Deadly Stakes

14

As soon as Ali located Stuart’s office, tucked in the far corner of what was a former warehouse facility, she understood why he had sequestered her in the conference room. For one thing, he evidently lived in his office. Rumpled bedding on an army cot was half hidden behind a cloth-and-wood screen covered with Post-it notes and an impressive collection of pizza coupons. The room was in semi-darkness, and the air was thick with the perfume of pizza.

Stuart sat at one of a bank of computers in the middle of the room with a pizza box at his elbow. He looked up at her in surprise as she entered the room, then shoved the box in her direction. “Lunchtime,” he said. “Want some?”

“No, thanks,” she said. “I think I have a lead. I have reason to believe that James Sanders recently came into a sum of money, so maybe the idea of him being hired to make a hit isn’t so far from the mark.”

She went on to relate everything Regina had told her, including the fact that James had most likely used a work-based computer for both e-mail and telephone communications. Stuart listened, nodding absently while keeping one eye on the data flashing across the screen of the computer in front of him. It would have been easy for Ali to think that he wasn’t paying attention, but she knew he was.

“There are a lot of stretch limos in Vegas,” he said when Ali finished her recitation. “So that doesn’t help us much, but knowing the token came from the MGM Grand might. Thousand-dollar tokens aren’t handed over to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wanders in off the Strip. And the casinos take their security arrangements very seriously. It’s my understanding that they video everything-every hallway, every entrance, every table. And unlike the folks running the local traffic cams, casinos keep everything they video on a permanent basis. What day was that again?”

“Regina said she saw the limo on Wednesday a week ago. The limo picked Sanders up about four P.M. We don’t know that they went directly to the hotel. That’s just an educated guess.”

“But the guy in the limo was evidently expected,” Stuart said. “That means there must be some point of contact that we’ll be able to find. Is it possible Dr. Ralston made a quick trip to Vegas last week? Let’s say that’s who the guy in the limo was-Charles Ralston. If that’s the case, somewhere along the line, we’re going to find some communications links between them. Let me work on this for a while. In the meantime, I’ve got something else that may interest you.

“James Mason Sanders married Sylvia Ruth Bixby on June sixteenth, 1996, a few days after she graduated from high school. The wedding was a little late, since their baby, Alexander James, who just turned seventeen himself, was born less than three months later. The wedding took place just before the whole counterfeiting mess started to come apart. I found records of the marriage but no sign of a divorce.”

“So it was a shotgun wedding, but she stayed married to him the whole time he was in prison and even after he got out?” Ali asked.

Stuart nodded. “As far as I can tell, they stayed married then and were still married when he died.”

“That’s taking the words ‘for better or worse’ very seriously, with a lot more worse than better.”

“I’ll say,” Stuart agreed. “I checked public records in Nevada, too, just in case Sanders instituted divorce proceedings there. No such luck. As for the kid? As far as I can tell, he’s okay. Alexander is a senior honors student at North High School in Phoenix, where he’s taking lots of Advanced Placement courses. His mother may have been on her own the whole time, but she’s done something right in raising him.”

Ali’s phone rang. When she saw the number, she left Stuart’s office and took the call in the corridor.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Dave Holman exclaimed. “Are you really working for the public defender?”

He spoke in a way that registered in Ali’s ear as an audible sneer. He didn’t utter the words “How could you?” aloud, but the message was there nonetheless.

“I’m actually doing a project for Lynn Martinson’s mother,” Ali said. That was the truth, if not the whole truth.

“Lynn Martinson is a suspect in a homicide in this jurisdiction,” Dave pointed out, his voice flat with anger. “And you’re a reserve officer. When I came by your place last night, I thought I was speaking to a fellow officer. It never occurred to me that I was talking to someone on the other side.”

“When you were there last night, there was no other side-” Ali began, but Dave cut her off before she had a chance to finish.

“I’ve just been on the phone with Sheriff Maxwell. He’ll be expecting your letter of resignation before the end of business today.”

With that, Dave hung up. Ali was left with a dead phone in her hand and a puncture wound in her heart as well as her pride. Her primary responsibility as a reserve deputy had been to help transport prisoners from one jurisdiction or facility to another. The use of reserve deputies helped keep patrol officers where they needed to be-on patrol.

