Текст книги "Cry Wolf"

Автор книги: J. Carson Black

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No signs of violence. The car was messy in back, fast food bags and some junk, which Laura and Anthony photographed and documented. There was a receipt on the floor from a Sonic in Kingman.

“Did that guy only eat fast food?” Anthony said.

“There’s the Heineken.”

“A lot of Heineken.”

Nine empties on the floorboard in back. The car smelled of it.

“Maybe it was Aurora?”

Anthony shrugged.

Laura didn’t recall the yeasty smell of beer in Perrin’s room. She made a note to ask if he drank beer. There had been no empties in his room back at the Madera Canyon Cabins, but Terry Delmonte cleaned his room while he was gone. Perrin hadn’t been found dead in his car until eight in the morning, and it might not have filtered back to the people at Madera Cabins until later.

They went through the glove compartment and trunk, sealed everything in them into evidence bags. All ordinary stuff, but you never knew. Anthony ordered a flatbed truck to transport the car down to the yard at the Department of Public Safety in Phoenix.

“Now what?’

A lot of receipts pointed to Kingman, which was on the way from Vegas.

Laura watched as the traffic whizzed by on I-17. “What do you think?”

Anthony shot invisible cuffs and threw invisible craps. “We’re goin’ to Vegas, Baby!”

12: Two Liars

The detective Laura had talked to on the phone was out of the office, but his partner, Stephen LeMer, met with them. He was a large black man with a shaved head and a gold loop earring in one ear. Laura had been surrounded by tall men and was beginning to feel small. He gave Laura and Anthony the basics, then led them to another section of the LVMPD and introduced them to Doreen McGill, who worked Vice. Doreen was short, plump and motherly in a gauzy paisley top that clung to her like a mist—but looks could fool you. She had a mind like an X-ACTO Knife, and was very familiar with Aurora Johnson.

Immediately, the picture changed.

“Aurora Johnson and Cedric Williams had a falling-out six months ago. She tried to steal some money and he canned her.”

“He canned his best prostitute?”

“Where’d you get that?”

“I heard she was his ‘bottom girl.’”

“She was one of his prostitutes a long time ago, but she wasn’t any good. He was friends and business partners with her brother so he hired her to work in their shop.”

“Shop?”

“High Fidelity Audio Systems. SISTMZ on the license plate of his Jaguar XJL. He has a few legitimate businesses—the shop she worked in installed audio systems in cars. High end stuff. She had a head for numbers so she worked the books. Unfortunately, she also had a head for drugs. He tried her as one of his girls, because face it, she had looks to die for, but she just didn’t have the right stuff.”

She launched into how he kept his prostitutes in line.

“These guys, they use the carrot and the stick. Shit, they’d use an iron on you if you didn’t please them. Cords, whips, chains, you wouldn’t believe it. Slavery, pure and simple. These girls may look like a million dollars, they may act like they came out of charm school, they drive Mercedes and dress in designer clothes, but they’re slaves nonetheless. It’s all about control. Build ‘em up, knock ‘em down. Manipulation. They’re just like any other commodity, but I gotta tell you, you need a real cruel streak to be a pimp in this town. The more sadistic, the better, as far as they’re concerned. Cedric brands his girls with a bullet tat on the inside of their forearms.”

Laura thought: like Aurora had.

“Williams is particularly vicious, but he knew with her that just cutting her loose was gonna be worse than any beating or slicing he could do to her. From what I hear, she was needy. Beautiful—an absolute knockout a couple of years ago—but she went downhill fast. He knew that treating her like he didn’t want her would hurt her more than anything else. Demoting her to accountant. No more fancy cars, no more glamorous nightlife or shopping sprees at Nordstrom. She was the lowest of the low—she couldn’t cut it, and whatever friends she had probably dissed her to her face. My feeling is, if she latched on to another guy and took off, he wouldn’t cry himself a river. He’d already destroyed her in every other way.

“You want to talk to him?”

“We do.”

Cedric Williams A.K.A. WMD looked pretty much the way she thought he’d look. There was the shaved head, the earring, the mustache and the hennaed goatee—two thin lines of fire ants trickling down either side of his mouth, looping down to net his jaw. Very GQ. His suit was a cross between tan and buff in color, his shirt cream-colored. The kerchief folded to a perfect triangle in his suit pocket was pastel salmon. Diamond-encrusted rings, a watch that had to cost in the tens of thousands. Yet it was understated enough not to be ostentatious.

