Cruel Intent

by J. A. Jance

  CRUEL INTENT

  J. A. JANCE

  TOUCHSTONE

  For Bill, in memory of B. Jo.

  { PROLOGUE }

  Sipping a cup of freshly brewed Colombian blend, Peter Winter sat on the couch in his spacious family room, inserted the DVD into his computer, and then waited for the slide show to appear on his fifty-two-inch flat-screen TV. He kept the “before” photos in a group by themselves, and he flicked through those first. The befores showed five slender blondes, each smiling sweetly into the camera—into his camera. Rita Winter, Candace Miller, Melanie Tyler, Debra Longworth, and Morgan Forester. The five of them looked enough alike that they could have been sisters. Their faces were remarkably similar, with wide-set blue eyes, delicate features, and flawless complexions. They all had straight white teeth and carbon-copy smiles—superior smiles, knowing smiles, cheating smiles.

  In addition to their beauty-pageant good looks, that was another thing the five women had in common—they were all cheaters. Second, all of them were greedy, always wanting more—always requiring more—than they had been given. Finally, of course, there was the dead part. That showed up in the “afters”—in those, the women weren’t alike at all, except that they were dead and looked it; well, four of them did anyway. The first photo was a grainy copy of a news photo with the body already covered by a tarp. Peter had missed the opportunity to take his own portrait, but since then he had corrected that oversight.

  The photos showed Peter’s handiwork in brutal detail. The women, all of them naked and bloodied, lay either where they had fallen or where he had placed them. Posed them, as the profilers liked to say. Most people would have been repulsed by the photos. He found them exciting. Invigorating. Especially when he had reached this point—the time when he was about to add one more to his collection.

  He hadn’t expected it would come to this with Morgan. He had figured he’d use her and lose her. That was the way he liked to operate, and it was a philosophy that had worked fairly well over the years, with a few notable exceptions. But some dumb blondes were smarter than they looked. It had come as a rude awakening when that pretty little piece of tail had turned on him and tried tracking him down at work. That had been the end of it. Or at least it had signaled the end of it. It had taken him some time—weeks, in fact—to get all the pieces in place, but today was the day. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

  Whistling that familiar Sunday-school tune, he switched off the DVD player and the TV set, removed the DVD, and stashed it in the safe in the back of his closet. At the same time, he removed his precious good-luck charm—the heart-shaped Tiffany key chain Carol had given him. It was loaded now with something far more powerful than keys, and on days like this—days when he was primed for action—he wanted the key ring with him. As long as he had that talisman in his pocket, he felt safe.

  After pouring a second cup of coffee, Peter set about gathering and packing his equipment. He didn’t need to carry much. He brought along a fully loaded syringe, a set of scrubs, a pair of surgical gloves, and a pair of paper surgical booties. Blood spatter on scrubs was easily explained and easily gotten rid of. Surgical booties left no traceable footprints at the crime scene, and when they went into the hospital incinerator, they left behind no traceable forensic evidence, either.

  Gloves were another matter. More than one dumb killer had been taken down when damning fingerprints were found inside gloves worn while committing a crime. But working in a hospital made disposing of surgical gloves pretty much foolproof. As long as they and his used hypodermics went into the proper containers in the proper examination rooms, he could be relatively sure they’d never be seen again—and never examined for incriminating forensic evidence.

  He added a pair of leather driving gloves. Those were a necessity. They were the only way to ensure that he didn’t leave behind a damning fingerprint or two in the rental car. They also kept him from running the risk of being seen driving while wearing surgical gloves; that certainly would have raised eyebrows. With driving gloves, you had to be careful not to drop one at a crime scene. Watching O.J.’s long-ago murder trial had taught Peter all about that. When he needed to unload a pair that had reached the end of the road, he dropped them off in a Goodwill donation box.

