by Jance, J. A.
“What kind of problem?” Ali asked.
“There are four other sets of rings there, which leads me to think there are at least four other victims. We just don’t know who they are. One them may have been his wife, Rita.”
“You’re saying Peter Winter is a serial killer?”
“Most likely,” Dave said. “It also means you and your mother had a very close call.”
CHAPTER 17
It was after midnight when Dave drove Ali to the Majestic Mountain Inn. “You’ll be all right?” he asked. “Yes,” she told him.
When she got out of Dave’s Nissan, Ali was gratified to see that someone had driven her Cayenne to the hotel and parked it there. She limped toward the door of her room, still wearing the jacket Chris had placed on her shoulders much earlier in the afternoon. On her feet were ill-fitting bedroom slippers that the nurse at the hospital had produced for Ali’s use.
Ali opened the door, expecting to find the room empty. To her surprise, both Chris and Athena were there waiting for her. Chris was asleep on the bed, while Athena dozed in an armchair with Sam curled comfortably in her lap.
“She was hiding behind the dryer in your laundry room,” Athena explained. “Chris dragged her out of there, and we brought her here, but we couldn’t leave her in this strange place all by herself.”
In actual fact, Sam didn’t seem all that upset. She opened her one good eye, gave Ali an appraising glance, and then closed it again.
“Thank you,” Ali said.
“We packed a suitcase for you,” Athena added. “It’s there in the closet. We brought your robe and nightgown and some clothes for you to wear tomorrow. No toiletries, though—the cops said your bathroom was off limits—so we stopped by the drugstore and picked up a hairbrush, a toothbrush, and some toothpaste. For makeup, you’re on your own.”
The idea that Chris and Athena had managed to talk their way into bringing anything at all from the crime scene was impressive. “They let you into the house?” Ali asked. “That must have taken some convincing.”
“A little,” Athena agreed. “One of the CSI guys helped.”
Grabbing her nightgown and robe, Ali went to the bathroom to change. In addition to the bruises on her face and neck, there were bruises on her legs and arms. She had been in a fight for her life, and it showed.
When she came back out of the bathroom, Chris was sitting up on the side of the bed, and Sam was stretched out on one of the pillows.
Chris stood up. “Mom,” he said, giving Ali a hug. “You’ve got to stop doing stuff like this. You scare me to death.”
“It scared me, too,” she admitted.
“It’s late,” he said. “I’m going to Athena’s. If you need anything, Grandpa and Grandma are right next door. And here’s Athena’s cell phone. You can use it until we can get you a new one. According to the cops, there’s one sitting at the bottom of your bathtub at home. I think that one’s a goner.”
Ali let Chris and Athena out and then locked both the deadbolt and the security chain behind them. Crawling into bed a few minutes later, she was grateful to feel Sam’s stolid presence snuggled up next to her. She fell asleep almost immediately, but three times she was awakened by the same recurring nightmare: Someone was holding her head underwater, and Ali was drowning.
She was awakened shortly after sunrise by someone knocking sharply on her door. It took a moment to gather her wits and figure out where she was. Meanwhile, Sam skittered away and disappeared under the bed.
“Who is it?” Ali asked, pulling on her robe and slippers.
“It’s B.,” B. Simpson said. “I’m sorry to wake you, but I need to talk to you. I need to see with my own eyes that you’re all right.”
“Maybe not one hundred percent,” she said as she unlatched the security chain and the deadbolt to let him in. Catching sight of her stitched and battered face, he took a step back.
“Come on in,” Ali said. “How did you know I was here? Is something the matter?”
“I just dropped off copies of the files with Dave Holman. He told me where to find you,” B. answered. He looked haggard and careworn, as though he hadn’t slept in days. “As for what’s the matter?” he continued. “Hell yes, there’s something the matter! Look what happened to your face. I almost got you killed.”
“Wait a minute,” Ali said. “You just said you dropped off the files. If you gave them to Dave, does that mean you broke Winter’s encryption code?”
