Web of Evil

by J. A. Jance

  BLACK WIDOW OF ROBERT LANE RIDES AGAIN

  Alison Reynolds, already a person of interest in the grisly homicide of her estranged network executive husband, Paul Grayson, is now the target of a new police investigation as police look into the mysterious death of the woman who, had she and he both lived, would have become Paul Grayson’s new mother-in-law. Monique Ragsdale, now deceased, was the mother of April Anne Gaddis, Mr. Grayson’s intended bride, whom he was scheduled to marry in a ceremony at his Robert Lane mansion early yesterday afternoon.

  Sources close to the investigation state that the two women may have clashed during a meeting earlier in the day, prior to Ms. Ragsdale’s fatal plunge down the stairway of the house formerly owned by Ms. Reynolds and her husband. Rather than the site of a joyous celebration, the house is now surrounded by crime scene tape as investigators attempt to get to the bottom of what happened.

  Mr. Grayson disappeared from a pre-wedding bachelor party on Thursday night. His bound body was found later near the wreckage of a vehicle that had been left on the train tracks west of Palm Springs.

  At least one anonymous source claimed that because divorce proceedings between Mr. Grayson and Ms. Reynolds were never finalized, she is allegedly her husband’s sole heir, leaving his pregnant fiancée unprovided for. This was supposedly the basis for the alleged confrontation between Ms. Reynolds and Ms. Ragsdale.

  Messy divorce proceedings between Ms. Reynolds and her estranged husband have played out in a very public fashion after she was fired from her position as an evening newscaster by the local affiliate of her husband’s network. For the past six months she has vented her side of the story as an ongoing saga in posts to a feminist-leaning Web blog called cutlooseblog.com.

  In that same six-month period, Ms. Reynolds has been questioned as part of four separate homicide investigations. In two of those she has been exonerated and the cases are considered closed. The other two are still under active investigation, one by the LAPD and the other by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

  In view of Ms. Reynolds’s mounting legal difficulties, her blog has reportedly gone on hiatus.

  Posted 7:55 A.M., LMB

  No, it hasn’t, Ali thought to herself. Cutloose is definitely back.

  Ali scanned back through the post. There were enough journalistic weasel words—“alleged,” “supposed,” “reportedly”—along with the ever-so-useful anonymous sources routine, that the article probably wasn’t actionable. So, no, Velma, I probably can’t sue this guy. As for the signature? LMB. There was no additional information about him available, but Ali had a suspicion that he and the guy who had sent her the poison-pen note earlier, Lance-a-lot, were one and the same.

  She looked back through her discarded mail. Sure enough, his address was still there. She started to send him a terse note about publishing unfounded speculation, then she changed her mind. Instead, Ali deleted her half-written e-mail and permanently deleted his e-mail address as well. If Lance-a-lot wanted attention, he sure as hell wasn’t going to get it from her.

  Ali was disheartened to know, however, that his cutesy pet name for her, Black Widow, was out. Even though the man’s allegations were groundless, she understood that other media outlets would most likely pick up on Lance’s lead and run with it.

  Ali was about to turn off the computer to go shower and dress when another e-mail popped up. Ali recognized the address—Andrea Morales.

  There were only two words in Andrea’s message:

  Jesus Sanchez.

  So she was right, this Andrea was that Andrea—the one from the kitchen tamale-making project. But what was this about someone firing Jesus? It made no sense. It was his TLC that kept the grounds of the Robert Lane mansion in pristine order. Why would anyone fire him? Ali sent off yet another immediate reply.

  Dear Andrea,

  Please believe me that I know nothing about this. Your uncle’s work for us has always been more than satisfactory.

  Below you’ll find my relevant contact information.

  Give me a call at your earliest convenience so we can discuss this and sort it out. Thank you.

  REGARDS,

  ALI REYNOLDS

  Ali slammed shut her computer and started into the bathroom. “What’s going on?” Edie asked.

