“Did you see a vehicle, perhaps?” Jaime asked. “Maybe there was one parked somewhere along the road.”
“No,” Jenny said. “There wasn’t, at least not that I saw.”
Next to Joanna, Ernie Carpenter stirred, like a great bear waking from a long winter’s sleep. His thick black brows knit together into a frown. “You said a minute ago that Dora Matthews wasn’t nice. What did you mean by that, Jenny? Did she cuss, for instance, or beat people up?”
This time, instead of pouting, Jenny bit her lip before answering. Lowering her eyes, she shook her head.
“By shaking your head, you mean she didn’t do those things, or do you mean you don’t want to answer?” Ernie prodded.
Jenny looked beseechingly at her mother. “Morn, do I have to answer?”
Joanna nodded and said nothing. Jenny turned back to Ernie and squared her shoulders. “Dora told lies,” she declared. “About what?”
Jenny squirmed in her seat. “About stuff,” she said.
“What stuff?” he asked.
“She said she had a boyfriend and that they like . . . you know.” Jenny ducked her head. A curtain of blond hair fell across her face, shielding her blue eyes from her mother’s gaze. “She said that they did it,” Jenny finished lamely.
“You’re saying that Dora and her boyfriend had sex?” Ernie asked.
“‘That’s what Dora said,” Jenny replied. “She said they did and that he wanted to marry her, but how could he? She was only thirteen. Isn’t that against the law or something?”
“Dora wasn’t lying, Jenny,” Jaime Carbajal said softly. “Maybe the part about getting married was a lie, but Dora Matthews did have a boyfriend and they were having sex. And that is against the law. Even if Dora was a willing participant, having sex with a juvenile is called statutory rape.” He paused. “What would you think if I told you Dora Matthews was pregnant when she died?” he asked a moment later.
Jenny’s eyes widened in disbelief. She turned to her mother for confirmation. Again Joanna nodded. “It’s true,” she said.
“So what I’m asking you now is this,” Jaime continued quietly. “Do you have any idea who the father of Dora’s baby might he?”
To Joanna’s amazement, Jenny nodded. “Yes,” she said at once. “His name is Chris.”
“Chris what?” Jaime asked.
“I don’t know his last name. Dora never told me. Just Chris. I tried to tell her not to do it, but Dora went ahead and called him—called Chris—from our house.”
“When was that?”
“Friday night, after Mrs. Lambert sent us home from the camp out. It was while we were at home and when Grandpa and Grandma Brady were taking care of us. Dora called Chris that night, after the Gs fell asleep. Then, the next morning, Chris called her back. I was afraid Grandma would pick up the phone iii the other room and hear them talking. I knew she’d be mad about it if she did, but she must have been outside with Grandpa. I don’t think she even heard the phone ring.”
“What time was that?” Jaime asked.
“I don’t know,” Jenny replied with a shrug. “Sometime Saturday morning, I guess.”
“Could it have been about ten-fifteen?” Joanna blurted out the question despite having given herself strict orders to keep silent. Jenny looked quizzically in her mother’s direction. So did the two detectives.
“It may have been right around then,” Jenny said. “But I don’t know for sure.”
“I do,” Joanna said. “And I would guess that Chris’s last name will turn out to be Bernard,” she added, addressing the two detectives. “That name and a Tucson phone number showed up on our caller ID last night when I got home. Since neither Butch nor I know anyone by that name, I thought it had to be someone Jim Bob or Eva Lou Brady knew. Now I’m guessing it must have been Chris calling Dora.”
Jaime swung his attention from Joanna back to Jenny. “Did you happen to overhear any of that conversation?”
“A little,” Jenny admitted. “But not that much. Part of the time I was out of the room.”
“What was said?”
“Chris was supposed to come get her.”
“When?”
“That night,” Jenny murmured. “Saturday night. She said she’d be back at her own house by then, and that he should come by there—by her house up in Old Bisbee to pick her up. She gave him the address and everything. She told me later that they were going to run away and live together. She said Chris told her that in Mexico thirteen was old enough to get married.”
“Did you mention any of this to your grandparents?”
Jenny shook her head. “No,” she said softly.
“Why not?”
Jenny looked at Joanna with an expression on her face that begged for understanding. “Because I didn’t want to be a tattletale,” she said at last. “The other kids all think that just because my mother is sheriff that I’m some kind of a goody-goody freak or perfect or something. But I’m not. I’m just a regular kid like everyone else.”
For Joanna Brady it was like seeing her own life in instant replay, a return to her own teenage years, when, with a father who was first sheriff and then dead, she too had struggled desperately to fit in. To be a regular kid. To be normal. It distressed her to think Jenny was having to wrestle the same demons. As a mother she may have been wrong about a lot of things, but she had called that shot—from the cigarettes on to this: Jenny’s stubborn determination to keep her mouth shut and not be a squealer.
“I see,” Jaime Carbajal said. “You already said you didn’t know Dora was pregnant. Do you think Chris knew?”
Jenny shrugged. “Maybe,” she said.
“What kind of arrangement was made for hint to route get her?”
“I don’t know that exactly, either. Like I said, I heard Dora give him her address and directions so he could get here. She said she’d sneak out to meet him just like she used to do up in Tucson. She said her mother wouldn’t even notice she was gone. But then Grandma Lathrop called CPS. The next thing I knew, that awful woman was there at the house to take Dora away, and all the while Dora was yelling, ‘No, no, no. I don’t want to go. Don’t make me go!’ “
Jenny paused then. A pair of fat tears dribbled down her cheeks and dripped onto the surface of the table. “I should have told, shouldn’t I? If I had, would it have made any difference or would Dora still he dead anyway?”
Joanna wanted to jump up, rush around the table, take Jenny in her arms and comfort her. She wanted to tell Ernie and Jaime, “Enough! No more questions.” But she didn’t. Even though it killed her to do so, she sat still and kept her mouth shut. It was Detective Carbajal who reached over and laid a comforting hand on Jenny’s trembling shoulder.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” he said gruffly. “Child Protective Services took Dora Matthews into their custody. They’re the ones who were ultimately responsible for safeguarding her once she left your grandparents’ care.”
There was a knock on the door. Ernie lumbered up from his chair. “I’ll tell whoever it is to get lost,” he said.
Just then the door opened. Kristin poked her head inside and beckoned to Joanna. “I have a phone call for you, Sheriff Brady,” she said. “It’s urgent.”
Joanna looked at Jenny. “Will you be all right? I can ask Detectives Carpenter and Carbajal to not ask any more questions until I get back.”
Jenny shook her head. “It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t mind.”
Joanna followed Kristin into the lobby. “Who is it?” she asked. “Burton Kimball,” Kristin replied.
Burton Kimball was Bisbee’s premier attorney. He did a fair amount of local defense work. He had also handled Clayton Rhodes’s will, the one in which Joanna’s former handyman had left his neighboring ranch to Joanna and Butch. Surely there was no lingering problem from that transaction that necessitated Joanna’s being yanked from Jenny’s interview.