by Jance, J. A.
“Where are you going?” Arabella asked.
“I need to call someone,” Ali said. “You need help, Arabella. Maybe Mr. Brooks could come get you.”
“No, no calls. Mr. Brooks has helped me quite enough through the years. That’s why my mother hired him, of course—to look after me and to keep me out of trouble. I have to say, he’s done a splendid job of it most of the time, but he’s always been at a bit of a disadvantage since he never knew the full story.”
Ali glanced at her watch. It was twenty past six. If she was late to dinner, someone was bound to notice. Dinner was scheduled for six-thirty, and Edie Larson expected people to be present and accounted for when food was served. All Ali had to do was stall for time. Eventually her mother would call. Edie might even dispatch a search party.
“What is the full story?” Ali asked.
“About Bill Junior? No one would believe what he was doing to me,” Arabella said. “Even my mother didn’t believe it. The one person who did was Miss Ponder.”
The only clue that the conversation had taken a sudden six-decade detour was the mention of Arabella’s old governess. “Wait a minute,” Ali said. “You told me the other day that you hadn’t told your mother.”
Arabella looked puzzled. “Did I? Of course. Why wouldn’t I? That’s what I told myself over the years, too—that she must not have known. When you tell people and they don’t believe you, it hurts too much, so I convinced myself otherwise and didn’t think about it very much. I just ignored it. When Miss Ponder went away, Mother told me at the time that she’d been fired because Father caught her stealing something. She said Miss Ponder went back home to New Jersey. I didn’t find out until years later that she was dead. Murdered.”
“And you think your brother was somehow responsible for her death?”
“I know it,” Arabella said fiercely.
“You know it how?” Ali asked. “Did he tell you himself?”
“No.”
“Was he ever arrested or questioned in regard to that case?”
“I doubt it,” Arabella said. “Not by the police. There wasn’t time. When Mother told me Miss Ponder’s body had been found, I wrote Bill Junior a letter. He and my father were both flying high in those days. They had a number of big deals on the table. When I told Bill Junior I knew what he had done and that I was going to find a way to go public, he didn’t like it at all.”
“You were going to blackmail him?”
“After what he’d done to me, why not? He came to see me to try to talk me out of it. That’s when he went off the cliff.”
“He came to the Mosberg?”
“Not officially. I had gone AWOL and hitched my way to San Francisco. I had Bill Junior meet me there. He was taking me for a little ride when he went off that cliff.”
“You somehow sent him over the edge?” Ali asked.
“Absolutely. Who else was going to do it? I took care of him once and for all.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure. We’d both been drinking. People who are drunk do a lot of stupid things.”
“How did you get back to the hospital?”
“I don’t know. I hitchhiked, probably. Someone must have given me a ride. Dropped me off outside the gate. When questions were asked, the hospital covered for me—covered for themselves actually. They didn’t want anyone knowing I’d been off wandering about on my own when Bill Junior died. But somehow, after all these years, Billy finally figured it out.”
“And when he came to you looking for money, you took care of him, too,” Ali said.
“In more or less the same way. I was waiting for him when he came to his apartment in Scottsdale. He’d been out jogging. I held a gun on him and had him drive out to South Mountain Park. He didn’t have either a cell phone or a wallet with him and I thought that way the cops might have a harder time identifying him. He was convinced I was going to shoot him. I thought so, too, but then he somehow managed to get the gun away from me. When he tried to drag me out of the car, I slammed the door on his hand, put it in gear, and drove until he shut the hell up.”
Drunk, crazy, and dangerous as hell, Ali thought.
“So why are you telling me this, Arabella?” she asked. “Are you planning on taking care of me, too?”
As Ali asked the question, she wondered if she shouldn’t try to make a run for it. The front door was only a few feet away, and Arabella Ashcroft was no spring chicken. If Ali could make it out the door and down the hill to one of the neighbor’s, maybe she’d be able to duck inside and use a phone to summon help. On the other hand, there was always a chance that running might prove more dangerous than staying where she was.
