In the background Joanna heard a buzz of voices. Tazewell was returning her call from a relatively public place-not the best kind of environment to pose the kinds of questions she needed to ask.
“We’ve learned that someone’s been stalking her,” Joanna said, hedging her bet. “Taking Leslie’s picture without her knowledge. Her husband suggested to my investigators and me that the stalking might have something to do with your possible nomination to the federal bench.”
“I doubt it,” Tazewell answered. “And for the record, I wouldn’t believe anything Rory Markham has to say.”
Not an indifferent father at all, Joanna thought.
“Look,” Tazewell said. “I’m sure you and I need to discuss all of this, but I can’t do it right now. What about tomorrow?”
“Where would you like to meet?” Joanna asked.
“I’m in Tucson at a meeting, but I have my own plane. Why don’t I just fly into Bisbee sometime in the morning. We can talk there.”
“In the municipal airport?”
“Sure,” Tazewell said. “When I was a superior court judge in Bisbee and living out on the ranch, I used to do it all the time. Saved myself all kinds of commuting time and wear and tear on my car. I’ll show up, we can have our little chat, and I’ll fly right back out again. What time would you like me there, and can someone meet me?”
“Nine will be fine,” Joanna said at once. “And I’ll pick you up myself.”
“Good,” Tazewell said. “See you then.”
Joanna was still looking at the phone in amazement when Cassie Parks’s voice said, “Jenny, are you there?” Once again Joanna handed the phone back to her daughter.
“So he’s coming here?” Butch asked.
Joanna nodded.
“Well,” Butch said, “that’s better than your having to go there.”
They went to bed relatively early. As usual, Joanna didn’t sleep well. Her back hurt. She couldn’t get comfortable. As predicted, little Dennis kicked up a storm. In the quiet between kicks, Joanna spent the waking hours trying to imagine what questions she would pose to Justice Lawrence Tazewell, who might or might not be a suspect in the Bradley Evans homicide.
The fact that Tazewell had offered to come to Bisbee for the interview should have made her less nervous, but it didn’t. Joanna was enough of a poker player to realize that Tazewell’s willing cooperation might be nothing more than a cagey defensive gambit. By feigning a willingness to help, he might actually be deliberately trying to throw her off track.
She was still nervous about the upcoming interview at nine the next morning as she watched a blue-and-white Cessna 180 circle for a landing on the single runway of Bisbee’s municipal airport. She felt inexplicably better, however, when the door opened and a man wearing jeans, alligator-skin cowboy boots, and an enormous Stetson stepped off the plane. She might be worried about talking to a state supreme court justice, but a supreme court justice who also happened to be a cowboy might be somewhat easier to handle.
Emerging from her Crown Victoria, Joanna walked forward to meet him. Once he finished setting the chocks, he stood up and wiped his hands on the back of his jeans.
“Justice Tazewell?” Joanna asked. “I’m Sheriff Brady.”
“And you’re also very pregnant,” Tazewell observed.
Accustomed to people’s veiled glances and behind-the-back comments, Joanna found Lawrence Tazewell’s directness surprisingly disarming.
“Yes,” she agreed with a laugh, “I am.”
“When are you due?” he asked.
“Sometime this week,” Joanna replied.
Tazewell nodded. “I know a little about babies,” he observed as he followed Joanna back to the Crown Victoria. In order to accommodate her short legs, Joanna kept the bench seat as far forward as possible. That meant that Lawrence Tazewell’s knees were crammed up against the glove compartment. He seemed oblivious, however.
“My stepdaughter had her little girl just a week ago today,” he continued as he shifted in search of a more comfortable position. “Seven pounds six ounces, born screeching her lungs out at ten o’clock last Thursday morning. Suzanne named her Destry Annette. Funny name for a girl if you ask me, but no one did- ask me, that is. My only contribution to the process was to be on hand to wield the digital camera once the nurse had her wrapped and put her in Suzanne’s arms. We loaded the photos into a computer and e-mailed them to her daddy within an hour of her birth. My son-in-law’s in the military, you see. He’s a pilot in the air force and doing a tour of duty in the Middle East right now. That’s why Sharon and I were called in as reinforcements.”
By then they had settled into the vehicle, and Joanna was headed back to the Justice Center. “Where?” she asked.
“Where’s he stationed?” Tazewell returned.
“No,” Joanna said. “Where does your stepdaughter live?”
“Denver,” Tazewell answered. “Ron is from there. His parents own a bunch of apartment buildings, and they’re letting Suzanne and the kids stay in one of them rent-free while Ron is overseas. Destry’s brother, Johnny, is three years old and a real pistol. The other grandparents looked after him while Sharon and I were at the hospital.”
As Tazewell spoke, Joanna was doing some calculating of her own. Bradley Evans had died sometime the previous Wednesday or Thursday. If, as Lawrence Tazewell claimed, he had been off in Colorado doing grandfather duty, it seemed likely that he had no connection to the Evans homicide.
“Did you fly your own plane up there?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Commercial flying is such a pain these days that I avoid it whenever possible. We left right after I got off work on Wednesday and were there in time for dinner. It could have taken us the same amount of time just to clear security at Sky Harbor.”
As they came up over the hill south of the ballpark, Tazewell looked around and sighed. “Looks like nothing’s changed,” he said. “When I first got elected to the superior court, I thought Aileen and I would move over here. I’d even made an offer on a nice place over on the Vista, but she refused to leave her folks’ ranch. Her mother was starting to have some health issues about then. And she stayed on even after both her parents passed away. As far as I know, she’s still there. I’m the one who moved on.”
There was a clear hint of regret in his voice. “You don’t sound particularly happy about it,” Joanna said.
“Being here brings it all back, I guess,” he said. “My colossal failure in life. The funny thing is, I didn’t see it coming even though one of my fraternity brothers from the U of A tried to warn me. Dudley told me he thought I was getting in over my head, only I didn’t believe him. Old Dud was of the opinion that marrying a rich man’s daughter was a bad idea. Turns out he was right. Which brings us, I suppose, to Leslie. What’s going on with her? What’s this about stalking? I’m willing to bet it has a lot more to do with that slime bucket named Rory Markham than it does with me.”
“I take it you don’t approve of your son-in-law?” Joanna asked casually.
“Look,” Lawrence Tazewell said. “Aileen wrote me out of my daughter’s life a long time ago. I’ve had no contact with Leslie at all since she was little, but I still care, and I try to keep track of what’s going on with her. When I found out she had married Rory Markham, I assumed it was Rory’s son. I knew he had at least one. I didn’t find out until much later that wasn’t the case. When I learned she had married the father instead, the Rory I knew, I couldn’t believe it. Why would someone like Leslie, a girl in her twenties, want to hook up with an old goat almost as old as her father?”
Joanna had her own ideas about why Leslie had married Rory Markham. “So you and he knew each other?” she asked.
“I knew him slightly but Rory and my ex have been pals forever,” Tazewell answered finally. “Maybe even more than pals on occasion. I suspect Aileen is the one who engineered the whole thing.”