Cruel Intent

by J. A. Jance

  On this occasion, an inexpensive and simple meal—reheated deli food—had been served to guests in a mobile home that had once belonged to Aunt Evie, someone Paul, in his arrogance, had summarily dismissed as mere “trailer trash.” Ali found herself smiling at the irony. Paul Grayson’s command-performance entertaining was far in the past, and tonight’s low-key celebration had fulfilled Ali’s long-ago dream of how those lovely but costly dishes would be used.

  Ali was drying the last of the plates when she heard the front door open. She peeked around the intervening wall, expecting to see Chris returning. Instead, Dave Holman let himself into the room.

  “Sorry,” he apologized. “Chris was outside with Athena. He said I should go on in.”

  Dave and Ali’s decision to put their romance on hold while maintaining their friendship had led to a certain amount of confusion on both sides. Glad to see him under any circumstances, Ali put down her dish towel on the counter and hurried over to kiss him hello. He kissed her back with a lot more enthusiasm than mere friendship warranted.

  “Sit down,” she said, ushering him over to the leather couch. “Don’t be such a stranger. How are the girls?”

  “Great,” Dave said. “Cassie’s the same as she always was—never a bit of trouble. As for Crystal? She’s back to being her old self—going to school, getting good grades, playing goalie on her soccer team. It’s like she’s really turned a corner.”

  Months earlier, unhappy that her mother and stepfather had moved away from Sedona, Crystal Holman had staged an adolescent insurrection by getting involved with an online predator. Her rash behavior had come close to being fatal for her and for Ali Reynolds. But Ali wasn’t the least bit surprised to know that Crystal was now happy as a clam. The child was a master manipulator. Risky though it had been, everything she had done had been calculated to bring her back home to her father. And it worked like a charm, Ali thought a little ruefully.

  “Glad to hear it,” she said aloud. “So this is work?”

  Dave nodded. When the girls had come back to Sedona, Dave had moved out of his bachelor-pad apartment and into a three-bedroom rental near the old downtown business district.

  “So who’s looking after them while you’re off on a case?” Ali asked. That had been one of Crystal’s complaints—that cases were more important to her father than family. Ali suspected that was still true.

  “Crystal promised she’d see to it that Cassie gets to bed on time,” Dave said. “Believe me, I’m keeping the computer under lock and key these days. The only time Crystal gets to use it is when I’m there to supervise.”

  Crystal was an experienced thirteen, and not in a good way. Ali wouldn’t have left her in charge of a younger sibling on a bet, but Dave hadn’t asked for her advice about child care any more than Athena and Chris had asked for wedding advice. With some difficulty, Ali managed to keep her mouth shut.

  “Meanwhile, you’re working the Forester homicide?” she asked.

  Dave nodded. “That’s why I’m here—to ask you some questions. I really do need to track Bryan’s movements today.”

  “Is he under arrest?”

  Dave shook his head and pulled out a notebook and pen. “Nothing like that,” he said. “This is all very preliminary. We’re just trying to get the lay of the land. What can you tell me about today? I believe you told me Bryan was at your place most of the day.”

  “That’s right,” Ali said. “We had a problem with a building inspector, and Bryan waited around until she showed up.”

  “Is he usually at your place all day, every day?” Dave asked.

  “No,” Ali answered. “He has multiple jobs and multiple crews—three that I know about for sure.”

  “What time did he get arrive today?”

  Ali had to think about that. “It must have been close to ten. I really didn’t pay much attention. He’s my general contractor, Dave. He isn’t required to punch a clock. He supervises workers, picks up supplies, and chases after permits. When it comes to work ethic, I’d have to say Bryan Forester is right up there at the top of the list. He puts in some very long days—not unlike a certain homicide detective who shall remain nameless.”

  Ali’s gentle jibe produced not so much as a glimmer of a smile from Dave. “And how was he once he got there?” the detective persisted. “Did you notice anything unusual about his demeanor?”

