Authors: J. A. Jance
“What do you want to see first?” he asked.
“Front door,” she said. “Between say seven and nine.”
With Myron expertly using both the keyboard and the remote, it took very little time to fast-forward between the critical time periods on each of the cameras. For one thing, by seven fifteen most of the guests had arrived. There were two couples who were late and who came rushing in at what the time stamp noted to be 7:20. There were several people who came out and stood clustered around the front door where they availed themselves of the ashtray stationed there, but no one in that group looked especially furtive. Joanna and Myron watched clear through until Joanna and Butch emerged just before nine.
“What else?” Myron asked.
Joanna looked at her watch. It was after ten now. The auction was probably in full swing.
“Let's look earlier,” she suggested. “I saw my mother talking to Maggie earlier, shortly after we got here, which was right at six thirty.”
Again, Myron started operating the remote. At the earlier time frame, because there were so many arriving, it was impossible to fast-forward. At 6:40, Maggie appeared, leaving the building and having to sort her way through arriving guests to do so. She stopped near the ashtray and lit a cigarette.
“It looks like she's waiting for someone,” Myron said. “See how she keeps looking at that thing on her dress?”
Joanna had noticed that, too. The lapel watch had been pinned to her dress in the same spot where Joanna had noticed that triangular tear in the material.
Eventually, Maggie ground out the butt of her cigarette in the ashtray. A moment later, she left the frame of the video and didn't reappear.
Myron and Joanna were still watching when there was a knock on the door. “Someone here is looking for Sheriff Brady. Is she with you?”
“Yes, she is,” Myron answered. “We'll be right down.”
“Can I have copies of these videos?” Joanna asked.
“Which ones?”
“Front door, lobby, and back door.”
“No problem,” Myron said. “I'll burn some DVDs and have them ready whenever you want them.”
“You're probably in for a long night,” Joanna said. “People are going to have to hang around for a while. You might brew up a few more pots of coffee.”
“Will do,” Myron said, and hurried off.
Casey Ledford was waiting for Joanna at the bottom of the stairs, holding Joanna's overnight bag.
“Jaime's already here. He and Delcia were having dinner at Ricardo's, in Hereford. She just dropped him off. He wanted me to let you know that we've already had a few people come straggling out of the building asking what's going on,” she said. “We've been passing the situation off as a medical emergency, but once Doc Machett's meat wagon shows up, that's not going to wash. Jaime's hoping we can get statements from all the people who are here from the Plein Air conference. Some of them might know something, and if they're leaving town tomorrow, we need to know how to get in touch with them.”
Joanna looked longingly at the bag. Her feet were killing her. There was nothing she wanted more than to be out of the silk gown and high heels and into something more comfortable, even if that something was nothing more than a bright orange crime scene jumpsuit.
“How's the auction going?”
Butch had appeared behind Casey. “When I left the room a few minutes ago, there were only a few more items. Paintings have been selling like gangbusters. It's a huge success.”
Joanna knew right then that her decision to keep the situation in the parking lot quiet had been one hundred percent correct. What she really wanted to do was slip off the silk gown, morph into her sheriff persona, and go out to the parking lot to help her CSIs. This time, though, she couldn't do that. At that moment, the one thing Joanna Brady needed to do for the investigation was also what she needed to do for her mother.
“Tell Jaime I'm on my way inside to make an official announcement, then I'll go back out to the scene. Check with my mother. Either she'll have the official guest list or she'll know who has it.”
“Counting waitstaff, there have to be well over two hundred people here,” Casey objected. “We'll never be able to talk to them all.”
“Let's hope someone saw something and will have brains enough to come forward. Now, do you happen to have an evidence bag with you?”
Casey nodded. Joanna retrieved the pocket square with the wrecked lapel watch from Butch's tux jacket and deposited it in the bag Casey had produced from one of the pockets in her own jumpsuit.
“I'll show you where I found it in a few minutes,” Joanna said, then she peeled off Butch's tux jacket and handed it back to him. “Once I make the announcement, you'll look after Mom?”
Butch nodded. “I gave George a heads-up a little while ago. Everything has been going so well that she's on a real high. Hearing about Maggie is going to blow her out of the water.”
As she and Butch slipped back into the banquet room, Eleanor was in the process of leading Michael Coleman onto the stage, where he and the auctioneer stood smiling and posing in a congratulatory handshake while cameras flashed as people in the audience rose to their feet. Most were simply standing and applauding, although a few of them seemed to be edging toward the door.
Seeing Joanna, Eleanor shot her daughter a small smile. When Joanna held up a hand as though it were a traffic signal, her mother frowned and looked puzzled. Joanna then held her hand as though she had a microphone in it and mouthed to her mother, “Ask them to wait.”
With a shrug, Eleanor stepped to the microphone. “Thank you to everyone who made this auction such a success tonight, but I see my daughter stepping forward. Apparently she has something to say.”
After meandering around in the parking lot in her heels, Joanna found the carpet in the ballroom a whole lot easier to manage. Butch handed her up the steps onto the podium.
“I'd like to introduce my daughter,” Eleanor said. “Sheriff Joanna Brady.”
Someone in the audience whistled. In her bright green gown, Joanna knew she didn't look the least bit like a sheriff.
“If you'd wait a moment before you leave, I have an important announcement to make,” Joanna said, “but first, I'd like another round of applause for my mother, who has done a remarkable job tonight under very difficult circumstances.”
The request was answered with a rousing round of applause. Eleanor nodded and smiled, but she still looked puzzled.
