J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 1: Web of Evil, Hand of Evil, Cruel Intent

by Jance, J. A.

  Ali stood up and collected her purse. Haley didn’t move to accompany her; neither did Nelda. At the door, Ali turned back. “Regardless of what you decide, Haley, I want you to know that I think you’re a pretty remarkable human being. And so is your grandmother. Your bitchy classmates may not be impressed, but I am.”

  Outside in the bright winter sunshine, Ali started her vehicle with the clear knowledge that if Haley changed her mind and accepted the scholarship offer, Ali had just committed to doing two scholarships as opposed to one.

  And if that’s what happens, so be it, Ali thought. If I decide to do two, it’s entirely up to me.

  Turning on her Bluetooth, Ali punched Leland Brooks’s number into her phone. When the call went directly to voice mail, she left him a message. “You must be busy. I’m on my way back from Cottonwood,” she said. “Just checking on that load of tile. Hope you got it signed for and unloaded. If you need anything, call me.”

  She was still driving when her phone rang. This time, when she expected to hear Leland Brooks’s voice, the caller turned out to be B. Simpson. With the flip of a switch, Ali moved from Haley’s difficulties to her own.

  “What are you doing up already?” she asked.

  “Fortunately, I don’t need much sleep. What was keeping me awake was you.”

  “Me?” Ali echoed. “How come?”

  “I Googled you,” B. said. “And now I’ve got a question.”

  Ali cringed. There were any number of things a Google search of Ali Reynolds might bring to light. “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Who’s the big baseball nut in your family?”

  Ali knew at once where that was going. Being teased about the “other” Allie Reynolds, a famed New York Yankees pitcher from the late forties and early fifties, was something that had plagued Ali for a very long time, from the moment she’d first married Dean. From even before she had married Dean.

  “I’m a one-L one-I Ali,” she pointed out. “The other one happens to be a two-L and an IE Allie. Besides, Reynolds is a married name, not a maiden one, so even though my father does happen to be a baseball nut, his preferences had nothing to do with it.”

  “I thought maybe it was your first husband—that he married you because he was a fan.”

  “What else did you find out?” Ali asked.

  “That you carry a gun,” B. said. “One of the articles I read, or maybe even a couple of them, mentioned something about that. Is that true?”

  “Yes, it is,” Ali said. “I carry a Glock. I have a license to carry it, and I know how to use it, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. What if the guy who killed Morgan Forester is also our identity thief?”

  That question was followed by a quiet intake of breath on B.’s part. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

  Over the next few minutes, she brought him up to date with everything that had gone on over the course of the morning. In telling B. about the possible connection between Morgan’s killer and the Foresters’ destroyed computer files, Ali succeeded in convincing herself as well.

  “If you’re right about this, the killer already knows way too much about you,” B. said when she’d finished. “And it probably is a good thing you’re armed and dangerous, but we have to bring Detective Holman in on all this.”

  “We don’t have any real proof that the two bad guys are one and the same.”

  “We don’t have any proof that they’re not,” B. insisted. “And if we even suspect that there’s a connection, we need to let him know.”

  “All right,” Ali agreed. “I’ll call him as soon as I get off the phone with you. But what about those two thumb drives? I offered them to Dave, and he dissed them, assuming that Bryan had already gone through them and deleted whatever he didn’t want seen. But what are the chances that they’re also infected and something will overwrite all the files on the next computer someone uses to try accessing them? I was looking at Bryan’s files earlier, and there didn’t seem to be any problem, but…”

  “Were you off-line at the time?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should probably take a look at both of those drives,” B. said. “If there’s a Trojan lurking in them, maybe I can disable it before it does any damage. Right now, though, I’m still working on that encryption problem. I think we’re getting close, and I don’t want to walk away from it. Could you maybe drop the thumb drives off here at the house?”

  “Where is that?” Ali asked.

  “The Village of Oak Creek,” he said. “Overlooking a golf course.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one by the Hilton.”

