J. Jance - Fatal Error

When Ali stepped outside to greet them, she found a steady wind blowing west to east across the tarmac, leaving trails of sifting sand drifting across the runway.

“Good to see you again, Ms. Reynolds,” Phil Canby said, shaking her hand. “Here’s Mr. Morris, safe and sound.”

“And a hell of a lot faster than I would have been here if I had driven,” Gil Morris said with a grin.

Ali greeted Gil with a smile of her own as well as a handshake, then she turned back to the pilot. “It’s good to see you too, Phil. Do you know if you’re booked on another trip right now?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Phil said. “Why?”

“Detective Morris and I have to go back to Salton City for a while, but we may need to fly somewhere else later on today. If you could stand by until I know for sure. .”

“No problem,” Phil said. “I’ll let operations know. Then I’ll refuel. That way, once you say yea or nay, we can get off the ground immediately.”

Ali nodded to Phil and then looked at the detective. “Is that all your luggage?”

“What you see is what you get.”

“Come on then.”

Salton City, California

Gil followed Ali Reynolds outside and clambered into her rented Infiniti SUV. He fastened his seat belt before he said anything. “Okay,” he said, “I’m suitably impressed. Obviously you’ve got more money than God, but I’d like to know what the hell is going on and why the big hurry.”

Ali put the SUV in gear and backed out of the parking space. “Right this minute, Ermina Blaylock probably still believes she’s in the clear. As long as that doesn’t change, we have a better chance of finding her.”

She handed Gil a piece of paper. “There’s the license information on her vehicle, a silver Lincoln Town Car. I believe she’s a person of interest in your homicide. Since I’m not a sworn police officer, I can’t put out a BOLO on her. You can. Do it.”

Rich and pushy and issuing orders, Gil thought, but she’s also right.

He took out his cell phone and called Grass Valley. There had been a shift change. Kathleen Andersson was now off duty. Sergeant Frieda Lawson had taken her place. The two desk sergeants were sometimes referred to as the Valkyries, but that moniker was only used behind their backs. Gil was relieved. Frieda Lawson had no way of knowing that Chief Jackman had ordered him to go home. It was nice not having to explain to her why somebody who was off duty needed a BOLO.

“So what’s the situation here?” he asked, once he was off the phone. By then they were already headed south on California Highway 86, where rivulets of moving sand slithered across the asphalt in front of them. “And are we really going to get out and dig around in the sand in the middle of a windstorm?”

“Yes, we are,” Ali said, “unless drifting sand has covered over our marker. According to the Blaylocks’ nearest neighbor, Ermina left home bright and early this morning on her own. Mark’s car is at the house, but since the shutters are closed, it’s likely he isn’t there. I want to do our big dig before either one of them returns.”

“If they return,” Gil offered.

“Exactly,” Ali said.

“And how are we going to do this dig, with our bare hands?”

“I’m sure Flossie will lend us a shovel, if she hasn’t already done the digging herself.”

“Flossie?” Gil asked.

“Florence Haywood. The neighbor. That’s what she calls herself, Flossie. She was all hot to trot to dig before I left. The only way I could dissuade her was by telling her that disturbing the evidence might result in Ermina’s getting off. There’s apparently not a lot of love lost between Flossie and Ermina.”

“You told this woman that Ermina’s a suspect in a homicide?”

Ali gave him a scathing look. “As far as Florence Haywood knows, I’m working for a creditor who’s trying to repossess Ermina’s Town Car. Yes, I know. It was a lie, but it would probably be in both our best interests to stick to that story.”

Gil nodded. He was a visiting cop who was a long way out of his own jurisdiction. Ali Reynolds didn’t have one.

In other words, he thought, we’re a match made in heaven .

Ali turned off the highway and onto a series of meandering roads that ran along beside the lake. Gil had spent his whole life in the foothills of the Sierras. He loved the trees and the mountains and the surprising lakes and reservoirs that lay hidden in the mountain valleys. The Salton Sea, surrounded by flat, forbidding desert and distant mountain ranges, seemed like a page taken from some other planet.

The road they were on curved and changed names, becoming Heron Ridge Drive, although as far as Gil could see, there were no ridges anywhere around, and no herons either.

“That’s their place,” Ali said, nodding toward a small house that was totally encased in what looked like sturdy metal shutters. “And this is Flossie’s.”

She turned into a driveway that ended at a parked motor home. “I’ll tell her we’re here and see if she’ll let us use her shovel.”

Ali didn’t come right out and say, “Wait in the car,” but Gil got the message. And he didn’t argue. He had napped some on the plane, but he hadn’t had nearly enough sleep. He was tired, and he knew it.

Ali returned to the car a few minutes later, followed by an immense woman carrying both a shovel and a stack of boxes that were evidently discards from the local liquor store.

“She says we can park here,” Ali said, leaning into the car. “Where we’re going is on the beach on the other side of the road.”

Gil piled out of the SUV and followed the two women across the road and onto a beach covered with treacherous powdery sand punctuated by boulders.

“I was worried about losing the rock,” Flossie was saying. “I came out and dusted it off a couple of times, just in case. And here it is.”

Flossie moved the rock out of the way, and Gil took charge of wielding the shovel. He had turned over only a few spadefuls of sand when the blade of the shovel struck something hard. The next time Gil raised the shovel, a squarish piece of what appeared to be melted plastic sat in the bowl of the shovel. Ali examined it as he lowered the load into one of the cardboard boxes.

“See the white plastic?” Ali asked. Gil nodded.

“I’ll bet I know what that is,” she said. “A Time Capsule, for a Mac.”

Gil remembered all the apparently undisturbed computer gear on Richard Lowensdale’s desk. He had assumed it was all there. Evidently that assumption was wrong. Without another word, Gil resumed digging. The next load of sandy dirt came up with something that was only partially burned, something light blue. It took a moment for him to realize what it was-the remains of a Tyvek surgical bootie like the ones that had left bloodied tracks all through his murder victim’s house.

Yes, he decided, Ali made the right call. We really do need to maintain a chain of evidence .

He kept digging and found a few more bits and pieces. Finally though, when his shovel loads were yielding nothing but sand, a cell phone rang-Ali’s cell phone.

She answered it, listened, and then gave the house across the street a long, appraising look. “Right,” she said, finally. “Got it.”

Without saying anything to Gil or Flossie, she immediately dialed a number-the pilot’s, presumably. “We’re flying to San Diego. Wheels up in an hour,” she said. She paused and listened again. “I’m not sure which airport,” she said. “Whatever’s closest to the Clairemont Mesa Business Park. When you figure out what airport, call Hertz and give them my profile number. Tell them we’ll need a car wherever you’re taking us.”