Cruel Intent

by J. A. Jance

  “Why are you still here?” Ali asked.

  “Because I’m cleaning,” he said simply. “As I told you, I came to get an idea about the kitchen situation—about cooking and serving equipment as well as dishes. Those all appear to be quite adequate. As for the rest of it, your quarters wouldn’t pass even the most rudimentary inspection. If you expect to have your home ready to receive guests by Thanksgiving, I’m going to need to spend some time here, whipping it into shape. Vacuuming will do for today, but what this carpet really needs is a thorough shampooing. I’ve reserved a shampooer for first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Ali felt a pang of guilt. She and Chris were reasonably neat and conscientious about putting things away, but neither one of them excelled at the kind of deep cleaning required to measure up to Leland Brooks’s fastidious standards. That was one of the drawbacks about living with a professionally trained butler. He called the shots in the nicest way imaginable, but he still called the shots.

  “How are things at the construction site?” he asked, carefully wrapping up the power cord and attaching it to the vacuum’s stem. Ali tended to shove the vacuum cleaner into the broom closet and toss the cord in after.

  “When I left,” Ali said, “my understanding was that once the wallboarders finished work today, our job would be shut down until Mr. Forester gives the word.”

  “That’s probably just as well,” Leland said. “It also means that it won’t be a problem if I’m working over here for the next little while, giving the place some spit and polish.”

  “About that,” Ali began. “It seems to me that Chris and I should be responsible for cleaning up our own mess.”

  “Madam,” Leland said, “for the past several months, while I’ve been stuck at the construction site, you’ve barely tapped my potential. I’ve been quite frustrated. Bored, really, almost to the point of giving notice. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that, so let me tackle the work here and get it done. It will give me a chance to show you what I can do—what I’m capable of.”

  “What about the part where you offered to clean Billy Barnes’s clock?” Ali asked with a smile. “Was that part of showing me what you can do?”

  “Boasting for its own sake is in very bad taste,” Leland said. “But I was trained by the Royal Marines, and I still know the moves. Over the years, I’ve had to use them more than once.”

  “The next time Jacky shows up, I might let you use some of those moves on him.”

  “You think he’ll be back?” Leland asked.

  “Of course he’ll be back,” Ali answered. She handed him Marissa Dvorak’s file folder. “By the way, I talked to Marissa Dvorak and made up my mind. She’s this year’s recipient.”

  “That stands to reason, since Miss Marsh turned it down,” Leland replied. “Would you like me to prepare a press release to that effect?”

  “Yes, please,” Ali said. “I told her you would.”

  Leland nodded. “Very well.” He looked around the room. “I got a start on things today, but since I’m going to be shampooing the carpet tomorrow, I hope you won’t mind if I leave the furniture where it is.”

  Ali knew Leland Brooks was more than capable of pushing the leather couch around, but there was no need for him to do so twice. “Of course not,” she said. “This is fine.”

  “You can expect me here bright and early,” he said. “You may want to be out and about. As for your Cayenne, if you’ll pardon my saying, that could also use a good detailing.”

  “Trying to keep me in line must be a real trial for you,” Ali said.

  “On the contrary, madam,” Leland said with a fond smile. “Occasionally, I find it quite stimulating.”

  CHAPTER 9

  As soon as Chris knew Leland Brooks had left, he ventured upstairs. “Is the cleaning Nazi gone?” he asked. “He was here working up a storm when I got home from school. What was that all about?”

  “Thanksgiving,” Ali told him. “With everything that’s going on with the contractor, we came to the conclusion that there’s no chance of having dinner at the new house. Leland came over here to see about whipping this one into shape.”

  “You’re not going to let him clean my studio, are you?”

  “He will unless you stop him,” Ali said with a laugh. “Since he seems to be a force of nature, I’m not sure that’s possible.”

  Chris took a soda from the fridge and hustled back downstairs. Ali was in the bedroom changing into her comfy sweats when her phone rang. Caller ID told her the number was restricted.

