by J. A. Jance
“So she must have gone back to the office after all,” Ali murmured. “After Andrea left for the day. Did they find the file on her computer?”
“No, Farris—that’s the detective—said she probably deleted it after she printed it. They’re sending the computer off somewhere. Phoenix, I think. He said something about scanning the hard drive for recently deleted files. But I’m sure that’s why she did it the way she did. To show me. All I can say, though, is, thank God she left the note. If it hadn’t been for that I’d probably be in jail tonight, instead of sitting here at home drinking scotch.”
Ali had never liked Howard Bernard much. She’d tried to get along with him, for Reenie’s sake. For friendship’s sake. But it was hard to endure this rambling and maudlin exercise in self-pity especially since he was clearly far more sorry for himself than he was for Reenie. Or the kids.
A pair of headlights turned into the driveway, an engine switched off, and a car door opened and closed.
“Hey,” Howie said, brightening suddenly. “Looks like somebody’s stopping by after all.”
Clearly pleased, he struggled to rise from the sofa, but before he had time to shamble across the room, a key turned in the lock and the overhead light switched on. To Ali’s amazement, a young dark-haired woman stepped into the room, closing the door behind her as if she owned the place.
“Howie,” she said, meeting him halfway across the room and giving him a kiss that was anything but neighborly. “Sorry I’m late.”
Over Howie’s shoulder, the woman must have caught sight of Ali. “Oh,” she said quickly, extricating herself from Howie’s drunken embrace. “I’m sorry. I had no idea you had company. I should probably go.”
“No problem,” Howie said. “No problemo! This is Ali Reynolds, an old friend of the family come by to pay a condolence visit and buck me up,” His slur was worse now. “And this is Jasmine, Ali. Jasmine Wright. She’s a student of mine—an excellent student, by the way—one of my doctoral candidates.”
Jasmine’s name registered in Ali’s hearing and heart on the exact same frequency as April and Charmaine’s had. And the look on Ali’s face was most likely something close to absolute fury.
A doctoral candidate with her own key to Reenie’s house! Ali thought. How very convenient!
Jasmine Wright—Jasmine Wrong as Ali chose to think of her—was fairly tall and willowy, but curvy in all the right places. She had olive skin, dark eyes, and very white teeth. Her skintight Spandex top ended a good six inches above her equally tight and low-cut jeans. She didn’t look like any history major Ali ever remembered meeting, and as a package she was way more than a balding, paunchy, and married history professor could have expected—or deserved.
“Ali Reynolds,” Ali said. Plastering a phony smile on her face, she stood and extended her hand in greeting. “Reenie and I were friends from high school on.”
Howie launched off into his own unnecessarily expansive explanation. “Ali was Reenie’s best friend,” he enthused. “Can you believe it? She came all the way over from California to help out. The kids are in Cottonwood with Reenie’s folks, and since I didn’t know for sure what was going to happen today—if they were going to let me go or not—Ali was kind enough to take the kids’ cat home with her. Sam, you know Sam, don’t you?”
Jasmine nodded.
Why the hell am I stuck with Sam? Ali wondered suddenly. Surely someone else—somebody with a key to the house, for instance—could easily have stopped by to feed and check on Samantha.
While an oblivious Howie droned on, the two women regarded one another with wary speculation.
“How very nice,” Jasmine said with a careful smile, but in a tone that clearly meant she didn’t think it was nice at all.
“Under the circumstances,” Ali said coolly, “it’s the least I could do.”
“The usual?” Howie asked, turning to Jasmine with an effusive smile. In return, Jasmine allowed him a curt nod. He headed for the kitchen, leaving the two women alone.
Entirely at home, Jasmine seated herself with casual grace on the hassock next to where Howie had been on the couch. The fact that she seemed totally comfortable and at ease in Reenie’s house—in Reenie’s living room, in a place whose every decoration Reenie had personally chosen and installed—sent Ali into a blazing fury.
“All of this has been very hard on him,” Jasmine said.
“It’s hard on everybody,” Ali said pointedly. “Most especially Reenie.”
Howie returned to the living room carrying a glass of white wine, which he handed to Jasmine, slopping the top third of it along the way. Then he sat back down heavily, picked up his own glass, and poured a little more scotch for himself. “There’s chicken in the kitchen,” he said. “Somebody must have brought it. Want some?”
Jasmine shook her head. Ali did a slow burn. Was Howie so drunk he didn’t even remember who had brought the KFC?
“Funeral’s Friday,” he said to Jasmine. “Did I tell you already?”
She nodded. “You told me,” she said.
“Oh,” he muttered. “Sorry. And the kids are in Cottonwood?”
Jasmine nodded again.
She already knew that, too, Ali thought. Long before she unlocked the door and came inside. That’s why she’s here, you dunce, for a quick roll in the hay while the kids are safely out of the way and so’s your wife.
Howie was drunk and repeating himself. If Jasmine wanted to hang around with someone that stewed, that was up to her, but Ali had reached the limit of her endurance. She rose to her feet. “Since you have someone here to keep you company,” Ali said, “I should probably go.”
