J. Jance: Fatal Error

“What evidence?” Ali asked.

“Three of Richard Lowensdale’s fingers were hacked off with kitchen shears before he died,” Gil said quietly. “We found his thumb in Brenda’s purse, which was left at the Scotts Flat Reservoir. I have no doubt that Brenda’s body is there too. It’s just going to take time for it to float to the surface. I know they have underwater equipment that could expedite a search, but I doubt the county can afford it.”

“Brenda was a friend of mine,” Ali said. “I kept hoping we’d find her alive.”

“I know,” Gil said. “I’m sorry. What do you think about the thumb drives?”

“I left my computer in Laguna Beach,” she said. “When we get to the terminal in San Diego, I’ll handle the car rental. Then while you load the car, I’ll see if I can log on to one of the computers and send B. whatever’s on the thumb drives. Then you can have them back.”

“What’s his name?” Gil asked.

“B.,” Ali said. “B. Simpson. He was born Bartholomew Simpson; people used to call him Bart. He got tired of being teased about that. He changed his name to B. Period.”

“I don’t blame him,” Gil said. “I think I would have done the same thing.”

When the plane parked next to the terminal at Montgomery Field, Phil Canby came to open the door. “Clairemont Mesa’s just to the right of us,” he said, motioning. “Your car is here on the tarmac.”

“Do you think I could use a computer in the FBO?” Ali asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Phil said. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Ali hurried into the terminal, where the receptionist took her back into a computer-stocked room that was usually reserved for pilot use only. As she plugged the first of the thumb drives into the computer’s USB port, she worried that Richard Lowensdale might have booby-trapped the drive so it would self-destruct if anyone else tried to open it. Rather than opening it, she simply copied the data as an attachment into an e-mail and sent it both to B. and to Stuart. She was in the process of uploading the second drive when her phone rang.

“Since you just sent me an e-mail, I’m assuming you’re on the ground,” B. said.

“Sorry,” Ali told him. “I wanted to send these first.”

“I know. Stuart and I will both take a look at them in a minute, but right now, I have some good news. That phone call Ermina made went to the local Hertz rental line. I went into their computer system. Two minutes after that call, a San Diego car rental reservation record shows up in the Hertz database in the name of Sophia Stanhope. She picked it up an hour later. A silver Cadillac DTS. She’s supposed to drop it off at the rental return at LAX tomorrow.”

“Who’s Sophia Stanhope?”

“She’s supposedly a divorcee from Sarajevo,” B. said. “I’d be willing to bet she’s really Ermina Blaylock, traveling with some kind of forged documents.”

“Do you happen to have the tab number on that rented Caddy?” Ali asked.

B. laughed. “What do you think? Am I a full-service hacker or not?”

“Definitely full-service,” Ali replied.

By the time she finished writing down the license information, Gil was standing looking over her shoulder.

“What’s that?”

She gave him the note. “It’s the plate number for a silver Cadillac DTS someone named Sophia Stanhope rented from a local Hertz agency earlier this evening,” Ali told him. “Sophia and Ermina are most likely one and the same, and you may want to revise that BOLO to have information on both this vehicle and the other one. And you should probably expand it to include both the L.A. and San Diego metropolitan areas.”

After sending the second e-mail, she removed the second thumb drive and handed both drives over to Gil. “Copied only,” she assured him. “Did nothing with the data.”

Nodding, he returned the two drives to his pocket. “Okay,” he said. “You finish signing for the car. I’m going to call El Centro and see if they’ll put me through to the detective.”

Gil had pulled the rental car-a Mercury Marquis-through the airport gate and parked it in front of the terminal. When Ali opened the door, she was grateful that the cardboard boxes had been banished to the trunk. She found a Kevlar vest, size L, hanging on the steering wheel. She put it on.

There was no way to tell if Ermina Blaylock would be armed. If she was planning on traveling by air, she most likely wouldn’t try to carry a weapon on board an international flight, but between then and now, all bets were off.

While Ali waited for Gil to emerge from the terminal, she called Stuart back.

“You’re certainly keeping the phone lines humming today,” he said. “I thought B. was going to hand me my walking papers when he found out what we’d been up to.”

“He didn’t, did he?” Ali asked guiltily.

“No. In fact, I think he’ll be getting back to Hertz very soon to let them know that their secure rental database isn’t especially secure. So what can I do for you now?”

“I need the addresses of those two locations in San Diego where Mark and Mina Blaylock are still paying the utilities.”

“Easy,” Stuart said. “Here you go.”

By the time Gil got into the car, Ali had already loaded the address on Engineer Road into the rental’s NeverLost GPS system. It turned out the two addresses in question were less than two miles from where they were currently parked.

“I thought it was something when I got on the plane in Grass Valley, but this is amazing,” he said, as he picked up his own Kevlar vest and pulled it on over his golf shirt. “You fly up in your sweet little corporate jet and the car is parked right there on the tarmac waiting for you. No security lines. No baggage check. No car rental lines.”

“It’s fast,” she said. “It’s convenient.”

“And expensive,” he put in.

“That too.”

“So what’s your connection to all of this?” he asked.

“To Lowensdale’s case?”

Gil nodded.

“Guilt,” she said. “I’m the one who blew the whistle on Richard Lowensdale in the first place. Until I came up with that first background check, Brenda didn’t even know what the man’s name was, much less anything about the other women. .”

Gil looked at his watch. “Crap,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Janet Silvie, one of Richard’s many girlfriends, is probably on her way into Grass Valley right this minute. She was flying into Sacramento today, and I’m not there to talk to her.”

“What are you going to do?” Ali asked.

“Call the desk sergeant, Frieda Lawson,” he said. “If anyone can pull my fat out of the fire, she’s the one.”

While Gil dialed a number on his cell phone, Ali added a new waypoint to the GPS and drove to the nearest Carl’s Jr. It had been a very long time since breakfast. If she and Gilbert Morris were going to be stuck in a car on a long stakeout, Ali was determined not to starve in the process.

San Diego, California

While Ali pulled the Mercury into the drive-up line at Carl’s Jr., Gil was busy having his ass chewed. Over strongly voiced protests, his call to the desk sergeant had been put through to the chief’s office. Unfortunately Chief Jackman was in.

“Do you realize I have not just one but two hysterical women here in the department, both of them raising hell?” Jackman demanded.

“Two,” Gil echoed.

“Yes, two. Someone named Dawn Carras showed up an hour or so ago with a worthless little dog that seems to want to take a piss on every chair leg in the waiting room. When Sergeant Lawson couldn’t reach you, she called me instead. Thanks a lot. So I was here handling that crisis when Janet Silvie shows up. Now they’re out in the lobby having a screaming match. You need to get your butt in here right now and take care of it.”