Web of Evil: A Novel of Suspense (13 page)

“Where?” Ali asked.

“On his Web site.”

Ali felt like she was bumbling around in the dark. “What Web site?” she asked.

“Ever since you told me about all that Sumo Sudoku nonsense, I’ve been curious about it,” Edie answered. “I mean, why would Paul and April want to have a bunch of supposedly brainy bodybuilders cluttering up their wedding day? In my experience, weddings are stressful enough without having a film crew and extra people mucking around under hand and foot at the same time. So this morning, I looked up some Sumo Sudoku Web sites and that’s where I found him. The guy’s name is Tracy McLaughlin.”

Ali was stunned. “You’re saying you think April has been messing around with Tracy McLaughlin? Are you kidding?”

“I’m not kidding,” Edie replied. “Do you know if there’s been a paternity test?”

Ali remembered how pleased Paul had been when he learned April was pregnant—pleased and excited.

“I have no idea,” Ali said.

“If there hasn’t been one, there probably should be,” Edie said. “As Paul’s executor, if you’re going to be forced into setting up a trust fund for Paul’s supposed catch colt, you’d best be sure the baby is really his.”

Edie Larson had always been a keen observer of human behavior. One of the spooky things about Ali’s mother, something that had always left her daughter more than slightly mystified, was her innate ability to see through things that went over other people’s heads. Aunt Evelyn, Edie’s twin sister, had always claimed that Edie had eyes in the back of her head. As a child, Ali had believed it was true. Maybe it still was, but this seemed like too much.

“Based on seeing the man in a hotel hallway, you’re convinced Sonia Marie is really Tracy McLaughlin’s baby rather than Paul’s?” Ali asked.

“I’d bet money on it,” Edie declared. “You should have seen the little love tap and the kiss the man laid on April’s tummy as he was saying good-bye. That was a daddy-style maneuver if I’ve ever seen one.”

That meant Paul was cheating on Ali with April, and April was cheating on Paul with Tracy McLaughlin. This was, Ali supposed, entirely predictable.

“What goes around comes around,” she said. “So what do we know about Tracy McLaughlin?”

“Only what was on his Web site, and I’ve got his bio right here,” Edie replied. “Says he came to Hollywood from Des Moines, Iowa, determined to be a stuntman. He ended up in a stunt that went bad and spent the next six months in a full body cast. When he got out of the cast, he went into bodybuilding to regain his strength. He worked puzzles while he was laid up and invented Sumo Sudoku once he got better as a way of proving to people that he had recovered completely. But that’s not all.”

“What’s not all?” Ali asked.

“You’ll never guess who put up a major part of the capital to get Sumo Sudoku off the ground.”

“Paul?”

“You’ve got it. He’s one of the original investors in the organization. There are ten people who put up big bucks to get it started. I don’t recognize any of the other names, but you may. I think that’s why they were holding the Sumo Sudoku tournament at the house on the same day as the wedding. I’m sure Paul knew there would be lots of media coverage. That way the tournament would generate lots of interest…”

“And lots of buzz,” Ali finished. “In this town, buzz is everything. Once something is the current ‘in’ thing, then it’s everybody’s ‘in’ thing. Get one appearance on
Jay Leno
and you’re on your way.”

A gray Chevrolet Impala pulled up and stopped beside Dave’s Nissan. “I’ve gotta go, Mom,” Ali said. “My translator is here.”

Leaving the Chevy idling, Eddie Duarte hurried over to Ali’s door, reached in, and gave her a swift hug.

“Thank you for coming,” she said.

“No problem,” Eddie returned. “Now where’s this guy you need me to talk to?”

With Eddie following in his Chevy, Dave and Ali drove back to South Chicago Street, where Jesus Sanchez’s distinctive blue van was still parked in the driveway. Dave drove half a block beyond the Sanchez house and then stopped in a parking spot that was large enough for both his Nissan and Eddie’s Impala. Before they could open their doors, however, a big unmarked Crown Victoria came careening around the corner and grabbed the spot just behind Eddie. Dave watched in his mirror as two people exited the vehicle and hurried past the van and into the fenced yard.

“Hey,” Dave began. “I think I know them. Aren’t they the two homicide detectives who came to the hospital to talk to April last night?”

