Fatal Error

by J. A. Jance

  “See the white plastic?” Ali asked. Gil nodded.

  “I’ll bet I know what that is,” she said. “A Time Capsule, for a Mac.”

  Gil remembered all the apparently undisturbed computer gear on Richard Lowensdale’s desk. He had assumed it was all there. Evidently that assumption was wrong. Without another word, Gil resumed digging. The next load of sandy dirt came up with something that was only partially burned, something light blue. It took a moment for him to realize what it was—the remains of a Tyvek surgical bootie like the ones that had left bloodied tracks all through his murder victim’s house.

  Yes, he decided, Ali made the right call. We really do need to maintain a chain of evidence.

  He kept digging and found a few more bits and pieces. Finally though, when his shovel loads were yielding nothing but sand, a cell phone rang—Ali’s cell phone.

  She answered it, listened, and then gave the house across the street a long, appraising look. “Right,” she said, finally. “Got it.”

  Without saying anything to Gil or Flossie, she immediately dialed a number—the pilot’s, presumably. “We’re flying to San Diego. Wheels up in an hour,” she said. She paused and listened again. “I’m not sure which airport,” she said. “Whatever’s closest to the Clairemont Mesa Business Park. When you figure out what airport, call Hertz and give them my profile number. Tell them we’ll need a car wherever you’re taking us.”

  She turned to Flossie. “We need to leave now,” Ali said urgently, “just as soon as we get these boxes loaded in my car. I appreciate all your help, but I’m worried about Mr. Blaylock. Do you think there’s a chance he’s inside the house? I know you said he wouldn’t be with the shutters down that way, but after we’re gone, you might want to check. You did say he gave you access to a remote, didn’t you?”

  “Sure,” Flossie said. “I’ll be glad to go check on him. It won’t take but a minute, if you want to wait.”

  “No,” Ali insisted. “We need to go. We’ve got a plane to catch.”

  Gil figured that was a fib on Ali’s part because he was pretty sure the plane wouldn’t go anywhere without them.

  As soon as the boxes were loaded, Ali headed for the driver’s side, jumped in, turned the key, and gunned the engine. Gil clambered into the passenger seat, slammed the door, and fastened his seat belt. The whole vehicle reeked of wood smoke and burned plastic.

  “What’s the big hurry now?” he asked as she pulled out of the driveway and then accelerated down Heron Ridge Drive.

  “My phone guy just called,” she said. “Stuart got a hit on Mina’s phone. According to cell phone towers, she’s somewhere in downtown San Diego. Since there’s been no activity on Blaylock’s phone, Stuart tried calling that one.”

  “How can your guy be doing all this tracing without a court order?”

  “Don’t ask,” she said.

  “And?”

  “Nobody answered Mark Blaylock’s phone, but it looks like it’s right here in Salton City, most likely in the Blaylocks’ shuttered house. I’m willing to bet Mark Blaylock is inside there too.”

  “And in no condition to answer the phone,” Gil concluded.

  Ali nodded.

  “How come Flossie would have access to the shutter controls?”

  “I’m not sure they were actually given to her. Let’s just say she knows where the controller is located, but if she walks in and finds what I think she’s going to find, we don’t want to be anywhere around. If we were to get caught up in another homicide investigation right now, it would really slow us down. We need to be in San Diego.”

  They weren’t even on the highway yet when a set of flashing red lights appeared in front of them. Ali pulled over and stopped. Moments later a speeding Imperial County Sheriff’s Department patrol car swept past them and sped toward Heron Ridge Drive, the way they had come.

  Gil looked at Ali. “Guess you called that shot,” he said.

  Nodding, she pulled back into traffic, leaving Gil to reconsider his initial impression of her.

  Yes, he thought, rich and pushy, but also smart—very, very smart.

  “Of course, the fact that we put out a BOLO on the wife’s car before Flossie called nine-one-one is probably going to raise a few eyebrows.”

  Ali looked at him and grinned. “They’ll have to catch us first,” she said.

