J. Jance - Judgment Call

“She’s doing a fine job of it, too,” Jeff Daniels added.

Their waitress came by, checking to see if any additional tacos were needed. Fortunately all three of the kids had reached their taco limit. By the time they were done with their single servings of ice cream, Joanna had gobbled down half of her chimichanga and had the rest of it boxed up to take back to the office.

“In other words,” Butch said, when she stood up to leave, doggie bag in hand, “we shouldn’t be surprised if you’re late for dinner.”

On a day that had started out with a homicide investigation, that was a good guess. Joanna was grateful that he didn’t say anything more than that, something that might have turned their private discussion into fodder for the local gossip mills, which were already operating at full capacity.

She leaned down and gave him a kiss, picking up the collection of checks on the table as she did so and making the move before either Jeff Daniels or Jim Bob could object.

“See you when you get home,” Butch said. “Are you going to stop by the clinic to see Jenny?”

Joanna nodded.

“Don’t be too hard on her,” Butch said. “Whatever it is, she probably didn’t do it on purpose.”

IT TOOKa while to exit the restaurant. Joanna was leaving at the same time the thirty diners from the back room were paying for their lunches, separate checks all around. A man in his sixties, dressed in a red flannel shirt topped by a brown vest, seemed to be in charge. He hustled around trying to hurry the process.

Eva Lou was a willing worker, but that kind of crush was more than she could handle. Eventually Daisy herself had to emerge from the kitchen and take charge of the cash register.

Most of the participants seemed to be much the same age as their leader, fifties to sixties or even older. They were all chatting away, discussing their plans for the afternoon and evening. One of them who seemed to be several decades younger than his fellows gave Joanna a sidelong look through a pair of fashionable wire-framed glasses.

She had been on the receiving end of looks like that numerous times. Usually the look was followed by a rude comment that had something to do with the unlikelihood of women being qualified to serve as sheriffs. She often responded to those folks with a flip comment about getting her badge out of a Cracker Jack box and her uniform from a costume shop. This time, before she had a chance to say a word, he nodded at her and smiled.

“Nice hair,” he said. The man was the last customer in the Plein Air line. He had short reddish hair and a matching well-trimmed beard. His unexpected compliment took Joanna by surprise, and she found herself blushing.

“Thanks,” she said. “Yours isn’t bad, either.”

“Yes,” he agreed with a grin. “Redheads rule.”

He left then, allowing Joanna to step forward with her several checks in hand.

“How was your lunch?” Daisy asked.

“Better than the rest of my morning,” Joanna said. “It sounds like yours wasn’t all smooth sailing, either.”

“I’ve been happy to have the extra business this week,” Daisy said, “but I think that’s what pushed Junior over the edge. He’s used to all the regulars, but couldn’t handle so many strangers.”

“He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” Joanna asked.

Daisy shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. His doctor says he believes it’s early-onset Alzheimer’s. It’s not that unusual in cases like Junior’s.”

Daisy’s eyes filled with sudden tears as she punched the numbers into the register. Joanna wanted to offer some kind of comfort, but as two additional customers stepped into line behind her, she kept quiet rather than risk upsetting Daisy even more.

Back in her dust-covered Yukon, Joanna put the vehicle in gear, backed out of the parking lot, and headed for Dr. Millicent Ross’s veterinary clinic in Bisbee’s Saginaw neighborhood.

In the early fifties, before the opening of Lavender Pit, clusters of frame houses that had dotted the hillsides and canyons of Upper Lowell, Lower Bisbee, and Jiggerville had stood in the way. One at a time, the houses were pried off their foundations, loaded onto axles, and then trucked through town, where they were attached to new foundations that had been dug on lots that had formerly been company-owned land in neighborhoods that would ultimately come to be known as Bakerville and Saginaw.

As far as Joanna was concerned, this was all ancient history—almost as lost on her as the fact that townspeople in Bisbee had once sheltered in mines when Apaches had threatened to ride through town causing trouble. Joanna remembered seeing photos of the houses being moved, but that was all. By now, those houses had been in place on their “new” lots long enough that mature trees and bushes had grown up around them.

On arriving in town Dr. Millicent Ross had bought two adjoining houses in a part of Saginaw that fronted on the highway. She lived in one with her partner, Jeannine Philips, who was head of Joanna’s Animal Control unit. The other housed Millicent’s veterinary clinic as well as a pet boarding and day-care facility. Jenny worked at the boarding area—feeding and walking animals who were either recuperating from procedures or being boarded. Her shifts ran for two hours a day after school, for several hours on Fridays, and sometimes on weekends as well, if working didn’t conflict with a scheduled rodeo. Jenny’s work for the clinic was ostensibly done on a volunteer basis, but Dr. Ross had assured her that once Jenny was ready to go off to college and vet school, there would be a college fund awaiting her in exchange for her hours of work.

Joanna and Butch had regarded this unorthodox arrangement as a win-win situation all the way around. Through her own efforts, Jenny was making a very real down payment on her college education, and she was far too busy with work and school to get into any trouble. Up to now, that is.

Joanna pulled into the small parking lot in front of the clinic. A chain-link fence surrounded a yard between the clinic and Dr. Ross’s home. Through the chain-link mesh, Joanna could see Jenny walking a placid pit bull who seemed totally unconcerned about the plastic surgical cone fastened around his broad neck. Joanna used a self-locking gate to let herself into the tree-shaded yard. Only up close did she see the straight line of stitches going down the dog’s right rear leg.

“Hi, Mom,” Jenny said. “This is Prince. He got out of his yard and got hit by a car. Dr. Ross had to install rods and pins in his leg to put it back together. He’s really doing good.”

“He’s doing well.” Joanna corrected her daughter’s grammar automatically. “I’m glad to hear that, but it’s not why I’m here. You’re in trouble, young lady.”

Jenny frowned. “I am?”

“Yes, you certainly are.”

“How come?”

“Because you took an unauthorized photo of Ms. Highsmith this morning before I got to the crime scene. What did you use, your cell phone?”

Jenny nodded, her blue eyes wide. “I did,” she replied, “but I only sent it to Cassie.”

Cassie Parks, Jenny’s best friend, lived in a decommissioned KOA campground near Double Adobe that her parents had turned into a mobile-home park.

“She may be the only person you sent it to, but Cassie must have passed it along to someone else. Now it’s all over the Internet. Someone, one of the students from the high school, has even posted it on her Facebook page. I saw that one with my own eyes. Because of the photo Marliss Shackleford is threatening to write an article identifying the homicide victim without bothering to wait for a next-of-kin notification, something my detectives have not yet been able to accomplish.”