J. Jance - Fatal Error

San Diego, California

Brenda was awakened by the noisy rumble of another plane. She did not want to awaken. Unlike Uncle Joe, she had given up. She was choosing to die rather than choosing to live, but evidently choosing had nothing to do with it. If wishing to die worked, she would have been gone a long time ago.

Feverish and drifting in and out of consciousness, she no longer wondered where she was. That didn’t matter. She no longer cared that some poor someone was bound to find her stinking, filthy body. Her condition didn’t matter either. Once she was dead, she would no longer have to be embarrassed about that.

Brenda wished she could see her mother one more time and tell her that she loved her. And Valerie too. They had fought like crazy for as long as Brenda could remember, but Valerie Sandoz was her sister-her only sister. That was Brenda’s only regret, that she wouldn’t be able to tell her mother and sister how sorry she was. For everything.

And as for those other people-the woman who had put her here, and that man, what was his name again? Oh, yes, Richard. They were fading away. She could barely remember them, but she forgave them too. Why not? Sitting here dying, forgiveness was the only thing Brenda Riley had left to give.

Palm Springs, California

They were halfway back to the airport when Ali’s phone rang. A glance at the caller ID window showed a number she recognized as Flossie Haywood’s, but the voice on the phone wasn’t Flossie’s.

“My name’s Jim Haywood. Are you the lady who was just here talking to my wife?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Ali said.

“Flossie wanted me to call you. After you left, she went ahead and let herself into the house just up the road. You won’t believe what she found!”

“Tell me.”

“Poor Mr. Blaylock, dead as a doornail and lying in his bed. Flossie was so upset, she about had a heart attack. They’re taking her into Indio to the hospital to be checked out, but she wanted me to let you know about it.”

“Could she tell what happened to him?” Ali asked.

“Looked like he was just sleeping, until she tried waking him up. She called nine-one-one. There’s a deputy there now. He went inside and said it may have been a suicide. There’s a homicide detective on his way to the house from El Centro. The whole thing upset Flossie so much that she started having chest pains.”

“Chest pains?” Ali asked. “Is she going to be all right?”

“I hope so. Like I said, they hauled her away in an ambulance. I’m on my way there right now too, but before they took her away, she gave me her phone and asked me to call you. I’m not sure what this is all about. She said something about digging up evidence from over across the road, which didn’t make any sense to me. She said the detective will probably want to talk to you.”

“I’m sure he will, Mr. Haywood,” Ali said. “Feel free to give him this number.”

“Blaylock?” Gil asked.

Ali nodded. “Dead in his bed, and thanks to my phone guy the body was found a whole lot sooner than Mina Blaylock wanted him to be found. According to Jim Haywood, there’s a homicide detective on his way to Salton City right now.”

“The local cops are going to want to talk to us.”

“I know,” Ali said, “and we will talk to them. We’ll tell them everything we know, but after we get to San Diego, not before.”

They drove for a while in silence while Gil considered how Chief Jackman was going to react to all this news once it got back to him. It wouldn’t be pretty.

“How did Blaylock die?” Gil asked as Ali turned onto the airport drive. “Don’t tell me she pulled another plastic bag stunt.”

“Mr. Haywood didn’t say-just that he was dead.”

“How long will it take to get to San Diego?”

“Once we take off, only about half an hour.”

“I’ll call El Centro once we land,” he said.

Ali nodded. “Good.”

It was dark by the time they pulled into the terminal driveway. When the pilot saw them unloading several cardboard boxes, he came out with a rolling luggage cart. “Should these be in front or in back?” he asked, sniffing with distaste when he caught a whiff of the odor.

“In front and belted in,” Ali said. “But in order to maintain the chain of evidence, Gil needs to sign them. Then we’ll need some transparent packing tape to put over his signature and seal the boxes shut. That should help some with the smell.”

After all, that was the whole point-maintaining the chain of evidence.

Once on the plane, they skipped the safety briefing because Ali’s phone was ringing. It was B. “You realize that what Stuart has been doing is right on the edge,” he said. “It’s actually over the edge. In tracking down the Blaylocks’ phone information, we’ve violated a whole bunch of privacy rules.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. But we’ve just uncovered another of Ermina Blaylock’s victims. That makes three in all-her father in Missouri, Richard Lowensdale in Grass Valley, and now, if I’m not mistaken, Mark Blaylock too, in Salton City. Not to mention Brenda Riley. Ermina is a maniac, B. We need to catch her before she gets away or has a chance to kill anyone else.”

B. sighed. “Where are you now?”

“On the plane, getting ready to fly to San Diego. I know, it’s a long shot, but that’s the only other address we have for her-the business park at Clairemont Mesa. Even though Rutherford International went out of business months ago, the utilities on two of their three office park units are still current. As broke as they are, there must be a reason those bills are being paid. We’re hoping she’ll show up there. Otherwise, we’ve got nowhere else to look.”

B. was quiet long enough that Ali worried he might have hung up on her. She didn’t blame him for being angry. When she had enlisted Stuart’s help, she had been so preoccupied with her own concerns that she hadn’t thought about the long-term ramifications for High Noon Enterprises if any of this came to light.

“I’m sorry, B.,” she began, but he cut her off.

“I just had a thought,” he said. “I don’t know if it’ll work or not, but call me again once you land.”

“Who was that?” Gil asked, once she put her phone away.

“My boyfriend,” Ali said. “He’s also the technically savvy genius who’s behind the guy you call my phone meister. He seemed to think that he had come up with an idea that might help us find Ermina.”

“I hope so,” Gil said. “I’ve only been to San Diego a couple of times, one of which was to take the kids to the zoo. It’s a pretty big haystack, and Ermina Blaylock is a mighty small needle.”

The CJ rose precipitously through the cold night air. Soon Palm Springs and the surrounding cities were narrow strings of lights crisscrossing the darkened desert. Leaning back in her seat, Ali was thinking about B. and regretting the untenable position her actions had created for him and for his company.

“I don’t think they’re broke,” Gil said from across the aisle, interrupting her chain of self-recrimination.

“What?”

“I don’t think the Blaylocks were broke,” Gil said again. “At least not as broke as they led everyone to believe. First Ermina killed Richard Lowensdale. Then she went searching for something but didn’t find it.”

“How do you know she didn’t find it?”

“Because I did. There was a stash of empty motor oil bottles out in Richard’s garage. Hidden inside I found fifty thousand dollars in cash and these.”

Gil reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the two thumb drives and handed them over to her. “I don’t have a computer at home, so I didn’t try to look at them, but between these and the cash, I figure we’re dealing with one of two things. Either Lowensdale had found out about Ermina’s background and was trying to blackmail her, or else he was still working for her. My guess, it’s the latter rather than the former. Once the guy outlived his usefulness, Ermina got rid of him. She got rid of your friend Brenda too, after planting evidence that would make us believe Brenda was responsible for Richard Lowensdale’s death.”