Web of Evil

'Of course I do,' Edie said. 'Why wouldn't I? Every morning while I'm waiting for the sweet rolls to rise and when there's no one here in the restaurant to keep me company, I read the whole thing. When Dad and I got Chris that new Mac, he gave us his old one. Hooked it up here in the office, got me an Internet account, the whole nine yards. My Internet handle is sugarloafmama, by the way, but I didn't call to talk about me. I want to know what's going on with you. Tell me everything, and hurry it up. We open in a few minutes.'

So Ali told her mother as much as she could rememberthe parts she had put in the blog as well as the parts she'd left out. The truth is, after sitting through the statement she'd given to Detectives Sims and Taylor, Victor had advised her to say nothing in her blog about any of itnothing at all. Feeling a certain loyalty to her readers, Ali had written her blog entry anyway, saying only what she thought would pass muster. She never came right out and said that she had ridden to Indio in the company of the two homicide detectives. And she never breathed a word about hitching a ride back from Jacqueline Cochran Airport with the newest member of Ali's burgeoning troop of attorneys.

In talking to Edie, however, Ali corrected this deliberate oversight by mentioning Victor Angeleri by name, while at the same time somehow glossing over the criminal defense portion of his curriculum vitae.

'You say his name's Victor, Victor Angeleri? What kind of a name is that?' Edie wanted to know.

'Italian, I suppose,' Ali answered.

'And he flies his own plane?'

'No. He chartered one.' And on the way home, to take my mind off my troubles, gave me an in- depth lesson on Jacqueline Cochran, the lady the airport is named after, and on the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, Ali thought.

'What's he like?' Edie asked. 'Old? Young? What?'

'About the same age as Dad, I suppose,' Ali said. 'And big. He had to use a seat-belt extender in the airplane.'

'I don't care one whit about his size,' Edie declared. 'What I want to know is whether or not he's any good. Now what kind of attorney is he again? Not your divorce attorney,' she added. 'That's Myra somebody.'

Ali wondered how it was Edie Larson could somehow play dumb while simultaneously and unerringly sniffing out Ali's every attempt at subterfuge.

'Not Myra, Helga Myerhoff,' Ali corrected. 'She was the one handling the divorce proceedings. Victor specializes in criminal defense.'

'But why on earth would you need a criminal defense attorney?' Edie wanted to know. 'Do the cops think you had something to do with Paul's deaththat you're somehow responsible? How could you be? You were miles away at the time.'

Ali remembered the pulsing, telltale glow from that long line of emergency lights that had lit up the desert floor as they streamed through the night toward the scene of the wreck.

Not nearly as many miles away as I should have been, Ali thought.

Victor hadn't wanted her to mention seeing those flashing lights in the course of giving Detectives Sims and Taylor her taped statement, but since they already knew what time she'd left Phoenix and since they already knew what time she'd checked into the hotel, that meant they also knew the approximate time she would have been passing Palm Springs. Consequently, it seemed pointless to skip over that part. The truth was she had seen the flashing lights. She would have had to have been blind not to, and lying about that in an official statement seemed both pointless and stupid.

'The cops probably do suspect me,' Ali said, trying to deliver the words in a casual, offhand manner that she hoped would throw Edie off course. 'But Victor says not to worry. It's just routine. That's what homicide detectives do. To begin with, they look at everyone. Then gradually they eliminate the ones who didn't do it until they arrive at whoever did.'

'So you're saying for sure that Paul was murdered?' Edie asked.

Ali sighed. 'Yes. When Victor and I left Indio, they hadn't yet released any details about the case because April hadn't been notified, but I'm sure she has been by now. If that's the case, the story is probably all over the airwaves. I was asleep, though, so I haven't had a chance to check.'

The idea that the questioning was routine did nothing to calm Edie's outrage. 'This is unbelievable!' she announced. 'I should never have let you drive over there on your own. Never. The subject came up before you left. Dad said I should probably pack up and go along, but then I let you talk me out of it. Big mistake. There are times women need their mothers with them, Alison. This turns out to be one of them.'

In the background Ali heard a door open and close. 'Speak of the devil,' Edie said. 'Here's your father now. I'm in the office, Bob,' she called to her husband. 'Ali's on the phone. Come listen to this. You're not going to believe it.'

Briefly Edie began to recount everything Ali had told her. Halfway through, though, the story came to an abrupt stop.

'My word!' Edie exclaimed. 'I completely lost track of time. The first customers just pulled up, Ali. We have to go now. I'll call again later, but you take care of yourself. Don't let those turkeys push you around.'

Once Ali put down the phone, she dozed for a little while, but by seven when she was wide awake, she called room service and ordered breakfast and newspapers. She managed to jump in and out of the shower before her breakfast tray showed up.

Sipping coffee, she went through the newspapers, where the homicideyes, a Riverside Sheriff's Department spokesman actually used the H-wordof prominent television news executive Paul Grayson was front-page news. So, unfortunately, was Ali's picture, which turned out to be every bit as bad as Ali had predicted it would be. The caption stated: 'Former L.A.-area newscaster Alison Reynolds, accompanied by noted defense attorney Victor Angeleri, leaves the Riverside County Sheriff's Substation in Indio after identifying the body of her slain husband, Paul Grayson.'

Trying not to look at the tabloid-worthy photo, Ali turned her attention to the accompanying article. Despite the use of a banner headline and the expenditure of lots of front-page column inches, there was surprisingly little content, and hardly anything Ali hadn't already gleaned on her own.

Today was supposed to be Paul Grayson's wedding day. Instead, the prospective groom is now a murder victim, having fallen victim to a bizarre kidnapping/murder scheme in which he was left bound and gagged in the trunk of a stolen vehicle that was abandoned on a railroad track near Palm Springs. The stolen vehicle was subsequently struck by a speeding freight train, killing Grayson on impact. An autopsy has been scheduled for later today.

A joint homicide investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Riverside County Sheriff's Department is attempting to establish the exact chain of events from the time Grayson abruptly departed a posh bachelor party being held in his honor to the time an eastbound Burlington Northern freight train slammed into the vehicle in which he had been imprisoned.

Ali scanned the next several paragraphs, which mostly contained information she had already learned. She slowed and read more carefully when she reached the part that discussed the ill-fated bachelor party at the Pink Swan.

'We were all at the Pink Swan having a good time,' said bachelor party host and former NBC executive Jake Maxwell. 'I remember someone saying there was a call for Paul. I believe he went outside to take it, and he never came back. I finally went outside looking for him and noticed his Porsche was missing from the parking lot. I just assumed he'd decided he'd had enough and gone home.'

Early yesterday afternoon, Mr. Grayson's Porsche Carrera was found stripped and abandoned in an apartment parking lot in Banning. The Camry destroyed by the speeding train had been reported stolen earlier in the day from a vacant-lot private-vehicle sales location in Ventura. The Riverside Sheriff's Department is asking that anyone with information on either vehicle contact them immediately.

Mr. Grayson was in the process of divorcing his wife, former local television news personality Alison Reynolds. He was due at a hearing to finalize their divorce at 10 A.M. yesterday morning. It was his failure to appear in court that prompted his fiancee, April Gaddis, to contact LAPD's Missing Persons Unit, which immediately began conducting an investigation.

The story continued on page two, but Ali didn't bother following it. There was nothing new here. She tried two other papers with similar resultsmuch the same story with no additional information and with equally bad photos of Alison Reynolds. Disgusted, Ali gave up, poured another cup of coffee, and turned on her computer. Once