  “Okay,” Ali said. “I’m on my way.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes, right now.”

  “So where are you?”

  “Just coming into Sedona from Cottonwood. Why?”

  “Do me a favor,” he said. “I’m famished. I haven’t taken the time to go have breakfast, and there’s no food here—plenty of coffee but no food.”

  “What do you want?” Ali asked.

  “One of your dad’s meatloaf sandwiches.”

  “Done,” Ali said. “Meatloaf it is.”

  CHAPTER 13

  On his way down from Sedona, Dave Holman had notified the Scottsdale police of his impending arrival and of the possible connection between their case and his. Driving to the address he’d been given in the far northern reaches of Scottsdale, Dave was surprised to find himself in a neighborhood of relatively modest tract homes that had been built years before far more affluent housing had grown up around them. The garage door of the house stood open, but the opening was strung with yellow crime-scene tape, and a pair of uniformed officers were stationed outside.

  Led inside by one of the uniforms, Dave introduced himself to Scottsdale homicide detective Sean O’Brien and to Matthew Morrison’s widow.

  “I still don’t understand why you won’t let me use my car,” a surprisingly poised and dry-eyed Jenny Morrison was saying. “After all, since Matthew died in his Toyota, I don’t see what any of it has to do with my Acura. How can I go about planning a funeral if I can’t even drive my car?”

  An aggrieved widow rather than a grieving one, Dave thought. Someone who’s far more concerned about being able to drive her car than she is about finding out what happened to her husband.

  “As I explained earlier,” Detective O’Brien said, “for right now, the entire garage is considered part of the crime scene until we have a chance to have our CSI team process it—”

  “But there wasn’t any crime,” Jenny insisted. “I’m telling you, what happened to Matt has to be an accident. He would never commit suicide or do anything at all that would attract this kind of attention. Not on purpose. It’s totally out of character.”

  “So what do you think happened?” Dave asked.

  “Who the hell are you?” Jenny asked.

  “Detective Holman,” Dave said, handing over his ID. “Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. We’re working on a related case. Now, getting back to your husband—”

  Jenny shrugged impatiently. “He called me yesterday afternoon at work and left me a message. He said there’d been some kind of problem at work and that he would be late getting home. Once he got it straightened out, he must have had a drink or two with a colleague on his way home. He passed out in the car without ever turning off the engine.”

  “Was that something he did often?” Detective O’Brien asked. “Have ‘one too many’ on his way home from work?”

  “No,” Jenny said. “But there’s always a first time, isn’t there?”

  And a last time, Dave thought. “Had your husband been upset about anything recently?” he asked.

  Jenny turned back to Detective O’Brien. “I already went over all this with you. Do I have to repeat it to him?”

  “Please answer the question, Mrs. Morrison,” O’Brien said. “Believe me, the more information we all have, the easier it’ll be to get to the bottom of this
.”

  Jenny Morrison gave an exaggerated sigh. “All right, then,” she said. “In answer to your question, no, Matthew didn’t seem particularly upset. If anything, he seemed pretty cheerful.”

  “Not what you’d call depressed,” Detective O’Brien offered.

  “No more than usual,” Jenny replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My husband was never what you’d call a wild and carefree guy. He was an auditor. The only thing he would have liked more than working for the state would have been working for the IRS. In other words, he wasn’t ever a bundle of laughs. In fact, he may have known a joke or two, but I never heard him tell one. He was just a regular guy who wore a suit and tie when he went to work every day. After work, he came home, ate dinner, watched TV or messed around on his computer, and then went to bed. Mr. Regular-as-Clockwork.”

  “Did he have dealings with anyone in or around Sedona?” Dave asked.

  “Probably. Matthew had dealings with people from all over the state,” Jenny said. “Like I said, he worked for the auditor general. I’m sure she can tell you which accounts he was working on.”

  “Did he mention anything to you about maybe going to Sedona this past Monday morning?”

