Judgment Call

by J. A. Jance

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I never meant for that to happen.”

  “I can understand that this isn’t at all what you intended,” Joanna conceded, “but it’s what has happened, and it’s serious, Jenny—terribly serious. What if this is how Ms. Highsmith’s family members find out about her death—because some uncaring idiot posted a gory picture of her body on the Internet?”

  To Joanna’s astonishment, Jenny sank to the ground. She sat there with her knees pulled up to her chest, sobbing inconsolably. With a grateful sigh, Prince, the wide-load butterball pit bull, sank down beside her. Resting his muzzle on his front paws, he closed his eyes contentedly.

  “I just wanted to get her back,” Jenny said. “That’s all.”

  “Get who back?” Joanna asked. “What are we talking about?”

  “Cassie. It’s like we’re not even friends anymore,” Jenny hiccuped through her tears. “She’s going to be a cheerleader next year, and she thinks that makes her a really big deal. She has all kinds of new friends. The only time I even get to see her is in class or on the bus on our way to school. I thought if I sent her that picture, she’d feel like I was giving her some special inside information and that we’d be friends again. Instead, she did this. How could she?”

  Crouching next to her devastated daughter, Joanna came face-to-face with her own culpability, served up with a huge helping of motherly guilt. How long had Jenny and Cassie been on the outs? As Jenny’s mother, how had Joanna not known about this crisis that was tearing away at her daughter’s well-being? How could she have left Jenny to make her way through such a painful loss on her own?

  With all that in mind, the idea of Jenny’s taking and sending the photo was still wrong, but it was certainly more understandable.

  Quieter now but still sniffling, Jenny mumbled, “Am I grounded then? Are you going to take my cell phone away?”

  Joanna and Jenny’s birth father, Andy, had never been on quite the same page when it came to disciplining Jenny. With Butch, Joanna had found a partner who was a master at presenting a united front.

  “We’ll need to talk it over with Dad,” Joanna said.

  The day before, Jenny was the one who had first used the term “Dad” to refer to Butch. This was the first time Joanna tried it. To her surprise Jenny voiced no objection.

  “Okay,” she said, drying her eyes with her sleeve. “I’m really sorry, Mom. Honest.”

  Joanna patted her daughter’s shoulder. “I know,” she said consolingly. “Sometimes that’s the only way to get smarter—to learn from our mistakes. We’re a law enforcement family, Jenny. That makes us different. That’s why I didn’t discuss the Highsmith situation with you yesterday. I didn’t want you to mention the case to friends and classmates. Some of the things that are discussed around our dinner table are things you shouldn’t talk about with anyone outside our immediate family.”

  “You mean like it’s privileged information or something?” Jenny asked. “Like what clients tell their lawyers?”

  “Not exactly like that,” Joanna said. “There isn’t a legal requirement that I not tell you about Ms. Highsmith. It’s more a matter of discretion.”

  “You mean like using common sense.”

  “Yes,” Joanna replied.

  Jenny stood up and dusted off her jeans.

  “I’m sorry about you and Cassie,” Joanna said. “I wish you had told me.”

  Jenny bit her lip. “It started last fall, after she made the JV cheerleading squad. I kept thinking it would get better. It’s like she’s fine when we’re on the bus going to school, but once we get there, she acts like I’m invisible. It hurts my feelings, Mom. I can’t help it.”

  Joanna remembered all too well her own struggles in high school. First it had been because the kids were wary of being friends with the sheriff’s daughter. Then, after her father was killed by a drunk driver, Joanna had been considered the odd kid out because her father was dead. It was like people thought being without a father was somehow contagious. Her social situation in high school was one of the things that had made an “older man,” Andy, so attractive to her. Through it all, even in the face of a hurried “have-to” wedding, Marianne Maculyea had been Joanna’s true-blue loyal friend. Was then; still was. Unfortunately, Jenny’s friend Cassie wasn’t made of the same stuff.

