J. Jance - Hand of Evil

When Hank bit into the first tiny morsel, a broad smile lit up his face. “Damn,” he muttered. “If this doesn’t beat the roach coach all hollow.”

Brooks handed each of the cops stiff white napkins that had been starched and pressed with military precision. The coffee was excellent, but it was served in tiny white cups with handles much too small for Detective Marsh’s somewhat meaty fingers.

“So tell us about the guns,” Larry Marsh said, munching another piece of sandwich. “How many are missing?”

“Three,” Brooks said. “All of them handguns. Mine was a thirty-eight-an old Chief’s Special. I bought it new in 1955 when Mrs. Ashcroft hired me. She was interested in having both a butler and a bodyguard. Since I was a former commando who had been trained as a cook, she decided I filled her bill. She actually sent me back to England to attend butler school.”

“So this thirty-eight. What was it?” Larry asked. “A Smith and Wesson Airweight?”

Brooks frowned. “Yes, it was, but how would you know that?”

“Because we found one just like that,” Larry said. “At the crime scene.”

“You didn’t mention Mr. Ashcroft was shot,” Brooks said.

“He wasn’t, but that’s still where we found the gun. What were the others?”

“Mrs. Ashcroft had a pair of pearl-handled first model Lady-smiths, both small-frame revolvers chambered for seven twenty-two-caliber long rounds. Those are missing as well, but those are mostly used for target practice. Less dangerous than the thirty-eight.”

“Not at close range,” Marsh returned. “So wherever she is, we have to assume she’s armed and dangerous. Is she a good shot?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Brooks said. “I suppose she is. I trained her myself.”

“But you said she was nuts,” Marsh objected. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“I didn’t say she was nuts, sir,” Brooks said. “Miss Arabella is prone to moods, and I did it because I was asked to. Besides, we only did target shooting. The rest of the time the guns were safely under lock and key.”

“Right,” Hank Mendoza said. “You mean like they are right now.”

Brooks nodded and said nothing.

“What do you know about the death of Mr. Ashcroft’s father?” Larry asked.

“That would be Bill Junior. That’s how Mrs. Ashcroft always referred to him. But I thought this was all about Billy. Bill Junior died in an automobile accident in 1956. He was a notorious drinker. He went off the side of a mountain and that was the end of him.”

“Was Arabella ever questioned in conjunction with that death?” Larry asked.

“No one was questioned that I know of. But there would have been no reason at all to question Miss Arabella. She was miles away at the time, hospitalized at a facility in Paso Robles.”

“Yes,” Larry Marsh said. “The Mosberg Institute. We know that’s where she was supposed to be. We also know that the charge nurse who was primarily responsible for Arabella’s care at the time died in a tragic fire at the Mosberg a few days after Mr. Ashcroft’s death.”

“I seem to remember that, too,” Leland Brooks said. “And a patient died as well. I believe he was something of a firebug-a serial arsonist. The fire was laid at his door, metaphorically speaking, but Mrs. Ashcroft was of the opinion that there was a good deal of covering up about that incident. It was one of the reasons she took Miss Arabella out of there and moved her to the Bancroft House, a place down in what’s now part of Carefree. It was after Miss Arabella came to Arizona that Mrs. Ashcroft decided to buy this place.”

“You were already working for the Ashcrofts at that time?”

“I worked for Mrs. Ashcroft from 1955 on,” Leland Brooks said stiffly. “I never worked for Mr. Ashcroft Senior, and I never had anything to do with him, either.” The butler shuddered. “He was a perfectly dreadful man. So was his son. Mrs. Ashcroft, on the other hand, was a wonderful human being and very generous. At the time of her death, she saw to it that I’d be taken care of so that her daughter, in turn, would be taken care of. I look after the house and the vehicles, manage the household accounts, make sure Miss Arabella sees her doctors and takes her medications. I also drive her wherever she wants to go.”

“It sounds pretty all-encompassing,” Larry Marsh said.

“Of course it is,” Leland Brooks returned with a smile. “I’m a butler.”

As the Rolls turned off the highway onto a small, single lane road that wound through the West Clear Creek Wilderness, Ali was beginning to wonder if they should have bought gas at the same time they stopped for those Big Macs. But at least here, in the middle of nowhere, if she decided to overpower Arabella and take her down, no one else could possibly be hurt. She was still hoping that, at some point, Arabella would simply fall asleep.

“Punishment,” Arabella announced from the backseat. “That’s what’s important. If your friend’s abuser gets punished, that helps. A little. You see, I took care of what Bill Junior did to me. And I took care of what he did to Miss Ponder. But what about the others?”

“What others?”

“The ones I don’t know about,” Arabella said. “There must have been others. Those are the ones I think about when I can’t sleep. He was never punished for any of those. But that’s also why he kept his hand, you see. I think that was his way of trying to punish my mother for what I had done to him. That’s why I have it. I did it for her.”

“Did your mother know you had Bill Junior’s hand?”

“I doubt it,” Arabella said.

“When it comes to punishment, what about you?” Ali asked, glancing at Arabella in the rearview mirror. “Should you be punished for what you did?”

“I suppose,” Arabella said. “But I don’t want to be locked up again. Mother promised me that I never would be.”

“Did she know what you had done?”

“Maybe,” Arabella said. “Probably.”

“Your mother wasn’t a judge and jury,” Ali said. “She had no right to make that promise.”

“But she did,” Arabella insisted. “And I believed her. Here we are.”

They entered a small clearing. Ali looked around, expecting to see a small, snug cabin, but she saw nothing. No outline of a building; no flashes of headlights off windowpanes. But then there was something-a gleam in the dark. She pulled closer. What she saw was her headlights reflecting back off what remained of half a wall.

“There’s nothing here,” Ali explained. “There’s no cabin.”

“I know,” Arabella said. “It burned down last summer. Vandals.”

“Then what are we doing here?”

“We’re going to sit here for a while,” Arabella said. “We’re going to sit here and let me think. Then I’m going to say goodbye.”

Good-bye! Ali thought. Good-bye? She’s going to kill me. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

It was after ten by the time the two detectives left Arabella’s house and headed back to Phoenix.

“Damn,” Larry Marsh complained. “It annoys the hell out of me to think that Arabella snowed us completely.”

“Sounds like she snowed everybody, Mr. Brooks included. And don’t forget Alison Reynolds and Billy Ashcroft. She told Billy she was dead broke. According to Brooks, that’s not the case at all. The money may not be liquid, but it’s there. She told Ali Reynolds all about this mysterious diary of hers, one you’ve even seen, but her butler never saw it. How can that be? My guess is we could hook Arabella up to a lie detector, ask her questions all day long, and have her come up with two or more contradictory answers to every question without ever having any of them register as a lie. If she’s crazy, she probably doesn’t know the difference between fact and fiction, to say nothing of right or wrong.”