  “I’m going to shower and get dressed,” Ali said. “Somebody fired the gardener yesterday, and Jesus’s niece thinks it’s my fault.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Edie replied. “You’re as bad as George Bush. It looks like everything is your fault.”

  Yes, Ali thought. Isn’t that the truth.

  A few minutes later, dressed but with a towel wrapped around her wet hair, Ali hurried down the hall to April’s room and knocked on the door. A young woman Ali had never met before opened the door. The room was strewn with a collection of clothing and garment bags. April stood in front of a mirror wearing a full-length navy blue maternity smock complete with wide pleats, a white Peter Pan collar, and matching white cuffs.

  “This is my friend Cindy Durbin,” April explained. “Even though it’s Sunday and she’s supposed to be off work, she brought over some clothes for me to try on. What do you think?” April turned in front of the mirror. “Is this too retro?”

  Ali nodded curtly in Cindy’s direction. The outfit was retro, all right. It looked like it could have stepped right out of Lucille Ball’s 1950s costume closet for the old I Love Lucy shows that were still in perpetual reruns on TV Land.

  “It’s fine,” Ali said.

  April turned from the mirror and studied Ali’s face, which must have betrayed some of her roiling feelings. “What’s wrong?” April asked.

  “Someone fired Jesus Sanchez, the gardener, yesterday,” Ali said. “Did you do it?”

  “No,” April responded. “Mom did. His salary and the cook’s both came out of what Paul kept in petty cash. Other than my credit cards, that’s the only real money I have right now. Mother said I couldn’t afford to keep paying them because I’d run out of money that much sooner. She said she’d take care of getting rid of them for me so I wouldn’t have to do it. Why, did we do something wrong?”

  Yes, you did something wrong, Ali thought, but there didn’t seem much point in discussing it.

  “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll fix it. What’s the cook’s name?”

  “Henrietta, I think,” April said. “Henrietta Jackson.”

  “Where does she live? How long had she worked for you? Do you have a phone number for her?”

  “No. Paul probably had that information, but I don’t. It would be in his office.”

  And that’s locked up behind a wall of crime scene tape, Ali thought. How convenient.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll find her.”

  “Why?” April asked. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to hire them back,” Ali replied. “Or, if nothing else, I’ll at least offer them severance pay.”

  “But who’s going to pay it?” April objected. “I can’t.”

  “Then I guess I will,” Ali said.

  With that, she stalked out of the room and slammed the door shut behind her.

  { CHAPTER 11 }

  With her temper flaring, Ali stormed back into the room she was sharing with her mother, where she was surprised to find Edie seated at the desk in front of Ali’s open laptop. Dave Holman had arrived and taken over the easy chair. He was also finishing up the leavings from their breakfast cart.

  “No breakfast buffet at Motel 6,” he explained, polishing off the last remaining croissant. “Who lit a fire under you?”

  “Monique Ragsdale fired both the cook and the gardener yesterday to keep April from spending some of her precious stash of cash. She sent them packing and blamed it all on me.”

  “So?” Dave said.

  “We’re going to find them and hire them back.”

  “But they can’t go back to the house,” Dave objected. “The place is a crime scene.”
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  “The fact that it’s a crime scene isn’t their fault,” Ali replied. “If nothing else, I can offer them severance pay. Did anyone call?”

  Edie nodded and handed Ali her cell phone. “Andrea Morales,” Edie said. “She wants you to call her back.”

  “The gardener’s niece,” Ali explained as she scrolled through her received calls and punched the appropriate number.

  “Andrea?” Ali asked.

  “Yes.”

  “This is all a terrible misunderstanding. Your uncle never should have been fired in the first place. Is it possible for you to put me in touch with him?”

  “Why?” Andrea asked bluntly.

  “Because I want to offer him severance pay at least and possibly his job back,” Ali answered. “There’s some confusion with my husband’s estate at the moment. The right hand doesn’t necessarily know what the left hand is doing.”

