Exit Wounds

by J. A. Jance

  “Before I put it in the paper?” Eleanor repeated.

  “Yes. It’s this morning’s lead item in Marliss Shackleford’s column.”

  “So you think that as soon as I got home from your house last night, I called Marliss and told her about this?” Eleanor demanded. “You think the idea of my daughter being pregnant and running for office at the same time is something I’d be in a hurry to brag about?”

  “Are you saying you didn’t tell her?” Joanna asked.

  “Of course I didn’t tell her,” Eleanor declared heatedly.

  “Who did, then?”

  “How should I know?” Eleanor returned. “All I can say is, Marliss didn’t get it from me. It hurts me to hear you’d even think such a thing.”

  “You and Marliss have always been good friends,” Joanna pointed out.

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I have to go to her to air our family’s dirty laundry.”

  That brought Joanna up short. “It’s not dirty,” she said finally. “Remember, Mother? I’m a married woman. My husband and I are expecting a baby together.”

  “Then what are you so upset about?” Eleanor shot back. “Why are you calling me and giving me such a load of grief over it? Now, if you don’t mind, I believe I’ll get back to my breakfast. Good-bye.”

  With that, Eleanor hung up, leaving Joanna sputtering into thin air. Moments later, Joanna slammed her own phone back into its cradle. That was the thing that made Eleanor Lathrop Winfield so damned exasperating. No matter what happened, Joanna was always in the wrong.

  Still seething, Joanna picked up the paper and turned it back to the front page. There she found a long article on the Carol Mossman murder, and a short piece about an unidentified inmate of the Cochise County Jail who had been found dead in the recreation yard. The paper had been printed late enough the previous night for the item about Joanna’s pregnancy to make it into Marliss Shackleford’s column. Wouldn’t it also have been late enough to mention the jail fatality by name as well?

  Maybe Mother didn’t leak the story to Marliss after all, Joanna thought. But if not Eleanor, who?

  Joanna was still staring unseeing at the newspaper when there was a discreet tap on her door. She looked up to see Kristin peeking warily into the room.

  “It’s all right,” Joanna said. “It’s safe to come in. I’ve stopped throwing things now.”

  Kristin came forward apologetically. “I’m so sorry, Sheriff Brady,” she began. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Joanna said. “I was surprised, is all. I didn’t expect the news to show up in the paper quite this soon. It’s like somebody having to read about the death of a family member before we have a chance to do a next-of-kin notification. There are a few other people I would have preferred hearing the news from me in person rather than having them read about it in the paper.”

  “Believe me,” Kristin said, “I understand about that, but you are happy about this, aren’t you, Sheriff Brady? Not about it being in the newspaper, but about the baby, I mean?”

  “Of course I’m happy,” Joanna answered. “It’s a surprise, but Butch and I are both delighted. The lesson here is, no matter what the clever ads say on television, the Pill’s not one hundred percent foolproof, especially if you happen to skip one at just the wrong time.”

  Which is probably exactly what happened, Joanna thought, although she didn’t say it aloud.

  “Oh,” Kristin said. “That’s okay then. It’s just that you were so upset…”

  “I’m still upset,” Joanna corrected. “Marliss could have had the common decency to check out the story with me before she put the piece in the paper. And if Madame Bisbee Bee should happen to show her face around here anytime today, you might advise her to steer clear of me. If she gets too close, I might be tempted to pull out a handful of her peroxided locks. As long as I can’t see her, I’ll be fine.”

  Joanna paused and, for the first time, noticed that Kristin was carrying several handwritten messages. “So what’s up?” Joanna added.

  Kristin nodded self-consciously. “Detective Carpenter says he’s going to Tucson for the Osmond autopsy. He’ll be gone most of the morning. Also, Edith Mossman is coming here for an interview with Detective Carbajal. Ernie says Jaime will probably need someone to sit in on that with him.”

  “All right,” Joanna said. “If Frank Montoya can’t do it, I will. Anything else?”

