J. Jance - Edge of Evil

Wanda Carmichael

Dear Ms. Reynolds,

Someone is selling an autographed picture of you on e-bay. Do you think it is real. Will it be more valuable now that you’re fired. How much do you think I should pay. Please answer back right away. The online auction is supposed to end tomorrow morning.

Also if you ever want to buy Beenie Babies I have a lot of those and some of them are very rare. I would give them to you at a good price now that you’re unemployed.

Sylvia

Ali was still puzzling over that one and wondering if she should laugh or cry when the phone rang. “You’re home,” Edie Larson announced. “How are things?”

It was a simple question with no easy answer. There was so much Ali needed to tell her mother-so much she had yet to tell her-that she had no idea where to start. Just as she had in the blog, Ali avoided the land mines by using Samantha for emotional cover.

“Matt and Julie are down in Cottonwood with Reenie’s folks. They asked me to look after their cat, so Samantha is here with me.”

“You don’t even like cats.”

“Exactly,” Ali agreed. “But somebody had to do it.”

“How are the kids holding up?”

“They’re dealing with it,” Ali replied. “Matt had read the paper. He’s aware the cops suspect Reenie committed suicide. Matt’s big worry is that Julie’s going to find out.”

“They’ll be better off if someone comes straight out and tells them,” Edie said. “Howie should do it, or else Reenie’s parents.”

“But is that what happened?” Ali objected. “Somehow I just can’t get my head around the idea that Reenie would kill herself. No matter what.”

“You and I haven’t walked in her shoes,” Edie said. “It’s easy to say she wouldn’t do this or wouldn’t do that, but until you’ve actually been there…”

“According to her secretary, Reenie was going to fight,” Ali returned.

Edie sighed. “She probably changed her mind.” “Look, Ali,” Edie added. “It hurts like hell to lose someone you’re close to. Your Aunt Evie may have been my sister, but she was also my best friend and my partner. When she was gone out of my life all of a sudden, I didn’t know how to cope. Something would happen and I’d want to tell her about it. Or I’d wonder what she’d think about it. And I still miss her every day. You just have to get through it, that’s all. And one way to do that is to take care of yourself. Did you have lunch today?”

That was vintage Edie Larson. Caring but utterly practical, and bent on providing food for the body as much as food for the soul.

“No,” Ali admitted.

“I didn’t think so. Chris and your father left for the Snow Bowl a little while ago. I know how much Chris loves pot roast. I’m cooking up one of those because I know it’ll hold until they get home, whenever that is. The only question now is, do you want to come down here for dinner or should I bring it up there?”

Ali glanced at the cat carrier. Sam obliged by staring balefully back with her one good eye. “Maybe you should bring it up here,” Ali said.

“I’ll be there about dinner time. We’ll break into your Aunt Evie’s wine cellar and offer a toast to her and to Reenie Bernard as well.”

“Sounds good,” Ali said.

But she didn’t mean it. At that very moment, the last thing she felt like doing was drinking a toast to anyone, not to Reenie and not to anyone else.

They had barely hung up when the phone rang again. “Alison Reynolds?” asked a deep voice Ali didn’t recognize.

“Yes.” Ali answered warily. The land line phone number was still listed under Aunt Evie’s name, and Ali didn’t like the idea of some strange man having access to it.

“My name’s Helga Myerhoff, with Weldon, Davis, and Reed in LA. One of my associates, Marcella Johnson said you might be interested in speaking to me. Is this a convenient time?”

A smoker no doubt, Ali concluded once she realized the male-sounding voice actually belonged to a woman.

“Yes,” Ali said. “Talking now would be fine.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of doing a little checking on you,” Helga continued purposefully. “Which is to say, I know who you are, how long you’ve been married, that kind of thing. I don’t do run-of-the-mill divorces, you see, Ms. Reynolds. I prefer to handle ones that are worth my while so to speak. Let me ask you then, is there a pre-nup?”

“Yes,” Ali said.

“Figures,” Helga said. “Women who fall in love with high-powered men also fall for prenuptial agreements. It’s just the way things are.”

“So that’s bad?” Ali asked.

“That depends. You were married seven years ago, but county records show that the house you and your husband live in, the one on Robert Lane, was purchased only six years ago. Is that correct?”

“Yes. Paul always loved that house, but it didn’t come on the market until after we were married.”

“Excellent,” Helga said.

“But we bought it with his funds,” Ali objected. “I never could have afforded-”

“Doesn’t matter,” Helga interrupted. “He purchased it after your marriage. It appears to be held as community property now. And you say your husband loves the house?”

“Adores it.”

“That’s nice to hear. It should give us a bit of a bargaining chip. Generally speaking, the more the other side likes something, the better it is. So what brought you to this pass, Mrs. Reynolds? In my experience people don’t go to the trouble of consulting with a divorce attorney unless they’ve already pretty much decided the marriage is broken.”

“It is broken,” Ali said, but she was thinking of Reenie breaking her scheduled appointment with the lawyer in Flagstaff. “And my name is Ali,” she added.

“Very well, Ali,” Helga corrected. “So tell me. What went wrong? Domestic violence, drugs, girlfriends, or boyfriends?”

“Girlfriends,” Ali said. “His, not mine. They’ve been around for a while, I suppose. For a long time I turned a blind eye to how ‘busy’ he was with work and put up with them, but now that one of his ‘projects’ is telling people she and my husband are going to get married…

“I understand you lost your job last week,” Helga asked.

“That’s true.”

“Isn’t that station an affiliate of the network that employs your husband?”

“Yes.”

“And isn’t he some kind of network bigwig for them?”

“That’s right.”

“Did he know they were going to let you go?” Helga asked.

“Probably,” Ali said. “I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have told him. According to them, it was all ratings. Paul lives and breathes ratings.”

“Did he happen to mention any of that to you in advance? I mean, did he give you any kind of a heads-up?”

“No,” Ali said. “He didn’t.”

Helga clicked her tongue. “There are some cases I like better than others,” she said. “From what you’re telling me, Mr. Paul Grayson sounds like a not so nice man who needs to be taken down a peg.”

Ali laughed in spite of herself. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose he is.”

“If that’s what you want,” Helga said, “it would be my pleasure to take him on. Do you happen to have a fax machine where you are? That way I can fax over some forms for you to fill out. Don’t worry about all the gory financial details. I’ll be able to get all that. I have a forensic accounting firm that I hire to track down financial dealings that unsuspecting spouses often know nothing about. My guys are expensive,” she added. “But they’re very, very good.”

“Can you just e-mail them to me?” Ali asked. “I have a printer but no fax.”