“Did Lisa have any other friends?”
“Not really. She wasn’t a very outgoing person; she was pretty but shy. I thought working in the dry cleaner’s would help bring her out of herself. Instead, she ended up meeting Bradley. He asked her out and that was it. He was the only person she ever dated, and for some reason she didn’t think she deserved anyone better.”
Joanna thought about what Leslie Markham had said-that Rory was the only person she had ever dated. It sounded as though Lisa Marie Crystal’s history had repeated itself in Leslie. Both of them had settled for someone who probably wasn’t the very best specimen of manhood. And what about Lisa’s father, Anna Marie’s beloved Kenny? Maybe he wasn’t any better than the men his daughter and granddaughter had chosen. Was the propensity for choosing men badly also to be found on mitochondrial DNA?
Joanna closed her notebook and rose to her feet. “We’ll see what we can do to track down Barbara Tanner.”
Anna Marie rose, too, and followed Frank and Joanna to the door. “You will tell me, won’t you?”
“Tell you what?” Joanna asked.
“Tell me if you find out someone else was involved,” Anna Marie said. “It wouldn’t change anything, but at least then I’d know why Lisa died-that there was an actual reason for it. That’s what I really wanted Bradley to tell me-why he did it. If he’d given me at least that much, maybe I could have forgiven him, but without knowing…” Anna Marie shook her head and didn’t finish.
“If we find out,” Joanna said, “I promise we’ll let you know. But tell me one more thing, Mrs. Crystal. Do you happen to remember when your daughter’s baby was due?”
“Oh, yes,” Anna Marie said. “I remember that perfectly. Her due date was November the fifteenth. That’s my birthday, too, so of course I remember. When Lisa told me she was pregnant, I remember telling Kenny, ”Oh, boy! By Thanksgiving we’ll be grandparents.“ But that wasn’t to be,” she added sadly.
“The families never do get over it, do they,” Frank observed, once they were back in his Crown Victoria. “But I admit, the family resemblance from Anna Marie to Lisa and from Lisa to Leslie is downright spooky. Where to now?”
But Joanna already had her phone out and was dialing Markham Realty. “Since Leslie and her husband own the place, let’s hope she doesn’t go home at the stroke of five.”
“Ms. Markham is in with a client writing up an offer,” Fran, the receptionist, told her. “It may be some time before she’s available, and I’m not allowed to interrupt.”
“That’s all right,” Joanna said. “We’ll stop by the office and wait for her to finish.”
“What’s the plan?” Frank asked.
“Leslie presumably knows the least about what went on in 1978, but she still may be able to tell us things that will help. She may be aware that she’s adopted. Then again…”
“You’re going to tell her?”
“I’m not sure,” Joanna said. “Maybe. If not, our fallback position will be DNA.”
“Which could take weeks or months to give us an answer.” Frank sighed. “I suppose it would be asking too much to hope that Leslie Markham smokes, too.”
“No,” Joanna said, “I’m sure she doesn’t. We’re going to stop by the Starbucks on our way and pick up a latte for her. When it’s time for us to leave, I’m going to count on you to bus the table- and to keep the cups straight.”
“I should be able to manage that much. By the way, Leslie is number four.”
“Number four what?”
“Mrs. Rory Markham the fourth,” Frank returned. “He married Leslie two weeks to the day after his divorce from number three was final.”
“No wonder I didn’t like the guy,” Joanna said. “He gave me the heebie-jeebies.”
“More of your good ol‘ woman’s intuition?” Frank asked.
“More like woman’s radar,” Joanna replied.
They waited in the lobby of Markham Realty until a quarter past six. When Leslie finally emerged from the conference room and escorted her client to the front door, she frowned at Frank and Joanna as she walked past. Only when the client was safely out of earshot did she whirl on them.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “I already told you everything I know. I’ve never met the man who took those pictures, and Rory’s still mad at me about it. He thinks I had some kind of relationship-”
“Actually,” Joanna said, “I’m quite certain you never had a romantic relationship of any kind with the man in question. In fact, our investigation will be able to lay your husband’s concerns to rest on that score. But could we please go somewhere a little more private to discuss this? And we brought you a drink. It’s probably cool by now, but…”
She was relieved when Leslie accepted the proffered cup without a murmur and then led them into the conference room.
“Tell me about your parents,” Joanna said once they were all seated.
“My parents?” Leslie repeated. “I thought I already did that.” She paused and, to Joanna’s relief, took a tentative sip of the latte. “My father is Lawrence Tazewell-Judge Lawrence Tazewell of the Arizona Supreme Court. He lives in Phoenix with his second wife, Sharon. My mother’s last name is Houlihan,” she continued. “She took her maiden name back after the divorce, and she’s never remarried. Rory and I live with my mother on the ranch that originally belonged to her family over at the base of the Whetstones. We live in one house and Mother lives in another. She used to raise quarter horses, but she doesn’t do that anymore.”
“Used to?” Joanna asked.
Leslie nodded. “She hasn’t been well for several years now- one of those degenerative things. When it got to be too much for her, we sold off most of the livestock.”
“What’s your date of birth?” Joanna asked.
“Why?” Leslie returned.
“Humor me,” Joanna said.
Leslie sighed. “All right. October twenty-eighth, 1978. Actually, it’s a fun story.”
Joanna felt a quickening of excitement. Leslie’s birth date fit. October 28 was the day before Bradley Evans had been arrested. Anna Marie had told them Lisa Evans had been due on November 15, but if the baby had been born two weeks early, no one might have noticed.
“What kind of story?” Joanna asked.
“More like a family legend,” Leslie conceded. “And, of course, everything I’m telling you is secondhand. The first time I heard it, I was just a kid and I thought it was incredibly embarrassing. Now it seems pretty amazing. Anyway, my father was away the week my mother was due to give birth. He was somewhere out of state at a conference for judges, and my mother was out on the ranch. My grandfather had remodeled the old bunkhouse for them to live in. As a matter of fact, that’s the same house where Rory and I live now.
“Anyway, Mother went into labor so hard and fast that there wasn’t time enough to get her to the hospital. Fortunately, Grandma Ruth was there to help. She always said it was a real pioneering experience. They boiled water and everything. She used a kitchen shears to cut the umbilical cord. After I was born, they packed Mother and me off to the hospital in Sierra Vista to be checked out. By the time my father came home from his conference, we were both back home safe and sound.”
Of course, Joanna thought. It’s much more difficult to pull a baby switcheroo if you’re in a hospital setting.
Joanna had come to the office with every intention of pulling out the damning photographs and trying to get some straight answers, but clearly Leslie was an innocent bystander here. She didn’t deserve to be asked the tough questions. Aileen Houlihan was another matter.
“Did your mother ever mention a friend or acquaintance named Lisa?” Joanna asked. “Lisa Marie Evans?”
Leslie shook her head. “Not that I remember. Who’s she?”
“She was married to Bradley Evans, the man who took the photographs of you.”
“I remember now,” Leslie said. “You told us about her yesterday. You said Evans went to prison for murdering her-for murdering his wife.”