by J. A. Jance
“Looks like,” Lee Farris agreed. “Luckily for your dad, they blew a tire on that Bronco of his or it would still be gone. It also looks like you’re real lucky you didn’t catch up with this creepo today. His losing you was the best thing that could have happened. Otherwise we’d probably be looking for you now, too.”
Half sick to her stomach, Ali knew it was true. She hadn’t been following Curt Uttley—she had been following Curt Uttley’s killer, and if she had managed to catch him, no doubt she’d be dead as well. So far both she and Crystal had been incredibly lucky.
There’s only one question, Ali thought. Will the killers give up or will they come back and try again?
{ CHAPTER 11 }
The door to the conference room opened. Dave Holman emerged from the room. His daughter did not.
“We’ve had our little father/daughter chat,” he said. “Crystal says she’s too embarrassed to come out, and maybe that’s a good thing.”
Folding a piece of paper and stuffing it in his jacket pocket, Dave looked from Lee’s face to Ali’s. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Uttley’s dead,” Farris said without preamble. “Somebody killed him and threw him over the guardrail where they’re building that new bridge at Burro Creek.”
Dave took a few seconds to process that. “Thank God for small blessings,” he said. “Saves me the trouble.”
Farris nodded. “I’m on my way to Tempe right now to see what I can do about tracking down our bad guys.”
“Me, too,” Dave Holman said.
“No,” Farris objected. “Absolutely not.”
“What do you mean, no?” Dave argued. “At this stage of the investigation, the more feet on the ground the better.”
“Not your feet,” Farris returned. “We need uninvolved feet, Dave. We need people with no ax to grind. Uttley’s murder happened in Mojave County. They’ve got a pair of detectives headed this way. We’ll be able to use them. The attack on Mr. Hogan happened in my jurisdiction, and I’ll be working the case as well. What I want you to do is walk away and let us handle this.”
“I’m supposed to ignore that one of these guys was hanging around here looking for my daughter?”
“That’s all the more reason for you not to be involved,” Farris returned.
“I’m off duty,” Dave pointed out. “What I do on my own time is none of your business.”
For a long tense moment, the two men squared off, staring eye to eye. Afraid punches might be thrown, Ali held her breath. Lee Farris was the first to blink.
“Look,” he said with a conciliatory sigh. “You know you’re too close to this part of the investigation to be unbiased, but there is something you could do. How about if you head down to Chandler and see if you can locate Mr. Hogan’s daughter? You’re a cop, but you’re also one of his friends. It would be a big help to me, Dave. That would mean one less thing I’d have to worry about.”
Dave thought about that for a time. “All right,” he said at last. “Fine.”
“Good,” Farris said. “Thanks. You have all the information you need?”
Dave nodded. “I’ve got it,” he said.
With that, Detective Farris strode off. As soon as he was out of sight, Dave, too, headed for the lobby door, with Ali trailing behind. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Chandler?”
Dave shook his head. “Tempe,” he said grimly.
“But I thought you said…”
“I lied,” Dave said. “Besides, I still have these.” He reached into his pocket and unfolded the three composite sketches. “I’ll stop by a Kinko’s on my way and make a bunch of copies, then I’ll start canvassing gas stations and grocery stores in the area. Even bad guys have to eat and buy gas. If the driver of that Explorer could access a garage door with an opener, chances are he lives somewhere around there. Somebody is going to recognize him.”
“What about contacting Kip’s daughter?” Ali objected.
“I’m sorry,” Dave said. “Getting these guys off the street is a hell of a lot more important than doing a next-of-kin notification.” He opened a small notebook, tore out a page, and handed it to Ali. “If it’s so important to you, you do the notification. You’re Kip’s friend every bit as much as I am. Or maybe your father can do it. We’re dealing with a bunch of cold-blooded killers, Ali. They’re out there looking for Crystal. Right now, finding them is my first priority.”
“What about Crystal?” Ali asked.