  “Ms. Reynolds?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s B.”

  The B. in question happened to belong to Bartholomew Quentin Simpson. Named after his maternal grandfather, Bart Simpson had been ten years old when the other Bart Simpson first appeared on local TV screens, thereby consigning Sedona’s Bart Simpson to a peculiar form of childhood hell. Subjected to unending teasing, he stopped answering to any name but his first initial, since using both of them, B.Q., didn’t work for him, either. The one initialed B. had retreated into the solitary solace that computers had to offer. By seventh grade, he had taken apart his father’s old Commodore 64 computer and put it back together.

  By eighth grade, B. Simpson had taught himself to write computer code. To his parents’ dismay, he had dropped out of high school his junior year after selling his first video game to Nintendo. He had gone to work for them long enough and well enough that he’d been able to “retire” at age twenty-eight. He had returned to the Sedona area, where, although he had never played golf, he bought himself a golf-course-view home. Rather than hitting the links, he had started his own computer security firm called High Noon Enterprises. His company motto was “It takes a hacker to catch a hacker.”

  Now that B. Simpson was back in town, he easily could have been one of Sedona’s most eligible bachelors, except no one really knew he was there. He lived alone and worked odd hours, usually coming into the Sugarloaf for breakfast just as Edie and Bob Larson were closing down for the day. It was Bob who had brought B. Simpson’s painful childhood history and the existence of High Noon Enterprises to Ali’s attention.

  “The way I understand it, he’s sort of like an Internet version of an old-fashioned gunslinger,” Bob Larson had told his daughter. “As much time as you spend online, you should probably have someone like him in your corner. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone shipped you one of those awful viruses. Or worms.”

  In the end, Ali had signed up with B.’s High Noon Enterprises more to shut her father up than because she was worried about being hacked. In the three months since she’d been a paying customer, it had seemed like a needless expense. As far as she could see, preventing cyber crime seemed about as exciting as watching grass grow.

  “Good to hear from you,” Ali said now to B. “What’s up?”

  “You won’t think it’s good to hear from me when you find out what I have to say,” B. warned her. “You’ve got yourself a Trojan.”

  “Excuse me?” Ali asked.

  “A Trojan horse,” B. replied. “In your computer. Twice each day I run a monitoring check on all the computers I have under contract. Today your noontime analysis came up positive.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that as long as your computer is connected to the Internet, someone else can see everything you do there. He can take over control of your computer. He can gain access to your files and change them. He can also send mail that’s ostensibly from you, even though it isn’t. You don’t use a multiple-computer network, do you?”

  “No,” Ali said. “I’m usually on my air card.”

  “That’s good,” B. said. “If there are other computers operating on the same network, the bad guy can gain access to those as well. If he’s inside your computer, he’s also inside your network.”

  Suddenly, cyber crime sounded a lot more ominous. Ali was surprised to find herself feeling spooked and vulnerable. Knowing that a crook could operate
inside her computer made her feel like someone had broken into her house and penetrated her personal safety zone.

  “What should I do, then?” she asked. “Turn off the computer? Unplug the damn thing and shut it down?”

  “No,” B. said. “If you do that, it might tip him off that we’re on to him. I want you to leave the computer on. Try to use it more or less the way you usually do.”

  “Why?”

  “Computers that are connected to the Internet are two-way streets,” B. explained. “Whoever sent you the Trojan did it over the Internet. I’m going to try to return the favor and send one right back to him. While he’s monitoring your every keystroke, I’ll be monitoring his keystrokes. If he makes a move, I should be able to begin tracking him down.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ali said. “If he has that kind of total access to my computer, shouldn’t I cancel my credit cards and shut down my online banking? Should I report this to the police?”

