Cruel Intent

by J. A. Jance

  “Of course,” she said, closing the computer and setting the Mac down on the banquette next to her. “Have a seat.”

  Dave slid into the booth opposite her. “I stopped by your place earlier, looking for you,” he said. “Mr. Brooks told me I could probably find you here.”

  “You stopped by before seven A.M.?” Ali demanded.

  “Before eight,” Dave corrected. “But I need to talk to you, Ali.” His serious expression worried her.

  “What about?” Ali asked.

  “I know that when it comes to the Forester situation, the two of us are on opposite sides of the fence,” he said. “I hope you’ll consider this more of a courtesy call than anything else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look,” he said with a sigh. “Morgan Forester is dead, and it’s my job to find out what happened to her, even if I end up having to step on your toes.”

  “My toes?” Ali asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s been brought to my attention that Bryan Forester maintains a storage facility of some kind at your place up on Manzanita Hills Road.”

  Ali nodded. “He has one of those Mini-Mobile things. He keeps supplies and equipment in it. Why? What does that have to do with me?”

  “Now that we know about it, we’ll have to search it,” Dave said. “And probably the rest of the construction site, too.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re planning on searching my house? Why? What are you looking for?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Dave said. “To anyone. This is an active investigation.”

  Before Ali had a chance to say anything more, Edie Larson bustled up to their booth with her order pad in hand. “Ali appears to be drinking coffee and using her computer. Are you here to order, or are you just talking?” Edie asked.

  “A little of both,” Dave told her. “We’ll have breakfast, and when it’s time for a bill, give it to me. I’m buying.”

  CHAPTER 12

  After Edie Larson had finished taking their order and left, Dave picked up the conversation. “I wanted to see you before I left town,” he said. “I’m on my way to Phoenix in a couple of minutes. With your help, we’ve located a possible witness down there.”

  “My help?” Ali asked.

  Dave nodded. “The driver of that vehicle whose license you had Bryan call in to me the other day.”

  “The car Lacy saw?” Ali asked.

  “That’s the one,” Dave said. “A rental from Hertz. The guy who rented it was from Phoenix. I have an appointment to interview him later on this morning. It could turn out he saw nothing at all, but he played so coy with me on the phone, and that got my attention.”

  “If he was evasive on the phone, are you thinking he might be involved?” Ali asked.

  Dave shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t have mentioned him. Right now he’s nothing but a potential witness. But after my meeting with him, I’ll be stopping by Prescott on the way home. That’s when I’ll pick up a warrant to search your place on Manzanita Hills Road. We’ll be executing it later this afternoon.”

  “Why are you telling me about this in advance?” Ali asked. “Isn’t that a little unusual?”

  “It’s a lot worse than unusual,” Dave admitted. “The sheriff would have my badge if he ever found out about it, but the two of us go back a long way, Ali. I’m letting you know in advance so you can be on-site when we do it. There’ll be a lot less chance of damage if someone—you or Mr. Brooks, perhaps—is there to unlock doors with actual keys.”

  “As in unlock the doors to my house,” Ali said.

  “It may be your house, but it’s also a construction site,” Dave explained. “A construction site where our homicide suspect may have concealed evidence of his crime.”

  “But it’s still my house,” Ali insisted.

  “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Dave’s regret sounded genuine, but Ali didn’t much notice. “Aren’t you afraid I might go there before you do and try to get rid of anything incriminating?”

  Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. Dave looked at Ali sadly and shook his head. “No,” he said, “I’m not. To begin with, you wouldn’t know what to look for. Besides, that’s not who you are. You’d never conceal evidence.”

  Stealing a look at the computer beside her, Ali wasn’t so sure about that. She was about to tell him about the two thumb drives when Edie arrived at the booth with their breakfasts—ham and eggs for Dave and French toast for Ali for the second day in a row.

  “So will we be seeing you and your girls at Ali’s for Thanksgiving?” Edie asked.

