Sleuthing Women II

by Lois Winston

  “He did. Seems he was angry that Larson was talking to his son and meddling in family matters.”

  “A threatening note is a bit of an overreaction.”

  “He admits the tone of the note was out of line.”

  It still struck me as a hot-headed response. “What kind of family matters?”

  “Turns out there have been several incidents of domestic abuse,” Huff said. “Incidents that have involved the police.”

  So he was also violent. “What was the outcome?”

  “The wife always backed down and refused to press charges. The kid was understandably upset. Apparently Larson was someone he could talk to about what was happening. When the kid started speaking out and getting on his dad’s case, Alvarez blamed Larson. According to the cops who investigated, Alvarez has a short fuse, especially when he’s been drinking.”

  “Then he might have killed Warren Larson,” I noted, still hopeful. “An alcohol fueled rage can push a person over the edge, especially a person already inclined to violence.”

  “Except that Alvarez was at an AA meeting the night Larson died.”

  “You believe that?” My tone was stronger than I’d intended.

  “You think I’m stupid?” Finally, a trace of emotion from Huff. “Alvarez was there, no question about it. We confirmed with the group leader.”

  When the call ended, I paced around my office for a few minutes, then slammed the drawer on the metal file. It made a satisfyingly cacophonous bang.

  Jared was at my door in seconds. “I take it Huff didn’t have good news.”

  “You’re right, he didn’t. Alvarez did write the threatening note, but he has an alibi for the night of the murder. I suspect it was more bluster than actual threat, anyway.”

  “Bummer.”

  “It’s worse than that.” I told him about the female figure I’d seen on the surveillance footage.

  “You couldn’t be sure it was Ariel, though?” he asked.

  “No, but it was definitely someone who looked like she belonged there. No knock at the door, no hesitation about entering. If Huff shows that to a jury, it will be the final nail in Ariel’s coffin, so to speak.”

  “Wow. I would have bet she was innocent.”

  Even though I’d had my doubts about her at the start, I’d grown to lean that way also. “Me, too.”

  ~*~

  I arrived home to an empty house. Bryce had left me a note saying he’d taken Loretta for a walk. I knew that would please her no end, and I supposed I should have been grateful myself, but in my grumpy mood, I was pissed. Not only had Bryce robbed me of a warm, excited dog welcome, he’d also deprived me of the chance to join them in the walk, which I would have enjoyed.

  To make matters worse, when I walked into the kitchen I found that he’d left a dirty glass and plate by the side of the sink, something I’ve asked him repeatedly not to do. How hard was it to put them in the dishwasher?

  I was steaming mad when he returned a few minutes later. I snapped at him. “Why do you always leave crap by the sink?”

  “I don’t always. And I was going to clean up when I got back.”

  “If you’re going to waltz in and make yourself at home in my house, shouldn’t you at least observe a few simple requests?”

  Bryce was genuinely baffled at the outburst. “I’m sorry.”

  “And you could have waited for me before going out with Loretta.”

  “I was only trying to help.”

  I turned my back on him.

  “Hey—” He touched my shoulder.

  I swung around, out of his reach. I knew the anger was plain on my face.

  He stepped back, now not merely baffled, but hurt. “What’s the matter?”

  I could have explained, or tried to explain, but I didn’t really understand it myself. I was nitpicking and finding fault, building a mountain out of a molehill, but my frustration had been building all day. “This is what it would be like if we were married. It wouldn’t be all love and roses.”

  “Of course it wouldn’t be. But that’s no reason to run away from marriage.”

  “I’m not running.”

  “Okay, no reason to avoid marriage. Is that better?” He was trying to tone things down.

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  Bryce eyed me skeptically. “To be fair, it wouldn’t be all love and roses if I just moved in, either.”

  “Fine,” I said angrily. “So maybe we should just forget the whole thing.”

  He stared at me in stunned silence. “Is that what you want?”

  “I want to be left alone.”

  “Okay. I’ll leave. Loretta’s leash is on the hallway bench.”

  He turned and walked out the front door, shutting it quietly behind him without looking back.

  I watched him leave, bewildered by my own behavior. Then I picked up the stupid glass he’d left by the sink and threw it across the room where it shattered into tiny pieces.

  I felt terrible. Miserable. What had gotten into me? And why was I taking it out on Bryce?

  I swept up the fragments of glass before Loretta could cut her paws, then skipped dinner and poured myself a glass of wine instead. I sat on the living room couch, hating myself.

  Loretta pressed her head against my thigh.

  I scratched her back. “I know, girl. I’m a dope. A horrible person.”

  I felt certain Loretta agreed.

  I tried to figure out what had happened, starting with the question of why I was so invested in Ariel’s innocence. After all, I’d lost cases before. Was it simply that I hated being proven wrong?

  More importantly, why had I treated Bryce so shamefully? I loved him. How could I have been so hurtful?

  And why was it so hard to say yes? Maybe it was my own long history of failed relationships. Or my parents’ marriage, which ended with my mother’s suicide and the subsequent alcohol-fueled withdrawal of my father from our family. Whatever the reason, I was afraid to get too close to anyone. To open up and trust. It felt safer to avoid entanglements altogether.