“If Winter turns out to be his real name, I’ll be surprised,” B. said. “But it does mean I broke his damn code. Just a little while ago, as a matter of fact. And now I know why the bastard was so desperate to get those files back. He had his whole world tucked away in them. He’s so friggin’ arrogant that it never occurred to him someone else might be smart enough to take him down. When it happened—when we hacked in to his system—it pushed him over the edge.
“But he’s not the only one with an arrogance problem, Ali. What about me? I thought he was just your run-of-the-mill identity thief. I had no idea how dangerous this creep might be or what he might do. If something had happened to you and your mother, if one or both of you had died because of my actions, I don’t know what I’d do or how I’d live with myself. I’m so sorry about all this, I just—”
“Stop,” Ali said, interrupting B.’s bout of self-recrimination. “None of this is your fault. You gave me a choice about what to do, remember? You said we could either turn the guy over to the cops and let them deal with him, or we could smack him down by taking his files. Since it seemed likely the cops wouldn’t do anything, I was the one who said turnabout is fair play, let’s rattle his chain and take his files.”
“The cops have them now,” B. said somberly. “I turned everything I had over to Dave Holman. Those files and the Foresters’ thumb drives as well. Bryan told me it was okay to turn them in.”
“You’ve done everything you can, then,” Ali said. “It’s up to the cops now. Go home and get some rest.”
Apparently, B. Simpson was too tired to object. He left, and Ali set about getting dressed. Chris and Athena had brought along underwear, jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of running shoes so she had something to put on that wasn’t the jogging suit, which had already been deposited in the trash can in the bathroom.
Ali used fresh food to coax Sam out from under the bed. Once she emerged, Ali scooped her up and stuck her in her crate. She didn’t want Sam exiting the room when an unsuspected maid came by to clean.
By seven A.M. Ali was at the counter in the Sugarloaf, drinking a cup of coffee and waiting for Bob to finish cooking a to-go order of cheese-baked eggs for Ali to take to the hospital for Leland Brooks.
“You’ll take a sweet roll for him, too, won’t you?” Edie asked. “Surely he’ll want one of those. What about the memorial service?” she added. “It’s due to start at ten. Are you going?”
Ali looked down at her jeans and sweatshirt. “I can’t very well go in this,” she said.
“Given what you did for Bryan Forester yesterday,” Edie Larson said, “you could probably turn up stark naked, and I doubt he’d voice a word of complaint. He wouldn’t let anyone else gripe about it, either.”
“So Dave has let it be known that Bryan’s no longer under suspicion?”
“Pretty much,” Edie said.
By the time Ali got back to Yavapai Medical Center, an unmarked Sedona cop car was parked out front. When she arrived at the door to Leland’s room, she found Detective Hill conducting an interview about everything that had happened the day before.
“So you didn’t notice the silver Mercedes parked at the bottom of Ms. Reynolds’s driveway?” Marjorie Hill asked.
“No,” Leland said. “I was looking for a truck bringing a load of tile. I wasn’t looking for a Mercedes. I got out of the car, and there he was. He had the element of surprise in his favor. I tried to fend him off, but I couldn’t. I seem to remember being stuck by something—something sharp. Then it was
all over. The fight went out of me. I couldn’t do a thing.”
“He drugged you?”
“I believe so.”
“What’s the next thing you remember?”
“Waking up in Ms. Reynolds’s bathroom. There was duct tape around my legs and around my arms and chest. He was holding my head underwater. He kept asking me about some files, and I kept telling him I didn’t know anything about them. When I woke up again, I was here. That’s pretty much it. I don’t know anything else.”
Ali heard the note of weariness in his voice and came into the room. “Breakfast is here,” she announced. “The rest of the questions will have to wait until after that, Detective Hill.”
“But—” began the detective.
“But nothing,” Ali told her. “What Mr. Brooks needs right now is to eat and rest.”
