Dead Wrong (20 page)

Joanna reached into her pocket and produced one of
her business cards. “I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady,”
she explained as the woman held the card at arm’s length and
squinted at it.

“Yes, I suppose you are,” Marcelle
agreed. “That’s why you look familiar. I must have seen
your picture in the paper or on TV. Why are you here?”

“My department is investigating Mr.
Evans’s murder.”

“That’s right,” Marcelle said.
“I’ve seen how that works in the crime shows on
television—the detectives always come to the victim’s
funeral looking for suspects.”

“More likely looking for information,”
Joanna said.

“I already talked to one of your
detectives,” Marcelle said. “The big one with the bushy
eyebrows.”

“That would be Ernie Carpenter.”

“Right. Carpenter was his name. I told him
everything I knew, but he wasn’t very happy with
me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I made him go get a search warrant
before I’d let him into Brad’s apartment. I
wasn’t about to let him in without one. You know how those
things work. Police treat ex-cons like dirt even though
they’ve paid their debt to society.”

“Ernie did mention something about
that,” Joanna said. “And you’re right to be
cautious about letting anyone into a tenant’s apartment. But
do you mind if I ask you to repeat what you told
Ernie? I’m sure it’s all in his report,
but things have been so hectic the last few days that I
haven’t had a chance to read it.”

“I told the detective that Brad was a very
nice man, but a very lonely one. All alone in the world.”

“When’s the last time you saw
him?”

“I saw him leave home on Wednesday morning. I
could see his carport from my kitchen window. I often saw him drive
off in his pickup truck on his way to work when I was sitting at my
kitchen table having my morning coffee. But the last time I talked
to him would have been Tuesday night.”

“And why was that?”

“I took him some soup—navy-bean soup.
The back wall of my kitchen is also the back wall of his apartment.
So whenever I cooked something that smelled good—like soup or
stew—I always took him some. It didn’t seem fair for
him to come home from work and have to smell the food without being
able to eat any of it.”

“So you took him soup?”

Marcelle nodded. “In one of those new Ziploc
containers.”

“And was there anything out of the ordinary
about your visit? How did he seem?”

“He was just the regular Brad, sitting there
reading his Bible. If I hadn’t brought him the soup, he might
not have remembered to eat. He was like that sometimes. He’d
just get all caught up in his Bible study and forget about eating.
He asked me if I wanted to sit with him and share some of his soup.
I knew he would, you see, so I brought plenty for both of us. Wait
until you get to be my age. You’ll see that it’s no fun
eating alone.”

“You ate dinner with him?”

“Yes, and we talked about Revelations,”
Marcelle said. “He liked one passage in particular.
Revelations 21:4. I looked it up
when I got
back home. It didn’t make much of an impression on me then,
but after I knew he was dead, I looked it up again. I even
memorized it in Brad’s honor—at least I tried to. It
goes something like this:
God shall wipe away
all their tears; there shall be no more death or sorrow or crying
or pain because the former things are passed away.

“Do you think he knew he was going to die,
Sheriff Brady? Do you think he had some kind of
premonition?”

“Maybe,” Joanna said.

But right then it seemed far more likely to her
that Brad Evans wasn’t seeing his own death in those words.
He was, instead, seeing his supposedly murdered daughter
inexplicably alive. Still, if he had made such an earth-shattering
discovery, wouldn’t he have been shouting it from the
rooftops rather than making oblique Bible-based comments about it
to his landlady? Whom else would he have told? Or perhaps he
himself wasn’t yet fully convinced and he hadn’t
confided in anyone while he waited to make some kind of
confirmation. That might be where the camera and the stealth photos
came in.

“Did he seem sad or unhappy?” Joanna
asked.

“Not at all,” Marcelle replied.
“In fact, I’d say he was the exact opposite of sad.
When he said grace before we ate, I remember him thanking God for
the many blessings in his life—including me. I took that as a
compliment.”

“I’m sure you were a blessing in his
life,” Joanna said.

