A.J. nodded numbly, thinking about the dying woman and the light going out of those brilliant green eyes. Was this the time when he should admit that he had been there, too? Was this the time to say that he was the one who had sent the text to 911 to try to summon help for her? The problem was, A.J. knew that if he did so, his carefully constructed house of cards would crumble. His mother would know he had been in touch with his father behind her back. She would learn about the forged excuse; so would the school. At the very least, he’d probably receive a suspension. He’d end up having to tell the cops that lame story about his father’s supposedly buried treasure. If his father was dead, chances are the pipe dream about his father’s promised money easing his way through college was probably gone, too. More than that, if A.J. admitted to having been at the crime scene, the cops might think he had something to do with the woman’s death. As for Sasha? Having her find out the truth about any of this just wasn’t an option. Looking at his mother’s anxious face, A.J. made up his mind.
“What happened to him?”
“The cops told me he was shot at close range,” Sylvia said.
“You said someone else was dead, a woman,” A.J. managed. “Do the cops think he has something to do with what happened to her? Was my father a killer?” His voice cracked as he asked the last question.
“The officer I spoke to hinted that might be the case,” Sylvia replied, “but I don’t believe it. Not at all. James did plenty of questionable things in his time, but I can’t believe he’d be involved in a homicide. I never once knew him to be violent.”
A.J. was thinking about the shovel he had left behind at the crime scene. He was thinking about his damning fingerprints on the cell phone.
“I know you barely knew your father, but this has to come as a terrible shock,” his mother began, studying his face. “If you want to go home-”
A.J. hopped up out of his chair. “No,” he said quickly. “I should probably get back to class. We’ve got a big test tomorrow.”
His mother looked a little surprised. “All right,” she said. “But if you don’t want to go to work this afternoon, I understand. I’ll be glad to call Maddy to let her know you won’t be in today.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll be fine, and I need to go to work.”
The truth was, he dreaded being at home with his mother. That would be far worse than going to work.
He made his way back to class. Sasha, seated two rows away, caught his eye as he returned to his desk.
A.J. sank into his chair and covered his face with one hand. He knew he would have to tell Sasha the truth sometime, and when he did, it would all be over.
Maybe that was just as well.
When the bell rang, she caught up with him before he made it to the corridor. “What’s wrong? And don’t try telling me it’s nothing.”
“It’s my father,” A.J. said softly after a long pause. “He’s dead.” Then, to his horror and as much as he tried to keep it from happening, he began to cry.
14
As soon as Ali located Stuart’s office, tucked in the far corner of what was a former warehouse facility, she understood why he had sequestered her in the conference room. For one thing, he evidently lived in his office. Rumpled bedding on an army cot was half hidden behind a cloth-and-wood screen covered with Post-it notes and an impressive collection of pizza coupons. The room was in semi-darkness, and the air was thick with the perfume of pizza.
Stuart sat at one of a bank of computers in the middle of the room with a pizza box at his elbow. He looked up at her in surprise as she entered the room, then shoved the box in her direction. “Lunchtime,” he said. “Want some?”
“No, thanks,” she said. “I think I have a lead. I have reason to believe that James Sanders recently came into a sum of money, so maybe the idea of him being hired to make a hit isn’t so far from the mark.”
She went on to relate everything Regina had told her, including the fact that James had most likely used a work-based computer for both e-mail and telephone communications. Stuart listened, nodding absently while keeping one eye on the data flashing across the screen of the computer in front of him. It would have been easy for Ali to think that he wasn’t paying attention, but she knew he was.
“There are a lot of stretch limos in Vegas,” he said when Ali finished her recitation. “So that doesn’t help us much, but knowing the token came from the MGM Grand might. Thousand-dollar tokens aren’t handed over to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wanders in off the Strip. And the casinos take their security arrangements very seriously. It’s my understanding that they video everything-every hallway, every entrance, every table. And unlike the folks running the local traffic cams, casinos keep everything they video on a permanent basis. What day was that again?”
“Regina said she saw the limo on Wednesday a week ago. The limo picked Sanders up about four P.M. We don’t know that they went directly to the hotel. That’s just an educated guess.”
“But the guy in the limo was evidently expected,” Stuart said. “That means there must be some point of contact that we’ll be able to find. Is it possible Dr. Ralston made a quick trip to Vegas last week? Let’s say that’s who the guy in the limo was-Charles Ralston. If that’s the case, somewhere along the line, we’re going to find some communications links between them. Let me work on this for a while. In the meantime, I’ve got something else that may interest you.
“James Mason Sanders married Sylvia Ruth Bixby on June sixteenth, 1996, a few days after she graduated from high school. The wedding was a little late, since their baby, Alexander James, who just turned seventeen himself, was born less than three months later. The wedding took place just before the whole counterfeiting mess started to come apart. I found records of the marriage but no sign of a divorce.”
“So it was a shotgun wedding, but she stayed married to him the whole time he was in prison and even after he got out?” Ali asked.
Stuart nodded. “As far as I can tell, they stayed married then and were still married when he died.”
“That’s taking the words ‘for better or worse’ very seriously, with a lot more worse than better.”
“I’ll say,” Stuart agreed. “I checked public records in Nevada, too, just in case Sanders instituted divorce proceedings there. No such luck. As for the kid? As far as I can tell, he’s okay. Alexander is a senior honors student at North High School in Phoenix, where he’s taking lots of Advanced Placement courses. His mother may have been on her own the whole time, but she’s done something right in raising him.”
Ali’s phone rang. When she saw the number, she left Stuart’s office and took the call in the corridor.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Dave Holman exclaimed. “Are you really working for the public defender?”
He spoke in a way that registered in Ali’s ear as an audible sneer. He didn’t utter the words “How could you?” aloud, but the message was there nonetheless.
“I’m actually doing a project for Lynn Martinson’s mother,” Ali said. That was the truth, if not the whole truth.
“Lynn Martinson is a suspect in a homicide in this jurisdiction,” Dave pointed out, his voice flat with anger. “And you’re a reserve officer. When I came by your place last night, I thought I was speaking to a fellow officer. It never occurred to me that I was talking to someone on the other side.”
“When you were there last night, there was no other side-” Ali began, but Dave cut her off before she had a chance to finish.
“I’ve just been on the phone with Sheriff Maxwell. He’ll be expecting your letter of resignation before the end of business today.”