  “It’s my experience that banks are a whole lot more interested in identity theft than cops are. If there’s a murder or even an armed robbery, the cops are all over it. With identity theft, they’re not until and unless we can prove that a crime has actually been committed. They’ll get on the bandwagon once we’ve accumulated enough evidence that it’s easy for them to make a case without having to expend much effort. Right now the best thing that could happen is that the guy will try to rip you off. In order to catch him at it, you’ll need to monitor your credit-card and bank transactions very carefully. Be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary, but don’t use your computer to do it.”

  “If I’m not supposed to use my computer,” Ali objected, “how am I supposed to go about monitoring anything?”

  “I have a couple of spare laptops lying around,” B. said. “I’ll be glad to lend you one of mine to use for the time being. If you don’t mind, I can drop off a loaner for you a little later this evening. You can insert your air card and use that for anything you don’t want exposed to prying eyes.”

  “You’ll drop it off,” Ali murmured. “Does that mean you know where I live?”

  “Yup,” B. replied, “I’m afraid I do. It was right there in your computer files, plain as day. And I’m not the only one who would know that, either. If I found it out, our sneaky little friend can find it out, too.”

  “Great,” Ali said. “See you when you get here. The sooner the better.”

  Ali had been planning on taking a look at Bryan Forester’s two thumb drives. Heeding her computer security expert’s warning, however, she left them in her purse. Under normal circumstances, she might have picked up her computer and checked her e-mail account. But now, self-conscious in the knowledge that her every keystroke might be under observation, she left the computer where it was and went into the bedroom to change into sweats.

  Late in the afternoon, Matt managed to get his brain focused on work. When his phone rang, he answered it before the second ring. Yes, he was a bureaucrat—and a lowly one—but that was also why Matt always answered his phone so promptly. He regarded himself as a public servant, and he didn’t like to keep the public waiting.

  So when he answered, Matt thought it would be someone calling about one of his many accounts. The last thing he expected was a phone call from a detective—a homicide detective!

  “My name’s Dave Holman,” the man on the phone announced. “Detective Dave Holman, with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. Is this Matthew Morrison?”

  Matt’s first thought was that it had to be some kind of joke. Bill Baxter was one of Matt’s former coworkers at the state auditor’s office. Before transferring over to the Department of Weights and Measures, Bill had established himself as a practical joker of the first water. This sounded like the kind of off-the-wall stunt Bill would pull.

  “Bill?” Matt asked uncertainly. “Bill Baxter, is this you?”

  “No,” the caller replied. “It’s not Bill Baxter. As I said a moment ago, my name is Dave Holman.”

  “Sorry,” Matt said. “My mistake. You sound a lot like another guy I know, a friend of mine.” He glanced guiltily around his cubicle to see if anyone was listening. Bobbie Bacon, his nearest neighbor, was talking on her phone. No one else seemed to be paying the slightest bit of attention. “What can I do for you—Did you say Holman?”

  “Yes. Dave Holman. I’m a homicide detective.”

  “What’s this all about?” Matt asked. Why on earth is a homicide detective calling me? he wondered.

  “I’m working on a case that happened up here in our jurisdiction,” Holman explained. “On Monday morning of this week, a woman named Morgan Forester was bludgeoned to death shortly after her children left for school.”

  “Where was this again?” Matt asked.

  “Up by Sedona,” Holman answered. “Outside the Village of Oak Creek.”

  As soon as the detective said “Monday morning,” Matt felt his heartbeat quicken, and he went into a state of near-panic. He knew he had a problem. Matt hadn’t been anywhere near where he was supposed to be that morning, not even close. In the solitude of his cubicle, he felt his ears turn red. Beads of sweat popped out on what his wife liked to call his “very tall forehead.”

  “What does any of this have to do with me?” Matt asked. He did his best to keep his tone conversational and even. It would not do to sound upset or panicked. That was critical.

