Deadly Stakes

by J. A. Jance

  “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 goi
ng 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.”

  15

  Ali left the interview room while Paula was gathering her papers. She was on her way back to the jail entrance when she changed her mind. Pausing at the check-in desk, she asked to speak to the jail commander. Tex Higgins was someone Ali knew, and once the desk clerk handed her the in-house phone, she had no trouble getting through to him.

  “So you’re done with the interview room?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” Ali said. “I’m wondering if Charles Ralston would agree to see me.”

  “You’re working for the other side, aren’t you?” Tex asked. “The girlfriend’s side, I mean. I can’t imagine that his attorney would agree to let you talk to him alone.”

  “I’m not asking his attorney,” Ali said. “I’m asking him.”

  “Wait right there,” Tex said. “I’ll see what he says.”

  Much to her surprise, a few minutes later, a guard came to collect Ali. After she deposited her Taser and Glock in a locker, she was led to a standard jail visitation room, a grimly appointed place where shackled prisoners were led in and seated in separate cubicles with battle-scarred gray Formica countertops and walls. Inmates were separated from their visitors by the same kind of Plexiglas barrier that separated the departmental clerks from the general public. Here, however, all communications were conducted over handheld phone sets.

  The man led to the spot opposite Ali was a long drink of water, probably once a high school basketball star, with graying curly locks that, in a different era, might have been worn in an Anglo approximation of an Afro. He didn’t look like a Chip or a Charles. The long slim fingers that reached for the handset were delicate enough to belong to a piano player. The man looked to be somewhere in his late forties or early fifties, and what might have been a handsome face was puffy and gray with what was most likely a combination of worry and lack of sleep. The countenance he presented to Ali looked almost as defeated as Lynn Martinson’s.

  “You’re the writer working for Lynn’s mother?” he asked.

  Ali nodded. “That means I have no official standing, and you’re under no obligation to speak to me—” she began, but Chip Ralston cut her off.

  “Have you seen Lynn?” he demanded with a distinct catch in his voice. “How is she? Is she all right? I’m so sorry to have dragged her into this mess.”

  Words of what sounded like genuine concern for Lynn weren’t what Ali had expected to be the first thing out of the man’s mouth. His undisguised anguish brought Ali down on the side of not pulling any punches.

  “She’s okay, considering the circumstances,” Ali answered, “but I’m here to ask one question on her behalf: Are you going to take the deal?”

  “The deal to point the finger at Lynn?” Ralston replied. “Absolutely not. Whatever Gemma’s and my marital difficulties may have been, they weren’t Lynn’s fault. She’d have no earthly reason to kill Gemma. None. I just got off the phone with my attorney. I’ve instructed him to cut a different deal. I’ll agree to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter on the condition that he drops all charges against Lynn.”

  “That’s not what the prosecutor proposed originally, and he probably won’t be too happy about that,” Ali said softly. “Your lawyer won’t be, either.”

  “Of course my lawyer won’t be,” Chip Ralston agreed. “He’s my moth
er’s attorney, not mine, and he’s looking to make a fortune because he thinks his fee will be coming out of her checking account. But I’m not going to be responsible for depleting my mother’s economic resources. Truth be known, I’ll probably end up qualifying for a public defender, too, but I’m not going to bother. This is exactly what Gemma wanted. She said she’d ruin me, and she has.”

  “Why?” Ali said.

  “Why what?” Chip asked.

  “Why did Gemma want to ruin you?”

  “Because I was a disappointment to her,” he said. “Because I never measured up to her lofty expectations. She thought she was getting a carbon copy of my dad—a world-renowned surgeon—not a ‘do-gooder’ general practitioner. I made reasonable money but not great money. She wanted the kind of prestige my father had and the kind of lifestyle my mother had, and if she had been just a little more patient, she could have had it regardless of how much money I make. My father died last year. My mother is eighty-eight, and she’s not in the best of health. She’s not going to last forever. I think Gemma got tired of waiting around for my parents to croak so she could grab half of my inheritance. She wanted to get out while she was young enough and attractive enough to find herself another meal ticket—not that she needed one after she took me to the cleaners. Now look where it got her.”

  “Who do you think killed her?” Ali asked.

  “Probably her latest fling, whoever that guy is,” Chip answered. There was no disguising the bitterness in his voice.

  “Did you kill her?” Ali asked suddenly. “Or did you hire someone else to kill her?”

  The phone in Chip Ralston’s hand shook, but his voice was steady. He held Ali’s eyes without blinking. “No,” he said. “I did not.”

  “But you just told me you’re going to plead guilty.”

  “To manslaughter,” he agreed, “but only if I can get the prosecutor to drop all charges against Lynn. She’s the one good thing that has happened to me in a very long time. I’m not going to let Gemma destroy her, too.”