Marcelle nodded and dabbed at teary eyes with her
already sodden hanky. “I hope I was,” she murmured and
then frowned. “And he said something else—that he was
grateful for second chances.”

“What kind of second chances?” Joanna
asked.

“He didn’t say, not specifically, but I
hoped it meant he had met a woman—a woman who was as nice as
he was. It’s hard living alone, you know. I miss my Roger so
much, and I had been praying for Brad to find someone who would
make his life less lonely.”

“So you’re pretty sure the last time
you saw him was Tuesday?” Joanna asked.

Marcelle nodded. “Wednesday was his day off.
On Thursday I had an early-morning appointment with my dentist, so
he might have been there and he might not, but not seeing him for a
day or two at a time wasn’t all that unusual,
either—not unusual enough for me to think about reporting him
as missing. Brad often went out at night—to meetings and
such. He was very involved in AA, you know. He must have been quite
a drinker at one time, but I never saw any sign of liquor once he
moved into my apartment. As I said, he was a very nice man, and
I’m going to miss him.”

Ted Chapman appeared at Joanna’s elbow.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but Mrs.
Womack’s ride is here. So anytime you’re ready to
go…”

“I’m ready to go right now,”
Marcelle said, getting to her feet. “I’ve monopolized
Sheriff Brady for far too long. Very nice meeting you,” she
added. “I hope you find out who did this.”

“So do I,” Joanna replied.

As Marcelle tottered away with Ted Chapman at her
side, Joanna turned to survey the rest of the room. Most of the
inmates were gone by then. The two that remained were gathering up
paper plates and plastic glasses and clearing off the refreshment
table under the watchful eyes of two of the suit-clad jail ministry
honchos.

Joanna walked up and introduced herself. One of the
men was Rich Higgins, the human resources guy Ted Chapman had
called. The other was Dave Enright, who identified himself as the
executive director.

“Are you making any progress?” Dave
asked, once he realized who Joanna was.

“Some,” she said. “But not much.
We’re checking his phone and credit-card records to see if we
can track what he was doing or who was in contact with him in the
days before his death.”

“That would include his cell-phone
records?” Rich Higgins asked.

“I’m not sure we knew he had a cell
phone,” Joanna said. “I know we’re checking his
home number. If my investigators had discovered a billing for a
cell phone, I’m sure they would have included that in their
request for phone company records.”

“There wouldn’t be a billing in his
name,” Rich told her. “Our company cell phones are an
in-kind contribution from one of the cell-phone-service providers.
They provide the phones and the service both, so there is no
individual billing as such.”

“Do you happen to have that number?”
Joanna asked.

“Sure do.” Rich Higgins unsnapped a
cell-phone case from his belt and scrolled through a list of
numbers. “Here it is,” he said.

As Rich read off the number, Joanna jotted it down.
Once she was out of the prison and back in her vehicle, she called
Frank Montoya.

“How was the funeral?” he asked.

“About what I expected. Got to talk to
Bradley’s landlady and to a couple of his jail ministry
colleagues, which is why I’m calling. Have you had a chance
to check Bradley Evans’s phone and credit-card
records?”

“The phone was easy,” Frank said.
“I don’t know why he even bothered to have one. From
what I could see, he hardly used the damned thing.”

“I know why,” Joanna said. “He
had a cell phone somebody else was paying for.” She gave
Frank the number. “What about credit-card usage?”

“Nothing after he disappeared,” Frank
answered. “The last time it was used was on Wednesday. He had
lunch at Denny’s in Sierra Vista on Tuesday. From the size of
the bill, I’d say he ate alone. On Wednesday he bought a
camera from a Walgreen’s on Fry Boulevard.”

“Maybe he spotted her somewhere in Sierra
Vista,” Joanna mused, more to herself than to Frank.

“Spotted who?” Frank asked. “What
are we talking about?”

Joanna had forgotten that Frank had been stuck at
the board of supervisors meeting when she had made her latest
discovery. “I think Bradley Evans must have run into Leslie
Markham, realized she had to be his dead wife’s daughter, and
decided to take the pictures as a form of verification.”

