Hand of Evil

by J. A. Jance

“Yes, he could be in trouble—and most likely would be,” Ali conceded. Big trouble, she thought. “No matter what the boys at your school may say, having oral sex with a minor—and you are a minor, by the way—is a crime. What you and Curt did together, even if it was consensual, makes him a sexual predator. I’m sure he knew it was wrong, and so did you. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so worried about your father finding out.”

  She glanced at Crystal, who stared straight ahead and didn’t reply.

  “Even so,” Ali continued, “let’s give the guy some credit. Curt was still willing to do the right thing—at least as far as calling in and reporting the assault on Kip was concerned. He went to the trouble of driving across the freeway to that gas station and placing the nine-one-one call. What we need for him to do now is come forward and tell the cops anything else he might know. And regardless of whether or not your father finds out about what you and Curt were doing, you need to do the same thing, Crystal. You need to talk to the investigators and tell them what you saw.”

  “No,” Crystal insisted. “I won’t talk to them. I don’t have to. And I don’t want to go into the hospital, either. You go see Sandy. I’ll just wait for you in the car.”

  Ali couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that in the space of a few minutes—the time it had taken to drive several city blocks—Crystal Holman had managed to do another one-eighty, from a tearful little girl to a recalcitrant, hostile teenager.

  “No,” Ali replied simply. “You’re not waiting in the car.” Ali climbed out of the Cayenne and then reached into the backseat to collect her purse and computer bag, both of which she slung over her shoulder. Then she walked around to the far side of the car and opened the passenger door for Crystal. “You’re coming with me,” she said.

  “You’re not my mother. You can’t make me do anything if I don’t want to,” Crystal returned.

  Ali was unimpressed. “Oh?” she said. “Watch me. All I have to do is call the cops and report you as a truant. Children your age are supposed to be in school, you know.”

  “You wouldn’t do that,” Crystal objected. “Besides, you told my dad you’d look after me.”

  “I am looking after you, honey lamb,” Ali returned in a tone that brooked no further argument. “Which is why you’re getting your sorry butt out of my car right now and coming into the hospital with me. Move it!”

  There was a long pause, during which Ali wondered what would happen if the confrontation turned physical and she had to reach into the car and bodily drag Crystal out of the passenger seat. Would someone see her and call the cops, reporting the incident as child abuse or an assault or both? At that point, she didn’t much care.

  Finally Crystal reluctantly complied, slamming the car door behind her and flouncing off through the parking garage with Ali hurrying after her.

  Ali remembered visiting St. Francis Hospital years before when she had been a little girl. Back then it had been a single stand-alone building. Now the medical center was a whole campus of buildings complete with multiple parking garages and a valet parking stand. Ali found Sandy waiting alone in the main hospital lobby. While she sat down next to Sandy, Crystal stalked off to the far side of the room, where she found a chair that allowed her to sit with her back to them.

  “What’s going on?” Ali asked.

  “Kip’s still in surgery,” Sandy answered. “That’s all they’ll tell me, and I guess I’m lucky to know that.” She subsided into silence and blew her nose into an already soggy tissue. “It’s not fair,” she added. “I mean, just because Kip and I aren’t married they treat me like I’m nothing. Like I have no right to know anything about what’s going on.”

  The new hospital privacy rules may have been news to Sandy Mitchell, but Ali had already stubbed her toe on them on more than one occasion. Before Ali could respond, her phone rang.

  “I’m still hanging fire at the courthouse here in Prescott,” Dave said. “And I still don’t know if I’m going to get called as a witness today or not, but I’ve talked to Lee Farris. You remember him, don’t you?”

  Homicide Detective Farris was Coconino County’s counterpart to Yavapai County’s Detective Dave Holman. Farris had been part of the joint investigation into the death of Ali’s best friend from high school, Reenie Bernard.

  “Yes,” Ali said. “I remember him.”

