“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.”
18: The Lion in Her Den
Alex Williams lived in Tanforan Pointe, an apartment complex in midtown not far from the University of Arizona, where Williams was currently enrolled as a geology major. Beyond that, there were few public records. She’d been born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She was married for approximately two years to a Nathan James Williams, whereabouts currently unknown. Her birthdate was May 2, 1988. She drove a late model metallic yellow Ford Focus hatchback. And apparently, she was gay. Or at least bisexual.