J. Jance: Fatal Error

She had been working as a minimum wage server for a caterer at what turned out to be the memorial reception for Mark Blaylock’s first wife, Christine. Mina had seen Mark looking broken-hearted and handsome and needy-to say nothing of rich-and had sought him out like a heat-seeking missile. She had managed to put herself in his way, and he had taken the bait. They had been married now for seven years.

Somewhere along the line Mark had been given what was supposedly an inside track on getting a military contract for guidance systems on a particular class of UAVs. It had the potential of turning into a financial gold mine. Mark had mortgaged everything they owned to buy Rutherford International. They had put Mina at the helm of the new entity so it would qualify as a woman-owned company in terms of government contracts. Had they managed to get the drone contract, they would have been millionaires several times over, but the drone contract had gone away completely, and now they were broke.

One thing was certain, however. Ermina Vlasic Cunningham Blaylock was nothing if not resourceful. She was pretty sure she’d be able to bring Richard Lowensdale to heel just as she had Mark Blaylock and Enrique Gallegos. Instead of heading directly to the airport, she drove east past the Palm Springs exits, toward Indio. With the bag of money safely in her trunk, she turned south on California 86.

She had changed clothes at the office, slipping out of her work clothes and into a golf shirt, jeans, and sandals. Dressed like any other weekender, she drove to Mark’s cabin. She was glad to be coming from the north. That meant she could turn off toward the cabin miles before the Border Patrol checkpoint. The cash was most likely in unmarked hundred-dollar bills. She knew, however, that far too many of those bills might have come into contact with the drug trade in one guise or another. She didn’t need a drug-sniffing dog to point out the cash.

The property on the outskirts of Salton City had been in Mark’s family for generations. The cabin was a stout clapboard affair that decades after being built still somehow managed to hold together and remain upright in the face of howling desert winds and scorching dust. Nothing if not austere, it included a single multipurpose room that was kitchen, dining room, and living room combined, a tiny bedroom with a minuscule closet, and a bathroom that was functional but definitely not deluxe. When the AC was on, the place was comfortable enough. There was running water, but the brownish stuff that came out of the taps tasted and smelled like dirt-salty dirt. There was no real furniture, only a collection of odd mismatched outdoor chairs and lounges that were stored inside and then dragged outside and to the sandy beach as needed.

Mina knew how much Mark had appreciated the fact that she understood his need to hang on to the derelict old wreck. It had escaped being mortgaged along with everything else, because the lending officer from the bank had claimed it was essentially worthless.

Sometime earlier-during that terrible year the fish in the Salton Sea all died for no apparent reason-there had been a period of months when almost no one had been able to use their cabins owing to the fierce odor of dead fish. While the owners were mostly absent, someone had broken into Mark’s cabin and most of the others and vandalized them all. As a consequence and at great expense, Mark had insisted on installing a system of roll-down metal shutters that covered the cabin’s windows and doors.

It had been an expensive process, not unlike putting lipstick on a pig, but the shutters made the cabin, humble as it was, impervious to intrusion. Once the shutters were in place, Mina had made her own contribution. She had hired a workman to install a fireproof safe concealed behind what appeared to be an electrical box in the cabin’s only closet. The safe made a perfect hidey-hole for Mina’s private hoard of cash, not just Gallegos’s cash but other monies she had accumulated over the years by skimming funds off the top and hiding them without Mark’s ever being the wiser.

Mark Blaylock was under the impression they were going broke. Mina knew that wasn’t entirely true. Mark would be broke; Mina would be fine. She would see to it.

Driving to the Salton City cabin early that evening, Mina threaded her way through various campsites with their outdoor bonfires and their amazing collections of ATV rolling stock parked outside massive motor homes and fifth-wheel campers. Using her remote control, Mina opened only the shutter that covered the front door, then she let herself inside with a key. Without the AC on, the place was like an oven. She held back only as much cash as she thought Richard might demand. She stuffed that into her Gucci bag and then put the remainder in the safe.

She was in the cabin for only a matter of minutes, but by the time she left, she was dripping with sweat. She paused outside long enough to relock the front door and close the shutter. With the now-empty athletic bag safely stowed in the trunk of her car, she headed for the airport.

Mina knew that she was cutting it close, but she didn’t need to check any luggage. Besides, with this new influx of cash, she was once again flying first-class. That meant security wouldn’t be a problem. She’d be there in plenty of time to board her plane.

Grass Valley, California September

Richard Lowensdale was busy chatting with Lynn Martinson that Saturday morning, trying to prop her up in the face of that day’s so-called family meeting, which was part of her son Lucas’s incarceration process. Lynn, her ex-husband, the ex’s new wife, the druggie sixteen-year-old, Lucas’s court-appointed attorney, and his counselor would all be in attendance. Lynn was expecting the session to be one of blame-game finger-pointing, and Lynn’s devoted listener, Richard Lewis, allowed as how that would probably be true.

He read Lynn’s messages and sent back what he hoped sounded like sympathetic one-word comments-encouraging words, as it were. The truth is, committee meetings of any kind bored the hell out of him, so listening to Lynn going on and on about a meeting that was going to take place half a continent away was not high on Richard’s agenda. The more she blathered on about her problems, the more he knew it was time to take her off his list. She just wasn’t fun anymore, and any woman who wasn’t fun wasn’t worth having around.

So when there was an early-morning doorbell ring at his front door-a totally unexpected doorbell ring-Richard was grateful for the interruption and was glad to tell Lynn someone was there, that he had to go to the door.

Richard was smart enough about home security to have a CCTV camera on his front porch, one with a video feed that went directly into his computer. Before leaving his desk, he switched over to that screen and was pleased to see Mina Blaylock-the beautiful Mina-waiting there for him to open the door. He wasn’t surprised to see her. He knew exactly why she had come and what she would need. The only thing that did surprise him was how long it had taken for her to show up on his doorstep.

As he started toward the door, however, he looked around the room and had a glimpse of how bad it was. The house was a mess. When his mother and Ron had lived here, you could have eaten off the floor. Now you couldn’t eat off the dining room table. For one thing, Richard had turned that into his primary assembly station for model airplanes. His own collection, layered with dust, covered the bookshelves where his mother had once kept her collection of murder mysteries. Those had been banished to the trash heap at the bottom of the basement stairs.

There were plenty of people who wanted to fly model airplanes but didn’t have brains enough to put them together properly. In addition to building his own planes, he made several hundred bucks a month on the side by doing the assembly work for those dunderheads. They sent him their kits and their money; he sent them their planes.