Dance of the Bones

“Wait, are you telling me that Ava murdered her first husband?”


“Yes, and she got away with that one, too. She pushed him into Pantano Wash during a flash flood. I guess she admitted to his homicide because her attorney convinced her that if anything else surfaced later on, her death penalty plea agreement would go away. In addition to that, she admitted to ordering the deaths of the José brothers and masterminding the prison riot scheme designed to cover the attacks on Max José and my father.”

“Does your father know about any of this?” Brandon asked.

“Not yet,” she answered. “I called you first.”

“Even with Ava taking responsibility, Big Bad John isn’t going to want to be released from prison,” Brandon warned her. “He’s worried about being a burden to you.”

“Mr. Glassman says that if all this works out, there should be some wrongful conviction funds to help with my father’s continuing care.”

“Back to Ava; you say Kenneth tried to blackmail her?”

“He may have pretended to be my father’s best pal, but it turns out he was also an accessory after the fact in Amos Warren’s homicide. Ava confessed that he helped her retrieve Amos’s vehicle from the crime scene. He also helped her remove Amos’s goods and transport them from his home as well as from the storage unit. I’m not sure why he bothered testifying on my father’s behalf at the first trial, since every word out of his mouth was a lie. Maybe his conscience was bothering him.”

Just then something else occurred to Brandon. “When I got to Ava Richland’s house yesterday afternoon, an ambulance was just taking her current husband, Harold, to the hospital. Did she try to do him in, too?”

“Probably not. It turns out she was far better off with him alive than dead. Harold’s son has created a complicated marital trust that would have left him running Ava’s show once Harold passes on. That’s most likely why she was leaving town. She’d put together a collection of smuggled diamonds that would have kept her in the manner to which she’d become accustomed. She was planning on going elsewhere and living under an assumed name—-several assumed names. It almost worked. If it hadn’t been for TLC and you, it might very well have worked.”

“It wasn’t just me,” Brandon objected. “A guy named J. P. Beaumont up in Seattle and his pal Todd Hatcher helped out, too.”

“How are the two boys doing?” Amanda asked.

“Gabe was released from the hospital early this morning. Tim is still there, but my daughter tells me he’ll be fine.”

“And your daughter?”

“She’s fine, too.”

“I’m so glad,” Amanda breathed. “I couldn’t have stood being responsible for anyone else coming to grief. I’ve done quite enough harm as it is.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Brandon counseled. “None of this is your fault. Do the doctors say how long John will be hospitalized?”

“Most likely the better part of a week.”

“Let him know that I’ll be dropping by,” Brandon Walker said. “I hate to think of you sitting around in the hospital all by yourself.”

“I’m not by myself,” Amanda said. “A man from the prison is here with me. His name is Aubrey Bayless. He says he’s my father’s friend, and he’s going to hang around to make sure nothing else happens.”

I WAS AT THE AIRPORT waiting in the cell--phone lot for Mel’s plane when Brandon Walker called to give me an overview of what had happened. I knew some of it already because Todd Hatcher had kept me apprised as to how things had played out the night before.

Ava’s confession to multiple murders, however, came as a complete surprise. There was a certain righ-teous-ness in the fact that Amanda Wasser, the daughter of the man Ava had framed for one of her own murders, was the one who ultimately brought her down. I liked that. It may have been justice delayed by decades, but it was far better than no justice at all.