The casebook came next. In 1978 her father had been a deputy in the sheriff’s department, so none of his handiwork appeared in the casebook. The information there had been compiled by the detectives on the case. Joanna recognized their names if not their individual handwriting. Some of them had been the very people whose lack of integrity had propelled D. H. Lathrop into running for office himself.
When she put the casebook down and returned to the box, she found only one additional item-a woman’s purse. It was an old-fashioned pocket-style leather affair with fringe on the bottom and an overlapping flap closure. Parts of the outside were still soft and pliable while others were stiff, stained dark with a substance that Joanna suspected to be dried blood. Lots of dried blood! No wonder that, even without ever finding Lisa Marie’s body, investigators had concluded that she was dead.
Sitting down at the table, Joanna upended the purse and let the contents fall into the cover of the banker’s box. Old coins, time-faded and unreadable receipts, paper clips, a compact, outdated lipstick containers, and several cheap ballpoint pens tumbled out. So did a wallet. What surprised Joanna was what was missing. There was absolutely no trace of black fingerprint powder on either the purse or its contents.
“If this was the only evidence they had, why wasn’t it in an evidence bag?” she asked. “And how come nobody ever dusted any of this stuff for prints?”
“I thought that was strange myself,” Frank agreed, getting up from his desk and coming over to where Joanna was seated. “I suppose that, since they closed the case when Bradley Evans confessed to the crime, they must have had enough evidence on him without having to mess around with the purse. If you want to, I suppose we could see if Casey Ledford could lift prints off it now, but I’m not sure it would work.”
“In other words, there’s not much point,” Joanna said. With that, she opened the wallet. Inside, the cheap plastic sleeves were brittle and yellowed with age. Thumbing through to the driver’s license, Joanna studied the smiling visage of a sweet-faced young woman identified as Lisa Marie Crystal. She had gone to her death without ever having gotten around to changing her last name on her driver’s license. The photo was one of someone who seemed confident and supremely happy and who had no idea that her life would be snuffed out within months of having that picture taken. In addition to the license, there were several other photos.
The first of those was a professionally shot pose of Lisa Marie and Bradley Evans, a picture that might well have been used for a wedding announcement in a local newspaper. One was clearly a high school photo of Lisa Marie, while another showed a crew-cut Bradley Evans proudly posing in his army dress uniform. Then there was one of a somewhat older couple. After examining it, Joanna recognized Anna Marie Crystal and the man who must have been her husband, Lisa Marie’s father, Ken. There was so much loss and hurt in that small collection of photos that Joanna was glad to turn away from them.
In the back of the wallet she found twenty-three dollars, and in the snap-closing change compartment, she found another dollar’s worth of change.
“Whatever the motive for Lisa Marie’s murder,” Joanna said, “robbery wasn’t it.”
Thoughtfully she picked up all the items and returned them to the box, lingering for a long moment over the evidence log before she put that away as well.
“You’ll make sure Ernie and Jaime see all this?”
“You bet.”
“Speaking of which,” Joanna said, “have you talked to either one of them so far this morning?”
“They called in and said they were working,” Frank replied. “Something about getting a search warrant so they can go through Bradley Evans’s apartment down in Douglas.”
“What about San Simon?” Joanna asked.
“I’ve got three cars scheduled to go there late this afternoon to hang out and sort of get the lay of the land.”
“Good,” Joanna said. “Tell them to pay special attention to Roostercomb Ranch.”
Frank had been revising the schedule sheet. Now he put down his pen and studied Joanna’s face. “Don’t tell me. The O’Dwyers?”
“Yup,” Joanna said. “At least that’s what Jeannine Phillips thinks.”
“We can’t afford to have an armed confrontation with those guys.”
“Don’t I know it,” Joanna agreed. “But at least it gives us an idea of where to start looking. Tell whoever’s going there to keep an eye out but to be very, very discreet. None of my officers is to set foot inside their gate. We’re talking surveillance only.”
“Got it,” Frank said.
His phone rang just then, and Frank reached to answer it. “Sure,” he said after a moment. “She’s right here. Hold on.” Frank covered the mouth and turned to Joanna. “It’s Lisa Howard out at the front desk. She says your husband is on the line. Do you want to take the call here or in your office?”
“My office,” Joanna said, and hurried off to answer it.
Butch’s greeting was something less than cordial. “What are you doing at work? I thought you promised to take it easy this weekend.”
“I am taking it easy,” she countered. “I came here to wait for Jenny to finish up with her Girl Scout car wash. It was easier and closer to just wait around here at the office than it was to spend the whole day running back and forth between town and home.”
“Oh,” Butch said, sounding somewhat mollified. “I forgot all about the car wash. So you’re not working.”
“Not really,” Joanna said. “And how’s the conference?”
“I’ve met a bunch of interesting people,” he said. “And I’ve gone to several panels. Even though they all write murder mysteries, the authors seem to have all different kinds of ideas about how to do that job. And the woman I told you about yesterday, the one who was so upset because I had review copies of my book here and she didn’t?”
“What was her name again?” Joanna asked.
“Christina Hanson. It turns out she’s a pretty decent person after all. We had breakfast together this morning. It’s like we’re all in the freshman class of the writing business.”
“So you’re having a good time?”
“Yes, and I’m very glad to be here,” Butch answered. “Thanks for encouraging me to come. Sometimes, when I’m working away all by myself, I feel like some kind of freak. The good thing about being here at the conference is that I’m finding out there are a whole lot of other freaks just like me, and they are going to like my book. Now tell me about you. How are you feeling?”
“Pregnant,” Joanna replied. “Nine and a half months’ worth, in fact, even though that’s not quite true. So I’m a little grumpy, but it’s nothing dropping twenty pounds or so of ballast won’t help.”
“Do you want me to come home tonight?” Butch asked. “There are a couple of panels I wanted to see tomorrow, but if you’d rather I came home…”
“No, Butch,” she said. “You signed up for the conference and I want you to stay for the whole thing.”
“Maybe you and Jenny should stay in town tonight-maybe with Eva Lou and Jim Bob. Or maybe they could come stay with you. I worry about you being out at the ranch all by yourself.”
“I’m not all by myself,” Joanna said. “As you just pointed out, Jenny’s there, too. If the baby decides to come early, she’s more than capable of summoning help. Besides, how could I come to town? Do you think Jenny and I could just show up on Jim Bob and Eva Lou’s doorstep with three dogs in tow and say ”Take us in‘?“