The Only Suspect

by Jonnie Jacobs

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, trying to evoke the memory of my wife. But her newly unveiled duplicity was so tangled with the image of the Maureen I’d known, I had trouble remembering. Lies and half-truths didn’t always spell trouble, I reminded myself. Sometimes they were a necessary part of avoiding trouble.

  But either way, there was a whole dimension to Maureen I knew nothing about. That hurt. It also frightened me.

  The conversations of other passengers floated past me. I heard the flight attendant helping a child with her seat belt. A man struggled to find an open bin for his carry-on luggage. And then I felt someone slip into the middle seat.

  I opened my eyes, sat bolt upright when I saw who it was.

  Hannah Montgomery.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. Or rather, snapped.

  “I’m going to Phoenix.”

  “I figured that much. It’s where the plane is headed.” I looked down the aisle to see if Dallas was on board as well. I didn’t see him.

  Hannah ignored me and settled in, stuffing bottled water and a paperback novel into the seat pocket.

  I didn’t like the feeling of this. “Does it mean I’ve got a police escort?”

  “Do you mind?”

  Of course I minded. All I could think of was the handcuffs she probably had hidden in her carry-on. “Is it an official police escort?”

  She smiled. Her green eyes, accentuated by the laugh lines at the corners, twinkled. “No,” she said. “It’s just me tagging along for the fun of it.”

  “You really expect me to believe that?”

  “No, but it’s the truth.”

  “So I can ignore you?”

  “If you’d like.” She looked amused. “But remember that I can follow you, or worse yet, beat you to the answers. And since we’re both after the same information ...” She spread her hands. “Well, it might be easier to cooperate.”

  Unless the information was something I didn’t want to share with the cops. I was willing to bet they weren’t sharing everything with me either. And I didn’t take kindly to the notion of having a babysitter along. I liked Hannah Montgomery, probably more than was wise under the circumstances, but she was still a cop.

  On the other hand, did I really want her digging up information on my wife before I got to it myself?

  At least it was Hannah accompanying me and not Dallas.

  I closed my eyes again and kept them closed for the duration of the flight.

  We ended up sharing a rental car. Rather, I did the renting and she rode along. She didn’t exactly insist, but her earnest smile and green eyes were hard to resist. I reminded myself it would be easier to keep tabs on her that way.

  “Do you know which bookstore your wife worked at?” she asked as we pulled out of the rental car lot and onto the wide boulevard leading to the highway.

  “No.”

  “But you’ve got a plan?”

  I handed her the pages I’d printed out from the Internet. “There are eighty-three bookstores listed, but if you eliminate the religious stores, the adult places, and specialty stores like metaphysics, it’s a manageable list.”

  “Why eliminate those?”

  “They don’t seem the kind of places my wife would work.”

  Hannah raised an eyebrow in my direction. I knew what she was thinking—that I hadn’t really known very much about my wife at all.

  “At least we should save them for last,” I told her.

  “So what have we got?”

  “Close to forty, and that’s not counting the outlying areas.”

  “That’s a lot of stores.”

  I handed her the phone. “You want to start calling while I drive?”

  “I’ve got my own phone.”

  “Ask about both Maureen Brown and Eva Flynn.” After I said it, I realized she’d probably have known that on her own.

  Hannah responded with an indulgent smile.

  It was a warm day. Hot, in fact. The car’s thermometer registered the outside temperature at ninety-nine. By Phoenix standards it wasn’t a scorcher, but compared to Rochester, where the air had been decidedly cool even in the sun, the difference was staggering. Eva’s mother had said that Eva hated the cold. Phoenix would have suited her well in that regard.

  I drove while Hannah made calls. The city spread out on all sides, flat and open, with outcroppings of dry, rocky hills. I’ve never been drawn to desert living, maybe as a result of growing up in the forested foothills of the Sierra, but I could understand how some people might like it.

  “Which direction?” I asked as we approached a freeway divide.

  “I don’t know where we’re going yet.”

  “How far through the list are you?”

  “Only about a third down.”

  I took the next off-ramp, pulled to the side of the road, and took out my own phone. While Hannah continued to call from the top of the list, I started from the end. On the fourth try, I got lucky.

  “The name Maureen Brown doesn’t mean anything,” the woman who answered told me, “but Eva Flynn worked here.”

  I felt a rush of blood pounding in my chest. Here was someone who’d known my wife in the not-too-distant past.

  “Is this about a reference?” the woman asked.

  “Not exactly. It might be easier if we spoke to you in person.”

  “Sure. I’ll be here until three. My name’s Cathy. And you’re ... ?”

  “Sam,” I told her. “We’ll be there in about half an hour.”

  “You hit gold right off,” Hannah said, sounding mildly piqued. “You must have the magic touch.”

  “Only in Phoenix.” The rest of my life seemed shadowed by a black cloud.

  I pulled out a map and found the address. The bookshop was in an outdoor mall, flanked by a Mexican import place and a clothing store. The store was small, but it had an inviting feel. In addition to books, there were displays of cards, notebooks, hand creams, stickers, and gift items. There was only one customer, a woman at the back with her nose deep in a paperback.