“What about her?”
Dave, suddenly focused on the hunt, was prepared to head out without uttering a word to his daughter. “You can’t just walk away and leave her here,” Ali said.
“I can’t very well take her with me, either,” Dave said. “Could I leave her with you awhile longer?”
As Dave’s friend, Ali had listened sympathetically to his version of how the wheels had come off his marriage. The way he told it, Roxanne had been largely to blame. In that instant though, as he prepared to walk away without a word, Ali understood the end of the marriage wasn’t all Roxie’s fault. Whenever duty called—whatever kind of duty—Dave would have been off and running, leaving Roxie holding the bag, juggling the three kids and trying to keep the home fires burning.
In two days, Ali had had more than a bellyful of Crystal Holman, and she wasn’t eager to sign on for more. “Did you make any progress when you talked to her?” Ali asked.
“Some I suppose,” Dave said with a shrug. “We called her mother from the conference room and talked to her together. Roxie says she and Richey will drive down tomorrow and take Crystal home. But that’s tomorrow. Tonight I can’t very well take her along to Tempe with me. It’s too dangerous. What if something were to happen to her?”
What if something happens to you? Ali wondered, but by then, Ali knew she was stuck. “All right,” she agreed. “I’ll keep Crystal with me for the time being, and when I go back to Sedona, I’ll take her to my house.”
“Thank you,” Dave said. “Thanks for everything.”
“You’re welcome,” Ali said. “But you’re not leaving without telling her what’s going on. You’re her father, Dave. She needs to hear it from you, not from me.”
“All right,” he agreed reluctantly. “I’ll tell her.”
When Ali and Dave turned back toward the conference room, they were both surprised to see that Crystal, looking isolated and resentful, was standing silently in the doorway. There was no telling how long she had been there or how much she had heard.
While Ali watched, Dave hurried over to her. Crystal greeted everything he had to say with a temper tantrum of stormy objections. Eventually he wore her down.
“Please, Crystal,” Dave begged. “I need to help catch these guys.”
“All right,” Crystal said, relenting. “But it’s just for tonight. She treats me like I’m a baby or something. I’m glad she’s not my mother.”
And that, Ali thought with genuine gratitude, makes two of us.
Jason Gustavson could hardly believe that the crazy bitch had followed him all the way home from Phoenix, but now, watching the evening news, he was putting it all together. It was terrible luck that the girl was somehow connected to the guy from the store, but that was the problem with small towns. Everybody knew everybody. Everyone was connected to everyone else.
Thanks to the eager news reporter standing in front of St. Francis Hospital, he knew the man they hadn’t quite managed to kill was being treated there. Jason fully intended to go there and finish the job. He’d take care of him and of the others, too—the girl who had somehow gotten away and the crazy broad in the blue Cayenne, who had driven like a maniac to keep up with him.
After a lifetime of keeping his urges bottled up, Jason had finally given himself permission to be real. He wasn’t appalled by what he’d done. He was proud of it. He’d finally stood up for himself. All his life he had talked about doing something spectacular. Time after time, he’d laid out plans and then given them up. This time, he was movin
g forward. This time he was really doing it. The other guys were petrified, of course. They were scared shitless of the cops and of Jason, too, and they weren’t wrong.
On his way to the bathroom, Jason felt the slightest twinge of guilt for the Roto-Rooter guy. After all, he was just a poor jerk out doing a dirty job to support his family, but he was also in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of that, he would be the first to die.
Jason found Tom Melman on his knees in the bathroom, replacing the broken toilet. When the door opened behind him, he didn’t look up. “I’ll be done in a few minutes,” he said, “then I’ll get your water turned back on.”
He may have heard a click because he started to turn around, but the bullet from the silenced .38 plowed into the back of his head and exploded out the front. He fell face-first into the uninstalled Toto. If it hadn’t been for the blood splatter all over the room, he might have been a frat boy who’d had way too much to drink.