  “There were two other calls that came in while you were on the phone. One was from Reverend Maculyea and the other from Eva Lou Brady. I told them you’d call them back.”

  Damn Marliss Shackleford anyway! Joanna thought savagely. She said, “I will call them back, Kristin, so when you go back out, please shut the door.”

  For the next half hour, Joanna made a series of calls. Conversations that should have been happy ones announcing her pregnancy ended up being chores instead. Joanna spent most of the time on the phone apologizing to one person after another, including her best friend, Marianne Maculyea, and her former mother-in-law, Eva Lou Brady, both of whom had already read Marliss’s column. By the time Joanna’s chief deputy returned for the morning briefing, Joanna welcomed the interruption.

  “We’ll have to make this quick,” Frank told her. “I’ve got a news conference scheduled in a little while. It’s primarily to go over the Richard Osmond situation, but if they ask, what do you want me to say about you?”

  “About my delicate condition?” Joanna asked.

  Frank nodded.

  “Tell them I have no intention of dropping out of the race for sheriff. If daddies can be soldiers and sheriffs, so can mommies.”

  “Do you think that’s the best way to couch it?” Frank asked. “With potential voters, I mean.”

  “It may not be the best way,” Joanna told him. “But it’s my way, and you can quote me on that. If you’re going to be busy with a press conference, who’s going to back up Jaime Carbajal when he questions Edith Mossman?”

  “I guess it’s up to you,” Frank said.

  Joanna nodded. “Okay. Speaking of Edith Mossman, how’s she getting here from Sierra Vista? We’re not expecting her to catch a cab from there to Bisbee, are we?”

  “No,” Frank said. “I believe one of Edith’s granddaughters—the one who lives here in town—is picking her up and bringing her to the department.”

  “Good,” Joanna said. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  When the briefing ended, Frank left her office and Kristin entered once more, bringing with her that day’s first load of correspondence. Joanna had managed to get a good start on dealing with the paper jungle when her intercom buzzed. “Sheriff Brady?” Kristin said. “Mrs. Mossman is here.”

  “She and Detective Carbajal are in the conference room?” Joanna asked.

  “Right.”

  “Okay,” Joanna said. “I’ll be right there.”

  To reach the conference room, Joanna had to walk past Kristin’s desk and through a small reception area. Seated on the love seat, thumbing through an old copy of Arizona Highways, was a large woman with mousy brown hair who looked to be about Joanna’s age. She wore shorts, an oversize T-shirt, and thongs.

  It was only midmorning, but already the office was heating up. Dressed in her uniform, Joanna couldn’t help but envy the other woman’s casual attire, but not the strained expression on her face. It was the despairing, empty look in the eyes that gave Joanna her first clue. She had seen that look far too many times before in the eyes of grieving survivors—the people left behind in the wake of violent and unexpected deaths. This had to be one of Carol Mossman’s sisters.

  Joanna stopped in front of the love seat and held out her hand. “I’m Sheriff Brady,” she said. “You must be Stella Adams.”

  “Yes,” the woman murmured softly. “Yes, I am.”

  “Please accept my condolences.”

  Stella nodded. “Thank you,” she replied.

  “And thank you for bringing you
r grandmother here for the interview. We’re a little shorthanded at the moment. Otherwise I would have sent one of my detectives to bring her into town.”

  “It was no trouble,” Stella said.

  Just then a young boy of fifteen or sixteen came sauntering down the hall. The crotch of his pants hung almost to his knees. So did the tail of his shirt. A scraggily thin bristle of goatee protruded from the bottom of his chin. Stella Adams gave the new arrival a hard look. “There you are, Nathan,” she said. “What took you so long? I thought I told you to park the car and come right inside.”

  Without glancing in Joanna’s direction, the boy slouched into a nearby chair. “Come on, Mom. Lay off. It’s hot. I drove all around looking for some shade to park in.”

  “Mind your manners,” Stella growled at him. Then, to Joanna, she said. “This is my son, Nathan. Nathan, this is Sheriff Brady.”