  “The car you were driving was reportedly seen in the area shortly before the crime occurred,” Detective Holman continued. “I was wondering if I could stop by your office and visit with you about that. We’re hoping that perhaps you may have unwittingly witnessed something that could help us in solving our case.”

  Matt was utterly mystified. “Wait a minute,” he said. “What car? You say this happened somewhere around Sedona? I wasn’t anywhere near there on Monday morning. What makes you think I was?”

  Now it was Detective Holman’s turn to be mystified. “You weren’t?” he asked. “Where were you, then?”

  The easy thing for Matt to say was that he had been at work, but that wasn’t true. There was a whole floor of people in his office who would be more than happy to blow a hole in that whopper. Who was this dead woman? And why was the homicide cop calling him? Was he under suspicion somehow? Did he need to have an alibi? The waitress at the truck stop might remember him—he’d left her a nice tip—but if he admitted to having been there, he’d also have to admit why.

  Matt’s ears burned anew. The cop was saying something, but Matt hadn’t been paying attention to anything except the damning sound of his own breath coming in short, anxious gasps. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Bad connection. I didn’t get that last part.”

  “According to the people at Hertz, you rented a vehicle from their Sky Harbor facility early that morning and brought it back later in the afternoon.”

  “Why would I need to rent a car?” Matt asked. His insides lurched. The car! That was another problem. Using his fictional early appointment in Tucson as an excuse, he had checked out a motor-pool vehicle on Friday night. He had driven home in it and kept it over the weekend. It was also the vehicle he had driven to his appointment with Susan at the model home in Red Rock. How many traffic cameras along the way might have picked up on that?

  He took a deep breath. Obviously, this wasn’t a joke. The cop was real. Someone was dead, murdered, and the cops believed that Matt was involved. Then his heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t heard from Susan since then—not since the day she had stood him up—though he had written to her time and again, told her he understood completely if she’d had second thoughts. What if Susan Callison was the person who had been murdered? What if that was why she had stood him up and why she hadn’t been back online?

  “It was rented under your Hertz gold-card number,” Holman told him.

  “I’m sorry,” Matt declared. “There must be some mistake. I don’t have a Hertz gold card.”

  How would he? Why would he? He never went anywhere that
he didn’t drive himself. Jenny didn’t like flying, which meant they didn’t fly.

  “I see,” the detective said.

  And Matt was afraid that he did—that Holman saw everything. So Matt didn’t demand to know who was dead. That would have counted as making a fuss. And he didn’t say again that he hadn’t been in Sedona, couldn’t possibly have been in Sedona, because he was a third of the state away from there, hoping to get lucky. He just kept quiet.

  “So could I come talk to you about this in the morning?” Dave Holman asked. “I could probably be at your office by ten or so, if that would be all right.”

  “Of course,” Matt said. “Ten is fine. You know where we are? We’re here in Phoenix, on the capital campus downtown.”

  “I’m a detective,” Dave said with a laugh. “I’m sure I can find it.”

  Matt wondered if that comment had been intended as a joke, but his first thought was that it sounded more like a threat, and maybe it was.

  For a long time after Matt put down the phone, he sat there and considered his options. He could go home and spill the beans to Jenny. He could tell her the whole story, throw himself on her mercy, and hope she would forgive him. Or not.

  Around him, other people in the department started leaving the office. A glance at the clock told him that Jenny was still at work. Even if she heard her phone ringing, she wouldn’t be able to answer it on the floor. Glad to avoid having to speak to her directly, Matt dialed her number and left a message.

  “Something’s come up at work,” he said. “It’s a project that has to be finished in time for a meeting first thing tomorrow morning. So you’re on your own for dinner. Sorry about that. And don’t bother waiting up for me,” he added. “I’ll probably be very late.”

  When Ali returned to the living room, Chris reappeared long enough to say he was leaving. Like his grandfather, Chris had warned her of the dangers of computer worms and viruses. Right that moment didn’t seem like the time to tell him that her computer might have been compromised by an identity thief.