Clint Homewood was next. He was sprawled on the beanbag chair in his room, totally engrossed in his PlayStation game and listening to his tunes. “How’s it going, Jas,” he asked as the door opened. “Want to play?”
But Jason Gustavson no longer had any interest in virtual bullets. He’d become enamored with the real thing. “Not right now,” he said, and he pulled the trigger. Again, shooting from mere inches away, there was no question of missing, and he didn’t. The PlayStation fell to the filthy, pizza-box-and beer-can-littered floor and so did Clint. Something about seeing him lying there with his shattered head next to a half-eaten pepperoni made Jason smile.
“Hey,” Mitch Warren called from out in the hall. “What’s going on? Did you hear a funny noise?”
Jason had planned to take Mitch in his room, lying on his bed. Instead, Jason confronted his second roommate in the hallway. When he pulled the trigger, Mitch clutched his gut and crumpled to the floor, moaning. Jason was tempted to leave him there, but he was tired of loose ends, so he pulled the trigger again and put Mitch out of his misery. Then, stepping over the body, he left his roommates’ wing and headed for his own room in the master suite on the far side of the house.
Jason Gustavson had a few last-minute items to pull together before he could finish this. It might very well be his last evening on earth, and he planned to make it memorable.
“Come on,” Ali said, once Dave had disappeared through the lobby door.
“Where?” Crystal asked.
“Your father has work to do, and so do we.”
“Like what?” Crystal wanted to know. “What do we have to do?”
“First we have to go upstairs and talk to my parents and tell them where we’re going. Then we need to track down Mr. Hogan’s daughter and let her know what’s happened to him.”
“Why?” Crystal asked.
“Because your father asked us to for starters, and we’re going to tell my parents because that’s what responsible people do—they let other people—people who love them—know where they’re going and when they’ll be back.”
“But I’m hungry. Can’t we have something to eat first?”
Ali reminded herself that this was a child who could mow her way through two Sugarloaf sweet rolls at one sitting. “Sure,” Ali said. “We’ll find something on the way.”
They took the elevator up to the ICU floor, where they found Bob and Edie Larson seated side by side in a small waiting room. Sandy wasn’t visible.
“They let her in to see him?” Ali asked.
“Thanks to your mother,” Bob said.
“How’s Kip doing?”
Bob shook his head wordlessly and swiped at his eyes with a pair of balled fists. Edie reached over and patted his knee. “Not very well,” she said. “He’s on a ventilator. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
Ali never remembered seeing her father quite so broken up. Kip had worked for the Larsons, but he and Bob had become good friends as well—and Kip was a friend Bob didn’t want to lose.
“Dave found out that Kip has a daughter,” Ali said.
“A daughter?” Bob asked incredulously. “Are you serious? He never once mentioned having kids.”
“I have her address,” Ali continued. “She lives down in Chandler. Dave asked me…us actually,” she revised, motioning toward Crystal, “to contact her and let her know what’s going on.”
Bob nodded. “If she’s going to get here before it’s too late, you should probably just call her.”
Ali shook her head. “Dave wanted her to be notified in person, and I think he’s right.” She motioned to Crystal. “Let’s go.”
Edie got up and followed them as far as the elevator. “We won’t be able to stay much longer,” she told her daughter. “Sandy’s brother is supposed to be coming a little later, but if we have to go back home…”
“It’s all right,” Ali said. “I’ll make sure Sandy isn’t left here by herself.”
“Good,” Edie said.
Moments later, Ali and Crystal descended to the lobby and walked out into the unexpected chill of a cold desert night. They stopped at a Jack in the Box just shy of the freeway.
“Did your father tell you why he was going to Tempe?” Ali asked while they waited for their to-go order.
Crystal shrugged. “He just said he was going. He didn’t say why. When he’s working on a case, he never does.”
“Curt Uttley is dead,” Ali said quietly.
Crystal gave a small involuntary gasp. “He’s what?”
