Web of Evil ar-2

by J. A. Jance

  "My uncle's English isn't so good," Andrea said. "He'll need someone to translate."

  "Would you?"

  "I guess," Andrea agreed.

  "So where is he?"

  "Here," she said. "Well, a few blocks away."

  "Where's here?" Ali asked.

  Andrea didn't answer the question directly. "Let me ask him if he wants to talk to you. I'll call you back."

  Ali hung up and turned to face Dave. "Now how do I find Henrietta Jackson?"

  "Who's she? The cook?" Dave asked.

  Ali nodded.

  "And that's all the information you have on herjust her name? No address? No phone number?"

  "Paul probably had more information than that, but it would be in his office and"

  "And the house is a crime scene," Dave finished for her.

  "Exactly."

  Dave busied himself with making phone calls, but Ali didn't listen to what he was doing. She was thinking about Paul Grayson. She had always had her own money, but Paul had handled the bill paying for everything, including the household accounts. She had never realized until today that the help had been paid in cash. Despite the fact that they had been in this country for years, it probably meant that either Jesus or his wife, Clemencia Sanchez, or both of them were illegals, living and working beneath the INS radar.

  For the first time Ali wondered about Elvira Jimenez, Paul's former cook. Was the same true for her? Was she, too, working without proper papers? And what had happened to her? After years of working in the household, why had she been let go? And what about Henrietta? The woman's distinctive accent placed her as being from somewhere in the southern United States. She certainly wasn't an undocumented immigrant, so was she working in an underground economy simply to avoid paying taxes? And if Ali did manage to find Jesus and Henrietta and offer them their jobs back, what kind of liability would she be incurring?

  "Your cook has no driver's license as far as I can find," Dave announced a few minutes later. "At least, she doesn't have a California driver's license."

  "How did you do that?"

  "I know people who know people," he said.

  "What about Jesus Sanchez? Could you find him?"

  "I thought his niece was going to put you in touch with him."

  "What if she doesn't? What if I need to find him on my own?"

  A moment later, when Ali's phone rang, her concern about locating Jesus Sanchez proved entirely accurate. "My uncle doesn't want to see you," Andrea Morales announced.

  "I just want to talk to him," Ali began.

  "He doesn't want to talk to you," Andrea returned forcefully. "He said no, and that means no." With that, she hung up.

  Ali was stunned. Because of Jesus's limited English skills and because Ali spoke only rudimentary Spanish, communications between the two of them had always been minimal at best. As far as Ali knew, however, there had never been any kind of ill will.

  "Andrea Morales," Dave was saying into his phone as Ali put down hers. "You've dozens? Give me the addresses."

  Minutes later, though, armed with a phone book and the list of addresses, Dave was able to match one specific Andrea Morales with the received call number logged into Ali's cell phone. "There you are," he said triumphantly. "Andrea and Miguel Morales, two-twenty-four South Sixth, Pico Gardens."

  Ali knew from her days on the news desk that Pico Gardens had a reputation for being a center of gang-related activities. It was also known as a haven for newly arrived illegal aliens.

  "Let's go," Ali said. She went over to the wall safe, opened it, and removed both her Glock and the small-of-back holster she had purchased to carry it.

  "Go where?" Dave asked. He eyed her weapon uneasily. "And is that really necessary?"

  "In Pico Gardens?" Ali returned. "Yes. If a couple of gringos are going there, being armed is probably the only sensible idea. Andrea told me that Jesus lives somewhere nearbywithin a few blocks of where she and her husband live. Jesus drives an old blue van. If it's parked on the street, I'll recognize it."

  "It didn't sound as though Jesus is eager to talk to you," Dave pointed out.

  "Doesn't matter," Ali said. "I want to talk to him." Ali turned to her mother. "Are you coming along?" she asked.

  "I don't think so," Edie said. "If you don't mind, I think I'll hang around here. I'll use your computer to surf the Net."

  The idea of her mother, Edie Larson, "surfing the Net" was still strange to Ali. Amazing even. "Be my guest," she said.

  "I'll also look in on April from time to time," Edie added. "Just to make sure she's okay."

