Judgment Call

by J. A. Jance

  “Sure,” Joanna said. “I’ll hold.”

  While she waited, Joanna tried to imagine what had been going on when Debra Highsmith was gunned down. There was no way to tell where the victim had been standing in relation to her killer. As far as addresses were concerned, High Lonesome Road was a fine place to live—Joanna had lived there with Andy and she lived there now with Butch—but it struck Joanna as a hard place to die. It had been true for Andrew Roy Brady and it was equally true for Debra Highsmith.

  “Who’s calling?” Guy Machett asked when he came on the line.

  Madge Livingston knew very well who was on the phone. Not telling her boss who was calling was his secretary’s way of getting a little of her own back.

  “Sheriff Brady,” Joanna said. “We’ve located a body on High Lonesome Road.”

  “Where the hell is High Lonesome Road?” he demanded. “Sounds like it’s out in the sticks somewhere.”

  “It is. It’s just down the road from where I live,” Joanna told him, “also on High Lonesome Road. Take Highway 80 east from Bisbee and take the turnoff to Elfrida. Turn left almost immediately. That’s High Lonesome Road. Come north three miles. You’ll probably need four-wheel drive to get here.”

  “Is that how you got there?” Machett asked.

  “No,” Joanna said quite truthfully while at the same time trying not to betray the grin that had suddenly tweaked her face. “I came on horseback.”

  CHAPTER 3

  JOANNA’S NEXT CALL WAS TO BISBEE’S CHIEF OF POLICE. “WE found Debra Highsmith’s body,” she said without preamble.

  “You’re sure it’s her?” Alvin Bernard asked.

  Joanna sighed. “Yes, I am.”

  “Where?” Chief Bernard wanted to know. “When?”

  “My daughter went out for an early-morning ride and found the body on High Lonesome Road, about three miles north of our place. I’m no medical examiner, but I’d say she’s been dead for more than a day.”

  “How?” Alvin asked.

  He seemed to be stuck in the world of one-word questions.

  “I counted at least three gunshot entrance wounds in her back and one in her leg. I’d say he used the leg shot to bring her down and then finished her off execution style.”

  “Ugly,” Alvin said.

  “Yes,” Joanna agreed. “Very, but since this looks like a joint case, I’m calling to see if you want to send out a detective.”

  “Due to budget cuts, I’ve got only one investigator to my name, Matt Keller. He does the whole nine yards—property, homicide, whatever. I’ll be glad to send him along.”

  “Does he have a four-wheel-drive vehicle?”

  “Are you kidding? This is Bisbee,” Chief Bernard said. “We don’t have four-wheel-drive anything.”

  “The road out here is rough. You might want to send Keller down to the Justice Center so he can hitch a ride out to the crime scene with Jaime Carbajal. I’ll tell him to wait until Matt shows up.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” Bernard said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  After calling Larry Kendrick back with a request that Jaime wait for Detective Keller, Joanna turned to her daughter. Jenny and Kiddo were standing on the far side of the wash, where Kiddo was contentedly munching on several carrots Jenny had brought along in her pocket.

  “Are you okay?” Joanna asked.

  “I’m fine, Mom,” Jenny said. “I mean, I’ve seen something dead before.”

  “Someone,” Joanna corrected, “and so have I. But to see someone shot like this? It’s still upsetting.”

  “Even for you?”

  “Even for me.”

  Jenny took a bite out of a carrot and passed the remainder to Kiddo. Joanna managed to keep from asking if Jenny had washed the carrots before sticking them in her pocket.

  “How did the bad guy leave?” Jenny asked. “If his getaway car was stuck in the wash, where did he go?”

  “He must have left on foot,” Joanna said.

  That made it possible that the killer had walked right past High Lonesome Ranch. Not a comforting thought, but Joanna needed to know for sure.

  “That’s why I called for the K-9 unit,” Joanna continued. “Terry and Spike might be able to pick up his trail and at least give us an idea of which direction he went.”

  “What if he walked by our house?”

  Not for the first time, Joanna was forced to consider the mysterious workings of DNA. Jenny seemed to have a mental GPS that was following her mother’s every thought, spoken or unspoken.

