J. Jance - Web of Evil

"Long story," Ali returned. "A very long story."

With Ali on the phone and Dave preoccupied with dodging other drivers, they were in the wrong lane and had missed the fork onto I-10 East. Half an hour after leaving the tony environs of Wilshire Boulevard, they were driving around the desolate, graffiti-marred streets of Boyle Heights. It was a neighborhood of houses that had been built in the early part of the twentieth century and were somehow still holding together. Some of them appeared to be in reasonably decent shape. Others were little more than crumbling wrecks.

They started by locating the Morales household on Sixth and then circled out from there, searching for Jesus Sanchez's van. As they turned up South Chicago, Ali pointed. "There it is," she announced. "That's his van."

The aging, much dented Aerostar was parked in the driveway of a decrepit duplex.

"Now that we know where to find Jesus, let's go back to the hospital parking lot and wait for my interpreter to show up."

"What if he doesn't?"

"Don't worry. Eddie will be here."

Once they were parked and waiting, Ali told Dave the Eddie Duarte story from beginning to end. She was just finishing when her phone rang.

"You're not going to believe this," Edie Larson said. "If I weren't down here in the lobby seeing it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it myself."

Ali switched her phone to "speaker" so Dave could hear both sides of the conversation. "Seeing what?" she asked. "What's going on?"

"Lights, camera, action," Edie replied grimly. "April is down here in the lobby in a blue and white maternity outfit with perfect makeup and perfect hair. She's doing a sit-down interview with some young woman with very long blond hair and an astonishingly short skirt. I saw the logo on one of the cameras. It said Court TV."

"The blonde would be Sheila Rosenburg," Ali said. "So April is doing the interview after all."

"And against our advice," Edie added. "But there's more. I told you when you left that I was going to go check on her and see if she needed anything. Only when I opened my door, there was a man coming out of her room, so I ducked back inside ours. He was a young man, by the way, a very good-looking young man."

"Probably one of her friends," Ali said.

"That's what I thought right up until he kissed her good-bye," Edie returned. "Believe me, it was a lot more than a just friends' kiss. But when he turned away from her, I recognized him. I had seen him before."

"Where?" Ali asked.

"On his Web site."

Ali felt like she was bumbling around in the dark. "What Web site?" she asked.

"Ever since you told me about all that Sumo Sudoku nonsense, I've been curious about it," Edie answered. "I mean, why would Paul and April want to have a bunch of supposedly brainy bodybuilders cluttering up their wedding day? In my experience, weddings are stressful enough without having a film crew and extra people mucking around under hand and foot at the same time. So this morning, I looked up some Sumo Sudoku Web sites and that's where I found him. The guy's name is Tracy McLaughlin."

Ali was stunned. "You're saying you think April has been messing around with Tracy McLaughlin? Are you kidding?"

"I'm not kidding," Edie replied. "Do you know if there's been a paternity test?"

Ali remembered how pleased Paul had been when he learned April was pregnantpleased and excited.

"I have no idea," Ali said.

"If there hasn't been one, there probably should be," Edie said. "As Paul's executor, if you're going to be forced into setting up a trust fund for Paul's supposed catch colt, you'd best be sure the baby is really his."

Edie Larson had always been a keen observer of human behavior. One of the spooky things about Ali's mother, something that had always left her daughter more than slightly mystified, was her innate ability to see through things that went over other people's heads. Aunt Evelyn, Edie's twin sister, had always claimed that Edie had eyes in the back of her head. As a child, Ali had believed it was true. Maybe it still was, but this seemed like too much.

"Based on seeing the man in a hotel hallway, you're convinced Sonia Marie is really Tracy McLaughlin's baby rather than Paul's?" Ali asked.

"I'd bet money on it," Edie declared. "You should have seen the little love tap and the kiss the man laid on April's tummy as he was saying good-bye. That was a daddy-style maneuver if I've ever seen one."

That meant Paul was cheating on Ali with April, and April was cheating on Paul with Tracy McLaughlin. This was, Ali supposed, entirely predictable.

"What goes around comes around," she said. "So what do we know about Tracy McLaughlin?"

"Only what was on his Web site, and I've got his bio right here," Edie replied. "Says he came to Hollywood from Des Moines, Iowa, determined to be a stuntman. He ended up in a stunt that went bad and spent the next six months in a full body cast. When he got out of the cast, he went into bodybuilding to regain his strength. He worked puzzles while he was laid up and invented Sumo Sudoku once he got better as a way of proving to people that he had recovered completely. But that's not all."

"What's not all?" Ali asked.

"You'll never guess who put up a major part of the capital to get Sumo Sudoku off the ground."

"Paul?"

"You've got it. He's one of the original investors in the organization. There are ten people who put up big bucks to get it started. I don't recognize any of the other names, but you may. I think that's why they were holding the Sumo Sudoku tournament at the house on the same day as the wedding. I'm sure Paul knew there would be lots of media coverage. That way the tournament would generate lots of interest amp;"

"And lots of buzz," Ali finished. "In this town, buzz is everything. Once something is the current in' thing, then it's everybody's in' thing. Get one appearance on Jay Leno and you're on your way."

A gray Chevrolet Impala pulled up and stopped beside Dave's Nissan. "I've gotta go, Mom," Ali said. "My translator is here."

Leaving the Chevy idling, Eddie Duarte hurried over to Ali's door, reached in, and gave her a swift hug.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

"No problem," Eddie returned. "Now where's this guy you need me to talk to?"

With Eddie following in his Chevy, Dave and Ali drove back to South Chicago Street, where Jesus Sanchez's distinctive blue van was still parked in the driveway. Dave drove half a block beyond the Sanchez house and then stopped in a parking spot that was large enough for both his Nissan and Eddie's Impala. Before they could open their doors, however, a big unmarked Crown Victoria came careening around the corner and grabbed the spot just behind Eddie. Dave watched in his mirror as two people exited the vehicle and hurried past the van and into the fenced yard.

"Hey," Dave began. "I think I know them. Aren't they the two homicide detectives who came to the hospital to talk to April last night?"

Ali turned and looked. Sure enough, Detectives Tim Hubbard and Rosalie Martin hurried up onto the duplex's shaded front porch and rang the bell. "They talked to me, too," Ali said. "What are they doing here?"

"Same thing we are," Dave replied. "Looking for answers."

"Which means we're too late then," Ali said.

"Looks like," Dave agreed. "They'll recognize you. You stay where you are, and I'll let your friend Eddie know what's going on."

While Ali watched, the two detectives tried ringing a doorbell. Then they knockedand knocked some more. Finally a woman Ali recognized to be Jesus's wife, Clemencia, came to the door and slipped out onto the porch. She stood there talking to the two detectives for several long minutes, alternately shaking her head and gesturing. A little later, an LAPD patrol car pulled up as well. A young Hispanic officer exited the vehicle and hurried up onto the porch, where he joined in the conversation.