  Scowling, the boy stood up. “Hello,” he said grudgingly. “Glad to meetcha.” His handshake was limp. “Is there a Coke machine around here somewhere?” he asked.

  “Just off the lobby,” Joanna told him.

  Nathan turned to his mother, who was already fishing a handful of change out of her purse. “Come right back,” she admonished as he turned to go.

  Joanna watched the transaction in silence. If Nathan was allowed to drive by himself, he had to be at least sixteen. And if Stella Adams was anywhere near Joanna’s age—somewhere in her early thirties—then she would have been only fourteen or fifteen when Nathan was born, years younger than Joanna herself had been when she gave birth to Jenny.

  “He may not look like it,” Stella said to Joanna as her son walked away, “but Nathan’s a good kid. It’s hard to raise good kids these days.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Joanna agreed. “Especially once they become teenagers. Now I’d better get going.”

  She hurried into the conference room. “Good,” Jaime Carbajal said, reaching for the tape recorder once Joanna had taken a chair. “Now we can get started.”

  Jaime began the interview. Edith answered his questions in a surprisingly steady voice, only occasionally biting back tears.

  “Tell us about your granddaughter, Carol Mossman,” Jaime began.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “It’s always helpful to know as much about the victim as possible,” Jaime said gently.

  “Carol didn’t have an easy life,” Edith said sadly.

  “Why’s that?”

  “She had to live with my son, for one thing,” Edith replied. “Carol’s mother, Cynthia, died in childbirth when Kelly was born. Carol was the oldest. She was ten at the time her mother took sick and twelve when Cynthia died in childbirth. A lot of the burden of taking care of her sisters fell on her. That’s a terrible responsibility for someone so young,” Edith added. “Terrible!”

  “Where was this?” Jaime asked.

  “In Mexico. Obregón,” Edith answered. “Eddie wasn’t much of a student. He never finished high school. He went to work for Phelps Dodge the minute he was old enough. Working underground, he made good money for a while. Then, in 1975, when PD closed down its mining operation, the company would have transferred him somewhere else. Instead, he quit and took his family to live in Mexico.”

  “I know Phelps Dodge had operations in Cananea,” Jaime said. “But I don’t remember any near Ciudad Obregón.”

  “That’s because there aren’t any,” Edith replied shortly. “Eddie got himself mixed up with some cockamamy religious group called The Brethren. Their headquarters is on a ranch outside Obregón. Eddie and Cynthia took the three girls and went there because they could live on the ranch rent-free. I’m convinced that’s why Cynthia died, by the way. She had M.S. and never should have gotten pregnant that last time. But if she’d been in a hospital here in the States, being treated by a properly trained doctor, she might still be alive to this day.

  “At the time, and for a long time afterward, I didn’t know any of this. Eddie and I don’t exactly get along, you see, and we didn’t stay in touch. Then, one day, out of the blue, a letter came from Carol—a postcard, really—asking if she and her sisters could come live with me. Just like that. And I said, ‘Of course. Whatever you need.’ ”

  “When was that?” Joanna asked.

  “When the girls came home?” Edith asked. Joanna nodded. “Seventeen years ago or so,” Edith said. “Carol had just turned twenty. She told her sisters that she was bringing them home for a visit. Kelly didn’t want to come, and Carol couldn’t make her change her mind. Once they got here, the girls stayed with me and never went back.”

  “What happened then?” Jaime asked.

  “Well,” Edith said, “Grady was already gone by then, so I did what I could. The girls didn’t have much of an education—only a lick and a promise, so I saw to it that they all got GEDs. Andrea took to schooling like a duck to water. She got her AA degree from Cochise College in Sierra Vista and then went on to the U of A. She’s working on a Ph.D. in psychology and works as a secretary in the Chemistry Department. They give employees a good discount on tuition, you see.

  “Stella wasn’t much of a student, but she had a baby to support, so she got a job waiting tables at PoFolks in Sierra Vista. That’s where she met Denny, her husband. Couldn’t have met a nicer guy, as dependable as the day is long. He drives a FedEx truck. He and Stella got married when Nathan was three. Denny’s the only father little Nate has ever known.”