  “If he had come anywhere near the house, I’m sure Lady would have raised a fuss, and just because Lucky happens to be deaf doesn’t mean he isn’t up to the job. If someone posed a threat to you or anyone else in the family, I have a feeling that big black lug of yours would tear the bad guy limb from limb.”

  Jenny nodded. “Probably,” she said.

  “Speaking of dogs,” Joanna said. “Did you see any dog prints around here?”

  Jenny shook her head. “Why?”

  “I understand Ms. Highsmith had a dog.”

  “Giles,” Jenny said. “That’s the name of her dog.”

  “You knew Ms. Highsmith’s dog?”

  “I only saw him one time. His first owner, a guy out at Fort Huachuca, was being deployed and had to get rid of him—free to a good home. Ms. Highsmith brought him to the clinic for a checkup, to update his shots, and to have him chipped. He’s a Doberman. He looks fierce, but he’s a good dog.”

  Joanna spent a few minutes looking but could find no visible dog prints. She had the sick feeling that if Debra Highsmith was dead, so was her dog.

  Finally, Joanna turned back to Jenny. “You and Kiddo should probably head home,” Joanna said. “The crime scene team will be here soon.”

  “Won’t somebody need to interview me?” Jenny asked. “I mean, on TV the cops always interview the person who finds the body. The person calling it in usually turns out to be some kind of suspect or something.”

  “The person who finds the body usually isn’t my daughter,” Joanna responded. “If anyone besides me needs to interview you, I’ll send them by the house.”

  “Okay,” Jenny said, but she clearly wasn’t happy about it. She turned away from Joanna, put a foot in the stirrup, and then vaulted easily up into the saddle. She was doing exactly what Joanna had asked her to do, yet somehow it felt like a rebuke.

  “I’m your mother,” Joanna said. “I’m only trying to protect you.”

  “I’m almost grown up,” Jenny said, with a defiant toss of her blond hair. “You can’t always protect me, you know.”

  With that, she touched her heels to Kiddo’s flanks, and they raced off down the road, leaving Joanna standing in the cloud of dust kicked up by the departing horse’s galloping hooves. With a sigh, Joanna pulled out her cell phone and called home.

  “Incoming,” she said, when Butch answered. “Jenny’s on her way home and she’s bent out of shape again. She thinks I’m being unreasonable for sending her home instead of having her hang around here to be interviewed by one of my detectives.”

  “Doesn’t sound unreasonable to me,” Butch said.

  “Maybe you can convince her of that. In the meantime, I’m waiting for my crime scene team to show up. Debra Highsmith’s vehicle is stuck in the first wash and blocking the road. It’ll have to be towed out of the way before anyone else can get here. I’m not sure how long that’s going to take.”

  “I guess I should have packed you a lunch.”

  “Too late for that,” Joanna said. “I’ll stop off and grab something on my way to the office. In the meantime, rather than inadvertently messing up some evidence, I’m walking back to the first wash. Since no one can get in or out for the time being except on foot, I’m deeming the crime scene secure.”

  “You’re walking?” Butch asked.

  “Yes, the Yukon is on the far side of the first wash.”

  “How did you get from there to the body?”
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  “Jenny gave me a ride on Kiddo. The fact that she didn’t offer me a ride back gives you some idea of how mad she is.”

  “Sometimes parenthood sucks,” Butch said, “but since she bestowed the honorary title of dad on me yesterday, I guess I’d better see what I can do to calm the troubled waters once she gets home.”

  “Thanks, Butch,” Joanna said, and she meant it.

  Call waiting buzzed. “Phone call,” she said. She clicked over to find Deb Howell on the line.

  “I’m stuck on the far side of the first wash,” Deb said. “No sign of the tow truck so far.”

  “I’m coming that way on foot,” Joanna said. “I’ll be there when I can, but how did you make it there so fast? I thought you’d be the last to arrive.”

  “If I’d had to track down a babysitter, I probably would have been, but Maury’s here today and tomorrow. Ben and I were supposed to go ATVing with him today. Now Maury and Ben are going without me.”

