Fatal Error

by J. A. Jance

  For Pat S.

  FATAL

  ERROR

  1

  Peoria, Arizona August

  Get on the ground,” Ali Reynolds ordered. “On the ground now!”

  “Make me,” Jose Reyes said, glaring back at her with a withering sneer. “Try and make me, bitch.”

  Jose Reyes was a stocky Hispanic guy in his early thirties, tough as nails, with the muscle tone of a serious weight lifter. A guy with attitude, one who could toss out schoolyard taunts and make them sound deadly.

  “I gave you an order.”

  “And I told you to go to hell.”

  Ali moved in then, grabbing his arm and setting up for the hip toss. Only it didn’t work the way it was supposed to. Jose spun out of the way and suddenly Ali was the one flying through the air. She landed hard on the gym mat and with him right on top of her. The blow knocked the wind out of her and left her seeing stars. By the time Ali got her breath back, she was face down on the floor, with her wrists at her back, imprisoned in her own handcuffs. Lying there under Jose’s full weight, she felt a rage of impotent fury flood through her. She was still there, helpless but furious, when a pair of highly polished shoes appeared in her line of vision.

  “My, my, little lady,” Sergeant Bill Pettit said. “I don’t believe that’s the way takedowns are supposed to work. He’s the one who’s supposed to be wearing your handcuffs.”

  Ali Reynolds was in week four of a six-week-long course at the Arizona Police Academy. Of all the instructors there, Pettit was her hands-down least favorite. The class had started out on the fourth of August with an enrollment of one hundred seven recruits, five of whom had been women. Now they were down to a total of seventy-nine. Two of the original females had dropped out.

  “Uncuff her,” Pettit told Jose. “Good job.”

  The restraints came off. Jose tossed them to her, then he grabbed Ali by the elbow and helped her up.

  “No hard feelings, Oma,” he said with a sly Cheshire grin that said he was lying. He had done it with malice and had hit her far harder than necessary, to prove a point and because he could.

  To begin with, Ali’s fellow classmates had called her “Oma” behind her back. Originally the word came from one of the other young recruits, a blond-haired, ruddy-faced guy whose family hailed from South Africa. In Afrikaans oma evidently meant something like “old woman” or maybe even “grandma.” There it probably had an air of respect about it. Here in the academy, however, most of Ali’s classmates were fifteen to twenty years younger than she was. In context, the word was intended as an insult, meant to keep Ali in her place. To her knowledge, this was the first time she had been called that in front of one of the instructors.

  “That’s why female officers end up having to resort to weapons so often,” Pettit said. “They don’t know how to use their bodies properly. By the way, what’s that he called you?”

  Ali’s face flushed. “Old Lady,” she answered.

  “What?”

  “Old Lady, sir!” she corrected.

  “That’s better. Now get your butt over to first aid. You should probably have a Band-Aid on that cut over your eye. And have them give you an ice pack. Looks to me like you’re gonna have yourself a real shiner.”

  It was a long walk through the sweaty, overheated gym. The Phoenix metropolitan area was roasting in triple-digit heat. Although the gym’s AC was running at full strength, it couldn’t do more than thirty degrees below the outside temp of 116.

  Ali’s classmates stopped what they were doing and stood on their own mats to watch her walk of shame. Some of them were sympathetic, but more shared Jose’s opinion that no self-respecting fortysomething female had any business being there, and they wanted her to quit. Blood dribbled down the side of her cheek and onto the neck of her T-shirt. She made no effort to wipe it away. If her classmates were looking for blood, she’d give it to them.

  She stepped out of the gym into glaring sunshine and brutal afternoon heat. The mountains in the distance were obscured by a haze of earth-brown smog. August was supposed to be the rainy season with monsoon rains drenching the thirsty Sonoran Desert, but so far the much-needed rains were absent although the rising humidity was not.

  By the time Ali arrived at the administration office, she had made herself a promise: sometime in the next two weeks, Jose Reyes was looking at a takedown of his own.

