Judgment Call (13 page)

“I've attended the Arizona Police Academy,” Joanna said, ignoring Elizabeth's self-serving excuse. “My firearms rating is one of the best in my department. I maintain that by practicing on the shooting range each week. I've attended any number of law enforcement continuing education seminars to update my skills and to keep my department apprised of the latest advances in forensics and law enforcement technology. So you see, Mrs. Stevens, my being sheriff has almost nothing to do with my father, and everything to do with me.”

Abby returned from the kitchen and stopped short when she saw her mother's frowning countenance. “What's going on?”

“Your mother was just telling me that she believes that the only reason I'm a sheriff now is because my father was a sheriff,” Joanna answered. “I was explaining to her why that's not true.”

Abby was aghast. “Mother!” she exclaimed.

“That woman was rude to me,” Elizabeth said, pointing an accusing finger in Joanna's direction. “Make her leave. I want her out of the house, now.”

Joanna didn't doubt that previously Abby Holder might have knuckled under to all of her mother's demands, no matter how outrageous, but somehow, today, the dynamics of their situation had changed slightly, shifting in Abby's favor.

“Sheriff Brady is a guest in my home, Mother,” Abby said firmly, “and so are you—a guest. You should probably remember that from time to time. Now, if you'd like more tea, I'll be glad to get you some.”

“That's no way to speak to your mother!” Elizabeth said petulantly.

“If you don't wish to be spoken to in that fashion, then don't be rude to my guests,” Abby told her. “So, do you want more tea or not?”

“Not,” Elizabeth replied. Again, she spun her wheelchair around and sped away down the hallway.

“I'm sorry,” Abby said. “She's a little difficult at times.”

A supreme understatement,
Joanna thought.

“Yes,” she said. “I can see that.”

She was also realizing that, compared to Elizabeth Stevens, when it came to being troublesome, her own mother, Eleanor Lathrop Winfield, was a rank amateur.

This time, when Abby retreated into the kitchen to the whistling summons of the teakettle, Joanna followed her. It was a tiny place, old-fashioned but spotlessly clean. Instead of a dishwasher under the counter, a dish drainer sat on top of it, stacked with what was most likely a collection of washed and drying breakfast or lunch dishes. The cabinets had been built for someone far taller than Abby Holder, whose height matched Joanna's own five feet two. To help make up for the height deficit, a kitchen stool was stationed in the corner next to the stove. Trying to stay out of Abby's way in the confined space, Joanna perched on the stool while Abby poured boiling water over a strainer filled with tea leaves.

“You were saying earlier that you sometimes wondered if Ms. Highsmith was in the witness protection program. Were you serious about that or were you just kidding?”

“A little of both, I suppose,” Abby Holder admitted. “She never talked about where she lived when she was growing up or how they celebrated Christmas or where they went on vacation. When people started talking about things like that, she just clammed up or else left the room. I never asked her about it, though. She was my boss. I wanted to keep my job, and it seemed to me that I was better off minding my own business.”

Joanna's cell phone rang. When she answered, Deb was on the line.

“While the judge was going over the paperwork for the warrant, I went online to Marty Pembroke's Facebook page. We'll be sending you the YouTube link for the video clip. You might want to take a look at it as soon as you get it.”

“Why?” Joanna asked.

“Because I'm worried that it might be taken down any minute.”

Joanna's text message warning sounded. “Okay,” she said. “It's here.”

She opened the message. Once loaded, the film images were a little blurry, but she could still make them out. There was a video of a furious Debra Highsmith leaving the board meeting. Underneath the film a ticker ran a message:
DIE, BITCH!

Joanna called Deb Howell back. “Okay,” she said. “Once we execute the search warrant, we both know where we need to go next.”

WHEN THE TEA FINISHED STEEPING, ABBY LED THE WAY BACK INTO
the living room and poured the next round. “At the time Ms. Highsmith had her various dealings with the Pembroke family, did you ever overhear anything that might be construed as a threat?” Joanna asked.

Abby clearly found the question offensive. “I'm a secretary, not an eavesdropper,” she said.

“But if there were raised voices …” Joanna objected.

“Raised voices I heard,” Abby conceded. “What those raised voices were saying? No, I didn't hear that.”

“What about the gun?” Joanna asked.

“What gun?”

“Were you aware that Ms. Highsmith had obtained a concealed carry permit and that she had a loaded weapon in her purse?”

“Oh, no,” Abby Holder said, shaking her head. “Definitely not Ms. Highsmith. She wouldn't have had one of those on a bet. You must be mistaken.”

“What about her dog?” Joanna asked.

“What dog?” Abby responded. “Ms. Highsmith never mentioned having a dog. At least she never mentioned it to me.”

“I have it on good authority that she did have a dog. His name is Giles.”

“Amazing.” Abby shook her head. “I don't remember hearing one word about him.”

That seemed odd. Every time a dog had come into the Brady family's life, the new addition was a constant topic of conversation. For the seven years since Debra Highsmith had been hired as the high school principal, she had worked with Abby on a daily basis. Yet she had never confided in her secretary that she was carrying a loaded weapon in her purse or that she had acquired a dog. Maybe there had been some kind of difficulty between the two women that had yet to surface.

Before anything more could be said on that subject, however, Detective Howell turned up, search warrant in hand. It had taken her just under half an hour, which, in Joanna's view, had to be an all-time record. She handed the warrant over to Abby Holder, who read through the whole thing.

“Do you need me to come along to let you in?” she asked, handing the warrant back to Deb.

“That would be a huge help,” Joanna said.