  Gil was starting to like this girl.

  “And what about your phone meister?”

  “Don’t worry,” Ali said. “Stuart knows how to cover his tracks. Let’s just hope he can keep on working his telephone tracing magic with Ermina.”

  “You realize I’m out of my jurisdiction and I don’t have an arrest warrant.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ali said. “If we can catch her, I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something that will work.”

  51

  Escondido, California

  Although Mina’s major shopping excursion would be tomorrow, she needed to do some shopping today. First up was a lightweight mummy sleeping bag, one that zipped up completely and came in Mina’s preferred design and color—desert camouflage. She purchased that for cash at an army surplus store in Escondido. Next on Mina’s list for today was solving the problem of what to wear for tonight’s meeting with Enrique.

  Mina had left Salton City in a tracksuit that would do fine for dealing with Brenda, later in the evening, but it wouldn’t do at all for her meeting at Enrique’s penthouse unit in a newly opened high-rise condo tower in downtown San Diego.

  In Escondido she spent some time looking before she located a small wedding boutique where, hidden in among all the pastel bridesmaid garb, she found a surprisingly suitable little black dress and a pair of pumps. Across the street Milady’s Day Spa encouraged walk-ins. She opted for a relatively inexpensive manicure and pedicure, followed by a facial, a deep-tissue massage, a steam bath, and a shampoo/blow-dry. In the spa dressing room, she reapplied her makeup from the ground up. When she left the spa four hours after entering it, she was transformed. She returned to her Town Car in the tight-fitting little black dress with the tracksuit safely stowed in a shopping bag.

  Mina was glad Enrique had invited her to dinner at his new San Diego condo rather than their usual haunt at the casino near Palm Springs. San Diego was far too close to La Jolla for Mina to be comfortable visiting one of the city’s hip restaurants. Once she and Mark had been part of the social scene in town here, and she didn’t want to run into any of the folks from those old days. The last thing Mina needed tonight was for some former acquaintance to rush up to her, gush over Mina, lie about how much everyone missed seeing them, and ask where was her wonderful husband, Mark. They’d all know about Mark soon enough, but not now, not tonight.

  She drove to McClintock Plaza and parked her Lincoln in a compact parking place that was several inches too small. It was a source of annoyance to Mina that there were far more parking places for little cars these days than there were for big ones. Leaving the car behind, she collected several shopping bags. One contained the bedroll, one held her track suit and running shoes, while a third contained her portable GPS. Then she meandered through the mall and had coffee in Starbucks before summoning a cab to take her to the airport. Once there, she made her way to the car rental desks, where Sophia Stanhope rented a Cadillac sedan, which she would return to LAX the next afternoon, prior to her scheduled Air France flight.

  In her rented Cadillac, Mina drove to Kettner Boulevard in downtown San Diego and parked in a pay lot just across the street from the condominium tower. There were precious few lit windows showing in the lower floors of the building, but the penthouse blazed with light. Other people might not have money enough to close on their new condo units, but apparently drug dealers were still doing fine financially, thank you very much.

  Inside the lobby, Mina gave the concierge her name—her new name.

  He checked a list on his computer. “Welcome, Ms. Stanhope. Mr. Gallegos is expecting you. Right this way, pleas
e.”

  The concierge led Mina to a private elevator, one with no buttons, where he used a key card to send her zooming nonstop to the penthouse floor, thirty-five stories up. When the elevator door opened in a secured lobby, Enrique was standing there waiting for her.

  “Welcome, my dear,” he said, brushing her cheek with his lips. “You’re looking lovely this evening. Do come in.”

  He took Mina’s elbow and ushered her inside—into a lush, glass-walled unit with the whole of San Diego’s nighttime skyline gleaming in front of her. The view was enchanting. Walking over to look out the windows, Mina was filled with the sense that she was finally putting gritty Salton City behind her.

  Moments later, Enrique returned to her side and handed her a chilled crystal flute filled with bubbling champagne. With everything else she needed to do later that night, Mina knew she couldn’t afford to drink very much, but a champagne toast was definitely in order.

