told me the only thing she’s sorry about is that she didn’t do it years earlier—that it would have spared her a lot of heartache and made her a better golfer.”

  “Sounds as though their golden years weren’t especially golden,” Joanna observed. “I have a dinner engagement in a few minutes, but call me when it’s time for the interview. If the suspect still hasn’t lawyered up by then, I’ll want to be there, too.”

  “Okay,” Deb said. “Will do.”

  CHAPTER 18

  JOANNA REMEMBERED THAT AT SOME POINT IN THE DAY, A TRAY OF Subway sandwiches had appeared briefly on one of the tables near the back of the SVSSE library, but she had been too busy at the time to eat and had somehow missed the boat on grabbing one of them. She’d had a single doughnut, much earlier, but that was it. By the time she showed up at Café Roka, she was ten minutes late, still in uniform, and starving.

  Housed in the space that had once been a Rexall drugstore, the restaurant still boasted some of the original fittings, including a tin ceiling that gleamed dully overhead. Butch, Marcie, and Bob were already seated and sharing a bottle of Monsoon Red, from the Flying Leap vineyard in nearby Santa Cruz County. There was a glass at Joanna’s place, but she passed on wine for two reasons—she was pregnant and still working.

  “You have to go back in tonight?” Butch asked with a frown when he heard that news.

  “There was a homicide over by Sun Sites earlier today,” Joanna explained. “Detective Howell is bringing the suspect into the Justice Center later, and I want to be there for the initial interview.”

  “A third homicide in addition to the two you were already working?” Bob asked.

  Joanna nodded. “Homicides don’t necessarily take any time off, not even when there’s a death in someone else’s family.”

  She waited to see if either Bob or Marcie would voice any objections to her working right then. Much to her relief, they did not. Settled in with a glass of iced tea, Joanna was mildly amused to find Bob wa
s beyond impressed with how good the wine was, especially since it was grown in Arizona. If grapes could be grown in the vast desert valleys of California, there was no reason they couldn’t be grown in Arizona’s valleys, too, but Joanna didn’t bother pointing that out. People from out of state often had peculiar ideas about Arizona’s being nothing but an arid, uninhabitable desert. Most of the time Joanna was content to let those folks keep right on maintaining what she regarded as rather quaint misapprehensions.

  The two couples had polished off their appetizers and had started on salads when Bob looked Joanna straight in the eye and broached the subject she had been dreading all along. “I’m sorry about the executor thing,” he said. “I’m sure knowing that I’d been handed that job must have come as a shock.”

  There it was—the whole issue out in the open, just like that.

  “It did,” Joanna admitted, “but I’m sure it was Mother’s decision. I don’t see that you have any reason to apologize.”

  “I do, because I’m the one responsible,” Bob explained. “She and George appointed me their executors at my suggestion. You see, I’d already been through the whole estate settlement issue several years earlier when my adoptive parents died. I can tell you, sorting out all those details was an immense, time-consuming pain in the butt. My parents were fairly well off, and I was their only child, but you’d be surprised at the number of cousins and shirttail relations who came crawling out of the woodwork looking for a handout.

  “It took months to unload their properties and to get all the Ts crossed and Is dotted in settling their affairs. When George and Mother first broached the subject to me, I thought that since my current job is totally flexible and yours is not, I’d be better equipped to handle all those details than you, just in terms of the time and energy required, and that was before I had any idea that another baby was on the way. Congratulations on that score,” he added with a smile.