The A List

by Jance, J. A.

  With that she got up. Her three-pronged cane clicked on the tiled floor as she marched out of the room. She was still angry when she got home. No mother could have done more for a son than she’d done for Eddie, and yet he dared treat her that way? Dared talk to her that way? It was unacceptable! Intolerable!

  Still wounded by their quarrel, Hannah spent the next several days scanning local news sites and broadcasts, searching for some hint that Alexandra Munsey’s body had been found. The first arrived several days later on Memorial Day afternoon, when a headline on the San Bernardino Examiner’s Web site reported that the body of an unidentified female had been found shot to death in a cabin near Lake Arrowhead earlier that morning. No other details were available at that time. On Tuesday, though, once the body had been identified and the name released to the media, the story shifted into a higher gear.

  LOCAL AUTHOR FOUND MURDERED

  Alexandra Munsey, a local bestselling author, was found shot to death in her Lake Arrowhead home late last week while her most recent novel, The Changeling, remains at number five on the New York Times Best Seller list.

  The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office reports that the body was found on Monday morning by the victim’s former husband, Jake Munsey, who had gone to the home to check on her after multiple phone calls made to her residence the day before went unanswered.

  “I knew she was dead the moment I opened the door,” Mr. Munsey reported. “I never even went inside.”

  At a press conference earlier today, Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Amanda Roberts reported that Ms. Munsey evidently died shortly after returning from a monthlong national tour promoting her latest book.

  “Her luggage was found near the body, just inside the front door, and her purse was located on the kitchen counter,” Ms. Roberts said. “Nothing seemed to be missing from the home. Her jewelry and watch were still there, and more than several hundred dollars in cash was found inside her wallet, leading us to believe that this was a targeted hit rather than a robbery gone bad. There was no sign of forced entry or sexual assault.”

  So far no suspects have been identified in the homicide, but according to Ms. Roberts investigators are currently interviewing a person of interest.

  The Changeling is Ms. Munsey’s third book and her second novel. Her first published work, A Mother’s Tale, tells the story of her long-running feud with her onetime fertility doctor. That physician, Dr. Edward Gilchrist, was later convicted of homicide in the death of his former wife and is currently serving life in prison due to that crime.

  Ms. Munsey was instrumental in forming an organization called the Progeny Project, which became a resource of information and a community gathering place for families impacted by the unintended consequences of having children born by means of artificial insemination.

  Her literary agent, Moira Van Dorn, expressed her shock by saying, “This is a terrible loss for her family, for me personally, and for the literary world in general. In terms of her writing, Alex was truly coming into her own, and I can’t imagine why anyone would attack her in such a horrific way.”

  Ms. Munsey was born on February 14,1946, to Mason and Ellen Olson of Van Nuys, California. A graduate of UCLA, she is survived by her son, Evan, of Salt Lake City. Funeral services are pending.

  It was the last few words of the article that caught Hannah’s attention. Funeral services pending. Eddie had forbidden her attendance, but would she still go? Enough time had elapsed between the incident with Eddie and now for Hannah to realize that he wasn’t completely wrong. Some of the people from the funeral were likely to have been present at Eddie’s trial five years earlier, but she doubted that any of them would recognize her. People saw what they expected to see—a frail old woman, a harmless little old lady leaning on her cane, not a stone-cold killer.

  Hannah could have asked Gloria, of course, and had her delegate someone to drop by the funeral home and pick up a program the same way someone had been sent to retrieve Kaitlyn Holmes’s death certificate. But that’s not what Hannah did. Instead she sent Gloria a message saying she’d have to cancel that week’s manicure appointment. And that week on her regular visitation day, Hannah didn’t bother going to the prison to see her son.

  Eddie had created a terrible breach when he had called her stupid, and if he thought Hannah was over it, he was dead wrong.

