Deadly Stakes

25

Hey,” Stuart said when she switched over. “How are things?”

“It’s been an interesting morning.” While she put the Cayenne in gear and eased out of the parking lot, she gave Stu a quick summary of her day so far. She finished by saying, “Now I’m on my way to Doris Ralston’s house to have another chat with her daughter about Monday night. Our interview last night ended abruptly. I know a little more about their situation now, and I have a few more questions. What about you?”

“After you told me about Sanders giving that chunk of change to his son, I went digging in the Mission’s finances and picked up an interesting tidbit. Contributions are down across the board, and so is fund-raising. As a result, the Mission coffers have been running on empty. Until this week, they were three months behind on their lease and behind on payments to suppliers. They’ve evidently been using rent money to make payroll and pay their food vendors. As of Wednesday of this week, their lease is current. It looks like an anonymous forty-five-thousand-dollar cash donation came in at the end of last week. I’m guessing they used some of that to bring their rent up to date and get caught up with their suppliers.”

“Let me guess where this sudden windfall came from,” Ali said. “Would this anonymous benefactor happen to be James Sanders, aka Mason?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Stuart replied. “According to my math, we’ve accounted for all the money Scott Ballentine handed over to Sanders in gambling chips.”

“But why would he give the whole sum away?” Ali asked. “Why not keep it?”

“I don’t know,” Stuart said. “I’ll keep digging on that. As for what you asked me earlier? I’ll keep looking, but so far, I’ve come up empty on the Dennis situation. Anything else?”

“Just for argument’s sake, I’d like you to take a look at Molly Handraker.”

“Why? What am I looking for?”

“Just background material,” Ali said. “There’s something about Gemma, Valerie, and Molly that doesn’t ring true. So far, I’ve discovered that at least two of these so-called best friends are underhanded backstabbers who maintain a wonderfully goody-goody public persona. As far as the world is concerned, Molly is the downtrodden younger sister bravely assuming the entire burden of caring for an aging mother.”

“You’re thinking appearances might be deceiving?”

“Maybe. Just let me know what you find. Molly’s been married three times. She’s still married to a guy named Barry Handraker. They used to live in Minneapolis, and I’m assuming he still does. Gemma and Valerie Sloan have a very low opinion of the guy and were counseling Molly to dump him.”

“Okay,” Stuart said. “Will do. Call me back when you get out of your interview.”

By then Ali had arrived at the Ralston residence and parked in the driveway just outside the front entrance. It was much easier to find the second time, in bright November daylight, rather than in the dark. Everything about the place was impressive, from the red-tiled roof to the lush green lawn edged with beds of newly planted petunias and pansies. Ali knew that maintaining that kind of landscape didn’t come cheap in terms of water or labor. In fact, as she watched, a yard guy wearing an immense white Stetson and pushing a lawn mower emerged from the side of the house. Seeing her, he tipped his hat in her direction. Then he turned on the mower and went to work as Ali rang the bell.

No one answered on the first ring or the second, but the house was large enough that Ali waited a minute and then tried a third time. That was when she heard Molly’s voice from somewhere inside.

“I’m coming. I’m coming.” There was a pause and the sound of something being slammed shut in the entryway. “Where’s the damned deadbolt key?” Molly muttered. “Somebody must have moved it. Wait just a minute. I’ll be back.”

Long seconds passed. Eventually, Ali heard the sound of a key scraping in the lock, and the door was flung open. An angry Molly Handraker stood in the doorway. Though it was early afternoon, she had clearly just stepped out of the shower. Barefoot and wearing nothing but a terry-cloth robe, she had a damp towel wrapped around her head.

“You again?” she demanded irritably, peering first at Ali and then glancing around the rest of the yard. “Couldn’t you at least have called first?”

“I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient,” Ali said placatingly. “I was in the neighborhood. I just have a few more questions.”

“All right, all right,” Molly said impatiently. “Come in.”

As Ali stepped into the entryway, she saw a stack of luggage sitting near the front door as if waiting to be loaded into a vehicle. She waited while Molly slammed the door shut, then stomped around the luggage and through the entryway, leading the way into the living room.