  “To us,” she murmured, clinking glasses. “And to making this deal happen.”

  San Diego, California

  Brenda was awakened by the noisy rumble of another plane. She did not want to awaken. Unlike Uncle Joe, she had given up. She was choosing to die rather than choosing to live, but evidently choosing had nothing to do with it. If wishing to die worked, she would have been gone a long time ago.

  Feverish and drifting in and out of consciousness, she no longer wondered where she was. That didn’t matter. She no longer cared that some poor someone was bound to find her stinking, filthy body. Her condition didn’t matter either. Once she was dead, she would no longer have to be embarrassed about that.

  Brenda wished she could see her mother one more time and tell her that she loved her. And Valerie too. They had fought like crazy for as long as Brenda could remember, but Valerie Sandoz was her sister—her only sister. That was Brenda’s only regret, that she wouldn’t be able to tell her mother and sister how sorry she was. For everything.

  And as for those other people—the woman who had put her here, and that man, what was his name again? Oh, yes, Richard. They were fading away. She could barely remember them, but she forgave them too. Why not? Sitting here dying, forgiveness was the only thing Brenda Riley had left to give.

  52

  Palm Springs, California

  They were halfway back to the airport when Ali’s phone rang. A glance at the caller ID window showed a number she recognized as Flossie Haywood’s, but the voice on the phone wasn’t Flossie’s.

  “My name’s Jim Haywood. Are you the lady who was just here talking to my wife?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” Ali said.

  “Flossie wanted me to call you. After you left, she went ahead and let herself into the house just up the road. You won’t believe what she found!”

  “Tell me.”

  “Poor Mr. Blaylock, dead as a doornail and lying in his bed. Flossie was so upset, she about had a heart attack. They’re taking her into Indio to the hospital to be checked out, but she wanted me to let you know about it.”

  “Could she tell what happened to him?” Ali asked.

  “Looked like he was just sleeping, until she tried waking him up. She called nine-one-one. There’s a deputy there now. He went inside and said it may have been a suicide. There’s a homicide detective on his way to the house from El Centro. The whole thing upset Flossie so much that she started having chest pains.”

  “Chest pains?” Ali asked. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “I hope so. Like I said, they hauled her away in an ambulance. I’m on my way there right now too, but before they took her away, she gave me her phone and asked me to call you. I’m not sure what this is all about. She said something about digging up evidence from over across the road, which didn’t make any sense to me. She said the detective will probably want to talk to you.”

  “I’m sure he will, Mr. Haywood,” Ali said. “Feel free to give him this number.”

  “Blaylock?” Gil asked.

  Ali nodded. “Dead in his bed, and thanks to my phone guy the body was found a whole lot sooner than Mina Blaylock wanted him to be found. According to Jim Haywood, there’s a homicide detective on his way to Salton City right now.”

  “The local cops are going to want to talk to us.”

  “I know,” Ali said, “and we will talk to them. We’ll tell them everything we know, but after we get to San Diego, not before.”

  They drove for a while in silence while Gil considered how Chief Jackman was going to react to all this news once it got back to him. It wouldn’t be pretty.

  “How did Blaylock die?” Gil asked as Ali turned onto the airport drive. “Don’t tell me she pulled another plastic bag stunt.”

  “Mr. Haywood didn’t say—just that he was dead.”

  “How long will it take to get to San Diego?”

  “Once we take off, only about half an hour.”

  “I’ll call El Centro once we land,” he said.

  Ali nodded. “Good.”

  It was dark by the time they pulled into the terminal driveway. When the pilot saw them unloading several cardboard boxes, he came out with a rolling luggage cart. “Should these be in front or in back?” he asked, sniffing with distaste when he caught a whiff of the odor.

  “In front and belted in,” Ali said. “But in order to maintain the chain of evidence, Gil needs to sign them. Then we’ll need some transparent packing tape to put over his signature and seal the boxes shut. That should help some with the smell.”

  After all, that was the whole point—maintaining the chain of evidence.

