by J. A. Jance
Ali was half asleep when a ringing telephone startled her awake. “Mom?” Chris asked.
She could tell from the quake in his voice that something was wrong. “What is it?”
“It’s Grandpa.”
“What’s happened? Is he hurt?”
“Yes, he’s hurt. Some hotshot snowboarder crashed into him from behind and sent him flying. The ski patrol just got him down off the slopes. They’re loading him into an ambulance right this minute to take him to Flagstaff.”
“How bad is it?” Ali asked.
“Pretty bad,” Chris said. “At least one broken leg, maybe two. And a broken arm as well. I just got off the phone with Grandma. She’s on her way.”
“So am I,” Ali said. “Where are they taking him?”
“Flagstaff Community.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Chapter 9
All the way from Sedona back to Flag, Ali should have been worrying about her father. Instead, she thought about Howie Bernard. Had he murdered his wife? The idea of a mild-mannered history professor suddenly turned killer seemed unlikely. Still, Ali knew that extramarital affairs and the possibility of collecting sizeable sums of life insurance proceeds had turned more than one otherwise law-abiding citizen into a murderer. And in a town where university professors carried a fair amount of social clout, would the cops charged with solving the case give Howie Bernard any more than a cursory glance?
Somehow Ali doubted that would be the case. The detective who had collected the computer from Reenie’s office had taken the machine, but Ali had seen no evidence that they had dusted for prints. They were still focused entirely on the suicide angle. The fact that it might be something worse than that seemed not to have occurred to them. But it had to Ali, and the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to talk to Howie. Alone. And preferably unannounced. She wanted to catch him off guard and see if he might say something to her that would tip his hand.
Speeding all the way, Ali arrived at Flagstaff Community Hospital far sooner than she should have. Even so, Edie beat her there. By the time Ali walked into the waiting room, Bob Larson already had been rolled away to surgery. A subdued Chris sat quietly off to one side while Edie Larson fumed and paced.
“That man doesn’t have a lick of sense,” she raged. “If I’ve told your father once, I’ve told him a hundred times, he’s too old for snowboarding!”
“Snowboarding!” Ali exclaimed. “I thought they were going skiing.”
“That’s what he said they were going to do,” Edie replied. “But Bob’s a great one for telling me what he thinks I want to hear rather than what’s really going on. And if he got hit by a snowboarder, I’m guessing that’s what he was doing, too, snowboarding, the bird-brained dim-bulb.”
Ali looked at her son who shrugged his shoulders in silent confirmation of his grandmother’s worst suspicions. He and his grandfather had indeed been snowboarding.
“And of all the weeks for him to pull a stunt like this!” Edie railed on. “Why didn’t he just haul out a gun and shoot himself?”
“Calm down, Mom,” Ali said. “What’s so different about this week?”
“With everything else that’s been going on, we haven’t had a chance to tell you, but your father and I are thinking of retiring. We’ve got a potential buyer who’s supposed to come look at the restaurant sometime this week. We’ll be able to hold out for a lot more money if we’re selling the place as a going concern. If Dad’s laid up and the buyer thinks your father’s on his last legs—or on no legs at all, from the sound of it—it’ll be a lot tougher to make the kind of deal we want to make.”
“In other words, you can’t shut the place down just because Dad’s in the hospital.”
“Of course I can’t shut the place down,” Edie snapped. “I can’t even afford to open up late. It needs to be business as usual. In fact, I should be home in bed right this minute so I can be up at four to start baking sweet rolls. When the restaurant’s actually open, I can cook every bit as well as Bob can, but where on God’s green earth does he expect me to find someone to fill in for me out front? I’ll never be able to find someone dependable on such short notice, and Jan’s too old to manage the whole place on her own. It’ll be a disaster.”
“I could do it,” Ali suggested. The words were out of her mouth without her necessarily thinking about them, just as they had been when she had offered to look after Samantha.
