by J. A. Jance
Haley nodded. “You’re right.”
“You said earlier that Carmen spent the whole day fielding a barrage of angry voice mails. No doubt some of those came from disgruntled clients—especially the ones who got burned by the OFM scam. Many of those will go away forever, no matter what you say or do, but in order to keep the business afloat, you’re going to have to find a way to hang on to as many of your customers as possible. You need to keep that trickle of outgoing clients from becoming a flood.”
“How do I do that?” Haley asked. “The girls and I do the work, but it was always Dan’s name on the door and his face and voice on the commercials.”
“From now on you have to be that face and voice, starting tomorrow when you personally return all those calls. Now, tell me about the business continuation plan,” Carol went on. “Is it a formal arrangement, presumably with insurance to fund it?”
Haley nodded.
“Then as soon as a death certificate is issued, you’ll need to initiate the death claim process.”
“At this point I can’t even think about filing a claim. It’s way too soon.”
“No it’s not,” Carol told her granddaughter. “This is business, Haley. You have to set your emotions aside.”
“How can I?” Haley asked. “Right this minute the whole thing seems utterly overwhelming, but you’re right. All the paperwork for the business continuation plan, including the policy itself, is in Dan’s and Millie’s safe-deposit box, along with their wills. I have a key. I’ll stop by the bank tomorrow.”
“Even with a key, you may still need a death certificate.”
“I didn’t know that,” Haley said.
“I didn’t spend all those years as a secretary in a law office for nothing, you know,” Carol told her. “Now let’s get to bed. It’s way past my bedtime, and I know you’re exhausted.”
“Yes,” Haley said. “This was probably the worst day of my life.”
“I have a feeling your days may get a lot worse before they get better.”
23
Sedona’s Crystal Inn was at the far low end of Sedona’s upscale tourist industry. This was summertime in Sedona—a peak travel season. Most of the upper-crust places in town had their NO VACANCY signs visibly posted. The Crystal Inn still had rooms—and for good reason. It was a grim throwback to first-generation motels, complete with a drive-up window in the office.
Jessica paid cash for her room, using a phony driver’s license in the name of Barbara Toomey as photo ID. The place was old enough to have tiny garages next to each room. The one allocated to room 108 was big enough for Jessica’s VW, but just barely. After checking to be sure there were no nearby security cameras, she ducked inside carrying only a backpack, her purse, and a box of cold pizza she’d picked up from another drive-up window on her way north from Peoria.
Switching on the light, Jessica surveyed the stifling room. It was exactly what she’d expected—a sagging queen-sized bed covered with a faded floral bedspread; a stained orange-and-brown plaid sofa; two Formica-topped bedside tables, as well as a tiny round wooden table and two rickety wooden chairs. She deposited the briefcase and pizza on the tables. When she switched on the under-window AC unit, it immediately filled the room with the unmistakable odor of mildew.
Shaking her head, Jessica opened the briefcase and went about setting up her equipment. Depressing as the place might be, it came with one huge advantage: it was less than a mile away from Haley Jackson’s house on Art Barn Road. Once Jessica’s listening station equipment came on line, the droning voices of Haley Jackson and her grandmother filled the room.
Listening to them talk, Jessica couldn’t help blaming herself for the fix she was in. The listening devices she had planted in Dan’s homes and cars had given her plenty of advance warning that Dan was in the process of reaching out to the feds. Had she passed that information along to Jason? No, she had not. Jason was intent on stealing other people’s money, and Jessica was intent on stealing his. She had assumed, correctly, that once Jason was under the pressure of closing up shop at OFM and bailing, he would be at his most vulnerable. By then he’d have no one else to rely on but her. What she hadn’t anticipated was that Jason would be stupid enough to leave his computer in a place where Dan could access it.