  “The woman who fired him knew perfectly well what she was doing,” Andrea countered. “She told him he should get his stuff together and get the hell out. She said you were the boss now, and that you didn’t want to pay him anymore.”

  “But I will pay him,” Ali insisted. “Can you put me in touch with him?”

  “My uncle’s English isn’t so good,” Andrea said. “He’ll need someone to translate.”

  “Would you?”

  “I guess,” Andrea agreed.

  “So where is he?”

  “Here,” she said. “Well, a few blocks away.”

  “Where’s here?” Ali asked.

  Andrea didn’t answer the question directly. “Let me ask him if he wants to talk to you. I’ll call you back.”

  Ali hung up and turned to face Dave. “Now how do I find Henrietta Jackson?”

  “Who’s she? The cook?” Dave asked.

  Ali nodded.

  “And that’s all the information you have on her—just her name? No address? No phone number?”

  “Paul probably had more information than that, but it would be in his office and—”

  “And the house is a crime scene,” Dave finished for her.

  “Exactly.”

  Dave busied himself with making phone calls, but Ali didn’t listen to what he was doing. She was thinking about Paul Grayson. She had always had her own money, but Paul had handled the bill paying for everything, including the household accounts. She had never realized until today that the help had been paid in cash. Despite the fact that they had been in this country for years, it probably meant that either Jesus or his wife, Clemencia Sanchez, or both of them were illegals, living and working beneath the INS radar.

  For the first time Ali wondered about Elvira Jimenez, Paul’s former cook. Was the same true for her? Was she, too, working without proper papers? And what had happened to her? After years of working in the household, why had she been let go? And what about Henrietta? The woman’s distinctive accent placed her as being from somewhere in the southern United States. She certainly wasn’t an undocumented immigrant, so was she working in an underground economy simply to avoid paying taxes? And if Ali did manage to find Jesus and Henrietta and offer them their jobs back, what kind of liability would she be incurring?

  “Your cook has no driver’s license as far as I can find,” Dave announced a few minutes later. “At least, she doesn’t have a California driver’s license.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I know people who know people,” he said.

  “What about Jesus Sanchez? Could you find him?”

  “I thought his niece was going to put you in touch with him.”

  “What if she doesn’t? What if I need to find him on my own?”

  A moment later, when Ali’s phone rang, her concern about locating Jesus Sanchez proved entirely accurate. “My uncle doesn’t want to see you,” Andrea Morales announced.

  “I just want to talk to him,” Ali began.

  “He doesn’t want to talk to you,” Andrea returned forcefully. “He said no, and that means no.” With that, she hung up.

  Ali was stunned. Because of Jesus’s limited English skills and because Ali spoke only rudimentary Spanish, communications between the two of them had always been minimal at best. As far as Ali knew, however, there had never been any kind of ill will.

  “Andrea Morales,” Dave was saying into his phone as Ali put down hers. “You’ve dozens? Give me the addresses.”

  Minutes later, though, armed with a phone book and the list of addresses, Dave was able to match one specific Andrea Morales with the received call number logged into Ali’s cell phone. “There you are,” he said triumphantly. “Andrea and Miguel Morales, two-twenty-four South Sixth, Pico Gardens.”

  Ali knew from her days on the news desk that Pico Gardens had a reputation for being a center of gang-related activities. It was also known as a haven for newly arrived illegal aliens.

  “Let’s go,” Ali said. She went over to the wall safe, opened it, and removed both her Glock and the small-of-back holster she had purchased to carry it.

  “Go where?” Dave asked. He eyed her weapon uneasily. “And is that really necessary?”

  “In Pico Gardens?” Ali returned. “Yes. If a couple of gringos are going there, being armed is probably the only sensible idea. Andrea told me that Jesus lives somewhere nearby—within a few blocks of where she and her husband live. Jesus drives an old blue van. If it’s parked on the street, I’ll recognize it.”