“Are you serious?”

“Go to the evidence room and check the box on
the Lisa Evans homicide,” Joanna told him. “Take a look
at the picture of Lisa Evans on her driver’s license and
compare it with Leslie Markham’s photos from the website.
Call me back and tell me what you think.”

Joanna was halfway back to the Justice Center when
the phone rang.

“Whoa!” Frank exclaimed. “These
two women could be twins. So what’s going on? Are you saying
Lisa Marie Evans handed her baby off to someone else and then faked
her own
murder? Are you thinking maybe the
wife’s alive and well somewhere while her husband spent
twenty-plus years of his life in the slammer for killing
her?”

“It’s a possibility,” Joanna
said. “Meanwhile, the baby’s adoptive father happens to
be Judge Lawrence Tazewell.”

Frank whistled. “As in the Arizona Supreme
Court Justice?”

“One and the same. Not only that, according
to Leslie Markham, he’s currently being considered as a
nominee for a federal judgeship.”

“Which might explain why, once Bradley Evans
got too close to the truth, someone felt obliged to knock him
off.”

“Yes, it might,” Joanna agreed.
“Especially considering how the FBI seems to be very good at
turning up all that old dirty laundry. Dave Hollicker is taking
Lisa’s bloodstained purse to the crime lab in Tucson so they
can try running DNA tests on it. If someone was faking a murder,
who knows where the blood came from?”

“Is DNA testing possible on a sample that
old?” Frank asked.

“We’ll see,” Joanna agreed.
“But we can also go at this from the other direction. I want
to collect DNA samples from Leslie Markham and from Lisa’s
mother as well. We should be able to tell from that whether or not
those two women are related. A DNA match won’t tell us if
Lisa Evans is still alive, but it’ll be a step in the right
direction.”

“How do you plan on obtaining those other
samples?” Frank asked.

“I’m not sure,” Joanna said.
“I’m thinking. Once I figure it out, I’ll let you
know. And one more thing. If you have time, see what you can find
out about Rory Markham.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t like the
way he treated Leslie, for one
thing. But
there’s something about him that doesn’t ring quite
true. It gave me a funny feeling.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “I’ll
see what I can do.”

By the time Joanna reached the Justice Center, she
had made up her mind on the DNA samples. She stopped off in the
rest room long enough for a very necessary pit stop before she went
looking for her detectives. “Where are Debbie and
Jaime?” Joanna asked Kristin.

“Still in Tucson, as far as I know. How
come?”

Joanna didn’t answer. She was already on her
way to Frank’s office. She found him with his face glued to
his computer screen while a nearby printer shot out page after page
of material.

“Ready to take a run out to Sierra
Vista?” she asked.

“In a minute,” he said. “We need
to wait for the end of this print job. When you see it,
you’re not going to believe it.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Once I got off the phone with you, I decided
to do some research into Judge Lawrence Tazewell’s
background. What do you suppose he was doing in February of
1979?”

“I have no idea.”

“He was serving as a Cochise County Superior
Court judge.”

“You don’t mean…?”

“Yes,” Frank said, picking up the sheaf
of computer printouts and handing them to Joanna.
“That’s exactly what I mean. Judge Lawrence Tazewell is
the judge who accepted Bradley Evans’s guilty plea and sent
him off to the slammer.”

“And now he’s an Arizona Supreme Court
justice who’s a possible presidential nominee for a seat on
the federal bench. I didn’t think things could get any
worse.”

“Guess again, boss,” Frank said.
“They just did.”

W
here
are we going?” Frank asked once they were in his Crown
Victoria.

“Anna Marie Crystal’s place on Short
Street in Sierra Vista.”

“Lisa’s mother?”

“Right,” Joanna said. “Do you
know how to get there?”