As for Dan? Nothing she had overheard on the listening devices she had planted in his cars and homes had alerted her to the fact that he intended to target Jason’s supposedly secure computer. Who had given him that idea? She doubted Dan was computer savvy enough to have come up with that one on his own, to say nothing of pulling it off. On Friday morning when a frantic Jason had called to tell her what had happened, Jessica had realized at once that the stolen files spelled disaster for her plans every bit as much as they did for Jason’s.
The feds were focused on reeling in Jason McKinzie, but Jessica didn’t want anyone taking too close a look at her, either.
“Don’t worry about this,” she had told him. “I’ll handle it.”
And she had, from beginning to end, to the very best of her ability. The previous evening, during her visit with Haley Jackson, Jessica had used her trip to the bathroom as a cover to reuse some of the devices she had retrieved from Dan’s home in Paradise Valley. She had inserted one into the landline phone on Haley’s bedside table. Pretending to have spilled her purse, she had managed to plug a second one into a wall receptacle behind the living room sofa and had dropped a third one—with a newly charged three-day battery and sporting a black matte case—into the bottom of Haley’s purse. And on her way out of the house, she’d affixed a GPS tracking device on the inside of the wheel well on Haley’s aging Honda.
Knowing she could monitor her target’s every move and word, Jessica was confident that if Haley was indeed the person in possession of the damned drive, Jessica would be able to get it back well within her self-imposed twenty-four-hour deadline. She couldn’t afford to leave Jason on his own any longer than that for fear of his going bonkers.
All of which explained why Jessica was spending the night in this grim hotel room. While the noisy AC unit labored under the window, Jessica munched cold pizza and listened in on the feed from the device planted behind the living room sofa. Every word was crystal clear, making Jessica thankful that she’d sprung for the high-priced models with state-of-the-art mics.
Jessica listened in on the two women for more than an hour without hearing a single mention of a missing SD card. When Haley and her grandmother finally called it a night, so did Jessica. If they were going to be up and out early, Jessica would need to be, too.
24
Bob and Edie sat in the lobby until the search of their apartment was complete. Dash Summers stayed with them until Eric Drinkwater and his crew finally departed the premises. Only then did Bob and Edie return to their unit. As expected, the place was a shambles. The kitchen especially had been torn apart.
“They took the knife block,” Edie observed, assessing the extent of the damage. “But why did they have to leave things in such a mess?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bob told her. “We’ll work on this in the morning. Come to bed.”
“No way,” Edie responded. “I’m not spending the night with the prospect of having to clean this up tomorrow hanging over my head. I wouldn’t sleep a wink.”
So Bob went to bed by himself—to bed but not to sleep. He lay awake, listening to Edie bustling around in the other room, first in the kitchen and eventually in the combination living/dining room as she put things to rights. Eventually, he realized that she was humming under her breath as she worked. Edie had always done that—while she was baking or sewing or cleaning house. It was one of the things he loved about her, but tonight hearing her hum was like a knife wound to his heart.
The fact that Bob was a suspect in a homicide investigation was one thing. It was a serious matter, true, but Bob knew he had done nothing wrong, and even tonight, while the cops were conducting their search, he had felt in his heart of hearts
that eventually Dash or someone would be able to prove his innocence. It was the other problem that was tearing him to pieces—the one that wouldn’t be going away. That was the one that demanded his complete focus.
Edie was happy here at Sedona Shadows—content in a way she had never been before. They both were. And now, because of his bullheadedness in insisting on going with OFM, they were about to lose this haven. Yes, B. and Ali had generously offered to help out, and even though they could probably easily afford to do so, the idea of being dependent on them was anathema to Bob.
He had been shocked when he caught sight of himself in the mirror as he was getting ready for bed. An old man had stared back at him—an undeniably old man. There was no trace of the guy who, only a matter of months ago, had been tripping the light fantastic in cruise ship ballrooms. In fact, they’d already made a nonrefundable deposit on a cruise for next year. Now there would be no more cruise ship ballrooms because there would be no more cruise ships. They couldn’t afford cruising anymore. Life in retirement as they had planned to live it was over.
