Cactus Heart (David Mapstone Mystery 5)

“You have no idea.”

I felt all my theories crashing into the wall of silence that developed on the phone. Finally, I asked, “Did you get a chance to ask her any of the questions I left for you?”

“No. You got her to talk more than I had ever seen. And she never said another word before she had the stroke.”

“Do you know about the crime?”

“I learned everything I could,” she said. “I also went back in her medical records.”

“I’ve learned a few things.” I shouldn’t have been discussing the case with a civilian, but how could my luck get any worse? “I learned that Jack Talbott couldn’t have been there the night of the kidnapping.”

Heather gasped, and I told her more.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “So old Hayden Yarnell must have suspected his son Hayden Jr. had done it. My God, that explains everything.”

“I can’t go that far,” I said. “I don’t know Talbott’s involvement. He was found with some of the ransom money in Nogales and the boys’ pajamas. That would still sway a jury today.”

“But Frances!” she nearly yelled. “My God, Frances was just caught up in this.”

“Maybe. She was an accessory. She went to Nogales with Talbott. Why?”

“I don’t know!” Heather’s voice was taut with frustration. “But I believed in her! It’s not like she

had any family or even a lawyer. Nobody was fighting for her. And don’t think I’m a pushover, David. I know every inmate says she’s innocent. I think Frances really was.”

“Did she ever say so?”

“No. But have you found anything new that implicates her?”

I had to grant her that I had not. But if Frances had explained her innocence at the trial, told how she was caught up in something with which she had nothing to do, it was on pages of lost court transcripts. That was possible, but the newspaper accounts had no mention of it. She also never took the stand.

Heather started talking even before I was finished. “Maybe she was covering up for someone!”

“But then to not talk for all those years in prison? Why? Why still be covering up in the sixties, even the nineties, for God’s sake.”

“You’re dealing with the Yarnell family. Anything is possible when money and power are involved.”

“So why didn’t they have her killed, or have her released and buy her off?” I said. “Her silence was an act of her power, when you think about it. She made this choice. Most of the ransom money was never recovered. Maybe Frances knew where it was hidden, and she thought she would get out someday and retrieve it. That’s a powerful motive to keep silence.”

“God, I’m sick of men talking about power and women living without it! Do you believe what you just said?”

After a pause I had to admit I didn’t.

“I’ve been reading some of the notes the lead detective made in the case,” I said. “Joe Fisher. I just found some of his files. He had reservations about whether Frances was involved in the kidnapping. He testified at her trial for leniency.”

“My God…”

“But he couldn’t get past the fact that she was found with Talbott, with some of the ransom money and the pajamas. I have no idea whether he knew that Talbott was in jail the night of the kidnapping, but he did interview a lot of people about the possibility that others were involved.”

“Why didn’t he…?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to do the right thing, but he could never make the case.”

“You cops,” Heather said. “Always sticking together. Can’t you do anything, Mapstone? This woman was a victim! She never got justice. Don’t you care?”

I just listened. Anything I said would seem insincere.

“Mapstone?”