He led them down a short hallway past a supply room that looked as ugly as any auto supply room—fluorescent lighting, rows and rows of parts, the smell of rubber and grease. They reached a closed door at the end of the hallway. He slid a card in the door alarm and they stepped into a wonderland. The first thing Laura noticed was a fountain in the center of the room. The place looked a little like Caesar’s Palace if Caesar’s Palace had a low ceiling. There were statues and palm trees growing in pots, and a desk that you could command the Starship Enterprise from.

“Plush,” Anthony said. Laura knew he was seeing a stage set for one of his screenplays.

Cedric Williams sat down behind his desk and nodded for them to sit. The chairs were gorgeous like the rest of the place, and comfortable besides.

“You want to know about Aurora?” He picked up a gold letter opener and ran it around in his fingers. His manicure was perfect. Laura didn’t bother with manicures, but she knew it was perfect anyway.

“That girl is a sad case. I told her she had a problem, but she didn’t listen to me.” He shook his head, his face a monument to regret. “But she couldn’t kick it.”

“She did your books?”

“She had the title, but I kept her around mostly because she was hot. People come here, they like something good to look at.” He smoothed his goatee, looked thoughtful. Laura suspected he did this a lot. “Where you find her?”

“In Arizona.”

“Arizona? Went to see Delmar, then, that it?”

“Delmar?”

“She had herself what you’d call a hot and heavy relationship. Before she came out here. That was a long time ago.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Five, six maybe? I bet she got homesick. How she doing?”

“She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” His smile turned upside down. Laura could tell it was just for show. Aurora didn’t mean anything to him, and he was letting her know that. He added, “Now that’s a shame.”

“Aren’t you curious what happened to her?”

He shrugged, and Laura couldn’t help but be impressed by the cut of the shoulders on that suit. “I would guess she came to a bad end.”

“She did.”

He sat back in his expensive leather chair, tapping the tip of the letter opener against the expensive wood of his desk. He looked thoughtful. “How did she shuffle off this mortal coil?” he asked.

“Violently.”

His eyes widened, but his face remained immobile. “Someone killed her?”

“You think someone wanted to kill her?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Girl could get under your skin. I bet you know the kind. Who was she with again?”

“I didn’t say she was with anybody.”

“I bet I know. It was that white guy, am I right?”

“White guy?”

“After she quit here, I ran into her on the Strip—she was with this white guy, looked like a pussy faggot to me, you know what I mean? She said he was an accountant.” Shook his head sadly. “Man, what a suckup. He wanted to impress me. Maybe she told him stories about some of the good times. Looked to me like he was comparing shoe sizes, right there. You know what I’m sayin’?” His smile suddenly went away, and his face was hard. “She messed up, that’s all you need to know. An’ now look where she’s at. Six feet under.”

Laura called Detective Greg Wyland in Winslow. “Do you know of anyone named Delmar, last name unknown. He might have been a friend of Aurora Johnson’s—the reason she went to Winslow.”

“That name sounds familiar. Let me check my records and get back to you.”

It didn’t take long. “Delmar Jones was a small-time drug dealer who got himself killed eight months ago.”

“How did he die? Was it a drug deal?”

“Nope. It was an accidental death. He was drunk and on a ton of drugs and walked right into the path of a train coming through.”

“You’re sure it was an accident?”

“The guy who investigated is pretty damn sure.”

Good enough for her.

From Cedric’s palatial office they plied the other side of the street—Sean Perrin’s place of work. He was an accountant for a swimming pool supply company. He had nothing to do with the casinos.

They spoke to the manager Ahmad Zohar, a soft-looking man who appeared to be in shock. “I couldn’t believe when he left. He didn’t say anything, just didn’t come in one day. I called his house, I called his cell. It was like he vanished.”

“He never let you know why?”

“A couple of days later he called. He said he was ‘on the run’. He was always talking that way about stuff—his nickname around here was Secret Agent Man—but this time he did sound scared.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Said he was helping ‘a damsel in distress’. Yeah, I know. But that’s how he talked some times. Kind of . . . courtly. He told a lot of stories. So he’s really dead? Maybe he actually was on the run.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, except he gave me the place to send his last paycheck to. In Arizona.” He dug through the files. “Ah, here it is. 14509 Candelaria Way, Tucson, Arizona.”

Laura looked at Anthony. “You think this is his sister’s house?”

“Could be.”

“So maybe he planned to go see her after all.”