“No,” Frank said. “But I can find
it.” While he adjusted his portable Garmin GPS, Joanna
shuffled through the stack of papers he had handed her. Most of the
material consisted of archived articles from various Arizona
newspapers—many of them dealing with Arizona Supreme Court
decisions in which Lawrence Tazewell was mentioned briefly as part
of either the majority or dissenting opinion. After skipping over
most of those, Joanna settled in to read a long feature article
from the
Arizona Reporter.

It was a mostly laudatory piece with several color
photographs of Judge Tazewell and his wife, Sharon. One showed them
posing arm in arm on the patio of their home, with Camel
back Mountain looming in the background. Another
showed them standing in a living room next to a white grand piano
with a huge oil painting of the Grand Canyon covering the wall
behind them. There were mentions of the Tazewells both as
participants and movers and shakers in various social and
charitable events. Clearly they were members in good standing of
the Paradise Valley and greater Phoenix social scene.

Lawrence Tazewell, a man who had come from humble
beginnings in the copper-mining town of Morenci, Arizona, had
obviously done all right for himself. No doubt hard work accounted
for what he had achieved and acquired along the way, but Joanna
suspected that a couple of fortuitous marriages—one of them
to Aileen Houlihan of Triple H Ranch—had benefited Judge
Tazewell’s plentiful bottom line, but the only reference to
that long-ago marriage came at the very end of the article in a
sentence that read:

“So,” Joanna said when she finished
reading. “Aileen and Lawrence Tazewell convince Lisa Marie
Evans to hand her baby over to them, she disappears into thin air,
and then Judge Tazewell makes sure Bradley goes away for a very
long time. Neat. Ties up all the loose ends.”

Frank nodded. “Everything goes swimmingly
until Bradley comes back, runs into Leslie Markham by accident, and
then there’s trouble. If any of the old stuff comes out, then
it’s bye-bye to Larry Tazewell’s next judicial
appointment.”

Joanna’s telephone rang.

“Hi, Sheriff Brady,” Debbie Howell
said. “Wanted to let you
know
what’s going on. Jaime and I are still in Tucson. We’re
still not having much luck tracking Tony Zavala and his friends.
They all seem to have gone to ground. The media coverage probably
has them scared.”

“So keep looking,” Joanna said.

“We will,” Debbie agreed.
“We’re particularly interested in talking to
Tony’s girlfriend, the one with the city of Tucson
dogfighting citation. From everything we’re hearing on the
street, she’s a ringleader. We did spend some time over at
the Humane Society. According to the guy we spoke to there,
Roostercomb pit bulls are legendary in dogfighting circles for
being killers. They go for top dollar.”

“The O’Dwyers sell them?” Joanna
asked.

“That’s right.”

“If all this is happening in my jurisdiction,
why don’t I know about it?”

“It turns out there’s a lot we
don’t know about the O’Dwyers,” Debbie answered.
“Not only do they breed and sell the dogs, they also offer a
venue for the fights and run a lucrative betting operation on the
side.”

“Sounds like they’re a regular pair of
entrepreneurs. I’m surprised someone hasn’t signed them
up for the local chamber of commerce.”

“Right,” Debbie said. “The only
question is figuring out which chamber of commerce
applies.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re pretending to operate out of
New Mexico,” Debbie explained. “People who come to see
the fights evidently use a road off I-10 that runs through New
Mexico in order to gain access to Roostercomb Ranch through a back
entrance. That way
they don’t have to
drive through San Simon, where extra traffic would be more
noticeable.”

“Which also explains why the surveillance we
set up in San Simon over the weekend came up empty,” Joanna
said.

“Exactly. As far as sales are concerned, the
kennel’s official address is actually a post office box in
Road Forks,” Debbie added. “By operating in another
state, they’ve managed to stay under everybody’s
radar.”

“Until Jeannine started finding dead and
dying dogs along I-10.”

“Right,” Debbie agreed. “So is it
time someone went over to Roostercomb Ranch and had a chat with
them?”

“No,” Joanna said. “Absolutely
not. Let’s see what we can do to get the goods on them before
we make contact. That means, if and when you do find one of the
gang of thugs who beat up Jeannine, let them know that we’re
willing to deal. Tell them that the first guy who gives us enough
evidence to convict Clarence and Billy O’Dwyer of conspiracy
to commit murder can plan on getting special treatment.”

