Deadly Stakes (22 page)

“Knife?” Ali repeated. “What knife?”

“The murder weapon—a Henckels boning knife. I guess I’m supposed to say ‘the alleged murder weapon.’ They found it in Lynn Martinson’s trunk, and the boning knife from Mama’s Henckels set in the kitchen is currently missing from the knife block. As I told the detective earlier, for all we know, that knife could have been missing for months. When Chip moved into the casita, he came with the clothes on his back, and that was about it. Mama and I had Consuelo outfit him with whatever extras he needed from here.”

“Who’s Consuelo?”

“Mother’s maid. Used to be full-time, but shortly after Chip came home, I had to let her go. Keeping her on was too expensive. At the time he was moving back in, I had her pack up some of Mama’s extra linens, dishes, silverware, pots and pans, and take them over to the casita so he could use them. If it turns out it was our knife that the cops found in the back of the car, that’s possibly where it came from—the stuff Consuelo sent over to his place, not from someone sneaking into the kitchen in the middle of the night to grab a knife.”

Ali thought about how Molly and Doris had bypassed the alarm keypad on their way into the house. “What about your alarm system?”
she asked. “If people were coming and going from the casita overnight, wouldn’t your alarm have sounded?”

“There’s no longer an active alarm system on the property,” Molly said. “We used to have one, but it turned into too much of a hassle. Before I got Mother’s sleep meds adjusted, she kept getting up during the night, wandering around the house, and punching buttons right and left. She’d be thinking she was turning the AC up or down or the heat on or off when she was really punching the keypad on the alarm. Finally, after several false alarms, we had to turn the system off.”

“You keep your doors locked, don’t you?” Ali asked.

“Of course,” Molly snapped. “Without the alarm, we’d be stupid not to, but I have a master key, and so does Chip. I’m betting that’s what she used.”

“She?”

“Lynn Martinson,” Molly said in exasperation. “Who do you think? The blood was found in her car. The knife was found in her car. I find that pretty compelling evidence.”

“You’re convinced that Lynn Martinson is the murderer, then?” Ali asked. “You don’t believe your brother had anything to do with it?”

“No,” Molly said. “Chip could never be a murderer. He doesn’t have it in him.”

“What’s this about a murder?” Doris asked, once again rousing herself like a hopelessly broken record. Whatever information she gathered one minute was erased the next. “Who are you talking about?”

“We’re talking about Gemma, Mama,” Molly explained again. “About what happened to her.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing, Mama. It’s not important. I’ll tell you about it later.”

Ali was still focused on the knife. Dave hadn’t mentioned anything about investigators finding a knife in Lynn’s vehicle. Ali wondered if Paula Urban knew about it.

“Anyway,” Molly continued, “when the detective showed up with his search warrant and a crime scene team this afternoon, I had to let them in, and they were dusting everything with that ugly fingerprint powder.”

“That’s when they told you about the knife?”

Molly nodded. “They didn’t say much of anything to me. They were still here when Mama and I left for dinner, but they must have left before you got here.”

Without putting up any crime scene tape,
Ali thought.
Which means they found nothing.

“If they’re not treating the casita as a crime scene,” Ali said, “that means that whatever happened to Gemma didn’t happen in the casita and, according to what you said, apparently not in Gemma’s town house, either. So where’s the crime scene?”

“In the trunk, maybe?” Molly said. “Detective Holman seems to think Gemma was spirited away from her town house sometime in the middle of the night, after she got home from the bar. He thinks she may have left there voluntarily, most likely with someone she knew.”

“She may have left her town house voluntarily,” Ali observed, “but she didn’t get in the trunk voluntarily. So does Lynn Martinson qualify as someone Gemma knew?”

“I suppose,” Molly said, “and not necessarily in a good way. Chip and Gemma got into an argument out in the yard a couple of weeks ago. Lynn ended up being right in the middle of it.”

“What kind of argument?”

“Over a real estate deal of some kind. Chip needed Gemma to sign a sales document, and she refused. Words were exchanged. When I went outside to check on what was going on, Lynn was saying something to the effect that if Gemma didn’t stop tormenting Chip, she would figure out a way to put a stop to it. Gemma said the only way she’d be done messing with Chip was when she was dead.”

“You told the detective about that?”