  The woman at the register was a plump redhead with a round face and dimples. She reminded me of the girl in the old Campbell Soup ads.

  “Cathy?”

  “You must be Sam.” She looked at Hannah, who nodded but said nothing. “So, why are you asking about Eva?”

  I took a lesson from Phipps and ignored the question. “How long did she work here?”

  “About eighteen months. She was a good employee.”

  “Are you the owner?”

  Cathy smiled. “Yep. It was my mom’s shop, and I took over when she died. I have a seven-year-old son, so it’s a perfect job for me. I don’t have to work full-time, and I can bring him with me in a pinch.”

  “When did Eva quit?” I asked.

  “Almost three years ago.” Cathy squinted. “Why all the questions?”

  Hannah spoke up and handed Cathy her business card. “I’m a detective out of California. Eva was murdered not too long ago.”

  “My God!” Cathy’s face registered shock. “How did it happen?”

  “We’re not sure, but we’ve reason to believe it wasn’t a stranger who killed her. We’re looking for any information that might lead us to the perpetrator.”

  Cathy shook her head. “You think it’s someone from here in Phoenix?”

  “Did you know her well?” Hannah asked.

  “Sure, we were friends. I mean, I had a kid and she was single, but we got along. We liked the same books, laughed at the same stuff.” Cathy was quiet a moment, then she pointed to a photo collage on the wall. “Top left. That’s the two of us stuffing ourselves at the store’s tenth anniversary party. We had about ten authors and a good crowd of customers.”

  The two women mugged for the camera, their cake-laden forks raised in a toast. I moved closer and studied the photo. It certainly looked like Maureen ... or rather Eva, though there was something disorienting about it too. Maybe it was the shorter hair or the im
pish look on Eva’s face. Or maybe it was simply getting another peek at my wife’s life before my time.

  “When did you last hear from her?” Hannah asked.

  “Not lately. I used to get an e-mail now and then. But you know how it is. You get wrapped up in your own existence, and old friends kind of move to the back burner.”

  “Where’d she go when she left here?”

  “Someplace in Mexico. She’d broken up with her boyfriend and wanted a change. She had a little money saved up and figured it would go further there than in the States. Eva was always a day behind and a dollar short. But I had no complaints about her performance on the job.”

  “She was in Mexico last time you heard from her?” I asked.

  “I assumed so, but I could have been wrong. She had one of those free web-based e-mail accounts that you can pick up anywhere.” Cathy smiled. “Redhotsugarbear. I always thought that was cute.”

  I felt the air leave my lungs. Redhotsugarbear. The name I’d discovered in our address book. Not a lover, but my wife’s own private e-mail address. The one she probably used to communicate with Eric Vance and everyone else who knew the real Eva. A world she’d kept secret from me.

  Hannah was playing with the magnetic paper clips near the register. “Did Eva ever mention the name of Eric Vance?”

  Cathy nodded. “They knew each other growing up, back East.”

  “Were they ... lov ... involved romantically?” I asked. It was probably irrelevant, but I had to know.

  “They may have been at one time, but not when I knew her,” Cathy said.

  May have been at one time. Maybe they’d hooked up again. Was that why she’d flown to Las Vegas to see him?

  Hannah turned her attention from the paper clips. “What can you tell us about Eric?”

  “Not much. I only met him once. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but a little weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  She shrugged. “A little jumpy. Not much of a sense of humor. Ralph took an instant dislike to him.”

  “Who’s Ralph?” Hannah and I both asked.

  “The boyfriend I told you about. The one Eva broke up with. I thought he was a bit of a prick.”

  “What’s his last name?” Hannah asked.

  “Nash. Ralph Nash. He was always putting Eva down. He wanted to dictate what she wore, who she saw, where she went.”

  “Do you know where we can reach him?”

  “He worked at a gallery out in Scottsdale,” Cathy said. “Very upper end. But he lost that job, which was part of the problem, I think. He took out his frustrations on Eva. That’s when she decided she’d had enough. Broke up with him and took off for Mexico.”

  “Any other friends who might still be in touch with her?”

  Cathy thought a moment then shook her head. “Ralph might know. But like I said, he was pretty possessive. I suspect he smacked her at least once, though she made up some lame excuse about running into a door. He didn’t like Eva going out with friends without him.”

  Hannah and I exchanged glances. “Thanks,” she told Cathy. “Sounds like it might be useful to talk with him.”

  CHAPTER 45

  We stopped at a Coco’s restaurant to look for a phone book and get a bite to eat. It wasn’t my favorite kind of place, but it was convenient, quick, and air-conditioned. We were able to find a listing for Ralph Nash, complete with address.

  “A possessive ex-boyfriend,” I said while we waited for our Cobb salads. “That might explain why Eva was using Maureen’s name.” Although it didn’t explain why she’d kept the truth from me.

  “It might,” Hannah agreed, sounding far from convinced. Her eyes met mine. “This must be hard for you, discovering you were married to someone you didn’t really know.”