  Once on the plane, they skipped the safety briefing because Ali’s phone was ringing. It was B. “You realize that what Stuart has been doing is right on the edge,” he said. “It’s actually over the edge. In tracking down the Blaylocks’ phone information, we’ve violated a whole bunch of privacy rules.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. But we’ve just uncovered another of Ermina Blaylock’s victims. That makes three in all—her father in Missouri, Richard Lowensdale in Grass Valley, and now, if I’m not mistaken, Mark Blaylock too, in Salton City. Not to mention Brenda Riley. Ermina is a maniac, B. We need to catch her before she gets away or has a chance to kill anyone else.”

  B. sighed. “Where are you now?”

  “On the plane, getting ready to fly to San Diego. I know, it’s a long shot, but that’s the only other address we have for her—the business park at Clairemont Mesa. Even though Rutherford International went out of business months ago, the utilities on two of their three office park units are still current. As broke as they are, there must be a reason those bills are being paid. We’re hoping she’ll show up there. Otherwise, we’ve got nowhere else to look.”

  B. was quiet long enough that Ali worried he might have hung up on her. She didn’t blame him for being angry. When she had enlisted Stuart’s help, she had been so preoccupied with her own concerns that she hadn’t thought about the long-term ramifications for High Noon Enterprises if any of this came to light.

  “I’m sorry, B.,” she began, but he cut her off.

  “I just had a thought,” he said. “I don’t know if it’ll work or not, but call me again once you land.”

  “Who was that?” Gil asked, once she put her phone away.

  “My boyfriend,” Ali said. “He’s also the technically savvy genius who’s behind the guy you call my phone meister. He seemed to think that he had come up with an idea that might help us find Ermina.”

  “I hope so,” Gil said. “I’ve only been to San Diego a couple of times, one of which was to take the kids to the zoo. It’s a pretty big haystack, and Ermina Blaylock is a mighty small needle.”

  The CJ rose precipitously through the cold night air. Soon Palm Springs and the surrounding cities were narrow strings of lights crisscrossing the darkened desert. Leaning back in her seat, Ali was thinking about B. and regretting the untenable position her actions had created for him and for his company.

  �
�I don’t think they’re broke,” Gil said from across the aisle, interrupting her chain of self-recrimination.

  “What?”

  “I don’t think the Blaylocks were broke,” Gil said again. “At least not as broke as they led everyone to believe. First Ermina killed Richard Lowensdale. Then she went searching for something but didn’t find it.”

  “How do you know she didn’t find it?”

  “Because I did. There was a stash of empty motor oil bottles out in Richard’s garage. Hidden inside I found fifty thousand dollars in cash and these.”

  Gil reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the two thumb drives and handed them over to her. “I don’t have a computer at home, so I didn’t try to look at them, but between these and the cash, I figure we’re dealing with one of two things. Either Lowensdale had found out about Ermina’s background and was trying to blackmail her, or else he was still working for her. My guess, it’s the latter rather than the former. Once the guy outlived his usefulness, Ermina got rid of him. She got rid of your friend Brenda too, after planting evidence that would make us believe Brenda was responsible for Richard Lowensdale’s death.”

  “What evidence?” Ali asked.

  “Three of Richard Lowensdale’s fingers were hacked off with kitchen shears before he died,” Gil said quietly. “We found his thumb in Brenda’s purse, which was left at the Scotts Flat Reservoir. I have no doubt that Brenda’s body is there too. It’s just going to take time for it to float to the surface. I know they have underwater equipment that could expedite a search, but I doubt the county can afford it.”

  “Brenda was a friend of mine,” Ali said. “I kept hoping we’d find her alive.”

  “I know,” Gil said. “I’m sorry. What do you think about the thumb drives?”

  “I left my computer in Laguna Beach,” she said. “When we get to the terminal in San Diego, I’ll handle the car rental. Then while you load the car, I’ll see if I can log on to one of the computers and send B. whatever’s on the thumb drives. Then you can have them back.”