Joanna waited until the room quieted again. “Thank you for that,” she said. “Now I have the misfortune of having to deliver some shocking news. Maggie Oliphant, the woman who has been the mastermind behind the Bisbee Art League and the one who made this whole weeklong Plein Air celebration possible, was found dead in her car in the parking lot a short time ago. Her death is being investigated as a possible homicide.”
A collective gasp shot through the room. Joanna glanced at her mother. Eleanor seemed to sway slightly on her feet, and Joanna was relieved to see both Michael Coleman and Butch step forward. They each took one of her arms and steadied her.
“It's possible that some of you may have witnessed something out of the ordinary as you were arriving here tonight,” Joanna continued. “It might not have seemed important at the time, but it could well mean the difference between our solving the case and our not solving it. So please, if you have anything to report, speak to one of the uniformed deputies you'll find outside in the parking lot; to my lead investigator, Detective Carbajal; or to me. As you depart, we would appreciate your leaving contact information so we'll be able to be in touch later should the need arise. As for the Plein Air participants, I'm afraid I'll need you to hang around for a while longer. Once my homicide investigators finish up outside, they'll want to speak to you individually.”
“Do you know what happened to Maggie?” someone asked.
Joanna shook her head. “I'm sorry,” she said. “This is an active investigation. I have no further comment.”
By the time Joanna finished speaking, Butch and Michael Coleman had escorted an ashen-faced Eleanor down the steps and back to her chair. Joanna left the podium and slipped onto the chair next to her mother's.
“Mom,” she said, “are you all right?”
“This can't be true!” Eleanor declared. “Are you sure there hasn't been some terrible mistake?”
“Sorry,” Joanna said. “It's no mistake.”
“I talked to Maggie just before the dinner started. She said she was going out for a smoke.”
“She did that,” Joanna said. “That's on the security video. She was murdered sometime after that.”
George Winfield made it through the crush of people. When he put a comforting hand on Eleanor's shoulder, she rose to her feet and melted, sobbing, into his arms.
“There, there, Ellie,” he said, holding her. “It's okay.”
With her mother in George's capable hands, Joanna decided it was time to bail. “I've gotta go, Mom,” she said, but she doubted Eleanor heard a word of it.
Grabbing her overnight bag and slipping out of her heels for better traction, Joanna made a beeline for the nearest restroom.
Inside one of the stalls, she shed her slinky dress like a snake slipping out of its skin. Usually she wore the jumpsuit over her uniform. This time there was no uniformâonly the jumpsuit and a grubby pair of tennis shoes. Once Joanna had her jumpsuit on, she retrieved both her badge and her Glock from the beaded purse. The badge went over the jumpsuit's breast pocket. With no small-of-the-back holster, the Glock went into one of the deep side pockets. That wasn't the safest way to carry it, but it beat putting it inside her bra or the elastic of her underwear.
Emerging from the restroom with the green dress slung over one arm, she found Butch waiting for her. “How about if I take care of the dress,” he suggested.
“And the purse, too, please,” she said, handing it over.
“I'll hang around long enough to do whatever your mother needs to have done. After that, do you want me to wait around or do you want me to go home?” he asked.
Joanna leaned over and kissed him on her way past. “You're wonderful, but go home,” she said. “I'll be there when I can.”
GRATEFUL TO BE IN TENNIES RATHER THAN HEELS, JOANNA WENT
back outside and was relieved to see that Jaime had taken charge of the scene, marking it off with crime scene tape, turning on generator-powered lights so the area around the car was completely illuminated. Joanna noticed that the Mark VIII's passenger-side door was open, and Dave Hollicker seemed to be examining the door handle.
Joanna walked up behind Dave just as Jaime appeared at her elbow. “What have we got?” she asked.
“The Mark Eight is a two-door,” he said. “There's no sign of forced entry. It's an older model from the midnineties when they still used a keypad locking system. So either the vehicle wasn't locked or the perp knew the combination. I think the killer may have concealed himself in the backseat and then attacked her from behind. It could be nothing more than a crime of opportunity. We found at least a dozen of what appear to be picture-hanging wires in the floor well of the backseat, so it may be the killer simply used whatever was handy. Afterward he let himself out through the passenger door, leaving the front passenger seat leaning forward.”
“Like he left in a hurry,” Joanna suggested.
“Exactly. Luminol showed us some blood on the passenger-door handle. Dave is collecting it right now. We don't know if it belongs to the victim or the perpetrator. What was it you sent out in that evidence bag with Casey?”
“It's the remains of a watch,” Joanna said, leading him over to the spot where a tiny debris field of watch crystal had been ground to pieces in the gravel. “The hands were stopped at seven thirty-five, but that's such a cliché that I don't quite believe it.”
“But that explains where Machett is getting what he's calling the time of death,” Jaime mused. “I thought it was early in the process for him to be able to be that definite. Casey said you were checking the security tapes.”
“They give us zilch,” Joanna replied. “No one coming to and going from the party at the time in question, if seven thirty-five turns out to be the right time. No one before that or after that, I noticed, either. The car itself is parked outside the range of any of the cameras.”
“So it could be an outsider,” Jaime suggested. “Someone who came to the party to see what he could rip off from the parked cars of a bunch of well-heeled guests.”
“What about the victim?” Joanna asked. “We know the killer tore off her watch. Was she wearing any other jewelry?”
“Yes, she was. A diamond ring and what looks like an emerald.”
“So it's not a robbery, then.”
“Maybe an interrupted robbery.”
“Cell phone?”
“As near as we can tell, that's the only thing that's missing.”