“A bargaining chip?”

“You bet,” Joanna said. “And if
they’re taking bets, once we wrap them up I’m sure the
feds will be interested in little things like income-tax evasion.
It should turn into quite a nice package.”

“We’ll keep plugging,” Debbie
said. “We’re motivated.”

“I know you are,” Joanna said.
“But the hours…”

“Don’t worry about Bennie,”
Debbie returned. “He’s having a great time with his
cousins. Believe me, the extra hours are not a problem.”

Frank waited until she ended the call.
“Sounds like you could be venturing into the
unauthorized-plea-bargain business,” he
said. “Shouldn’t you clear that offer
with the county attorney before you make it?”

“I’ll call Arlee Jones first thing in
the morning and bring him into the loop, but I’m not
particularly worried about it. He’s so lazy he’d rather
do a plea bargain any day. Actually trying a case would require his
getting off his dead rear end.”

“Don’t hold back,” Frank said
with a grin. “Why don’t you say how you really
feel?”

“But there is someone else I need to
call,” she added. “Sheriff Randy Trotter.”

Through the years Joanna had had enough dealings
with Hidalgo County Sheriff Randy Trotter in New Mexico that his
numbers were programmed into her cell phone. Minutes later she had
the man on the phone.

“Are you still working?” he asked once
he knew who was calling. “I thought you’d be off having
your baby by now. What can I do for you?”

“What would you think if I said the names
Billy and Clarence O’Dwyer?” Joanna asked.

“I’d think I was glad Roostercomb Ranch
is mostly on your side of the state line,” Randy Trotter
answered. “Those two guys are mean as snakes, and the less my
officers and I have to do with them the better. Why?”

“Because it looks like they’re
operating a criminal enterprise that straddles the state line the
same way their ranch used to.”

“I don’t think I want to hear
this,” Randy said, “but I guess you’d better tell
me.”

It was ten after four and Joanna had just gotten
off the phone with Sheriff Trotter when Frank pulled up in front of
Anna Marie Crystal’s modest home on Short Street.

“You never did say how we’re going to
play this,” Frank ob
served as they walked
up the sidewalk. “Are you going to tell her about Leslie
Markham’s resemblance to her dead daughter?”

“Not if we don’t have to,” Joanna
returned. “For one thing, until we know whether or not her
daughter is dead or alive, I don’t want to get the poor
woman’s hopes up.”

Fritz, the silky terrier mix, began barking the
moment they stepped onto the porch. Through the door they could
hear Anna Marie muttering to herself while she shut off the blaring
television set, confined the dog to the kitchen, and then came to
the door. When she opened it, a thick cloud of stale cigarette
smoke wafted outside.

“Oh,” Anna Marie said, looking at
Joanna and shaking her head in apparent disgust. “It’s
you again. What do you want this time?”

“This is my chief deputy, Frank
Montoya,” Joanna said. “We’d like to talk to you
for a few minutes if you don’t mind.”

“I’ve already told you everything I
know about Bradley Evans,” Anna Marie said.
“Personally, I don’t give a damn if you ever find out
who killed him.”

“This is about your daughter,” Joanna
said.

“About Lisa?” Anna Marie gave Joanna a
shrewdly appraising look, but finally she stepped back into the
room, allowing Frank and Joanna to enter. “What about
her?”

“Do you mind if we sit?” Joanna
asked.

“It’s okay, I suppose,” Anna
Marie answered.

Joanna immediately chose a spot at the far end of
the couch and seated herself next to an end table that contained a
reeking ashtray. One of the stubs was still smoldering.

“What do you want to know?” Anna Marie
asked brusquely.

“What can you tell us about your
daughter’s marriage to Bradley Evans?” Joanna
asked.

“I don’t see that it matters. I thought
they were too young to be married. And I thought he was on the wild
side and not ready to settle down. I thought he drank too much.
Why? Why does any of this matter now?”

