For a moment Joanna considered offering Susan Jenkins the benefit of some of her own hard-won experience. In her old life, that’s precisely what she would have done. But now she was a cop-a detective-and it was her job and responsibility to ask questions. Counseling could wait.
“How much money’s at stake?” she asked.
“Quite a bit,” Susan returned. “It’s not liquid. It’s mostly in real estate. Daddy was always a great one for buying up property. There was a time in the early fifties when most of Tombstone was up for grabs. In those days, he and Mother worked like crazy to hang on to what they’d bought. Now, though, all the mortgages are mostly paid off and the rents keep going up. Consequently, Mother’s been growing what should be a healthy little nest egg, from her rental income alone. There’d be more than that if she hadn’t been such a soft touch where Clete was concerned.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who do you think Clete’s landlord is? And not just for his restaurant, either. He was supposedly paying Mother rent on the house he lives in, too, but he hasn’t paid a dime. Mother should have evicted him years ago. That’s one blessing anyway. At least I won’t have to listen to that anymore-to Mother telling me how I have to make allowances for poor, sickly little Clete.”
“So your mother had a fair amount of property in Tombstone,” Joanna observed. “What about the mine at Outlaw Mountain -the claim Farley Adams was supposedly working. What kind of a mine is it?”
“Turquoise, mostly,” Susan replied. “Dad picked it up ago for back taxes. That was sometime in the forties, I think. For years he clinked around with it, working a vein of high-grade turquoise. He had some Indians he sold to-silversmiths up on the Navajo Reservation. I guess after Farley Adams went to work for her, Mother went back to selling to craftsmen on the various reservations. There never has been a whole lot of money in it, but I think Mother got a kick out of being a captain of industry.”
“Let’s go back to Saturday night,” Joanna said. “You told me two of you had a big fight about Farley Adams. Then happened?”
“She left. She told me I should mind my own business and she left.”
“What time was that?”
“I don’t know. Eight or eight-thirty. Maybe later.”
“Was she drunk when she left your house?” Joanna asked.
“Well, we’d all had a few drinks before dinner and wine with, but she didn’t seem drunk, not to me.”
“How do you think she got here? Houghton Road is a long way from Tombstone.”
Susan shook her head. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“What did you do after she left?”
Suddenly Susan looked wary. “Why are you asking that? You don’t think I had anything to do with what happened?”
“It’s a routine question, Mrs. Jenkins. We’ll be asking everyone.”
“I went to bed.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anyone who can verify that?”
“No. My husband had an appointment of some kind.”
“An appointment Saturday night?”
“Yes.”
“With whom?” Joanna asked.
“I’m not sure. He must have told me, but you’ll have to ask him. Tyler, my stepson, never liked being around my mother much. He was out, too, with some of his friends.”
“My detectives will need to verify where they were and who they were with.”
“I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”
“What time did your husband come home?”
“I have no idea. As I told you, I went to sleep. But Sunday morning when I woke up, the more I thought about what was going on, the madder I got. That’s when I went to see Clete. He’s a pretty useless human being, and I don’t like him much, but I didn’t want to see either one of us cheated out of what our father and mother had built up. It just didn’t make sense to hand something like that over to some gold-digging outsider.”
“After you left your brother’s restaurant, where did you go?”
“To my mother’s first. When she wasn’t there I went to Farley Adams’ place on Outlaw Mountain.”
“What happened?”
“I gave that worthless son of a bitch a piece of my mind. I told him I knew what he was up to and that I’d figure out some way so he wouldn’t get a dime.”
“And what did he say?”
“What do you think? He told me that he loved her, that he wasn’t after her money. Do you know what he did then? Laughed in my face. Told me that Mother would never give him up. That was a lie, of course. He must have known then that she was already dead. He told me to leave, to get out. He treated me like I was some kind of interloper on my own mother’s property. Acted like he already owned the place. I was dumbfounded! I guess things got a little bit out of hand about then. I do have a bit of a temper, you know,” Susan added ruefully.
A bit of a temper, Joanna thought. She did indeed know. It was such a gross understatement that Joanna had to struggle to keep from laughing aloud.
“You attacked him?” she asked.
“Well, I would have, but he went inside and locked the door. Then he called nine-one-one. That’s when the deputy showed up-the same one who was at Clete’s restaurant earlier that day.”
“Frank Montoya,” Joanna supplied.
“Right. Well, he came out to Gleeson. It was while he was talking to me that I finally realized what had probably happened, that my mother was already dead. I was upset, I guess. Deputy Montoya called my husband to come drive me home.”
Joanna thought about that. She was looking for motivation, and what Susan Jenkins was telling her didn’t quite add up. “If, as you believe, Farley Adams killed your mother or had her killed in hopes of inheriting her estate, how would he do that?”
Susan looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Do you think they were already married?”
“In secret, you mean?” Susan asked, incredulously. “Why, that’s crazy! Who would do something like that?”
Joanna knew several people-herself and Andy included-who had done that very thing, but there was no sense in saying that to Susan Jenkins. “Supposing he and your mother were already married. If she died, as her surviving husband he could go against an earlier will and inherit at least the spouse’s share of her estate. Or maybe she had already rewritten her will and put him in it. That way he could inherit regardless of whether or not they had gotten around to tying the knot. Without one of those two options, Farley Adams doesn’t have an obvious motive.”
“I remember Mother did go on a road trip a few weeks ago. She said she drove up to Laughlin, Nevada, for the weekend. Until Saturday, I was under the impression that she went by herself. It turns out I was wrong,” Susan added bitterly.
Thinking about her mother and George Winfield, Joanna knew very well what else might have gone on in Laughlin, Nevada. “Those things do happen,” she said. “But what about a will? Did your mother have an attorney?”
Susan nodded. “Her name is Dena Hogan. She’s a friend of mine with an office out in Sierra Vista. A few years ago Mother went to one of those living-trust seminars and she got all riled up about the high cost of estate taxes. She asked me if I could recommend a good attorney, and Dena was the only one I knew. I gave Mother the phone number and Dena’s the one she called.”