  36

  Cottonwood, Arizona, June 2017

  Late that Friday afternoon, Ali Reynolds, seated at her desk in High Noon’s corporate offices, was more than ready for her workweek to be over. A long-delayed order of computer blades and racks had finally arrived on Tuesday afternoon. The frenzy of unpacking and installing had meant having all hands on deck. When her phone rang, she expected the call to be from B. Simpson, her husband, telling her that his flight home from Japan had been canceled or delayed. Instead a strange number showing a Salt Lake City location turned up in the caller-ID window.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Ali?” a male voice responded. “Ali Reynolds?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Who’s this?”

  “It’s Evan, Evan Munsey.”

  Ali could tell from the tone of his voice that something was wrong. “Why, Evan,” she said, “how good to hear from you again. Is everything okay?”

  “No, everything is not okay,” he said. “It’s about my mom. She’s dead.”

  The shocking news took Ali’s breath away. Her signed copy of Alex’s new book, The Changeling, was right there on the corner of her desk. She had finished reading it the previous afternoon while everyone else in the office had been up to their ears in computer installation. She had planned on calling tonight to let Alex know how much she’d enjoyed it.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I talked to your mom several weeks ago when she was about to go on tour. What happened?”

  Ali heard the catch in Evan’s voice before he answered. “She was murdered,” he said in an anguished whisper. “Someone went to her cabin up by Lake Arrowhead and shot her to death.”

  Ali was appalled. “When was this?”

  “We’re not sure of the exact timing. The cops may know more now, but they haven’t released that information to us. The last I heard from Mom was a text she sent a week ago yesterday. She had just gotten off a flight from Salt Lake. She said she’d met up with the car service and was on her way home. We had seen her that same day. The tour had taken a lot out of her. She said she was tired and that she was going to spend the weekend in her robe, taking it easy. After being on the go for a month, she just wanted to veg, so I didn’t think too much about it when I didn’t hear from her on Friday or Saturday.

  “But Sunday was my son’s birthday. Rory turned six that day. He also lost his first tooth. We sent Mom a video of him with his front tooth missing, and I was surprised that we didn’t hear right back from her. When I tried phoning her later that night, the call went straight to voice mail. That’s when I started to worry. On Monday, when she still didn’t answer, I called Dad and asked if he could go up and check on her. He’s the one who found her. The front door was unlocked, and she was lying right there next to the pile of luggage she’d had with her on tour.”

  “A home invasion, then?” Ali asked.

  “The cops don’t think so. She evidently opened the door to her attacker. There was no sign of breaking and entering.”

  “So it must have been someone she knew,” Ali suggested, “someone she invited into her home. Any sign of a physical confrontation?”

  “None,” Evan replied. “Other than the gunshot wound, there was no sign of a struggle. The television set was on. There was half a glass of wine on the side table next to her chair. So I think she was just sitting there by herself when the killer showed up on her doorstep. The cops say it wasn’t a robbery gone bad. Her purse was found nearby with a good deal of cash still inside it. And valuable jewelry was left behind as well. She was still wearing both her Omega watch and the diamond pendant she gave hers
elf when Silver Lining hit the New York Times list.”

  “Did your mother have any enemies?” Ali asked.

  “The cops asked me the same question. I told them I didn’t know of any current ones, but there’s always that old one—the one from way back then—that Gilchrist guy who’s still in prison doing life without parole. From what I’m hearing, the detectives seem to be fixated on my dad as a person of interest. That’s probably because he’s the one who found the body, but he only did that because I asked him to. The problem is, however, he’s the ex-husband.”

  “And husbands or ex-husbands are always the ones who do it,” Ali offered.

  “Exactly,” Evan breathed. “I tried to tell them that was nuts, because he and Mom had buried the hatchet years ago. Nancy, my stepmother, tried to tell them the same thing—that Mom often spent the holidays at their house—but it sounds like their minds are made up, and they’re not buying it no matter what we say.”