Ali hadn’t intended to offend Dave, and so far she had done nothing to undermine his investigation. His reaction seemed over-the-top. She had seen the situation with Beatrice Hart and Paula Urban as a temporary arrangement. She hadn’t expected it to be something that would undo years of established relationships, but it sounded as though irreparable damage had already been done. If Sheriff Maxwell was expecting her resignation, she would give it to him.

Ali called home to let Leland and B. know that she was on her way to Prescott. Before she headed out, she stuck her head back in Stuart’s office and gave him the same information. “If you come up with anything,” she said, “call me. I’ll probably drop in on Paula Urban while I’m in Prescott and let her know what we have so far.”

It should have taken an hour and fifteen minutes to get from Cottonwood to Prescott. She did it in just over an hour and considered herself lucky not to have a speeding ticket to show for her trouble. She pulled up in front of the Sheriff’s Department and parked in a designated visitor’s spot. After all, if she was being given her walking papers, that’s what she was-a visitor.

During her brief stint as a media relations officer, her office had been temporarily shoehorned into a corner of the front lobby, which had done nothing to endear her to the front-office clerks who felt their territory had been invaded. That had all changed.

The revamped media relations department, with Ali’s onetime intern Mike Sawyer in charge, was no longer housed in the lobby. All evidence of the previous arrangement had been eradicated. The cubicle where Ali’s desk once sat was long gone. In its place was a long chest-high counter stocked with a supply of forms that could be filled out and passed to the clerks through a bank teller-like opening in their Plexiglas shield. Ali paused long enough to grab one of the forms. Using the back, she scrawled off a one-sentence note of resignation and then made her way to the service window.

Holly Mesina, the head clerk, greeted her with a knowing smirk. “The sheriff is expecting you,” she said. “Do you need someone to show you the way?”

“No,” Ali said. “I believe I can manage.”

With that, Holly pressed the button unlocking the door that accessed the department’s interior offices. There was no one seated at the secretary’s desk outside Sheriff Maxwell’s open door, so Ali walked up to the door and tapped on the doorjamb. Gordon Maxwell sat leaning back in his desk chair while a Mozart piano concerto played through the speakers on his computer. The moment Ali knocked, he sat up and stifled the music.

“Come in and sit down, Ali,” he said with a self-conscious grin. “I don’t like people to know that I sit around in my office listening to Mozart. It’s bad for my tough-guy image.”

Ali had always liked Sheriff Maxwell and she still did. She sat.

“Understand old Dave’s got his nose out of joint.”

That was the thing about Sheriff Maxwell. Over the years Ali had discovered that conversations with him never went quite the way she had anticipated.

“You could say that,” she agreed with a nod. “He said you wanted my letter of resignation today. Here it is.” She placed the form on the desk and slid it over to him. Sheriff Maxwell picked it up, scanned it, put it down, and then slid it back to Ali.

“I’d prefer it if you reworded that,” he said, “and turned it into a temporary leave of absence.”

“But Dave said-”

“I know what Detective Holman said,” Maxwell replied. “What really set him off was having Cap Horning jump into the middle of his homicide investigation with something Dave regards as a premature and half-cocked plea deal. The idea of your piling on was just the capper on the jug, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

“But. .” Ali began again.

Sheriff Maxwell unfolded his long frame from the chair, rose, closed the door, and then returned to his desk. “Look,” he said. “This is between you and me. I have some private concerns of my own about Cap Horning. Looks to me like he’s out running roughshod over folks. If Dave comes up with some solid evidence to show that the people we have in custody are actually the responsible parties, that’s one thing. If that happens, everybody comes out smelling like a rose, and good on ’em. But finding evidence takes time. It seems to me Horning is trying to streamline the process by making what Dave and I regard as premature plea deals. Paula Urban is good people-for a public defender-but we’re in the justice business here. With Cap Horning pushing folks around, I’m worried about Paula Urban seeing to it that justice is done in this case.”

Ali blinked. “You’re saying you want me to help her?”

“I don’t like seeing undue pressure applied. If the evidence is there, I trust that it’ll carry the day with a judge and jury. The person or persons responsible for Gemma Ralston’s murder will get what’s coming to them because they’re actually convicted of the crime rather than because Cap Horning’s busy playing Let’s Make a Deal. And if having you doing a research project for the suspect’s mother ends up giving Paula some much needed help, I can’t see that there’s any harm done.”

Which meant Sheriff Maxwell knew all about the writing-project cover. For all Ali knew, he might have suggested it.

