Deadly Stakes

by J. A. Jance

  The broadcast quickly moved on to another story, that of a multicar pileup on I-10 just outside Casa Grande. A.J., staring at the screen, heard nothing about that story or the ones that followed it. The words “person of interest” kept running through his brain. That meant the cops were actually looking for him. He had sent the text for the best of all possible reasons—in hopes of getting help for the poor woman—and now he was part of it. He was involved.

  They wanted to talk to him, but what good would “doing the right thing” do? A.J. had no idea who the woman was. He hadn’t seen the killer. He had seen no other vehicles in the area, and he knew nothing that would help in the investigation. If he came forward, first the cops would learn that he had ditched school to be somewhere he shouldn’t have been. Then they’d want to know why he was at that particular location at that particular time. Answering the question would mean letting the world and his mother know about his father’s letter, as well as the buried-treasure story, which was sounding more stupid by the minute.

  A.J. could imagine cops standing around and staring down at the shovel—at A.J.’s mother’s shovel. It was easy enough to figure out what they’d think—that the person who had attacked the woman had come to the scene of the crime prepared to bury her. Once they examined the shovel, whose fingerprints would be on it? A.J.’s, of course, and maybe his mother’s as well. It was an old shovel, but if they somehow traced it back to him, his fingerprints on that and on the telephone would place him at the scene of the crime. Suddenly, he’d be more than a person of interest—he’d be a prime suspect.

  Panic rose in A.J.’s throat, fear mixed with shame. His mother knew nothing about the letter he had received from his father. He had kept quiet about the earlier meeting, too, the one that had led to the Camry. If he went to the cops and told them about his father’s letter, everything would come out, and his mother would know that he had betrayed her not just once, not just twice, but several times. His mother had always been in A.J.’s corner. She had been the one person in his life he knew he could count on, no matter what, and he had let her down.

  There was a tap on his bedroom door. Startled, A.J. jumped as if he’d been shot. A moment later, Sylvia poked her head into his room.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “You never watch Jay Leno.”

  Jay Leno was already on? When had that happened? A.J. grabbed the remote from his bedside table and switched off the TV. “Sorry, Mom,” he said quickly. “I must have dozed off.”

  “Glad I checked on you, then,” she said. “Good night.”

  That night was not a good night for A. J. Sanders. After tossing and turning for what seemed like hours, he finally fell asleep. Instead of being lost in a waking nightmare, he found himself in the regular kind, with the same dream cycling endlessly through his fitful slumber. In each one, the light went out of those haunting green eyes as they stared emptily back at him. Each time they did, he jarred himself awake only to find his body drenched in sweat. When A.J. staggered out of bed the next morning, he felt as though he’d barely slept at all. He wondered if he’d ever be able to sleep again.

  8

  Ali slept late on Wednesday morning. For the first time in months, she had no schedule to keep. Yes, she was sorry her mother had lost, but she was glad to step off the campaign merry-go-round. B. would be home later in the day, and she was looking forward to a relatively uncomplicated week. Glad to be free to lounge around in her PJs, Ali spent all of Wednesday morning working on Edie’s campaign financial reports. By the time she had paid most of the bills, there was a little over five hundred dollars in debt remaining, including a three-hundred-dollar bill for the sweet rolls from the party.

  When she called her mother to discuss the situation, her father answered the phone. “Don’t worry about that one,” he said when she explained the reason for the call. “Your mother and I were just about to head over there to return their cookie sheets. We’ll pay that one off ourselves while we’re there. What else is there?”

  “We still owe two hundred dollars for the last batch of yard signs.”

  “After that, we’re square?” Bob Larson asked.

  “Those are the only two bills that are outstanding. I paid everything else.”

  “If that’s all, we’re damned lucky,” her father said. “I was afraid it would be a lot worse. Give me the amount of the sign bill, and tell me who’s the vendor. I’ll get that one paid today as well.”

  “I’ll need to have the receipts so I can put them in the report.”

  “You’ll have them either later today or tomorrow at the latest.”

  “I guess Mom was right about you, then,” Ali said.

  “Why?” Bob asked. “What did she say?”

  “That you’ve been a brick, and you still are a brick.”

  “That’s a compliment?”

  Ali knew that the most recent usage of the word “brick”—Hardware Inoperable (thus turning a formerly useful electronics device into a brick)—was completely outside her mother’s vocabulary, and the terminology wasn’t part of her father’s way of thinking, either.

  “Definitely,” Ali told him with a laugh. “Let me know when you have the receipts. I’ll come by and pick them up.”

  By then the enticing aroma of baking bread was summoning Ali to the kitchen, where she knew she would find Leland Brooks, her eightysomething man of all work, in his element and bustling around an upscale kitchen that had been remodeled to his exact specifications.

  When it came to the house on Manzanita Hills Road, Leland was the old-timer, and Ali was the relatively new arrival. He had served with the British Marines during the Korean War and immigrated to the U.S. shortly thereafter. He had gone to work for Anne Marie Ashcroft, the original owner of the house. After Anne Marie’s death, he continued to care for her troubled daughter, Arabella, until her eventual incarceration at a facility for the criminally insane.