“I guess I hoped that if I told you the whole story, maybe you’d help me,” Arabella continued. “I really do admire cutloose. At one time I thought I could do some good by sharing my story with others. I’ve been working on writing it down for months, but that’s not going to happen now. What Bill Junior did to me didn’t just destroy my childhood, Ali. It destroyed my whole life. By the time he was done with me, sex was all I was good for—sex and revenge. Once those were gone, I wasn’t good for anything.”
In Arabella’s despairing words, Ali was afraid she was catching a glimpse of what might be Crystal Holman’s grim future, as well—unless someone did something to change it.
“How do you expect me to help you?” Ali asked.
Arabella frowned. “After you talked to me this afternoon, I thought I’d come here and have you help me locate an attorney so I could turn myself in, but now I’ve changed my mind. There’s something else I need to do first.”
“What?” Ali asked.
The phone rang. Ali jumped and so did Arabella. Before Ali could move toward the phone, Arabella had reached into the still-opened briefcase and retrieved a handgun that she pointed in Ali’s direction.
“Answer it,” Arabella ordered.
“Hello,” Ali managed.
“Why are you still at home?” Chris wanted to know. “You should be here. Everybody else is. Grandma and Athena are dishing up.”
“I’m on my way,” Ali managed. “I’ll be there in a little while.” She put down the phone.
“Good girl,” Arabella said with a smile. “You are on your way. In fact, I think the two of us are on our way.”
“On our way where?” Ali asked.
“Just a little trip together,” Arabella said. “We’ll know when we get there. As you have so kindly pointed out, I’ve had a bit too much to drink. That being the case, you should probably drive.”
Holding the gun with one hand, Arabella tucked the flask into her bra. Then she used the other hand to return the jar to the briefcase, which she clicked shut.
“Shouldn’t you have wrapped that?” Ali asked.
Arabella picked up the briefcase and rattled the contents. “I don’t think so,” she said. “It’ll be fine. Let’s go. We’ll take the Rolls. Get in on the passenger side and then slide over. I’ll sit in the back.”
As they moved toward the front door, Ali once again considered making a break for it. When she opened the door, though, her ears were assailed by the pneumatic blat, blat, blat of a bouncing basketball. That meant that Gabe, the eighth-grader who lived down the street, was out in the driveway dribbling endlessly and shooting baskets. Ali couldn’t do anything that would endanger him or anyone else. And once behind the wheel, Ali realized she wouldn’t be able to risk driving erratically and provoking a traffic stop, either. No telling what Arabella would do if an officer approached the vehicle. Without a cell phone or any way to summon help, all Ali could do was play a waiting game and hope that eventually the booze would do its work.
Ali complied wth her marching orders while Arabella, puffing slightly, clambered into the back. Ali cringed as the briefcase landed heavily on the floor behind her with the jar rattling loosely around inside it.
“Here,” Arabella said. “Put this on. It’ll look better.” She dropped Leland Brooks’s sho
rt-billed cap into the front seat. “And the key is there in the ignition.”
Only someone who wasn’t used to driving would make that kind of mistake with a Rolls, Ali thought. When she turned the key, the perfectly tuned engine purred to life. It took a moment to fasten her belt, adjust the seat, and locate the headlight switch. Nothing was familiar.
“Where to?” Ali said finally, pulling out of the driveway.
She caught a hint of gin as Arabella took another hit from the flask. “When you get to the bottom, turn left.”
As soon as Ali turned onto the highway, she saw the Sugarloaf Rock and below it the café. The lights were out, but there were several cars still in the parking lot. She caught a glimpse of her father’s Bronco, somehow repaired and returned from the garage in a surprisingly timely fashion. She saw her mother’s Alero, Chris’s silver Prius, Dave’s battered Nissan, and two more vehicles Ali couldn’t quite identify. Earlier she had dreaded going there and having to tell Dave the latest piece of Crystal’s bad news.
