The A List

by Jance, J. A.

  She had embarked on a self-imposed journey of reading the classics that she was supposed to have read much earlier but never did. When B. was off traveling—as he often was—that was how she occupied her long evenings, reading in front of the gas-log fireplace in the library, with Bella asleep in the chair beside her.

  Shaking off the mood, Ali tried to return to the book. When her phone rang a few hours later, she had dozed off with the book still open in her lap. Seeing Alex Munsey’s name in the caller-ID window, she could barely believe her eyes.

  “Guilty!” Alex Munsey squealed in her ear. “They found the son of a bitch guilty as charged! When deliberations passed the twenty-four-hour mark, I started to get worried. We were called back to the courthouse a little more than an hour ago. It’s over, Ali. It’s done.”

  “Thank God,” Ali said. “I’ve been keeping track of the coverage from here, but I didn’t expect a verdict before Monday. It’s taken a long time.”

  “Almost ten years,” Alex agreed. “We didn’t nail him with the class-action suit, but we got him all the same. They convicted him on both counts—first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit. Those both call for mandatory sentences of life without parole. The sentencing hearing is a week from today. I’ve been asked to be a part of the victim-impact statement, and that’s why I’m calling. Would you come to that? Please?”

  “Why?” Ali asked.

  “Because you were there at the beginning, Ali, and it would mean so much to me if you could be here for the ending,” Alex answered. “Cassie was here for part of the trial, but she can’t stay for the sentencing, and with Jolene gone . . .”

  “I’m the only one left.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Ali could feel her earlier mood brightening. Her time on the news desk in L.A. hadn’t been for naught after all.

  “I guess I’m up for a road trip,” she said. “Do we know what time on Friday? And should I come to your place or go directly to Santa Clarita?”

  “The courtroom doesn’t open until ten, but the trial has attracted a lot of attention, and we should probably be in line early to get a seat. As for coming to my place? The cabin’s a good two and a half hours from here. I’ve been staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Santa Clarita during the trial. Why don’t I book us two rooms for two nights, arriving on Thursday? Friday night we’ll go out on the town and celebrate.”

  “Sounds good,” Ali said. “See you then.”

  18

  Santa Clarita, California, April 2012

  The morning after the verdict, just as she had every Saturday morning for the past thirteen months, Hannah Gilchrist got up, ate her breakfast, and prepared to go to the jail. Before she left the house, she called one of her good friends—someone who specialized in high-end real-estate transactions—asking her to stop by later on in the afternoon to talk about listing her house.

  Hannah loved the old place. She had come to it as a bride more than six decades earlier. The house was located in one of Santa Clarita’s most prestigious neighborhoods. She knew she’d have no difficulty finding a willing buyer, and at this point Hannah was ready to let it go. Once the sentencing hearing was over and she knew where Eddie would be incarcerated, her intention was to rent or lease something much less ostentatious near wherever her son ended up going. He might be heading off to prison, but he was still her son and her number one priority. She had visited him once a week for as long as he’d been in jail awaiting trial, and she planned to continue visiting him on a regular basis in the future.

  What Hannah needed to do now was simplify her life, starting with unloading the house and most of its contents. That also meant pensioning off her longtime staff, Marco and Bettina Gregory, her driver and housekeeper. Bettina was several years older than Marco—old enough to start collecting Social Security and receiving income from her IRA. In envisioning her new life, Hannah also realized that she’d need to be responsible for her own transportation—that meant buying a smaller, more modest vehicle and getting a driver’s license for the first time in her life. As for her beloved Rolls? Marco had often spoken longingly about wanting to start his own limo service. As her parting gift to him, and in honor of his years of faithful service, she’d hand over the keys to the aging Rolls-Royce and help set him up in business. After all, there was no one on earth who knew more than he did about keeping that decades-old engine tuned up and running.

  The guards at the jail were used to Hannah by now, and Eddie was already seated in their usual cubicle when she arrived in the visitors’ room.