  Ali paused before she answered. She didn’t want to point the finger of suspicion in Bryan Forester’s direction, but she felt obliged to tell the truth. “I suppose he seemed out of sorts,” she admitted. “I chalked it up to what was going on with the building inspector. She’s not a very nice person.”

  “But Bryan didn’t say anything to you about what might have been bothering him?”

  “Not to me, and I doubt he said anything to Leland Brooks, either. If he talked to anyone at all, it would be his workers—his foreman, Billy, in particular. They’ve worked together for years.”

  Dave jotted something into his notebook. “Billy?”

  “William Barnes.”

  “Oh, him,” Dave said. “Can you give me the names of the rest of his crew?”

  “Not first and last,” Ali said. “Leland probably keeps track of all that. I know them on sight but mostly by first name only. Ryan and Gary are the ones I remember; they both said they’re planning on being on the job tomorrow. If you want to stop by and talk to them then, you’re more than welcome.”

  “They’re coming to work tomorrow even after what happened today?” Dave asked. “Why would they do that?”

  “Loyalty, maybe?” Ali returned. “Bryan strikes me as a nice guy. His workers seem to think the world of him. Maybe they’re just trying to help out. Or maybe they need the money.”

  Dave’s grunt of acknowledgment let Ali know that even though he may have heard what she said, he remained skeptical. “I’ll come see the work crew tomorrow,” he said. “Probably fairly early in the morning, unless something else comes up.”

  “How are Bryan’s girls doing?” Ali asked. She couldn’t keep from thinking about those two motherless seven-year-olds. And the fact that they were the ones who had discovered their mother’s body on the front porch.

  “As well as can be expected,” Bryan replied grimly. “They’re with their father and their grandparents right now. Bryan’s folks came up from Phoenix. From Sun City. They’re all checked in to the Best Western. Bryan and Morgan’s house has been declared a crime scene. So’s their yard. No one’s going back there for the foreseeable future.”

  That was what Ali had expected. So much for Edie’s tuna casserole. But remembering what her mother had said about Bryan’s twins, Ali found herself more worried about one of them. What about the quiet one who never allowed foods to mingle on her plate? How would a child like that deal with what must seem like the total annihilation of her carefully organized existence? “Are they going to be okay?” Ali asked.

  “They were pretty distraught,” Dave returned. “And understandably so. Deputy Meecham, the DARE officer, is great with kids. She did what she could to help them, but they’ve been severely traumatized. I’m hoping we’ll be able to schedule CHAP interviews for both girls tomorrow.”

  “CHAP?” Ali asked, not recognizing the acronym.

  “Childhelp Advocacy Professionals,” Dave said. “It’s an outfit out of Flagstaff made up of psychologists and social workers. They do forensic interviews of at-risk children, including children involved as witnesses in homicide investigations.”

  Ali’s heart gave a lurch. “You’re not saying the two Forester children may have actually seen what happened to their mother?”

  “No,” Dave assured her. “Not as in eyewitnesses, no. The ME’s preliminary report says Morgan Forester died shortly after she put the twins on their school bus this morning. But if there was something going on in the house—if Bryan and Morgan Forester were feuding in some fashion—I’m guessing those girls know all about it. That’s one thing I learned from
dealing with Crystal this past year. Kids know a lot more about what’s going on with their parents than they’re willing to let on.”

  The door opened, and Chris bounded into the room in a burst of cold air. “Hey, Dave,” Chris said. “Did Mom tell you the good news—that Athena and I are engaged?”

  Grinning, Dave gave Chris a high five. “That’s great,” he said. “Congrats!”

  “We’re having a little get-together at the high school gym tomorrow night before the game,” Chris continued. “You’re welcome to come.”

  “We’ll see,” Dave said. “I’m up to my eyeballs in a case right now.”

  “The Forester murder?” Chris asked.

  Dave sent a questioning look in Ali’s direction.

  “It’s not my fault,” she said. “I didn’t tell him, not one word.”