  By then, after years of deferred maintenance and willful neglect on Arabella’s part, the house was a shadow of its former self. Even as a derelict, Leland knew that the place had good bones. When a developer threatened to buy it and bulldoze it, Leland had gone to Ali and convinced her to take on the project of buying the place and returning it to its former glory. They had assumed that he would hang around only long enough to see Ali through the renovation process, but by the time the first phase of construction was completed, Leland was perfectly content to stay on in the fifth-wheel mobile home that Ali had set up for him on the far side of the garage. By then he had set his sights on finishing the English garden that Anne Marie had envisioned for the front yard.

  Leland hadn’t participated in the digging and raking—Ali had made sure there were younger bodies to handle the heavy lifting—but he had personally overseen the entire project. Out of deference for his age, Ali encouraged him to hire people to come in and do the routine housecleaning, which was also done to his stringent standards, but there was no way she could boot him out of his kitchen. Cooking was something he loved to do, and they had agreed that he would continue to be in charge of it until he was ready to call it quits and not a moment before.

  “What’s on the menu for tonight?” Ali asked, seeing the mound of chopped vegetables that had accumulated on the island counter next to the stovetop.

  “Beef stew,” Leland answered. “When Mr. Simpson comes home from galavanting all around the world, he does like his comfort food. For that, freshly baked bread and steaming-hot stew are right at the top of the list.”

  That was true. B. Simpson’s travels took him to plenty of exotic places with equally exotic food choices. It was no accident that when he was at home in Sedona, he gravitated to Ali’s house and Leland Brooks’s very capable cooking.

  Ali helped herself to a new cup of coffee.

  “Can I fix you something for lunch?” Leland asked.

  Ali eyed the four loaves of freshly baked bread cooling on the counter. “What about a slice of one of those?” she asked. “Or
is the bread still too warm to cut?”

  “It’s just right,” Leland assured her. Moments later, he handed her a plate with a thick piece of crusty bread. Taking a seat at the kitchen table, Ali slathered butter on the warm bread, then found her eyes drawn to the television over the microwave, where the noontime edition of the local news was just starting.

  “The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department just confirmed that a second body has been found south of Camp Verde, near where another homicide victim was found yesterday. That victim has been identified as a Phoenix-area woman. Her name has not been released while the authorities attempt to contact her next of kin. Reporter Christy Lawler is live on the scene. What can you tell us, Christy? Is there a serial killer stalking motorists driving the I-17 corridor?”

  “So far the Sheriff’s Department has made no mention of a serial killer, although that’s on the minds of people traveling this roadway today,” the reporter answered. “The second victim was found early this morning by investigators doing an extensive crime scene examination of the area. What we know so far is that the second victim is an unidentified male found with no identification.

  “All authorities would say was that the victim died as the result of homicidal violence. Questions asked about the manner of death, and if it was similar to what happened to the previous victim, were met with an official reply of ‘No comment.’ However, authorities are cautioning motorists to beware of giving rides to strangers, and they are asking anyone who has seen anything unusual along this stretch of freeway to please come forward.”

  “Are motorists taking that bit of advice to heart?” the anchor asked.

  “Absolutely,” Christy replied. “Here’s what one mother, Janie Brownward of Phoenix, had to say.”

  The camera panned to the driver’s-side window of a minivan parked in what appeared to be the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. “I’m scared to death,” the woman said, speaking into the proffered microphone. “I drive this road all the time with my three kids, and to think that there might be a murderer lurking in every rest area is terrifying. We need people like this off the streets and off our highways and in prison, where they belong.”

  “What can you tell us about the woman who was found yesterday?” the anchor asked.

  “Nothing more so far,” Christy said. “All I can say right now is that there’s a big Sheriff’s Department response at the scene, and I’ll let you know of any developments as the day moves along.”

  “All right, we’ll look forward to hearing from you again on the five o’clock broadcast.”

  Leland took the remote from the counter and switched off the TV as Ali polished off the last bite of bread. “Delicious,” she said, “and absolutely addictive. Shouldn’t your bread be listed as a controlled substance?”

  “Very kind of you to say so.” He beamed. “It should go nicely with the stew.”

  “That’s assuming there’s still some left by the time dinner rolls around.”

  Leland took the hint and cut off another slice, which he buttered and handed over. “Have you heard anything from Sister Anselm?” he asked. “I hate to think of her out on the highway by herself when things like this are going on.”

  Ali’s good friend Sister Anselm Becker was a Sister of Providence who worked out of St. Bernadette’s, a convent for troubled nuns in nearby Jerome. When she was at home, she served as an in-house counselor for nuns dealing with any number of thorny issues from substance abuse to post-traumatic stress. She also spent a lot of time on the road, traveling from hospital to hospital, functioning as a special emissary from Bishop Francis Gillespie of the Phoenix archdiocese and as a patient advocate for people who had no one else to speak on their behalf.

  “I’ll give her a call and check,” Ali said. “As far as I know, she’s expected to be at the convent all week, but that could have changed.”