Lying there staring up at the ceiling, Bob realized that there was an answer to his dilemma—an answer that led straight back to Dan Frazier. A short time later, the lights in the front room clicked off. Realizing that Edie was finally coming to bed, Bob rolled over on his side and pretended to be fast asleep. She came into the room and went through to the bathroom to undress and brush her teeth. A few minutes later, he felt the weight of her body as she sat down on her side of the bed. Then, moments later, as she lay down beside him, he felt the light pressure of her hand on his shoulder as she snuggled up beside him.
Knowing it was the last time, Bob lay there beside her, forcing himself not to sob while silent tears dribbled into his pillow.
25
With B. and Bella off to bed, Ali decided to stay up a while longer—long enough to finish her wine and take one last crack at James Joyce. She had barely opened the book when her phone rang and Dave Holman’s name appeared in the caller ID window.
Dave, a Yavapai County homicide detective, was one of Ali’s longtime friends. For a while there had been some romantic sparks between them, but that affair had ended amicably. After both Ali and Dave went on to marry other people, there had been some initial awkwardness between the two couples, but Ali was grateful that had evened out enough that the friendship remained intact.
“Hey, Dave,” Ali said when she answered. “What’s up?”
“I’m down at the bottom of your drive. I’ve been hearing a lot about what went on here in town today, and I thought you might be in need of some moral support.”
“You called that shot,” she said. “Hang up so I can open the gate and let you in.”
Knowing that the sound of the doorbell would set off a barking frenzy, Ali opened the front door just as Dave stepped up onto the porch. He walked over to her and gave her a hug. “Tough day?”
“Very. Come on in,” she said, ushering him into the house. “I was just finishing my wine. Would you like some?”
“Sounds good, but I’d better not,” he said. “I’m off shift but still driving a company car.”
“What’s your pleasure, then?”
“A soda would be fine. Any flavor, diet or not. I’m not fussy.”
“Ice or not?”
“No ice,” Dave said, “and just the can works for me.”
When Ali returned moments later with a frosty can of root beer, she found Dave seated close to the fire in B.’s customary chair.
“Nothing like a double homicide to get the gossip mills in town running at warp speed,” Dave said with a rueful smile as Ali handed him his soda. “How are you people holding up?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“And your folks?”
Ali knew that Dave was on shaky ground. A double homicide inside the city limits was outside Dave’s jurisdiction, but she knew that discussing an active case with the family of a person of interest in that case meant Dave was crossing a line most cops wouldn’t cross.
“Mom’s holding up fairly well, I think,” Ali answered. “As for my dad? This has hit him hard. He’s someone who’s never had so much as a single speeding ticket in his life. To be taken into custody the way he was and treated like a common criminal when all he was doing was providing first aid and trying to save Dan and Millie’s lives . . .” She broke off for a moment.
“Had to be tough,” Dave offered.
Ali nodded. “They had him locked in an interview room for hours on end,” she continued. “By the time we figured out where he was and could do something about it, Dad looked like he’d aged ten years. Not only that, they sent him home in an orange jumpsuit. You know my mom. If someone from Sedona PD had bothered to call her, she would have been there in a blink with a change of clothes.”
“With E.D. as the lead investigator, that’s to be expected,” Dave observed.
“E.D.?” Ali asked with a frown.
“He’s a jerk,” Dave said. “E.D. may be Eric Drinkwater’s initials, but when people call him that behind his back, they’re referring to something else entirely, because he’s your basic limp dick in every sense of the word.”
Ali spluttered on a sip of wine and ended up laughing and coughing.
“There are real cops and there are ninety-day wonders,” Dave continued. “Drinkwater got himself fast-tracked out of patrol. Now that he’s a detective, if he runs true to form, he’ll be looking for a quick close since I already know he’s got feelers out to other departments. When it comes to transferring, clearing a double homicide would give him a lot of currency in that direction. E.D.’s big problem right now is that the blood evidence doesn’t support your father as the doer.”
