Clawback

by J. A. Jance

  “Police! Open up! We’re coming in!”

  The front door splintered under the weight of a battering ram. A troop of uniformed officers, all wearing SWAT vests and helmets and carrying automatic weapons, burst into the house—through the shattered front door and through the open slider from the patio as well.

  “On your knees,” one of them shouted, grabbing Ali by the arm and flinging her roughly to the floor. “On your knees and don’t move!”

  59

  Cami was halfway across the first fairway when a golf cart with a red sign marked MARSHAL in the front window came bearing down on her.

  “Hey, lady,” the old guy in the cart yelled at her. “You can’t be here. This is a golf course. I’ve had unauthorized people out here running around like crazy today. One of you is going to get beaned on the head by a golf ball and end up dead.”

  “Where’d he go?” Cami asked.

  “Where’d who go?”

  “The other guy on the course. He came this way, too. I saw him. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and sandals.”

  “Who isn’t dressed in Hawaiian shirts?”

  “And he was carrying a computer.”

  “Oh,” the marshal said. “That guy. I have no idea where he went. People called to complain that he was out here screwing up their game. When I came looking for him, guess who I ended up finding? You.”

  “You’ve got to call the cops.”

  “Crossing a fairway is a bad idea, but it’s not exactly a federal offense. Come on, sweetheart. Get on board here. Let’s get you out of the way so the people waiting to play this hole can at least tee off.”

  “You don’t understand,” Cami insisted. “The man’s a crook, and he’s about to get away. He and his girlfriend have been holding me at gunpoint. She’s back there in the house. I left her tied up, but I don’t know how good my knots are. She might be able to get loose.”

  The marshal already had a phone out of his pocket. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “If you want to call the cops, you dial.”

  Once the phone was in Cami’s hand, it was all she could do to hold on to it as the speeding cart bounced through a narrow line of gravel-lined rough and onto another fairway.

  “911. What is your emergency?”

  “My name is Camille Lee. I was kidnapped earlier this afternoon, by two people who held me prisoner at a house in Peoria—15540 West Par Five Drive. I managed to get away. The man took off, but the woman is still at the house. I tied her up before I left, but I’m worried she may get loose. Her name is Jessie—Jessica Denton, I believe. The man is someone you’re looking for—Jason McKinzie. He ran off across a golf course . . .” She held the phone away and looked at the guy driving the cart. “What course?”

  “Rancho Vista,” he said. Cami quickly relayed that bit of information into the phone.

  “Are you hurt?” the emergency operator was asking. “Do you require medical assistance?”

  “I don’t need anything but some help in catching the bad guy. Help catching both of them. They’re planning to leave the country tonight. If we don’t stop them, they’ll get away. Please, please hurry.”

  She hung up, saying thank you as she handed the phone back to her driver.

  “My name’s Larry,” he said, stuffing the phone back into his pocket. “I’m taking you to the office, by the way,” he added. “I’ll need to write up a report about this. Residents aren’t allowed on the course unless they’re actually playing a round.”

  The speeding cart rounded a sharp corner and careened onto a cart path, aiming for a long, low building with umbrella-dotted dining decks on one end and a pro shop and club drop-off at the other. Larry drove around to the front of the building, stopping the cart near where a mob of excited people were milling around the front entrance next to a valet parking stand.

  “What’s going on?” Larry asked one of the uniformed valets.

  “Somebody stole Mr. Norton’s car,” he complained. “We’d brought it up from the lot and had it here idling so it could cool off. All of a sudden, some asshole walks up here, big as you please, climbs inside, and drives off, stealing the damned thing right out from under our noses. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Has anybody called the cops?” Larry asked.

  “You bet. They’re coming.”

  “I’m sure they are,” said Larry, looking at Cami, “and for more than one reason.”

  Cami shook her head. “He’s going to get away,” she said despairingly. “We’ll never catch him.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” Larry grinned. “Mr. Norton’s one of those guys who likes to have all the upgrades. If I’m not mistaken, he’s got one of those thingamajigs—I can’t remember what it’s called—that will shut that Buick of his down whenever he hits the button.”