  “Of course it hurts your feelings,” Joanna agreed. “Have you talked about it with Butch?” She couldn’t quite justify playing the “Dad” card twice in the same conversation.

  Jenny shrugged. “I guess I thought you’d notice.”

  Joanna smiled at her daughter. “We didn’t,” she said. “You’re probably giving us way too much credit. We’ll talk about it tonight. All of us together.”

  “Except Dennis.”

  “Yes,” Joanna agreed. “Except Dennis.”

  Bored with what must have seemed like endless prattle, Prince continued to sleep, snoring soundly. Pit bulls may have had a reputation for being scary and fierce; Prince was anything but.

  “You’d better get that big guy up and back inside,” Joanna added, nodding toward the snoozing dog. “Dr. Ross is going to be wondering what became of you.”

  As Jenny and Prince meandered back inside, Joanna returned to the Yukon. She had handled the Jenny situation to the best of her ability, but there were still outstanding issues on that score, not the least of which was making sure Debra Highsmith’s family was notified in a timely fashion. That included getting the jump on whatever story Marliss Shackleford was getting ready to publish.

  Joanna was in the Yukon and had already turned the key in the ignition when she remembered Marliss’s unusual question about Jenny that morning while Joanna had still been at the crime scene. Even that early on, the reporter must have had a good idea that Jenny was the source of the photo. So where was she getting her information?

  Removing the key and picking up the doggie bag from Daisy’s, Joanna hurried back into the yard just as Jenny came outside again. This time she had a miniature long-haired dachshund on a leash. Prince had outweighed this tiny thing ten times over, but this dog was clearly ten times the trouble. She went into a paroxysm of barking, each bark lifting her stiff little legs off the ground.

  “Quiet, Heidi,” Jenny ordered, jerking on the leash.

  Heidi paid no attention. Jenny looked uncomfortable, as though she was afraid Joanna was going to give her more grief. Instead, Joanna handed her daughter the doggie bag.

  “I only ate half my chimichanga at lunch,” she said. “I brought you the rest.”

  Jenny’s face brightened. Bean and cheese chimichangas were her second-favorite food, right after pepperoni pizza. “Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t have time to pack a lunch.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to starve,” Joanna told her with a smile, “but I have one other question. What time did you send the photo to Cassie?”

  Jenny shook her head. “I’m not sure. It was while Kiddo and I were waiting for you. Why?”

  “I was just wondering. Can you check your call history?”

  With Heidi still barking her head off, Jenny put down the bag, just out of the dog’s reach, and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. With a one-handed dexterity that amazed her mother, she scrolled through her calls. “Seven sixteen,” she said at last. “That’s when I sent it.”

  “Okay,” Joanna said. “Thanks.”

  Walking back to the Yukon a second time, Joanna pulled out the notebook and located the page where the four kids from Daisy’s had listed their names and phone numbers. She found Dena’s name as well as her numbers. Dena had listed both her home phone number and her cell. Joanna called the latter.

  “It’s Sheriff Brady,” she announced when Dena answered. “I’m wondering if you could do me a favor. You’re one of Anne Marie Mayfield’s Facebook friends, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Could you please access her Facebook page and see if you can tell me what time the photo was posted?”

&n
bsp; As a law enforcement officer, Joanna was painfully aware of the problems with cyberpredators stalking the Internet to find likely victims. She and Butch had installed the latest and greatest parental controls on their home computer system for just that reason. The situation with Jenny and the crime scene photo taught her that there was as much of a problem with information going out as there was with bad guys trying to get in. Besides, by using her cell phone to take and send the picture, Jenny had cleverly outmaneuvered them. The parental controls were on her computer, not her phone. That would have to change.

  It took the better part of a minute, but finally Dena came back on the line. “Eight ten,” she said. “That’s what it says.”

  In other words, Joanna thought, it took a little less than an hour to get from Jenny to Cassie and from Cassie to the whole school!

  “You’re not going to be calling my parents, are you?” Dena asked. “They’ll be really upset if I get called in to talk to a detective.”