  “I just heard about it from Athena,” Chris explained. “Mindy, Athena’s roommate, called and told us about it while we were outside. She couldn’t believe it had happened.”

  “Mindy?” Dave asked.

  “Mindy Farber,” Chris answered. “She teaches second grade at the school in the village. Both the Forester girls are in her class.”

  “And the teacher is Athena’s roommate?” Dave asked.

  Chris nodded.

  “I’ll need that phone number, then,” Dave said, “so I can talk to her as well.”

  Chris recited the number, and Dave jotted it down. Watching him, Ali knew it was necessary, knew he was doing his job, but she hated the idea of someone going through those little girls’ lives. Bryan Forester’s daughters had already lost their mother. And if Dave was able to get the goods on their father, they could be destined to lose him as well.

  Chris said good night and headed for his room. Dave turned back to Ali. “Can you think of anything else?” he asked.

  Ali gave him an appraising look. “I like Bryan Forester,” she said. “I’ve been working with him for months now. I’ve never heard him raise his voice on the job. I’ve never heard him swear. He works hard, and he does a good job. I don’t think he’s a killer.”

  Thoughtfully, Dave closed his notebook and dropped it into his pocket. “The problem is,” he said, “most killers don’t wear sandwich boards announcing the fact. And as you and I both know, just because a marriage looks solid to outside observers doesn’t necessarily make it so.”

  “Do you know for sure that the Foresters’ marriage was in trouble?” Ali asked.

  Dave shook his head. “The two of us have been through a lot,” he said, “but I’m sure you can understand that I can’t reveal details of an ongoing investigation—not even to you. I will tell you, though, that some details have come up that give us grounds to be suspicious of Bryan Forester.”

  “Those poor little girls,” Ali murmured.

  “Poor little girls indeed,” Dave agreed. “Their mother was murdered in an act of homicidal violence. This wasn’t random, Ali, it was personal. Morgan Forester’s killer was someone operating in a blind rage. And if Bryan Forester is the perpetrator here—if he’s capable of that kind of violence—I’m honor-bound to see that his daughters don’t fall victim to it as well.”

  Reluctantly, Ali found herself nodding in agreement. Dave was right. If, behind his smooth facade, Bryan Forester was a cold-blooded killer, then someone had to stand up for his daughters. That someone was Detective Dave Holman.

  “I’d best be going,” Dave said.

  Appalled by her own bad manners, Ali realized she hadn’t offered him anything to drink. “What about a cup of coffee?” she asked belatedly. “It won’t take long.”

  Dave shook his head. “No,” he said. “Sorry. First forty-eight and all that.”

  Ali, like most American TV viewers, knew what he meant: If a homicide isn’t solved in the first forty-eight hours after the crime, the likelihood that it will never be solved increases dramatically.

  Dave started for the door.

  “When you come to talk to Bryan’s crew,” Ali suggested, “you should probably plan on talking to the film crew as well.”

  “What film crew?” Dave asked.

  “They’ve been taping the entire remodeling project for a possible series on Home and Garden TV.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I see.” He gave her a cursory kiss on the way out. Clearly, his mind was elsewhere. Like a bloodhound hot on a trail, he refused to be distracted.

  Ali watched him as far as his car, then turned off the porch light and locked the door. She leaned her forehead against the door, and a sense of disappointment passed over her. Women always expected to juggle more than one thing at a time—family, work, relationships. Obviously, men did the same thing, but their priorities were entirely different. For Dave, duty came first. Being a good father had detracted from his ability to be a good lover. And now, with Morgan Forester’s homicide case taking precedence, Ali worried that the fatherhood part might be losing ground as well.

  Ali wondered if maybe the same thing was true for Bryan Forester. She could speak to the fact that the man was a conscientious worker, someone whose word was his bond. But what if being good at his job made him a bad husband or father? What then?