“Is someone taking a trip?” Ali asked, pulling out her iPad and opening the lid.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Molly replied, “but I’m going to drop Mother off in Palm Springs and let her spend a couple of days with Jack and Gloria Manning, some friends of my father’s. All the emotional turmoil with Gemma and Chip is too much for her. As you saw last night, she can’t remember from one moment to another if Gemma’s alive or dead, and it’s too hard on both of us for me to keep telling her what’s what over and over. I’ve decided it’ll be easier if she’s out of town, at least until after the funeral.”

“Wouldn’t participating in a funeral help her?” Ali asked, talking as she typed “Jack and Gloria Manning” and “Palm Springs” into her iPad. “I mean, maybe the formal mourning rituals would help clarify the situation for her.”

“I’ll take care of my mother,” Molly said. “Now what do you want?”

The night before, Ali had come away with the impression that Molly Handraker was close to saintliness as far as her dealings with her ailing mother were concerned. This morning the saintly mask had slipped a little, and Molly’s mean-girl tone and manner were more in line with what Ali might have expected from one of Gemma Ralston’s and Valerie Sloan’s “best friends.”

“I just wanted to clarify one or two things. I understand that you and Gemma had a disagreement of some kind the other night-the night she went missing. I wondered if it might be important.”

Molly seemed to consider her answer before she spoke. “You know that old saw about people who live in glass houses not throwing stones?”

Ali nodded. “What about it?”

“I got tired of being the target of all that stone throwing,” Molly said. “I mean, here’s Gemma busily telling me ‘What you need to do is this’ and ‘What you need to do is that,’ when her own life isn’t exactly a model of perfect relationships. I figured she didn’t have much room to talk, and I told her so. Then I left, came home, and went to bed. That’s all there was to it.”

“Then there was that odd moment when your mother said something about Gemma being asleep in the car.”

“You may have noticed, my mother gets confused on occasion,” Molly said. “Things that happened months ago seem like yesterday to her. You have to know that Gemma was known to have a few too many now and then. A couple of months ago, when she was in no condition to drive, we brought her home from the club and left her in Mother’s car long enough to sleep it off. Once she sobered up, I took her back down to the club to pick up her car so she could drive herself home.

“The whole episode offended Mother’s tender sensibilities and, like everything else to do with Gemma, it’s stuck in her very random access memory. At the time, she thought I should have brought Gemma into the house and put her to bed properly, in one of the guest rooms. Of course, Mama didn’t bother considering the physical impossibility of my being able to get a sleeping drunk up the stairs and through the house single-handed. That was all my problem, not hers. So periodically, Mama goes off on one of those ‘Gemma’s sleeping’ rants, just like she did last night. When that happens, I try to consider the source and ignore it.”

Having heard what Luis had to say about Gemma’s drinking habits, Ali was tempted to accept Molly’s explanation at face value. Still, something about the supposedly plausible answer jarred. It was a little too smooth, too pat-as though it had been rehearsed or delivered before, verbatim.

“What about your mother’s missing necklace?” Ali asked.

That one caught Molly off guard. Her cheeks paled. “What missing necklace?” she asked.

“You know,” Ali said with a careless shrug. “The one Gemma offered to come help find.”

There was a momentary silence. Gradually, color seeped back into Molly’s face. Ali knew something important had just happened, though she wasn’t sure what.

Shaking her head, Molly regrouped. “Oh, that,” she said offhandedly. “Same thing. As I said before, Mother gets confused from time to time. She had told Gemma that morning on the phone that she had lost her favorite necklace, one Daddy gave her for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Turns out Mama had it put away in an old jewelry box instead of the one she usually uses, so the necklace was never lost in the first place.”

“Where is she, by the way?” Ali asked.

“Mama? I asked her to stay out of the way while we were packing. She’s probably in her room, mooning over that damned photo album from Gemma and Chip’s wedding. She barely lets it out of her sight. Drags it with her everywhere she goes. It drives me nuts.”

The night before, when Ali had seen Doris cradling the wedding album, she had assumed Doris was reliving her own or her daughter’s wedding. Apparently, that assumption had been wrong.

“Your mother’s unrelenting focus on Gemma must be overwhelming at times.”