  “I’m so sorry about the verdict,” she told him now. “Do you have any idea where they’ll send you?”

  Eddie shrugged. “Rumor has it that it’ll be Folsom, but there’s no way to know that for sure until the sentencing hearing next week.” That’s what he said aloud. His signed message said something else. “I hope that little weasel Leo is there, too, so I can take him out.”

  Hannah smiled and nodded. Eddie was all she had left. If he set his course on vengeance, that’s what she would do, too. Why not?

  “Leo’s not in Folsom,” she signed back without specifying how she’d come to be in possession of that knowledge. “He’s in Corcoran.” Aloud she said, “On my way in, I added some money to your commissary account. Not very much, since I doubt you can transfer the funds from one place to another.”

  “Probably not,” Eddie agreed.

  “Leo’s in the Protective Housing Unit,” she signed.

  “Good to know,” he added. Hannah knew that Eddie wasn’t referring to the extra money in the commissary account.

  “We’ll set up a new account when you get wherever you’re going.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said. “You’re the best.”

  “I’m glad to do whatever I can to help.”

  Eddie resorted to signing once again. “I need to know more about where Leo is—his inmate number, if possible.”

  “How would I go about finding that?”

  “Maybe you could reach out to him—write to him. Act like you’re willing to be his friend. You should be able to locate prisoners by contacting the prison system. You may even be able to do it over the Internet.”

  During the past three years while Eddie’s situation had continued to deteriorate, she had, out of necessity, spent plenty of time at her local library branch, becoming quite adept at using their computers.

  “I haven’t been on the computer much lately,” she said aloud. “There were just too many ugly e-mails coming in. I ended up deleting most of them without even reading them, but I’ve heard computers are good for doing genealogical research. With you away I’ll need something to occupy my time, and I may buy my own computer and try my hand at that.”

  “Genealogy?” Eddie asked.

  Hannah nodded.

  “As for computers,” Eddie continued, “you’re a fast learner when it comes to things like that. I’m sure you’ll do very well.”

  Hannah appreciated her son’s unexpected compliment. Those were few and far between.

  “Yes,” she said aloud. “I intend to get started right away. Now, is there anything else I can help you with? Anything else you need?”

  “Yes,” he signed. “I want to take them down—every single one of them.”

  He didn’t have to mention anyone by name. She knew exactly who he meant. “That makes two of us,” Hannah signed back.

  Eddie’s verbal answer to her earlier question, the one that was recorded on the phone, was completely harmless. “Not really,” he said aloud. “For someone who’s about to spend the rest of his life in prison, I guess I’m good.”

  “Stay strong, son,” she said. “I love you.”

  With that, Hannah broke off the connection. She stood up and left the desolation of the visitors’ room with her shoulders pulled back and walking with a purposeful step. If her son was bent on a war of vengeance, it was her war, too, and she’d just been given her first mission. She had something to do now, and she w
ould do it.

  On the way home, she had Marco stop by her neighborhood branch library, where she sought the help of her favorite reference librarian, Susan Attwood.

  “I heard about the verdict,” Susan said in a hushed voice when Hannah appeared at her counter. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Hannah said. “But that’s why I need your help. Once Eddie is sent off to wherever they’re sending him, I’ll need to know how to contact him. Do you know if there’s a phone number where people on the outside can locate prisoners and get their mailing addresses?”

  “Let me see what I can do,” Susan said.

  It took the librarian less than ten minutes to come up with a toll-free number where Hannah could find the needed information. Back home Hannah called the number and had to wait on hold for forty-five minutes before an agent gave her Leo Aurelio’s mailing address. “We expect to have an inmate e-mail system up and running soon,” the woman told her over the phone, “but for now snail mail is your only option.”