Picking up Ali’s scribbled note, Sheriff Maxwell handed it back to her. “As far as your letter is concerned,” he added. “As I said before, if you’d be so kind as to rewrite it so it says ‘leave of absence’ rather than ‘resignation,’ I’ll be happy to sign off on it. And you might want to stop by the jail before you leave town. It’s my understanding that Paula Urban just went over there to have a meeting with her client. It might be a good idea if you turned up as well.”

While Ali retrieved the paper and made the required changes, Sheriff Maxwell picked up his phone and dialed.

“Hey, Holly,” he said. “Ali Reynolds is on her way over to the jail to meet with Paula Urban and her client. Could you write up a pass for her and let the jail commander know she’s coming? She’ll be out to pick it up in a couple of minutes.”

That’ll go over like a pregnant pole vaulter, Ali thought.

That was true. When Ali went out to the lobby minutes later, a sullen-faced Holly sailed the pass through the opening rather than handing it over.

“Thanks,” Ali responded, retrieving the piece of paper from the floor halfway across the room. “You have a nice day, now.”

With that, she headed for the jail, where she was shown to an interview room where Paula Urban and Lynn Martinson were already conferring. Pausing outside the window in the corridor, Ali gazed in at the two women seated at the scarred table. Though Ali had seen Paula before, she was still surprised. Paula’s mop of springy red hair had been pulled back into a loose ponytail, but a halo of escaped curls made her look more like a refugee from junior high than a thirtysomething legal beagle. As for Lynn Martinson? There was very little resemblance between the somewhat bedraggled woman in her orange jumpsuit and the agitated woman who had joined Ali in the television station greenroom months earlier. That woman had been nervous but excited. This woman looked completely devoid of hope.

Taking a deep breath, Ali let herself into the interview room and cast a questioning glance in the direction of the obvious video equipment in the corner.

“Don’t worry,” Paula said reassuringly. “It’s not on. I believe you and Ms. Martinson have met?”

Lynn jumped up, grabbed Ali’s hand, and pumped it with heart-breakingly sincere enthusiasm that was at odds with the noisy rattle of the shackles around her ankles. “Thank you for agreeing to help me,” she said.

“Officially, I’m doing a project for your mother, but you’re welcome. As for how much good I’m doing? I spent most of the morning looking into the life of James Sanders, the guy whose body was found just up the road from Gemma Ralston’s.”

“And?” Paula prompted.

“So far I haven’t been able to find any connections.”

“We haven’t, either,” Paula said. “I was just asking Lynn if she’d ever heard of the guy. She says not. So who is he?”

“He’s a small-time hood,” Ali explained, “an ex-con who got sent up on charges of counterfeiting in his early twenties. He was from the Phoenix area originally, and his wife and son still live there. He spent the years since he got out of prison living and working at a halfway house in Vegas called the Mission, where he functioned as an assistant manager working for minimum wage plus room and board. In the last week or so, he suddenly came into a sum of money-over and above his regular paycheck. We’re trying to uncover the source of same.”

“You think he might have been a hired hit man?” Paula asked.

Ali nodded. “Could be.”

Lynn Martinson was already shaking her head. “They’re thinking I hired a hit man?” she asked. “How could I? I don’t have that kind of money, and neither does Chip.”

Paula gave her a sharp look. “You know what kind of money it takes to hire a hit man?”

Lynn looked startled. “Well, no. I don’t. But truly. I would never do such a thing, and neither would Chip. You have to believe me,” she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears. “He just wouldn’t!”

Paula Urban gave the slightest shake of her head. Clearly, she wasn’t persuaded by Lynn Martinson’s opinions about what Chip Ralston would or wouldn’t do.

“So about this other dead guy,” Paula said. “Any chance that his wife and kid might know anything about what he was up to?”

“It’s a possibility,” Ali said.

“Would you mind driving down to Phoenix and talking to them about it?” Paula said.

Her question made it clear that she expected to make use of Ali’s investigative skills. The defense attorney was going for more than limiting Ali’s participation to doing routine background checks. That was the moment when Ali could have called a halt and kept to the original agreement. Instead, she pulled out her iPad and jotted the first of several notes.

“I’d also like you to interview Dr. Ralston’s mother, Doris, and his sister, Molly Handraker.”

“I doubt they’ll talk to you,” Lynn said. “Not if they know you’re trying to help me.”