Now, though, Ali could easily imagine the crowded living room of her parents’ cramped house, and that was exactly where Ali Reynolds wanted to be, seated along with everyone else in a humble living room masquerading as a dining room and breaking bread with people she loved. That wasn’t to be. Instead of being there and being able to meet the young woman who might become Chris’s wife, Ali was stuck in a bright yellow Rolls-Royce, being held captive by an armed old woman who was certifiably crazy.
Just like Detective Marsh said, she thought ruefully. Definitely inserted and definitely in danger.
“Where are we going?” Ali said.
“Just drive out to the freeway,” Arabella told her. “I’ll tell you what to do once we get there.”
When the two detectives arrived in Sedona, it was well after dark. There were lights on deep in the interior of Arabella Ashcroft’s house, but no one was home.
“What do we do now?” Hank asked.
Larry Marsh sighed. “I hate to mention it, but I guess we’d better look up Ali Reynolds after all.”
“Do we know where she lives?”
Larry was already pulling the cell phone out of his pocket. “We will in a minute.”
Twenty minutes later they arrived at a mobile home at the top of Sedona’s Andante Drive. There were several vehicles parked in the driveway with people milling around inside and out. Somewhere in the background the slap of a basketball pounded on pavement.
“What’s going on?” Larry asked an older woman standing outside, talking animatedly on her phone.
“It’s my daughter, Ali,” she said. “She’s missing. Are you cops? Dave was just now calling. How did you get here so fast?”
“We are cops,” Larry said, pulling out his badge. “But probably not the ones who were called. Your daughter is Alison Reynolds? What’s your name, and how long has she been gone?”
“Edie, Edie Larson. My grandson talked to his mother right at six-thirty. We were putting dinner on the table, and she was already supposed to be there by then. She told him she was on her way, but she never showed. Finally we came up the hill to check. Her car is here and so are her keys, but no purse and no cell phone. I’ve tried calling that—but she doesn’t answer.”
Larry Marsh knew exactly where the missing phone and purse were—back in Phoenix in the evidence room. No wonder she hadn’t answered.
A man showed up and looked anxiously from Edie to Larry. “Who’s this?” he asked.
“Detective Marsh,” Edie told him. “From Phoenix.”
The guy held out his hand. “I’m Dave Holman,” he said. “Detective Dave Holman, Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. What brings you here?”
“We’re investigating the death of a man named William Ashcroft. We wanted to speak to Ms. Reynolds about Mr. Ashcroft’s aunt, Arabella.”
Just then a young man came jogging back up the hill. “I talked to Gabe down the street,” he said. “He was out shooting baskets and saw Mom leave. She was driving a big old yellow car. He didn’t know what kind exactly, and he said there was someone sitting in the backseat.”
“That would be Arabella Ashcroft’s Rolls,” Larry Marsh said.
“Why would Ali be driving Arabella’s Rolls?” Dave asked. “Where’s her driver—what’s his name?”
“Brooks,” Larry supplied. “Leland Brooks.”
A pair of squad cars nosed their way up the street and stopped behind the Phoenix PD Crown Victoria. As uniformed officers converged on the scene and began trying to assess the situation, Larry pulled his partner aside.
“Once we get an APB put out on that Rolls, we’ll leave the locals to work this scene,” Larry said. “And while they’re busy with that, we’ll head back over to Arabella’s house. Maybe we missed them in transit.”
{ CHAPTER 18 }
Which way?” Ali asked when they reached the freeway. Her hands were sticky with sweat. She knew now that Arabella Ashcroft was completely nuts. She was also armed and dangerous.
“South,” Arabella said. “Get off again at Camp Verde.”
Make conversation, Ali counseled herself. Try to make things seem normal. “You still haven’t said where we’re going,” she added.
“I’m going to say good-bye,” Arabella said.
“Good-bye to what?”
“We’re going to a place I loved,” Arabella explained. “Mother called it her ‘cabin in the woods.’ It’s on a piece of private land in the middle of the wilderness. It’s very peaceful there. Once they lock me up, I’ll never see it again. And when I die, they’ll knock it down and turn it back into wilderness. It’ll be gone forever.”