  The next thing he loaded into the briefcase was that day’s weapon of choice. In this case, he planned to use an ordinary household hammer, and not one he’d picked up from his neighborhood Ace hardware. Those might very well have some distinguishing markings on them. No, he chose to use one he’d bought at a garage sale in North Phoenix. The woman, a relatively new widow, had been selling her husband’s tools in preparation for moving into an assisted-living facility. Initially, Peter hadn’t wanted the whole lot, but she’d offered the entire kit at such a bargain-basement price that he had taken all of it, rolling tool box included.

  So far he’d used only one of the tools he’d purchased that Sunday afternoon—the hacksaw—on the nosy little bitch in Greeley, Colorado, who had asked way too many questions. Getting rid of her had been an especially gratifying experience, but it had also been very messy. Exceedingly messy, as the after photo clearly showed. He’d had a lot of trouble getting himself cleaned up afterward and had worried about leaving something behind that might be traced back to him.

  He expected that using the hammer would be simpler. If he did it right, there’d be far less blood to deal with, and what there was would be easier to control. Having blood evidence lying around was actually quite helpful. It gave the cops something to focus on, and that was the whole secret to getting away with murder. You had to give the cops plenty of blood evidence and make sure they found it where they expected to find it. And if you could muddy the water enough by having two prime suspects rather than one, that was even better.

  Last but not least, he picked up his digital camera. Before he put it into the briefcase, he replaced the batteries. These shots were important to him. He didn’t want to miss a thing.

  After closing his briefcase he snapped the locks. Stopping by the kitchen sink, he rinsed his coffee cup and put it in the dishwasher. At the front door, he paused long enough to look around. There was nothing out of place, nothing at all, and that was the way he liked it.

  Squaring his shoulders and whistling “A-Hunting We Will Go,” he set out to do just that.

  Matthew Morrison left home that Monday morning a little past five-thirty. Knowing he’d be heading out early on Monday, he had checked a Taurus out of the motor pool late Friday afternoon. By a quarter to six, he was on the 101 and driving south, heading to Red Rock, heading to Susan.

  The last thing he had done before he left the house was turn on Jenny’s coffee. He hoped she wouldn’t notice that the coffee would be a whole hour older than it usually was, but he doubted she’d pay any attention to the clock on the pot. As far as coffee was concerned, the important thing for Jenny was that she didn’t have to make it herself when she finally scrambled out of bed around seven-thirty. When she deigned to appear in the kitchen, she wanted her coffee there and at the ready.

  Matt’s customary departure time of six-thirty meant that his drive to the state government campus in downtown Phoenix usually involved dealing with rush-hour traffic. This morning and this early, there was barely any traffic at all. Anxious and excited, Matt kept reminding himself to slow down. Today of all days, it wouldn’t do for him to get a speeding ticket.

  During the last week, ever since Susan had suggested they should meet at last, Matt had done his best to maintain an even keel. Last night, though, he had almost given the game away when Jenny caught him whistling as he loaded the dishwasher. “What the hell are you so happy about?” she had demanded.

  Eighteen years ago, when they first married, Jenny had been a reasonabl
y good-looking woman. That was no longer true. Her constant negativity had turned the corners of her mouth into a perpetual sneer. Frown lines marred her forehead, but her lack of beauty was much more than skin-deep.

  Matt, who prided himself on keeping a positive mental attitude no matter what, had done what he could to change her. Predictably, that hadn’t worked. Now, it turned out, he was changing himself and doing something for Matt for a change. He was going to get lucky. He had stopped at Walgreens on Sunday afternoon—not his neighborhood store, of course—and bought a package of Trojans. Just in case, he’d also brought along the sample of little blue pills that he’d ordered over the Internet.

  Better to be prepared, he told himself. This might be his one chance, and he didn’t want to mess it up.

  As the after-school bus rattled toward the end of its route on the Verde Valley School Road, only three children remained—the Forester twins, Lindsey and Lacy, and little Tommy Breznik. Tommy, far in the back, was engrossed in a handheld video game and oblivious to everything around him. As she did every day, Lacy sat silent and apart, with her face pressed to the window while her sister, Lindsey, chattered away with Mr. Rojo, the bus driver.

