J. Jance - Edge of Evil

“Detective Farris could look at the records if he wanted to,” Ali said. “But I doubt he’ll bother. I don’t think he’s interested.”

“I might be able to take a look at them,” Dave suggested quietly.

A wave of gratitude washed over her. “Would you do that?” she asked. “Really?”

“Glad to,” he said. By then he had finished his breakfast while Ali was still working on hers. Dave stood up. “I’ve got a meeting to go to. See you this afternoon.”

Ali had intended to ask him for advice about how to deal with Ben Witherspoon, but that hadn’t happened. Coping with Watcher’s threat had been pushed to the back burner by their discussion about Reenie. To his credit, Dave had listened thoughtfully to Ali’s concerns about Reenie’s case. That was far more than could be said for Detective Lee Farris.

“Thanks, Dave,” Ali said. “For everything.”

As Dave left, Bob Larson arrived. It took some maneuvering on Kip Hogan’s part to get Bob’s wheelchair up the ramp and in through the heavy glass door. Kip was aided in the effort by a suit-clad black man Ali had never seen before, who held the door open to allow the wheelchair access.

Once situated in the corner booth recently vacated by the second team of cable guys, Bob immediately began issuing orders to Jan and Susan. According to Bob there was a whole lot that wasn’t right in the room. The stack of menus on the front counter wasn’t straight. Two booths needed clearing, and no one had gotten around to sweeping up the sprinkling of Cheerios some restless toddler in a high chair had left scattered on the floor. Meanwhile the black man stepped up to the counter.

“My name’s Rodney Williams,” he said to Susan. “I’m here to see Mr. or Mrs. Larson. I believe they’re expecting me.”

Ali groaned inwardly. Having the restaurant consultant blow in at exactly the same time as Bob Larson was a bad omen, and it was bound to provoke a battle between her parents. Glad Susan’s ample presence made it unnecessary for Ali to hang around for the inevitable fireworks, she headed out the door.

Back at the house, she found Chris packed up and ready to go. He was sitting at the kitchen counter with his computer open in front of him.

“How come you’re home so early?” he asked. “Is it already time to go to the funeral?

“The funeral’s not until this afternoon,” she told him. “I’m home now because Mom fired me.”

“She fired you?” Chris repeated. “What did you do wrong?”

Ali went over and flopped down on the couch where Samantha immediately joined her. “I did nothing wrong,” Ali said. “Jan convinced her cousin Susan to come up from Phoenix and take over my duties. Mom and Dad evidently decided they were somehow taking unfair advantage of me. They don’t want to stand in the way of my getting on with my life and going out and looking for another job. Of course, they didn’t bother asking me about it. If they had I would have told them I can’t do any kind of real job search right now because of the non-compete clause in my contract.”

“Bummer,” Chris said.

Ali nodded. “That means that, by actual count, I’ve been let go twice in the space of a week. I’m sure I’m setting some kind of record, and it’s very hard on the ego.”

“Have you thought of podcasting?” Chris asked.

“What?”

“Pod-casting. It’s kind of like a blog, only recorded-on video and/or audio. Instead of being posted as text-or in addition to text commentary, you read what you have to say into a video camera, just like you used to do when you read the news on TV. In podcasting, though, you’d be doing both the writing and reading. Once the segments have been uploaded, viewers can download them and watch or listen at their leisure.”

“This sounds highly unlikely,” Ali said.

“Don’t be so negative,” Chris countered. “You’re getting lots of traffic on your site-more than I would have thought possible. Look,” he said, pointing at the screen. “You may not have noticed, but there’s a counter at the bottom of the page so you can see how many hits you’re getting-more than three thousand in less than a week. I think that’s pretty respectable. Between the domestic violence stuff and the items dealing with ALS, you’ve got a variety of interesting and powerful content, and, because of your work in LA, you already have an established audience. If you can attract enough readers, you might be able to find yourself some advertisers as well.”

“As in advertisers who’d actually pay money?” Ali asked.

“I don’t know how much, but I think so,” Chris replied. “Maybe not enough to live on, but I’d guess you weren’t making money hand over fist working at the Sugarloaf.”

“What are you doing?” Ali asked. “Looking for a back door into the world of television news?”

Chris smiled. “Sort of,” he said. “Except this time the only news director on staff would be you.”

“I suppose it’s worth looking into,” Ali agreed. “How soon do I have to decide?”

“Whenever,” he said. “If you want to do it right away, I can come back and help you set it up when I’m finished with finals. Otherwise, it can wait until after graduation.”

Ali watched as he scrolled back to the top of the page. Just below the cutlooseblog.com header, there was now a photo of her, one she remembered Chris taking the previous year during Paul Grayson’s annual pre-Christmas holiday bash.

“Where did that come from?” she asked.

“I had a jpeg of it downloaded on my computer,” he said. “I read Velma’s post about wanting to see your photo. It seemed to me she had a good point, so I posted one. In fact, that’s what made me think about podcasting in the first place. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Melissa’s probably not going to like it,” Ali said.

“Melissa?” Chris asked. “Who’s she?”

“The lady who thinks I should wear a bag over my head.”

“Oh, her!” Chris replied. “If I were you, I never would have posted that one.”

Ali’s phone rang. “I can’t believe it,” Andrea Rogers said, her voice shaking in outrage.

“What’s going on?”

“I drove by Reenie’s house this morning on my way to have my hair done,” Andrea said. “There’s a whole stack of boxes on the front porch, like moving boxes or something. And Jasmine’s car is still there, parked right in front of the house in the same spot where it was last night when I left. Reenie’s not even buried yet, and Howie’s having some tart sleep over? I swear, the man has no shame!”

“Neither does Jasmine,” Ali pointed out. “They deserve each other.”

“Doesn’t he care about what people think or what the neighbors are saying?”

“Howie’s so full of himself I doubt he’s capable of taking other people’s opinions into consideration,” Ali said.

“But is he capable of murder?” Andrea asked. “Is she?”

Ali thought about her meeting with Jasmine Wright. “Maybe,” Ali said. “That’s why we need to find out where they both were last Thursday night and exactly what they were doing.”

“I’m trying,” Andrea said determinedly. “Believe me, I’m trying.”

“So am I,” Ali said. “Chris figured out Reenie’s password. I’m about to log on and see what, if anything, I can find in her e-mail account. It bothers me, though. It seems disloyal to be prying into her private affairs.”

“I know,” Andrea agreed. “I felt the same way when I was going through her files last night. But if we don’t look, who will?”

“Who indeed?” Ali returned.

Minutes later, armed with Samantha as the password, a conflicted Ali Reynolds was scrolling through the e-mails Reenie Bernard had sent and received in the last seven days of her life. The account had been set up to keep sent and previously read e-mails for a maximum of fourteen days. Reenie had been dead for a week. That meant that a full week’s worth of correspondence had already been deleted from the files. It also meant that whatever information might have been gleaned from those messages had already been lost.