  “It didn’t sound as though Jesus is eager to talk to you,” Dave pointed out.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ali said. “I want to talk to him.” Ali turned to her mother. “Are you coming along?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Edie said. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll hang around here. I’ll use your computer to surf the Net.”

  The idea of her mother, Edie Larson, “surfing the Net” was still strange to Ali. Amazing even. “Be my guest,” she said.

  “I’ll also look in on April from time to time,” Edie added. “Just to make sure she’s okay.”

  When Dave and Ali left the hotel, they attempted the back door exit that had worked flawlessly for them the day before, but the media folks had wised up. A reporter, one lowly enough to be relegated to hanging around by the reeking kitchen Dumpster, and her equally low-on-the-totem-pole photographer were lying in wait just outside the door.

  “Hey, Ms. Reynolds,” the reporter called, holding her microphone aloft and rushing up to the car. “Is it true you’ve been brought in for questioning in two homicide cases? Do you have any comment?”

  Of course I don’t have a comment, Ali thought. She said nothing as Dave opened the door on his Nissan. It was too bad they hadn’t taken her Cayenne on this trip. Now the media would have information on what had previously been their stealth vehicle.

  The photographer focused his camera on Dave. “Out of my way,” he said with a snarl, but the photographer didn’t take the hint. He was still snapping away as Dave scrambled into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut behind him.

  “What jackasses!” he exclaimed. “Were you ever that bad?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ali said. I hope not, she thought.

  The reporter and photographer were legging it for the front of the building and, presumably, some vehicle, when Dave peeled out of the back driveway and bounced over the edge of the curb into the street.

  “Are they going to catch us?” Ali asked.

  “Not if I can help it,” Dave returned. “Now which way?”

  Without her GPS or a detailed map to rely on, Ali had to think for a moment before she was able to get her bearings and direct him onto the southbound ramp of the 405 and from there onto the 10.

  “How’s your Spanish?” Ali asked as they sped down the freeway.

  “I speak menu Spanish fairly well. Why?”

  “Because Jesus speaks almost no English and I speak almost no Spanish.”

  “Maybe his niece, Andrea Whatever, would translate for us.”

 
; “I doubt that,” Ali said. She picked up her cell phone and scrolled through her phone book until she located the name Duarte.

  During her time as a newscaster in L.A., one of Ali’s PR roles had been serving as the station’s goodwill ambassador to the cancer community. Because of her own tragic history with Dean’s death from cancer, she had been a likely and willing candidate. She had served on boards and walked in Races for the Cure and Relays for Life. But she had also done a lot of hands-on caregiving, work that had nothing to do with public relations and never made it into the news. One such case had been a three-year-old leukemia patient named Alonso Duarte.

  Lonso’s father, Eduardo, had worked at Ali’s television station in the capacity of janitor. His wife, Rosa, had worked as a maid for a series of hotels. Once Lonso was diagnosed, the station had broadcast a series of stories about his battle and about his family’s plight as well. They had helped raise money to fill in the gap between the bills and what medical insurance actually paid. The station’s official involvement had eventually ended, but Ali had remained a part of the family’s support system during Lonso’s many hospitalizations and chemo treatments. The last Ali had heard, the boy had been in remission for four years.

  Eddie Duarte had been working at the station the night Ali had been let go. He, of all people, had been drafted to carry her box of personal possessions out to her car. At the time he had offered to testify on her behalf in any wrongful dismissal suit. Since negotiations on that score were still pending, Eddie’s testimony in the matter had so far been unnecessary. As far as Ali knew he was still on the station’s payroll, but since he was a nighttime janitor, she worried about calling during the morning hours and waking him. But she did it anyway—called him and woke him.

  “Ali,” he said, when he finally realized who she was. “So good to hear from you. How are you? I heard about your husband. I’m so sorry.”

  Sorry for what? Ali wondered. Sorry because Paul’s dead or sorry because he was such a jerk?