“He’s dead, Crystal. Someone trussed him up with rope or duct tape. Then they beat him to death and dropped him off the Burro Creek Bridge between Wickenburg and Kingman. That’s who your father is looking for in Tempe. The people who did that. He’s afraid they’re looking for you, too.”
Crystal was uncharacteristically silent, and in that bit of quiet, Ali had a sudden stroke of inspiration. Crystal Holman had been lying to everyone all along, and she probably still was. “Did you see them?” Ali asked quietly.
“See who?”
“Did you see those men, the ones with the bats, meet up with Curt Uttley at the gas station?” Ali asked. “Did you actually see what happened?”
Once again Crystal didn’t answer, but a brief grimace passed across the girl’s features and a vehement denial followed.
“Why do people keep asking me stuff like that?” Crystal declared. “I’m telling you, I didn’t see anything!”
“Excuse me, Crystal, I already know you’re a liar, and I happen to think you’re lying about this, too. But if your father is going to put his life and his job on the line trying to track these guys down, don’t you think somebody deserves to know the truth about what went on?”
Another long period of silence followed as they drove through the relatively light nighttime traffic with the computer-generated voice of the dashboard GPS issuing its bland directions as they went.
Finally Crystal let out a long breath. “Curt had finished making the call and was going back to his SUV when all of a sudden three guys came rushing at him out of nowhere. I saw the whole thing. It looked like they were arguing or something. And then Curt and two of the three got into Curt’s car and drove away. Another car followed them.”
“Willingly?” Ali asked. “Did Curt Uttley get into the car because he wanted to or because they forced him to?”
Crystal didn’t respond.
“Well?” Ali prodded.
“I think they made him go,” Crystal admitted at last.
“And you saw the other car? What kind? What make and model?”
“I don’t know,” Crystal said. “I don’t really know all that much about cars.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone about this at the time?” Ali asked. “Why didn’t you report it? Curt Uttley may have been a pedophile and a worthless excuse for a human being, but if you had called the cops right then and told them what you knew, maybe they could have done something about it. Maybe they could have saved him.”
“I was s
cared,” Crystal whimpered. “I was afraid they’d come after me, too. I mean, I saw what they were doing to that other guy. They were hitting him with a bat. I didn’t want to get hit. And I was afraid to have my dad find out what was going on. But then, this morning, when I got the text message from Curt, I was really happy to hear from him and know he was okay.”
“He isn’t okay,” Ali pointed out. “He’s dead, and he might not have been if you’d reported what happened in a timely manner.”
“Don’t you think I know that now?” Crystal whispered. “I knew it this afternoon as soon as that guy got out of Curt’s car. I knew it right then. I’ll never be able to think of anything else.”
Ali knew Crystal had been scared, and that she still was. No wonder she’d been so difficult. Still, now that they were moving forward, Ali kept up the questions.
“Did you tell Detective Farris any of this?”
“No,” Crystal admitted. “But that’s why I don’t want to go back to Vegas. Daddy’s a cop. He won’t let anything bad happen to me. My stepfather…” Again her voice faded away.
“What about your stepfather?”
Crystal shrugged. “He’s pretty much useless. He wouldn’t be able to keep me safe if they came there looking for me. Not ever.”
Ali wasn’t sure Dave could keep his daughter safe, either. She wasn’t sure anyone could.
By then they had finally arrived at the address listed on Dave Holman’s piece of notebook paper. It turned out to be in a golf course development on the far east side of Chandler. Par 5 Drive was a quiet cul de sac that evidently backed up to a fairway on the Desert Steppes Golf Course. In the glow of neatly spaced streetlamps the houses themselves seemed spacious and commanding, but it appeared that only a few feet separated one house from its next-door neighbor. The distinctly California-like density led Ali to believe this was a relatively new development.
She pulled up to a curb and stopped in front of the house. “Here we are,” Ali said.
“Do I have to come in?” Crystal asked. “Can’t I just wait in the car?”