The A List

by Jance, J. A.

  Because Cami was determined to do the grocery shopping and deliver her first cooking lesson that night, they offloaded the computers into the unused part of the garage and immediately headed back out for their shopping trip. A bewildered Stuart trailed Cami through the grocery store, pushing a cart while she collected an assortment of staples, fresh vegetables, and meats, along with an amazing assortment of spices.

  Partway through the store, he tried to lure her over to the deli. “Shouldn’t we pick up something for dinner? The deli’s mac and cheese is pretty good.”

  “We’re not buying dinner at the deli because you’re making dinner,” Cami told him, “with some assistance, of course. In fact, you’re making two separate dinners. Pork chops for tonight, cooked in your NuWave, and a Crock-Pot beef stew to have for tomorrow and the day after that.”

  Stuart Ramey had never cooked a meal from scratch in his whole life. He’d never cut up or browned stew meat, never peeled a potato, never chopped a vegetable, never owned a Crock-Pot or a NuWave. By late Saturday evening, under Cami’s capable tutelage, all that had changed. Cami had spent enough time at her maternal grandparents’ restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown to know her way around a cutting board, and they had come home from that one trip to the store with enough ingredients to create a one-pot masterpiece. They were making good progress when they were rudely interrupted by the blaring screech of a smoke alarm.

  “Is something on fire?” Cami asked.

  “It’s not a real smoke alarm,” Stu told her. “It’s Frigg pretending to be the smoke alarm. I forgot to turn my Bluetooth back on.”

  “Okay, Frigg,” he said once he had the Bluetooth working, “now that you’ve got my attention, what do you want?”

  Trying to keep from giggling, Cami followed Stu into the man cave.

  “I have two folders that require your immediate attention,” Frigg said, “one on Luis Ochoa and the other concerning Luis’s niece, Gloria Ochoa Reece, the only daughter of Mr. Ochoa’s late brother, Antonio.”

  “What does his niece have to do with anything?”

  “She runs a traveling nail salon called Nails to Go,” Frigg replied. “Through analyzing Hannah Gilchrist’s credit-card expenditures, I’ve learned that for the past several years Ms. Reece has been Hannah Gilchrist’s nail technician.”

  “Does Gloria have any kind of criminal record?”

  “None,” Frigg replied, “not even a traffic violation.”

  “So she’s squeaky clean.”

  “She also visits her uncle at least once a month, sometimes more often.”

  “Okay,” Stuart said. “We’ve got Luis Ochoa and Edward Gilchrist hanging out together on the inside, with Luis’s niece and Hannah Gilchrist getting together on the outside under circumstances that appear to be totally above suspicion.”

  “I suggest you study Ms. Reece’s folder before you turn to Mr. Ochoa’s. Hers is far more interesting. According to my research, nail technicians working in Folsom, California, earn an average of twenty-three thousand dollars a year, and that is the amount reported in her IRS filings. Ms. Reece is a divorced single woman. She owns her own home—a distressed bank-owned property on Rugosa Drive, which she purchased in 2009 for one hundred fifty-nine thousand. It is now valued at three hundred fifty-four thousand and is currently mortgage-free. She is also the owner of a 2016 Range Rover.”

  “All of that on twenty-three thousand a year?” Cami asked. “That doesn’t add up.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Stu agreed. “She must be getting extra money from somewhere else, lots of it—money that she doesn’t report to the IRS.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cami said excitedly. “Frigg, how long has Luis Ochoa been in prison?”

  “Thirty-three years, ten months, and two days,” Frigg replied at once. “He received his sentence on September fourteenth, 1983.”

  Cami’s voice was alive with excitement. “Okay,” she said. “We have four people here—Luis, Edward, Hannah, and Gloria—who are all tied in together. Luis is the hard-core criminal who’s been incarcerated long enough to have private-dining-room status inside the prison and probably plenty of criminal contacts outside prison. He hooks up with Gilchrist, who’s a relative newbie in the prison but who wants to get even with everyone who put him there. Hannah, Edward’s mother, is the one with money to fund whatever kind of vendetta her son has in mind, and Gloria—the innocent-looking manicurist living way beyond her means—is the person who links all the others together.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Cami,” Stu marveled. “Luis is the brains of the outfit, Hannah is the banker, and Gloria’s the gofer.”