  When Dave and Ali left the hotel, they attempted the back door exit that had worked flawlessly for them the day before, but the media folks had wised up. A reporter, one lowly enough to be relegated to hanging around by the reeking kitchen Dumpster, and her equally low-on-the-totem-pole photographer were lying in wait just outside the door.

  "Hey, Ms. Reynolds," the reporter called, holding her microphone aloft and rushing up to the car. "Is it true you've been brought in for questioning in two homicide cases? Do you have any comment?"

  Of course I don't have a comment, Ali thought. She said nothing as Dave opened the door on his Nissan. It was too bad they hadn't taken her Cayenne on this trip. Now the media would have information on what had previously been their stealth vehicle.

  The photographer focused his camera on Dave. "Out of my way," he said with a snarl, but the photographer didn't take the hint. He was still snapping away as Dave scrambled into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut behind him.

  "What jackasses!" he exclaimed. "Were you ever that bad?"

  "I don't think so," Ali said. I hope not, she thought.

  The reporter and photographer were legging it for the front of the building and, presumably, some vehicle, when Dave peeled out of the back driveway and bounced over the edge of the curb into the street.

  "Are they going to catch us?" Ali asked.

  "Not if I can help it," Dave returned. "Now which way?"

  Without her GPS or a detailed map to rely on, Ali had to think for a moment before she was able to get her bearings and direct him onto the southbound ramp of the 405 and from there onto the 10.

  "How's your Spanish?" Ali asked as they sped down the freeway.

  "I speak menu Spanish fairly well. Why?"

  "Because Jesus speaks almost no English and I speak almost no Spanish."

  "Maybe his niece, Andrea Whatever, would translate for us."

  "I doubt that," Ali said. She picked up her cell phone and scrolled through her phone book until she located the name Duarte.

  During her time as a newscaster in L.A., one of Ali's PR roles had been serving as the station's goodwill ambassador to the cancer community. Because of her own tragic history with Dean's death from cancer, she had been a likely and willing candidate. She had served on boards and walked in Races for the Cure and Relays for Life. But she had also done a lot of hands-on caregiving, work that had nothing to do with public relations and never made it into the news. One such case had been a three-year-old leukemia patient named Alonso Duarte.

  Lonso's father, Eduardo, had worked at Ali's television station in the capacity of janitor. His wife, Rosa, had worked as a maid for a series of hotels. Once Lonso was diagnosed, the station had broadcast a series of stories about his battle and about his family's plight as well. They had helped raise money to fill in the gap between the bills and what medical insurance actually paid. The station's official involvement had eventually ended, but Ali had remained a part of the family's support system during Lonso's many hospitalizations and chemo treatments. The last Ali had heard, the boy had been in remission for four years.

  Eddie Duarte had been working at the station the night Ali had been let go. He, of all people, had been drafted to carry her box of personal possessions out to her car. At the time he had offered to testify on her behalf in any wrongful dismissal suit. Since negotiations on that score were still pending, Eddie's testim
ony in the matter had so far been unnecessary. As far as Ali knew he was still on the station's payroll, but since he was a nighttime janitor, she worried about calling during the morning hours and waking him. But she did it anywaycalled him and woke him.

  "Ali," he said, when he finally realized who she was. "So good to hear from you. How are you? I heard about your husband. I'm so sorry."

  Sorry for what? Ali wondered. Sorry because Paul's dead or sorry because he was such a jerk?

  "Thank you," she said. "How is Rosa? How's Lonso?"

  "Rosa's fine and Lonso's great. He even got to play peewee league this yearsecond base."

  For a child who had been hovering at death's door five years earlier, this seemed like nothing short of a miracle.

  "But what about you?" he asked. "I don't work for the station anymore. I got hired on with another company. If you need me to testify amp;"

  "We may still need you to do that, but right now, I need something else," Ali said.

  "Name it," Eddie said.

  "I'm trying to find my old gardener," Ali said. "There's been a misunderstanding. I need to hire him back, but I don't speak enough Spanish."

  "You need me to translate?" Eddie asked.