  “I know she’s perfectly capable of looking after herself,” Leland said, “but I worry about her all the same.”

  “That makes two of us,” Ali agreed.

  “Before you make that call, if you have time, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you,” Leland said. “It came up a few days ago, but you were so preoccupied with the election that I didn’t want to bother you with it.”

  A frisson of concern passed through Ali’s body. She knew exactly how old Leland Brooks was, and she worried that what was coming was some kind of announcement about a burgeoning health issue. She had known instinctively that forcing him to forsake his kitchen would be the end of him, but she also knew that the end would still have to come eventually.

  “Of course,” Ali said worriedly. “This sounds serious.”

  Wordlessly, Leland plucked an envelope out of his pocket and handed it over. The stamps, the return address, and the London postmark revealed that the letter had been sent from the UK. “It’s from my grand-nephew,” Leland explained. “My late brother’s grandson. He’s evidently developed an interest in genealogy and has seen fit to contact the black sheep of the family.”

  The words were spoken in an offhand way that belied the hurt behind them. Ali knew that after returning from Korea, rather than being welcomed as the hero he was, Leland had been shunned by his own family and sent packing. Compared to now, the early to mid-fifties had been the dark ages in terms of acceptance of gays in society. Fortunately for Leland, Anne Marie Ashcroft had reached out to him from across the ocean, offering him a job and agreeing to be his sponsor. Over the years, Leland had repaid Anne Marie’s confidence in him many times over, and Ali Reynolds was reaping the benefit of his undying loyalty.

  “It’s all right,” he said, nodding toward the letter. “Go ahead and read it.”

  Dear Uncle Leland,

  I trust you won’t think it too presumptuous of me to address you by that name, but that is indeed who you are, my great-uncle, being the younger brother of my late grandfather Langston. Having recently been bitten by the genealogy bug, I was doing a bit of family research with the help of my great-grandmother’s letters which, upon her death, had been donated to the historical society in Cheltenham.

  It was with these that I found letters from you to her, written presumably while you were serving overseas during the Korean War and after you emigrated to the U.S. Up to that moment, I had been under the impression that my late grandfather had but one brother, Leo, sadly, also deceased. It was only when I saw the signature on those letters—“Your loving son, Leland”—that I realized there had been a third brother, one whose existence, as far as I can remember, was never mentioned in family conversations.

  Details of that time are notably lacking since, as I mentioned before, both my grandfather and Leo are now deceased. I’m forced to conclude that a family difficulty of some kind led to a serious falling-out that has lasted from that time to this. It is in the hope of overcoming whatever was the source of that old enmity that I write to you today.

  Through veterans’ organizations, I was able to learn of your honorable service in the Royal Marines during the Korean War. They were able to lead me to this address, the one to which I’m sending this missive. At the time of my writing, I have no idea if indeed you are still there; nor do I know if, upon reading this, you would be willing to consider reestablishing any old family ties.

  I am currently in the process of organizing a family reunion that is scheduled to take place in either Stow-on-the-Wold or Cheltenham in May of next year. I am hoping I can persuade you to consider attending.

  Should you decide to come, you would unfortunately be the last member of that generation to be in attendance.

  Again, whatever quarrel might have been between you and your two brothers must have been a serious one, but I’m hoping you’ll be willing to set that aside and join us. It would be an honor to welcome you back into our fold.

  Sincerely,

  Jeffrey Alan Brooks, Esquire

  Ali carefully refolded the letter, returned it to the envelope, and passed it back to Leland. “W
hat are you going to do?” she asked.

  Leland shrugged and eased his spare frame down onto a kitchen chair. “When I left there, I vowed I’d never go back,” he said. “That’s what I said, and that’s what I meant.”

  “Things have changed for the better since then,” Ali said. “The letter sounds welcoming, as though they really want you to come.”

  “All during the war, I was very circumspect in what I wrote to my mother. I doubt she had any idea of the real cause of the feud between my older brothers and me. It seems likely now that Leo and Langston died without telling anyone,” Leland replied. “Jeffrey has no idea what happened—about them telling me there was no place in the family for someone like me. For all I know, he may share their opinion.”

  “Then again, he may not,” Ali interjected. “And the truth is, how you’ve lived your life between then and now is none of the family’s business.” She paused and then added, “I hope you’ll consider going.”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” Leland said grudgingly, returning the letter to his pocket. “I wouldn’t have told you about it otherwise. The problem is, if I were to go larking off across the pond, who would look after you?”

  “I’m sure I could manage,” Ali said. She wanted to say that she wasn’t exactly helpless, but she also didn’t want to denigrate Leland’s steadfast service in any way. “There’s plenty of time. Maybe we could look around and find a temporary replacement.”

  “Perhaps,” Leland said. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  Ali spent the afternoon getting ready to welcome B. home. She ducked into the nearest of Priscilla Holman’s nail salons for a much needed mani-pedi, then settled into a chair in front of the library fireplace, where she returned to the world of Charles Dickens. Losing herself in the intricacies of the French Revolution was a way to put aside the present for the time being, as well as keeping her from watching the clock.