“I'll just go get my purse and my car keys.”

“You're welcome to bring your purse,” Joanna said, “but we'll be glad to give you a ride to and from.”

“I'll still need my keys to get into the school,” Abby said, “and I'll let Mother know that I'll be out for a while.”

Abby disappeared into the interior of the house. Shortly thereafter, from down the hall, they heard Elizabeth's querulous response. “How long will you be?” she wanted to know. “Will you be back in time to make dinner? If I eat any later than five, I'll be up all night with indigestion.”

Deb shook her head. “That woman has the patience of Job.”

“She needs it, too,” Joanna observed.

As Joanna and Deb walked out to their respective vehicles, Joanna's cell phone jangled. Tom Hadlock's number appeared in her caller ID window. “I have to take this call,” Joanna told Deb. “Why don't you take Abby with you?”

“Got it,” Deb said.

“Hi, Tom,” Joanna said into the phone. “What's up? Are we making any progress?”

“Detective Carbajal got hold of the school district office. Didn't do squat for the next-of-kin problem. The beneficiary on Debra Highsmith's group insurance is some tree huggers' group.”

“A conservation group, then?”

“Something called the Malpai Borderlands Group. Never heard of them.”

Joanna had. They were a group of ranchers in the southeastern part of Arizona and the southwestern part of New Mexico who had banded together to fight the forces aligned against them—wind, rain, fire, and cross-border thugs who, along with federal oversight bureaucrats, all seemed determined to put them out of business. Finding themselves shunned by the well-heeled national conservation groups whose one-size-fits-all version of biological diversity ignored the ability of ranchers to earn their livelihoods, the people who formed the Malpai Borderlands Group had developed their own localized solutions to the various problems confronting them.

They had cleared out forests of invading mesquite trees, allowing the desert to return to its earlier grassland state. They had fought to protect the small band of jaguars that had turned up in their midst. They had waged a life-and-death struggle with marauding drug dealers who had gunned down unarmed ranchers working on their own property. It was in the aftermath of one of those crimes that the Malpai Borderlands Group had first come to the sheriff's department's attention.

“That's interesting,” Joanna said. “I wonder what's the connection.”

“Like I said. Sounds like tree huggers to me.”

“Not if the tree in question happens to be mesquite,” Joanna said. “Where's Jaime now?”

“On his way to the M.E.'s office,” Tom said. “Dr. Machett is about to do the autopsy, and Detective Carbajal will be there to observe.”

“So things are under control,” Joanna said.

“Not exactly,” Tom Hadlock replied. “The media natives are restless. Marliss Shackleford is camped out in the public office, raising hell as usual, and my phone is ringing off the hook. I've had at least a dozen requests for information from media outlets all over the state in just the last half hour.”

Joanna could tell from the stress in Tom's voice that the pressure was starting to get to him. She couldn't help feeling a little guilty on that score. One of the reasons she had gone along on the Abby Holder interview was that she had wanted to avoid having to deal with Marliss. She didn't doubt that her presence at the interview had made possible the fact that they now had a search warrant in hand, but Tom's inexperience was showing and he was obviously in over his head.

“Sorry to leave you hanging out to dry like that,” Joanna told him. “I know it's a lot to handle.”

“What I need to know is this,” he said, sounding exasperated. “Are we making any progress at all on notifying next of kin? Everybody's demanding that we come out and release the name of the victim. I've been doing what I can to stall on releasing information, citing the next-of-kin issue, but it's not working out very well. I can tell from what reporters are saying to me that they already have Debra Highsmith's name. It's apparently common knowledge all over town, and I'm not sure how much longer I can keep these people from putting it on the air.”

It's common knowledge because my own darling daughter helped spread the word,
Joanna thought as a momentary spark of anger shot through her. In a high-profile case like this, what went on in the media was as important as what was going on with the detectives. The photo Jenny had sent to her friend made handling the media far more problematic.

“Do the best you can, Tom,” Joanna advised her chief deputy as she put the Yukon in gear and pulled in behind Deb Howell's Tahoe. “We've got a search warrant for Debra Highsmith's office, and we're on our way to the high school right now to execute it. I'm sorry the school district angle didn't give us what we needed. I'm hoping we'll find something in her office that will help us locate her next of kin. Otherwise, we're out of luck, out of time, and out of ideas. Much as I hate to do things this way, if we haven't found a family member by the time Machett is done with his autopsy, we'll have to go ahead and release the name. See if you can find out when he expects to be finished, and schedule a press conference immediately thereafter.”

“He's not going to talk to me,” Tom Hadlock said. “You know that, and I know that.”

“Yes,” Joanna said. “Unfortunately, you're right. Let me see what I can do.”

It was a little before three on Friday afternoon. That meant that Dr. Machett's secretary, Madge Livingston, was still on duty. “Can you ask Dr. Machett when he thinks he'll be finished with the autopsy?” Joanna asked when Madge came on the line.

“No point,” Madge said. “He'll say these things take time and that they can't be rushed.”

“What's your best guess?”

“Two hours flat,” Madge pronounced in her smoke-damaged rasp. “He'll be done by five on the nose.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it's Friday,” Madge answered. “Trust me on that. He's out of here by five on Friday afternoons, come what may.”

By then the two-car sheriff's department caravan had arrived at the chain-link gate blocking the driveway entrance to the school grounds. Abby Holder stepped out of Deb Howell's Tahoe. With keys in hand, she stooped to unlock the padlock on the security chain that held the swinging gate shut. Once Deb and Joanna were through the entrance, Abby carefully put the chain back in place and refastened the padlock.