Web of Evil

Since the wedding and reception had both been scheduled to take place at the house, Ali assumed the parking arrangements would have been canceled once the wedding was called off. The sides of the street were full of illegally parked vehicles, most of them bearing media insignia. When Victor pulled up to the gate, Ali was surprised to see that it was wide open. She was even more surprised to see the parking valets very much in evidence although most of the newsies had chosen to disregard the valet parking option.

'Keep your cool, Ali,' Victor advised as he turned in at the gate. He maneuvered his Lincoln into a narrow parking place between a catering truckif the wedding had been canceled, why a catering truck?and an enormous RV garishly painted an overall red and blue plaid pattern. On the side was a picture of a muscle-bound, bare-chested man wearing little more than a kilt. Beside him, printed in huge gold letters, were the words TEAM MCLAUGHLIN. SUMO SUDOKU.

Ali had a passing knowledge of sudoku. In fact, the waitresses at the Sugar Loaf had become sudoku addicts and experts, spending their break times working the puzzles in discarded newspapers left behind by customers who weren't so afflicted.

Puzzles of any kind had never really appealed to Ali, but she had learned enough to understand that sudoku was a game of logic played on a square containing eighty-one boxes divided into nine smaller squares. It was similar to a crossword puzzle only with numbers rather than words. The object was to fill in all horizontal and vertical lines with the numbers one through nine without ever having the same number appear twice in any of the lines. Each of the smaller boxes was also supposed to contain the numbers one through nine with no repetition. Ali assumed that Sumo Sudoku was more of the same, only bigger.

'Your husband's death is a big story, and everybody is covering it,' Victor cautioned. 'That means there may be reporters outside the door. So when we get out of the vehicle to go inside, try to keep quiet. I don't want any off-the-cuff remarks from anybody, you included, Helga,' he added.

With Ali's attention focused on the garishly painted truck, she almost missed the group of reporters bearing down on them as Ted Grantham hustled out of the house to usher them inside. 'Right this way,' he said hurriedly. 'Les isn't here yet. He called to say he's tied up in traffic. April should be down in a few minutes.'

Down from what used to be my room, Ali thought, but she said nothing.

'Sorry about all the uproar,' Ted commented, leading them toward the front door, where a hand-lettered DO NOT DISTURB sign had been posted over the doorbell. 'But the film crew was already scheduled to be here today as part of the festivities,' he continued. 'Since this is the only day they can be here, April decided to go ahead with the shoot after all. Even with Paul gone, she thinks once the program is in the can there's a chance they'll still be able to get it on the airmaybe on one of those reality shows.'

'What shoot?' Helga asked.

'The Sumo Sudoku shoot,' Ted answered. 'Surely you've heard of Sumo Sudoku. It's Paul's latest brainchild. April's, too, for that matter. It's all the rage around here and supposedly the next big thing. You play it with rocks. When Tracy McLaughlin of Team McLaughlin takes the RV down to the beach and sets up a match there, it's amazing. People line up to play; they're even willing to fork over good money for the privilege.'

Only half listening to Ted, Ali stepped through the double doors with their elegant frosted glass and into the spacious foyer. It was a strange experience. This light-washed entryway with its hardwood floor and antique credenza had once been part of her home. Most of the house had been decorated in accordance with Paul's unrelentingly modern sensibility. In the face of all that brass and glass, Ali had gravitated to the one exceptiona beautifully wrought, bird's-eye maple credenza that had occupied the place of honor in the entryway. She had loved the slightly curved lines of the piece and complex patterns in the grain of the wood. In a way, the credenza had seemed almost as much of an interloper in Paul's house as Ali herself had been.

Now the credenza was covered with a collection of fragrant condolence bouquets, all of them complete with unopened envelopes from various senders. At least one of the vases had been carelessly deposited on the polished wood, leaving behind a distinct and indelible water mark. Seeing the stain saddened Ali. She made a halfhearted effort to rub it out but it didn't go away. It would take someone wiser in the ways of cleaning to make the offending moisture ring disappear.

