you need someone to show you the way?”
“No,” Ali said. “I believe I can manage.”
With that, Holly pressed the button unlocking the door that accessed the department’s interior offices. There was no one seated at the secretary’s desk outside Sheriff Maxwell’s open door, so Ali walked up to the door and tapped on the doorjamb. Gordon Maxwell sat leaning back in his desk chair while a Mozart piano concerto played through the speakers on his computer. The moment Ali knocked, he sat up and stifled the music.
“Come in and sit down, Ali,” he said with a self-conscious grin. “I don’t like people to know that I sit around in my office listening to Mozart. It’s bad for my tough-guy image.”
Ali had always liked Sheriff Maxwell and she still did. She sat.
“Understand old Dave’s got his nose out of joint.”
That was the thing about Sheriff Maxwell. Over the years Ali had discovered that conversations with him never went quite the way she had anticipated.
“You could say that,” she agreed with a nod. “He said you wanted my letter of resignation today. Here it is.” She placed the form on the desk and slid it over to him. Sheriff Maxwell picked it up, scanned it, put it down, and then slid it back to Ali.
“I’d prefer it if you reworded that,” he said, “and turned it into a temporary leave of absence.”
“But Dave said-”
“I know what Detective Holman said,” Maxwell replied. “What really set him off was having Cap Horning jump into the middle of his homicide investigation with something Dave regards as a premature and half-cocked plea deal. The idea of your piling on was just the capper on the jug, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“But. .” Ali began again.
Sheriff Maxwell unfolded his long frame from the chair, rose, closed the door, and then returned to his desk. “Look,” he said. “This is between you and me. I have some private concerns of my own about Cap Horning. Looks to me like he’s out running roughshod over folks. If Dave comes up with some solid evidence to show that the people we have in custody are actually the responsible parties, that’s one thing. If that happens, everybody comes out smelling like a rose, and good on ’em. But finding evidence takes time. It seems to me Horning is trying to streamline the process by making what Dave and I regard as premature plea deals. Paula Urban is good people-for a public defender-but we’re in the justice business here. With Cap Horning pushing folks around, I’m worried about Paula Urban seeing to it that justice is done in this case.”
Ali blinked. “You’re saying you want me to help her?”
“I don’t like seeing undue pressure applied. If the evidence is there, I trust that it’ll carry the day with a judge and jury. The person or persons responsible for Gemma Ralston’s murder will get what’s coming to them because they’re actually convicted of the crime rather than because Cap Horning’s busy playing
Which meant Sheriff Maxwell knew all about the writing-project cover. For all Ali knew, he might have suggested it.
Picking up Ali’s scribbled note, Sheriff Maxwell handed it back to her. “As far as your letter is concerned,” he added. “As I said before, if you’d be so kind as to rewrite it so it says ‘leave of absence’ rather than ‘resignation,’ I’ll be happy to sign off on it. And you might want to stop by the jail before you leave town. It’s my understanding that Paula Urban just went over there to have a meeting with her client. It might be a good idea if you turned up as well.”
While Ali retrieved the paper and made the required changes, Sheriff Maxwell picked up his phone and dialed.
“Hey, Holly,” he said. “Ali Reynolds is on her way over to the jail to meet with Paula Urban and her client. Could you write up a pass for her and let the jail commander know she’s coming? She’ll be out to pick it up in a couple of minutes.”
That was true. When Ali went out to the lobby minutes later, a sullen-faced Holly sailed the pass through the opening rather than handing it over.
“Thanks,” Ali responded, retrieving the piece of paper from the floor halfway across the room. “You have a nice day, now.”
With that, she headed for the jail, where she was shown to an interview room where Paula Urban and Lynn Martinson were already conferring. Pausing outside the window in the corridor, Ali gazed in at the two women seated at the scarred table. Though Ali had seen Paula before, she was still surprised. Paula’s mop of springy red hair had been pulled back into a loose ponytail, but a halo of escaped curls made her look more like a refugee from junior high than a thirtysomething legal beagle. As for Lynn Martinson? There was very little resemblance between the somewhat bedraggled woman in her orange jumpsuit and the agitated woman who had joined Ali in the television station greenroom months earlier. That woman had been nervous but excited. This woman looked completely devoid of hope.
Taking a deep breath, Ali let herself into the interview room and cast a questioning glance in the direction of the obvious video equipment in the corner.
“Don’t worry,” Paula said reassuringly. “It’s not on. I believe you and Ms. Martinson have met?”
Lynn jumped up, grabbed Ali’s hand, and pumped it with heart-breakingly sincere enthusiasm that was at odds with the noisy rattle of the shackles around her ankles. “Thank you for agreeing to help me,” she said.
“Officially, I’m doing a project for your mother, but you’re welcome. As for how much good I’m doing? I spent most of the morning looking into the life of James Sanders, the guy whose body was found just up the road from Gemma Ralston’s.”
“And?” Paula prompted.
“So far I haven’t been able to find any connections.”
“We haven’t, either,” Paula said. “I was just asking Lynn if she’d ever heard of the guy. She says not. So who is he?”
“He’s a small-time hood,” Ali explained, “an ex-con who got sent up on charges of counterfeiting in his early twenties. He was from the Phoenix area originally, and his wife and son still live there. He spent the years since he got out of prison living and working at a halfway house in Vegas called the Mission, where he functioned as an assistant manager working for minimum wage plus room and board. In the last week or so, he suddenly came into a sum of money-over and above his regular paycheck. We’re trying to uncover the source of same.”
“You think he might have been a hired hit man?” Paula asked.
Ali nodded. “Could be.”
Lynn Martinson was already shaking her head. “They’re thinking I hired a hit man?” she asked. “How could I? I don’t have that kind of money, and neither does Chip.”
Paula gave her a sharp look. “You know what kind of money it takes to hire a hit man?”
Lynn looked startled. “Well, no. I don’t. But truly. I would never do such a thing, and neither would Chip. You have to believe me,” she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears. “He just wouldn’t!”
Paula Urban gave the slightest shake of her head. Clearly, she wasn’t persuaded by Lynn Martinson’s opinions about what Chip Ralston would or wouldn’t do.
“So about this other dead guy,” Paula said. “Any chance that his wife and kid might know anything about what he was up to?”
“It’s a possibility,” Ali said.
“Would you mind driving down to Phoenix and talking to them about it?” Paula said.
Her question made it clear that she expected to make use of Ali’s investigative skills. The defense attorney was going for more than limiting Ali’s participation to doing routine background checks. That was the moment when Ali could have called a halt and kept to the original agreement. Instead, she pulled out her iPad and jotted the first of several notes.
“I’d also like you to interview Dr. Ralston’s mother, Doris, and his sister, Molly Handraker.”
“I doubt they’ll talk to you,” Lynn said. “Not if they know you’re trying to help me.”
“That’s true,” Paula agreed, “but since they were both at home that night, we need to know what, if anything, they’re saying to the homicide investigators.”
Ali turned to Lynn. “What do Chip’s mother and sister have against you?”