  Dave looked at Ali. “As far as I know, we haven’t been invited. Besides, the girls will be in Vegas with their mom for Thanksgiving. I get all three kids for Christmas.”

  Knowing she had stepped in it, Edie beat a hasty retreat, leaving Ali to sort out her mother’s unintentional gaffe. “Sorry, Dave,” she said. “We’ve both been so busy, and I was waiting to figure out where the dinner would be. But now that we know the new house won’t be ready, it’ll be at the old one. And you’re definitely invited. Are you coming?”

  Dave looked at her and grinned. “Depends on who’s doing the cooking,” he said.

  Ali’s lack of cooking credentials was well known, but having people continually pointing it out was also a bit tiresome. “That’s not fair,” she said. “Accurate but not fair. And Leland will most likely be overseeing the food, so no one should die of food poisoning. Will you come, then?”

  “I doubt I’ll get a better offer,” he said. “Count me in.”

  Lighthearted banter had fixed the momentary awkwardness left behind by the warrant discussion. They started into their food. Dave had managed only a bite of his ham and eggs, and Ali was about to tell him about the thumb drives, when his phone rang.

  He put down his fork and answered. “Holman here.” Then he listened for a long time while someone else spoke. “What do you mean both hard drives are ruined?” he demanded at last. “How is that possible? You’re telling me somebody deliberately crashed the computers before we could execute our warrant?” There was another short pause before Dave went on. “But crashed or not, surely we can find someone smart enough to retrieve the data.”

  As Dave listened again, Ali tried to make sense of what she had overheard. She was sure that the damaged computers in question, picked up as a result of a search warrant, were the ones that belonged to Bryan and Morgan Forester.

  “You’re right,” Dave was saying. “I can see how writing over the files is worse than just erasing them. Cute. Well, we’ll see how funny Mr. Forester thinks this is once I finish up with him. Do you remember that computer-science professor up at Northern Arizona University, the guy we asked for help on that other case a couple of months ago? Yes, that’s it. Professor Rayburn. Check with him and see if he has any ideas on how we can go about recapturing the data. With any luck, Bryan Forester isn’t nearly as smart as he thinks he is. There’s always a chance he missed something.”

  Shaking his head in disgust, Dave slammed his phone closed and jammed it into his pocket. “What do you know about that!” he muttered. “It seems someone has written over all the files on the Foresters’ computers. And whoever did it thought he was being incredibly cute—he wrote the same letters over and over: H-A, as in ha, ha, ha. That’s funny, all right. Funny as hell. You probably think your friend Bryan is downright hilarious.”

  “Bryan wouldn’t do that,” Ali said quietly. She realized as soon as she’d said it that it was absolutely true. Why would Bryan go to so much trouble when he knew there were perfectly usable and readable backup copies available, copies that were, even now, within arm’s reach of Dave Holman? Someone else might have done that, but not Bryan.

  “You might believe it, but I don’t,” Dave returned abruptly. “Trust me, there was something incriminating in those files, and I intend to find out what it was.”

  “I have them,” Ali
said. “I can show them to you.”

  Dave stared at her, thunderstruck. “You what?”

  “I have Bryan’s files, and I’ve looked at them,” she added. “The ones from his computer, anyway. Believe me, Dave, they’re all business-related.”

  “And how is it that you happen to have them?” Dave asked.

  “Because Bryan gave them to me. For safekeeping.”

  “Sure he did,” Dave said. “Once he took out whatever it was he didn’t want you or anybody else to see. What the hell do you see in the guy, Ali? Don’t you see what he’s up to? He’s playing you for a fool.”

  For the first time, Ali wondered if Dave Holman was jealous. “I can give you copies,” she offered.