Ali turned and looked. Sure enough, Detectives Tim Hubbard and Rosalie Martin hurried up onto the duplex’s shaded front porch and rang the bell. “They talked to me, too,” Ali said. “What are they doing here?”

“Same thing we are,” Dave replied. “Looking for answers.”

“Which means we’re too late then,” Ali said.

“Looks like,” Dave agreed. “They’ll recognize you. You stay where you are, and I’ll let your friend Eddie know what’s going on.”

While Ali watched, the two detectives tried ringing a doorbell. Then they knocked—and knocked some more. Finally a woman Ali recognized to be Jesus’s wife, Clemencia, came to the door and slipped out onto the porch. She stood there talking to the two detectives for several long minutes, alternately shaking her head and gesturing. A little later, an LAPD patrol car pulled up as well. A young Hispanic officer exited the vehicle and hurried up onto the porch, where he joined in the conversation.

By then Dave had returned. “The new guy is probably here to translate,” Dave muttered. “That means they have the same language problem we do.”

They waited and watched for another fifteen minutes. Finally, the clearly frustrated detectives and the patrolman stepped off the porch and returned to their two separate vehicles. As they drove away, Dave let out a sigh of relief.

“If Jesus is there, he refused to come out and talk to them, and they didn’t go in after him. That means Hubbard and Martin were only here on a fishing expedition, and they went away empty-handed. If they’d had enough for a search warrant, it would have been a different story.”

“Let’s go then,” Ali said, opening her door. “I know Clemencia. At least I’ve met her. Maybe she’ll talk to me.”

Dave Holman didn’t budge. “Are you coming or not?” Ali asked.

“You and Eddie go on ahead,” Dave said. “And you’d better make it quick. If Hubbard and Martin come back with a warrant, this may be your only chance.”

“And what are you going to do?” Ali asked.

“I’ll let you know if it works,” Dave replied.

Ali scrambled out of the Nissan and motioned for Eddie Duarte to join her. A moment later, they were standing on the porch in front of a sun-bleached mahogany door. Ali pressed the doorbell, but there was no answering ring from inside. While she waited, Ali edged over to one of the windows. The curtains had been pulled shut, but there was enough of a space left between them that Ali was able to see into the living room, where a stack of taped cardboard boxes and a collection of mismatched luggage gave evidence of hurried packing. Apparently Jesus and Clemencia Sanchez were headed out of Dodge.

Convinced the doorbell wasn’t in working order, Ali tried knocking instead. Nothing happened then, either.

“Her name is Clemencia,” Ali told Eddie. “Call out to her. Tell her we know she’s inside. Tell her I’m here. Say I need to talk to her and that we aren’t going away until I do—that we’ll stay here all afternoon if necessary. Tell her that the neighbors already saw the cops come and go, and they’re watching us now.”

It was several long minutes before Clemencia Sanchez finally came to the door. She pulled it open slightly and then slipped outside. The look she leveled in Ali’s direction was nothing short of venomous.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“Where’s Jesus?” Ali returned. “I need to talk to him.”

Ali knew for sure that Clemencia understood that much English, but the woman deliberately turned away from her, looking instead to Eddie as though she expected understanding from him rather than a translation, which he nonetheless provided.

“He’s gone,” Clemencia answered. “He went away.”

“Gone where?” Ali asked.

Clemencia shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. He isn’t coming back.”

“But I want to give him his job back,” Ali said. “He should never have been fired in the first place. It was a mistake.”

Unimpressed, Clemencia shrugged again. Ali tried another tack.

“The cops that were here before. What did they want?”

Clemencia’s dark eyes sparked with sudden fury. Her nostrils flared. “Jesus knew they would come for him, and they did. That’s why he left, thank God. He went away before they got here.”

“But why would they come for him?” Ali asked.

“Because that awful woman fired him,” Clemencia said in a barrage of angry Spanish. “You wanted him gone, but she was the one who did the dirty work for you. And when he was ready to leave and went to turn in his keys, there she was—at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Monique had already fallen before Jesus left? Why didn’t he call for help?”

“Because he thought she was already dead,” Clemencia answered. “It looked to him like she was dead. And Jesus knew what the cops would think—that since she fired him, he killed her. He dropped his key ring, and he’s sure they found it. They’ll find his fingerprints there, too, and they’ll blame him.” For the first time, Clemencia’s fury seemed to dissolve into something closer to despair. She stopped speaking and blinked back tears.