  “Excuse me,” Frigg interjected. “Why would a burrowing rodent of the family Geomyidae be involved in all this?”

  “Not a G-O-P-H-E-R,” Stu corrected, spelling the words aloud. “A G-O-F-E-R. That’s an employee who runs errands. Gloria Reece is someone with no criminal history. As such, she can come and go as she pleases, doing pickups and deliveries without arousing any suspicion. I’m guessing she collects the money from Hannah and then makes sure it ends up in the proper hands.”

  “What if the Gilchrists aren’t Luis Ochoa’s only customers?” Cami asked. “Just a glance at Gloria’s financial records tells us that there’s lots of money coming and going here. I think we may have stumbled into a major criminal enterprise operating from inside Folsom Prison.”

  “Agreed,” Stu said.

  “So what should we do about it, then?” Cami asked. “Wake B. and let him know?”

  “No,” Stu said. “The last time I talked to him, he was running on empty and was going to grab a nap. Let’s call Ali and bring her up to date. We’ll let her decide on whether or not we should awaken B. In the meantime, Frigg, I want you to keep on digging.”

  “Of course, Stuart,” Frigg told him. “Is digging considered an errand?”

  “I suppose,” Stu answered. “Why?”

  “Does that make me a gofer, too?”

  “Yes,” Stuart said, “under the circumstances, I believe it does.”

  45

  Los Angeles, California, June 2017

  Stu and Cami called Ali a few minutes later and laid out what they had learned. “In other words, it sounds like there could be a whole team of assassins out there gunning for me—and for Cassie, too.”

  “Possibly,” Stu agreed. “Frigg would most likely exchange that ‘possibly’ for a ‘probably.’ ”

  “And does B. know about this?”

  “Not yet. He hit the wall and went to grab a few z’s. We decided to let you make the call about whether or not to wake him up.”

  “Why, so he can be worried sick, too? No, leave him be and let him sleep. Now, tell me, do we have photos of any of these bad actors?”

  “We have photos of the ones we know about,” Stu allowed. “The problem is that in terms of sending them to you, most of the current ones are off-limits.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re all state-issued photo IDs—driver’s licenses, Gloria Reece’s beautician’s license, in-prison ID photos of Luis Ochoa and Edward Gilchrist. If I send them out over the regular Internet and someone finds out, the sender is in trouble, and so is the recipient.”

  “In other words, once again it’s all stuff Frigg has managed to access that we’re not supposed to have?”

  “Correct,” Stu agreed. “I’m sending the exceptions to that along to you as pdfs. Those are all older photos that Frigg culled from ordinary news-site sources. The one of Hannah Gilchrist is from 2008. The ones of Luis Ochoa and Edward Gilchrist were taken in the course of their homicide trials. Luis was twenty-two at the time; Edward was in his early fifties.”

  When the first text came in, Ali tapped on the pdf to open it. Once it came into view, the reproduction was grainy but she was able to make out enough of the features to recognize Hannah. “That’s her, all right,” Ali said. “That’s how she was wearing her hair when I saw her at Edward Gilchrist’s sente
ncing hearing—cut short with those Mamie Eisenhower bangs. My mom used to wear her hair like that. I hated it.”

  “What kind of bangs?” Cami asked.

  “Short ones,” Ali said. “Very short.”

  “And who’s Mamie Eisenhower?”

  “She was the first lady once,” Ali explained, “married to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. That was long before your time. Both my mother and my Aunt Evie adored the woman.”

  “Frigg,” Cami said. “Can you bring up Hannah Gilchrist’s driver’s license? And could you show us a photo of Mamie Eisenhower, please?”

  “Of course, Ms. Lee, one moment.”

