“Don’t go all grown-up on me,” Ali said with a laugh. “I just want some answers. That’s all.”
“And how do you plan on getting them?”
“By asking questions, I suppose,” she returned.
“What kinds of questions?”
“My plan for today is to drive down to Phoenix and talk to the banker Reenie talked with the day she died. I just want to get a line on what she did after she left the doctor’s office.”
“That’s all?”
“What do you mean, that’s all?”
“I mean you won’t be doing things you shouldn’t.”
“You mean as in not minding my own business? You really are starting to sound like your grandmother.”
“And for good reason,” Chris responded. “You just got out of the hospital, remember?”
“So you’re worried about me!”
“You could say that,” he agreed. “And from the sound of your post this morning, I should be, which is why, at the very least, I should come over and help.”
“No,” she said. “You definitely shouldn’t do that. Finish your exams. Finish school.”
“But you’ll be careful?”
“Chris, I’m going to go talk to a banker,” she said, not trying to conceal her exasperation. “How dangerous can that be?”
“In your case, who knows?” he returned.
Chris hung up abruptly after that. Ali and her son quarreled so seldom that their telephone tiff left her feeling uneasy. Had Chris started it or had she? And what did he expect her to do, just turn her back on Reenie and forget about it?
Sipping coffee, she reread the printed e-mail from First United Financial. This time her eyes stopped short on the words “the trustee and/or with the grantor.” Who in Reenie’s family would be best qualified to fill either one of those jobs?
Ed Holzer! Ali realized. Of course. That made perfect sense.
After all, the man had been a banker for years before selling out and establishing a property management firm in its stead. In fact, there was a good chance that Ed himself had established the trust accounts. Maybe these were things he and Diane had set up to benefit their grandchildren.
Ali had started making a to-do list to take with her. The phone rang just as she added Ed’s name.
“Good morning,” Bob Larson said. “How’s my girl this morning?”
“Fine,” she told her dad. “Still bruised and battered but fine.”
“Your mother wants to know if you’re coming down for breakfast. So do I, for that matter.”
“I won’t have time,” she said. “I’m leaving for Phoenix in just a few minutes, and I thought I’d stop by and see Ed and Diane Holzer on the way.”
“Our loss,” he said. “Dave’s, too.”
“Dave?”
“Holman. He was hoping to talk to you, too.”
Detective Dave Holman was the last person Ali wanted to see. She remembered Dave running to her side at the end of the Ben Witherspoon confrontation. And she had a hazy recollection of his worried face hovering in the background as the EMTs rolled her from the ambulance into the ER. She hadn’t seen him again after that, and it was just as well. For one thing, Rick Santos, her criminal defense attorney, had told her to have nothing at all to do with law enforcement officers for the time being, at least not until the Witherspoon matter had been resolved, one way or the other. Before that, her attorney needed to be present at all times: As in anything you say can be held against you.
But Ali had a second reason for avoiding Dave Holman which, in her opinion, carried as much weight as her attorney’s objections. If Chris somewhat disapproved of Ali looking into the Reenie situation, Dave was likely to be absolutely opposed.
“Tell him I’ll be in touch,” Ali said. She was about to hang up, but Bob caught her in time.
“Kip said something about your having extra food you want to donate?”
“Tons of it,” she said.
“How about if I have him bring me up to your place later on this morning,” Bob suggested. “I have a key. We can pick up your extra food and take it up the mountain. Kip’s old neighbors will be glad to have it, and I imagine your mother will be thrilled to have me out from under hand and foot.”
“Be advised,” Ali said. “I have an alarm system now.” She gave him the code. “And don’t let the cat out.”
“What cat?” Bob demanded. “Since when do you have a cat? You always hated cats.”
In the crowded days between her father’s snowboarding accident and Ali’s own trip to the hospital, there hadn’t been much occasion for visiting.
“Sam belongs to Matt and Julie Bernard,” Ali explained. “It’s only temporary. Samantha’s the first cat I’ve ever really made friends with, and she’s not half bad. Ugly, but not bad.”
Bob laughed. “That sounds a lot like what your mother says about me on occasion.”
When it came time to leave the house, Ali spent the better part of ten minutes fruitlessly searching for her purse. Baffled, she finally thought to look in the shopping bag her mother had used to bring her wrecked clothing home from the hospital.
Sure enough, there, zipped into a Ziploc bag, she found the remaining contents of her purse-wallet, MP3 player, three tubes of lipstick, a compact, nail file, a few paperclips, out of date credit card receipts, a plastic tampon container, and other assorted junk. The collection included an official-looking Yavapai Sheriff’s Department document that notified her that her Coach bag had been kept as evidence and could be claimed at a later date.
Right, Ali thought. A Coach bag with a bullet hole in the bottom.
Ali paused long enough to write “buy purse” on her to-do list. She stuck that along with the printout from Reenie’s e-mail into her makeshift, see-through plastic purse and then set off for Phoenix by way of Cottonwood.
It was only a little past ten when Ali drove into the yard at Ed and Diane Holzer’s place. She saw at once that their car was missing from the carport and no one answered her knock. Thinking Ed might have gone to his office, Ali drove on into town.
Holzer Property Management was located at the corner of Aspen and South Main in a block Ed had purchased and redeveloped. It was tucked into a small commercial complex that contained two dentists, an accountant, a chiropractor, a Mailboxes, Etc., and a Subway sandwich shop. Ali was disappointed when she saw no trace of Ed’s Buick in the parking lot there, either, but she went inside to check all the same.
The receptionist just inside the door was clearly troubled by Ali’s appearance. “Ed isn’t in today,” she said, trying hard not to stare at Ali’s cuts and bruises. “I believe he had a doctor’s appointment this morning, but Bree is in. Would you like to talk to her?”
“Sure,” Ali said. “Why not?”
Ali was shown into a conference room where she found Bree seated in front of an unfurled stack of architectural drawings. “My God!” Bree exclaimed, leaping to her feet and coming around to give Ali an effusive hug. “You look awful! I heard about what happened, but I didn’t expect…”
“…me to look like the wrath of God?” Ali finished with a pained grin. “Believe me, I’m a lot better now than I was two days ago.”
“Grab a chair,” Bree said, resuming her own. “What can we do for you?”
“I was looking for your dad.”
Bree shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “You just missed him. Mom and Dad left about twenty minutes ago. They’re on their way to Phoenix so Dad can see his cardiologist.”
“Phoenix,” Ali said. “That’s where I’m going, too. Do they have a cell phone? Maybe I can catch up with them there.”
Bree shook her head. “Sorry. Dad hates cell phones. Loathes them, in fact. Wouldn’t have one on a bet. But this sounds urgent. Is there something I can do?”
Ali considered for a moment before deciding there was no reason not to ask Bree about the accounts. She was, after all, a managing partner. Presumably, whatever Ed knew Bree knew and vice versa.
