J. Jance - Hand of Evil

Clint Homewood was next. He was sprawled on the beanbag chair in his room, totally engrossed in his PlayStation game and listening to his tunes. “How’s it going, Jas,” he asked as the door opened. “Want to play?”

But Jason Gustavson no longer had any interest in virtual bullets. He’d become enamored with the real thing. “Not right now,” he said, and he pulled the trigger. Again, shooting from mere inches away, there was no question of missing, and he didn’t. The PlayStation fell to the filthy, pizza-box-and beer-can-littered floor and so did Clint. Something about seeing him lying there with his shattered head next to a half-eaten pepperoni made Jason smile.

“Hey,” Mitch Warren called from out in the hall. “What’s going on? Did you hear a funny noise?”

Jason had planned to take Mitch in his room, lying on his bed. Instead, Jason confronted his second roommate in the hallway. When he pulled the trigger, Mitch clutched his gut and crumpled to the floor, moaning. Jason was tempted to leave him there, but he was tired of loose ends, so he pulled the trigger again and put Mitch out of his misery. Then, stepping over the body, he left his roommates’ wing and headed for his own room in the master suite on the far side of the house.

Jason Gustavson had a few last-minute items to pull together before he could finish this. It might very well be his last evening on earth, and he planned to make it memorable.

“Come on,” Ali said, once Dave had disappeared through the lobby door.

“Where?” Crystal asked.

“Your father has work to do, and so do we.”

“Like what?” Crystal wanted to know. “What do we have to do?”

“First we have to go upstairs and talk to my parents and tell them where we’re going. Then we need to track down Mr. Hogan’s daughter and let her know what’s happened to him.”

“Why?” Crystal asked.

“Because your father asked us to for starters, and we’re going to tell my parents because that’s what responsible people do-they let other people-people who love them-know where they’re going and when they’ll be back.”

“But I’m hungry. Can’t we have something to eat first?”

Ali reminded herself that this was a child who could mow her way through two Sugarloaf sweet rolls at one sitting. “Sure,” Ali said. “We’ll find something on the way.”

They took the elevator up to the ICU floor, where they found Bob and Edie Larson seated side by side in a small waiting room. Sandy wasn’t visible.

“They let her in to see him?” Ali asked.

“Thanks to your mother,” Bob said.

“How’s Kip doing?”

Bob shook his head wordlessly and swiped at his eyes with a pair of balled fists. Edie reached over and patted his knee. “Not very well,” she said. “He’s on a ventilator. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

Ali never remembered seeing her father quite so broken up. Kip had worked for the Larsons, but he and Bob had become good friends as well-and Kip was a friend Bob didn’t want to lose.

“Dave found out that Kip has a daughter,” Ali said.

“A daughter?” Bob asked incredulously. “Are you serious? He never once mentioned having kids.”

“I have her address,” Ali continued. “She lives down in Chandler. Dave asked me…us actually,” she revised, motioning toward Crystal, “to contact her and let her know what’s going on.”

Bob nodded. “If she’s going to get here before it’s too late, you should probably just call her.”

Ali shook her head. “Dave wanted her to be notified in person, and I think he’s right.” She motioned to Crystal. “Let’s go.”

Edie got up and followed them as far as the elevator. “We won’t be able to stay much longer,” she told her daughter. “Sandy’s brother is supposed to be coming a little later, but if we have to go back home…”

“It’s all right,” Ali said. “I’ll make sure Sandy isn’t left here by herself.”

“Good,” Edie said.

Moments later, Ali and Crystal descended to the lobby and walked out into the unexpected chill of a cold desert night. They stopped at a Jack in the Box just shy of the freeway.

“Did your father tell you why he was going to Tempe?” Ali asked while they waited for their to-go order.

Crystal shrugged. “He just said he was going. He didn’t say why. When he’s working on a case, he never does.”

“Curt Uttley is dead,” Ali said quietly.

Crystal gave a small involuntary gasp. “He’s what?”

“He’s dead, Crystal. Someone trussed him up with rope or duct tape. Then they beat him to death and dropped him off the Burro Creek Bridge between Wickenburg and Kingman. That’s who your father is looking for in Tempe. The people who did that. He’s afraid they’re looking for you, too.”

Crystal was uncharacteristically silent, and in that bit of quiet, Ali had a sudden stroke of inspiration. Crystal Holman had been lying to everyone all along, and she probably still was. “Did you see them?” Ali asked quietly.

“See who?”

“Did you see those men, the ones with the bats, meet up with Curt Uttley at the gas station?” Ali asked. “Did you actually see what happened?”

Once again Crystal didn’t answer, but a brief grimace passed across the girl’s features and a vehement denial followed.

“Why do people keep asking me stuff like that?” Crystal declared. “I’m telling you, I didn’t see anything!”

“Excuse me, Crystal, I already know you’re a liar, and I happen to think you’re lying about this, too. But if your father is going to put his life and his job on the line trying to track these guys down, don’t you think somebody deserves to know the truth about what went on?”

Another long period of silence followed as they drove through the relatively light nighttime traffic with the computer-generated voice of the dashboard GPS issuing its bland directions as they went.

Finally Crystal let out a long breath. “Curt had finished making the call and was going back to his SUV when all of a sudden three guys came rushing at him out of nowhere. I saw the whole thing. It looked like they were arguing or something. And then Curt and two of the three got into Curt’s car and drove away. Another car followed them.”

“Willingly?” Ali asked. “Did Curt Uttley get into the car because he wanted to or because they forced him to?”

Crystal didn’t respond.

“Well?” Ali prodded.

“I think they made him go,” Crystal admitted at last.

“And you saw the other car? What kind? What make and model?”

“I don’t know,” Crystal said. “I don’t really know all that much about cars.”

“Why didn’t you tell someone about this at the time?” Ali asked. “Why didn’t you report it? Curt Uttley may have been a pedophile and a worthless excuse for a human being, but if you had called the cops right then and told them what you knew, maybe they could have done something about it. Maybe they could have saved him.”

“I was scared,” Crystal whimpered. “I was afraid they’d come after me, too. I mean, I saw what they were doing to that other guy. They were hitting him with a bat. I didn’t want to get hit. And I was afraid to have my dad find out what was going on. But then, this morning, when I got the text message from Curt, I was really happy to hear from him and know he was okay.”

“He isn’t okay,” Ali pointed out. “He’s dead, and he might not have been if you’d reported what happened in a timely manner.”

“Don’t you think I know that now?” Crystal whispered. “I knew it this afternoon as soon as that guy got out of Curt’s car. I knew it right then. I’ll never be able to think of anything else.”