At the time the EMTs had been moving Monique to the gurney, Ali had been too busy to pay any attention to the key ring. She had been focused instead on the phone. But she remembered it now. And she knew, just as the detectives had, that the keys had belonged to Jesus Sanchez because his name had been on the ring as well. Paul Grayson had been a great one for wielding his P-Touch labeler. Everyone who had access to the house or the grounds, Ali included, had been issued appropriate sets of keys with their names clearly visible.

She also understood why Jesus had chosen to disappear. She knew full well that the U.S. Constitution aside, all men are
not
created equal. Hispanics or blacks accused of crimes often found themselves on an entirely different legal track than Anglos did—one with an automatic presumption of guilt rather than innocence. In fact, she thought wryly, the same thing held true when media babes ended up accused of crimes they may not have committed.

“I’d like to help,” Ali said quietly.

Without needing or waiting for Eddie to translate, Clemencia replied, “Why?”

“Because I know what it feels like to be suspected of doing something you haven’t done,” Ali said. She scrounged in her purse until she found one of Victor’s cards. She handed it over. “If Jesus wants an attorney, have him call this man.”

Clemencia studied the gold-embossed card then handed it back. “We could not afford someone like this,” she said.

Just then Ali remembered Velma T’s nephew. Maybe Jesus and Clemencia wouldn’t find him quite as daunting. “There’s another man I could recommend then,” Ali said. “I’ll forward his information to your niece, Andrea.”

“But still…” Clemencia objected. “We can’t afford to pay for any attorney.”

“I can afford it,” Ali said. “And I will. Be sure to tell Jesus that when you talk to him. And be sure he knows that if he wants it, he still has a job.”

With that, she turned and walked away.

E
ddie Duarte stayed on the porch for several minutes after Ali returned to the car and while she was giving Dave a brief summary of what had transpired.

“You gave Jesus Sanchez Victor Angeleri’s card?” he asked incredulously. “Who’s going to pay the bill? I’d hate to think what his hourly billable rate is.”

“She didn’t take it,” Ali said. “But I’ll pay for whatever attorney they do hire.”

“So now you’re setting out to save the world?”

“Only the parts of it I’ve screwed up,” Ali responded.

“Excuse me,” Dave returned. “As far as I can tell, you had nothing at all to do with the fact that Monique Ragsdale took a header down those stairs.”

“No, but if it turns out she was pushed—”

“She was,” Dave interjected.

“You know that for sure?” Ali asked.

Dave nodded. “I have a source who confirmed it as a suspected homicide while you were busy with Clemencia.”

“Then whoever’s responsible is probably connected to me as well,” Ali asserted. “And if Jesus is being wrongly blamed for what happened to her? Well, I’m connected to him, too.”

“I hope your husband left you a ton of money then,” Dave said. “It sounds like you’re going to need it.”

Eddie Duarte approached Ali’s side of the car and tapped on the window. She rolled it down.

“What did Clemencia say after I left?” Ali asked.

Eddie frowned. “She told me that you’re as evil as your husband.”

That revelation hurt Ali’s feelings. Personally, she had to agree about Paul—he was evil—but Ali didn’t like being tarred with the same brush.

“I told her I knew you were a good person,” Eddie continued. “And that if you said you would do something, you would do it. I’m not sure she believed me, though.”

Why would she?
Ali thought. “Thank you for saying that, Eddie, and thank you for coming,” she added. “I really appreciate your help.”

“Not that it did much good,” Eddie said dejectedly and, offering a good-bye, returned to his car.

“Where to now?” Dave asked. “Back to the hotel?”

Ali nodded.

“How did you find out Monique’s death is now classified as a homicide?” Ali asked. “Who told you?”

“Ken Nickerson is one of my good old buddies from the Marines. We served together in Iraq. Now he works for LAPD.”

“Ken’s the one who got you Andrea Morales’s address information?” Ali asked.

“That’s right. While you were talking to Clemencia, I called him up and asked him straight out if they had autopsy results back on Monique Ragsdale, and they did.”

“Already?” Ali asked.

