Judgment Call. J. A. Jance
the premises, she had launched a physical attack against them and had been hauled off to jail in a Cochise County patrol car.
Hours later, Philippa Brinson had been found safe. Confined to a chair in her room, she had managed to use nail clippers to cut away her restraints. Out on the highway, she had hitched a ride into Bisbee and had made her way to the old high school building. To her way of thinking, she had been on her way to work in her old office, a place from which she had retired some thirty-five years earlier. After that misadventure, she was placed in the care of a niece and had gone off to a different facility—hopefully a better one—in Phoenix, while Joanna’s department had been left to clean up the mess revealed by Philippa’s brief disappearance.
Alma DeLong, arrogant and utterly unrepentant, had brought in high-powered attorneys to fight all the charges lodged against her. For years, Joanna had held a fairly low opinion of Arlee Jones, the local “good old boy” county attorney, and that antipathy went both ways. The county attorney didn’t approve of Joanna any more than she approved of him. Arlee was a political animal—well connected, smart, and lazy. Everyone knew that whenever possible, he preferred plea bargains to the work of actually going to trial.
When Arlee had offered Alma a plea bargain on a single count of negligent homicide that would have resulted in less than four years of jail time, Joanna hadn’t been happy, but Alma had turned that option down cold, choosing instead to take her chances with a judge and jury. Annoyed and galvanized, Arlee Jones had gone after Alma DeLong with a vengeance, charging the woman with three counts of second-degree homicide, which in terms of seriousness was two whole steps up the felony ladder from negligent homicide. DeLong was also charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
After more than a year of legal maneuvering and stalling on the defense’s part, the case had finally come to trial. Because Joanna had been a part of that initial investigation, she had been called to testify. She had spent a day and a half on the stand being grilled first by Arlee and later by Alma’s defense attorney. Now, a full day after beginning their deliberations, the jury was finally back.
Because Alma was a well-known Tucson-area businesswoman, the trial had attracted a good deal of media attention. Rather than throw Tom Hadlock up against what was likely to be a mob of reporters, Joanna ducked into the restroom long enough to check her hair and lipstick before leaving the office and walking across the breezeway to Judge Cameron Moore’s courtroom.
Once inside, Joanna slipped into an empty seat next to Bobby Fletcher. His mother, Inez, was one of the Caring Friends patients who had died. Bobby’s sister, Candace, had been more interested in winning a financial settlement than anything else. She had been notably absent throughout the criminal trial. Bobby, on the other hand, had been in the courtroom every single day, observing the testimony with avid interest. Bobby was a man with plenty of deficits in terms of social skills and education, and some criminal convictions of his own. When he had finally straightened up, Inez had taken him in and been his unwavering refuge. A guilty verdict wouldn’t bring his mother back from the grave, but it would go a long way toward giving her grieving son a measure of justice.
As the jury filed into the courtroom, Bobby said nothing. Looking for reassurance, he reached out and took Joanna’s hand.
“Madam Forewoman,” Judge Moore intoned. “Have you reached a verdict?”
“We have, Your Honor.”
The piece of paper was passed to the judge. While the judge perused it, the defendant, flanked by her attorneys, rose to her feet.
“How do you find?”
“On the first count of homicide in the second degree, we find the defendant guilty.”
Bobby Fletcher shuddered and covered his face with his hands, sobbing silently as the jury forewoman continued: “On the second count of homicide in the second degree, we find the defendant guilty. On the third count of homicide in the second degree, we find the defendant guilty. On the charge of assaulting an officer of the law, we find the defendant innocent. On the charge of resisting arrest, we find the defendant guilty.”
The last two struck Joanna as incomprehensible hairsplitting. How could someone be innocent of physically assaulting an officer—something Joanna had witnessed with her own eyes—and at the same time be guilty of resisting arrest? But Bobby Fletcher had heard the single word he needed to hear. Alma DeLong was guilty of killing his mother. She had been free on bail. Now, once the judge granted the prosecutor’s request to rescind her bail, a deputy stepped forward to lead her across the parking lot to the county jail, where she would be held while awaiting sentencing.
Walking side by side, Joanna and Bobby Fletcher moved to the courtroom door, where Bobby came to a sudden stop. “I want to wait here and talk to Mr. Jones,” Bobby said. “I want to thank him.”
Not eager to face the media throng that was no doubt assembled outside, Joanna waited, too, but she was also amazed. Bobby had spent huge chunks of his adult life as a prison inmate. The idea of his having a cordial conversation with any prosecutor on the planet was pretty much unthinkable. But then, to Joanna’s astonishment, when Arlee Jones appeared, she found herself in for an even bigger shock. The county attorney approached Bobby Fletcher with his hand outstretched and a broad smile on his face.
“We got her,” the county attorney gloated, pumping Bobby’s hand with congratulatory enthusiasm. “We still have the sentencing process to get through, but one way or another, Alma DeLong is going to jail, starting today. Her bail may yet be reinstated, pending an appeal, but for now she’s a guest in your establishment, Sheriff Brady. Unfortunately, the accommodations there will be somewhat better than what her victims experienced at Caring Friends.”
“Thank you, sir,” Bobby Fletcher said.
“You’re welcome, Mr. Fletcher,” Arlee replied. “I’m not sure I ever mentioned this, but back when I was a kid, I used to deliver newspapers to your folks’ place over on Black Knob. Even when times were tough, your mom always made sure I got a tip when I came around collecting. Depending on whether it was winter or summer, she also offered me either hot chocolate or iced tea. Inez Fletcher was a good woman. Sending her killer to jail is the least I can do.”
The unguarded sincerity in that statement caused Arlee Jones to move up several notches in Joanna’s estimation. She usually dismissed Jones as being a pompous ass in a mostly empty suit. Now she momentarily reconsidered that opinion. And that was the thing that Alma DeLong hadn’t realized, either. Bisbee was a small town. The invisible spiderweb of connections running from one person and one family to the next was another reason Arlee Jones had tackled this case with unaccustomed zeal.
“So are you ready to talk to some reporters?” Jones asked.
“Who, me?” Bobby asked. A look of dismay spread across his face. “Are you kidding?”
“Yes, you,” Arlee said, placing a guiding hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “And I’m not kidding. As far as the people following this trial are concerned, you’re the living face of the victims. You’re the stand-in for every family that ever made the mistake of placing a loved one in a Caring Friends facility. You and the other families did so expecting that their father or mother or grandmother would be well cared for, even though we know now that that wasn’t the case.
“Having you speak to reporters tonight serves two purposes. It shows families that they can’t just drop their loved ones off at one of these places and then not monitor what goes on once the doors slam shut. They have to be vigilant. And it also serves to show people like Alma DeLong that if they deliver inadequate care, there will be consequences. Can you do that?”
“All right,” Bobby said uncertainly. “I guess.”
Witnessing this, Joanna felt her approval needle on Arlee Jones dip back down a bit. No doubt the man would make plenty of political hay from this incident. Having Bobby standing beside him during the press conference would provide a compelling segment on the evening news, and it would probably allow him to bank any number of sound bites that would work well the next time Arlee had to stand for election.
Joanna