“You think?” Molly asked with more than a trace of rancor. “Yes, in the wedding sweepstakes, I always come in second best. Actually, I’m so far behind the field that no one even knows I’m there. It’s especially helpful that my mother’s condition makes it possible for her to forget everything about everyone else, but she doesn’t forget a single thing about Gemma. That’s still all there, every bit of it, and Mama never hesitates to rub it in.”

Ali’s iPad dinged, letting her know there was an arriving message, but she had no time to look at it. Somewhere in the back of the house, a door slammed shut, and heavy footsteps came rushing toward the living room. A heavyset man with a fleshy face and coal-black slicked-back hair appeared in the doorway between the dining room and living room.

“If you’re here,” he demanded, “where’s the Jag?”

“What do you mean, where’s the Jag?” Molly returned. “It’s in the garage, where it’s supposed to be.”

“No, it’s not. It was there a few minutes ago, and you were in the shower when I took the Mercedes down to fill up with gas. Now it’s gone.”

Molly looked at him, then wordlessly, she got up and left the room. Moments later, she was back. Once again her face had gone ashen. “She’s gone,” she said.

“Did you give her the medicine?”

Molly nodded.

“Are you sure she took it?”

“It’s gone.”

“Did you up the dose?”

“I gave her the usual amount.”

“Crap,” the man muttered. “How could you be so dumb? I’ve been trying to tell you all along that she might end up developing a tolerance for the stuff. But did you listen? Of course not.”

“I’m sorry,” Molly murmured.

“And today of all days!” he continued to rage. “We’re on a very tight schedule here. We’ve got a plane to catch. Losing track of your mother right now is the last thing we need!”

“I’m sorry,” Molly said again.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” he said, ignoring the apology. “How the hell did this happen?”

“I don’t know. When I got out of the shower, I noticed that the dead-bolt key was missing from the entryway table. As far as I knew, Mama was in her room. I thought maybe you had taken the key.”

“What makes you think I’d use the front door to get to the garage?” the man said. “Do I look stupid? We’ve got to find her. Where do you think she went?”

“I don’t know. The last thing we talked about was going to Palm Springs.”

“Would she try driving there on her own? How could she? Does she have keys to the Jaguar? Where are those?”

“In my purse?”

“Are you sure?”

With Molly and the stranger embroiled in their heated argument, and with Molly searching her purse for keys, Ali stole a moment to tap her iPad over to the message page, where she was startled to see two photos-mug shots-of the very man who was standing in the doorway.

The message from Stuart was short and to the point: “Barry Handraker is VERY bad news. Armed and dangerous. If he’s involved in any way, get the hell out. Now!”

Unfortunately, the warning had arrived a few seconds too late, and getting out wasn’t an option. Ali sent the message away so no one else would be able to see it.

“What the hell are we going to do now?”

“I have no idea,” Molly said, crossing the room. She sat down hard on the sofa and buried her face in her hands. “There’s no telling where she’s gone. She might have gone down to the club. That would be my first guess. Do you want me to call and check?”

It seemed possible to Ali that both Molly and her husband, locked in their furious blame game, had forgotten her presence in the room. Cautiously, she leaned over, slipped the iPad into her purse, and pulled out her iPhone, intent on dialing 911. Before she could slide the phone to the on position, however, Barry crossed the room in two gigantic strides and knocked the device out of her hands. The phone sailed across the room, whacked into a wall, and then tumbled to the floor.

“Who the hell is this broad?” he demanded, grasping Ali’s wrist and holding it in a numbing grip that twisted her arm and half lifted her out of the chair. “What’s she doing here? Is she a cop?”

“She’s a writer,” Molly answered. “She told me she’s working on a piece about Gemma.”

“Like hell she is. I’m betting she’s undercover and that she’s really after me. Check her purse. If she’s a cop of some kind, there’ll be ID.”

“I’m not a cop-” Ali began.

“Shut up!”

Molly dutifully retrieved the purse and emptied it onto the coffee table. The Taser came out first and landed with a hard thump. Next came the wallet and the iPad, followed by a compact, several tubes of lipstick, a random collection of pens, and some loose change.