Molly nodded. “I did. It sounded too much like a direct threat to me. Given what’s happened, I couldn’t very well ignore it.”

“From what you’re saying, you think your brother isn’t capable of doing something like this, but you think Lynn is?”

“Look,” Molly said, “my brother is probably the best thing that ever happened to Lynn Martinson. With the divorce keeping him strapped
for cash, I can see her thinking that if Gemma was out of the way, she’d have a clear shot at taking Chip to the altar.”

“Could your mother have helped him with some of those money issues?”

“She could, but she didn’t in the past, and she isn’t going to in the future,” Molly said determinedly. “Chip made his own mess, and I told him that he needs to clean it up on his own.”

“I take it you’re handling your mother’s finances, then?”

“Yes,” Molly said. “For right now, I’m the one writing the checks and paying the bills. I want to make sure her money doesn’t run out before she does.”

“What about the defense attorney you sent riding to your brother’s rescue today?” Ali asked.

“I did do that,” Molly agreed. “I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I let him take the fall for something his girlfriend did. Besides, if Mother were in her right mind, I’m sure that’s what she would have done, too. She would have regarded it as money well spent.”

Doris sat up and blinked. “What money?” she asked.

“The money we spent on Matt Greenburg?”

“Matt Greenburg the lawyer?” Doris asked with a frown.

Molly nodded. “Yes, Mama.”

“Matt was one of your father’s good friends, but I never liked him much,” Doris said. “He’s one of those defense attorneys, isn’t he? The kind who are always getting crooks out of jail and helping them get off on technicalities?”

“Maybe,” Molly agreed. “About the technicalities.”

Before Ali had time to ask another question, Doris Ralston levered her rail-thin frame off the sofa and headed out of the room.

“Where are you going, Mama?” Molly asked.

“I’m going to go check on Gemma and see if she’s still sleeping in the car.”

“She’s not!” Molly insisted. “She’s not sleeping anywhere, Mama! How many times do I have to tell you? Gemma is dead. Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”

Nodding, Doris reversed direction and started back across the room. “So where’s my book?” she asked. “Have you seen where I put it?”

“It’s right here where you left it, on the coffee table.” Reaching over, Molly picked up what appeared to be a wedding album and handed it to her mother, who clutched it to her breast.

“Sorry,” Molly apologized to Ali, getting to her feet. “When she gets too tired, things get worse. I’m going to have to get her to bed now. I’m sorry we got off to such a bad start earlier.”

“That’s all right,” Ali said easily. “You had no idea who I was. Considering everything that’s happened, I easily could have been someone who was up to no good.”

“Do you have everything you need?”

“I think so,” Ali answered.

“Well, if there’s anything else, you’re welcome to call.” Molly reeled off a telephone number, which Ali jotted into her iPad.

After Molly and Doris left the room, Ali slipped her iPad into her purse and let herself out of the house. She had given Molly a card earlier, but she dropped another one on the entryway table on her way out.

After leaving Upper Glen Road, Ali drove back down to the hotel at Twenty-fourth and Camelback. Forty-five minutes later, showered and wearing her little black dress and a pair of suitable heels, Ali walked into Morton’s on B.’s arm.

“Are we celebrating a special occasion tonight?” the hostess asked as she seated them and handed out menus.

“Yes, we are,” B. said with a grin. “We’re continuing to celebrate the launch of a brand-new partnership.”

20

C
hip Ralston’s mother has Alzheimer’s?” B. asked thoughtfully as he sliced into his thick hunk of medium-rare prime rib. “I remember Beatrice Hart mentioning that Chip’s father had died, but I don’t think she said anything about his mother.”

“She’s suffering dementia issues of some kind, even if what she has isn’t straight-out Alzheimer’s,” Ali answered. “The whole time I was talking to Molly, Doris would be asleep one minute and awake the next. And each time she woke up, she had no idea what was going on. It has to be driving her daughter nuts. And I have a feeling Beatrice didn’t know about Doris Ralston’s condition because I doubt her daughter knows about Doris’s condition. I suspect Chip never told her.”

“Why not?” B. sounded surprised. “After what happened to Lynn’s father, why wouldn’t he talk to her about that?”