  BettyJo Hamilton, the academy’s office manager, was also in charge of first aid. “Oh, my,” she said, peering at Ali over a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. “What do we have here?”

  “Just a little bump,” Ali said.

  After determining that no stitches were required, BettyJo applied a butterfly Band-Aid to the cut and then brought out an ice pack. “If I were you,” she said, “I’d take it pretty easy for the rest of the afternoon. Let me know if you feel faint or experience any nausea.”

  Ali was glad to comply. She wasn’t used to losing, and she didn’t need to go back to the gym to revisit her ignominious defeat. Instead, she returned to the dorm, shut herself in her room, and lay down on the bed, with the ice pack over her eye.

  Most of the academy attendees from the Phoenix area made the nightly trip home. The out-of-towners, recruits who lived too far away for a daily commute, made use of the dorm facilities. The three remaining women had rooms to themselves. Ali was especially grateful for that now. She needed some privacy to lick her wounds.

  Months earlier Ali had been serving as an interim media relations consultant for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department when Sheriff Gordon Maxwell had broached the idea of sending her to the academy. Once a well-known TV news anchor in L.A., Ali had returned to her hometown of Sedona, Arizona, after both her career and marriage came to sudden ends. Paul Grayson, Ali’s philandering, late, and very much unlamented second husband, had been murdered the day before their divorce would have been final. As a divorcée, Ali would have been in somewhat straitened financial circumstances. As Paul’s widow, however, and through no fault of her own, she was now an extremely wealthy former anchor and aspiring cop.

  After her life-changing pair of crises, Ali had spent a year or two back in her hometown, getting used to the idea of being on her own. Her parents, Bob and Edie Larson, owners of the Sugarloaf Café, lived there in Sedona, as did Ali’s son, Christopher, and his fairly new and now newly pregnant bride, Athena, both of whom taught at Sedona High School.

  For a while it was okay to be Bob and Edie’s daughter and Chris’s mom, but Ali was used to working, used to being busy. Finding herself bored to distraction, she took on the project of purchasing and remodeling the house on Manzanita Hills Road, which she shared with Leland Brooks. Mr. Brooks was her aging but entirely capable personal assistant or, as she liked to call him, her majordomo, since both he and the word seemed to hail from a more gracious, bygone era. Ali had had a boyfriend, but at her age the word boyfriend rankled. She liked to think of B. Simpson as her “lover.” When speaking to others, she referred to him as her “significant other.”

  Ali was lying on the bed, wondering what B. would think about her showing up for Labor Day weekend with a shiner, when her cell phone rang. She checked the caller ID.

  “Hi, Mom,” Ali said to her mother, Edie Larson. “What’s up?”

  “One of your friends dropped by the Sugarloaf this afternoon, looking for you.”

  “Really,” Ali said. “Who was it?”

  “Dad said her name was Brenda Riley. She used to work with you in L.A.”

  “Not exactly worked with,” Ali replied. “She was the anchor for a sister station in Sacramento when I was in L.A. So we were acquaintances and colleagues rather than friends. She got booted off the air about the same time I did for approximately the same reason. They thought she was
too old. I haven’t heard from her in years. What did she want?”

  “She told Dad that she really needed to see you—that it was urgent. You know your father. He’s such a softie, he falls for every sob story on the planet.”

  “What kind of sob story?”

  “Just that she needed to see you—that she was looking for help. From what he said, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was really looking for money.”

  Ali had found that old acquaintances did have a way of doing that, of showing up on her doorstep and asking for a loan or an outright handout. They seemed to think that since she had money and they didn’t, she was obligated to give them some of hers.

  “Did Dad give her my number?”

  “I chewed him out for it, but yes, he did. Worse than that, he also told her where you were and what you were doing. He said she seemed shocked that you were in the process of becoming a police officer.”

  Ali ran a finger over her rapidly swelling eye. “I’m shocked by that myself sometimes,” she said with a laugh.