  “Right,” the valet said. “He’s on the phone with both OnStar and the local cops right now. They’re trying to figure out where’s the best place to take him down.”

  “Be sure to let the officers know that McKinzie isn’t just a car thief,” Cami said. “He and his girlfriend are responsible for at least four deaths that I know of.”

  “Is he armed?”

  “I don’t think so,” Cami said, “but he might be.”

  “I’ll go pass that information along.”

  “Thank God,” Cami murmured, watching him walk away. Then, after thinking a minute, she turned back to Larry. “Can I use your phone again: There are people up in Cottonwood who are probably worried sick about me. I need to let them know I’m all right.”

  He handed the phone over at once. Cami dialed Stu’s direct number and was startled when someone else answered. “I need to speak to Stuart Ramey,” she said. “Who’s this?”

  “I’m Edie—Edie Larson. Stu’s pretty tied up right now. Our daughter is in some kind of difficulty down in Phoenix. Is there something I can do to help?”

  “This is Cami,” she said forcefully. “I don’t care what’s going on. I need to speak to Stu. Now.”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Edie breathed. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  A moment later Stu came on the line. “Cami, is it you? Really?” he demanded. “Are you all right?”

  “She said something’s going on with Ali. What?”

  “We traced your car to a residence in Peoria. Ali went there, hoping to find you. A neighbor saw her and reported a burglary in progress. The cops showed up, put Ali in cuffs, took away her phone, and threw her in a patrol car. They think it’s some kind of home invasion case. They believe she assaulted some poor woman and tied her up.”

  “That ‘poor’ woman, as you call her,” Cami said, “turns out to be named Jessie—Jessica Denton I believe. She’s in league with Jason McKinzie. They killed Alberto Joaquín and Jeffrey Hawkins, and I suspect they’re responsible for Dan’s and Millie’s deaths as well. They were planning to fly out of Casa Grande later tonight, heading for Mexico. Right now McKinzie’s driving a stolen vehicle, but it’s equipped with OnStar. They’re hoping to shut the vehicle down someplace where the cops will be able to take him into custody.”

  There was a pause while Stu reported that information to someone else, and Cami could hear cheering in the background.

  “What’s happening with Ali right now?” Cami asked.

  “I don’t know. Like I said, they took her phone away. I’ve tried calling back, but nobody answers. Where are you?”

  “I’m in a golf cart,” Cami answered. “But Larry here, my knight in shining armor, is about to take me back across two fairways to the house. If the cops there won’t talk to you, maybe they’ll listen to me.”

  60

  Sitting in the idling patrol car, Ali couldn’t help but see the irony in her situation. A day and a half after the same thing had happened to her father, here was Ali. The car’s AC was doing its best to cool the vehicle but it wasn’t making much headway in the face of the fierce late-afternoon heat.

  Ali was drenched in perspir
ation. There were sweat lines in the bright blue silk of her dress that would most likely never come out. As an officer hustled her out of the house, one of her heels had caught in a crack in the driveway pavement and broken completely off.

  At least she wasn’t in cuffs. That meant that her hands were fully visible, complete with one bare nail. The bright red acrylic, so carefully applied at Priscilla Holman’s nail salon two days earlier, had slammed into the kitchen countertop and disappeared completely as the cop had thrown her to the floor.

  The officers here hadn’t listened to her any more than the ones in Sedona had listened to her father. Her protestations that the naked, bleeding woman on the floor was anything but a helpless victim went unheeded. Ali seethed to think that the woman who was most likely Cami’s kidnapper had been hauled away in an ambulance, probably to some overcrowded ER where she was likely to change into someone’s scrubs and walk away from the hospital with no one any the wiser.

  As for Ali’s suggestion that her employee, Cami Lee, might have been imprisoned right there in that same residence? Had anyone even bothered to listen to her and go out to the garage to check the registrations of the cars parked there? If so, no one had come outside and mentioned it to Ali.