Laura asked Mr. Zohar if Sean Perrin had ever mentioned a sister.

“Yeah, he told me she was loaded.”

“Loaded?”

“He told me she had a lot of money and a deadbeat husband.”

“Anything else?”

“He said he was worried because he tried to kill her once.”

“The husband?”

“Yeah. On a cruise, he said. Poisoned her food.”

Anthony cleared his throat. Laura knew what he was thinking: Another lie from Sean Perrin. Considering the problems cruise ships had been having of late, it was far more likely Ruby would have succumbed to a bad case of food poisoning.

“Did he say why?” Laura asked.

“I got the impression the husband didn’t want to wait around for her to die so he could inherit all her money.”

Laura pictured Ruby Ballantine at her store on 4th Avenue. She didn’t look rich to her. She wore clothes you’d buy at Kohl's. Laura knew, because she bought at Kohl's.

“Yeah,” Mr. Zohar was saying. “I would’ve loved to get a load of a sister of his. He said she was very athletic. If she looks anything like his wife and children . . . Are they all right?”

“Yes,” Laura deadpanned. She assumed they were alive and well, but of course they weren’t his wife and they weren’t his children. No need to tell Mr. Zohar that. She did ask, “Did you ever meet them?”

“Sadly, no. But I saw photos.”

Oh, yes. The photos. Laura smiled and thanked him.

From the look of his apartment, Sean Perrin seemed to be living on a very frayed edge. Most of the other residents were college students living in their first home away from home. The place dated to the seventies, hanging on by its fingernails to the forgotten part of town, several blocks from the Strip. The area was a jumble of pawn stores, dollar stores, and auto repair shops.

His place was neat but worn. There were the photos the sister claimed were from Huffpo, in cheap frames. He did have a nice TV and sound system, and a queen-sized bed. The carpet was not shag exactly but it was old-fashioned and cheap. If you were going to name it, the color would be “Dirty Tan”.

It was hard to believe, but his papers were neatly kept in files. Unfortunately, it was all run-of-the-mill stuff–rent, cable, Internet, etcetera. The laptop LVMP had taken was still awaiting its turn at Forensics. The whole apartment was generic and had the look and feel of an old motel room. Even the bedspread was in motel colors—floral print, the teal and green variety, with a matching bolster. Again—circa 1970s Best Western.

They went through everything, although there wasn’t much of it.

“I wish to God we had his phone,” Laura muttered.

“No shit. This place looks like Mannix lived here.”

Whatever inner life Sean Perrin had, he’d shared with people in terms of lies and exaggerations and stories. But he hadn’t bothered to lie to himself.

“If this was a Sherlock Holmes novel,” Laura muttered, “It would be called, The Strange Case of the Generic Man.”

Anthony stared at the white popcorn ceiling. “Poor son-of-a-bitch. You see it all the time in this town. What a downward spiral. Even his ‘bottom girl’ was on a race to the bottom.”

“Someone came after him, though. He was running from something.”

The answer, she thought, wasn’t at work. And it appeared he had not known Aurora Johnson for very long. Whether it was chivalry or a need to impress someone, he’d gone off on a jaunt with Aurora Johnson, and she’d ended up dead of an overdose.

But who would follow him all the way to Arizona just to take his life?

And who would do such a bang-up job of it?

That hit showed real talent.

Anthony said, “Maybe it was a gambling debt.”

“If it was,” Laura said, “It would have to be a big one.”

They spent the next day and a half showing his picture to the croupiers and bouncers and managers of the casinos.

Many knew him to look at, but as a gambler he didn’t ring any bells. One floor man remembered him working the quarter slot machines.

“High roller,” Anthony muttered as they walked out of the air-conditioned but shabby Sultan Casino and into the blasting heat of a May afternoon in Vegas. The casino was one of the last remaining stragglers from the seventies.

“So what do we have?” Laura asked.

“What it looks like is he met Johnson somehow—maybe she turned tricks on the side, who knows?—and she asked him for help.”

“You mean, help me skip town, honey, the mafia is after me.”

Anthony shrugged. “He fancied himself a player. Swashbuckling was right up his alley.”

Laura covered her eyes and squinted against the lowering sun. As usual, Vegas was teeming with tourists. “So he tries to help the damsel, and when he goes out for a walk in the wee hours of the morning, she’s doing God knows what.”

“Yeah, only God does know what. PCP and Ketamine.”

