J. Jance - Hand of Evil

No comment from Ali seemed called for, so she kept quiet and concentrated on not dribbling any tea down the front of her new silk blouse.

“But just because my daughter and I don’t have the benefit of a higher education,” Anna Lee continued, “doesn’t mean we think it’s unimportant, right, Arabella?”

Arabella nodded but said nothing. Sipping her tea, she seemed content to let her mother do the bulk of the talking, but there was something in the daughter’s wary silence that made Ali uneasy.

“You must be wondering why you’ve been asked to come here today,” Anna Lee continued.

“Yes,” Ali said. “I am.”

“This is the first time I’ve done this,” Anna Lee said, “so it may seem a bit awkward. I’ve been told that most of the time announcements of this nature are made at class night celebrations or at some other official occasion, but I wanted to do it this way. In private.”

Ali was still mystified.

“I’ve decided to use some of my inheritance from my mother to establish a scholarship in her honor, the Amelia Dougherty Askins Scholarship, to benefit poor but smart girls from this area. You’ve been selected to be our first recipient-as long as you go on to school, that is.”

Ali was stunned. “A scholarship?” she managed, still not sure she had heard correctly. “You’re giving me a scholarship?”

Anna Lee Ashcroft nodded. “Not quite a ‘full ride’ as they say,” she added dryly. “What you’ll get from us is enough for tuition, books, room, and some board. If your parents really can’t help, you may need to work part time, but you shouldn’t have to put off starting. In fact, you should be able to go off to school this fall right along with all your classmates.”

And that’s exactly what Ali had done. The scholarship had made all the difference for her-it had made going on to college possible. And everything else in Ali’s life had flowed from there.

So Alison Larson Reynolds owed the Ashcrofts-owed them big. If Arabella Ashcroft wanted to summon her to tea once again some twenty-five years later, Ali would be there-with bells on.

It was late morning when Phoenix PD homicide detectives Larry Marsh and Hank Mendoza arrived at the crime scene in South Mountain Preserve. “What have we got?” Hank asked Abigail Jacobs, the patrol officer who along with her partner, Ed Whalen, had been the first officers to respond to Sybil Harriman’s desperate call to 911.

“We’ve got a dragger,” Officer Jacobs told them. “From what I’m seeing it looks like somebody slammed this poor guy’s left hand in a car door and then dragged him for the better part of a mile-through the parking lot and over several speed bumps. The bloody trail starts way back there by the park entrance.”

“Any ID?”

“Not so far. From what’s left of his clothing, it looks like maybe he was out jogging. We’ve got no ID and no cell phone, either.”

“Too bad,” Hank told her. “These days cell phones work better than anything. Any idea when it happened?”

“The witness found him here about ten A.M.”

“You’re sure it’s a him?”

“Yes, and whoever he is, he’s wearing the remains of a fairly expensive watch,” Abbie Jacobs replied. “A Patek Philippe, and that’s still working.”

“A what?” Larry Marsh said.

Hank Mendoza laughed. “The poor guy’s beaten to hell but the damned watch is still running. But then again, you wouldn’t know a Patek Philippe from a hole in the ground. You’re still wearing your Wal-Mart special Timex.”

“It works,” Larry replied. “And nobody’s tried to steal it.”

“Turns out nobody tried to steal this one, either,” Abbie said, looking down at the mangled hand. “And I for one don’t blame them.”

“Blood’s all dry,” Hank observed. “My guess is this happened sometime overnight. Isn’t the park supposed to be closed at night?”

“Supposed to be,” Officer Jacobs agreed with a shake of her head that left her thick, braided ponytail swinging back and forth. “But declaring it closed and keeping it closed are two different things,” she said. “Kids manage to get in here overnight all the time. Last Halloween we had to rescue a bunch of kids. They were here having a midnight kegger and ran afoul of a herd of javelina. The javelina were not amused.”

“So you patrol out here a lot then?” Hank asked.

Abbie Jacob nodded.

A van with the medical examiner’s logo on the door slowly made its way up the road and stopped nearby. Associate ME Todd Rangel, still munching the last of a Sonic burger, heaved his bulky frame out of the van.

“Sorry to be late to the party, boys and girls,” he said to the group gathered around the battered and bloodied corpse. “But a man’s gotta eat. What have I missed?”

“Not too many meals,” Hank muttered under his breath. Larry elbowed him in the ribs, warning him to silence. Of all the people in the county ME’s office, Todd Rangel won no popularity contests with the homicide cops who were obliged to work with him. The man was overbearing and self-important with a tendency for bossing people around. He was also uncommonly lazy. Todd Rangel’s idea of teamwork was to order someone else to do the heavy lifting.

“Officer Jacobs here says she thinks it’s a dragger,” Larry told the ME, moving aside to allow Rangel access to the corpse. “She says she followed a trail of blood for the better part of a mile from back toward the entrance.”

Shading his eyes with one hand, Rangel looked in the direction Larry was pointing. “I’ll check that out by car a little later,” he said.

Hank Mendoza shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Big surprise,” he mouthed to Abbie Jacobs, who barely managed to suppress a grin.

“Robbery?” Rangel asked.

“Could be, but probably not,” Larry said. “His wallet’s missing, but as you can see, the watch isn’t.”

Rangel nodded. “Or maybe it was too bloody and the perp didn’t want to risk taking it off.”

“Maybe.”

“You guys got what you need from right around here or can I go to work?” Rangel asked.

“Go ahead,” Hank said. “Knock yourself out.”

While they had been talking, several uniformed officers, including Abbie’s partner Ed Whalen and a crew of crime scene techs, had been moving along the roadway and using traffic cones to mark off the bloody strip in the pavement. Leaving Todd Rangel alone with the body, the detectives walked over to Whalen and the others. One of the techs was wielding a camera and snapping photos of bloodstained tire tracks. Another was carefully making plaster casts.

Suddenly, a few feet away, another crime scene tech raised a shout. “Hey, come look at this,” he said.

Led by Officer Whalen, the detectives hurried over to the edge of the pavement. There, on the shoulder of the road and partly concealed in a clump of dried grass, lay a shiny handgun.

“No rust,” the tech told them. “That means it hasn’t been here long.”

Whalen leaned down and threaded a pencil through the trigger guard and lifted the weapon out of the grass. “Smith amp; Wesson Chief’s Special,” he said.

“Has it been fired?” Detective Marsh asked.

Whalen raised the revolver to his nose and sniffed. “Not anytime recently,” he said.

“Bag it anyway,” Hank Mendoza ordered. “Just because no one’s fired it doesn’t mean it isn’t related.”

“Where’s the witness?” Larry asked.

“She wasn’t feeling too well,” Abbie replied. “I offered to call an ambulance and have her taken to a hospital to be checked out, but she said she just wanted to go home and lie down. I have her address in Awatukee. Want to stop by and see her?”