  “Miss Farber said we’ll be taking a field trip down to Phoenix just before Christmas,” Lindsey was saying. “Do you think you’ll be our driver?”

  Conrad Rojo liked kids, but he especially liked Lindsey, a bright child who talked a blue streak. Her sister, on the other hand, never said a word. It was strange to think that the two second-graders who looked so much alike could be so different.

  “That depends,” Conrad Rojo told her. “Somebody else sets up the scheduling.”

  “I hope it’ll be you,” Lindsey said. “Of all the bus drivers, I think you’re the best.”

  Even though there was no traffic visible in either direction, Conrad turned on the flashers as he approached the turnoff to the Foresters’ place. He was surprised not to see Mrs. Forester’s white Hyundai Tucson parked at the end of the half-mile-long drive. For three years—as long as Lindsey and Lacy had attended Big Park Community School in the Village of Oak Creek—Morgan Forester had been waiting for her daughters at the end of the lane when the bus dropped them off. Conrad, who took the safety of his charges very seriously, was reluctant to leave the girls alone.

  “Your mom’s not here yet,” he said.

  “Maybe she’s running late,” Lindsey said brightly. “Maybe she got busy and forgot what time it was.”

  “Tell you what,” Conrad said. “Why don’t you stay on the bus until I drop Tommy off at Rainbow Lane. If your mother’s running late, that’ll give her a few minutes to catch up.”

  He glanced in the girls’ direction. Lindsey clapped her hands in delight. “You mean we can ride all the way to the turnaround? And then we can be on the bus all by ourselves?”

  “Yes,” Conrad said. “Once Tommy gets off, it’ll be just the two of you and nobody else.”

  Lindsey turned to her sister. “Won’t that be fun?”

  Lacy shook her head and said nothing.

  Once again Conrad was struck by how different the two girls were. Last year, on another field trip, he had overheard two of the first-grade teachers talking about them. “Well, Lacy’s certainly not retarded,” Mrs. Dryer, Lacy’s first-grade teacher, had said. “She can do all the work. She just won’t participate in class.”

  Conrad had wondered at that. He didn’t think teachers should be talking about kids being retarded. Weren’t they supposed to use nicer words than that? Besides, the situation with Lindsey and Lacy reminded him of his two sons, Johnny and Miguel. Johnny was two years older, and he had been the one who had done all the talking. There wasn’t any need for Miguel to find his own voice, as long as his older brother was close at hand. Miguel hadn’t actually started speaking on his own until halfway through first grade, when he skipped the baby-talk stage completely and cut loose with fully formed sentences. And he hasn’t shut up since, Conrad thought with a chuckle. It seemed possible that some of Miguel’s teachers used to say the same thing about him. Now, though, his younger son was an honors communications major at the University of Arizona, so go figure.

  Once Conrad had dropped Tommy off, made the turn, and come back to the Foresters’ long driveway, there was still no sign of the Hyundai. Conrad pulled over, stopped the bus, and reached for his cell phone. He wasn’t surprised to find that he didn’t have a signal way out here in the boonies. Putting away the useless phone, he sat and wondered what to do. It was against the rules to take the bus onto a private road, especially since there was a good chance he might run into a spot where it would be impossible to turn around. If there was any kind of problem, he’d be late getting back to school to pick up his next load of kids.

  “It’s okay,” Lindsey said. “You can let us out here. We can walk home. We know the way. It’s not that far.”

  “No,” Lacy said.

  Conrad was surprised to hear Lacy state her opinion. In the three years the girls had been riding his bus, this was the first time she had uttered a single word in his hearing.

  “Come on, Lace,” Lindsey wheedled. “Walking won’t kill us. If you want, I’ll even help carry your stuff.” Lacy Forester came to school every day with a backpack that seemed half as big as she was.

  “Maybe I should take you back to school so the principal can call your mom,” Conrad offered.

  “No,” Lindsey said. “I don’t want to go back there. I’m hungry. I want to go home and have a snack. Come on, Lace. We can do it.”