  “Right,” Dave said. “Sure you can. Copies of copies with everything he wanted deleted already deleted. Don’t bother! It’ll be a waste of your time and mine.” Shaking his head, he once more yanked his phone out of his pocket and punched in a series of numbers. While he waited for his call to be answered, Ali concentrated on her French toast. She had offered the drives to Dave, and he had turned her down. Now, though, she was thinking about her computer, where Bryan’s contaminated thumb drive was parked in her USB port. If a delayed-reaction worm of some kind had corrupted the files on Bryan’s and Morgan’s computers, would hers be next?

  “Yes,” Dave was saying into the phone. “This is Dave Holman of the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office. I’m calling for Mr. Morrison. Mr. Matthew Morrison.” That statement was followed by a long pause and a deep frown. “What do you mean, he won’t be in today? Is he sick or what? I have an appointment with him scheduled for this morning, and I was calling to see if I could move it to a little later.”

  There was another pause. “Look,” Dave said curtly. “I already said who this is. I’m Detective Dave Holman with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. And it’s urgent that I speak to Mr. Morrison today. No, I don’t need to speak to his supervisor, I need to speak to him. All right, then. I’ll wait.”

  While he sat on hold, Dave managed another few bites of breakfast. Then, covering the phone mouthpiece with his hand, he spoke to Ali. “Guess what? It seems that Mr. Morrison, our reluctant witness, has unexpectedly taken the day off work. I wonder if the prospect of having to see me has anything to do with his going AWOL.”

  Dave turned his attention back to the phone as someone came on the line. “Yes, Mrs. Helwig. I’m not sure why they brought you into this, but yes, that’s correct. I’m a homicide detective with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. Mr. Morrison is a potential witness in a case I’m investigating…”

  The person on the other end of the line did some talking, and Dave’s face took on a distinctly reddish hue.

  “Mrs. Helwig, please slow down. Are you telling me Mr. Morrison is dead?” Even across the table, Ali could hear snippets of a woman’s voice—an almost hysterical woman—talking at warp speed.

  “When?” Dave asked at last. “And how did it happen?” Finally, he added, “Can you tell me who’s doing the investigating?”

  Holding his phone between his chin and his shoulder, Dave dragged a tattered notebook out of his shirt pocket and began scribbling in it. “Yes, I have it,” he said. “Detective O’Brien with the Scottsdale Police Department. And what’s that address again?”

  Seconds later, when Dave closed both his phone and his notebook, he looked at Ali and shook his head. “So much for my potential witness,” he said. “Matthew Morrison is dead. Sometime overnight he drove his vehicle into his garage, closed the door, and left the motor running. His wife found his body this morning. Just before I called the office looking for him, she had phoned to let them know that he wouldn’t be coming in ever again.”

  As he spoke, Dave was already dialing the next number. “Someone else will have to go to Prescott to pick up that search warrant,” he said into his phone. “I’m on my way to Phoenix. Scottsdale, actually. It seems our possible witness or suspect in the Morgan Forester homicide offed himself overnight. Well, so far it seems like suicide, anyway. Right. It’s probably a good thing for Bryan Forester that we’ve still got him under lock and key. Otherwise he might be declared a suspect in a second homicide.”

  There was another long pause. “No!” he exclaimed. “You can’t be serious. They’re actually thinking about cutting him loose? Who came up with that lamebrained idea? All right, then, if they do let Forester out, I want someone on his tail every step of the way. I want to know where he goes and who he talks to. I also want you to amend that warrant request to include his telephone records. If there’s any kind of connection between him and the guy who’s dead down in Phoenix, I want to know about it. He may have been able to do a clean sweep of his computer, but his phone records won’t be as easy to destroy.”

  Dave hung up and took one last slug of coffee. Between phone calls, he had eaten very little. Leaving most of his food, he slapped a twenty-dollar bill down on the table. “Tell your mom to keep the change,” he said. “I’ve gotta go.” With that, he dashed out the door.

  Edie came back over to the table after he left. “Sorry about the Thanksgiving thing. I really stepped in it. Is that why Dave went racing out of here like that, or was there something wrong with the food?”

