Cruel Intent

By then the EMTs had loaded Leland Brooks onto a gurney and were headed for the ambulance. “Where are you taking him?” Dave called after them.

“Yavapai Medical Center,” the driver returned. “Do you want us to come back for the guy with the darts once we get this one transported?”

“Don’t bother,” Dave told them. “We’ll be able to handle him.”

In the meantime, someone-Jan Howard, maybe-had brought a chair from the restaurant and set it down near the steps where Ali was already sitting. While Ali watched, Bob led a pale and shaken Edie out of their house. Holding his wife’s arm as though afraid she might break, he led her over to the chair and helped her sit down.

“I’m fine, Bobby,” Edie was saying. “Really, I am.”

But she didn’t look any finer than her daughter did. Like Dave, Bob Larson didn’t believe a word of it.

Just then Chris’s Prius raced into the parking lot. Jumping out and slamming the door behind him, he ran over to where Ali was sitting. Athena was hot on his heels.

“Mom, are you all right?” he gasped. “What’s going on?”

“I’m okay,” Ali assured him. “So’s Grandma.” But Ali was surprised to notice that at the same time she was uttering those supposedly reassuring words, she was also shivering uncontrollably. She didn’t know if the shakes were coming from being outside barefoot in the November cold or from realizing that the worst of the crisis was past.

Chris responded by whipping off his sport jacket and throwing it over his mother’s quivering shoulders. “Someone called the principal at school and said there was a problem at the Sugarloaf. He took charge of my class so I could get over here. What the hell happened?”

“It would appear that your mother and grandmother have succeeded in apprehending a possible homicide suspect,” Dave said, getting to his feet. “Now, if you and Athena will look after your mother, I’ll check out what’s going on inside the house and make sure the guy they tased is okay.”

“They tased somebody?” a baffled Chris asked. “As in a Taser? Who did that?”

“Your mother was the one shooting it,” Dave observed with a tight smile. “But it isn’t hers. I believe she used your grandmother’s Taser.”

Chris looked questioningly at his grandmother. She nodded in return. “That’s right,” she said. “It’s mine.”

“But you’re all right?” Chris asked.

Edie was getting a grip. “Couldn’t be better,” she replied stoutly, as if daring her husband to say otherwise.

Chris turned back to his mother and paused when he saw her bloodied face. “Then who was in the ambulance?” he asked. “They almost took us out back at the stoplight.”

“Leland Brooks,” Ali replied, struggling to her feet. “He’s hurt. They’re taking him to the hospital, and I’d like to go, too. If you and Athena would be kind enough to give me a ride…”

But before she could finish the sentence, a strange procession emerged from Bob and Edie Larson’s house, and everyone who had gathered in the Sugarloaf’s parking lot stopped to watch. Two cops, each of them holding a handcuffed Peter Winter by an arm, led the way. The three of them were followed by a third cop who trailed behind, carrying Edie’s Taser. With the darts still stuck in the middle of Winter’s back and the strings attached to the Taser trailing along behind him, the whole thing resembled a bizarre bridal procession.

Ali was relieved to see that Peter Winter appeared to be much the worse for wear. Even though electricity was no longer flowing through his body, he still seemed to need help remaining upright. The shaming telltale marks of urination stained his clothing. In order to reach the waiting patrol car, the cops had to lead their prisoner past both Ali and Edie. When he saw them, he ducked his head and turned away.

“See there?” Edie said to her husband. “I told you he’s fine.”

Bob Larson shook his head. “The poor guy doesn’t look fine to me,” he said. “And like I said earlier, don’t you go shooting that thing off at me. If it made him piss his pants, it would probably kill me.”

“Would you stop harping about it?” Edie returned. “Please. If we hadn’t had that Taser, Ali and I would probably both be dead by now. Would you like that any better?”

Chris left Ali’s side long enough to give his grandmother a brief hug. “I wouldn’t,” he said. “Tase away, Grandma. Way to go! But will you be all right if I take Mom to the hospital? She wants to check on Mr. Brooks.”

“I just wish everyone would quit worrying about me,” Edie said. “You take care of your mother. If Grandpa ever finishes complaining, he can look after me.”

Athena piled into the front passenger seat of the Prius while Ali sat crammed in the back. With Chris at the wheel, they headed for the hospital.

Yavapai Medical Center operated more as a stand-alone emergency room than it did a full-service hospital. Although it had rooms that could accommodate the occasional overnight stay, the medical center’s physicians specialized primarily in stitching together minor cuts, setting broken bones, and delivering the occasional fast-arriving baby. Patients requiring more comprehensive care or longer stays were routinely transported to hospitals in Cottonwood, Flagstaff, or Phoenix. The fact that the EMTs had opted for local treatment gave Ali cause to hope they didn’t regard Leland’s situation as life-threatening.

“Do you know anything about Leland’s family?” Athena asked. “Is there someone we should call?”

If he had relatives living anywhere in the States, Ali was unaware of them. Even so, there was someone Ali was quite sure would want to be notified about Leland’s condition. Without thinking, she reached for her phone, only it wasn’t there-or rather, it still wasn’t there because it was still at her house, still sunk at the bottom of that tubful of water.

“Can I please borrow a cell phone?” Ali asked.

Without a word, Athena passed one back. With the help of directory assistance, Ali was co

“I’m sorry,” his secretary told Ali. “It’s impossible to reach Judge Macey just now. He’s conducting a trial.”

“This is urgent,” Ali insisted. “Perhaps his bailiff could let him know I’m on the phone.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Ali,” she said. “Ali Reynolds from Sedona.”

The woman sighed. “One moment, then,” she said.

Ali waited. She knew that Leland and Judge Macey had been involved for quite some time. She remembered hearing that the judge’s wife, after years of being confined to a nursing home, had succumbed to the ravages of Alzheimer’s. Prior to the wife’s death, there had been some need to keep the relationship under wraps due to objections from the judge’s grown children, but with their mother gone, Ali had assumed that-

A man’s voice came on the phone. “Why are you calling me?” Judge Macey asked.

The brusque response caught Ali off guard. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said. “It’s about Leland Brooks. I thought you’d want to know that there’s been a problem, and he’s been taken to the hospital in-”

“You had no business interrupting a trial,” Macey interrupted. “Do not call me about this matter again!” With that, he hung up.

Staring at the words CALL ENDED on the phone, Ali couldn’t help feeling sorry for Leland Brooks. From the way it sounded, far more than a phone call had been disco

By then Chris had pulled up at the entrance to the medical center, where an empty Sedona patrol car was parked right outside the front entrance. With a start, Ali realized that Leland Brooks was being treated here, and so was the man who had attacked them. No doubt Peter Winter had been brought here to have the darts removed from his back.

“Go on in, Mom,” Chris suggested. “Athena and I will park and be there in a few minutes.”

When Ali stepped into the lobby, she was relieved to see that Dr. Peter Winter was nowhere in sight. She approached the reception desk, fully expecting to be rebuffed. After all, Ali was no relation to Leland Brooks; she was sure HIPAA rules would prevent hospital perso