  He fell silent after that. While Ali struggled with what to say next, someone tapped on the frame of her office door. She looked up to see Stuart Ramey, High Noon’s second-in-command, standing in the doorway. She motioned him to come inside and have a seat while she turned back to her phone call.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

  “That’s why I’m calling now,” Evan said, “and I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, but things have been so nuts. . . .”

  “Evan, please don’t worry about not calling me. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

  “This morning the ME’s office finally released the body to our mortuary, Longmont Funeral Home in Sherman Oaks. The story has been all over the local news for days so several of the people from the Progeny Project have called or e-mailed, expressing interest in coming to the services. Everyone had been standing around with one foot in the air waiting to hear when we could schedule it. When we finally did, it seemed likely more people would be able to attend on a weekend than during the week. With that in mind, we’ve scheduled the memorial for Sunday afternoon at two P.M. so people wouldn’t have to miss work.”

  “This Sunday afternoon?” Ali asked.

  “Yes, and it was when we started talking about planning the service that I thought of you.” Evan paused for a moment before continuing. “I know this is a big ask, but would it be possible for you to speak at the memorial? You were there with Mom at the very beginning, when the whole thing with Rory and me got started. Since it was such a defining issue in her life, I thought it was important that we acknowledge it. Cassie Davis would have been the other natural choice, but Rory tells me that Emma is having serious health issues right now and Cassie can’t get away.”

  “Of course I will,” Ali answered at once. “I’m honored to be asked, and I owe it to you and to your mom to be there. As soon as we get off the phone, I’ll see about booking a flight. I’ll probably fly in tomorrow and then fly out on Monday morning.”

  “Thank you, Ali,” Evan said softly. “I really appreciate this. I’ll be picking up Kathleen, my wife, and Rory—our little Rory—from LAX tomorrow. Kathleen’s a teacher, and she and Rory both had to finish out the last week of school before they could come. Depending on your schedule, I can pick you up at the airport or else I can send someone to get you.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Ali said. “You have enough on your plate. I’ll rent a car and get wherever I need to be on my own.”

  “Do you know where you’ll stay?”

  “Since the memorial service and reception will both be in Sherman Oaks, I’ll probably book somewhere in Hollywood. The W, most likely. My husband, B., travels so much that we have a never-ending supply of points with them. Where are you staying?”

  “With my dad and Nancy,” Evan said. “And they’ll probably be hosting a small private reception at the house after the public one at the funeral home.”

  “Send along their address,” Ali said. “You can text it to this number.”

  “Will your husband be coming as well?”

  “I doubt it. He’s somewhere over the Pacific right now, and he’s due home later tonight. Since he’s been traveling all week, I suspect he’ll want to stay home.”

  The call ended, and Ali looked over at Stuart Ramey, who’d been sitting there during much of the conversation. “Did someone die?” he asked.

  Ali nodded. “A friend of mine from back when I was living in California. She was murdered late last week, shot to death in her home up near Lake Arrowhead.”

  Stuart’s face registered genuine alarm. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Ali was stunned to momentary silence. “I think so,” she said at last.

  “I lost my friend, too,” he added quietly. “I know how much it hurts. I’m sorry.”

  Ali knew the story of Stu and his lost friend. Stuart had grown up suffering from an undiagnosed case of Asperger’s syndrome. Hopelessly bullied at school, he’d been on his own until another equally smart outsider named Roger McGeary had turned up in his life, and the two of them had become fast friends. They’d lost track of each other after high school. Years later, in the course of unraveling the cause of Roger’s inexplicable suicide, Stu had unmasked Owen Hansen as a serial killer. Solving that case and facing down a diabolical bad guy had awakened something in Stuart Ramey and given him a degree of self-confidence he’d never had before. Still, the idea of Stu being able to step away from himself long enough to ask after someone else’s emotional well-being was remarkable.

  “It does hurt,” Ali agreed. “It hurts terribly.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Her name was Alex—Alexandra Munsey. She’s . . . she was . . . a writer. In fact, I just finished reading her book last night.” Ali picked up her copy of The Changeling and handed it to Stu. “That was her son, Evan, on the phone asking if I’d come to L.A. and speak at her memorial service on Sunday afternoon. I agreed to go, on the assumption that you guys can keep the doors open and the lights on in my absence.”

