Hand of Evil

CHAPTER 16

Larry Marsh returned from the evidence room to find Hank on the phone, apparently on interminable hold.

“So where are we?” he asked.

Hank impatiently waved him to silence. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks so much. If he could call me back with that information, I’d really appreciate it.” Hank put down the phone. “Still tracking with the VA,” he explained. “What about you?”

“I read the diary,” Larry Marsh answered. “It could be Ali Reynolds is right and there is something there.”

“What do we do about it?” Hank asked.

“Let’s order up everything available on the other two Ashcroft characters. You take Senior. I’ll take Junior, and we’ll see what gives. We should probably do the same thing for Arabella while we’re at it.”

For the better part of the next two hours the only sounds coming from their cubicle were the click of computer keys and the whir of their printer. It didn’t take long for Larry to hit pay dirt.

“Look at this,” he said. “It’s from a column in the L.A. Times. It squares with what Ali Reynolds said and also with what was in the diary: ‘We are saddened to report that over the holiday weekend, Bill Cowan Ashcroft Junior’s hand was severely injured as a result of a tree-cutting accident at his father’s Brentwood Estate. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. No further details about his condition are forthcoming at this time, but we certainly wish Bill and his family well.’”

“A tree-trimming accident?” Hank repeated. “With a father richer than God he has his son out cutting trees instead of a gardener? Sounds bogus to me.”

“Right. They came up with the tree story so no one would hear the real one, as in I was messing with my baby sister and she came after me with a knife. When it comes to having the story show up on the news, having a close encounter with an ax is a lot more palatable than the baby-sister angle.”

By then, Hank had finished with Bill Senior and had moved on to Arabella. “What are you finding on her?” Larry asked.

“Not much at all,” Hank told him. “No driver’s license that I can find. No marriage. No kids. No divorces, and almost zero press. The Ashcroft menfolk were publicity hounds. And Arabella’s mother, Anna Lee Askins Ashcroft, was a big deal in her own right. There are articles about her participation in museum galas and plenty of opera and symphony events. Once she moved to Arizona, she was even a big-time supporter of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. Compared to the rest of the family, Arabella’s interaction with the public is damned near nonexistent.”

“If she doesn’t have a valid operator’s license, who drives that Silver Cloud we saw in her garage?” Larry asked.

“Arabella Ashcroft is the registered owner all right, but the insurance company lists Leland Brooks as the only driver.”

“That would be the butler?” Larry asked.

Hank nodded. “The butler/chauffeur. He’s been with the family for years. The mother, Anna Lee, died in 1995 after outliving Bill Senior by a dozen years. Since then it’s just been Arabella and the butler.”

Ali had always valued her close relationship with Chris, and the idea that she had been kept in the dark about a potentially serious girlfriend came as a shock. Ali had raised her son alone and had prided herself on the fact they had remained close through those difficult years of teenage angst when many mother/son relationships had run aground. As Chris came into the house and paused to hang up his jacket, it struck Ali as totally unfair that at the moment she knew far more about the details of Crystal Holman’s tempestuous life and intimate relations than she did about what was going on with her very own son.

“Hey, Mom,” he said. “How’s it going?”

There was no sense in attempting to play coy. “Tell me about Athena,” Ali returned.

Chris’s handsome face fell. “Who blabbed?” he asked. “Grandma?”

“Who’s Athena?” Ali insisted. “And what’s wrong with her?”

Chris picked Sam up off the couch and then sat down in the same spot with the cat ensconced in his lap. “What makes you think something’s wrong with her?”

“Because you didn’t tell me about her.”

“I wanted you to meet her first so you could make up your own mind,” Chris said. “I didn’t want you to have any preconceived ideas about her. Besides, you’ve been so busy with Crystal Holman and everything…”

Not that busy! Ali thought. “But Grandpa and Grandma have already met her?” she asked.

Chris shrugged. “We went to the Sugarloaf for breakfast the other morning,” Chris said. “She loves the sweet rolls.”

“But since we’re all meeting for dinner tonight, you also knew that you couldn’t keep her a secret forever. Tell me. Tell me everything.”

“She’s older,” Chris said guardedly.

“How much older?”

“Six years.”

Ali was relieved. It could have been a lot worse. “That’s not so bad,” she said. “Where did you meet her?”

“At school. She teaches math-algebra, geometry, trig, calculus.”

That was a surprise. Chris had fallen for a math major? Ali’s idea of advanced mathematics was balancing her checkbook.

“What else?”

“Mom, what do you mean ‘what else?’ Why the third degree?”

For the first time Ali realized that she had been blessed-or maybe cursed-with some of her mother’s abilities at discernment.

“Because there’s more you’re not telling me.”

“She’s divorced,” Chris admitted. “But that was finalized last summer, before I even met her.”

“Kids?”

“No kids.”

Ali sighed. “That’s a relief.”

“But she’d make a great mother,” Chris put in quickly.

“I’m sure she would,” Ali agreed. “So that’s it? That’s everything?”

Chris paused. “Not exactly,” he admitted finally.

Ali had tried to raise her son to be open-minded. She had welcomed friends of all shapes, sizes, and races into their home.

That’s it, she thought. I’m about to have my very own Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? moment.

“What exactly?” Ali prompted.

For a long moment Chris sat stroking Sam’s silky fur saying nothing. “She was in Iraq,” he said finally. “She went there with the Minnesota National Guard.”

“She’s a soldier, then?”

“Was a soldier,” Chris said. “Her Humvee got hit by an IED while she was riding shotgun. She’s a double amputee. She lost her right leg above the knee and her right arm above the elbow.”

That was not what Ali had been expecting-not even close. For a moment Ali said nothing. She had hoped that Chris would somehow avoid her checkered marital experience and find his way to the perfect suburban life with a lovely wife, a couple of cute kids, and even a dog or cat or two. But this didn’t sound lovely at all. She couldn’t dodge the unwelcome juxtaposition between this and what Deb Springer had told her about Bill Ashcroft Junior’s amputated hand.

“But you wouldn’t know it,” Chris continued cheerfully. “She’s terrific, Mom. I know you’ll like her. She bowls