  Just then a burly uniformed officer emerged from the house. Trotting along beside him and barely reaching his elbow was Cami Lee. They came straight to the patrol car, where the officer pulled open the back door and held out a hand to help Ali emerge.

  Sliding off the seat, Ali stood up and swayed drunkenly on the broken heel while pulling Cami into a heartfelt embrace. “I can’t believe it’s you,” she murmured. “I can’t believe you’re safe. How did you do it? How did you get away? Where were you, somewhere in the house?”

  Behind them, the officer cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said. “I believe I need to introduce myself, and I also need to apologize. I’m Watch Commander Martinson,” he said. “I’m so sorry about all this. The story you told me before seemed completely improbable, but obviously, as Cami here has just been telling me, all of it was true.”

  Ali let go of Cami. As soon as she did so, she tottered on her uneven heels and almost fell.

  “What’s wrong?” Cami asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine. I broke the heel off my shoe is all, and that makes it almost impossible to stand. I have a spare pair of tennis shoes in the car, but it’s locked, and someone took my keys.”

  “Of course,” Watch Commander Martinson said. “I’ll go get them and be right back.”

  Ali turned to Cami. “What happened? Who did this?”

  “Jason McKinzie and someone named Jessie.”

  “Jessica Denton?” Ali asked.

  “I think so,” Cami answered. “They were desperate to get that memory card back. She staged the wreck and took me at gunpoint for no other reason than to lay hands on it. Then, once she had it, she tossed it out of the car like it was nothing before we ever made it to the interstate. What’s with that?”

  “We don’t know everything on the memory card, but we know some of it,” Ali said. “Fortunately, Haley Jackson made a copy of it on Dan’s office computer before she gave the memory card to us. Stu has accessed some of the information and is probably working to learn more even as we speak.”

  “They’re killers, Ali,” Cami added. “Both of them.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I heard them talking. McKinzie said that Jessie killed Alberto and Jeffrey. They were planning on leaving the country tonight, and I’m sure Jessie had every intention of killing me, too, before they left.”

  Ali shook her head. “When I asked you to deliver the memory card, it never occurred to me that I was putting you in such danger.”

  “How did they know about that?” Cami asked.

  “There was a bug in Haley Jackson’s purse. Jessica evidently listened in on everything we said. But if they murdered Alberto and Jeffrey, does that mean they’re responsible for Dan’s and Millie’s deaths as well?”

  Cami nodded. “That’s how it looks to me.”

  Commander Martinson emerged from the house just then, carrying Ali’s bag and grinning from ear to ear. “I’m happy to report that Mr. McKinzie is now in custody,” he said, handing Ali her purse. “OnStar shut him down in the middle of an intersection as he was making a left-hand turn onto the 101. Our officers were Johnny-on-the-spot to take him down. And I’ve sent someone to the hospital to keep an eye on Ms. Denton for us, with orders to take her into custody the moment she’s released. They’ve stitched up the hole in her cheek, but she also has a concussion. She may end up being hospitalized overnight.”

  He looked at Cami. “Did you do that?”

  She nodded. “I hit her in the chin with the top of my head.”

  “Wow,” Martinson said admiringly. “Just plain wow! You may be a tiny little thing, but you’ve got to be tough as nails.”

  After digging in her purse, Ali found her key ring and handed that over to Cami. As she did so, her phone, now in Martinson’s hands, began to ring.

  “Thank God,” Stu said when he gave it to her. “If they’re letting you use your phone, Cami must have knocked some sense into them.”

  Ali glanced at the beefy watch commander and smiled. “You could say that,” she said.

  “Have you seen my texts?”

  “Not yet. I just now touched the phone.”

  “Until we find out everything Jason McKinzie and Jessica Denton have been up to, I thought it might be helpful for you to have copies of the birth and death certificates for the real Jessica Denton. You’re welcome to pass them along to the cops. If they can’t hold Jessica on anything else, they can charge her with identity theft for right now.”