  Snail mail was fine with Hannah, and if befriending Eddie’s betrayer was the best way to help her son, she couldn’t wait to get started. Once she had the address in hand, she took a seat at the dainty writing desk in her morning room and set out to compose a letter on her elegantly monogrammed stationery. The words spooling out of her Montblanc fountain pen and written in royal-blue ink were penned in time-honored Spencerian Method cursive, the only style recognized as acceptable by Hannah’s first-ever penmanship instructor.

  Dear Mr. Aurelio,

  My name is Hannah Gilchrist. Edward is my son. As I sit here tonight grieving that his life as a free man is over, I felt constrained to write to you. As I’m sure you will understand, I am deeply saddened by Edward’s current situation. I certainly didn’t raise him expecting him to grow up and become a convicted killer.

  Although you contributed in large measure to that conviction, I wanted to reach out to you today, as a good Christian and in an attitude of friendship and forgiveness. Although you provided much of the testimony offered against him, I’m well aware that Edward’s actions in this matter destroyed your life every bit as much as they destroyed his own.

  That being said, I trust you have good people in your life—caring loved ones—who are able to sustain you and offer encouragement in your present and very difficult circumstances. I just want you to know that I am wishing you the best, and if I can do anything to help, feel free to contact me.

  Sincerely,

  Hannah Anderson Gilchrist

  Once she finished writing the missive, Hannah read it through twice. It was so much balderdash, of course. She didn’t wish Leo Aurelio well at all. In fact, she wished him nothing but ill. Still, this was a good start. She addressed and stamped an envelope, and then, carefully folding the letter, she put it inside and licked the flap to glue it shut.

  “Make no mistake about it, Leo,” she said aloud as she walked outside to place the letter in the mailbox at the end of her driveway. “Eddie Gilchrist is coming for you, and I’m going to help him.”

  19

  Santa Clarita, California, April 2012

  On Thursday morning the following week, Ali was up and out early, hoping to make it through L.A. prior to rush hour. Somehow she’d managed to forget that rush hour in L.A. was a never-ending nightmare and one she’d lost the knack of negotiating. She arrived at the hotel in Santa Clarita late in the afternoon, worn to a nub, only to find the lobby teeming with throngs of seemingly unsupervised preadolescents. She checked in, made her way to her room, and then called Alex.

  “This place is a madhouse,” she complained.

  “Right,” Alex returned. “I forgot. It’s coming up on the weekend, and Magic Mountain is just up the street. Don’t worry, there’s a wine bar a few blocks away that’s quieter and a whole lot more welcoming. Why don’t we go there?”

  The wine bar was exactly as advertised. Once they were settled into comfortable leather chairs with glasses containing generous pours of Merlot on the table in front of them, Ali gave Alex a pointed look. “You went dark on me again,” Ali said accusingly. “I sent e-mails and got nothing back. What happened?”

  Alex nodded. “Sorry about that,” she acknowledged. “Once the judge dismissed our lawsuit, I fell into a deep, dark hole.”

  “And became even more of a hermit?”

  “Pretty much,” Alex replied. “A despairing, clinically depressed hermit. For the better part of three years, I could barely get out of bed. I was in such a bad place that I couldn’t even write. Gilchrist seemed to be getting away with everything, even murder. The cloud didn’t start to lift until after he was arrested. I should have called you then, but I didn’t, because by then I was too embarrassed.”

  “Not to worry,” Ali replied. “Now that you’ve finally gotten around to calling me, all is forgiven.”

  Alex resumed her story. “Once I got myself sort of pulled together, I started working on A Mother’s Tale again, bringing the story forward from the transplant on and talking about the Progeny Project. Now that the verdict is in, I’m finishing the last few chapters.”

  “Do you have a publisher?” Ali asked.

  “Yup, I do,” Alex said. “I had planned to self-publish the book as a fund-raiser for Progeny, but it’s been disbanded.”

  “The Progeny Project is disbanded?” Ali asked in disbelief. “How did that happen?”