Edie stopped in mid rant. “You?” she asked in disbelief. “Come on, Ali. It must be twenty years since you last waited tables.”
“It’s probably a lot like riding a bicycle, isn’t it?” Ali returned. “Once you learn, you never forget how. Besides, as far as I can tell, you haven’t changed the menu. Looks like the same old same old to me.”
“But—” Edie began.
Ali cut off her mother’s objection. “Look, Mom, if I can look after Matt and Julie’s kitty, I can certainly help you out. At least until you find someone better.”
“I just thought…”
“You think I’m too good to wait tables?” Ali asked.
“Well, yes,” Edie admitted.
“I’m not. Your owning and running the Sugarloaf was good enough to keep a roof over our heads when I was growing up and when I was going to NAU. Helping you and Daddy out now that you’re in a pinch is the least I can do. Besides, the station’s still sending me a paycheck until the end of my contract. That’ll make me the highest-priced waitress the Sugarloaf has ever seen.”
“But shouldn’t you be out looking for another job?”
“You mean shouldn’t I be looking out for me instead of looking out for you?”
“Well, yes,” Edie agreed reluctantly. “I suppose that is what I mean.”
Ali went over to her mother and gathered her into her arms. “You and Dad raised me better than that, Mom. This is payback.”
When Edie emerged from her daughter’s embrace, her eyes were bright with tears. “All right, then,” she said. “You’re hired. But only for the short term and only until I can find someone else. Assuming I manage to open the restaurant tomorrow morning, you can start then.”
They settled in to wait for Bob to return from surgery. Being back in a hospital setting made Ali uncomfortable. It brought back too many bad memories of the days and weeks she’d spent with Dean, and her waiting skills were shaky at best. She tried to sit still, but couldn’t. She kept looking at her watch, twitching, and willing the surgery to be over so she could leave. Finally Edie lost patience.
“Look, Ali,” she said. “There’s no sense in both of us sitting here fidgeting. Go for a walk or for a ride or else bring Chris something to eat. Doing what you’re doing is driving me nuts.”
“I could do with some Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Chris said. “I saw one not too far from here.”
They drove through the cold, clear night to a steamy and almost deserted KFC. After the man behind the counter took their order for one bucket of Original, Ali changed her mind and ordered a second.
“Mom,” Chris objected. “I’m hungry, but I’m not that hungry.”
“I want to stop by Reenie’s place to check on Howie,” she said. “There’ll most likely be a crowd of people there who’ll be as happy to see some KFC as you are.”
She dropped Chris back at the hospital and then headed for Kachina Trail. Once outside the Bernard place she was surprised to find that the expected gathering of friends and neighbors hadn’t materialized. There were no other vehicles parked anywhere nearby—not in front of the garage and not out on the street, either. The windows were uniformly dark. The only sign of occupancy was a single porch light burning on the front porch.
He’s probably not even home, Ali told herself. I should have stayed at the hospital.
Grabbing the fragrant bucket of chicken, Ali made her way gingerly up the icy sidewalk past the dwindling snowman. The afternoon sun had diminished him even more, and now the snowman was little more
than a knee-high ghost in the reflected glow of the porch light.
Sure she was on a fool’s errand, Ali rang the bell. Seconds later, though, a light came on somewhere in the interior of the house, followed shortly thereafter by a lamp in the living room. The dead bolt clicked. When Howie opened the door to let Ali in, he was holding a cordless phone to his ear. He smiled in welcome and drew Ali inside before shutting the door behind her. He swayed slightly on his feet as he turned to go back into the house. His ungainly walk and the smell of liquor on his breath told Ali that he’d had at least one drink and probably several more than that.
“Your mother’s friend Ali is here,” he said into the phone. Then, after a pause, he added. “Just a minute. I’ll ask her. It’s Matt. He wants to know how Samantha is doing.” The words slurred slightly and ran together.
