by Jance, J. A.
When Ali awakened in bed the next morning, lying next to B. Simpson, she was surprised to realize that she felt happier than she had in a very long time. She slipped out of bed and was showered, dressed, and packed before she ever woke him up.
“Okay, sleepyhead,” she said. “Time to wake up. I need to check out and go to work. And you need to check out, too, or else you need to go to your own room.”
It turned out that it took longer for her to boot him out of her bed than she had expected. Ali also had to dress again and redo her makeup, but by the time she drove away from the Ritz, she was incredibly lighthearted. She didn’t know what would happen in the future. Was this relationship with B. Simpson merely a passing fancy—a bit of mutual attraction by two lonely people—or would it turn into something more serious?
What she did know was that the two of them had been good together. They’d had fun—uncomplicated, glorious fun, more fun than she’d had in years, which explained why Ali felt so alive. Once Dave Holman had retreated into his fatherhood duties, Ali had pretty much put the possibility of romance out of her head.
B. Simpson’s appearance on the scene was forcing her to rethink that position.
That morning, though, instead of heading home for Sedona, Ali drove straight to Prescott to handle some unfinished business. Arriving at the office on Gurley Street, she asked to speak to Sheriff Maxwell, only to discover he was out for the day—down in Phoenix for a major ATF press conference announcing a breakthrough and several arrests in Arizona- and California-based cells of the ELF network.
It took a while for Ali to track down the information she needed. Once she had it in hand, she left the department and drove to Devon Ryan’s place, several blocks away. She found him in the front yard of a modest bungalow, standing on a ladder, painting the wood trim on the front soffit.
“How’s it going?” she asked, walking up the sidewalk.
Devon turned and looked down at her. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you. Did you stop by hoping to pick up some media relations pointers?”
Arrogant jerk, Ali thought.
“Not exactly,” she said. “I came by to see how things were going with you and Holly.”
He put down his paintbrush and then stepped down from the ladder. “Holly?” he said “Holly who?”
“That would be Holly Mesina,” Ali said. “Sally’s good friend Holly. When she started giving me such a ration, I thought she hated my guts because she and Sally were such pals, but that isn’t it at all, is it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Devon said. “If Holly’s said something about me, she’s probably just making up stories.”
“I doubt that,” Ali said. “Does Sally know that you’ve been screwing around with Holly behind her back, and does your wife know about either of them? If not, I’ll be happy to tell them both.”
The stricken look on Devon’s face was priceless.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Actually,” Ali said, “I would. I have some experience with cheating spouses. I was married to a man just like you—a cheat and a bully and a coward. If I tell your wife, I know exactly how she’ll feel, because I’ve been there.”
“If you tell her—” he began.
“What?” Ali asked before he could put the threat into words. “What exactly will you do? I already know way too much about you. I also have a theory about who lifted that missing evidence from the evidence room and blamed it on Sally. It was too complicated having two of your girlfriends working in the same office. They might have started comparing notes and figured out what a worthless creep you are.”
“You can’t prove that,” Devon objected. “You can’t prove any of it.”
“I can if I have to.”
“How?”
“Kelly Green. I know all about your cozy little relationship with him. If you don’t go to Sheriff Maxwell with all this, I will, and so will Mr. Green.”
For a moment, Devon said nothing aloud, but his face told the whole story. Ali had him between a rock and a hard place and he knew it.
“What do you want?” he said finally.
“I want Sally Harrison to get her job back,” Ali said. “Her daughter is sick. She needs the insurance coverage.”
“What about me?” Devon whined. “What about my family?”
“Maybe you should have thought about them before you started collecting payoffs from people like Kelly Green for doing your job. Sheriff Maxwell is down in Phoenix today. I’ll give you until tomorrow to turn in your resignation and take responsibility for your actions. If you don’t do it by noon tomorrow, I’m going to him with everything I know. The only question in my mind is whether you’ll take Holly down with you. I have an idea about the kind of guy you are, so it might be a good idea for Holly to start polishing up her résumé.”
When Ali finally made it back home that night, Leland Brooks came out to carry her suitcases in from the car.
“What’s for dinner?” Ali asked.
“I didn’t know about tonight, so I have a casserole in the fridge.”
“What about tomorrow night?” she asked. “I’m thinking we’ll be having company.”
“What would you like?”
“How about lamb chops?” she said. “Asparagus, and some of your potatoes au gratin.”
“For how many?” Leland asked.
“Two,” she said. “B. Simpson and me. And for the time being, I’d like that kept quiet, especially from my mother, and from Chris.”
“Of course, madam,” Leland said, nodding. “I understand completely.”
Ali was sure he did.
“One more thing,” Ali said. “I’d like you to drive down to Phoenix this week, go to Best Buy, and pick up one of those fifty-two-inch flat-screen TVs for my dad for Father’s Day. I’m sure Chris will be glad to get some of his friends to help you install it.”