  “Thanks, Stu,” Ali said. “I’ll hand over this information immediately, but you should know that, as of now, Jason McKinzie and Jessica are both in police custody.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Both.”

  “Let me tell Bob and Edie.”

  Ali heard a joyous uproar in the background of Stu’s phone. “They’re thrilled,” Stu said a moment later. “And your mom wants to know what time you’ll be home.”

  “Probably not until much later,” Ali said. “I have a feeling this whole situation is going to take hours to resolve, and I have no intention of leaving Cami on her own until it is. In the meantime, you should probably give Dave Holman a call and Eric Drinkwater, too. Cami said McKinzie indicated Jessica was responsible for murdering Alberto and Jeffrey.”

  “Dan and Millie, too?”

  “Maybe,” Ali said. “Time will tell, but both detectives may want to be down here so they can be in on the interviews should the need arise.”

  Cami returned with Ali’s tennis shoes. Gratefully, she sank back down in the patrol car and slipped them on.

  “Better?” Martinson asked.

  “Much.”

  Standing back up and finally steady on her feet, Ali opened the first text from Stu and passed her phone to Martinson. “You need to look at these. I have no idea who Jessica Denton really is, but this is who she’s pretending to be. The first one is a birth certificate. The second is a death certificate.”

  Martinson pulled out a pair of reading glasses to examine the documents, then he handed the phone back. “Very interesting,” he said. “Now, if you two ladies would be so kind, I’d like to give you both a ride down to the department. I have some detectives who are very eager to talk to you.”

  “What about our cars?” Ali asked.

  “I’ll bring you back to yours,” he said to Ali. “As for Ms. Lee’s Prius? That will probably need to be impounded long enough for us to gather evidence about the kidnapping.”

  “What about my purse?” Cami asked. “It’s behind the driver’s seat.”

  “I’ll go get that for you right away, Ms. Lee,” Martinson said, and shambled off.

  Watching him go, Ali realized that he was being solicitous now because he’d been so comp
letely wrong about the situation earlier in the day.

  Oh well, she thought, better late than never.

  61

  Ali’s interview with a Peoria PD investigator took almost no time at all. He wanted to know what had brought her to the residence—the locator beacon on Cami’s Prius—and all her movements once she arrived. She was asked no questions about anything that had occurred outside the city limits, and she was in and out in less than an hour.

  She was in the waiting room—waiting—when first Dave Holman and later Eric Drinkwater arrived. She and Dave spoke briefly before he hurried off to the interview room.

  “Before you talk with McKinzie,” she told him, “there are a few things you need to know. He mentioned in front of Cami that Jessica ‘handled’ Alberto and Jeffrey.”

  “Did he say anything about Dan and Millie?”

  “Not that I know of, but he’s also been buying diamonds, right and left. There may be more money out there besides the amount he’s invested in diamonds—we’re still tracking on that—but you can let him know that whatever happens, he’s going to be missing out on some of those extra funds he was counting on to fund his future lifestyle.”

  “I’ll keep all that in mind,” Dave said. “Thanks.”

  When Eric Drinkwater came through the room, he glanced briefly in Ali’s direction and then went past without a word of acknowledgment.

  Same to you, Ali thought.

  At loose ends, she meandered over to a corner of the room and tried to settle into a stiff wooden chair, hoping to have a chance to doze off for a moment. Had she been carrying James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake along with her, that wouldn’t have been a problem. The emotional turmoil of the past two days had left her beyond weary.

  When her phone rang at 8:50, she wasn’t surprised to see Stu’s direct number in her caller ID. “I guess you’re still working,” she said.

  “Have you seen Dave?”

  “Yup. He’s in an interview room right now.”

  “You might want to get word to him. My traffic cam guy came through. We’ve got video of Jessica Denton at the intersection of 43rd and McDowell shortly after the time Alberto Joaquín walked back inside Wheels Inn. She was driving a rental, rented under the name of Barbara Toomey. The vehicle was later found abandoned at a shopping center within walking distance of the house on Par Five Drive.”