Edge of Evil ar-1 Read online

  “Why not?” Ali demanded. “She was right there on the freeway. What happened? Did she just disappear into thin air?”

  “She’s dead,” Dave said.

  “Dead?”

  Dave nodded. “DPS had reports about the incident with you and that the perpetrator was headed southbound. They put up a rolling roadblock just north of Black Canyon City. She tried to go around and went off the highway and off a cliff. She didn’t make it.”

  “So was she drunk?” Ali asked. “On drugs? What?”

  “No,” Dave said. “It doesn’t look like drugs or alcohol, at least, not at this time.”

  “But she tried to kill me,” Ali objected. “Why?”

  “That’s what we hoped you’d tell us.”

  Ali was mystified and becoming slightly annoyed. “A total stranger-a maniac-tries to run me off the road, and you want me to tell you why? How on earth would I know?”

  “Because she wasn’t a stranger,” Dave answered quietly. “I believe you knew her quite well. We’ve tentatively identified the victim in the second vehicle as Breezy Marie Cowan, Reenie Bernard’s sister.”

  “Oh,” Ali said. And for the moment, that was all she could say.

  Chapter 20

  The interview took the better part of the next two hours. Ali told them everything she could remember about her meeting with Bree Cowan as well as what she’d gleaned from reading through Reenie’s accumulated e-mails, including Reenie’s fruitless meeting with the manager at First United Financial’s Phoenix branch.

  About noon, Dave Holman’s cell phone rang. “We’ve located Mr. and Mrs. Holzer,” he said grimly, once the call ended. “I need to go talk to them.”

  He left, taking one of the uniformed officers with him. Ali was still answering questions from the other two when Edie Larson bustled into the ER followed by Kip pushing Bob in his wheelchair. The two officers stepped aside to let them through.

  “What have you done this time?” Edie grumbled, leaning down to kiss her. “It’s becoming very tiresome you know. All I seem to be doing these days is driving from one ER to another.”

  Ali was surprised to see either one of her parents right then, to say nothing of both of them. “I didn’t call on purpose,” she said. “I knew you were working and…”

  “Dave Holman called us,” she said. “And don’t worry. Everything at work is under control. We borrowed a cook from Tlaquepaque to finish up the day. The manager there owed us from when we helped him out last Christmas.” Having said that, Edie Larson heaved herself into the chair next to Ali’s bed and promptly burst into tears. “You’ve got to quit scaring me this way, Ali. I just can’t take it.”

  Bob patted his wife’s hand. “Come on now, Edie,” he soothed. “Dave told you she was fine, and you can see for yourself that it’s true.” He looked at Ali. “Do the Holzers know what’s happened?”

  Ali nodded. “By now they do. Dave left a little while ago to go tell them.”

  “But why?” Edie asked, drying her tears. “Why would Bree come after you that way? It makes no sense.”

  “Dave thinks it may have something to do with some trust accounts that were set up for Matt and Julie. Bree has evidently been looting them. He thinks Reenie was starting to figure it out. Fear of being exposed must have pushed Bree over the edge.”

  “And Reenie, too,” Bob interjected. “What kind of car did you say Bree was driving?”

  “A Lexus,” Ali said. “A bright red Lexus. Why.”

  After parking Bob’s chair next to the bed, Kip Hogan had retreated to a spot near the door and as far away as possible from the two officers still standing inside the curtained alcove. With some difficulty, Bob turned and gave Kip a meaningful look.

  “Tell them, Kip,” he said. “Tell them what you told Edie and me on the way down.”

  Kip looked at the cops warily and then cleared his throat. “There was a Lexus on the mountain that night,” he said. “The night Ali’s friend died. Two cars came through onto Schnebly Hill Road, a white SUV and a red Lexus. The white one, a Yukon, drove down the mountain. Pretty soon the man came walking back up the road, got in the Lexus, and they drove away. Me and a couple of my friends saw the whole thing, but when the cops came around asking questions, we didn’t want to get involved, so we more or less melted into the woods. But now…” He shrugged. “I guess I am involved.”

  “Who was in the red car?” Ali asked.

  “A man and a woman.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “The woman had dark short hair,” Kip answered. “The man was dark-haired, too. Little bit of a goatee.”

  All this time, in the back of Ali’s mind, she had imagined that somehow Jasmine Wright and Howie were responsible for what had happened to Reenie. But the people Kip Hogan had just described could be none other than Bree and Jack Cowan. They had motive and opportunity and had been seen at the scene of the crime.

  “Does anyone have Dave Holman’s cell phone number?” Ali asked. “We should probably give him a call.”

  cutlooseblog.com

  Wednesday, March 23, 2005

  I’m not sure why emergency room personnel insist on cutting off perfectly good clothing instead of letting patients take their clothes off over their heads. But they do, and I’m running low on bras. Yes, that means I’ve paid a visit to yet another emergency room-a different one this time. That’s twice in one week. I’m beginning to think being a freelance blogger is a risky occupation.

  Because that’s how I ended up in the ER-by being a blogger. The questions I was asking about Reenie brought me up close and personal (way too close it turns out) with the people who most likely killed her. The same questions also brought me far too close to a guardrail overlooking a sheer two-hundred-foot drop.

  Yes, I know for sure that my friend was murdered. So do the police officers who have now, reluctantly, reopened her case. She was most likely unconscious when she was placed in a vehicle that was then driven off a cliff.

  Most people are murdered by someone they know and love, and that is true in Reenie’s case, as well. All along I suspected her husband might have had something to do with what happened, but it turned out I was wrong. It is now believed Reenie was murdered by her younger sister. And what was the motive? What else? The root of all evil-money.

  Police believe that Reenie somehow discovered that her sister, Bree, was possibly looting trust accounts of monies that had been set aside to benefit Reenie’s children. Rather than having the embezzlement exposed, Bree, with the help of her husband, allegedly turned to murder.

  It’s possible that money missing from the trust accounts is only the tip of the iceberg. Bree has worked in her father’s company for years. Recently, due to her father’s ill health, she’s been in charge. It appears she also had been siphoning money out of the business without her father’s knowledge or consent. How much damage she’s done to him remains to be seen.

  Bree has already answered for her crimes. She went off a cliff while trying to elude a police roadblock. She’s dead. Her husband is in jail, being held without bond on suspicion of homicide.

  That means Reenie’s parents will be having yet another funeral this week-a second funeral for their second daughter. The first one, for Reenie, was an outpouring of public grief. The second one will be a private affair-family members only-as two fine, upstanding people try to come to terms with their own nightmare version of Cain and Abel.

  It makes me wonder? How do parents cope with a tragedy like this where one of their children stands accused of murdering another? How do they find the courage to go on?

  I don’t know, but I’m sure they will. They have to. Because their grandchildren, Matt and Julie, are coming to live with them while the children’s father goes off on a yearlong sabbatical.

  Taking his girlfriend with him, Ali thought, but she didn’t put that in the post.

  Which means Sam will be staying on with me. And that’s all right. Neither one of us liked being
together much to begin with, but I think we’re going to be friends.

  Speaking of parents, mine have decided not to sell the Sugarloaf-or rather the buyer decided against making the deal. I guess his restaurant consultant advised him against it. My father is bummed about it; my mother is delighted, so I guess they’ll work it out.

  As for me, will I stay in Sedona? I don’t know. But I think I will keep blogging. Dangerous or not, I’m beginning to like that, too.

  Posted 12:28 A.M. by Babe

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