  “Don’t worry,” Joanna said reassuringly. “Before this is over, we’ll probably be talking to everyone at the school.”

  That was a little white lie. Joanna didn’t have the man- or womanpower to interview everyone at Bisbee High School, but knowing how the school social networking system worked, she had effectively put everyone on notice that she intended to do so. With any kind of luck, that little bit of intimidation would be enough to smoke out some useful information.

  This time, when she started the car, she drove away from Dr. Ross’s clinic and headed for the Justice Center, dialing Deb Howell’s number as she went.

  “Detective Howell here.”

  “Any luck with the next-of-kin situation?”

  “Sorry, boss,” Deb said. “I’ve run into a brick wall. As far as I can tell, Deb Highsmith doesn’t have any next of kin. The contact listed with the Department of Licensing is Abby Holder.”

  “Mrs. Holder?” Joanna repeated. “That old battle-ax who’s the secretary at the high school?”

  “One and the same,” Deb replied. “I’m on my way to see her now. I have to say, that woman absolutely terrified me when I was going to school. I never saw her in any color but black.”

  “She had the same effect on me,” Joanna said, stifling a chuckle when she remembered how the kids at Daisy’s had expressed similar kinds of fear about Debra Highsmith. “Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be when you’re in high school?” she asked. “If the kids aren’t scared to death of the principal and the people in the principal’s office, something’s wrong. It’s a control issue. It’s been that way forever. Is Abby Holder at school today?”

  “I already checked,” Deb said. “The kids are out of school for the weekend and so are the staff members. I’m headed to her house.”

  Joanna had a choice. If she went to the office where she could tackle the day’s paperwork, she would also be a sitting duck for anyone Marliss Shackleford happened to send her way. If Joanna was out on an interview with Deb Howell, she would be a moving target rather than a stationary one.

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  “I’d love to have you come along,” Deb said. “She lives at 2828 Hazzard.”

  “All right,” Joanna said. “I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

  CHAPTER 6

  ABIGAIL HOLDER WAS A FEW YEARS YOUNGER THAN JOANNA’S mother. It was mostly through Eleanor Lathrop Winfield that Joanna knew some of Abby’s history. She had grown up on the Vista, an upscale neighborhood in Bisbee’s Warren neighborhood, one that had long been home to the town’s white-collar elite—the mine supervisors along with a selection of judges, doctors, and lawyers.

  Growing up and walking to school from her parents’ far-lower-class home on Campbell, Joanna had been jealous of the people who lived on the Vista. The large, mostly brick houses with shady front porches and yards usually required the regular attention of a gardener. The houses on East Vista and West Vista faced each other across a block-wide, five-block-long expanse of park that had once been the neighborhood’s centerpiece. Joanna had heard that the park had once been a grassy oasis, complete with a bandstand and huge trees. The bandstand and trees were both gone now, and the lush grass had been allowed to go to weedy ruin due to the prohibitive costs of watering and mowing it.

  Hazzard was the last street in Bisbee’s Warren neighborhood, a final outpost of civilization before town gave way to desert. When Joanna pulled up in front of Abby Holder’s small frame house on Hazzard, it was clear that this one was very different from the brick-clad mansion where she had grown up. The ramshackle wooden structure was built on a terrace, several steep steps above street level. A concrete wheelchair ramp zigzagged across the small front yard up to the terrace, and then again up onto a tiny front porch. In the early afternoon, the porch still offered some shade, but as the sun went down in the west, Joanna knew the shade would disappear. In the summer, the setting sun would turn the front room of the house into a virtual oven.

  Joanna parked out front, just behind Detective Howell’s Tahoe. Together the two of them walked up the wheelchair ramp. When they reached the front door, Deb, ID in hand, stepped up to the door and rang the old-fashioned doorbell. From somewhere deep inside the house a tuneless jangle announced their presence.

  Moments later the door cracked open and Abby Holder peered outside at them. “Yes,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “I’m Detective Howell with the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department,” Deb explained, “and this is Sheriff Brady.”