“So he thinks what she told him was true—that her boss was after her, that she really was his bottom girl and he knew how that went—”

“Only this time, it wasn’t like that. ‘Cause she wasn’t a bottom girl, just a low-rent accountant like him—”

“Two liars.”

“Yeah, they were made for each other.”

They drove back to Tucson, both of them too tired and deflated to talk much. Laura checked her phone. No messages. No silver bullet that would solve this case.

“Now I know how those oil men felt in the olden days,” Anthony said as if reading her mind. “Drill drill drill, and all we get is a dry hole.”

“True,” Laura said. "Mr. Big Shot wasn’t big—all he was, was shot.”

The shooting didn’t make sense. Why was he shot execution-style? Who was he meeting at the trailhead?

It was impossible to say whether or not he closed his eyes out of terror or maybe just to enjoy the cool mountain air in his little piece of paradise. His face looked relaxed, there had been just the hint of a smile on his face. Laura had studied the crime scene photos and again came back to that small smile.

Technically, forensically, it didn’t mean a thing.

Everything stopped immediately when the bullet entered his brain. The point of entry made sure of that, even though the bullet itself would have ricocheted all over.

As they drove in silence, Laura tried to put herself in Sean Perrin’s position. He was sitting in his car somewhere between eight and eleven at night—their best estimate. Was he sitting there just enjoying the night, or was he meeting someone? And if he was meeting someone, who would that be?

“He must have heard them walking up to the car,” Laura said to Anthony. “Unless he was just closing his eyes and taking it all in, and they sneaked up on him. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“If he was meeting someone, what might he be meeting them for?”

“A lot of things. Maybe he was going for a moonlight hike. Maybe he was meeting someone to buy drugs. But maybe he was just hanging out enjoying the evening and someone just walked up and popped him.”

“What? For fun?”

He shrugged.

“Or it was a pro.”

“It sure looked like it. But these days, you can learn anything on the Internet. Where to kill someone, what the best weapon is. Seems to me everybody on God’s Green Earth knows that contract killers like a .22. After CSI and NCIS and all those shows you could ask the man on the street and he’d tell you all about how those small caliber bullets ricochet all over inside the skull.”

“And no shell casings.”

“Yeah, one shot, perfectly-placed. Easy to pick up. Or maybe go whole hog and use a revolver.”

“His eyes were closed.”

“You know with the shock, his eyes could have closed when he was hit.”

She said, “I think he was meeting someone.”

“Which means it was either someone followed him to Tucson, met him there or was waiting for him. Maybe he pissed off someone in Madera Canyon.”

“Could be.”

“Or there was bad blood with his sister.”

“Could be.”

“Yeah,” Anthony said. “We are inundated with ‘could-bes.’”

It was late at night by the time Anthony dropped her off in the DPS parking lot and she headed home. It had been a long drive, and she was tired. The trip to Winslow and Las Vegas was a wild goose chase. They’d thrown snake eyes.

Perrin had lied about everything, and it all amounted to nothing.

She aimed her car down the freeway in the direction of the Rincon Mountains. The moon was full, hanging in the sky over the black hump of mountain range. She turned onto Houghton Road, hit the dirt road leading to the few scattered houses in the foothills, and parked outside.

Matt came outside to greet her.

She was hot, tired, her back—which was long—ached, and she felt soiled and shopworn. But Matt pulled her into his arms and for a moment everything was forgotten. All the failures, all the near-misses, all the disappointment. She felt tears come to her eyes. She felt such gratitude she had this man to come home to.

So happy.

He didn’t care that she was dirty. He kissed her as if she were Sleeping Beauty in the bower of roses, stroked her wind-snarled hair with love, kissed her deeply and in such a way she couldn’t wait for them to reach the bedroom.

The next morning they got up early and went for a ride. It was still cool, before sunup, and there was a light wind as they rode up onto the ridge. The sky warmed to peach and then deep blue, the mesquite and saguaros snaring the rocks in shadow.

They sat still in their shadows on the ridge and watched the sunlight steal across the Tucson valley below.

“You’re no closer?” Matt asked.

“Nope.”

“Nothing in Winslow? In Vegas? Nothing you’re missing?”

“Nope.”

“You’re sure?”

“I can’t imagine what it would be. The whole trip was a dead end.”

“So the woman told your guy she was on the run and people were after her, and that’s why he took her along?”

“About the size of it.”

“What about the boyfriend? The one she wanted to meet with?”

“We don’t know for sure, but he might have met her there after Perrin went out for a walk.”