Dave nodded. “Preliminary,” he said. “It may be Sunday, but since it’s a high-profile case, the guys over on North Mission Road really got their rears in gear on this one.”

“And?” Ali asked.

“Bruising on her arms and on her back. Defensive wounds and definite signs of a struggle. No sexual assault. They took scrapings from under her nails. There could be identifiable DNA found in those. The real problem for Jesus Sanchez is that the cops found something at the crime scene that links him to Monique’s death.”

“I know,” Ali said. “Keys with his name on them. I saw them, too. According to what Jesus told Clemencia, after he was let go, he came to the house to turn in his keys. That’s when he found Monique at the bottom of the stairs. I’m sure he was upset at seeing her like that, and I don’t blame him. I know how I felt when we found her later on. He must have panicked and dropped his keys. Later on, when he realized what had happened, he knew the cops would find them and come looking for him—which they did. That’s probably why he took off.”

“The big question is, were the keys under the victim or were they beside her?” Dave asked. “If they were under, it means the keys and Jesus were probably there either before she fell or at the same time. In that case, things are looking pretty grim for poor old Jesus. If the keys were found nearby, they could have been dropped at the same time or either before or after the fact.”

Ali thought about that. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I don’t remember seeing them until after the EMTs put Monique on the stretcher. It could be they were right there in plain sight the whole time, and we just didn’t notice them.”

“One way or the other, why is it you think it’s your responsibility to hire a defense attorney for Mr. Sanchez?”

“Shut up and drive,” Ali returned.

The fact that Dave Holman did so made Ali like him better.

“And that’s not all,” he said a few minutes later.

“There’s more?”

“Actually, yes. It turns out your Sumo Sudoku pal’s Web site bio didn’t tell the whole story.”

“What did he leave out?”

“That when he was eighteen he went to prison for grand theft auto. It’s not the kind of thing somebody puts on a résumé when he’s out trolling for well-heeled investors.”

“What if Paul suspected something was going on between April and Tracy? What if he started looking into McLaughlin’s background and found out some of this stuff?” Ali asked.

“Sounds like possible motive to me,” Dave said.

“Except the cops aren’t looking in that direction.”

“Not yet,” Dave said. “But there’s no reason we can’t point them that way.”

Without missing the critical merge, it didn’t take nearly as long to get back to the hotel as it had taken to drive to Pico Gardens. “Are you coming up?” Ali asked, as they drove up to the entrance.

“I think I’ll take a pass,” Dave said. “I want to go back to my place and call my kids. I try to talk to them on Sunday afternoons.”

“Just drop me at the front door then,” Ali said. “At this point I don’t care if the lobby is teeming with reporters. I’m tired of sneaking around. I’ll just brazen it out.”

“Good girl,” Dave said. “I’m glad to hear it. Maybe you can afford to keep handing over those terrific tips. I can’t.”

The hotel lobby was completely devoid of reporters as Ali made her way upstairs, leading her to conclude that something more interesting must have turned up as fodder for that evening’s news broadcasts. Back in the room she was surprised to find her mother wasn’t there. Ali tried calling Edie’s cell phone. When the call went to voice mail, Ali hung up. Maybe Edie had decided to take advantage of being in L.A. by going to a movie. Edie preferred what her husband called “arty” films to his shoot-’em-ups, but the former seldom made it to the screens of Sedona’s single multiplex.

Kicking off her tennies, Ali returned her Glock to the safe and raided the honor bar for a Diet Sprite. While there she noticed something odd. Her mother carried her daily allocation of vitamins in a series of ziplock sandwich bags, which she carefully saved each day, packing them away for future use. One of those plastic bags lay in the armoire next to the TV remote. It contained a single cigarette butt.

Ali picked up the bag and examined the contents. The filtered stub was unremarkable in every way. There was no lipstick residue that might indicate that whoever had smoked it was a female. For Edie, a lifelong vociferous nonsmoker, to see fit to keep the remains of a cigarette in what was a clearly designated nonsmoking room could only mean Edie was playing detective in her own right.

Replacing the bag, Ali took her soda to the couch, sat down, picked up her computer, logged on, and googled Richard Dahlgood, Velma T’s nephew. There were several hits, all of them concerning appearances in state and federal courts on behalf of various clients. From everything Ali was able to glean from those reports, Dahlgood seemed like the real deal.

