J. Jance - Deadly Stakes

This time it didn’t happen. He had regarded the warning message about Barry Handraker as nothing short of critical. He didn’t know whether Molly’s husband was in town or involved, but Stuart couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility that he might be. Stuart had texted his warning to Ali at ten past two and had expected her to reply in a matter of minutes.

To keep himself occupied while he waited, he turned to his computer and busied himself studying all things Handraker.

The original information on Barry Handraker’s criminal past, including the mug shots Stuart shot over to Ali in the message, had come through reliable but not entirely legal channels. Had Stuart Ramey been a police officer, having that information wouldn’t have been a problem. Since he wasn’t, it was. So rather than chasing more information that had the potential of landing him in hot water, he shopped the Net looking for whatever was readily accessible. Newspapers in the Minneapolis area proved especially helpful.

Barry Handraker, a pharmacist with ten years of experience in the field, had been fired from his job a year earlier when it had come to light that he was systematically skimming from the store’s inventory of over-the-counter medications and using them in the manufacture of drugs that were far more lucrative out on the street. Even though money shouldn’t have been a huge problem, he nonetheless stopped paying his mortgage. As a result, the bank had foreclosed, but when the house came back as a bank-held property, it was essentially worthless, since it had been used as a meth lab.

Handraker’s venture into the illicit drug field had included manufacturing and distribution, and he had gained a reputation for being smart and ruthless. Tipped off by persons unknown, he had disappeared two months earlier, days before the DEA could carry out a planned raid to shut down his operation. Some of the petty criminals Handraker used as hired help had been caught in the raid, but the big cheese himself was long gone when the cops moved in. After his disappearance, he had been declared the prime suspect in two drug-related homicides and featured more than once on Minnesota’s Most Wanted . There were numerous warrants out for Barry Handraker’s arrest, and he was said to be armed and dangerous.

Stuart found it interesting that Molly Handraker’s name was mostly missing from those newspaper accounts. The one time she was mentioned, she was referred to as “Handraker’s estranged wife, now living in Arizona.” The other references to her showed up in relation to her work with various battered-women’s shelters in the area. She was never mentioned as being a suspect in her husband’s crimes. The people writing the newspaper accounts seemed to assume that Molly Handraker was a good guy and Barry was a bad one.

Pulling away from his screen and keyboard, Stuart rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. It was now three-fifteen. Over an hour had passed since he sent the warning to Ali. She had told him that she would be doing an interview. In B. Simpson’s world, meetings with outsiders were sacrosanct and not to be interrupted. Stuart’s dealings with Ali were an extension of that, and as a consequence, her meetings were accorded the same courtesy. Still, Ali had said she had a “few more questions” for Molly Handraker. How long could that take? Stuart didn’t want to push panic buttons, but if Ali was in some kind of trouble, he didn’t want to be sitting around doing nothing, either.

Finally, at three-forty, an hour and a half after the original message, Stuart determined that he had waited long enough. Sacrosanct interview or not, he sent Ali another message. “I’m worrying here. Where are you? Call me. Or text. I need to hear from you.” Just to be sure, he dialed Ali’s cell phone. The call went to voice mail. He tried to keep the steam out of his voice as he left a voice message to the same effect.

When the clock on his computer showed four-ten, two full hours into Ali’s uncharacteristic silence, Stuart ran up the flag to B. Simpson. Stuart may have been doing a freebie for Ali Reynolds, but B. was the one who signed his check. If Ali was in trouble, B. needed to know about it.

“Hey, Stu,” B. said easily when he heard Stuart’s voice. “What gives?”

“We may have a problem,” Stuart said.

“What kind of problem?”

“I sent Ali an important message two hours ago, more than that now. I wanted to warn her that the husband of the woman she was interviewing was a player-a possibly dangerous drug dealer from Minnesota who may be involved in whatever’s going on. I expected her to get back to me right away. So far she hasn’t, and I’m worried. Has she been in touch with you?”

“The last I heard from her was this morning before I left the hotel,” B. said, “but I agree. Her not getting back to you is worrisome. That’s not the Ali Reynolds I know. Maybe she’s been in a traffic accident of some kind. Maybe she’s had some kind of medical emergency. Have you called the cops?”

“I was afraid that if I did that and it turned out that there’s nothing wrong-”

“-there’d be hell to pay,” B. said with a chuckle, finishing Stu’s sentence for him. “Have you tried tracking her phone or her iPad?”

“Not yet. I’m about to, but before I sign in to her iCloud account, I wanted you to know.”

“You’re not fooling me,” B. said. “You want someone to share the blame.”

“That, too,” Stuart admitted, “but I was really hoping you could give me her current password. I can get in without one, but it’ll go a lot faster if I have it.”

For years B. had teased Ali about her obdurate resistance to changing her password. Now he was glad she hadn’t. “Sugarloaf#1 should do it.”

“She’s still using that?” Stuart asked.

“Still,” B. said.

“All right. Where are you?”

“I got out of my meeting an hour ago, and I’m heading back to Sedona on I-17, but if Ali is in Phoenix and in some kind of difficulty, I’ll turn around at the next exit and head back south. You do what you need to do. Call me when you have her current location.”

Other people might have considered summoning some kind of police presence at that point, but Stuart Ramey wasn’t surprised that he and B. were on the same page. From his office perch in Cottonwood, Stu logged in to Ali’s iCloud and activated her Find My iPhone app. Within seconds he had a location. As soon as he had done a little further research into the location, Stuart called B. back.

“Her phone’s in the parking lot at a place called the Franciscan Renewal Center on East Lincoln Drive in Phoenix. I’m looking at some info on the center. It’s a place that specializes in family counseling. Maybe there’s a legitimate reason for her being there and not mentioning it to me. I don’t want to step on any toes here, boss, but is there a chance she’s having some kind of emotional difficulty? Are you?”

“Nobody’s having a ‘difficulty’ of any kind,” B. declared forcefully. “If Ali’s there, it has to be for some good reason. I’m on my way now. Give me the address so I can program it into my GPS.”

“While you’re in a moving vehicle?” Stuart replied with a disapproving click of his tongue. “Perish the thought.”

“It says I’m fifty-seven minutes out,” B. said a moment later. “I’ll see if I can shave some off that.”

“I can hear the radar detector coming online as we speak.”

At three minutes past five, almost three hours after Stuart sent the warning message to Ali, B. Simpson pulled into the parking lot at the Franciscan Renewal Center. He was on the phone with Stuart seconds later.

“I found the car,” B. said hurriedly. “It’s parked in a far corner of the lot, well away from the other cars here. It’s unlocked, with the key in the ignition.”