  "Yes," Ali said. "Please."

  "Where? When?"

  "Soon," Ali said. "As soon as possible. But I'm not sure where. He lives somewhere in Pico Gardens, but we're not there yet, and I don't have an address."

  "The only place I know there is that old Linda Vista Hospital, the abandoned hospital they use for movies and TV shows," Eddie said. "I could meet you thereout front in the parking lot. It'll take me about forty-five minutes to get there."

  "Great," Ali said. "Maybe by then we'll have found him."

  "Who's Eddie?" Dave asked.

  "Long story," Ali returned. "A very long story."

  With Ali on the phone and Dave preoccupied with dodging other drivers, they were in the wrong lane and had missed the fork onto I-10 East. Half an hour after leaving the tony environs of Wilshire Boulevard, they were driving around the desolate, graffiti-marred streets of Boyle Heights. It was a neighborhood of houses that had been built in the early part of the twentieth century and were somehow still holding together. Some of them appeared to be in reasonably decent shape. Others were little more than crumbling wrecks.

  They started by locating the Morales household on Sixth and then circled out from there, searching for Jesus Sanchez's van. As they turned up South Chicago, Ali pointed. "There it is," she announced. "That's his van."

  The aging, much dented Aerostar was parked in the driveway of a decrepit duplex.

  "Now that we know where to find Jesus, let's go back to the hospital parking lot and wait for my interpreter to show up."

  "What if he doesn't?"

  "Don't worry. Eddie will be here."

  Once they were parked and waiting, Ali told Dave the Eddie Duarte story from beginning to end. She was just finishing when her phone rang.

  "You're not going to believe this," Edie Larson said. "If I weren't down here in the lobby seeing it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it myself."

  Ali switched her phone to "speaker" so Dave could hear both sides of the conversation. "Seeing what?" she asked. "What's going on?"

  "Lights, camera, action," Edie replied grimly. "April is down here in the lobby in a blue and white maternity outfit with perfect makeup and perfect hair. She's doing a sit-down interview with some young woman with very long blond hair and an astonishingly short skirt. I saw the logo on one of the cameras. It said Court TV."

  "The blonde would be Sheila Rosenburg," Ali said. "So April is doing the interview after all."

  "And against our advice," Edie added. "But there's more. I told you when you left that I was going to go check on her and see if she needed anything. Only when I opened my door, there was a man coming out of her room, so I ducked back inside ours. He was a young man, by the way, a very good-looking young man."

  "Probably one of her friends," Ali said.

  "That's what I thought right up until he kissed her good-bye," Edie returned. "Believe me, it was a lot more than a just friends' kiss. But when he turned away from her, I recognized him. I had seen him before."

  "Where?" Ali asked.

  "On his Web site."

  Ali felt like she was bumbling around in the dark. "What Web site?" she asked.

  "Ever since you told me about all that Sumo Sudoku nonsense, I've been curious about it," Edie answered. "I mean, why would Paul and April want to have a bunch of supposedly brainy bodybuilders cluttering up their wedding day? In my experience, weddings are stressful enough without having a film crew and extra people mucking around under hand and foot at the same time. So this morning, I looked up some Sumo Sudoku Web sites and that's where I found him. The guy's name is Tracy McLaughlin."

  Ali was stunned. "You're saying you think April has been messing around with Tracy McLaughlin? Are you kidding?"

  "I'm not kidding," Edie replied. "Do you know if there's been a paternity test?"

  Ali remembered how pleased Paul had been when he learned April was pregnantpleased and excited.

  "I have no idea," Ali said.

  "If there hasn't been one, there probably should be," Edie said. "As Paul's executor, if you're going to be forced into setting up a trust fund for Paul's supposed catch colt, you'd best be sure the baby is really his."

  Edie Larson had always been a keen observer of human behavior. One of the spooky things about Ali's mother, something that had always left her daughter more than slightly mystified, was her innate ability to see through things that went over other people's heads. Aunt Evelyn, Edie's twin sister, had always claimed that Edie had eyes in the back of her head. As a child, Ali had believed it was true. Maybe it still was, but this seemed like too much.