  “Now that Kip’s case has turned into an attempted homicide, the missing persons interview Sandy did with the City of Sedona just isn’t going to cut it. Lee is on his way down to Phoenix right now. He’s coming to the hospital in hopes of reinterviewing Sandy and gleaning some additional information. I told him she’d probably be there at the hospital most of the day. I didn’t have a cell phone number for her, so I gave him yours. Hope that’s okay with you.”

  “It’s fine,” Ali said.

  “Lee had heard about the confrontation that happened at Basha’s the other day, the one between Kip and those kids who were hassling Sandy. He’s hoping Sandy will be able to do sketches of them. Coconino County contracts with a composite artist based in Phoenix. Lee is trying to make arrangements to have the artist meet up with Sandy there in Phoenix at the hospital rather than having her drive up to Sedona and back.”

  “Okay,” Ali said. “I’ll let Sandy know.”

  “And how are things with Crystal?” Dave asked.

  Ali glanced warily across the room to where Crystal sat with her shoulders hunched and her back still turned to Ali and Sandy.

  “We’re doing okay,” Ali said guardedly. “Not great but okay.”

  “She’s not giving you any trouble, is she?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” Ali told him.

  When Crystal’s cell phone buzzed with the IM announcement, she almost jumped out of her skin. And she checked behind her to make sure no one was watching. When she saw Curt’s initials in the sender’s window, her heart skipped a beat. She had been scared something bad might have happened to him. She was glad to know he was safe, and she wanted to warn him about what was going on—about Kip Hogan and the fact that the cops might be looking for Curt.

  “RUOK?” she typed.

  “Y”

  “WRU?” Where are you?

  “FNX”

  “CNICU?” Can I see you?

  “Y”

  “WN?” When?

  “W8” Wait. “WN I CN” After a while, she added a plaintive request. “CNUTAKMEHOME?”

  “EZ” Curt told her. “NO PROB”

  Only a few minutes after Joanna was warned about the impending arrival of the composite artist, the woman herself appeared on the scene. She was stocky with short gray hair and dragging a heavy-duty roll-aboard computer case behind her. She spoke briefly to the receptionist, who nodded and then pointed in Sandy’s direction. Ali stepped forward to intercept her.

  “Ms. Mitchell?” the woman asked.

  “No. I’m Ali Reynolds, a friend of Sandy’s. That’s her over there.”

  But the woman was focused on Ali. “Ali Reynolds? Wait a minute,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re Alison Reynolds. I remember you. Weren’t you on the news over in L.A.?”

  Ali nodded.

  “Madeline Havens with Composite Systems,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “I used to live there, too—in L.A. Did someone tell you I was coming?”

  “They didn’t mention you by name,” Ali said, “but for some reason Madeline Havens sounds familiar. I seem to remember that I did a story on you once, but the details escape me.”

  Madeline grinned. “You did do a story on me. In fact, you did several, and it’s ironic, because what happened to me isn’t all that different from what I understand happened to you a little later on. For years I was an in-house composite artist for LAPD. Then, when the new chief came along, all of a sudden and despite glowing performance reviews, they let me go and replaced me with a whole bevy of private contractors.

  “So I did the same thing you did—filed suit for wrongful dismissal—and went freel
ance. It turns out I’m an EEOC triple threat: age—fifty-one; sexual orientation—lesbian; and race—Indian—Paiute, not East Indian. Took the bastards to court and won big-time. Now I’m a private contractor myself—I do composites for smaller jurisdictions, the ones that don’t have budgets big enough to support in-house artists. Our company has even been able to undercut the guys who replaced me at LAPD on occasion. That felt particularly good. So, what are you up to these days?”

  Ali thought about that. It didn’t seem like she was doing much. “Some blogging,” she said. “And I’m trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.”

  “No sense in rushing,” Madeline said. “Fifty’s the new forty, you know.”

  With that, Madeline turned her attention to Sandy. Once they had been introduced, she took the seat next to her. Within minutes, armed with both a laptop computer and an old-fashioned sketchbook, Madeline had engaged Sandy in conversation and gone to work. Her computer was stocked with images of hundreds of individual physical features—eyebrows, eyes, hairlines, hairstyles, chins, noses, lips. Once Sandy selected individual features, Madeline incorporated those into a handmade sketch.