“It doesn’t? You know that how?”
“Because I’m friends with some of the city CSIs,” Dave answered. “They’ve got three different sets of bloody footprints, two of which exited through the front door. The whole search warrant thing at your folks’ place tonight was mostly for show. That was E.D. hoping to get some kind of lead on your father’s so-called accomplices.”
Dave paused. “And speaking of searches,” he added. “The house had been ransacked. The killers were searching for something. There’s no telling what they were after, but the search evidently happened first. The two sets of bloody prints lead from the scene in the kitchen and out the front door, most likely because they realized your dad was coming up the driveway.”
“Anything distinctive about the footprints?”
“Yes and no. The killers were both wearing booties—paper booties like you see in operating rooms. That means this was clearly premeditated. They came prepared to kill somebody and they did.”
For the first time since she’d seen her father shuffling along in his jail jumpsuit, Ali took a real breath—a deep breath. Dave hadn’t just crossed that line. He had jumped over it. She reached over and touched the back of Dave’s hand.
“Thank you for that,” she murmured.
“You’re welcome, but don’t think that means this is over,” Dave continued. “As I said, Drinkwater’s going to do everything in his power to make the evidence match his theory. And oh,” Dave added with a grin. “None of this came from me.”
“Absolutely not,” Ali agreed.
“As for the Ponzi scheme guy? Jason McKinzie seems to have disappeared into thin air. I’ve heard he was last seen boarding a plane for Mexico City sometime over the weekend. That’s where he cleared customs. The federal marshals do a good job. They’ll grab him eventually, either inside the U.S. or wherever he comes to rest. They’ll lock him away for a few years—probably not for nearly as long as he deserves—and then he’ll walk.”
“And spend the rest of his days living it up on what’s left of other people’s money—on money he stole from people like my parents,” Ali said.
“I heard about that,” Dave said. “How badly did Bob and Edie get hit?”
“Somewhere around a million two, give or take,�
�� Ali answered.
“Whoa,” Dave said. “That’s a bundle. And Dan Frazier was their advisor?”
“Yes.”
“If he weren’t already dead, sounds like Dan Frazier may have deserved some jail time, too.” Dave glanced at his watch. “It’s late,” he said. “I need to get home.”
Ali followed him as far as the door. “Thanks so much for stopping by and for letting me know some of the inside dope.”
“You’re welcome,” Dave said, giving her a quick hug. “And, when you see your dad again, be sure to tell him that I’m in his corner, and I’m not the only one, either—not by a long shot.”
26
Once Edie was finally settled, Bob waited until she was snoring softly beside him before he crept out of bed. He dressed in the bathroom without turning on the light and walked back through the bedroom in his stocking feet, carrying his shoes. He felt silly, tiptoeing around in the living room while he searched for a wallet that wasn’t there. When he finally located Edie’s purse, he had to dig through it to locate her keys. The way they rattled when he finally managed to extract the key ring left him cringing and holding his breath, but Edie didn’t emerge from the bedroom to read him the riot act.
Out in the hallway, having carefully pulled the door shut silently behind him, Bob leaned against it and looked around, taking in the fact that he was leaving, and this time he wouldn’t be coming back. The side door entrance he had used earlier that morning was locked down overnight, so he had to exit through the main lobby.
“Is something the matter?” Bridget Wagoner asked, looking up from the book she was reading.
“It was a tough day,” he said. “I need some fresh air. I thought I’d go for a drive.”
“It’s late,” Bridget said. “Be safe out there.”
“I will.”
Standing under one of the lights in the parking lot, Bob used the key fob to unlock Edie’s Buick, because that was how he thought of it—as Edie’s. One of the rules of their married life had to do with never driving one another’s vehicles. Whatever sedan Edie was driving at the moment was off-limits as far as Bob was concerned, and the same held true for Edie and Bob’s beloved Bronco.