Back at the house Arabella had seemed defiant—giggly and almost gleeful. Now her mood shifted. She sounded morose and brooding. Ali sensed that this subtle change, booze induced or not, made Arabella more dangerous to deal with rather than less. And if her intention was to go somewhere to say good-bye, what were the chances that she intended to take Ali with her?
“Did you do what I told you?” Ali asked. “Did you contact a defense attorney?”
In the course of their long, rambling conversation, Arabella Ashcroft had admitted to committing two homicides. She had also hinted that she might be involved in two more. It occurred to Ali that if and when the woman was taken into custody, even the most effective representation might not be enough to save her. Arabella seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t see any point. Why waste the money? They’re going to send me to jail or somewhere else. Either way, I’m not coming back here. This is over.”
“What’s over?” Ali asked in an effort to keep Arabella talking.
“Everything,” Arabella said. “I’ve lived my whole life, and I’ve never done anything worthwhile.”
“What about those little girls you wanted to help? Did you mean what you said about helping them?”
“Yes, I meant it. Of course I meant it!” Arabella’s anger briefly resurfaced. “But once everything that’s happened is made public no one is going to pay any attention to anything I say.”
“I know a girl like that,” Ali said quietly.
“A girl like what?”
“One like you were, only she’s a couple of years older. She’s someone who has been abused and who has decided to use her body for whatever it’ll buy.”
“Your friend’s daughter?” Arabella asked. “The one who ran away?”
Of course, Ali thought. Arabella reads cutloose. “What would you say to her?” Ali returned, without answering Arabella’s question one way or the other.
They were approaching Camp Verde by then. “Turn here,” Arabella said. “I’m hungry. Stop at the McDonald’s—at the drive-up.”
“I don’t have any money,” Ali said. “I didn’t bring my purse.” Or my driver’s license, she thought.
“I have money,” Arabella said. “Stop with the back window at the drive-up. I’ll take care of it. And don’t try anything.”<
br />
“Don’t worry,” Ali said. “I won’t.”
Back at Arabella Ashcroft’s house for the second time, Larry and Hank found an older 4 x 4 Mazda pickup truck parked in the driveway. A man, bent under the weight of a heavy box, was hurrying from the truck toward the front door.
Hank stopped the car and Larry jumped out. “Mr. Brooks? Mr. Leland Brooks?”
With his white hair glowing in the headlights, the man turned to look at them. He was dressed in full rhinestone cowboy regalia, from the sequined cowboy shirt to the tips of his snakeskin boots. The box in his arms, full to the brim, was one of the three-side produce boxes used to pack groceries at Costco.
“Yes, I’m Leland Brooks,” he said. “Who are you? What’s going on?”
“Police,” Larry said. “We need to talk to you. Put down the box and then get on the ground.”
“Get on the ground? Are you joking?”
“Not at all. Get on the ground.”
With some difficulty Brooks tried to comply. He stooped over and let go of the box. Groceries spilled out through the opening, rolling in all directions. He dropped stiffly onto one knee, groaning with pain. “My knees aren’t what they used to be,” he said. “If you want me on the ground, you’re going to have to help me.”
He’s an old man for Chrissake, Larry thought guiltily. Give the guy a break.
By then, Hank was out of the car. Instead of pushing Brooks to the ground, Larry grabbed him by his upper arm and hauled him to his feet. “Hands behind your back, then.”
“Behind my back? You’re handcuffing me? What have I done? I had two beers in Prescott, but that was hours ago. If you want a sobriety test…”
“You’re wanted for questioning in the murder of William Cowan Ashcroft the third.” As Larry fastened the cuffs, he automatically recited the Miranda warning.
“Wait a minute,” Brooks said when Larry finished. “You think I murdered Billy? Are you kidding? Why would I? Where did you get such a crazy idea?”
“Where’s Arabella?” Larry asked.