“Was Lisa unhappy with him?” Joanna
persisted.

“Are you kidding? She was head over heels in
love with the guy. And she told us—Kenny and me—that
she was sure he’d straighten up once she had the
baby.”

“Did she ever threaten to leave
him?”

“Never.”

“You don’t think it’s possible
she tried to run away from him?”

“If she did, he stopped her, didn’t he.
Murdering her would be one way to keep her from leaving.”

“Yes,” Joanna said, “I suppose it
would.” She eyed the ashtray where the smoldering cigarette
stub had finally extinguished itself. “I’m
sorry,” she said. “I seem to be thirsting to death.
Could I trouble you for a glass of water?”

“All right,” Anna Marie said
grudgingly. She stood up with a sigh and headed for the kitchen.
Before the door had swung shut behind her, Joanna had collected the
cigarette stub, stuffed it into an evidence bag, and shoved the bag
into her pocket. Grinning, Frank gave her a quick thumbs-up.

Anna Marie returned to the living room with a glass
of water in one hand and her yapping dog in the other. “I
don’t know what any of this has to do with the price of tea
in China,” she said.

“We’re trying to find out if it’s
possible that Bradley Evans’s murder now has something to do
with what happened to your daughter all those years ago.”

Anna Marie put down the dog. Then she collected the
ashtray, her cigarettes, and her lighter and took them to the
opposite
end of the couch. She lit a cigarette
and then blew a new puff of smoke into the already saturated air.
By the time she looked back at Joanna, her countenance had
changed.

“I certainly hope so,” she said
fiercely. “I always thought the son of a bitch got off way
too easy. I prayed every night for years that he’d die in
prison. You see how much good that did. But he’s dead now, so
why are you still asking questions?”

“Since Bradley Evans confessed to the crime
and also went to prison for it, it’s possible that the
investigation into your daughter’s death was something less
than thorough,” Joanna explained. “We’re
exploring the possibility that someone else may have been
involved.”

“You’re saying Bradley had an
accomplice?”

That wasn’t at all what Joanna meant, but
since that idea seemed to satisfy some of Anna Marie’s
objections, she let it slide. Joanna knew from reading the casebook
that the Lisa Evans homicide had been closed so quickly and so
definitively that few of the victim’s friends and associates
had ever been interviewed.

“Possibly,” Joanna said.

“Was it a woman?” Anna Marie asked.
“I always wondered about that—if he had a girlfriend or
someone on the side—and that’s why he got rid of
Lisa.”

“Did your daughter say something that led you
to think that might be the case?”

“No. According to what she told me,
everything was hunkydory, except for Bradley’s drinking, that
is. She was worried about it. That was the only thing she ever
complained about.”

“It may be the one thing she mentioned to
you, but she might have said something more to someone else,”
Joanna said. “You see, Mrs. Crystal, although I love my
mother very much,
there are issues in my
marriage that I would never discuss with her. Is it possible that
Lisa had friends other than you, people her age, that she might
have told her troubles to?”

Anna Marie considered for a moment before she
answered. “Lisa’s best friend would have been the
Tanner girl—Barbara Tanner. Lisa might have said something to
her.”

“Who was Barbara Tanner?”

“Her parents owned the dry cleaner’s
where Lisa worked. In fact, Barbara was the one who got Lisa the
job in the first place. She worked part-time there while she was
still in high school and then full-time after she got out. Barbara
worked there, too, some of the time, but after she went off to
college, she only worked on winter breaks and during the summers to
help her parents.”

“What about Lisa?” Joanna asked.
“Why didn’t she go to college?”

Anna Marie shrugged. “She wasn’t
interested, mostly. Kenny would have found a way to pay for it if
she had really wanted to go, but her grades weren’t all that
good, and she never really liked school.”

“Do the Tanners still live around
here?” Joanna asked.

Anna Marie shook her head. “They sold out a
long time ago, and they’re both gone now. Barbara was a
change-of-life baby, so her parents were a lot older than Kenny and
me.”