J. Jance - Fatal Error

Then the line went dead.

There was no question about what Ali needed to do. Checking the numbers Valerie had given her, she called the office number first and then the cell phone. In both cases she ended up reaching voice mail and left the same message. “My name is Ali Reynolds. I’m a friend of Brenda Riley. Her mother gave me this number. I understand you’re investigating Richard Lowensdale’s death. I may have some pertinent information. Please give me a call. Here’s my number.”

After leaving the messages, Ali sat on the sofa for a long time, watching a tiny silver of moon appear in the section of midnight sky that was visible beneath the overhang of the balcony above her unit. The slender sickle of light gradually disappeared into an equally blackened sea.

I shouldn’t have told Morris that I was Brenda’s friend, she thought. He probably won’t even bother to call me back.

Ali should have gone back to bed, but she didn’t. She sat there for a very long time, thinking, turning over one mystifying question after another, and looking for answers. Her “gut instinct,” as her friend Detective Dave Holman liked to call it, told Ali that Ermina Blaylock, not Brenda, had murdered Richard Lowensdale. But why? Had she too been duped by Richard and taken vengeance on him for playing her for a fool? And what about Brenda? Had she somehow put together the connection between Richard and Ermina? Was that what had prompted the background check request she had e-mailed to Ali shortly before her disappearance?

And what about Brenda? Ali wondered. Did Ermina murder her too? Then again, is Brenda really dead, or is that what Ermina wants us to think?

Ali switched on a table lamp and read through the background check one more time. There was nothing there in the written report that was the least bit damning. If it hadn’t been for Stuart Ramey’s going the extra mile, no one would have put two and two together. No one would have connected what happened years earlier in Missouri to what happened to Richard Lowensdale this weekend.

Which means Ermina probably has no idea anyone is on to her.

Ali studied the background check some more and found the address on Heron Ridge Drive in Salton City. That way, if and when Detective Morris called her back, she’d be able to tell him what she had learned and give him an exact physical location to search.

And then Ali remembered something else-a snippet of something Sister Anselm had told her that day when they’d had tea together. Ali couldn’t remember the exact words, but it had something to do with stepping out with faith that you would be in the right place at the right time. Ali had come to California thinking she was being guided to do something for Velma Trimble, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe the real intended purpose was for her to do something about Ermina Blaylock.

If not me, Ali asked herself, then who?

By a quarter to five in the morning, she was dressed and ready to head out. It had been a pain in the neck, going through the process of putting her Glock in the lockbox and having a TSA agent supervise her locking it, just so she could bring it along in her checked luggage. And it had been a pain retrieving it from baggage claim at the end of the flight, but as Ali put on her small-of-back holster, she was glad to have it. Not that she intended to get into any kind of armed confrontation with Ermina Blaylock. Going after a suspect without backup was one of the dumbest things any cop could do. Still, she was glad to be prepared, just in case. As for her pal, the Count of Monte Cristo? He remained untouched in the suitcase and was likely to remain so.

After leaving the apartment, she rode up in the elevator and slid a note under the door of Velma’s unit. In the note, Ali explained that she had been unexpectedly called away and would be returning later in the day. In the lobby she encountered a sleepy doorman who was able to check the schedule of the guest unit. No, it was not booked for tonight, and yes, she could stay in it for the remainder of the week if she wanted. It wasn’t booked again until the following Friday.

Driving north to the ten, she remembered that she had never returned her mother’s previous phone call. By now, Edie would have taken the first batches of sweet rolls out of the Sugarloaf’s ovens and would be getting ready to open the doors.

With her Bluetooth in her ear, Ali speed-dialed her mother’s cell phone.

“Is this about the babies?” Edie asked anxiously. “Is Athena in labor?”

“It’s not about Athena,” Ali said with a laugh. “I’m just now getting around to returning your call.”

“Oh,” Edie said. “It’s about time. I thought you had fallen off the edge of the earth.”

“Close to it,” Ali said. “I’m on my way to Salton City. You’ll never guess what happened. Do you remember Velma Trimble?”

“One of the two old ladies who came to the wedding? Was she the one with the dogs?”

“No,” Ali said. “Velma’s the other one. She’s had a recurrence of cancer, and she’s in hospice care at home. Mom, she gave me a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar donation for the Askins Scholarship Fund.”

“I’m sorry to hear she’s so bad off, but bless her heart,” Edie said. “What a wonderfully generous thing to do. But why are you going to Salton City? I was there once, years ago with your father. Back then it seemed like the end of the earth.”

I’m pretty sure it still is , Ali thought.

“Do you remember last summer when my friend Brenda Riley showed up down in Phoenix?” she asked.

“The one with the boyfriend troubles and the drinking problem?”

“The very one,” Ali replied. “Now her former boyfriend, Richard Lowensdale, has been murdered. Brenda is high on the list of suspects, but I may have come up with another possible suspect who lives in Salton City. I’m just going over to have a look.”

“Do you have your Taser along?” Edie asked. “And have you done a spark check recently? You know what they say, ‘No spark, no zap.’”

“Yes,” Ali said, smiling. “I’ve got plenty of spark.”

“Oops,” Edie said. “Customers at the door. Gotta go. You take care.”

Grass Valley, California

After coming back from the reservoir at five a.m., Gil managed to grab three hours of sleep. Once he was up, he found he was out of cereal and milk, so he made do with a bologna sandwich and a cup of coffee.

Sitting at the breakfast counter, he listened to a message that had come in to his cell phone overnight. He hadn’t heard it because the phone had been in the other room on the charger. The caller, someone named Ali Reynolds, claimed to be a friend of Brenda Riley’s.

Just what I need right now , Gil thought. Somebody else telling me that poor, sweet Brenda would never do such a terrible thing.

Yes, Gil would call Ali Reynolds back-eventually. When he was good and ready. Right now, though, it took all his flagging energy to drag himself to the Nevada County Crime Lab.

“So what’s the deal with the amputated finger from Scotts Flat Reservoir?” he asked Mona Hendricks, the chief criminalist in charge of the lab.

“It’s a thumb, not a finger,” Mona corrected, studying Gil over the top of a chipped coffee cup.

“Well, excuse me all to hell,” Gil said. “It looked like a finger to me.”

Mona ignored his sarcasm and added some of her own. “Anybody ever mention that you look like crap this morning?”

Gibes from Mona went with the territory.

“Thank you so much for the update. Let’s just say I’m overworked, underpaid, and missing a lot of sleep at the moment.”