  Except I was already entangled.

  Unless I’d managed to blow it all apart.

  I found my phone and punched in Bryce’s number. The call went straight to voicemail, so I sent a text.

  “I’m so, so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

  I waited for a return text that never came.

  Finally, several glasses of wine later, I took a bath and wondered if it would be easiest to simply slide under water and end the ache I felt deep inside.

  NINTEEN

  I barely slept, and checked my phone repeatedly during the night.

  No calls.

  No texts.

  I phoned Bryce before heading into work the next morning, and again when I arrived. Both times my call went straight to voicemail.

  In the hopes of actually being productive, I intended to put both Bryce and Ariel out of my mind, and work on the matters I’d neglected over the last week or so. But instead of opening one of several files requiring my attention, I sat down at the computer and logged into the Facebook account I almost never used.

  I don’t “do” Facebook. I don’t post and I don’t tag, and I’ve never really figured out how it all works. But I do have an account so that I can follow my niece and nephews, and keep current with several professional groups. Now, I wanted to see what I could learn about people who might have been involved in Warren’s death.

  Jared had said that Ariel’s timeline was public, so I started there. There were photos of her and Warren, photos of restaurant meals they’d eaten, places they’d vacationed, and comments on other people’s posts. It was neither enlightening nor interesting. Clicking through Ariel’s list of friends, I recognized Steve Abbott and Sheri Carter but none of the others. Abbott’s public timeline was largely related to his work as a physical trainer. Sheri’s account was private, as was Andy Chasen’s. I found a number of men named Kirk Miller but none seemed to fit with what I knew of
Ariel’s old boyfriend. Tony Ducas, who’d been fired from the CPA firm after Warren uncovered his accounting errors, was listed as an accountant at small firm in the South Bay. It seemed unlikely he’d resent Warren enough at this point to kill him.

  On a whim I looked up E.J. Masters, the reporter who’d written the news accounts of Warren’s suspicious death. E.J. turned out to be a woman, but her profile was professional rather than personal. She was listed as an assistant lifestyle editor, which seemed a bit of a stretch for a crime story. But then Glenwood probably didn’t have enough crime to require a dedicated crime reporter.

  When my cell phone rang I leapt to answer it, steadying myself for whatever Bryce might say, and ready to again beg forgiveness.

  But it wasn’t Bryce who was calling. It was ADA Huff.

  “We’ve got a warrant for Ariel Larson’s arrest,” he announced. “In the interest of cooperation, and as a courtesy to save her the humiliation of being escorted out of her home in handcuffs, we’re giving you until ten o’clock tomorrow morning to have her surrender to the court. I realize we might be taking a risk here, but I’m trying to be fair.”

  “I’ll see that she’s there.”

  He seemed to be waiting for me to say more, but if the was waiting for a thank-you, he’d be waiting a long time.

  “Ten o’clock,” he said again before hanging up.

  I’d thought my day couldn’t get any worse, but it had just gone from rotten to dreadful. Could anything more go wrong?

  I took a deep breath, called Ariel and broke the news. I tried to be as reassuring and encouraging as possible, but we both knew she faced a rough road ahead. Understandably, she reacted with a frenzied fear bordering on hysteria.

  “I can’t do this,” she whimpered over and over. “It’s so unfair. I didn’t kill him. Please, Kali. There has to be a way to make them see that.”

  “I’ve tried, Ariel. I had hoped to convince them to look elsewhere but they weren’t interested. We will actually stand a better chance at trial. There the state will have to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and I can introduce the possibility of an alternate suspect or two the police never considered. That might raise more suspicion in the mind of the jury than it did with Huff.” If only my list of other suspects hadn’t been whittled down to practically nothing.

  “That could take months.” Ariel sobbed through quick, uneven breaths. “What about the baby?”

  More likely years than months, but I kept that thought to myself. “Let’s take this one step at a time.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she shot back. “You aren’t the one facing prison.”

  “We should think about options, Ariel. It may be time to consider the D.A.’s offer of a plea deal.”

  “Go to prison for something I didn’t do? That would be crazy.”

  “I understand how you feel.” It was a quandary of the worst sort. “But a trial is always a gamble. A few years in prison would be preferable to a lifetime there.”

  “Except I don’t deserve to be there at all. Don’t you get it? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  It was time to get tough, although I felt bad doing so. “I’ve had a chance to view footage from a security camera at house down the street from yours. It shows someone who appears to be female approaching the house about nine o’clock.”

  “And you think it was me? You don’t believe me either?” Now she was clearly in a full-fledged panic. “I need time to think. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She hung up before I could respond.

  I needed to talk to her face-to-face, which is what I should have done in the first place. I kicked myself for acting without thinking.

  Ariel was understandably agitated. She needed time to process what I’d told her. I decided to give her a couple of hours to think things over, and hopefully get some perspective. Then I’d drive out and speak to her.

