somewhat dubious history, he might be involved in what happened.”
“No,” Sylvia declared, shaking her head. “That’s not true. I told Ms. Reynolds here the same thing I told the detective earlier today, and it’s the same thing I’m telling you right now. James Sanders didn’t kill that woman. Whatever happened to her, your father was not involved.”
“But if he was there at the same time-” A.J. began.
“From what I’ve been able to learn, your father was dead long before the other woman died,” Ali said kindly. “So I’m not accusing your father of anything. I was simply hoping you and your mother might be able to shed some light on what happened. You two may be the only people in the world with a vested interest in proving that your father wasn’t involved.”
A.J. stood there, seemingly struggling with some kind of indecision. “I can’t help you,” he said finally. “I don’t know anything about it. I’ve got homework,” he added. “I’d better go do it.”
“Do you want me to heat up that leftover
“Don’t bother,” he said. “I’m not hungry.”
With that, A.J. disappeared down a hallway. Shortly thereafter, a door slammed hard behind him.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” Sylvia said, shaking her head. “That was a terrible blunder on my part. I’ve known about Sasha Miller for weeks now. I’ve been waiting for A.J. to come clean and tell me about her himself. I never should have mentioned her in front of company.”
It occurred to Ali then that A.J. Sanders and his supposedly secret girlfriend might be following in his parents’ footsteps. Perhaps he and Sasha had been off on their own somewhere and engaged in something far more interesting than solitary “thinking.”
“That’s what happens to boys when they grow up,” Ali said. “Keeping secrets from their mothers is part of the deal. If you’ll pardon my saying it, I’m under the impression that your son hardly knew his father. That’s got to make things that much more difficult for both of you right now.”
Sylvia nodded. “A.J. was a baby when James went to prison. From the time James walked out of the courtroom, A.J. saw him only once. That was a little over a year ago.” For the first time, Ali heard real bitterness in Sylvia’s response.
“James showed up here uninvited on A.J.’s sixteenth birthday, just in time to play the Great White Father. A.J. and I had agreed beforehand that he wasn’t going to get a car because we couldn’t afford it. Not only did James show up with the car, he gave me enough cold, hard cash to pay for insurance and gas for the next three years. Real money, by the way. I checked it
“He gave A.J. a new car?” Ali asked.
“Not new, secondhand-a Camry. Even so, the grand total came to over twenty thousand bucks. I convinced myself it was like having James pay back child support. That was the only reason I let A.J. keep it.”
“I’m assuming there was no court-ordered child support, because you never went to court and asked for it,” Ali said.
Sylvia nodded. “By the time James got out of prison, A.J. and I were settled in here and doing all right. I didn’t want to be beholden to him, and I didn’t want to get mixed up in some kind of visitation situation. I decided to just let sleeping dogs lie. When he showed up with the car, it was a big deal for A.J., and not such a good deal for me. My son had always taken me at my word that we were better off without his father in the picture. After the birthday adventure, I think A.J. started questioning that. I also think that’s part of why this is and will be so hard for him. He was probably hoping that someday he’d have a chance to get to know his father. Now he never will.”
“So they weren’t in touch?” Ali asked. “They didn’t exchange phone calls or e-mails?”
“Not as far as I know,” Sylvia said with a sad smile, “but I could be wrong about that. Secrets, you know.”
“And you don’t know any of James’s associates from Vegas-friends, girlfriends, that kind of thing?”
“No,” Sylvia said. “I’m afraid we didn’t have that kind of relationship. He came here briefly right after he got out of prison. When I sent him packing, that was the last we saw of him until the birthday car a year ago. I had no idea where he was living or how he ended up in Vegas. The detective who came here this morning told me that the dead woman is some kind of fancy-schmancy socialite from here in Phoenix. A doctor’s wife or ex-wife. How would James Sanders have hooked up with someone like that? The detective told me he was working for minimum wage in a halfway house, for Pete’s sake.”
Ali busied herself writing a series of notes, remembering as she did so that Stuart Ramey had said James Sanders’s checking account never went over the thousand-dollar mark. What came in went out again almost immediately. Having learned about the birthday gift, Ali realized that about a year earlier, there must have been another invisible influx of money, some or maybe even all of which James had squandered on a car for his son.
Ali made a show of closing her iPad and putting it away. “A.J. looks like a good kid. Where does he go to school?”
“North High,” Sylvia answered. “You’re right. He is a good kid, one who’s never given me a moment’s worth of trouble. He’s in the Baccalaureate program at North High-the honors program. He also works two hours a day after school and a couple more on the weekends at a Walgreens where one of my good friends, Madeline Wurth, is the manager. He’s saving money to go to college. We both are.”
Ali stood up. “I’d better be going,” she said. “I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t more help,” Sylvia said.
“Oh, you were a help, all right,” Ali said. “The fact that you don’t believe James Sanders would have been involved in any way in Gemma Ralston’s murder doesn’t mean it’s one hundred percent certain. But in my book, let’s say it seems a lot less likely.”
Sylvia Sanders’s hard-won composure took a hit. “Thank you,” she said. “In spite of everything, I believe James was really a good man. Maybe not an honest man, but a good one.”
Ali stood up. “Don’t bother getting up,” she told Sylvia. “I can find my way out.”
18
Ali’s phone had buzzed twice while she was inside the house. Now she sat in the Cayenne and checked her phone. One call was a message from Stuart Ramey, giving her the exact address of Chip Ralston’s Paradise Valley home, which she immediately fed into her GPS. The other call was from B., which Ali returned while the GPS was busy planning her route.
“I’m here,” B. said. “Checked in to the hotel. How are you doing?”
“Busy trying to prove a negative,” Ali said.
“How’s that working out for you?”
“Not very well. So far I haven’t found any obvious connections between Gemma Ralston and the other dead guy, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
Ali was about to put the Cayenne in gear when a sudden movement caught her eye. A.J. appeared in the front yard, emerging from the far side of the house. He paused furtively at the corner, as if checking the front door, then moved purposefully toward the second car, now parked in the carport. Once again he was carrying the book bag slung over his shoulder. He quickly popped open the trunk and placed something inside. Then, removing the book bag, he closed the trunk and returned the way he had come, still moving with apparent caution. Whatever it was he had placed in the trunk, it was something A.J. hadn’t wanted his mother to know about.
“Hey,” B. said. “What happened? Are you still there?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I wonder what that was all about.”
“What was what all about?”
“Something odd,” she said. “I was watching a teenager hiding something in a car that he doesn’t want his mother to find.”
“There’s nothing odd about that at all,” B. said with a laugh. “If it had been me, I would have been hiding my private hoard of