  Still holding the book, Stu nodded. “Cami and I should be able to manage,” he assured her.

  Cami was short for Camille Lee, a young computer-science graduate who was, Ali supposed, third-in-command at High Noon. She’d been hired originally to serve as Stu’s assistant, stepping in when he needed help relating to human beings as opposed to interacting with machines. Now that he was requiring less of that, Cami had been able walk away from being Stu’s emotional Sherpa and focus on work that was more in keeping with her own computer-engineering skills.

  “Do you think he’ll want to stay here, or will he want to go to the funeral with you?” Stu wanted to know.

  “I’ll ask, but I doubt he’ll want to go,” Ali replied. “For one thing, with that flight delay, who knows how late it’ll be by the time he gets home? Besides, he doesn’t know any of the people involved. Between interacting with a bunch of strangers and being able to keep an eye on his new computers, I’m pretty sure I already know what he’ll choose.”

  Stu nodded. “Right,” he said, “there’s always the chance of a glitch of some kind in that initial upload, and someone will need to be here to fix it. I told Cami I’ll hold the fort tonight, and she can come in tomorrow morning to relieve me, but I know we’d both prefer to have B. on hand in case anything goes wrong.”

  “Wait,” Ali said, “you’re staying over tonight? I thought today was supposed to be your official move-in day.”

  “It was,” Stu conceded, “but it’s not that big a deal. If I move out today or tomorrow or next week, what difference does it make?”

  For years Stu had lived in a studio apartment on the far side of the computer labs. Living on-site had made it easier for him to keep up with B. Simpson’s travel schedule, making him readily available for consultation no matter where his boss was in terms of time zones or the international date line. The arrangement had also been convenient for all concerned, since Stu hadn’t possessed either a driver’s license or a vehicle. That had recently changed, and
days earlier he’d closed on the purchase of the home in Sedona that had been B. Simpson’s bachelor pad before he and Ali married.

  Cami showed up just then, popping her head in the door. “Hey, Stu,” she said, “I got the last rack of GPUs up and running, so I’m off.” Then, looking back and forth between Ali and Stuart, she added, “What’s going on? Did I miss the memo about a staff meeting?”

  “It’s not a staff meeting,” Ali explained. “One of my friends was murdered in California a little over a week ago, and I’ve been asked to speak at her memorial service on Sunday.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Cami interjected.

  Ali nodded. “I agreed to go, but I’m concerned that Stu is having to readjust his moving plans.”

  “His moving plans were already readjusted,” Cami said with a grin. “Besides, he won’t suffer. I told him I’d pick up his preferred staff of life—pepperoni pizza—and drop it off here on my way back from Krav Maga. The only reason he was wanting to rush home is because his sweetie, Frigg, is already there.”

  “Leave Frigg out of this. She is not my sweetie,” Stu grumbled. “And when you pick up that pizza, don’t forget my root beer.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cami said, snapping to attention and giving him a mock salute.

  The easy banter and constant bickering between the two young colleagues often made Ali feel like a dormitory house mother, or maybe a referee. They were opposites in every way. Cami was tiny, while Stu was a bear of a man. Cami was almost twenty years Stu’s junior, but in many ways she was more mature and far more experienced. She was outgoing and friendly. He was painfully shy—a nerd’s nerd—who preferred his own company to almost anyone else’s. She was a health-food nut—organic and non-GMO foods all the way—while he was your basic junk-food addict. When doughnuts showed up in the break room, Stu dove right in, while Cami lectured everyone within earshot on the evils of white flour and sugar. Stu’s childhood history of being bullied had made him someone who would rather dodge a fight than go to war. Cami, despite her diminutive size, was a devotee of self-defense. She spent her off hours developing her Krav Maga skills and doing target practice at the shooting range.