  In response, Abby opened the door wider. For the first time ever, she wasn’t wearing all black. She was dressed in a faded red-and-gray Bisbee High School tracksuit, complete with the school’s familiar Puma logo. Drab gray hair was pulled back in a tight French twist. She wore no makeup, however, and the grim expression that had petrified generations of schoolchildren was firmly in place.

  The formal introductions were interrupted by an aggrieved voice, calling from somewhere inside the house, “What’s going on? Are we having company? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Abby turned away from the door. “It’s about school, Mother,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Pulling the inside door shut behind her, Abby Holder stepped out through the screen door and onto the porch. “This is about Ms. Highsmith, right?” Abby asked as she studied Detective Howell’s ID. “I already heard you found her body. One of the teachers called me.”

  “Yes, and that’s why we’re here,” Deb continued. “At the Department of Licensing, you’re listed as her next of kin. You’re not related, are you?”

  “No, not at all,” Abby replied.

  “Close friends, then?” Deb asked.

  Abby shook her head. “Not really, although we worked together every day for several years. When she told me she was going to put me down as her emergency contact, I was a little taken aback—uncomfortable, really—but she said there was no one else.”

  “No relatives of any kind?” Joanna asked.

  “None that I know of. That’s what she told me, anyway. That she was an only child, that her parents died in a car accident years ago, and that she wasn’t close to any of her cousins. I wondered about it at the time, if maybe she was in the witness protection program or something. I didn’t ask her that, of course. I just wondered about it.”

  “When did she list you as her emergency contact?” Deb asked. “Was this a recent development?”

  “Oh, no,” Abby answered. “It happened when she first got here and was filling out all her paperwork.”

  “Did she ever mention where she was from?”

  “Back east somewhere,” Abby replied. “From one of those tiny states—Vermont or New Hampshire or Connecticut. I can never keep those straight in my head.”

  “I believe there’s a life insurance rider on your group insurance policy,” Joanna said.

  That was a lie. Joanna didn’t believe it was true; she knew it was true. For years before she ran for and was elected to the
office of sheriff, Joanna had worked for the Davis Insurance Agency. She had handled the paperwork on the transaction when her boss, Milo Davis, had won the bid to handle the school’s group insurance program.

  “Yes,” Abby agreed. “There are some differences in coverage for certified as opposed to noncertified personnel, but we all have a life insurance benefit.”

  “Do you have any idea who she might have named as the beneficiary on that?”

  “No idea whatsoever,” Abby answered. “You’d have to check with the school district office for that information, or there might be something about that in her files at school.”

  “What about a cell phone?” Deb asked.

  Joanna knew that no cell phone had been found at the crime scene or at the victim’s home. She also knew that cell phone records might lead them to people who were part of Debra Highsmith’s social circle but weren’t necessarily known to the people with whom she worked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Do you happen to know the number?”

  Abby reeled it off from memory. Deb punched the number into her cell phone and tried dialing it. Unsurprisingly, it went straight to voice mail.

  Just then there were several sharp raps on the closed door behind Abby. The blows were hard enough that the three stair-step windowpanes jiggled in their mahogany frames, threatening to come loose.

  “I know you’re still out there, Abigail,” her mother said imperiously. “It’s very low class to be standing outside conducting business on the front porch. Are you out there talking about me?”

  Abby flushed with embarrassment. “I’ll be right there, Mother.” Then she turned back to Deb Howell and Joanna. “My mother has a few security issues. I have a caregiver who usually stops by several times a day to check on her when I’m at work, but when I’m here, Mother doesn’t like having me out of her sight. If you don’t mind coming inside …”

  Abby allowed her voice to trail off before she finished her less than enthusiastic invitation. It was plain to see that she wasn’t eager to welcome them into her home. As the daughter of a sometimes difficult mother, Joanna understood the woman’s reluctance. In public, Abby Holder appeared to be totally in control. It had to be difficult for her to be treated with such open contempt at home.