  “The food was fine,” Ali said. “And there’s no problem about Thanksgiving. Dave’s on his way to Phoenix. Something happened to one of his potential witnesses.”

  “I wonder if they’ve had any luck in finding Morgan’s ring,” Edie said.

  “What ring?” Ali asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Morgan’s wedding ring,” Edie answered. “And the three-carat diamond engagement ring that was with it. I heard they’re both missing.”

  “They weren’t found on the body?”

  Edie shook her head. “Nope. One of the cops was asking Cindy Martin about them last night. Cindy always did Morgan’s nails, and the cops wanted to know if Morgan was wearing her rings the last time she came into the salon—which she was, by the way. Cindy said she never went anywhere without them.”

  “So people are thinking that the killer stole her rings?”

  Edie shrugged. “Cindy says she’s heard that Bryan is really hard up for cash right now.”

  “So now she’s suggesting that Bryan made off with his wife’s rings in hopes of what—pawning them and realizing some quick cash?”

  “It’s just a theory,” Edie said. “People are entitled to their opinions.”

  “And I’m entitled to mine!” Ali returned. “What else are people saying?”

  “There’s evidently some talk about possible drug use. I guess there was a puncture wound of some kind found on the body. The cops asked Cindy if Morgan Forester ever used drugs of any kind. Cindy said that if that had been the case, she for sure would have known about it.”

  Did she know about Singleatheart? Ali wondered. If she had, she would have spilled her guts about that, too. Remind me never to set foot in Cindy Martin’s salon.

  “Look, Mom,” she said. “I don’t think we should be discussing any of this.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, these sound like confidential details of a homicide investigation.”

  “But Cindy—”

  “Cindy talks too much,” Ali declared.

  As Edie went to deliver coffee to another table, Ali was left thinking about the series of ha-has that had been written over every one of Bryan Forester’s computer files. If Bryan wasn’t responsible for destroying his own computer files, who was? Someone who had no idea Bryan had backups. Ali was equally sure Dave was right about one thing—the culprit, whoever it was, had something to hide. And that was when it came to her for the very first time that there might be some connection between the guy who had infiltrated Ali’s computer and Morgan Forester’s killer.

  Maybe what Ali and B. had been dealing with was something far more deadly than a simple identity thief. Lost in thought, Ali removed Bryan’s thumb drive from her com
puter. She needed to warn B. about that, and much as she had wanted to avoid doing so, she also knew that she would have to ask him for help with the possibly contaminated thumb drives.

  Ali glanced at the clock on the far wall. She had spoken to B. on the phone under three hours earlier, and he’d been on his way to bed, but the urgency of the situation meant she needed to talk to him sooner than later. When she called, though, his line went straight to voice mail, so she left a message. When her cell phone rang a few minutes later, she more than half expected to hear B.’s voice on the line. She didn’t.

  “This is Haley Marsh’s grandmother,” Nelda Harris said. “Is this Ms. Reynolds?”

  “Yes, it’s Ali. What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you so early in the morning, but I need your help.”

  “Why?” Ali asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Haley. I told her about our conversation when I got home from work last night. I wanted her to reconsider turning down your scholarship offer. She was very upset with me. She claimed I had no right to go behind her back and talk to you. We had a terrible fight about it. This morning she’s shut herself up in her room with the baby and is refusing to come out, refusing to go to school. What if she drops out completely, Ms. Reynolds? What will happen to her then? In all the years we’ve been together, we’ve never had this kind of difficulty. I can’t imagine what’s gotten into her. I’m at my wits’ end.”

  “Do you think my talking to her directly would do any good?” Ali asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nelda said. “Maybe. Right now she won’t listen to a word I have to say. Like I said, she won’t even come out of her room.”

  Ali finished putting away her computer. “All right, then, Mrs. Harris. If you think I can be of assistance, I’ll come right over. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  Halfway between Sedona and Cottonwood, Ali’s phone rang again. This time, when she answered, the caller was Leland Brooks.