The first e-mail she sent was to Velma T in Laguna.

Next Ali wrote to Andrea Morales.

Several readers weighed in on Ali’s legal issues. Those she responded to briefly and let go. Several others addressed her earlier post about her mother.

That one Ali posted. As she kept reading, she found that the people who had written in were divided almost fifty-fifty on either side of the good mother/bad mother spectrum. By the time she had worked her way through that set of correspondence and added several more posts, Ali found herself agreeing with Alma’s assessment. Ali Reynolds really was lucky.

As the afternoon waned, Ali realized she was hungry. Edie had not yet returned. Ali tried calling her mother’s cell again—to no avail. Once again the call went straight to voice mail. Just to be sure, Ali checked her own phone to see if she had missed receiving a message. She hadn’t. She checked the room phone for messages as well. No luck. Finally she called down to the desk. Edie hadn’t left a note there, either. And then, just to cover all the bases, she tried April’s phones, too, both her room and her cell. Again, no answer.

Feeling the first inkling of concern, Ali transferred over to the bell captain. “This is Ali Reynolds,” she said.

Her reputation for generous tipping had preceded her. For Ali Reynolds no ticket number was required. “Right, Ms. Reynolds,” the bell captain said at once. “Would you like me to have your vehicle brought around to the back?”

“No,” she said. “I’m actually calling about my mother’s vehicle. Is it there?”

“Do you have the valet number for that one?”

“No,” Ali replied. “It’s a white Oldsmobile Alero with Arizona plates.”

“Oh, that one,” he said. “It was self-parked. She left like she was headed to a fire sometime right around one. It was busy, and we were totally backed up here. She was in such a hurry that she almost ran down one of my guys.”

“Was she alone?”

“As far as I know.”

Off the phone, Ali tried to imagine where Edie would have been going in such a hurry. As an out-of-town driver, she wasn’t familiar with the L.A. area. Wherever it was, it was likely she would have needed detailed directions. If she hadn’t asked one of the parking valets for help, maybe she had done so online.

Ali returned to her computer and checked out the search page, looking for the most recent searches. She expected to find a listing for MapQuest or one of the other online map providers. What she found instead was a list of several Iowa-based searches, including one for the
Des Moines Register.
Iowa. Tracy McLaughlin had been sent up for grand theft auto in Iowa.

Ali grabbed her phone and dialed Dave.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“We may have a problem,” Ali said. “I can’t find my mother, and I’m pretty sure she’s been playing detective. While I was gone, she was looking up something in the
Des Moines Register.
”

“Smart woman,” Dave said. “She must have been tracking Tracy McLaughlin, too.”

“She may be smart, but she’s also not here,” Ali said. “At the hotel.”

“Where’d she go?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I have no idea. The parking valet said she left in a hell of a hurry, but she didn’t leave a note, and she’s not answering her cell.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“She left the hotel a little after one,” Ali replied.

“Have you called your dad?” Dave asked. “Maybe she’s called him.”

“I can check,” Ali said.

“Good. You do that,” Dave said. “In the meantime, I’m on my way. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Ali was waiting at the hotel entrance when Dave pulled into the driveway in his Nissan. “Well?” he asked as she settled into the passenger seat.

“Dad hasn’t heard from her,” Ali reported. “His first thought was that she’d probably gone to see a bargain matinee. That was my idea, too, but the movie would be over by now. Dad’s worried, and so am I. Should I call the cops and report her missing?”

Dave shook his head. “It won’t make any difference. They’re not going to go looking for her right now anyway. We’re better off looking ourselves. Where do you think she might have gone?”

“Mom’s from out of town,” Ali replied. “She doesn’t really know her way around L.A. The only map she has in the Alero is that big atlas. I know she used MapQuest directions to get to the hotel, but there were no MapQuest searches on my computer.”

“So wherever she went, if she drove herself, she must have known where she was going,” Dave concluded.

Ali nodded. “Right. And the only two familiar places I know about for sure are the hospital and the house on Robert Lane. If April went into labor, she could have gone to Cedars-Sinai. I’m pretty sure that’s where Mom said April plans to deliver. But it’s possible she might have gone to the house for some strange reason, too.”