  “Anyway,” Edie Larson continued. “From what he said, she may very well be on her way down to Phoenix to see you right now.”

  Ali suppressed a groan. Brenda Riley was pretty much the last person she needed to see right now—especially with a cut on her eyebrow and with a black eye coming on. Brenda had been one of those irksome women who never went anywhere without being perfectly put together—hair, makeup, and clothing. She had been almost as tall as Ali—five ten or so—but as far as Ali was concerned, Brenda was better-looking in every way.

  “Thanks for the heads-up, Mom,” Ali said. “Tell Dad not to worry about it. Whatever Brenda wants, I’m sure I can handle it.”

  “Are you coming home for the weekend?” Edie asked.

  Ali knew that B. Simpson was flying in from his most recent business trip and was due to arrive at Sky Harbor late the next morning. Ali had been looking forward to going home for the long Labor Day weekend and escaping the August heat in the Valley of the Sun. There would be socializing and barbecues galore, but knowing she’d be showing up with a black eye made Ali think twice.

  Small towns were small towns, and Sedona was no exception. If Ali appeared in public with B. Simpson and a black eye, tongues were bound to wag. She could try explaining that her injury was a result of her police academy training, but she doubted anyone would listen. In fact, the more she protested, the more they would talk behind her back.

  “I’m still planning on being home,” Ali said, finally, “but I’ve got a whole lot of studying to do this weekend. I may have to bail on the barbecue end of things.”

  “I hope you don’t dodge out on everything,” Edie said. “Chris and Athena would be so disappointed. I know they’re planning on having everyone over on Sunday afternoon.”

  “We’ll see,” Ali said.

  The call waiting signal buzzed in Ali’s ear. The number was one she recognized as having a Sacramento area code.

  “Gotta go now, Mom,” Ali said. “I have another call.”

  “Ali?” a woman said when Ali switched over. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, Brenda,” Ali said. She might not have recognized the voice without the benefit of her mother’s advance warning. “How are you doing? My parents said you might call. Where are you?”

  “I’m in a place called Black Canyon City, although it doesn’t look like much of a city to me.”

  “Coming from California, it wouldn’t.”

  “Could we get together for a while tonight? Is there someplace where we could meet near where you are, like a bar or something?”

  “There’s a joint called the Rimrock Inn,” Ali said. “It’s off Grand Avenue here in Peoria. If you’re on the 101, exit to the right and turn right. That’s only a couple of miles from here. I’ve heard some of the guys here at the academy talking about it. According to them, the Rimrock has great burgers.”

  Ali had also heard that the Rimrock was something of a dive—cheap and relatively dingy. Maybe in the dim light Ali’s bruised and swollen eye wouldn’t show up quite so much.

  “How long will it take me to get there?” Brenda asked.

  “Probably forty-five minutes.” Ali glanced at her watch. “It’s coming up on rush hour. So maybe a little longer than that.”

  “Okay,” Brenda said. “See you there.”

  Ali got off the bed, stripped off her bloodied T-shirt and shorts and made her way into the bathroom. She was grateful she didn’t have to share the bath with anyone else. The half-inch cut over her eye was no longer bleeding, so she peeled off the Band-Aid before she got in the shower. After blow-drying her hair, she used makeup to repair as much of the damage as possible. It wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing. By the time she left the dorm, classes were getting out for the day. She managed to dodge her returning classmates as she headed for her car.

  She had no intention of running into Jose Reyes and giving him a chance to rub her nose in it.

  2

  Peoria, Arizona

  It was a little more than an hour later when Ali pulled into the lot at the Rimrock Inn. She’d expected to arrive before Brenda, but what looked like Brenda’s signature vehicle, a BMW with California plates, was parked just to the right of the front door.

  Ali remembered that Brenda had always taken great pride in her vehicles. This one was shabby and more than a little the worse for wear. For one thing, it was covered with grime and a film of reddish road dust. The rear bumper and trunk were both dented in as though they’d made contact with something substantial, like a bollard. There were smaller dents in the side panels too, and some of the chrome trim had disappeared. The window in the rear driver’s side door was missing, and the empty space had been covered over with a combination of clear plastic and duct tape.