“He must have walked a long time.”

“Yes. At least a couple of hours.” She thought about it. “Maybe he saw something.”

“Saw something? Like a criminal act?”

“Maybe. Or had a run-in with someone.”

“In Winslow?”

“I know, it’s a stretch. But it’s possible.”

“Enough so whoever it was would follow him all the way to Madera Canyon?”

Laura shook her head. “That does seem far-fetched.”

Still, when they got back, she called the Winslow PD and left a message for Detective Greg Wyland. She doubted anything would come of it.

13: Legwork

Laura drove directly to Madera Canyon. Time for another round of interviews.

Anthony would be in court today, testifying in another homicide case. The autopsy results would be coming today, too. He promised to email them to her phone.

Which meant she’d have to drive down to the mouth of the canyon to get them.

She was feeling in a lousy mood. They were no closer to finding out who shot Sean Perrin than they were a week ago. Time had a way of getting away from you. If an arrest wasn’t made within two days, it became much more of an uphill climb. They’d spent four full days in Winslow and Las Vegas, and now it was time to concentrate on the people in the canyon.

She started with Barbara Sheehey.

She followed Barbara as she went to make beds in a cabin after the people checked out.

“Did Mr. Perrin give you the impression he was scared of anything?”

“Scared? Him? He was too busy using the soft soap on everybody to do that. Would you hold that side?” she added, nodding to the sheet.

Laura did, stretching the corner over the mattress.

“So he didn’t seem to have anything on his mind? Nothing he was worried about?”

“Nope. Although he said his father was dying, and that’s why he came out here. I mentioned that, didn’t I?”

Laura felt something inside her go still. She tried to remember what the sister, Ruby Ballantine said, but couldn’t.

She thought Ruby said he wasn’t going to bother to come. Or he didn’t reply. Something like that. “Was he close to his father?”

“I don’t think he liked him very much. Just the impression I got, like he felt it was his duty as a son to come out and see him before he died.”

“Did he go see him?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t seem to leave this canyon from the moment he got here.” She added hastily, “Of course I wouldn’t know, since I don’t keep track of my guests’ comings and goings.”

“Did he mention his sister?”

“I don’t think so. Mostly he was talking about how rich his father was. Of course with him, it couldn’t just be that he was well-off. His dad had to be in the Forbes Top 100.”

“Did he say how his father made his money?” Laura asked.

“He said, venture capitalist. I don’t know what that is, do you?”

Laura knew, vaguely. “I think it’s someone with capital who will help a promising business get its start. Or infuse money into a business that’s not doing well.”

“Oh, yeah. And then they fire a bunch of people and put the company in bankruptcy?”

“Could be.”

“Sounds like the father was as big a liar as his son. Doing something like that where working people are involved.” She launched into a story about her uncle’s job in Wisconsin, and how the company first busted the union and then closed the plant.

Laura thought about the plain woman who ran the tiny shop on 4th Avenue. The place had been little bigger than a closet. Her clothes weren’t fashionable, either. But then you couldn’t pigeonhole what rich looked like.

“He told me his father owned a baseball team.”

“Can you remember which one?”

“Nope. I didn’t believe a word of it. Said he had a private jet, too.”

Laura thought that Sean Perrin could have taken advantage of that private jet when he was on the run with Aurora Johnson.

Even though apparently, Aurora wasn’t on the run at all.

Laura was getting frustrated. She tried to keep it out of her voice. “Was there anything he said that you believed?”

Barbara Sheehey folded her arms. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Laura found Cody washing down the wooden deck. He seemed a little brighter today—a little more used to the idea that his friend Sean Perrin was gone.

“So did you track down the guy who killed him?” Cody asked.

“Not yet. I could still use your help.”

“Is the guy who killed him, like, an untouchable? One of those gangsters who of@uesscortthaabouthimewsilenlW savomatudsFinq9WowYeah, wowJesusWpickjawoffloor said,Wbbspeak intns?imakgt filmUh-huhAbautiotpsycho.n! knowIselktha? Sofia Vergarabperft!Hcreendy writn. said,Okay, soow dotilook? Skd Sean Per, r?Yeah. It fits. Hnteeoonlhiks elsralkofim. Nss,fss. Easy PeasyagMaybyeimwhiks,nd,tird,fthimcharm. Nbody arou...Sspopim.uabout ituabouhis eyesshutjusthi smile acornimouth. Notsoehiausint,bcauslooksbiv,but it bolstwhasuskewPictuticq9sayh surprishim. Wgetre, scomout restroomgunbhidback. As says‘Closeyes,baby. I got surpris Okay, sothasprobably wahappenWhasthe motive?”

