“How did your husband react when you told him that?” Joanna asked.
“He was fine. At least I thought he was fine, but then last week, he was all upset again. He couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. I asked him what was bothering him, but he’s a man. He told me nothing was bothering him and that I should leave him alone, so I did.”
“It sounds as though you and your husband have lived and worked here on the Triple H for a very long time,” Joanna ventured.
Dolores nodded. “The whole time we’ve been together,” she answered. “Joaquin was working here when we first got married. He wasn’t the foreman then, just a hand. He wasn’t even legal. When Leslie was about to be born and they wanted someone to help out, Joaquin suggested that I go to work for them. I’ve been working for the Houlihans ever since. I took care of the house and looked after Leslie when she was a baby. Then when first Senora Ruth and later Senora Aileen got sick, I took care of them as well, and I pray every day that the same thing won’t happen to Leslie.”
“You mean Huntington’s disease?” Joanna asked.
“It’s a terrible thing, that disease,” Dolores replied. “It’s something that passes from one generation to another, from parent to child. I would not want to live and die that way. Now that I’ve seen what’s happening with Aileen, I can see why her mother did what she did.”
“Have you ever noticed that Leslie doesn’t look very much like her mother?” Joanna asked.
“Yes,” Dolores said. “I always thought maybe she took after her father’s side of the family. Mr. Tazewell left soon after Leslie was born, though. I never knew very much about him.”
“What if I told you that perhaps Aileen Houlihan isn’t Leslie Markham’s mother?”
“It wouldn’t be true,” Dolores Mattias declared. “Couldn’t be true. She had the baby here at the ranch. Joaquin told me all about it-how Senora Ruth took Aileen and the baby to the hospital after Leslie was born.”
“You’re sure Aileen Houlihan was pregnant?” Joanna asked.
“Of course I’m sure.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I came to the ranch with Joaquin one day and saw her,” Dolores retorted. “I knew Aileen was pregnant with Leslie the same way I know you’re pregnant-just by looking.”
“Didn’t you think it was odd that Leslie was born at home?” Joanna asked.
“Senora Ruth said the baby came too fast, that there wasn’t time enough to get to the hospital. They were up at the other house-at the house where Leslie and Mr. Markham live now. But Senora Ruth was a nurse, you know. She was able to take care of things just fine.”
“Having a baby can be very messy work,” Joanna said. “Who cleaned up the mess afterward? Did you ever wonder about that?”
Dolores shook her head. “No. I told you, Senora Ruth was a nurse. She took care of it all-Aileen, Leslie, and everything.”
Frank Montoya’s “older and wiser” comment was still fresh in Joanna’s ears, so she didn’t glance in her chief deputy’s direction as she opened her briefcase and pulled out the envelope containing the photos. She removed the high school graduation picture of Lisa Marie Evans and passed it over to Dolores. She looked at it for a moment through squinted eyes, then she located a pair of reading glasses under the top of her dress.
Dolores Mattias examined the picture for a very long time, then handed it back. “She does look like Leslie. And I’ve seen that picture before,” she said quietly.
Joanna felt her heart quicken. “When?” she asked.
“When that man came to the house.”
“What man?” Joanna asked. “And which house are you talking about? This one?”
“No, to Senora Aileen’s house. I was there. It was late in the afternoon some day the week before last, maybe Wednesday or Thursday. A man drove up to the house in a red pickup truck.
When he knocked on the door, I thought maybe he was one of those missionaries that are always coming around, but he wasn’t a missionary at all. Instead, it was some crazy man who came storming up onto the porch and started pounding on the door. I was getting ready to give Aileen her bath. When I came to the door, the man told me he was there to see his wife, Lisa somebody. I don’t remember the last name. He said he wanted to talk to her.
“I told him he was mistaken-that the only person living there was named Aileen Houlihan and that she was very ill, too ill to see anyone. Then he said, ”Is she Leslie Markham’s mother?“ I said, yes, of course she was. At that point he pulled out this picture-maybe not this exact one, but one just like it. He waved it at me and said, ”Isn’t this Aileen?“ And I told him no, it wasn’t. Not even close. Then he just went nuts. He pounded his fist on one of the posts so hard that it made the whole porch shake. It scared me to death. I was afraid he was going to force his way into the house no matter what I said. I don’t know what would have happened if Mr. Markham hadn’t driven up right then. He had come to deliver a prescription he had picked up in town. He came up on the porch and asked what was going on. I told him. He said I should go inside and that he’d handle it. And he did.”
“What do you mean, he handled it?” Joanna asked.
“I don’t know exactly. I went back inside to take care of Aileen. When I came back out, the man was gone along with his truck. So was Mr. Markham.”
Once again Joanna reached into the envelope. This time she pulled out the enlargement of Bradley Evans’s ID photo. “Is this the man who came to the door?”
Using her reading glasses again, Dolores Mattias studied the photo. “Yes,” she said finally. “This is the man from the porch. Who is he?”
“His name is Bradley Evans,” Joanna said. “He’s the man we told you about when we first got here, the man who was murdered. His body was found on Friday morning out near Paul’s Spur. A few days later his pickup was found with a For Sale sign on it in a vacant lot in Huachuca City. The truck was red at one time, Mrs. Mattias, but it had been painted over with gray primer.”
Dolores Mattias sucked in her breath. “And so, because I bought primer, you think I had something to do with this?” she demanded. “Or that my husband did? You tricked me into talking to you, Sheriff Brady. I think you should leave now.” Then suddenly she stopped speaking. After a long pause, her face seemed to collapse on itself as she reached some appalling conclusion.
“No,” she said.
“No what?” Joanna asked.
“Joaquin is involved, isn’t he!”
“Why would you say that?”
“He must be. That’s why he was so upset this morning when he dropped me off. When we drove up and he saw the cop car there in front of the house, he almost drove right past. When I asked him what he was doing, he said…”
Sobbing uncontrollably now and too overcome to continue, Dolores Mattias paused again.
“What did he say?”
“It wasn’t just what he said. It was how he looked. His face went pale; his hands shook. I was afraid he might be having a heart attack or something. I asked him if he was okay and he said, ”No matter what happens, I love you.“ I thought it was odd- strange even. Joaquin isn’t sentimental. My husband says he loves me sometimes-on my birthday or our anniversary or on Valentine’s Day, but not out of the blue like that, for no reason. He was really telling me good-bye, wasn’t he! Joaquin saw the cops were there and he was afraid because he was involved in whatever happened to that man. What if Joaquin’s dead now, too?”
“Please, Mrs. Mattias,” Joanna said. “You mustn’t jump to conclusions. Your husband is probably fine. He’s just gone off somewhere and we have to find him, that’s all. But what makes you think Joaquin may be involved?”
“He was gone Thursday night,” Dolores admitted softly.
“What do you mean, gone?” Joanna asked.
“I mean, he left the house. He was away for several hours- for most of the night. We turned off the TV after the news and went to bed. He waited for a long time-until after he thought I was asleep, then he got up and snuck out of the room. The next thing I heard was him driving out of the yard. He didn’t come back until almost sunup. I was still awake, but I kept my eyes shut when he came in. He snuck back into bed and pretended to be asleep when I got up a little while later.”