years ago. The guy’s name was Richard Lowensdale/Lattimore/Loomis/Lewis. He had any number of aliases, and Mrs. Hart’s daughter, Lynn, was one of his many victims. Given what Mrs. Hart describes as Lynn’s unfortunate track record with men, Beatrice seems to think her daughter might be in danger right along with the new boyfriend’s ex-wife. For some reason, she was reluctant to call you directly.”
“I wish she had,” Dave grumbled, “but it’s too late for that now. I’m about twenty minutes out. If you can keep her there, I’ll stop by your place before I head home.”
“She’ll wait,” Ali assured him. “B.’s plying her with Leland’s beef stew.”
“If there’s any left, I may ask for some, too,” Dave said. “Priscilla’s bent out of shape that I’m missing dinner again, but that’s what she gets for marrying a cop.”
“What should I tell Beatrice?” Ali asked.
“That I’m on my way,” Dave said.
“How bad is it?” Ali asked, more than half expecting to hear that Lynn, like Gemma, had come to grief.
“About as bad as it can get,” Dave answered. “Lynn Martinson is in jail and in a jumpsuit. So is her boyfriend, Mr. Ralston, or should I say Dr. Ralston? Cap Horning, the county attorney, is waiting to charge them, but he just made both of their attorneys the same offer. Whoever talks first gets charged with a lesser offense that takes the death penalty off the table. The plea deal expires at the end of twenty-four hours. If neither of them takes it, they both get charged with murder in the first degree, and all bets are off.”
“You said ‘both’ attorneys?” Ali asked. “Does that mean Lynn has one and Chip has another?”
“That’s correct. Dr. Ralston’s attorney arrived from Phoenix wearing a five-thousand-dollar suit and driving a silver Porsche Carrera. Ms. Martinson is evidently in a somewhat different economic league. She has a court- appointed defense attorney named Paula Urban. Paula isn’t exactly a greenhorn. She’s done a boatload of drug charges, domestic violence cases, and grand theft autos. As far as I know, this is her first homicide case.”
Ali knew those were words that Beatrice Hart wouldn’t find the least bit reassuring.
“So what are you going to tell her?” Dave asked.
“That the lead investigator from the Gemma Ralston case is on his way from Prescott and that he’d like to speak to her.”
“Fair enough,” Dave said. “See you in a couple.”
Pocketing the phone, Ali returned to the library.
Beatrice looked up at her anxiously. “Well?” she asked.
“I spoke to someone from the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department,” she said. “I didn’t mention it before, but Dave Holman is the county’s lead investigator in the Gemma Ralston case and he’s on his way here from Prescott. I asked them to have him stop by the house to talk to you. He should be here in the next fifteen minutes or so.”
“What about Lynn?” Beatrice insisted. “Does he know if she’s all right?”
Having already embarked on a little white lie, Ali didn’t have much choice but to stay the course. “I didn’t speak to Detective Holman directly,” she said. “I was being patched back and forth. You’ll need to ask him that when he gets here.”
“He didn’t tell you that something had happened to her, did he?”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Ali replied.
“She’ll probably be upset when she finds out I’ve been interfering in her private life,” Beatrice said wistfully, taking a sip of coffee from a recently refilled cup.
Ali said nothing. There was no point in giving Beatrice the bad news.
When Ali’s phone rang again a few minutes later, Dave was calling from the gate at the bottom of the drive. She buzzed him in and then went to the door to meet him. “Don’t rat me out,” she warned. “I claimed I hadn’t spoken to you directly.”
He nodded. “Thanks,” he said.
Ali led him into the library and made the introductions. “I’ve been given to understand you’re Lynn Martinson’s mother,” Dave said, settling down on a polished mesquite-wood armchair.
“You know her?” Beatrice asked hopefully.
Dave nodded. “So what’s going on?”
“I haven’t heard from her all day long,” Beatrice answered. “That’s so unlike her, and given what else has happened, I’ve been terribly worried.”
“What do you mean by ‘what else’?” Dave asked.
“Gemma Ralston’s murder,” Beatrice said quickly. “As soon as they announced the name of the victim, I was scared to death-afraid that if Lynn’s boyfriend had done something to harm his ex-wife, he might have done something to Lynn as well.”
“You’re saying that once you knew Gemma Ralston had been murdered, your immediate assumption was that her former husband might have had something to do with it?”
“That’s often the case, isn’t it?” Beatrice replied. “Husbands kill their former wives; wives kill their former husbands. It happens all the time, at least on TV.”
“Are you aware of any specific threat Dr. Ralston might have made in that regard?”
“Not really. Lynn and I don’t talk about him much. She knows I don’t necessarily approve.”
“Of her relationship with Dr. Ralston?”
Beatrice nodded.
“Why not?”
“Because he was my deceased husband’s doctor, for one thing,” Beatrice said. “I think there’s something suspect about doctors who become romantically involved with their patients or their patients’ family members. I’m under the impression that Chip’s family doesn’t approve of Lynn, either, probably for the same reason.”
“What makes you say that?” Dave asked.
“All the sneaking around, for one thing,” Beatrice said. “Lynn goes to his house late in the evening, after Chip’s mother has gone to bed, and she comes home early most mornings for the same reason-to be out of his place before Chip’s mother is up and around. That’s a sad commentary. Here they are, middle-aged people sneaking around like a pair of moony teenagers. But all you’ve been doing is asking questions. Do you know anything about my daughter, about where she is and if she’s okay?”
“Unfortunately, I do, Ms. Hart,” Dave said. “Your daughter and Dr. Ralston have both been arrested.”
Beatrice blanched and held her hand to her mouth while Dave continued. “They’re being held on suspicion of murdering his former wife. That’s why she hasn’t been answering her phone. They were taken into custody early this morning. Your daughter was picked up shortly after leaving Dr. Ralston’s place in Paradise Valley. He was taken into custody after he arrived at his office in Surprise. They have yet to be officially charged, which is why we haven’t made their names public.”
Once Dave stopped talking, Beatrice stared at him slack-jawed before she managed to speak. “Lynn-my daughter-has been arrested for murder? Is that what you’re saying?”
Dave nodded. “We obtained a warrant to search your daughter’s vehicle. We found blood evidence both inside and outside the car that we’ve been able to match to Gemma Ralston. We don’t know where the initial attack took place. It’s likely that the victim had already been wounded when she was placed in the trunk and then transported to the site south of Camp Verde, where she was left to die.”
“This can’t be happening,” Beatrice objected. “It simply isn’t possible. My daughter could never do something like that. She wouldn’t. You’re making a terrible mistake.”
Dave pulled out a notebook. “Tell me about yesterday,” he said. “Was there anything unusual about yesterday?”
“I played golf.”
“Was Lynn home before you left for your golf game?”
“Yes, she was there-at our house.”
“How did she seem to you?”
“Seem?” Beatrice asked, frowning.
“Did she seem upset about anything? Nervous? Out of sorts?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“What about her phone?”
“What about it?”