  Ali found the process fascinating. With Sandy providing the details and with Madeline Havens skillfully combining them, the image of a young man gradually emerged on paper. He was in his early to mid-twenties with wide-set eyes, a long crooked nose, and a brush-cut hairstyle. In the drawing there was an odd disconnectedness in his expression that reminded Ali of photos she had seen of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber. There was something about his angry, dead-eyed expression that made Ali’s blood run cold.

  As Ali watched the image materialize she realized that, good as it might be, the information Sandy was providing merely placed the guy at the confrontation in Basha’s. Crystal, however, had been at the scene of the almost fatal attack in Mund’s Park. Would she recognize the subject of the drawing as one of the toughs she had seen there?

  Enthralled by the sketching process, Ali had momentarily stopped paying attention to Crystal. Now, though, wanting to show the drawing to Crystal, Ali discovered to her dismay that the girl was no longer there. While Ali had been otherwise occupied, Crystal had simply vanished.

  When Crystal reached the park, Curt’s car still wasn’t there. She stood there for a moment, undecided. What if Ali came looking for her?

  Looking around for a place to hide, Crystal spotted a thick clump of sharp-leaved dusty bushes close to the parking lot. She ducked into them. The ground underneath was dirty and dusty and strewn with garbage—dead drink containers and empty grease-covered McDonald’s wrappers—that had been totally invisible from the outside. But the fact that the trash had been invisible from the outside meant that Crystal was, too. As she settled in, her nose began to run. Her eyes itched like fire. She was grateful to have her father’s long-sleeved and oversize sweats protecting her from the smelly, prickly leaves while she waited—seeing without being seen.

  The parking lot was full of people. Two vans with signs that read SUNSHINE DAYCARE pulled up and parked in the two spots closest to Crystal. Several women and seven little kids clambered out of them. While the attendants pulled out a series of multiple-child strollers and began loading children into them, Crystal caught sight of the Explorer. It pulled into the lot and stopped a few parking places beyond the vans.

  The women and kids and strollers were right there in front of Crystal—only a few feet away. If she popped out of the bushes right then, Crystal knew she’d startle them and draw way too much attention to herself. So she waited, willing them to move on; willing her itchy nose not to sneeze. But then, just as the crowd started moving out of the way, something happened in one of the middle strollers—one containing three toddlers. The middle child began howling and whacking away with one little fist at the child on his right. The whole parade came to a stop, while the lady pushing the stroller tried to figure out what was going on.

  Come on, Crystal urged silently. Get out of the way.

  But they were still there, milling in front of her, when beyond them, Crystal saw the door of the Explorer come open. A man stepped out. Crystal could barely believe her eyes. It wasn’t Curt—it wasn’t him at all. But the man driving Curt’s truck was someone Crystal recognized. She had seen him once before as a frightening figure caught in the Explorer’s headlights—someone wielding a baseball bat.

  Crystal gave a sharp intake of breath. One of the women seemed to notice. She looked around, frowning, but then her charges drew her attention once again, and she turned back to the kids in her stroller. Moments later the whole group moved on, clearing the way between Crystal and the Explorer.

  Shaking with dread and afraid of being seen, Crystal stayed where she was and waited. While she watched, the man who wasn’t Curt pulled a phone out of his pocket and began pressing buttons. A moment later, Crystal’s cell phone buzzed, announcing a text message. The vibration startled her so much that she could barely pull the phone out of her pocket. With her breath coming in short, shallow gasps and with her fingers trembling so much she almost dropped the phone, Crystal read the message:

  “WRU?” Where are you? CU wanted to know.

