friends doesn’t give you the right to meddle in what jobs I take or how I do them.”
Before Dave had time to respond, call waiting buzzed. Ali glanced at her phone. The 602 area code meant it was a Phoenix call. By then she was sailing along, westbound on Camelback, in light midmorning traffic.
“Phone call, Dave,” Ali said, dismissing him. “Gotta go.”
“Ms. Reynolds?” a young male voice said when she switched over to the other call.
Ali glanced again at the phone number to see if it would give her a clue about the caller’s identity. “Yes, this is Ali Reynolds. Who is this?”
“It’s A.J.,” he said. “A. J. Sanders. I’m calling to ask you a question. Is it true what you said last night-that my father was dead a long time before that woman died?”
“Yes, that’s my understanding. Why?”
“And you’re not a cop.”
“No. What’s going on?”
“I need to talk to someone who knows something about the case, but someone who isn’t a cop and someone who isn’t my mother. I can’t talk to her about this. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ali said. “What’s up?”
A.J.’s words came out in a rush. “I found a gun in our trash this morning when I took the garbage out. Not in the big can in the alley, but in the smaller one we keep on the back porch. I found it when I dumped the little one into the big one.”
Ali envisaged some kind of gangbanger running through the neighborhood and dropping a weapon into the first trash can that presented itself. What she didn’t understand was why A.J. would seek advice from a complete stranger as opposed to his own mother. Still, she didn’t blow him off.
“I noticed yesterday there’s no fence around your yard,” she said. “If someone from the neighborhood was trying to ditch a weapon, it would be easy to sneak through your yard and dump it in the trash. What kind of gun are we talking about?”
“I don’t know much about guns,” A.J. admitted. “It’s a revolver, I think, and not very big.”
“A snub-nose, maybe?”
“I guess,” A.J. said. “Whoever put the gun there did it because they’re trying to frame me for my father’s death. Mom told me last night that the cops said my dad was carrying a large amount of money at the time he died, and now it’s gone. She also said he was shot at close range. I’ll bet the gun I found this morning is the murder weapon. As for the money?” He paused and didn’t continue.
“What about the money?” Ali urged.
A.J. took a deep breath. “I have it,” he croaked.
“You have it?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t take it. All two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth. My father gave it to me.”
“He gave it to you in person? You mean you saw him, met with him? What?”
“No. He left it for me and sent me directions so I could find it. Sent them through the mail. He wanted me to have the money, Ms. Reynolds. He wanted me to use it to go to school. I didn’t kill him to get it. Honest.”
A.J. seemed like a nice enough kid, and Ali wanted to believe him, but how many times on
“The problem is, as soon as they check my fingerprints, they’ll know I was there-at the crime scene.”
“What fingerprints?” Ali asked.
“The ones on the woman’s phone and on the shovel.”
“What shovel and what phone are we talking about?”
“I brought the shovel from home, and the phone is one I found near that woman, the one who died. I used it to call 911. At least I
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ali said. “You’re saying you’re the one who called in the report about Gemma Ralston?”
“Right. The green-eyed woman. I went to the place my dad told me to, expecting to find the money, but I found her instead. As soon as I saw her, I knew she was hurt pretty bad, but I didn’t know she was dying. That’s why I tried to call 911.”
“So Gemma Ralston was alive when you got there.”
“She was for a little while, but not very long. I went back to the car to get some water for her, and when I came back, she was almost gone.”
“Did she say anything to you?”
“A couple of words is all. It was hard for her to talk. I think she was talking about her boyfriend, or maybe a husband. Someone named Dennis. That’s all. It was awful, and I didn’t know what to do. There were ants and bugs and blood. It was like she was paralyzed or something. I mean, the phone was right there beside her, but she must not have been able to reach it.
“Anyway, when I came back from the car with the water, she was almost gone. A few minutes later she stopped breathing, and her eyes just glazed over. I’ve never been around someone dead like that. I panicked, I guess, and that’s when I took off. I was ditching school, and all I could think of was that I didn’t want to get caught.”
A.J. stopped talking as if he suddenly realized he had said too much. Ali realized that A. J. Sanders was the person of interest Dave Holman had been looking for in relation to Gemma Ralston’s death. Now, with the revelation about having his father’s missing money, A.J. would move into the prime-suspect column.
“Where was the money?” Ali asked.
“He hid it behind a boulder. Buried it. I dug it up.”
“And how did you know exactly where to dig?”
“He gave me directions. Six tenths of a mile from the turnoff; walk due north; find the rock with the heart on it,” A.J. recited. “So that’s where it was, just like he said, but I didn’t find it the same day I found the woman. That day I just got the hell out of there. Sasha and I went back yesterday after school and dug it up.”
“You’re going to need an attorney,” Ali said.
“Why?”
“Think about it. You were at the crime scene-twice-and investigators will be able to prove it. You have your father’s missing money. That looks bad. Now the gun thing. If there’s the slightest chance this is the murder weapon, you have to turn it in. You’re not allowed to withhold evidence. If the gun you found turns out to be the murder weapon, it’s going to be that much worse. Believe me, you will need an attorney.”
“How do we pay for an attorney? My mom can’t afford to hire one. I suppose I could use some of the money my father gave me.”
“No,” Ali said. “As soon as the homicide cops hear about that money, they’re going to consider it evidence. You won’t be able to touch it, but the court will appoint an attorney for you.”
“Am I going to end up in jail? If that happens, I probably won’t even graduate.” The poor kid sounded close to tears.
“Okay, okay,” Ali told him soothingly. “I can tell you’re upset. Where are you?”
“At school. I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot at North High on East Thomas.”
“Where’s the money?”
“It’s in the trunk. I took it into the house yesterday evening, but I was afraid my mom would be suspicious, so I smuggled it back out to the car. I barely slept all night, worrying that someone might steal it. We don’t have a garage, only a carport, and Camrys get stolen all the time. I have one of those steering-wheel locks, the Club, but I don’t know how well they work.”
“What about the gun you found? Where’s that?”
“It’s in the trunk, too.”
“Is it loaded or not?”
“I’ll go check. How do I tell?”
“Wait, wait,” Ali cautioned. “Whatever you do, do not open the trunk. Do not touch the gun.”
Shades of the terrible massacre at Columbine High flashed through Ali’s head. She knew that if she called for