  “That’s another story,” Alex told her. “What I have now is a deal with a regional press. They have national distribution, but they expect that the biggest demand for the book will be here in Southern California. Most of the editing is done. The book can be ready to go in a matter of weeks. They’re planning on putting it out in conjunction with another book, Tell No Tales, an almost completed true-crime treatment of Dawn Gilchrist’s homicide.”

  “Are both books coming out simultaneously?”

  Alex nodded. “As companion pieces. The guys in marketing think sales of the one will drive sales of the other—that’s why the titles are so similar. Once Mother’s is finally put to bed, I’m planning on going back to my next book. It’s a novel—a murder mystery. Spoiler alert, when you read it, don’t be surprised to learn that a doctor is the very first victim.”

  They both laughed about that. “It’s one way of getting even,” Ali observed. “If you can’t knock them off in real life, kill them in fiction. Now tell me about Evan. Will he be here tomorrow?”

  Alex shook her head. “He was here for the trial, but he needed to get back to work. He lives in Salt Lake now, with his wife, Kathleen. Their son, Rory, is about to turn two.”

  “So Evan did get married,” Ali concluded. “What’s he doing now?”

  “A company out of Utah called Family Ties is starting a commercial DNA operation, and Evan’s experience in creating Progeny’s database was just what they needed. They’re rolling all of Progeny’s data into theirs and planning a big launch for next year. Since Evan is in on the ground floor, if it takes off like they expect it to, he’ll be set for life.”

  “Here’s to Evan,” Ali said, raising her glass.

  “And here’s to you, Ali,” Alex returned. “Without you I wouldn’t have a son or a grandson.”

  Ali and Alex ordered salads, a cheese plate, and second glasses of wine. Although the evening ended early, there wasn’t much sleep to be had, because the still-unsupervised kids spent most of the night marauding up and down the hallway. The next morning Ali and Alex were first in line to go through security at the Santa Clarita Courthouse, and they were first inside the courtroom as well. They were already seated when a grim-faced older lady marched past them with all the dignity of a dowager empress. Without nodding or speaking to anyone else in the room, she took a place in the front row of seats directly behind the defense table.

  “That’s Gilchrist’s mother, Hannah,” Alex whispered to Ali. “She’s from old money here in Southern California, and I’m guessing she’s the one paying for her son’s high-priced de
fense team.”

  Ali expected that as the room filled up, other people—friends and supporters of the defendant—would join Hannah in the front row, but they did not. That whole set of seats—three on either side of her—remained empty throughout the proceedings, so presumably Edward Gilchrist had no friends, and neither did his mother. Without meaning to, Ali couldn’t help but feel sorry for the old woman, sitting there alone in a kind of regal isolation. All the other spectators in the room had come there to celebrate the prosecution’s victory. Hannah was the only one there to mourn the very real loss of her son.

  As a convicted killer, Edward Gilchrist came to the sentencing hearing dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit and wearing handcuffs and shackles. Ali watched him throughout the proceedings. During the victim-impact statements he listened impassively, with no sign that they affected him in the least. If he felt any remorse, it certainly wasn’t visible.

  Although not directly affected by Dawn Gilchrist’s murder, Alex was allowed to speak during that portion of the hearing.

  She stared at an unblinking Edward Gilchrist as she spoke. “You, sir, are a liar and a cheat. I and many other people in this room came to you looking for help with our reproductive issues. Instead of using your purported stable of donors, you lied to us, and we suspect that you fathered many of our children yourself. Five of those are here in this courtroom today. They may share your despicable DNA and bear some physical resemblance to you and to one another, but they are nothing like you. They have been raised by loving parents in loving families and have grown up to be responsible, hardworking, loyal people.

  “You are a disgrace to the practice of medicine, Edward Gilchrist. I regret that an ill-fated class-action lawsuit started by some of us might have been the underlying cause of Dawn Gilchrist’s death. For that I’m truly sorry. She might have been responsible for the shredding of all those files, but you probably lied to her the same way you lied to everyone else, most especially when you swore that oath to do no harm.