  “Harder than you can imagine.” Harder still because now that she was dead, I could never ask her why.

  Hannah hesitated. “I think I have some idea how you must feel.”

  There was something about her tone that conveyed more than the words suggested, but I wasn’t sure what. I took a sip of my Coke. “You’re married?”

  “I was.” She looked away. “My husband died three years ago in an automobile accident.”

  I felt a surge of sympathy. “I’m sorry. I know how devastating it is to lose someone you love.”

  She emptied a packet of artificial sweetener into her iced tea. “And I understand what it’s like to feel betrayed by that person.”

  “Your husband?”

  She stirred the tea with a straw. “We’d only been married two years. A month after he was killed, I found out that he’d been having an affair with my sister.”

  “Ouch. Doubly betrayed.”

  “I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer at the time. Already feeling vulnerable and sick and ugly and unlovable.” Her voice faltered.

  “How terrible.” The words seemed inadequate. I could imagine the emotional blow must have been crushing.

  She gave me a sad smile. “More terrible than you can imagine.”

  “I appreciate your telling me. It helps explain ...”

  “Explain what?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. You seemed to have some feeling for what I’m going through.”

  “That’s the hardest part of my job sometimes. Witnessing the pain and hurt, and”—she paused, looked at her hands—“and feeling a degree of empathy with all the parties involved.”

  Even the ones who might be guilty was what I presumed she meant.

  Our salads arrived, and for a while we ate without talking. Then Hannah asked, “Why were you surprised when Cathy mentioned Eva’s e-mail address?”

  “Was I?” It was disconcerting to know that Hannah had picked up on it. I wondered what else she might have observed about my behavior.

  “You had a visible reaction. Redhotsugarbear must mean something to you.”

  “It was a private e-mail address my wife used. I only discovered it by accident after she was gone.”

  “You should have told us about it.”

  That and several other things. But for reasons of my own, I hadn’t. “If we can gain access to her account,” I suggested, “we might learn something about Eric Vance.”

  Hannah speared a piece of hard-boiled egg. “It will take a court order to get access, and I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “Maybe the FBI can help.”

  “Phipps hasn’t exactly been bending over backward to cooperate with us.”

  “What’s his interest in Eric Vance, anyway?”

  She studied her salad a moment then shook her head. “I don’t know any more than what he told us yesterday. My guess is that they had something on Vance, and if he’s an ex-con they’d have plenty of leverage. They were probably using him to get to a bigger fish.”

  “And it was the bigger fish who killed him.”

  “Phipps didn’t rule out accidental death.”

  “You believe that?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe the same big fish killed my wife. Whoever it was that broke into my house certainly knew about Eric.”

  Her eyes met mine. They weren’t quite as warm as they’d been earlier. “Whoever killed your wife also knew about Ben Albright’s wine cellar.”

  To that pointed observation, I had no response. We finished eating in silence.

  Ralph Nash lived in an upscale, two-story apartment complex on the east side of the city. It was landscaped with the customary crushed rock and cactus and looked to be only a couple of years old.

  The heat, as we stepped from the car, was like a blast furnace. The temperature had risen probably five degrees since we’d arrived that morning. “It’s unlikely he’ll be home in the middle of the day,” I said.

  Hannah agreed. “But maybe one of his neighbors will be.”

  We found his name on the lobby roster and took the elevator to the second floor. I rang the bell and was surprised when the door was answered almost immediately by a blond woma
n in her early twenties. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an artfully casual ponytail and held in place with a bright pink band that matched her pink lips. She was dressed in Lycra exercise clothes, skintight, and carried a gym bag and bottled water.

  “We’re looking for Ralph Nash,” Hannah said.

  “He’s not here.” She examined her nails, which were the same flaming pink as her mouth.

  “Are you his wife?”

  She looked uncertainly from Hannah to me and back again. “Fiancée,” she said finally.

  “Do you know if Ralph used to work at a gallery in Scottsdale?”

  “A long time ago. What’s this about?”

  Hannah displayed her badge. “We’d like to talk to him about someone he used to know. Where could we find him?”

  “He’s at work,” she said. “The Hilton. He’s their events liaison.” She gave us the address.

  We parked in a spot reserved for registration and again stepped from the air-conditioned cool of the car into an oven. Thankfully, it was a short walk to the hotel entrance.

  At the front desk, we asked for Ralph Nash. He appeared a few minutes later, sporting a gold watch, gold neck chain, and diamond pinky ring. And a leg cast and crutches.

  “Motorcycle accident,” he explained, extending a fleshy hand. “I’ve learned my lesson. It’s been two months, and I’m just now able to hobble around.”

  I couldn’t imagine what Eva had seen in him.

  Hannah introduced herself then asked him about Eva. “Yeah, we dated,” he said.

  “Was it serious?”

  He shrugged.

  “Why’d you break up?”

  “Eva got cold feet.” Ralph leaned on one of his crutches. “Turns out her leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me. You’ve met Cindy, so you know what I’m talking about. Eva is ... well, a bit of a flake.”

  I remained silent, but inside I bristled in defense of my wife, who was in no way a flake.