  A short time later, Cami added. “I see what you mean about the resemblance, Ali, and it looks like Hannah’s hairdo hasn’t changed at all over the years. She still has short bangs, and her driver’s license was renewed just a couple of months ago, so that photo for sure is reasonably up to date.”

  “What can you tell me about Gloria?” Ali asked.

  “According to her driver’s license, she has brown hair and brown eyes. She’s five-six, and weighs a hundred forty pounds.”

  “There are a lot of people around here who would match that description, so it’s not much help, but I’ll manage. Thanks for the update, guys.”

  After the call ended, Ali sat with the phone in her hand for some time, considering whether or not to make another call. If Sonja’s Shaelyn Green was supposed to provide for Ali’s security, they both needed to have access to this latest information.

  “Sorry to bother you again,” Ali said when Sonja came on the phone. “Remember those two people I mentioned earlier who might be the source of the threat?”

  “Yes,” Sonja answered. “Edward Gilchrist and his mother, Hannah.”

  “I just found out there are two more names that should be added to that list—a guy named Luis Ochoa and his niece, Gloria Ochoa Reece. He’s a lifer in Folsom Prison, right along with Edward. Those two guys, Edward and Luis, appear to be best buds, and Gloria stays in close contact with her uncle. Gloria has been Hannah’s manicurist for a number of years, and according to my sources, she seems to be living far beyond her means.”

  “You think the four of them are in on this together?” Sonja asked.

  “That’s what my people back home in Sedona are telling me, and I tend to believe them.” The fact that one of those “people” turned out to be an AI didn’t seem especially relevant.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have photos of any of these folks, would you?” Sonja asked.

  “I wish. I believe you can find old photos of Hannah and Edward on the Internet, and probably Luis as well. My understanding is that Gloria is five-six and one hundred forty pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes,” Ali said. “Sorry I can’t be more specific.”

  “Not to worry, then,” Sonja said reassuringly. “We’ll take it from here. You get a good night’s sleep.”

  Except a good night’s rest wasn’t in the cards. Ali went to bed, all right, but she couldn’t sleep. Instead she tossed and turned, wondering about this seemingly deadly group of people who were supposedly coming after her. Facing down an eighty-something-year-old woman was one thing, but what about the others? Luis Ochoa, a convicted killer, was clearly a hardened criminal. Gloria Reece didn’t have a record, but maybe she simply hadn’t been caught. So just how dangerous was she, and how were Shaelyn and Ali supposed to fend her off, especially if they had nothing more to go on than a vague description?

  It was almost five the last time Ali glanced at the clock before she finally dozed off. She was sleeping peacefully four hours later when a phone call from B. awakened her.

  “Why the hell did you tell Cami and Stu not to wake me once Frigg made those connections?” he growled into the phone when she answered. “For that matter, why didn’t you call me? If I hadn’t called Stu just now to see how things were going, I’d still be in the dark.”

  “I made an executive decision that you needed sleep more than you needed to spend the night worrying about something completely out of your control. Besides, that way at least one of us got a decent night’s sleep.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Barely,” she admitted, “and when I finally did doze off, I had terrible nightmares about being chased through the streets by a bunch of people I didn’t know who were all trying to kill me.”

  “Sounds about right to me,” B. observed.

  “But what if it’s not?” Ali asked. “What if we’re wrong about this situation and have worried ourselves sick about something that may never happen? What if Frigg’s wrong and we’ve overreacted and gone to so much trouble and expense for nothing?”

  “Believe me,” B. said, “I’m all for this being a false alarm, and spending money to overprepare for something that comes to nothing is still money well spent. In the meantime Frigg’s been busy doing some forensic accounting. It turns out Gloria Reece isn’t the only member of Luis Ochoa’s extended family who seems to have come into financial windfalls of dubious origin. Her mother, a widow with no visible means of support, did the same thing her daughter did. She bought a distressed condo in Vegas on the cheap and had the property completely renovated to the point that it’s now appraised at three times what she paid for it. Like Gloria’s property, this one is also mortgage-free. Several other cousins on the father’s side of Gloria’s family have also benefited substantially.”

  “Is this some kind of money-laundering scheme?” Ali asked.