Ali shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m supposed to be in Lynn Martinson’s corner, but all I’ve managed to do so far is turn up evidence of another whole level of betrayal. She finally worked up enough courage to fall in love again, but it looks like she’s fallen for another dud. I like Chip, but apparently he’s a liar from, let’s just say, a troubled family. Doris Ralston’s elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor. She can’t quite grasp that her former daughter-in-law is dead. Doris keeps talking about Gemma this and Gemma that. She seems far more enamored with Gemma than she is with either her own son or her daughter.”

“She was talking like that in front of her daughter?”

Ali nodded.

“That’s got to be tough on Molly,” B. offered.

“You’re right,” Ali agreed, “especially since, if Chip ends up out of the picture, Molly’s the one who’ll be left shouldering most of Doris’s care. I get the feeling that there’s enough of a family fortune that she won’t have to be pinching pennies and worrying about keeping a roof over her mother’s head and food on the table, but dealing with a patient with dementia has to be incredibly challenging.”

“Speaking of Chip being in or out of the picture, have you heard any word on the plea agreement?”

“I talked to Paula briefly. According to her, Chip Ralston and Cap Horning are back-and-forthing on Chip’s proposed plea agreement. He’s upped his offer to plead to second-degree homicide as long as Lynn walks. In that scenario, Chip goes to prison, Lynn gets off but she doesn’t get her man, and Molly still ends up taking care of their mother.”

“Lynn doesn’t get her man
again,
” B. added. “In other words, no happily-ever-afters for anyone concerned.”

“Not so much,” Ali agreed.

“What’s on your agenda for tomorrow?”

“I have one more lead to track down tomorrow morning. Molly gave me the name of another one of their gal pals—Valerie Sloan. She and Gemma were supposed to play tennis on Tuesday. When Gemma was a no-show, Valerie’s the one who called in the missing persons report. I’m hoping that once I talk to her, Valerie may be able to fill in some of the blanks in Gemma’s social history. I feel like I’m missing something.”

“What?”

“Think about it. Chip Ralston’s marriage goes on the rocks, and he runs home to his mother’s place. He’s a well-known—make that nationally known—expert on the subject of Alzheimer’s, but he doesn’t have the balls to tell Lynn that his mother is following in Lynn’s father’s footsteps. Does this sound like a cold-blooded killer to you?”

“I have to agree. More like a gutless wonder than a killer,” B. agreed. “But if Chip Ralston didn’t do it, why offer to take the plea?”

“To protect Lynn, maybe?” Ali asked. “But she doesn’t strike me as much of a cold-blooded killer, either. She’s someone who’s been so traumatized by one bad relationship after another that she can’t even find a job, to say nothing of hold one.”

“Who’s responsible, then?” B. asked. “The other dead guy? Maybe Sanders was a hired hit man who got cold feet and ended up being taken out by someone else.”

“Which brings us back to square one, because hit men don’t come cheap,” Ali said.

“Okay, so who would be footing the bill for a hired hit?”

Ali shrugged. “According to what I’ve been able to find out, neither Chip Ralston nor Lynn Martinson is rolling in the dough. That’s why I want to talk to Gemma’s friend Valerie. There may be someone in her life that we don’t know about so far, including something that leads back to James Sanders. He’s the only one of the group who seemed to have plenty of cash to throw around at the moment. In the days before he died, he spent at least five thousand bucks with no clear indication of where it came from.”

“In other words, for the time being, you keep looking for a possible connection.”

Ali nodded. “Until either Paula Urban or Beatrice Hart tells me to back off. In the meantime, are we having dessert or another glass of wine?”

“I say we skip both in favor of going back to the hotel.”

Which they did. Ali was sound asleep the next morning when her phone rang. Searching for it on her bedside table, she discovered that B.’s side of the bed was already empty. Through the glass doors between the bedroom and the sitting room, she could see him on the sofa, laptop on his lap and phone to his ear. There was a coffee service sitting on the coffee table in front of him. The fact that he could be up and working while she was asleep was one of the very real advantages of having a suite.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Stuart Ramey said on the phone.

“You did,” Ali admitted, “but I needed to get moving. What’s up?”

“I never was able to get a line on that limo,” Stuart said. “They must have gotten out of the vehicle before they got to the hotel entrance, but I sent their IT people a photo of James Sanders. They ran it through their facial recognition software, and voilà. They found both Sanders and the guy he was with.”