J. Jance - Hand of Evil

Once seated on the couch, Arabella glanced curiously around the room. “Evie always said she was going to buy a mobile home,” she remarked. “I must say, it looks quite solid and not the least bit mobile.”

Ali laughed. “Mobile homes should probably just be called manufactured homes. Most are only mobile until they’re delivered,” she explained. “Once they’ve been set up on a slab or a foundation, they usually stay put.”

“Barring tornadoes or hurricanes,” Arabella said.

“Yes,” Ali agreed. “Barring those. Now how do you take your coffee-black, cream and sugar?”

“Black by all means,” Arabella said.

Ali went out into the kitchen. As she filled coffee mugs and set them on a tray, she wrestled with how best to break the bad news. In the end Arabella beat her to the punch.

“Where is my diary?” she asked as Ali carried the coffee into the living room. “I must have it back.”

“Arabella,” Ali said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t have it.”

“You don’t have it!” Arabella exclaimed. “What do you mean? Surely you haven’t lost it!”

Ali set the tray on the table. “It isn’t lost,” she said soothingly. “But I don’t have it here. There was a problem in Phoenix last night-at one of the hospitals. You may have seen it on the news. I was there, and, as it happens, so was the diary. It was in my purse. I lost my purse in all the confusion. I’m sure the police have the purse and the diary, too.”

“How could you be so careless!” Arabella declared angrily. “I want it back, and I want it back today!”

Arabella’s abrupt change of mood took Ali by surprise. Surely this wasn’t that big a deal. The diary had been under wraps for more than half a century. Why was it so essential that she have it back immediately?

“Please, Arabella,” Ali continued hurriedly. “I didn’t do it on purpose. My purse, my cell phone, and your diary were picked up during the evidence sweep. I’m sure they’ll all be returned in good time. Besides, when you gave it to me the other day, it didn’t seem like you were in that big a hurry. I was under the impression that I could read it at my leisure.”

“Did you read it?” Arabella asked sharply.

“Yes.”

“I hoped you wouldn’t. I told you not to.”

“I thought I was supposed to read it so I could help you decide about the book you’re writing.”

“I’m not writing a book,” Arabella said at once. “I’ve changed my mind about that, too.”

“Why?” Ali asked. “What changed your mind? What’s going on?”

“I want my diary back. How can that be so difficult to understand?”

“Have the police talked to you about what happened to your nephew?”

“Two very nice detectives from Phoenix came to notify me that Billy was dead,” Arabella said, softening a little. “Yesterday, I think it was, or maybe the day before.”

“And did you tell them what was going on between the two of you?”

“I told them Billy wanted to do a reverse mortgage for me. Once I had time to think it over, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.”

“Wait a minute,” Ali objected. “You told me the other day that Billy threatened you; that he was going to try to have you declared incompetent and put away somewhere.”

“He wouldn’t have,” Arabella said. “He’d never do such a dreadful thing.”

Of course not, Ali thought. Especially if he’s dead.

“The cops need to know what was going on between the two of you,” Ali said aloud. “And I’m going to tell them.”

Arabella looked at Ali in dismay. “The things I said to you were relayed in the strictest confidence.”

“You may have thought it was in confidence, but I’m not an attorney,” Ali said. “There’s no attorney/client privilege when you talk to me, and no expectation of privacy, either. Concealing information in a homicide investigation is a felony.”

“Surely you don’t think I had something to do with Billy’s death.”

“Did you?” Ali asked.

Arabella stared at her and didn’t answer.

“Did you?” Ali prodded again.

“You wouldn’t really go to the police, would you?” Arabella asked.

“Yes, I’m afraid I would. I’ve just spent two days giving my friend’s teenage daughter hell for not coming forward and giving pertinent information in another set of homicides. It would be hypocritical for me to keep quiet in this one.”

“Even after everything Mother and I did for you?”

“I’m sorry, but yes. Even after all that. Not because I want to; because I have to. And no matter how much it costs, you need to find yourself an attorney.”

Leaving her coffee untouched on the table, Arabella surged to her feet. She stood and straightened her sweater, the same mended cardigan she had worn on the previous occasion. Ali reached out to help her, but Arabella would have none of it.

“Leave me alone,” she said, drawing away as if Ali’s very touch was poisonous. “If you’re determined to go to the authorities, we have nothing further to discuss.”

She walked unassisted as far as the door. At the entryway table, she turned and looked back. “I know something about killing,” she said. “I tried to kill my brother Bill once, you know. He came into my room, grabbed Blueboy out of his cage, and squashed him flat. Squeezed my poor little bird in his fist until he was dead. He told me if I ever told anyone, he’d do the same thing to me-squeeze me until I was dead, and he put his hand around my throat to show me he could do it. So I stole a knife from the kitchen and hid it under my pillow. That night, when he came to my bedroom the way I knew he would, I pulled out the knife and stabbed him. I was just a kid, and I think it surprised the hell out of him. He went to the hospital, but the son of a bitch didn’t die. Damn him anyway, he didn’t die.”

Arabella’s unsolicited confession was as chilling as it was fierce.

“What about Billy?” Ali asked. “What about your nephew?”

“What about him? Believe me, if I had wanted to kill him, I would have.”

But did you? Ali wondered.

Arabella turned and stormed out the door. Ali watched through the sidelights as Leland Brooks hurried forward, offered Arabella his arm, and then carefully led her back to the waiting Rolls. They might have been an old married couple making their way together across treacherous terrain. Once he closed the car door, he turned and looked back toward where Ali was standing. Then, with a shake of his head, he climbed into the driver’s seat.

As they drove out of sight, Ali couldn’t help wondering if Arabella Ashcroft was capable of murder. Certainly she was capable of attempted murder. She had said as much herself. And what about Arabella’s lies? Either she had lied to Ali when she said Billy had threatened her or she had lied to the cops when she said he had not. And since Billy Ashcroft was definitely dead, the cops needed to get to the bottom of the situation one way or the other.

For a long time after Arabella left, Ali struggled with what she should do. Yes, she owed her education to Anna Lee and Arabella Ashcroft. And yes, her whole career had come about as a result of their generosity. But if Arabella had murdered her nephew in cold blood-dragged him behind a car until he was dead-Ali couldn’t just keep quiet. She couldn’t.

She tried calling Dave, but he was probably in court. His phone went straight to voice mail. Instead of leaving a message, Ali went into her bedroom and located everything she’d emptied out of her jacket pocket the night before. There, along with her car keys, she found a collection of business cards that belonged to a series of Phoenix PD detectives. She picked one at random-Detective Mike Ryan. She dialed his number hoping he’d be able to put her in touch with whichever investigators had been assigned to the William Ashcroft homicide.