Barry recognized the Taser at once. “That’s a civilian Taser, not a law enforcement one, but I don’t know many writers walking around armed with Tasers, do you?” He turned his full attention on Ali, giving her a hard shake. “Who are you working for?” When she didn’t answer, he looked at Molly, who was still thumbing through Ali’s wallet. “How much does she know?”

Molly stopped and chewed her lower lip before she answered, as though reluctant to do so. It occurred to Ali that Molly was also scared of Barry Handraker. What was it Stuart had said about him in that last text message? “VERY bad news.”

“She knows about Mother’s necklace,” Molly whispered.

“The one Gemma went off about?” Barry asked.

Molly nodded. Ali wasn’t sure what she supposedly knew about the necklace that maybe was or wasn’t missing, but whatever it was, Barry Handraker didn’t like it. The viselike hold on her wrist tightened. He leaned down and snarled directly in Ali’s ear, his breath hot on her cheek. “Tell me who you’re working for. Are you some kind of bounty hunter? Or did some of my former pals and business associates send you looking for me?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ali told him. “None.”

“Okay,” he said to Molly, straightening up. “That settles it. We need to get out of here now. With your mother on the loose, we can’t afford to hang around any longer.”

“What are we going to do, leave her here?” Molly gestured to Ali.

“No, she’s going with us,” he said. “One way or another, she’s going to tell me who she’s working for. Then we’ll get rid of her. Bring me the DB.”

“What’s DB?” Ali asked as Molly hurried out of the room.

“You ever heard of devil’s breath?”

Ali shook her head. “Never.”

“You will.”

Ali’s mind was reeling. When Barry Handraker said “get rid of,” she knew exactly what he meant-that she was dead meat. When she had come here alone with her few unanswered questions, it hadn’t occurred to her that she was walking into any kind of serious danger. As she’d rung the doorbell and stepped into the entryway, she hadn’t even begun to formulate the idea that Molly might have been involved in Gemma’s murder. Obviously, she was, and Ali had blundered into a potentially deadly situation.

Where could she look for backup? Stuart Ramey, her virtual partner, was the only person on earth who had any idea where she was. Unfortunately, he was completely out of reach. Her phone was lying probably broken on the far side of the room. Her Taser and iPad lay in a jumble on the coffee table, inches away but totally out of reach. Her Glock, however, was in the holster at the small of her back. There was a chance she might be able to get it out. No one here knew she had a second weapon. The problem with that, of course, was that she was right-handed, and that was the hand still trapped in Barry Handraker’s murderous grip.

Molly returned from the kitchen. In one hand, she carried a saucer with a tablespoon of white powder on it. In her other hand, she held a single straw.

“She’s not your mother. You don’t need that much,” Barry said when Molly set the saucer on the table. “About half should do it. Otherwise, she’ll be out all night.”

There was an empty ashtray on an end table. Molly dumped half the powder into that and then turned back to Ali.

“Be careful not to breathe it in when you do this,” Barry warned Molly. “I’ll stay with her until she goes under. You get the luggage loaded. We need a diversion that will give us a chance to get out of Dodge, and I’ve got just the ticket.”

Ali stared as the white powder-laden saucer came nearer. With a shock, she realized that whatever they were about to give her was the same thing Molly must have been routinely administering to Doris Ralston.

“Please let me go,” Ali said, struggling. “Please.”

“Shut the hell up,” Barry snarled, twisting Ali’s arm even more painfully behind her.

Whatever poison was coming, Ali understood they expected her to inhale it, so she did the only thing she could think of to do. Waiting until Molly was two steps away, Ali took a deep breath, quietly pulling air deep into her chest and holding it as long as she could. That was when Barry let go of her wrist long enough to punch her in the gut, pounding the air out of her lungs. She was bent over gasping for breath when Molly leaned down and blew the powder out of the saucer and into the air.

Coughing and choking, Ali was conscious of a bitter taste in her mouth as whatever was in the air crossed her tongue. She attempted to get to her feet, but by then Barry had her wrist imprisoned again, and he forced her back into the chair.

She was still coughing as the blackness settled over her. After that, she knew nothing.