  “And Carol?” Jaime asked.

  A pained expression crossed Edith Mossman’s face. She shook her head sadly. “Carol never quite managed to cope,” she said. “She bounced from one bad job to another, and no matter where she lived, she always ended up taking in a pack of dogs. It’s hard to find a decent place to live when you have five or six or seven dogs living with you.”

  “You mean she’s done this before—gathered up a bunch of stray dogs?”

  Edith nodded. “And then she’d get evicted and the next thing I knew she’d have lost her job and she and the dogs would be living on the streets or in her car. That’s how come I finally let her move into Grady’s and my mobile. That way I could be sure that, no matter what kind of mess the place turned into, at least she’d have a roof over her head.”

  “In other words,” Joanna said, “whenever Carol got into some kind of financial or legal difficulty, she came to you for help.”

  “There wasn’t anyone else for her to turn to.”

  “Including two weeks ago, when she received the citation about this latest batch of dogs?” Joanna asked.

  “That’s right. And, like I said to you the other day, I told her I wouldn’t be able to help out until after the first of the month, when my social security check showed up. In the meantime, she called me from work one afternoon and told me not to worry about it—that she’d made arrangements to get the money from someplace else.”

  “Did she say where this money was supposed to come from?”

  Edith shook her head. “No. At least not to me she didn’t.”

  “So even though she told you she had the situation covered,” Joanna said, “you came on out to her house with your checkbook at the ready anyway. How come?”

  “Because when Carol said she didn’t need the money anymore, I didn’t necessarily believe her,” Edith replied. “You see, she wasn’t a person who was always one hundred percent truthful. She was more than happy to tell lies when it suited her or when she was trying to save face. Carol may not have had much else going for her, but I’ll tell you this much—she did have her pride. When it comes to that, Carol was a Mossman through and through.”

  So is pride what killed her? Joanna wondered. Being poor and proud can sometimes be a lethal combination.

  Seven

  The interview with Edith Mossman went on for sometime after that, but Joanna had a difficult time concentrating. Her early-morning English muffins had long since worn off. Her stomach was growling so loudly that she worried Edith might hear it.

/>   The questions droned on and on. Did Carol have any enemies? No. Boyfriend? If Carol had a boyfriend, Edith knew nothing about it. How long had she worked in her present position? About six months. Had Carol had any difficulties at work, either with supervisors, fellow employees, or customers? Not that she had mentioned to Edith.

  Taken individually, the answers to all of Jaime’s questions seemed inconsequential. Together, they formed a picture of who Carol Mossman was and who her associates had been. The hope was that one or another of those slender threads would help lead investigators to the killer. When Edith finally complained of fatigue, Jaime immediately offered to break for lunch.

  “You mean there’s more?” Edith demanded. “What else can you possibly want to know?”

  “We need to know everything,” Jaime told her. “Everything you can tell us.”

  “It’ll have to wait, then,” Edith said. “I’ll go over to Stella’s house and take a little nap. I’m no spring chicken, you know. If I don’t get my rest, I’m the next best thing to worthless. Maybe, after that, I’ll feel up to talking some more. Right now I’m completely worn out.”

  Me, too, Joanna thought.

  “Sure thing,” Jaime said. “Later this afternoon will be fine.”

  Twenty minutes later, Joanna slid into a booth at Daisy’s, across the table from where Marianne Maculyea was already sitting.

  “How are you doing?” Marianne asked.

  “Fine until I smelled the food,” Joanna said.

  “Queasy?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Try the chicken noodle soup,” Marianne suggested. “When I was pregnant, chicken noodle was one of the few things that didn’t bounce back up the moment I swallowed it.”

  “I take it you’ve forgiven me for not telling you first thing?” Joanna asked.

  Marianne grinned at her. “Let’s just say I’m over it,” she said. “I’m thrilled to know Jeffy is going to have someone to play with.”

  “You may be over it, but I’m not,” Joanna said. “I’m still pissed at Marliss.”