  For a moment Lacy Forester resumed her stony silence. She seemed close to tears, but finally, faced with her sister’s force-of-nature determination, she sighed, stood, and shouldered her backpack.

  “You’re sure you’ll be all right?” Conrad asked as he opened the door.

  “We’ll be fine,” Lindsey declared. “You’ll see.”

  The two girls clambered out of the bus. Conrad watched them trudge side by side down the dusty red dirt track with the clear November sun at their backs until they disappeared from sight over a slight rise. Then he put the bus in gear and headed back to school. If he didn’t get going right then, he would be late for the last bell.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” he told the other drivers over coffee later that week. “I never should have let them go home alone.”

  CHAPTER 1

  For the hundredth time that day, Ali Reynolds asked herself why she’d ever let her agent, Jacky Jackson, talk her into being a part of MCMR, short for Mid-Century-Modern Renovations, a program aimed at the Home & Garden TV viewer, documenting restoration projects designed to bring back venerable old twentieth-century American houses that otherwise would have fallen victim to the wrecking ball.

  Months earlier Ali had come into possession of one of those precious fixer-uppers when she had purchased Arabella Ashcroft’s crumbling hilltop mansion at the top of Sedona’s Manzanita Hills Road. She had been intrigued when Jacky contacted her about filming the entire project. According to Jacky, MCMR would be the next great thing. Mid-Century-Modern Renovations was due to air on Home & Garden TV sometime in the not too distant future, but there was always a chance it would follow the lead of some of the Food Network’s cooking shows and make the jump over to one of the major networks.

  Jacky had begged and pleaded until Ali finally agreed. At first her contractor had been thrilled at the prospect, and his crew had enjoyed mugging for the two cameramen, Raymond and Robert. Now, though, with construction seriously behind schedule, the workers were becoming surly at having the cameras forever in the way, and so was Ali. It was bad enough when things were going well. But then there were days like today, when Bryan Forester, her general contractor, had gone ballistic after Yvonne Kirkpatrick, the city of Sedona’s queen-bee building inspector, had decreed that the placement of some of Bryan’s electrical outlets in both the bathrooms and the kitchen were out of compliance.

  The cameras had been there filming the entire epic ba
ttle as Bryan and the fiery-haired Yvonne had gone at it nose-to-nose over the issue. Later, they had been missing in action when Yvonne, who had returned to her office to check the rules and regs, had called back with the embarrassing admission that Bryan had been right and she had been wrong. From her days as a television newscaster, Ali Reynolds knew the drill. After all, confrontations make for great TV. Reconciliations don’t. Compared to war, peace is B-O-R-I-N-G. And even though Yvonne had admitted her mistake, she had yet to come back and sign off on the permit. The drywall guys couldn’t start hanging wallboard until she did.

  Ali had hoped to have the place ready for a grand Thanksgiving dinner unveiling for friends and family. Right now her house had no running water or electricity, and the interior walls were nothing but bare studs. This latest delay made a turkey-day gathering in her remodeled home even more unlikely. Disheartened, she had retreated to the wisteria-lined flagstone patio where they had erected a canvas canopy over the worn redwood picnic table that served as a lunchroom for workers and film crew alike. Before Ali could summon a really serious funk, though, Leland Brooks appeared, bearing a silver tray set for tea.

  “Tea?” he asked. “You look as though you could use a cuppa.”

  “Yes, please,” Ali said gratefully, shivering in the late-afternoon chill. “That would be wonderful.”

  Ali had taken on restoring Arabella Ashcroft’s dilapidated home as her personal rehabilitation project, and Brooks, Arabella’s former butler, had made fixing Ali Reynolds his. Months earlier and already dealing with the end of both her newscasting career and the end of her marriage, Ali had abandoned California and returned to her roots in Sedona, Arizona, looking for respite and a little peace and quiet. That hadn’t worked very well. Instead of achieving idyllic serenity, she had been propelled into life-and-death struggles with not one but two murderous nutcases.