  My state of mind was only marginally better than Ariel’s. I felt sympathy for her, of course, and exasperated that I hadn’t been able to dissuade Huff, but the true despair I felt was at having driven Bryce away.

  I checked my phone constantly, but there were no calls or texts from him. Nothing.

  Finally, having done nothing but fret for several hours, I went to see Ariel.

  I rang the bell, and when I didn’t get a response, I knocked on the door. Then knocked again more loudly. “Ariel,” I called out. “Please open up. We need to talk.”

  Silence.

  I heard footsteps behind me and turned to find Steve Abbott coming up the sidewalk.

  “Have you seen Ariel?” I asked.

  “No. And she’s not answering her phone. I was just coming to check that she was okay.”

  “She wouldn’t have harmed herself, would she?”

  “That’s what I’m worried about. She’s been pretty down in the dumps lately. Do you think we should call the police? Or knock down the door?”

  “I know where there’s a house key,” I told him.

  Steve snapped his fingers. “Right. I should have thought of that.” He sprinted around to the back of the house and had retrieved the key from the outdoor grill by the time I turned the corner. I wondered how many other people knew where the key was hidden.

  We entered the house together, both of us calling out. “Ariel? Are you home?”

  In tandem, we raced to her bedroom, then split up to checked the rest of the house. My heart slowed with relief when we discovered no dead or unconscious body.

  I reminded myself that Steve was still on my list of potential suspects in Warren’s murder, but at this point there was little I could do about it now but keep my eye on him.

  He checked the garage while I searched the yard. “Her car’s gone,” he called, sounding alarmed.

  There were lots of ways of killing yourself that didn’t involve doing it at home. But Ariel might also simply have fled. Neither was an encouraging thought. I took a deep breath and forced myself to think logically.

  “Let me call Warren’s sister,” I said. “Maybe she knows where Ariel is. Why don’t you call anyone else you think might know?”

  Steve went into another room to make his calls and I phoned Nora.

  “She’s here,” Nora said when I explained. “I was just getting ready call you. She told me about the pending arrest and turning herself in. She was hysterical and not thinking straight. I can’t say that I blame her.”

  “I’d like to speak to her. She’s not answering her phone. Can you put her on?”

  “She’s resting right now,” Nora said. “She was in such a state earlier, I really think the rest might be good for her. Why don’t you come by in about an hour? How does that sound. Maybe we can talk about it all together. Steer her toward the most sensible course.”

  “Okay. But keep an eye on her. Don’t let her leave.”

  “Don’t worry,” Nora replied. “I won’t.”

  TWENTY

  Nora greeted me at the door before I’d even rung the bell. She slipped out and closed the door behind her.

  “Ariel knows you’re coming, but I was hoping to have a word with you first.”

  “What’s on your mind?” I was finding Nora’s gate-keeping annoying.

  “As I said earlier, she’s not thinking straight. Not thinking at all, really. She’s scared, and either refuses to face reality or is unable to. I’m hoping we can talk some sense into her.

  “Sense?”

  “The offer of a plea bargain. She said you suggested that.”

  “I really should be discussing this with Ariel.”

  “I agree. But I’m . . . I guess I’m having trouble facing facts, too. As reluctant as I am to believe she killed Warren, it’s hard to argue with the evidence.”

  “We’ve yet to see any real evidence,” I reminded her.

  “Well, with what the DA says, then. The pieces seem to fit.”

  “Why the change? I thought you were willing to give Ariel the benefit of doubt.”

 
; “I was. Still am. But I’m not going to look the other way just because she’s my sister-in-law.” Nora hesitated and ran her hand along the porch railing. “This is what I mean about being torn. Ariel needs to be punished for what she did, but in truth, I wouldn’t be upset if she got a lighter sentence by pleading guilty. In fact might be the most just course.”

  “Not if she didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “It’s just so . . .” Nora sighed. “I guess I just wanted you to understand where I’m coming from.”

  She turned back toward the door and I followed her inside.

  “Ariel’s in the den,” Nora told me. “Why don’t you both come into the kitchen when you’re ready? We’ll have a family conference of sorts and see if we can sort this out.”

  I headed for the den and knocked lightly.

  “What?” Ariel said through the closed door.

  I opened it. She was sitting on the couch staring blankly at the opposite wall.

  “Hi,” I said sitting down next to her. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  “I’m your attorney, Ariel. You need to take my calls.”

  “What good has that done me?”

  “You need to answer my calls or get yourself another attorney. You understand?”

  She nodded, and finally looked at me. “I’m sorry. I just feel like I’m in a straightjacket or something. My head is going to explode trying to make sense of what’s happening. I’m so frightened. If you don’t believe I’m innocent, how can I convince a judge?”

  “Whether I think you’re guilty or not is beside the point. I’m on your side, and I’m going to fight for you. But you need to take a hard look at the case they’ll lay out against you, and carefully consider the alternatives.”

  “All of which seem to involve going to prison.”

  “Not so,” I said. “Going to trial is risky, but you could prevail. All it takes is one juror with reasonable doubt about your guilt.”

  “What am I supposed to do, flip a coin? How can I ever make a decision like that?”