She set the food out on the rolling table next to Leland’s bed and hustled the detective out the door. Once she had escorted Marjorie Hill to the lobby, Ali went in search of a nurse. “He’s to have no more visitors,” Ali ordered. “Got that?”
“Got it,” the nurse said.
When Ali went back to Leland’s room, he was sound asleep again, with his food sitting untouched on the rolling cart. She sat with him for the next hour or so while he continued to sleep. Finally, at about nine, she drove to the drugstore and put together an emergency set of makeup. At ten, having done what she could to fix her bedraggled face, she presented herself at Thomas and Sons Mortuary. She could tell from the way cars spilled down the street that the chapel was jammed to capacity. Searching for a place to park, she was surprised to see Bryan Forester standing out behind the building, smoking a cigarette.
Leaving her Cayenne idling, Ali got out and walked over to him. “Where are the girls?” she asked.
“Inside,” he said, “with my folks and with all those damn hypocrites. What did they all come here hoping for? Are they thinking I’ll be beside myself with grief and throw myself on her coffin, or are they hoping I’ll stand up and tell them Morgan was a tramp and deserved what she got? What the hell do they expect of me?”
“They’re here to pay their respects,” Ali said. “And they’re here to say they’re sorry for your loss, even though they have no way of comprehending the real loss you’ve suffered.”
Bryan sought Ali’s eyes. “But you know, don’t you,” he said.
She nodded. The fact that Paul Grayson had betrayed her so thoroughly was still part of who she was, how she functioned in the world, and how she saw herself.
“But I also know that it doesn’t matter,” she said aloud. “What went wrong between you and Morgan doesn’t matter as much as what went right—which is to say your two girls. You have to be here for them, Bryan. You have to be strong for them.”
“But I don’t want to be around these people,” Bryan fumed. “The way they turned on me…When I finish your job, I’ll go somewhere else. Maybe I can find work down in Phoenix. Or maybe over in Albuquerque, somewhere people won’t know me and know all about what happened.”
“Don’t,” Ali said. “Geographic cures don’t work.”
“You tried one,” Bryan said. “You came home.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that my husband screwed around on me,” Ali said. “Coming home didn’t fix it for me, and leaving home won’t fix it for you, either. And uprooting your girls from everything that’s familiar is the last thing they need right now. It’ll make things that much worse for them. Stay here, Bryan. Look your demons in the eye.”
“Including Billy Barnes?” he asked.
“Especially Billy Barnes,” Ali told him. “Especially him.”
“I’ll think about it,” Bryan said. With that, he ground out his cigarette and strode inside.
Ali parked in a no-parking zone in front of a Dumpster. She went inside the mortuary and found a spot to sit on one of the extra folding chairs that had been set up around the perimeter of the chapel to accommodate the standing-room-only crowd. Ali could see why Bryan might have a problem with some of those folks. Cindy Martin, the manicurist who had been only to happy to blame him, was sitting there as big as life on the end of the fourth row. Ali suspected that many of the other people in attendance were ones who had been quick to think Bryan was responsible for his wife’s death and to dish out rumors and innuendo.
Others, however, were clearly there in a show of support. Ali wasn’t surprised to see that Mindy Farber, Lacy and Lindsey’s teacher, had taken time off to be there for them.
The service, conducted by the Reverend C. W. Stowell, was a low-key affair, dignified but distant, as though the minister had been asked to officiate without knowing too many details about either the deceased or her family. From Ali’s point of view, that was a good thing. It gave the two little girls sitting quietly in the front row something to remember about the loss of their mother. As Mindy Farber had told them, it was a way of saying goodbye.
Ali ducked out during the final benediction and went back to the hospital, where she found Leland, fully dressed except for shoes, waiting for her in the lobby.
“The doctor came around and told me I could go, but he said that with this arm, I’m in no condition to drive. He said I needed to have someone come pick me up. I’ve been trying to call you, but your cell phone isn’t working.”
And won’t ever work again, Ali thought.