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken about that,” Jenny said. “He told me he had a Monday-morning meeting in Tucson. He brought home a motor-pool vehicle on Friday so he’d be able to leave for Tucson bright and early on Monday.”

  On his way to Scottsdale, Dave had already checked on Matthew Morrison’s supposed Monday-morning appointment in Tucson and had found it totally bogus. No record of any scheduled Tucson appointment existed. Period. The car-rental agreement, however, did exist.

  “You’re saying your husband was driving a state-owned vehicle on Monday morning when he left here, and not a Hertz rental?” Dave asked.

  “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  “My understanding is that he used his Hertz gold card to rent a vehicle that was seen near Sedona—”

  “You think Matthew rented a car? Never. He didn’t have a Hertz gold card,” Jenny declared flatly. “He never rented a car in his life, not once. For one thing, we never went anywhere. Besides that, he was too cheap.”

  “You mentioned your husband’s computer. Was it here at home?”

  Jenny nodded.

  “And did he use it for work?”

  “I don’t know. The last few months he was on it almost every evening. But it doesn’t really matter what he did with it. It’s broken.”

  “Broken?” Dave asked.

  “Yes. To begin with, I thought the same thing you did—that he had done himself in and he might have left me a note. But when I tried to turn on the computer, it wouldn’t even boot up. It was several years old, though. It probably died a natural death and he didn’t want to tell me about it.”

  Dave’s phone vibrated in its holder on his belt, but the news about another broken computer made the call easy to ignore. Both Bryan and Morgan Forester’s computers had been tampered with. He tried to keep any sense of urgency out of his voice when he spoke. “Would you mind if we took a look at it?” he asked. “If someone at the crime lab could reinstate some of the data, it might give us a better idea of what was going on with your husband.”

  “By all means,” Jenny Morrison said. “Knock yourselves out. You can take it right now if you want to. The sooner you get to the bottom of all this, the sooner I’ll be able to drive my car.”

  “What about a photo?” Dave asked. He caught the raised eyebrow that Detective O’Brien gave him. Dave knew that eventually, they’d be able to retrieve Matthew Morrison’s photo from the DMV, but that would take time and going through channels. Right this minute, Detective Holman was looking for speed.

  “That one,” Jenny said. With a careless shrug, she pointed to a gold-framed eight-by-ten photo sitting on an end table next to the couch—a photo of both of them together, Jenny with her hard-edged, fashion-plate good looks and beefy Matthew with a bad comb-over and a bulky sport jacket.

  “It’s not brand-new,” Jenny said. “It’s from last year’s church directory.”

  “Would it be possible to borrow it?” Dave asked.

  “Sure,” Jenny told him. “You can keep it if you like. If I need a copy, I can always order another.”

  Somehow, listening to Jenny Morrison talk, Dave doubted she’d be ordering another copy.

  Half an hour later, he helped Detective O’Brien load Matthew Morrison’s dead PC and old-fashioned CRT into the back of his sedan.

  “I’m not sure why we’re even bothering to drag this old computer out of there,” Sean said as he slammed the car door shut behind it. “Sounds as though it’s as dead as he is, poor guy. Maybe Morrison’s death really will turn out to be an accident, although, if I had to be married to a coldhearted witch like her, I’d have blown my brains out long ago.”

  “Yes,” Dave agreed. “Jenny Morrison is definitely bad news, but I don’t think her husband’s death was an accident, and maybe not suicide, either.”

  “What makes you say that?” Detective O’Brien asked.

  “What if I told you I’ve learned about three dead computers connected to this case so far this morning?”

  Once Dave explained, O’Brien nodded. “I see what you mean,” he said. “Sounds like at least two too many. I’ll drag this one back to the crime lab and see if anyone there can extract any data from it. What are you going to do with that photo?”

  “Go see Hertz,” Dave said. “Matthew Morrison rented a car there on Monday. I want to see if anyone remembers him.”

