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CHAPTER EIGHT

SEDONA, ARIZONA

THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2023

9:00 P.M.

Ali was on her way home from the game when B. called from his hotel in DC. He sounded tired.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“It’s a lot later here than it is back home,” B. responded. “Once Lance got talking with that roomful of high-powered geeks, wild horses couldn’t drag him away.”

“I’ll bet,” Ali said with a laugh.

Shortly before the pandemic, Lance had married Lauren Harper, who had then been a deputy with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. She had since been promoted to the rank of detective.

“When you have a toddler at home and a wife on maternity leave with baby number two, being able to sit around and hash things out with a bunch of brainy tech guys probably felt like being on vacation.”

“Exactly,” B. replied. “So how did the game go? Did the Scorpions win?”

“Colleen pulled it out with a three-pointer from mid-court with two seconds to go. They won thirty-one to thirty.”

“That’s my girl!” B. replied.

B. had no children of his own, but anyone seeing him interact with Chris and Athena’s kids would never have suspected that they weren’t blood kin. His attachment to them was undeniably genuine.

“Speaking of capable girls,” B. continued, “any word on how Cami is doing with the Dozo people?”

Ali glanced at her watch. “The dinner wasn’t scheduled to start until seven, so it’s still too early to hear from her. She believes in being prepared, however, and I know she intended to spend most of the day studying the dossiers Frigg prepared on Dozo itself and on all the people expected to show up this evening.”

“Then we’ll just have to hold our respective breaths,” B. said.

“Yes, we will,” Ali agreed, “but in the meantime, there’s something else I have to tell you about.”

“What is it?” B. asked.

“You’re not driving, are you?’?”

“Driving? Of course not, I’m in my room, sitting on the bed. Why? What’s wrong?”

Ali sighed before launching into it. “You had a call from Clarice today.”

Her statement was followed by a moment of stunned silence. “Clarice, as in my ex-wife, Clarice?” he asked at last.

“Exactly,” Ali returned. “The very one.”

“Are you frigging kidding me?” B. demanded. “After all these years, why on earth would she be calling me?”

“Because her husband is dead, and she’s being held in jail on a charge of first-degree murder.”

“Chuck’s dead?” B. inquired in disbelief. “Murdered? How? When? Why?”

That string of one-word questions could have come straight out of the syllabus for any self-respecting class in Journalism 101.

“I don’t know any of the details,” Ali told him. “After the call, I asked Frigg to research the situation. I told her to send me whatever she’s found after the game. Why don’t I have her put us on a conference call?”

“Good idea,” B. said. “Where are you now?”

“Almost home,” she said. “Just turning onto Manzanita Hills Road. As soon as I’m there, I’ll dial up Frigg. That way we’ll find out what we’re up against together.”

Inside the house, Ali made straight for the library and turned on the gas log fireplace. Then with her customary glass of merlot in one hand and iPad in the other, she summoned Frigg.

“Good evening, Ali,” Frigg responded. “I hope you enjoyed the game. I understand the Scorpions won.”

“Yes, they did, thank you, but this is about my earlier phone call. Have you been able to obtain any further information on the Brewster situation?”

“Of course.”

“Then please contact B. via his iPad so you can brief both of us at once.”

“One moment, please,” Frigg replied.

The connection was made a moment later. “All right, Frigg,” B. said. “Let’s see what this is all about.”

“It’s probably best to start with media coverage,” Frigg replied. “Here’s a segment from a five o’clock news broadcast from a Seattle television station on Monday, March 13. I’m only sending one because all the local coverage is virtually the same.”

The screen filled with a pair of news anchors, one male and one female, seated side by side at a glossy desk, both of them smiling broadly into the camera while the male read from the teleprompter.

“Shocking news out of Edmonds this morning, where millionaire video game entrepreneur Charles Richard Brewster, age sixty, was found stabbed to death in his Edmonds home. KOMO News Reporter Lacey Collins is on the scene. What can you tell us, Lacey?”

When Lacey appeared on the screen, she didn’t look to be much older than the girls on Colleen’s varsity basketball team. The location of the standup was all too familiar to former TV reporter Ali Reynolds. Lacey stood in the middle of a tree-lined street blocked off by ribbons of yellow crime scene tape. On the far side of the tape was a collection of haphazardly parked law enforcement vehicles—a CSI van and a Medical Examiner van, along with any number of patrol cars. The reporter’s timing was perfect. As she spoke, a gurney, one presumably holding the victim’s body, was being wheeled out of the house, down the sidewalk, and out into the street.

“The body of Mr. Charles Brewster, co-founder and currently CEO of Video Games International, was discovered deceased in his home in this quiet Edmonds neighborhood late this morning. A call from the residence reporting the incident was received by the 911 call center at 11:19 a.m. Police officers and EMS responded within minutes, but the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

“I’ve spoken to a number of people from the neighborhood who witnessed the aftermath of the incident. According to them, a female individual was led from the home, wrapped in a blanket and wearing handcuffs. Reportedly she was taken to police headquarters for questioning. Witnesses have identified her as the victim’s wife, Clarice Lorraine Brewster, although that has not yet been confirmed by officers on scene.

“The Brewsters were longtime residents of the neighborhood, and no one reported seeing or hearing anything unusual overnight. Several say that footage from nearby Ring cameras has already been collected by detectives investigating the incident.

“I’ve been speaking to Ms. Nancy Homewood, the Brewsters’ next-door neighbor. This is what she has to say.”