The nurse came forward to wheel Leland’s chair out to the Cayenne. “Just drop me off at the house,” he said once he was loaded into the passenger seat. “I’ll be fine.”
“No,” Ali said. “We can go by your place and pick up some clothing, but for right now Sam and I are staying at the Majestic Mountain Inn, and so are you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Leland said. “I’m perfectly capable of staying on my own.”
“You may be capable of it,” Ali said, “but you’re not doing it. End of discussion.”
After checking Leland in to a room three doors down from hers, Ali went up to the house and collected clothing for him from his fifth wheel. At her house there was clear evidence that a search had been conducted the day before. The locked front door had been battered open and was closed now with a piece of plywood that had been screwed into the casing with wallboard screws. The padlock on Bryan’s storage unit dangled unlocked on the hasp. A quick look inside told Ali all was in order, but she picked up her phone—Athena’s phone—and called Dave Holman.
“It’s bad enough that your guys had to break my door down,” she said, “but they also left Bryan’s toolshed unlocked. What if someone had come by during the funeral to steal his stuff?”
“I’ll go by the hardware store and pick up a new padlock,” Dave said. “Then I’ll be right there.”
True to his word, Dave arrived under ten minutes later.
“What were you hoping to find here?” Ali asked as Dave struggled to liberate the padlock from its childproof plastic container.
“Syringes,” he said. “But as you know, the ones we were looking for turned up somewhere else.”
“And in someone else’s possession,” Ali added.
Dave nodded. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “Most of the time the culprit turns out to be the husband.”
“Or the boyfriend,” Ali said.
“You’re not going to give me a break on this one, are you?”
“No,” she said. “Since I was right and you were wrong, I see no reason not to rub it in.”
He laughed at that. They both did.
Dave freed the padlock, threaded it through the hasp, locked it, and handed Ali the key. “We found photos,” he said, turning serious and changing the subject.
“What kind of photos?”
“Souvenirs,” he said. “Pictures of five dead women, one of whom happens to be Morgan Forester. We’re pretty sure one of them is Rita Winter. We don’t know who the others are yet, but as of now it’s pretty clear that Bryan Forester wasn’t involved in any of it.”
“What about
Singleatheart?” Ali asked.
Dave shrugged. “I asked Winter about that,” he said. “He sneered at me and said, ‘Figure it out.’ So that’s what we’re doing—figuring it out. I think you and B. Simpson were on the right track. Identity theft probably played a big part in it. It made money for Winter, but I think he used Singleatheart as a way to mess around with people’s lives. People signed up with them looking for romance, but he ran it with cruel—rather than romantic—intent. I’ve already got one suicide I can lay at Winter’s door, and there may be more. I most likely can’t bring him up on criminal charges for that, but the widow might be able to file a civil suit against him—assuming Winter has any actual assets.”
“Won’t having his files help you with all that?” Ali asked.
“That depends,” Dave said.
“On what?”
“On whether or not a judge rules our having them constitutes an illegal wiretap.”
CHAPTER 18
It took until Monday for things to get back to seminormal. Complaining about the cost, Edie and Bob Larson bailed out of the hotel first and were back home by Saturday evening. Ali convinced Leland that he needed to take it easy for a few days, but by Monday morning he insisted that he was well enough to go home to his fifth wheel. By Monday afternoon Ali and Sam were back home, too, in the house on Andante Drive in Skyview.
As soon as Ali let Sam out of her crate, the cat made a beeline for her safe-haven hidey-hole in the laundry room while Ali wandered through the house. She’d had a locksmith come through and change all the locks, for safety’s sake, but knowing that the house had been invaded—that she and Leland had both been attacked there—left her feeling nervous and uncomfortable.
Chris, Athena, and some of their friends had spent the weekend cleaning up the mess left behind by the water and the investigation; they’d also reshampooed the carpets. Even though none of the damage was visible, Ali still felt Peter Winter’s ominous presence in her home and in her life.
Athena’s phone rang. Ali had been too busy in the intervening days to go to the store to replace the one that had died in her bathtub.