  “That’s Frigg’s assessment,” B. said. “Luis sits in prison making illegal money hand over fist. Since he can’t spend any of it himself, he doles it out in cash among his various relatives in amounts small enough that they so far have avoided attracting any attention from law enforcement.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “According to Frigg it adds up to several hundred thousand dollars,” B. replied. “I think we’ve stumbled onto a major prison-based criminal enterprise, and although it may include murder-for-hire, there might be other components to it as well, including possible connections to drug cartels.”

  “So if Edward and Hannah Gilchrist are two of Luis’s customers, surely they’re not his only customers.”

  “Probably not,” B. agreed.

  “Now that we know about this, what can we do about it?” Ali asked. “If we try to bring in law enforcement, the blowback is likely to take us out right along with Luis.”

  “Or put us in some kind of squeeze play between the good guys and the bad guys,” B. added. “We’ll have to do something, but not until after you’re safely home, right?”

  “Right,” Ali agreed. She glanced at the clock. “I’m planning to be dressed for the funeral when I meet up with Shaelyn at eleven, so I should go hit the shower.”

  “Take care,” B. told her with an audible catch in his throat.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  46

  Sherman Oaks, California, June 2017

  By 11:00 A.M. Gloria had scored on-street parking and was settled in at a prime spot outside the coffee shop located directly across the street from the Longmont Funeral Home. She had dressed in jogging attire and had spent an hour walking the neighborhood—scoping out the presence of security cameras and verifying the game plan she and Tank had tentatively worked out the night before.

  The funeral home was located on Noble Avenue, halfway between Ventura and Dickens Street. Ventura was lined with businesses, traffic, and multiple surveillance cameras. Dickens Street, a block away, was lined with apartments and, presumably, with far fewer cameras.

  Without knowing what kind of vehicle Hannah would use and whether it would be turning right or left on Noble when exiting the funeral home’s parking lot, Tank had suggested that the Suburban be parked facing north on Noble, giving the driver a straight shot toward the target and enough time and distance to achieve sufficient speed leading up to the crash. The motorbike was to be tucked into the far corner of a bank parking lot, directly adjac
ent to the one belonging to the funeral home. As for the box truck? Decorated with magnetic signage for a nonexistent carpet-cleaning service, that would be parked on the far side of Dickens facing east. When it was time for all hell to break loose, the wreckage, the motorbike, and the getaway car would all be located within a single block of one another.

  Being on-site, Gloria had to give Tank credit. His assessments had been pretty much on the money. Now she was the one charged with making them work.

  47

  Los Angeles, California, June 2017

  Sonja had asked Ali for a photo and had forwarded one of Shaelyn Green to Ali so they would each have an idea of what the other looked like. When a raven-haired beauty walked into Delphine’s at exactly 11:00 A.M., Ali recognized her on sight. She was dressed in a flashy turquoise pantsuit with equally flashy silver sandals. Carrying an immense Michael Kors purse as well as an oversize Nordstrom shopping bag, the new arrival sashayed into the room like she owned the place and went directly to Ali’s table.

  “I’m Shaelyn, but most people call me Shay,” she said, holding out her hand. “From the look on your face, I’m assuming I’m not exactly what you expected.”

  Ali was embarrassed to have been caught so flat-footed. “Sorry,” she said. “I would have thought you’d show up looking like someone who wanted to blend in.”

  “Shorts and T-shirts are what I wear when I want to blend in,” Shay said with a smile. “This is what I wear when I don’t want to blend in. Bad guys tend to underestimate women who look like this. They’re usually of the mistaken opinion that I’m perfectly harmless, and on that score they’re perfectly wrong.”

  “So you’ve been out shopping?”

  “Not exactly,” Shay said, shoving the bag in Ali’s direction. “I keep the bag on hand to use as needed, and I brought along a little something for you.”

  Ali opened the bag far enough to peer inside. “Body armor?” she asked.

  Shay nodded. “You’ll need to try it on up in your room, but if someone gets past me and comes after you, that body armor is your second line of defense.”