J. Jance - Outlaw Mountain

“No,” Joanna said kindly. “It’s probably better if you don’t see your mother right now. As I told Clete earlier, that kind of ID is usually done after the body has been transported to the morgue. Speaking of your brother, is that where he went?”

Susan shook her head. “I don’t know. He didn’t say a word to me. He just drove off in his pickup truck.”

Joanna turned to Sergeant Mallory. “Did Mr. Rogers tell you where he was going?” she asked.

“He said he wasn’t feeling well and that he was going home.”

“Typical,” Susan said, with a trace of anger leaking back into her voice. “Clete always talks a good game, but when it’s crunch time or when there’s some kind of real crisis, looking for him to do anything useful is like leaning on a bent reed. I can understand his not having guts enough to do something about Mother and Farley Adams, but if Clete had bothered to mention the situation to me, I’ll bet I could have.”

Joanna was tempted to put a stop to that whole line of reasoning, to tell Susan Jenkins that there was nothing either she or her brother could have done to keep Alice Rogers from tangling with a gang of car thieves. That would have been the kind thing to do. But in the back of her mind, Joanna kept thinking about her phone call from Dick Voland-the one telling her that it looked as though Farley Adams had packed his gear and left Outlaw Mountain.

“Tell me what you know about your mother’s boyfriend,” Joanna said. “Had you ever met him?”

“Sure,” Susan said. “He started out about a year ago doing yard work for her-trimming and pruning, mowing the lawn, raking, hauling out some of the old dead century plants. I didn’t actually meet him until he was building the wall. Mother had always dreamed of having a wall around her place-one of those six-foot-high stucco affairs that looks like it came off a Spanish hacienda. She was thrilled when she finally found someone who could do the work for her. When the wall was finished, I expected Farley to move along. The next thing I knew, she had booted her previous renters out of the mobile home on Outlaw Mountain so Farley Adams could live there and work her claim. Even then, I didn’t worry about it. I thought it was strictly a business arrangement.

“But Saturday night, she told me what was really going on-that the two of them were in love and getting married. Mother and I had a big fight about it. A huge fight. I told her she was crazy, that the man was just after her money. After all, Farley’s at least twenty years younger-closer to my age than hers. What else could it be?”

What else indeed? Joanna thought. She couldn’t help empathizing with Susan Jenkins in that moment. After all, Joanna Brady had felt exactly the same kind of shocked disbelief about her own mother and George Winfield when the medical examiner had finally worked up the courage to tell her that he and Eleanor Lathrop had eloped. Joanna had been so stunned at the time that she had almost driven off the road. And ever since, even though she liked George-even though she could see that the marriage between Eleanor Lathrop and George Winfield was clearly a love match-there was a small hard corner of Joanna’s heart that couldn’t quite forgive the love birds for their sneaky, underhanded maneuvering.

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.