  As for Bryan’s two little girls? Ali was dismayed to realize that she didn’t even know their names. Saddened by the reminder that real evil was alive and well in the world, Ali went into the bedroom.

  After changing into her nightgown, she gently shifted Sam off her pillow and crawled into bed. Long after she turned out the light, though, Ali was still wide awake. At last, she turned on the light. While Sam stalked out of the bedroom in a huff, Ali took her computer out of the nightstand drawer and booted it up.

  CHAPTER 3

  In the aftermath of losing both her job and her marriage and encouraged by her son, Chris, Ali had started Cutlooseblog. com. Much to her surprise, what she had written about her own travails had resonated with plenty of other women. They had written in, sharing their own difficulties, their triumphs and tragedies. Some of those women, like the dauntless Velma T of Laguna Niguel, California, an eightysomething tough-as-nails cancer patient, Ali counted as friends.

  But as her own life changed, Ali had found that Cutloose hadn’t. Every few months a brand-new crop of women seemed to cycle through the website, dealing with the same kinds of issues Ali had already dealt with, drowning in their own pain, trying to put their lives back together. When Ali’s direction changed, when she went from agonizing about her life and times to something else—like remodeling the house or choosing plumbing fixtures, for instance—many of the people who continued to visit Cutloose weren’t interested. Her previous readers didn’t want to learn about architectural drawings or getting permits or battling dry rot or sistering joists or any of the other countless new things the Manzanita Hills house was bringing to Ali’s attention on a daily basis. It didn’t take long for Ali to realize there was a looming disconnect between her own life and those of her readers. Once she did, she had done the only honorable thing—she cut Cutloose loose.

  Months earlier a woman named Adele Richardson, aka Leda, had written in. Her history with a philandering husband paralleled Ali’s in many ways. At a time when Ali’s criminal defense attorneys were advising her to take a break from blogging, Adele had offered to step in and pinch-hit. Ali hadn’t accepted the offer, but later on, when she realized she really did need to step away from the blog, she had contacted Adele once more. The transition had been seamless and relatively painless. Ali had written a farewell blog in which she announced she was handing the reins over to someone else, and Cutloose seemed to have gone on quite nicely without her, thank you very much. That was one thing the past few years had taught Ali Reynolds in spades. She was nothing if not expendable.

  It had been true for her job and for her marriage and, apparently, for Dave Holman as well. Things happened. Circumstances changed. Life moved on. And as Ali logged on to Cutloose that night, it wasn’t because she felt a need to revisit or wallow in her own misery. In fact,
it was exactly the opposite. She had journeyed a long way from the awful pain she’d been in when she first started the blog. She went there now knowing that the stories she was likely to find would allow her to count her blessings.

  For old time’s sake, she scrolled through that day’s postings. The stories were achingly familiar.

  My husband ran off with my sister. I’ve got three kids, no job, no car, and no money. What am I going to do?

  Go to work, Ali thought. Get a job. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

  As she scanned through the string of reader comments, she saw that was what the other writers were saying as well: Don’t sit around blaming your husband; be responsible for yourself; get a life. Some of the correspondents couched their suggestions in less confrontational ways, but they were all pretty much of a piece—a course in tough love; self-love seasoned with ample amounts of good common sense. Obviously, Adele was keeping Cutlooseblog.com on track, staying true to Ali’s original mission.

  Ali was interested to see that Cutloose seemed to have attracted a fair number of male readers.

  Thank you for showing me that I’m not the only man in the world who’s a victim of domestic violence. It helps to know that there are others out there like me who are finding the courage to speak out. Maybe there’s hope for me and my kids.

  The posts that followed that were a mixed bag. Two amazingly angry women declared in no uncertain terms that men were ALWAYS the perpetrators and NEVER the victims in domestic-violence situations. But one correspondent included a toll-free number where men could call to locate family-style shelters in their geographical area that would take male victims and their children right along with women.

  While I was off on a business trip with my boss, I had too much to drink and ended up in his room. When we got back home, he fired me. What do I do now?