With no one paying any attention to her, Ali ventured a few steps into the living room. In anticipation of the wedding, most of the furniture had been removedreplaced by a dozen or so rows of cloth-covered banquet-style chairs arranged so they faced a wooden arch at one end of the room. On either side of the arch stood ranks of candles and immense baskets of flowersan avant-garde mix of traditional and fragrant lilies punctuated with an occasional bird-of-paradise.

Ali wasn't the least bit surprised by this somewhat odd combination. Bird-of-paradise wasn't exactly commonplace in bridal floral arrangements, but Paul had always preferred it to any other flower. He would insist on sending it on occasions when other peopleAli includedwould have preferred roses or gladiolas or even snapdragons. The oddly angular buds with their comical topknots and brilliant colors had never spoken to Ali the way they had to him.

The same could be said of Paul's choices in furnitureunabashedly modern and not especially comfortableand art. On this early Saturday morning, with most of the furniture removed in honor of a wedding that would never happen, only the artwork remained. The big splashy original oil canvases had bold colors and plenty of panache. Ali knew the paintings came with top gallery pedigrees and spectacular price tags. What they lacked was heart.

Just like the rest of the house, Ali thought. No wonder she had never felt at home here. If it hadn't been for Elvira Jimenez doing her cooking magic in the kitchen, the house on Robert Lane could just as well have been a museum of modern art.

The far wall of the living room was lined with French doors that led out onto a spacious terrace. Through the open doors, Ali saw the terrace was stocked with a dozen or so linen-covered cocktail tables and even more chairs. Empty buffet tables, chafing dishes at the ready, were situated at both ends of the terrace. Again, Ali wasn't surprised that Paul would have selected this spot as the site of his now canceled wedding reception. Paul had always loved entertaining on the lavish terrace with its unobstructed if sometimes smog-obscured view of the city. Ali had usually gravitated toward the smaller and more private tree-and-bougainvillea-lined patio out back by the pool house.

With the three attorneys settled in the library in a low-voiced huddle, Ali wandered out onto the terrace. The grassy lawn below the stone balustrade was a beehive of activity. Someone was using a handheld dispenser to lay out a complicated pattern of white chalk lines on Paul's carefully tended grass. Ali looked around for Jesus Sanchez, Paul's longtime gardener. He had always taken great pride in the fact that his grass could have been plunked down on the eighteenth green of any self-respecting golf course without anyone knowing the difference. Ali more than half-expected Jesus to appear out of nowhere, bellowing a loud objection to the chalk-spreader's desecration.

Moments later Jesus did in fact appear around the corner of the house above and behind Ali, but he wasn't making any kind of fuss about the chalk on his grass lawn. Instead, he was totally occupied by two young men who were pushing a pair of heavily laden wheelbarrows loaded with perfectly round rocks down the steep path that led from the back of the house to the lawn below.

As one of the men made the corner, the wheelbarrow wobbled in his hands. The next thing Ali knew, the load of rocks came spilling down the hill and onto the flagstone terrace. Some of them bounced almost head high while one of them smashed to pieces, sending shards of granite flying in every direction. One needlelike piece seemed headed directly for Ali's throat. It missed her by an inch. Seconds later, a man vaulted off the path and over the rail, landing on the terrace next to her.

'Are you all right?'

Ali was shaken but unhurt. 'I'm fine,' she said.

Nodding, the angry man turned back to the frightened workman who was still clinging to the handles of his empty wheelbarrow.

'You stupid jerk! Don't you know how to do anything? You could have killed this poor woman!'

Only then did Ali recognize him. The man doing the yelling had to be Tracy McLaughlin, the same tall blond guy pictured on the RV. The big difference was that now he wore regular khakis rather than a kilt.

'Are you sure you're all right?' he asked Ali again. 'It's a good thing that eight broke into a million pieces. Otherwise it might have taken your head right off. I'm not surprised, though. The kind of piss-poor help we're having to put up with here today amp;' He shook his head in disgust. 'Come get these, will you?' he shouted up at the men waiting on the path. 'And then go back to the truck. Thank God I have a spare eight there. It's got a crack in it, but