“Tell him she’s fine,” Ali said. “She’s out of her crate and making herself at home.”
Without waiting for directions, Ali took the bucket of chicken out to the kitchen and set it on the counter. She and Diane Holzer had cleaned up the breakfast dishes earlier that morning. It appeared that the kitchen had remained unchanged since then. That probably meant that no one else had stopped by to visit with Howie, which struck Ali as odd. People usually rallied round bereaved spouses—even unfaithful ones—no matter what.
When she returned to the living room and took a seat on the couch, Howie was finishing up his phone call. “You be good now,” he was saying. “Don’t give Grandma and Grandpa any trouble. And I’ll come get you soon. Tomorrow probably, or else the next day…Right…Love you, too. Good night, Matty. Talk to you tomorrow.”
He put down the phone. He turned unsteadily in Ali’s direction and gave her a boozy hug. “Thanks so much for coming,” he mumbled. “After what I’ve been through the past few days and hours, it’s good to see a friendly face.”
“What’s been going on?”
“The cops put me through hell today, that’s what!” he said. “I didn’t ask for an attorney at first because I didn’t think I needed one. I thought they were just going to ask me a few routine questions like when did Reenie leave, what time was she supposed to get back, that kind of thing. And they did ask those things at first. But later on they came after me like gangbusters. They kept after me for hours on end, even though I told them I had an alibi, even after I offered to take a lie detector test—which I took and passed by the way—and even after that. From the way they treated me, I thought I was on my way to jail for sure. I was afraid I wasn’t coming back.”
“But you did,” Ali interjected. “You’re here.”
“That’s right. I am here! About an hour or so ago, they found Reenie’s suicide note and suddenly everything changed to sweetness and light. Suddenly I’m no longer the scumbag husband/homicide suspect. Now it’s ‘yes, Mr. Bernard,’ and ‘no, Mr. Bernard,’ and ‘of course you’re free to go, Mr. Bernard,’ and all that happy crap.
“They found a note?” Ali asked.
Howie nodded. “In the car. Or in whatever’s left of the car. They didn’t find it until just a little while ago.”
Ali felt numb. “What did it say?” she asked.
Howie shrugged. “That she couldn’t face dragging it out. That this way would be better for all of us—that she wanted to spare us.”
He paused long enough to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye, but Ali was having a hard time sorting out the conversation. Was Howie Bernard grieving for his dead wife or for himself. It was hard to tell. Maybe it was a little of both.
“So it really was suicide?” Ali asked.
“Of course it was suicide,” he replied. “What else could it have been?”
A bottle of Oban single malt scotch sat on the coffee table in front of them. Howie reached over, poured another generous shot or two into a tumblersized glass, and nodded. “At least now I can go ahead and plan the funeral. It’ll be Friday, by the way. Two o’clock. At Reenie’s old Lutheran church down in Cottonwood. She’ll be buried there, too, in the family plot.”
He stopped and looked at Ali a little fuzzily. “I’m forgetting my manners,” he said. “Can I get you something? A drink? Some of that chicken you brought?”
Ali shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said.
For several seconds, he stared morosely into his glass. “It’s good of you to drop by, Ali. I really appreciate it. As for the rest of my so-called friends, who needs ’em? Where the hell were they when the cops were busy accusing me of putting Reenie in a car and running her off a cliff to get rid of her? I mean, just because…”
Even drunk he must have realized that he was rambling on more than he should have. He stopped.
“Because what?” Ali prodded eventually.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “Not important.”
“It is important,” she insisted. “Tell me.”
Howie gave her an odd look. Finally he answered. “Reenie and I may have been having our little difficulties, but for them to think that I’d kill her…it’s utterlypre…pre…preposterous.” It took three tries before he managed to get his tongue around the word.
“What kind of difficulties?” Ali asked the question without really expecting an answer.