“That’s true,” Paula agreed, “but since they were both at home that night, we need to know what, if anything, they’re saying to the homicide investigators.”

Ali turned to Lynn. “What do Chip’s mother and sister have against you?”

“Mostly that I exist,” Lynn answered, “and especially that I’m not Gemma. Look at me. No one is ever going to accuse me of being the kind of arm candy Gemma was. Doris thought the sun rose and set on her daughter-in-law. As for Chip’s sister? I met her once in passing, but she was something less than cordial. Molly and Gemma have been good friends-best friends-for years. They were roommates at college, and they’ve maintained that friendship ever since.”

“Even after Chip and Gemma divorced?”

“Yes, even after. It only happened a couple of times, but it was embarrassing to show up at Chip’s place-his mother’s place, really-to spend the night and find his ex-wife’s car parked in the driveway.”

“Did the two of you ever have words?” Ali asked.

“You mean did we have an argument?”

“Yes.”

“I saw her once, but we were never properly introduced,” Lynn admitted, “Even if we had been, why would we argue? I mean, it wasn’t like she wanted him, so why make a scene? She regarded Chip as her own personal ATM, and that’s all she wanted from him-his money. Other than that, she was done. The marriage was over, but he didn’t do this.”

“Did you?” Ali asked.

The direct question caused Paula Urban to raise one eyebrow, but she said nothing. Instead, she folded her hands on the table and waited for Lynn to answer.

“No, I didn’t,” Lynn declared. “Of course not.”

“The victim’s blood was found in your vehicle.”

“That’s what the detective said, but it can’t be true.”

“It is true,” Ali said. “Dave Holman wouldn’t lie about something like that. So if you didn’t kill Gemma Ralston, how did her blood get in the trunk of your car and on the back bumper as well?”

Lynn shook her head wordlessly. “I don’t know.”

“If you didn’t do it, then there’s only one other possibility, isn’t there? Chip did it, and he’s trying to put the blame on you.”

Lynn rose to her feet. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Can I go back to my cell now, please?”

Paula picked up her phone and dialed a number. “She’s ready to go back to her cell.”

A moment later, the door opened. A uniformed guard entered, unfastened Lynn’s shackles from the ring in the floor, and then led the prisoner away. Once she was gone, Paula turned to Ali. “Sooner or later, she’s going to have to face facts,” the attorney said. “What’s the matter with her? Why on earth is she defending the guy? First he uses Lynn’s vehicle to transport his dying victim’s body, and then he leaves Lynn’s phone at the crime scene in hopes of implicating her.”

“You’re convinced of her innocence?” Ali asked.

Paula nodded. “According to Lynn, they both use those CPAP breathing machines, and as long as she’s using it, she’s a deep sleeper who rarely wakes up before morning. Since he uses one, too, I suppose it could go either way but I’m wondering if maybe he waited until she was asleep and then used the breathing machine as cover to sneak out of the bedroom and out of the house without Lynn being any the wiser. For all his good-guy facade, I suspect Charles Ralston is really a manipulative creep. The sooner Lynn figures that out, the better off she’ll be.”

“Maybe we need to cut her a little slack on that score,” Ali suggested. “Three times Lynn Martinson thought she landed Prince Charming. Now we’re trying to tell her that prince number three is also a dud.”

“Three strikes and you’re out,” Paula said. “In this case, the frogs are definitely winning. I don’t know what the other two guys did to her, but this one is trying his damnedest to get her sent up for murder. Mark my words. Chip is going to jump at the prosecutor’s deal and hang Lynn out to dry. Once he does that, there’s enough physical evidence that there’s a good chance Lynn Martinson will spend the rest of her life in the slammer.”

“So what do we do?” Ali asked, abandoning all pretense about Beatrice’s writing project.

“I want you to follow up on everything you learned this morning. I think the first way to attack this is to find out whatever we can about the other dead guy. Two bodies in the same place at the same time? There has to be a connection. I also want you to interview the Ralstons’ neighbors. Regardless of what Chip’s mother and sister may have seen or heard, they’re not going to tell us anything that will make their son and brother look bad.”

“Even if they know Chip’s responsible, they’ll try to put the blame on Lynn?”

“You bet,” Paula replied. “The neighbors might not see Chip Ralston as quite the fair-haired boy his family seems to think he is. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on that plea bargain.”

Ali stood up. “All right, then,” she said. “It looks like I’m headed for Phoenix.”