Judgment Call (43 page)

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.”

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?”

“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?”

TEN MINUTES LATER, DEB HOWELL'S TAHOE AND JOANNA'S YUKON
were parked on the grassy parking strip in front of Abby Holder's house. The house still looked the same as it had the first time Joanna had seen it. Now she was struck by the fact that all this time, while Abby had been caring for her mother, she had also, without her knowledge, been harboring the person ultimately responsible for her husband's death.

“How do you want to handle this?” Deb asked.

“Elizabeth Stevens is in a wheelchair. Go around to the back and see if there's a ramp from the back porch.”

Deb was back in under half a minute. “Twelve steps at least,” she said. “So if she's in there, this is the way she has to come out.”

“Okay,” Joanna said. “Let's do it.”

Joanna walked up the steps while Deb followed the seemingly meandering path of the wheelchair ramp up the steep incline. By the time she reached the porch, Joanna was already ringing the bell.

What seemed like a long time passed before there was any sign of movement inside the house. “My daughter isn't here right now,” Elizabeth said from behind the closed door. “You'll need to come back when she's home.”

“It's Sheriff Brady,” Joanna said. “We need to speak to you.”

“Why?”

“We have a few questions,” she said. “About Debra Highsmith.”

That was an out-and-out lie, but it was enough to get Elizabeth to open the door and let them inside.

“That woman never appreciated Abby,” Elizabeth said. “I'm sorry she's dead, of course, but she could have treated Abby decently.”

“What about you?” Joanna asked.

Elizabeth frowned. “What do you mean?”

“How do you treat your daughter?”

“Me? I thought we were talking about Abby's boss.”

“Let's talk about you for a moment,” Joanna said. “First, however, we need to read you your rights. Turn on the recorder please, Detective Howell, and then, if you'd be so good as to Mirandize Mrs. Stevens here, I'd really appreciate it.”

“Read me my rights!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “You're both crazy. I'm in a wheelchair, in case you haven't noticed. I read all about Debra Highsmith's murder. She was shot to death somewhere out along High Lonesome Road. There's no way I could do that in a wheelchair. No way at all.”

Undeterred, Deb did as she was told.

“I don't know what this is all about,” Elizabeth said when the recitation of rights was completed. “You can't possibly believe that I had anything to do with Debra Highsmith's murder.”

“I don't,” Joanna said. “I'm here to arrest you for conspiracy in the murder of Freddy Holder and of my father as well.”

“This is utterly ridiculous,” Elizabeth sneered. “How anyone could believe something so far-fetched—”

“I have a witness,” Joanna said. “In actual fact, I have two.”

“That's not possible …”

“Does the name David Fredericks mean anything to you?”

“Nothing,” Elizabeth said aloud, although the expression on her face told a different story.

“I'm surprised,” Joanna said. “Because he's the guy you hired to kill my father when it looked like he had enough evidence to charge you with conspiring with Mad Dog Muncey to kill your son-in-law.”

“Mother!” Abby Holder exclaimed. “Is this true?”

Unheard by the three women in the living room, Abby Holder had noiselessly entered the house through the back door and was standing in the kitchen doorway. Her face was dangerously pale, but her dark eyes blazed with anger.

“Abby!” Elizabeth exclaimed, looking first at her watch and then at her daughter. “What are you doing home so early?”

“Because of what happened to Ms. Highsmith, we only kept the kids for half a day today,” Abby answered. “What's going on?”

Joanna was the one who answered. “A guy by the name of Edward Muncey, Mad Dog Muncey, told my father in a dying confession that he was responsible for your husband's murder and that your mother had paid him to do it. Shortly after that, my father also died when he was hit by a speeding drunk driver in what was always considered to be a tragic accident. Except I've learned just recently that it wasn't an accident at all. That supposedly drunk driver was hired to do the job by someone named Liz Hanson.”

“Liz Hanson,” Abby repeated. “That's your maiden name.”

“Don't listen to her,” Elizabeth advised. “None of this is true. She's making it up as she goes along. Sheriff Brady here is as much of a fruitcake as her father ever was. D. H. Lathrop told your father all about Mad Dog Muncey's wild story. Nobody believed it then, and nobody will believe it now.”

But Abby Holder's body suddenly seemed to stiffen. She stood straighter. “I believe it,” she said.

“You can't possibly,” Elizabeth objected. “After all, I'm your mother.”

“That's exactly why I do believe it,” Abby declared with heat entering her voice. “You are my mother. You've lived here all this time, accepting my charity, all the while knowing that you had taken away the one person in the whole world who ever really loved me.”

“Abby, this is ridiculous. Don't be silly.”

“I'm not being silly. I'm dead serious.”