“Oh, you know,” he said, waggling his glass. “The usual thing—a bit of a rough patch. We might have got through it, or it could be we would have ended up in divorce court, but then, when the bomb-shell dropped about her health…You know about that—about the ALS?”
“Yes,” Ali said. “I know.”
“Godawful stuff, ALS,” he continued. “But what I can’t understand is why she did it now. She wasn’t that sick, at least not yet. She could still drive. She was probably just making a point.”
Ali was surprised to hear Howie voice his own doubts about the suddenness of Reenie’s departure.
“You thought she was going to stay to fight?”
“That’s what she said,” Howie replied.
“And what did you mean when you said she was making a point?”
“She was mad at me,” Howie continued. “Furious. We barely spoke the last two weeks, but I had no idea…”
“You quarreled?” Ali asked.
“She was talking about going to Mexico to try out some new treatment. Something with supplements that the FDA hasn’t approved yet and may not ever approve. It’s expensive as hell and not covered under our insurance. I told her it was too risky and probably a waste of time and money.”
“Risky?” Ali asked. “She was dying anyway. How risky could a treatment be, especially if there was even the smallest chance it would help?”
“Well, then, a rip-off maybe. I’ve heard of all kinds of quacks who’ve set up phony treatment centers. They take people’s money. When it’s gone, they put their patients either in a pine box or on a bus and ship them home.”
So we’re back to the money, Ali thought. Reenie wanted to try some new treatment, and Howie said no—solely to keep from having to spend the money.
“Do you know anything about this treatment center?” Ali asked. “Where it is? What it costs?”
“A one-time payment of eighty-thousand bucks,” Howie muttered, staring into his almost empty glass. “And you know what you get for all that dough? Not a cure, that’s for sure. Probably just the symptoms slowed down for a couple of months and a few extra months at the back end, but for part of that time she wouldn’t even be here. She’d have to be in the treatment center.”
“Where is it?”
“Down there someplace. In Mexico. Guayamas. Mazatlan. I don’t remember, really. It’s one of those little beach towns.”
“Do you remember the name of the facility?”
“She didn’t go there,” Howie said very slowly and carefully as if explaining a difficult concept Ali was too stupid to understand. “She wasn’t ever going to go there. I told her flat out that we couldn’t afford it, and that was the truth. Besides, the whole thing was a rip-off and a fraud. Why should I remember the name?�
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He was starting to sound surly, and Ali decided it was time to try a different approach. “I talked to Andrea Rogers,” she said.
“I did, too,” Howie said. “She’s broken up about this, poor woman, completely broken up.”
“Andrea says she talked to Reenie after her doctor’s appointment on Thursday,” Ali said. “According to her Reenie said she was planning to stop by the bank on her way home. Do you have any idea which one?”
“B of A,” Howie managed. “The detective already asked me all about it. I tried to help. Called the bank to check, but there wasn’t any activity on Thursday afternoon—not on any of our accounts or on any of our credit cards, either. That’s not true. She was at a Hallmark store in Scottsdale, but that was before her appointment not after it. But as far as her doing something in a bank branch? Nada! Nothing! Zippo!”
He smiled wryly and poured himself another drink.
“Tell me about the note,” Ali said. “What was it like?”
“I already told you…”
“I mean what kind of paper was it on?”
“Paper?” Howie asked with a scowl. “Regular computer paper.”
“So it was done on a computer?” Ali asked.
“Didn’t I just say that?” he asked irritably. “Yes, it was written on a computer and printed on ordinary computer paper. They found it folded up and stuck in a crack between the seat and the frame. How it kept from flying out, nobody knows. If it had fallen out into the snow it probably never would have been found because it was white, you see.” He paused and then looked at Ali. “Why do you want to know?”
How long had Reenie and Howie been married? Ali wondered. Ten years at least. So how was it pos sible that he knew so little about his wife? Reenie had been to a Hallmark store that day. She would have found a card, the perfect blank card, and used that to say her good-byes.