Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [16]
“Thank you,” Edith said. “Thanks so much. That’ll be one less thing for me to worry about anyway.”
“Would you be considered her next of kin, then?” Joanna asked, after jotting down the information. “Is there anyone else who should be notified—parents, perhaps? Brothers or sisters?”
“Carol’s mother is dead,” Edith said curtly.
“And her father?” Joanna prodded.
“I can’t tell you for sure if my son is dead or alive,” Edith Mossman said. “If Edward is still alive, I have no idea where to find the son of a bitch. And I’ll tell you this. If he is dead, I’d be first in line to piss on his grave.”
The utter fury in Edith Mossman’s voice when she spoke of her son took Joanna’s breath away. She considered asking more about him but changed her mind, contenting herself, instead, to making a note of Edith’s reaction in her notebook.
“What about siblings?” Joanna asked.
“Three sisters,” Edith answered. “You maybe know Stella Adams. She and her family live in Bisbee. Down in Warren, actually, at the far end of Arizona Street. Andrea lives in Tucson. She’s not married. She works at the U of A as a secretary in the chemistry Department. Kelly is still in Mexico, down in Obregón. I doubt you’ll be able to get in touch with her there. I’m not even sure if she has a phone, and she most likely won’t be coming home for the funeral.”
“In other words, she and Carol weren’t close.”
The rheumy eyes Edith Mossman turned on Joanna were filled with a terrible sadness. “Yes,” she said. “I guess you can say Carol and Kelly aren’t the least bit close. Besides, Carol preferred dogs to people.”
Just then Joanna caught sight of a group of people emerging from the trailer. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, Edith, I’ll go see how we’re doing.”
Scooping up the puppy and stowing him back inside her shirt, Joanna hurried over to the small wooden porch that had been built outside the mobile home’s front door. The sun had long since disappeared behind the Huachuca Mountains. It wasn’t quite nighttime yet, but it would be soon. In the deepening twilight, the entire investigative team stood on the porch, swilling down bottled water. From the looks of the sweat-drenched crew, Joanna was grateful she’d been standing outside, in the relative cool of evening, interviewing Edith Mossman. Clearly, the tough duty was happening inside.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“Hotter’n hell in there,” Ernie Carpenter muttered, echoing Dave Hollicker’s earlier sentiments. He nodded in the direction of Joanna’s Blazer. “Who’s the old lady?” he added.
“Edith Mossman,” Joanna told him. “Carol Mossman’s grandmother.”
“Good work,” George Winfield said, inserting himself into the previously two-way conversation. “At least I won’t have to knock myself out trying to locate the next of kin. But what’s she doing here? Who called her?”
“Nobody,” Joanna answered. “She came to see Carol without knowing anything was wrong. I tried to get her to go home. She says she’s waiting for you to finish up so she can do the identification.”
George frowned. “It’s really bad in there, Joanna,” he said, while Dave Hollicker nodded in somber agreement. “No way the grandmother should see the inside of that house. Can’t you talk her out of it?”
“Like I said,” Joanna told him, “I’ve tried, but I haven’t made any progress so far.”
The medical examiner glanced toward the darkening sky. “We’ll probably finish up in another fifteen or twenty minutes,” he said at last. “I still think it’s a bad idea to do this here, but we’ll put the victim in a body bag and bring her out on a gurney so Granny can take a look.”
Joanna’s cell phone rang just then. Seeing her home number in the screen, Joanna excused herself and walked a few feet away before she answered.
“Where the hell are you?” Butch Dixon demanded. “I’ve been scared to death.”
“What do you mean, where am I? I’m at a crime scene. There’s been a murder out by the San Pedro.”
“What about your interview with Karen Oldsby?” Butch responded. “She called here a few minutes ago, mad as a wet hen and wondering where you were. She’s been sitting