Lawrence Tazewell studied the photo for a long time. Then he picked it up and held it next to Leslie’s picture. When he spoke, his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Who the hell is this?” he demanded. “The women in these two pictures could be twins.”

“Not twins but close,” Joanna said. “The one woman’s maiden name was Lisa Marie Crystal. Her married name was Evans. She was Bradley Evans’s wife, our murder victim’s supposed murder victim. We have reason to believe Lisa Marie Evans may have been Leslie’s biological mother.”

Tazewell looked stunned. “Not Aileen?” he asked. “How could such a thing be possible?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. We’ve collected some DNA samples that should confirm Leslie’s real parentage. It’ll take time to have them processed, of course. In the meantime, Leslie told us a few things about the unusual circumstances surrounding her birth, including the fact that you were out of town at the time it happened.”

Tazewell nodded. “I was in Dallas at a conference. Leslie was delivered at home with her grandmother’s help and then taken to the hospital later.” He paused and then added, “But if Leslie is someone else’s baby, what happened to Aileen’s?”

“Are you certain she was pregnant at the time?”

“That’s what I thought,” Tazewell said. “It’s what Aileen told me. So did her doctor.”

“Do you remember the doctor’s name?”

“Carstairs, Carston, Carmmody,” Tazewell answered. “I don’t remember exactly, but I think his name started with a C.”

“Maybe something happened to that baby,” Joanna suggested. “Some kind of late-term miscarriage. And if she and Lisa Evans were friends, maybe they arranged for Aileen to supposedly give birth at home so they could pass Lisa’s baby off as your wife’s. Doing that would have cleared the way for Lisa to leave her husband and simply disappear.”

“The murdered man, Bradley Evans,” Tazewell said. “He would have been the husband, the same man I personally sentenced to prison.”

Joanna nodded. “That’s right,” she agreed.

“But he pleaded guilty, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“If he wasn’t responsible for his wife’s death, why would he do a thing like that?”

“Who knows? If he was drunk, maybe he was operating in a blackout and felt ultimately responsible for whatever had happened to her regardless of who actually did it,” Joanna offered. “Now tell me. Did your wife ever mention having a friend named Lisa?”

“No, not that I remember,” Tazewell responded. “But our marriage was what one could charitably call troubled. With the notable exception of Rory Markham, I wasn’t really privy to Aileen’s circle of acquaintances. Still, are you saying that she knowingly participated in some kind of conspiracy that resulted in my sending an innocent man to jail for murder?”

“At this point,” Joanna said, “all I’m suggesting is that’s a possibility.”

“And Evans was innocent the whole time?”

Joanna nodded. “Also possible.”

“If I’d had any idea-if I’d had even the slightest hint that Aileen knew the woman-I would have recused myself immediately. I never would have agreed to preside over the Evans case. You do believe me, don’t you?”

Joanna nodded. “Yes, I do,” she said.

“But supposing Evans didn’t kill his wife. Where the hell did she go? Is she still alive and well somewhere, living under an assumed name? And what if that other baby-my baby-didn’t die either? Where is that child?”

“I don’t know the answer to any of those questions,” Joanna told him. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. The idea that Lisa is alive and well is certainly one possible scenario. The other is that she’s been dead all along. The fact that Bradley Evans is dead, too, tends to suggest he ended up spooking someone who had something to hide.”

“How did that all come about?” Tazewell asked.

“Pure bad luck,” Joanna replied. “We’ve learned that Bradley Evans and Leslie Markham both happened to have lunch in the same Sierra Vista restaurant on Tuesday a week ago. Evans must have noticed the striking resemblance between Leslie and his presumably dead wife. He spent most of the next day following her around Sierra Vista taking pictures with a disposable camera.

“Maybe he wanted to confirm for himself what he thought he was seeing. Or maybe he planned on showing the photos to someone else. But he never got a chance to show them to anyone. Before he finished shooting that roll of film, he was dead- stabbed to death. When his vehicle was impounded after his death, we found the camera hidden under the front seat of his vehicle.”

“Am I a suspect?” Tazewell asked.

The man’s direct question caught Joanna off guard. He certainly had been a suspect initially, but the longer she talked to him, the less she thought Lawrence Tazewell was directly involved in Bradley Evans’s murder. Still, without substantiating his alibi, there was no way to be sure.

“Possibly,” Joanna admitted. “Although not much of one. Is there any way to confirm that you were in Denver last week?”

Nodding, Tazewell removed a PDA from his pocket and reeled off a telephone number. “That’s the FBO-Fixed Base Operator-at the general aviation airport north of Denver where we landed and where the plane was parked from Wednesday until Monday morning. Sharon and I spent a lot of time at the hospital, but we were at our daughter’s in-laws’ apartment a good deal of the time as well, and we met some of her friends and neighbors. Do you want their names and phone numbers?”

“Wherever possible,” Joanna said.

It took several minutes for Joanna to collect the information. While she took notes, Frank Montoya did the same. When Tazewell finally returned his PalmPilot to his pocket, his face was grave. “So everything was fine until Evans stumbled on to the fact that maybe his dead daughter really wasn’t dead.”

Joanna nodded. “That’s how it looks.”

“Has Leslie been informed about any of this?” Tazewell asked.

“Not yet,” Joanna said. “And until we have some kind of solid confirmation…”

“Right,” Tazewell said. “Of course. It would be irresponsible to mention any of this to her while it’s still a matter of supposition, but when the time comes, are you going to tell her or should I?”

“I’d prefer to have that handled by a family member-either you or her mother.”

Tazewell nodded. “That may not be possible,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Depending on how far Aileen’s HD has progressed, she may not be able to talk.”

“I’d like to hear Aileen’s side of the story,” Joanna said. “But in case that’s not possible, what can you tell us about her?”

Lawrence Tazewell shook his head. “I really don’t have any idea where to start,” he said.

Frank Montoya caught Joanna’s eye and then stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, there are a couple of things I need to attend to.”

“Fine,” Joanna said, then she turned back to Lawrence Tazewell, who was holding the pictures of Lisa Evans and Leslie Markham and gazing back and forth between them. “I guess you’d best start at the beginning.”