Judgment Call

“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.

The polite thing for Joanna and Detective Howell to do would have been to walk away and let Abby Holder deal with her mother’s issues in private, but this was a homicide investigation. As someone who had worked with the victim day in and day out for years, Abby Holder might well have insights into the workings of Debra Highsmith’s life that no one else could provide.

There was another series of raps on the closed door. “Abigail? Are you still there?”

“We don’t mind at all, do we, Deb?” Joanna said with a bright smile. “Any information you can give us at this stage would be a huge help.”

Reluctantly, Abby opened the door and allowed them to enter. Just inside the door a tiny woman sat hunched in a wheelchair. She gripped a colorful cane in one hand and was clearly within seconds of staging another assault on the door, whose marred surface already gave clear evidence of several previous blows. The woman appeared to be afflicted with a severe widow’s hump, one that left her face permanently pointing into her lap. Thin gray hair did little to conceal the balding spot on the top of her head.

“It’s about time you came inside,” she complained, peering up at them sideways due to an inability to raise her head. “You told me you were going to make some tea. I’m still waiting.”

Looking at her, Joanna was reminded of a time when, as a little girl, she had climbed into a cottonwood tree to spy on a nest of newly hatched crows. Joanna had gotten only the smallest peek at the naked, angry, and demanding little things before an infuriated mama crow had shown up on the scene to drive the interloper away. Abby Holder’s mother wasn’t naked, but she had angry and demanding down to a science.

Abby gestured Joanna and Deb into the living room. “Could I interest you in some tea?”

“Please,” Joanna said, accepting for both of them. “That would be great.”

While Abby retreated into what must have been the kitchen, Joanna and Deb seated themselves side by side on a chintz sofa. The living room was small and crowded with too much oversize furniture. There were two large easy chairs that matched the sofa. A huge glass-fronted buffet was shoved up against one wall with a flat-screen television perched on top of that. On the muted screen the cast members of some afternoon soap opera were going through their paces. Every available inch of wall space was covered with framed artwork—notably oversize desert landscapes done in vivid oils.

To Joanna’s way of thinking, none of the colorful furnishings in the crowded room quite squared with plain-Jane Abby Holder who always dressed in black or gray, whose hair was always pulled back into an old-fashioned, simple French twist, and whose face never showed a single hint of makeup. The furniture seemed far more in keeping with Abby’s mother, who was dressed in a vivid orange muumuu and whose thin lips and cheeks were garishly colored with bright red lipstick and rouge.

Despite the limited floor space in the room, Abby’s mother propelled her hand-powered chair through the maze of furnishings with practiced ease.

“I’m Elizabeth Stevens, Abigail’s mother,” she announced. “I can’t imagine what possessed her to go rushing off without bothering to properly introduce us. Who are you? What are you doing here? Not selling something, I hope. Maybe you’re a pair of those Bible-thumping missionaries? They’re forever showing up on the front porch and ringing our doorbell. I’ve told Abby a hundred times not to let them inside. You’re not some of those, are you?”

“No,” Deb said with a laugh. “Definitely not. I’m Detective Deb Howell, and this is Sheriff Brady.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot we have a lady sheriff these days,” Elizabeth said. “Call me old-fashioned, but I can’t imagine that a woman could do as good a job of running the sheriff’s department as a man would, and you still haven’t mentioned what you’re doing here or what it is you’re after.”

Joanna knew that Abby Holder was a few years younger than her own mother. That meant that Elizabeth was somewhere in her eighties or even nineties. Somewhere along the way, she had decided to turn off her self-editing applications. She would say whatever came into her head and let the chips fall where they may. Not wanting to divulge the purpose of their visit, Joanna made a gentle stab at changing the subject.

“Have you lived here long?” she asked.

“Longer than I ever wanted,” Elizabeth shot back. “I’m afraid Abby made this bed. Now we both have to lie in it.”

Out of Elizabeth’s line of vision, Abby had come into the room and was collecting a set of cups and saucers from the buffet.

“Mother!” she exclaimed. “Please! Give it a rest.”

“Well, it’s true,” Elizabeth sniffed. “If you hadn’t gone against your father’s wishes and married that Freddy Holder, we wouldn’t have to live in this dump.”

It was easy to see that this was a long-established pattern, with Elizabeth Stevens bullying her daughter and with Abby taking it. This time, maybe for the first time ever, Abby seemed prepared to fight back, countering fire with fire.

“If Daddy hadn’t made such spectacularly bad investments,” she said, “you wouldn’t have had to sell the big house on the Vista and come slumming with me.”

Elizabeth seemed both astonished and dismayed by her daughter’s response. All the natural color drained from her face, leaving only the bright red clownlike layer of rouge glowing on otherwise stark white cheeks.

“I won’t have you speaking about your father in such a disrespectful manner,” she declared.

Abby didn’t back off. “I won’t have you speaking disrespectfully about Fred, either,” she returned. “He and I found this place together, and he paid for it with his life. Just remember, if it weren’t for your being able to come here to live with me, you and all your furniture would have been out on the street. How about a little gratitude for a change?”

“Well,” Elizabeth huffed. “I never!”

With that, she spun her chair into a sudden about-face and sped from the room.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” Abby said. “Most of the time I just let what she says wash over me. Today I couldn’t.”

I don’t blame you a bit, Joanna thought. She said aloud, “Fred was your husband?”

Abby nodded. “My father was the superintendent of the mines. Fred’s father was an underground miner. That’s all Fred ever wanted to be, too—a miner, just like his dad, Daniel. Fred knew he wasn’t cut out for college; his grades weren’t good enough, but he knew that working underground he’d be able to support us. Naturally my parents despised him. They thought I could do far better in the matrimony department than marrying some guy who worked underground. They did everything they could think of to break us up. I know my father told the guys at the company employment office that Fred wasn’t miner material, but I figured out a way around it.”

“What was that?” Joanna asked.

“I told Fred we should pretend that we had caved. I came home from a date one night in April, crying my heart out. I told my parents that I had broken up with him, and it worked like a charm. They were thrilled. Two things happened after that. Suddenly—magically—Fred was no longer persona non grata in the employment department. The strike was over by then. Fred got a job working underground, and I set about signing up for the fall semester in Flagstaff.