  "Based on seeing the man in a hotel hallway, you're convinced Sonia Marie is really Tracy McLaughlin's baby rather than Paul's?" Ali asked.

  "I'd bet money on it," Edie declared. "You should have seen the little love tap and the kiss the man laid on April's tummy as he was saying good-bye. That was a daddy-style maneuver if I've ever seen one."

  That meant Paul was cheating on Ali with April, and April was cheating on Paul with Tracy McLaughlin. This was, Ali supposed, entirely predictable.

  "What goes around comes around," she said. "So what do we know about Tracy McLaughlin?"

  "Only what was on his Web site, and I've got his bio right here," Edie replied. "Says he came to Hollywood from Des Moines, Iowa, determined to be a stuntman. He ended up in a stunt that went bad and spent the next six months in a full body cast. When he got out of the cast, he went into bodybuilding to regain his strength. He worked puzzles while he was laid up and invented Sumo Sudoku once he got better as a way of proving to people that he had recovered completely. But that's not all."

  "What's not all?" Ali asked.

  "You'll never guess who put up a major part of the capital to get Sumo Sudoku off the ground."

  "Paul?"

  "You've got it. He's one of the original investors in the organization. There are ten people who put up big bucks to get it started. I don't recognize any of the other names, but you may. I think that's why they were holding the Sumo Sudoku tournament at the house on the same day as the wedding. I'm sure Paul knew there would be lots of media coverage. That way the tournament would generate lots of interest amp;"

  "And lots of buzz," Ali finished. "In this town, buzz is everything. Once something is the current in' thing, then it's everybody's in' thing. Get one appearance on Jay Leno and you're on your way."

  A gray Chevrolet Impala pulled up and stopped beside Dave's Nissan. "I've gotta go, Mom," Ali said. "My translator is here."

  Leaving the Chevy idling, Eddie Duarte hurried over to Ali's door, reached in, and gave her a swift hug.

  "Thank you for coming," she said.

  "No problem," Eddie returned. "Now where's this guy you need me to talk to?"

  With Eddie fo
llowing in his Chevy, Dave and Ali drove back to South Chicago Street, where Jesus Sanchez's distinctive blue van was still parked in the driveway. Dave drove half a block beyond the Sanchez house and then stopped in a parking spot that was large enough for both his Nissan and Eddie's Impala. Before they could open their doors, however, a big unmarked Crown Victoria came careening around the corner and grabbed the spot just behind Eddie. Dave watched in his mirror as two people exited the vehicle and hurried past the van and into the fenced yard.

  "Hey," Dave began. "I think I know them. Aren't they the two homicide detectives who came to the hospital to talk to April last night?"

  Ali turned and looked. Sure enough, Detectives Tim Hubbard and Rosalie Martin hurried up onto the duplex's shaded front porch and rang the bell. "They talked to me, too," Ali said. "What are they doing here?"

  "Same thing we are," Dave replied. "Looking for answers."

  "Which means we're too late then," Ali said.

  "Looks like," Dave agreed. "They'll recognize you. You stay where you are, and I'll let your friend Eddie know what's going on."

  While Ali watched, the two detectives tried ringing a doorbell. Then they knockedand knocked some more. Finally a woman Ali recognized to be Jesus's wife, Clemencia, came to the door and slipped out onto the porch. She stood there talking to the two detectives for several long minutes, alternately shaking her head and gesturing. A little later, an LAPD patrol car pulled up as well. A young Hispanic officer exited the vehicle and hurried up onto the porch, where he joined in the conversation.

  By then Dave had returned. "The new guy is probably here to translate," Dave muttered. "That means they have the same language problem we do."

  They waited and watched for another fifteen minutes. Finally, the clearly frustrated detectives and the patrolman stepped off the porch and returned to their two separate vehicles. As they drove away, Dave let out a sigh of relief.

  "If Jesus is there, he refused to come out and talk to them, and they didn't go in after him. That means Hubbard and Martin were only here on a fishing expedition, and they went away empty-handed. If they'd had enough for a search warrant, it would have been a different story."