  Ali arrived back at the Sugarloaf during the late-morning lull. The parking lot was empty, and when she stepped inside, the place was deserted except for Jan Howard, who was grabbing a quick cup of coffee. Edie’s laptop sat open on the counter, but what should have been a pre-lunch quiet was punctuated by the sound of raised voices from the kitchen.

  “I don’t care what I said about not minding,” Bob Larson was telling his wife. “The reason I didn’t mind is I never thought you’d do it. I thought you’d have better sense. No matter, you’re not bringing that damn thing into our house. I won’t have it. The last thing this world needs is a bunch of hysterical little old ladies going around zapping everything in sight.”

  “I’m not hysterical,” Edie returned. “And I haven’t zapped anyone, not yet. And I certainly haven’t zapped you, now, have I?”

  “What’s going on?” Ali asked Jan.

  Bob and Edie’s longtime waitress rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You know how your parents are, Ali. They’re always squabbling like cats and dogs about one thing or another.”

  That was true. For Bob and Edie, a day without a verbal skirmish was like a day without sun.

  “What about this time?” Ali asked.

  “Your mother’s Taser,” Jan returned.

  Ali was aghast. “My mother’s what?”

  “Her Taser,” Jan repeated. “FedEx delivered it a little while ago. She went out into the kitchen to load and authorize it, and your father started pitching a fit. Are you here for lunch?” she added, pulling out her order pad. “It’s early, but what can I get you?”

  “You’re telling me my mother has a Taser, like on COPS?”

  “Not exactly like on COPS,” Jan said. “Theirs are black. Edie’s is that pretty metallic pink. She got one that matches her cell phone.”

  Pink? Ali marveled.

  “And what happens when you hit some poor little old guy with a pacemaker and he flops over dead?” Bob’s tirade continued. “What happens then?”

  “You need to watch the video,” Edie said patiently. “It goes into all those details. The amount of charge in the Taser doesn’t do anything at all to pacemakers. Besides, how many crooks that are robbing banks or doing carjackings already have pacemakers?”

  “And how many carjackings have you been involved in?” Bob demanded.

  “None so far,” Edie replied. “But if I e
ver am, the guy doing it will be in for a big surprise.”

  Walking around the end of the counter, Ali stepped into the kitchen. Her father stood leaning against the kitchen sink with his arms folded belligerently across his chest. Edie, frowning in concentration, was holding and manipulating a metal object of some kind in one hand while consulting a piece of paper in her other hand. The pink metallic object was about the same size and shape as an ordinary office stapler, and the color did indeed match Edie’s hot-pink cell phone.

  Intent on their argument, neither Bob nor Edie registered Ali’s arrival on the scene. Since bickering was a way of life for her parents, Ali didn’t hesitate before stepping into the melee. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

  “Your mother’s gone off the deep end this time,” Bob replied. “Bought herself one of those Taser outfits from that Frieda Rains woman. With her packing that thing around, God help me if she ever goes on the warpath.”

  None of this made much sense, but Ali plucked a familiar name out of her father’s diatribe: Frieda Rains was a local woman somewhere in her mid-to late seventies who had been left virtually penniless by her husband’s long bout with numerous health issues, including his eventual death from complications related to Alzheimer’s. In order to keep a roof over her head, Frieda had taken over as manager of a trailer park somewhere farther up Oak Creek Canyon. In addition to that, she eked out a meager living by doing other various odd jobs, including working as a food demonstrator and selling Tupperware.

  “What’s Frieda doing with Tasers?” Ali asked.

  “Selling them,” Edie Larson answered. “She can make a lot more money selling Tasers at a party than she can make selling plastic dishware.”

  “My point exactly,” Bob said. “Once she sells them to everyone she knows, we’ll all be at risk. No one in town will be safe.”

  “You should be grateful,” Edie said. “With the women in town prepared to defend themselves, you’ll be a whole lot safer than you were before.”