The camera switched over to an elderly white-haired lady leaning on a cane. “I can’t believe such a dreadful thing could happen, and right next door, too.”

“Did anything seem unusual or out of line?”

“They had a party of some kind yesterday evening with lots of cars parked up and down the street, but that’s not unusual. They’ve always done a good deal of entertaining. This morning, the Brewsters’ cleaning lady showed up right on time at eight thirty. She comes two days a week, Mondays and Fridays. I saw her hauling the trash bins out to the street while I was having my second cup of coffee. You just never know what to expect, do you?”

“That’s all from here,” Lacey concluded cheerfully, cutting the woman off before she had a chance to say anything more. “Back to you in the studio.”

The clip ended. “So, Clarice was the person taken into custody at the scene?” B. asked.

“That is correct,” Frigg replied, “although her name wasn’t released to the media until after she was officially charged on Wednesday. She pled not guilty and was denied bond. She’s being held in the King County jail.”

“It sounds as though she was the immediate focus of the investigation,” Ali suggested.

“With good reason,” Frigg replied. “This photo is a still taken from the body cam of the first officer to arrive on the scene.”

Ali didn’t want to ask how Frigg had gained access to body cam footage. It was better not to know. Nonetheless, she watched the video with interest. In it, two women sat clutching each other at the top of a flight of stairs. One of them, presumably Clarice, was clad in what appeared to be a long-sleeved white nightgown. The front of the gown was covered with blood, from the middle of her chest to her knees. There appeared to be blood on her hands as well. She seemed to be crying, and in this particular frame, her facial features were so distorted that it looked like she was wearing a grotesque Halloween mask.

“I stabbed him,” she murmured over and over. “I don’t remember doing it, but I must have.”

Next to her sat a second woman, one whose long graying hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore an apron over what appeared to be a pair of sweats and was holding something in both arms. “Is that the cleaning lady?” Ali asked.

“Correct,” B. supplied. “I know her. That’s Donna Jean Plummer. She’s worked for Chuck for years. She was working for him back when his first wife, Melinda, was dying of cancer.”

“But what’s that she’s holding?”

Frigg enlarged the photo.

“A cat?” Ali asked. “It looks like it’s covered with blood, too.”

“Not surprising,” B. muttered. “Clarice always had a thing for cats.”

“According to the police reports, officers were preparing to remove the cat from the scene and turn her over to Animal Control. Officers eventually collected bloodstained fur from the feline’s coat and then allowed Ms. Plummer, the housekeeper, to take the animal home with her. The cat’s name is Pearl, by the way,” Frigg added. “She was apparently in a good deal of distress, and investigators think it likely that she witnessed the homicide.”

“Thank goodness she didn’t end up going to Animal Control,” Ali said.

A new photo appeared on the screen. In this one, the bloodied nightgown had disappeared, and Clarice Brewster was clad in jailhouse orange. Ali knew Clarice to be somewhere in her fifties at this point, but she looked older.

“No more photos, Frigg, please,” B. said. “Can you just give us a summary?”

“The medical examiner noted seventeen different stab wounds to Mr. Brewster’s upper and lower back, at least three of which could have been fatal. There were no signs of a struggle and no defensive wounds. He was apparently asleep at the time of the attack and lying under a duvet. Pieces of fiber removed from his body were consistent with having come from the duvet. The toxicology report says his blood alcohol level was .32.”

Ali breathed out, not wanting to know exactly how Frigg had gained access to the ME’s autopsy results, either. That issue, however, went right over B.’s head.

“In other words, he was probably dead drunk when he was attacked,” he observed. “Not too surprising. Back in the day, Chuck was quite the drinker. That’s something he and Clarice had in common.”

“The number of stab wounds would generally be indicative of overkill,” Ali said, “which points to a close personal connection between perpetrator and victim, as well as a good deal of rage. No wonder Clarice is suspect number one.”

“Investigators have learned that Mr. Brewster was considering filing for a divorce, so he may have been involved with another woman at the time of his death,” Frigg continued.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” B. said bitterly. “He was having an affair with Clarice while Melinda was still alive. Now he’s cheating on Clarice. No wonder she went berserk and killed him.”

“She told me she didn’t do it,” Ali said quietly.

“She was probably lying,” B. replied. With that he abruptly ended his portion of the call.

Ali signed off with Frigg and called B. back. “Where did you go?”

“I couldn’t take any more. Once upon a time, Chuck Brewster was not only my partner, he was also my best friend. First Clarice killed the friendship and the partnership, and now she’s killed him, too. What the hell does she expect me to do about it? Defend her somehow? What she needs is a good defense attorney.”

“I believe she has one of those,” Ali told him. “But maybe she needs a better one. This one seems to be suggesting that if the prosecutor offers her a deal to plead down to murder in the second degree, she should probably take it.”

“I think so, too,” B. said. “I’m done.”

With that he hung abruptly up again. Ali didn’t blame him for hanging up a second time. This was clearly a terrible blow, and B. would need some time to process it. In the meantime, the best thing for Ali to do was give him space.

After the phone call ended, Ali puttered around the house some. The situation didn’t just affect B., because Ali was upset, too. It would have been nice to have Bella to cuddle about then, but thinking about Bella only made matters worse. Ali knew that if she tried going to bed right then, she would most likely simply toss and turn. So she poured a second glass of wine and read the latest Dan Silva book for a while. It was almost midnight when she finally started getting ready for bed. When she plugged her cell phone into the bedside charger, the clock was showing 11:59 p.m., March 16, 2023.

Not exactly the Ides of March , Ali thought to herself, but close enough!