“Absolutely, madam,” Leland said. “With pleasure. But speaking of Chris, he dropped by a little while ago and left a puzzling message that has something to do with Father’s Day as well. He said for me to tell you to please not mention ‘you know what,’ I believed he called it, because he and Athena are planning to unveil the surprise to your parents on Father’s Day.”
Ali got it. She was thrilled, but she managed to restrain herself from giving Leland a swift hug. Hugs weren’t necessarily a good thing as far as Leland was concerned.
“Thank you,” Ali said. “That’s very good news.”
Sam wandered into the bedroom while Ali was changing clothes. “So did you miss me?” Ali asked.
Broken tail in the air, the cat wandered away without answering.
When Ali’s alarm went off the next morning, she was still sound asleep, but she dragged herself out of bed. Sheriff Maxwell called while she was in the process of putting on her makeup.
“Everyone is suitably impressed,” he said. “That includes Agent in Charge Donnelley.”
“Good,” Ali said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“I’ve had an interesting call from the Catholic bishop down in Phoenix, saying what a splendid job you did with Sister Anselm. Bishop Gillespie couldn’t say enough good things about how you saved Sister Anselm out in the desert. That was a little outside your assigned duties—as was the situation with Donna Carson. So you’re on Phoenix PD’s good side, too.”
“Okay,” Ali said. “I’m hearing all this good news, and I’m waiting for the ‘but.’ ”
“What ‘but’?” Gordon Maxwell said. “There is no ‘but.’ Well, maybe a little one.”
“What’s that?”
“I may have hired you under false pretenses.”
“How’s that?”
“I told you the job was temporary because I expected Devon Ryan would be coming back any minute. It turns out he isn’t. He turned in his letter of resignation this morning. Internal Affairs was looking into some possible charges against him, but now that he’s leaving we’ll let that go. It’ll keep my department
from having more of a black mark than it already has.”
Which will also be good for Sheriff Gordon Maxwell, Ali thought. Some of that Internal Affairs fallout might well have blown back on the sheriff himself.
“What about Sally Harrison?” she asked. “Is she getting her job back?”
“You knew about all of that, too?” Sheriff Maxwell asked. “About the two of them carrying on?”
Well, duh! Ali thought.
“Yes,” she said. “I knew. Did Devon say anything to you about Holly Mesina?”
“I’m not sure why, but it turns out she’s quitting, too,” Sheriff Maxwell said. “It’s too bad, but under the circumstances it’s probably just as well. I’ll be better off with fewer people on the payroll.”
“Yes,” Ali agreed. “I’m sure you will.”
“So, getting back to what I was saying before. With Devon not coming back, will you stay on for the time being?”
“For the time being,” Ali told him. “Unless something better comes along.”
“Good,” Sheriff Maxwell said. “That’s just what I wanted to hear. What are you doing for the next month?”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone just dropped out of the upcoming police academy training class down in Peoria. When I heard they had an opening, I asked them to hold it for me long enough to check with you. How about it? Will you go? The media relations job will be here waiting for you once you graduate.”
Ali thought about it, but not for long.
“My mother will have a fit,” she said, “but I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.”
About the Author
J.A. Jance is the top-ten New York Times best-selling author of the Joanna Brady series, the J. P. Beaumont series, three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family, and the Ali Reynolds series: Cruel Intent, Hand of Evil, Web of Evil, and Edge of Evil. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.
ALSO BY J.A. JANCE
ALI REYNOLDS MYSTERIES
Edge of Evil
Web of Evil
Hand of Evil
Cruel Intent
Trial by Fire
JOANNA BRADY MYSTERIES
Desert Heat
Tombstone Courage
Shoot/Don’t Shoot
Dead to Rights
Skeleton Canyon
Rattlesnake Crossing
Outlaw Mountain
Devil’s Claw
Paradise Lost
Partner in Crime
Exit Wounds
Dead Wrong
Damage Control
Fire and Ice
J. P. BEAUMONT MYSTERIES
Until Proven Guilty
Injustice for All
Trial by Fury
Taking the Fifth
Improbable Cause
A More Perfect Union
Dismissed with Prejudice
Minor in Possession
Payment in Kind
Without Due Process
Failure to Appear
Lying in Wait
Name Withheld
Breach of Duty
Birds of Prey
Partner in Crime
Long Time Gone
Justice Denied
Fire and Ice
AND
Hour of the Hunter
Kiss of the Bees
Day of the Dead
Queen of the Night
POETRY
After the Fire
Touchstone
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by J.A. Jance
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Touchstone hardcover edition February 2011
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Designed by Akasha Archer
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jance, Judith A.
Fatal error : a mystery / J. A. Jance.
p. cm.
“A Touchstone book.”
1. Reynolds, Ali (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police recruits—Fiction.
3. Arizona—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3560.A44F56 2011
813’.54—dc22
2010025091
ISBN 978-1-4165-6381-5
ISBN 978-1-4516-7578-8 (eBook)
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.