  A year earlier Maury Robbins, a 911 operator in Tucson, had called in a homicide that had occurred at Action Trail Adventures, a combination RV/all-terrain vehicle park north of Bowie in the far-northeast corner of Cochise County. During that investigation, Maury had exhibited more than a passing interest in Deb Howell, one of the detectives on the case. When Ernie Carpenter had mentioned as much, Deb had replied with an immediate denial, insisting that it was all about work. In the months since, however, Ernie’s assessment had been proved correct. Deb Howell and Maury Robbins were now a romantic item. Although he still lived in Tucson, he spent many of his days off in Bisbee, parking his Jayco pop-up camper at the RV park in Old Bisbee, a few blocks from the home on Brewery Gulch that Deb shared with her son.

  The news that Deb trusted the man enough to let Ben go ATVing with him alone struck Joanna as significant, but she didn’t make any comment to that effect.

  “What’s going on?” Deb asked. “Larry said something about your finding a body.”

  “I didn’t find it; Jenny did,” Joanna replied, “and it’s not just any body. It’s Debra Highsmith, the missing high school principal. Jenny found her near the third wash, which is about two miles north of your current location.”

  “The high school principal?” Deb asked.

  “That’s the one. So this will be a joint investigation,” Joanna explained. “Chief of Police Bernard is sending Matt Keller, his only detective. Due to budget cuts, the city had to lay off all their forensics folks. Fortunately, we’ve still got ours. So we’ll be handling all the crime scene and forensic lines of inquiry. And since you’re the first to arrive, you’ll be lead investigator.”

  Deb was the greenest of Joanna’s three detectives. With a high-profile school principal involved, Debra Highsmith’s murder was bound to garner plenty of publicity. Someone else might have opted for a more senior investigator, but Joanna thought that leading the charge on this one might help give Deb some much-needed street cred. In order for Detective Howell to carry her weight inside the department, people on the outside needed to know that she was capable of doing the job. This case was her chance to prove it.

  “The tow truck’s here,” Deb reported.

  “Crap,” Joanna said. “I was hoping Casey Ledford would show up first. Ask the driver to hold off until Casey has a chance to dust the doors and door handles as well as the steering wheel, gearshift, and emergency-brake handle for prints.”

  Deb was off the line for a moment. In the background Joanna could hear her negotiating with the tow truck driver. Eventually she came back on the phone.

  “He’s not happy about it, but I told him this is a homicide investigation. He’ll wait. I didn’t exactly give him a choice.”

  “Good,” Joanna said. As far as Sheriff Brady was concerned, in dealing with the tow truck driver, Detective Howell had just passed her first test in being lead investigator.

  “While you’re waiting, you might have a look around the general area,” Joanna said.

  “Isn’t this still a long way from the actual crime scene?”

  “Yes, but it looked to me like whoever was driving the Passat spent some time and effort trying to get it out of the sand. While he was concentrating on that, he might have inadvertently dropped something that would help us identify him.”

  “You believe the killer was leaving the scene when the car got hung up?”

  “Yes,” Joanna replied.

  “Where’d he go from here and how did he do it—on foot?”

  Joanna didn’t bother pointing out Deb’s sexist assumption that the killer was male, because she shared the same opinion.

  “Terry Gregovich and Spike are on their way,” Joanna said. “If he did walk away, I’m hoping Spike and Terry will be able to pick up the scent.”

  “Your place is the closest one to where the car is,” Deb said. “Do you think he might have gone there?”

  “I doubt it. At least I hope not,” Joanna said. “Still, you might have a uniformed deputy stop by Carol Sunderson’s place and ours and take a look around the outbuildings just in case he did head there and hunker down for the night.” The idea that an unsuspecting Jenny could have walked into the tack room that morning and come face-to-face with a killer was chilling.

  “I’ll get right on it,” Deb said. “Casey just showed up. And the M.E. I need to go.”

  “I’m almost there,” Joanna said. “I can see the tow truck.”