Laura said, “She’s friends on Facebook with Ruby Ballantine.”

“It looks like a professional hit,” Anthony said. “Maybe Ruby hired her.”

“Dumb dumb dumb.”

“What?”

“‘Friending’ Alex Williams,” Laura said.

First thing they did was go back to see Joel Strickland.

“What do you want now?” he said. “I’m busy.”

“Just a couple more things,” Laura said. “Was there any reason you and your wife split up?”

“Plenty of reasons.”

“Could you elaborate?”

He sighed, pushed his laptop away. “I didn’t like being her cover.”

“Cover?”

“Ruby is gay.”

Tell me something I don’t know. “You married her knowing that?”

“No, I found out about it later.”

“She wasn’t honest with you.”

“Nope. But I wasn’t honest with her, either.” He rubbed his neck. “I’m going to be honest here. I liked her a lot, we got along well, good sex—at least I thought it was good sex, at least for me—and yes, my business could have used an infusion of cash at the time we got serious about each other. I thought that might be possible. But it turned out we were mismatched from the beginning. We had an argument the first month we were married, and she told me she had a lover—a woman. I hung on for a while after that, mostly because she kept leading me on as far as helping finance my company. She’s still doing it. We decided it was better if I moved out, but we both had reasons to stay married. She kept holding the bait over my head, and I was a good cover for her.”

“Why did she need cover?” Anthony asked. “Gay’s the new black.”

Laura gave him a look, but he ignored it.

“Because of her father. He was virulently anti-homosexual. She could have her store assistants or friends—whoever she was seeing at the time—and he never suspected a thing.” His face turned hard. “I don’t know what I was thinking. She used me, dangling that bait all the time, and I never got anything out of it. But that’s going to change.”

Anthony said, “What about Sean? Would he have inherited the estate?”

"Hard to tell. Ruby was the one who nursed the father and stuck with him. Sean didn’t seem to care about the money. He was too busy living in his own little world. But if her father ever found out about her love life, who knows what he would do?”

“Do you know who she’s seeing?”

“No, but she did tell me she was beautiful and young.”

“She didn’t give a name?”

He thought for a minute. “Seems to me it began with an ‘A’. Amy or Alice or something like that.”

“Alex?”

“Could be. I don’t know, and I don’t care. What I’m trying to do now is extricate myself. I’m going to cut bait while I still have some dignity left.”

“Lovers,” Anthony said.

“Scheming lovers.”

“Makes sense to me. Big Sis lures her brother here where it will be easy to kill him, and Alex does the dirty deed.”

“I was thinking she might have been a hired assassin.”

“Maybe,” Anthony said. “Or a hired assassin with benefits.”

They now had Alex Williams’s driver’s license. From there Laura was able to access her address. Unfortunately, like most people her age, Alex Williams didn’t have a landline, just a cell phone.

Anthony prepared a warrant to access her cell phone records, even though at the moment they had no way of determining which carrier she used. His motto was Be Prepared. Just in case the Heavens opened and all that info started pouring in.

“More likely,” he muttered, “We’ll have to pry that information out with an escargot fork.”

“You eat escargot?” Laura asked.

“One of my favorite things.”

“Yuck.”

“It’s an acquired taste. Just ask us one-percenters.”

What little evidence they had against Williams was circumstantial and insufficient. Yes, they had her Facebook friendship with Ruby Ballantine, and Joel Strickland’s claim that Ruby and Alex were lovers (which would be filed under “hearsay”), and the fact that Alex had given Laura a phony name and directed her to call a nonexistent friend. None of this rose to probable cause; it wasn’t even close.

But Laura was sure that the calls made to Sean Perrin during his stay at the Madera Canyon Cabins were from Alex Williams.

As Anthony said, who wouldn’t want to go on a moonlight hike with a knockout like that?

She called her partner. “Maybe it’s time for us to rattle Alex’s cage a little.”

“I dunno. If we’re right about her, she’s pure psychopath.” He thought about it. “But if that’s the case, it wouldn’t matter one way or another.”

“She won’t be shaken,” Laura agreed. “But I bet she’d show us what’s behind her mask.”

“Yeah, because she knows we can’t touch her.” He thought about it. “But at least we’ll know who and what we’re really dealing with.”