  As Ali walked past the car, she glanced inside. The Beamer looked lived in. It was full of trash—empty food containers, soda cans, and more than a few empty booze bottles as well. None of this fit with the Brenda Riley Ali knew.

  Things went downhill from there. Ali stepped inside and looked around. It was late afternoon, so there were plenty of men lounging around the long bar—plenty of men and only one woman. At first Ali didn’t believe it was Brenda. Even in the tavern’s dim lights it was possible to see that Brenda’s trademark long, straight blond locks were gone. The hair was still there, but it stood out around her head like a fright wig. She had evidently tried a do-it-yourself dye job/permanent kit, and it hadn’t worked out very well. Most of her hair was a very convincing shade of pink, fluffed atop an inch of brown roots. Cotton candy immediately came to mind.

  As Ali walked up to the bar, Brenda was chatting with the guy next to her, joking and laughing. Only when Ali was a few steps away did she see the set of three shot glasses sitting in front of Brenda. There was also a plate of lime sections and a salt shaker, so Brenda Riley was doing shots of tequila at four thirty in the afternoon.

  “Hello, Brenda,” Ali said. “How’s it going?”

  Brenda spun around and studied her. “Ali?” she asked. “You look like hell. What did you do to your eye?”

  “Ran into a door,” Ali said.

  As if Brenda had any room to talk. Ali could have asked her the same question, because Brenda Riley really did look like hell. The perky smile that had greeted Sacramento viewers for more than a decade was long gone. Brenda looked haggard and careworn. She wore no makeup of any kind. None. There were dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes. She appeared to be years older than Ali knew her to be. Her clothing was grimy and wrinkled and looked as though it had been slept in. And she had put on weight—forty pounds at least, more weight than even her relatively tall frame could handle.

  The guy on the stool next to Brenda’s moved away, clearing a place for Ali to sit. The bartender came forward. “What can I get you?” he asked.

  “Do you have any coffee?” Ali asked.

  Making a face, Brenda salted the side of her fist, licked off the salt, downed on
e of the shots of tequila, and then sucked on a lime wedge as she pushed the shot glass back across the bar. There wasn’t anything about this that was genteel cocktail-hour-type sipping, and Ali recognized it for what it was—serious drinking.

  The bartender nodded in Ali’s direction. “Give me a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll make a new pot.”

  “And maybe a menu,” Ali said. “We should probably have something to eat.”

  The bartender picked up the empty shot glass. “Got it,” he said. “Coming right up.”

  Brenda gave Ali a sly, squint-eyed look. “Are you really a cop?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Ali said. “But I’m going to be. What about you? My dad said something about your needing my help.”

  Brenda nodded. “I do need your help,” she said, slurring her words ever so slightly. “It’s a long story, a very, very long story. I was engaged to a guy named Richard, Richard Lattimer. He dumped me.”

  Which meant it was also an old story. As Brenda began to recount her tale of woe, some of Ali’s classmates from the academy, including Jose Reyes, wandered into the bar. Wanting to avoid them if at all possible, Ali steered Brenda and her latest shot glass into a sheltering booth in the back corner of the room, beyond the bank of pool tables. Once in that airless section of the room, Ali realized how much Brenda reeked of booze—not just what she was drinking now but what she had most likely been imbibing for the past weeks and months. This was way more than recreational drinking.

  “What happened?” Ali asked, trying to seem interested but not intrusive.

  “Richard was working down in San Diego. Things just seemed funny, out of sorts. I thought we needed to see each other face-to-face to get things sorted out. So I drove all the way down there to see him, and he was gone. I went by the place where he supposedly lived, but they had never heard of him. The same thing happened when I went by the place where he told me he worked. They said they had another man named Richard who worked for them once, but his last name wasn’t Lattimer. I was just frantic. I didn’t know what to think.”