  By the time she finished that last sentence, Detective Howell was long gone. Joanna trudged on. It was only a little past eight, but she felt as if she’d been up for hours. This was April, and the Arizona sun was giving a clear warning that summer was coming. She was hot, dusty, sweaty, and thirsty. She had a bottle of water in the back of her Yukon. Right at that moment, Joanna needed the water bottle in her hand, not in her vehicle.

  She crossed the wash in time to hear Guy Machett berating Deb Howell.

  “How long is this going to take? You mean we can’t even get near the body until she finishes taking fingerprints?”

  “The body is a good two miles from here,” Deb responded. “If you want to walk that far, fine. Otherwise we’ll have to wait until Casey finishes lifting whatever prints she can find.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Machett replied. “You can’t expect me to stand around here twiddling my thumbs and doing nothing for who knows how long. Where’s Sheriff Brady?”

  “I’m right here, Dr. Machett,” Joanna said, slipping through the knot of investigators. “And Detective Howell is simply following my orders. We believe this vehicle was driven by the killer, and we need to make every effort to gather any available information before the vehicle is moved.”

  “That could take hours.”

  “No,” Joanna said. “Ms. Ledford won’t be dusting the entire vehicle. She’ll work on the parts that might be disturbed by the process of getting the Passat pulled out of the sand and loaded onto the tow truck. The remaining investigation will be conducted in the garage at the county’s impound facility.”

  “It’s still damned inconvenient to expect me to show up and wait.”

  Joanna felt like saying that he was getting paid for waiting, but she didn’t. There were too many people around. She didn’t want to provoke a firefight that might become fodder for public consumption. A year earlier, Joanna’s rivalry with the head of the county health department had made a splash in the local media. She didn’t need a similar situation between her department and the M.E.’s office showing up on the evening news.

  “As Detective Howell told you, the body’s about two miles north of here,” she said. “I just walked it. If you want to go on ahead and start the process, we can bring your vehicle and equipment along once the road is clear.”

  Given a choice between walking or waiting, Guy Machett didn’t take long to make up his mind. “I’ll wait,” he said. “Who is this person again?”

  “I believe her name is Debra Highsmith. She’s the principal at the high school. The high school secretary report
ed her missing yesterday morning.”

  “Married?”

  “Not that I know of,” Joanna answered.

  “I suppose I should call the school district office and try to get a handle on next of kin.”

  Joanna was pretty sure Deb Howell had already made a call like that, but she let the M.E. make his own. Guy Machett was touchy enough under the best of circumstances. He would no doubt go ballistic if he thought someone was making investigative inroads inside the boundaries of what he considered his bureaucratic territory.

  By the time the remaining members of Joanna’s team were assembled, Casey Ledford had finished lifting the prints that were in danger of being disturbed by the towing process. At the tow truck driver’s request, she shifted the Passat into neutral. There was no need to release the emergency brake. It hadn’t been set. Then they all stood and watched as the Passat was winched out of the wash and loaded onto a flatbed truck.

  Once the roadway was cleared, however, the wash still wasn’t passable. Not wanting to risk having another vehicle stuck in the torn-up sand, Joanna had Dave Hollicker lay down two tracks of interlocking plastic pavers that created a solid enough surface across the churned sand that even the M.E.’s front-wheel-drive minivan could cross the wash with no difficulty. In the meantime, Terry Gregovich and his German shepherd, Spike, had been searching the surrounding area in ever-widening circles.

  “Hey, boss,” Terry called. “Come look. I think we found something. I’ve got a set of footprints heading that way.”

  Unfortunately, the direction in which he was pointing was also the same direction they had all come from—down High Lonesome Road and directly past the ranch.

  Clearly reading the concerned expression on Joanna’s face, Deb offered welcome reassurance. “I’ve already got uniformed deputies on their way to check out all the outbuildings at your place and at Carol Sunderson’s.”

  “Thank you.”

  Joanna stared down at the faint remains of a shoe print left in a patch of dust along the shoulder of the road. “Good spotting,” she told Terry. “When Dave is done with the pavers, I’ll have him come check it out. This one doesn’t look well-enough defined for a plaster cast to work, but he can at least take some measurements.”