  CU was Curt’s handle, but he wasn’t the one who had been sending Crystal messages. The man in the parking lot, the man driving Curt’s Explorer, was the one who had offered to give Crystal a ride back home to Sedona. So what did all this mean? If Curt wasn’t here—if he wasn’t the one driving his truck or using his phone, Crystal wondered, where was he? Was he dead? Had those awful men from Mund’s Park used a baseball bat on Curt the same way they had on Kip Hogan? She had seen two of them get Curt’s SUV. Had they found Curt while Crystal was hiding in the restroom and taken him away? If they had killed Curt and almost killed Kip, what would they do to Crystal if they ever found her?

  Without ever emerging from the bushes, Crystal used her trembling fingers to key in her response.

  “UHA.” Under house arrest. “SRY.”

  Over in the parking lot, the man who wasn’t Curt muttered something under his breath and kicked the tire. Then he jumped into the Explorer, slammed the door behind him, and drove away.

  Watching him go, Crystal Holman was smart enough to know that one thing and only one thing had saved her—that howling little boy who had been so intent on beating up his seatmate. If it hadn’t been for him, Crystal knew she would have been a goner.

  When Ali first noticed Crystal was gone, she wasn’t all that concerned. Thinking she might have simply responded to a call of nature, Ali got up and went across the lobby to the women’s restroom. Unfortunately it was empty. Crystal wasn’t there and no one else was, either. With rising apprehension, Ali hurried over to the lobby entrance where a uniformed security guard was stationed just outside.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “Did you see a girl come out this door in the last few minutes? She was wearing a pair of oversize sweats.”

  “Blue sweats? Long blond hair in a ponytail?”

  Ali nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “Sure, I saw her,” the security guard said. “Just a couple of minutes ago.” He pointed. “Headed off toward Thomas on foot.”

  Ali headed that way, too. As she did so, she pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through the call history until she found a number that had to be Crystal’s. When she reached Thomas, she paused on the sidewalk and looked in both directions. Nothing, and when Ali called Crystal’s cell phone, there was no answer on that, either.

  She had ended the call and was hurrying back toward the parking garage when her phone rang. Hating the idea of having to tell Dave what was really going on and that his runaway daughter was once again on the lam, Ali was relieved to see her son’s name in the caller ID window.

  “Hey, Mom,” Chris said. “I’m at lunch. I thought I’d call and see how things are going down there. How’s Kip?”

  “Still in surgery,” Ali told him. “And everything else is a disaster. Believe it or not, Crystal just t
ook off again.”

  “You mean she ran away?”

  “Evidently. There’s a woman here working with Sandy on a set of composite drawings. I got caught up in that. Crystal must have realized I wasn’t paying attention and made her getaway. I never expected her to pull a stunt like that.”

  “You should have,” Chris counseled. “She’s a teenager after all.”

  “You never did any of this stuff,” Ali countered.

  “Don’t be so sure, Mom,” Chris said with a laugh. “Most of the time I was lucky and didn’t get caught.”

  By then, Ali was back at her car. “I’m hanging up now,” she said. “I’m going to drive over to the freeway and see if I can spot her between here and there. Maybe Crystal’s trying to hitch a ride back home.”

  Once in her Cayenne, Ali drove straight to I-17. Heading north, she checked entrance and exit ramps as far as Bethany Home Road, all to no avail. Frustrated beyond bearing but still stalling on making the necessary call to Dave, Ali was on her way back to the hospital when her phone rang again.

  Ali was almost sick with relief when she heard the missing girl’s voice. “Crystal!” she exclaimed. “Where are you?”

  “I’m scared. Can you come get me, please?”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the park where we went earlier this morning. The parking lot by that little lake.”

  “What are you doing there?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just come get me,” Crystal insisted. “Please.”

  There were dozens of questions Ali wanted to ask, but Crystal sounded so upset—so desperate—that Ali stifled all of them. “I’m on my way,” she said grimly. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  More furious than she was relieved, Ali swung into the parking lot with a squeal of tires. At first Crystal wasn’t visible, but as soon as Ali stopped the car, the girl emerged from beneath some oleanders and came sprinting toward the Cayenne. Once inside, she fastened her seat belt without having to be reminded.