“So soon?” Howie muttered, but he didn’t bother trying to get up. Considering his condition, Ali knew that was just as well. Jasmine made no pretense of objecting to Ali’s departure.
“I suppose I’ll see you on Friday?” Ali asked her.
“Yes,” Jasmine said. “I’ll be there.
Ali hustled herself out the door before she could say or do anything more—before she slugged Howie in the kisser and knocked Jasmine Wright onto her curvy little butt. Neither was an acceptable option.
As Ali drove away, she seethed with anger. While Reenie was busy dying, Howie had been screwing around. Do the cops know about this? she wondered. But more than that, more than anything, she wondered if Reenie had known.
It would have been tough enough dealing with a terminal illness, but if she had somehow discovered Howie’s betrayal as well …With all that going on, maybe committing suicide wasn’t such a stretch after all.
Ali remembered what Andrea Rogers had said. “Not that I could have done anything to help, but at least we could have talked. She wouldn’t have been so alone.”
“Reenie, Reenie, Reenie,” Ali whispered under her breath as she drove. “If you didn’t call Andrea, why didn’t you call me?”
Chapter 10
Back at the hospital, Ali learned that with Bob out of surgery and safely in the recovery room, her mother was ready to head back to Sedona. Ali offered to walk her out to the car.
“Are you all right?” Edie asked. “You look upset.”
“I am upset,” Ali said. “I just met Howie Bernard’s girlfriend.”
“Oh, that,” Edie said.
Ali was shocked. “You mean you knew about it?”
“There were rumors floating around,” Edie responded.
“How long?” Ali asked. “Since before Reenie was diagnosed?”
Edie nodded. “Long before that,” she said. “I think I heard about it sometime last fall. From Jody Sampson, one of the ladies in Garden Club. Jody claimed one of her friends had run into him at a hotel down in Phoenix when she went there for a flower show. Howie was there with one of his students. According to Jody, what the two of them were studying had nothing to do with history.”
“Did Reenie know about it?” Ali asked.
“Did you know about what Paul was doing?” Edie asked, effectively turning the qu
estion back on her daughter.
It was far too easy for Ali to put herself in Reenie’s place. Easy to see how, with two small children in the picture, Reenie might have chosen to turn a blind eye on her husband’s infidelity in order to protect Matt and Julie; in order to keep from rocking the boat. But once it was so blatant that she couldn’t ignore it any longer, she had gone looking for an attorney. And, according to Andrea, Reenie had canceled the appointment as soon as her diagnosis was confirmed.
“See you tomorrow,” Ali said without answering. “Drive carefully.”
With Chris there to look after his grandfather, Ali left the hospital shortly thereafter as well. All the way home she stewed about the fact that Edie had known more about what had been going on in Reenie’s life than Ali had.
What about the cops? Ali wondered. Did Detective Farris know about Jasmine Wright? Was that one of the reasons the interview with Howie had taken the better part of the day?
In the end, though, Farris must have accepted the supposed suicide note at face value. He had let Howie go; let him come home. Maybe Howie had some kind of airtight alibi. But does Jasmine? Ali wondered. And isn’t the female of the species dead-lier than the male?
And now that Ali knew about Jasmine, what was she going to do about her? In the blog, Ali had openly discussed the various aspects of Reenie’s situation, but she couldn’t very well add Jasmine into the mix. Ali already knew that Matt had read the newspaper account of his mother’s death and had come up with the information that Reenie had most likely committed suicide. Wasn’t it possible that Matt was computer savvy enough that he might stumble upon Ali’s blog as well. That meant she had to avoid making any mention of what she had learned this evening, including the existence of Howie Bernard’s mistress. Ali was determined that, if Matt and Julie were ever to learn about their father’s infidelity, the information would have to come from someone other than Ali Reynolds.
She was still half mad about being unnecessarily stuck taking care of Sam when she let herself into the house and found the cat draped comfortably across the back of the sofa as if she owned the place. Same blinked her one eye, but she didn’t move from her perch, and Ali left her undisturbed.
Ali undressed and went to bed but not to sleep. She was still too wound up by everything she had learned. Besides, her body had spent decades living on the night shift. A sleepless hour and a half after going to bed, Ali finally gave up, crawled back out of bed, and busied herself at the computer, writing the next morning’s post.
cutlooseblog.com
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Yesterday’s Ides of March wasn’t a whole lot better for me, my family, and for my dead friend’s family than a long-ago Ides of March was for Julius Caesar. It started out with me visiting Reenie’s children. It ended with my father in the hospital undergoing multiple surgeries to set broken bones after a serious snowboarding accident. Dad’s going to be fine, but he’s also going to be off work for the foreseeable future.
My parents have owned and run the Sugarloaf Café in Sedona, Arizona, for as long as I can remember. My father is in charge of the kitchen. My mother does the baking before the restaurant opens, then she switches roles and waits tables. Since my mother is standing in for my dad, someone has to stand in for her.
When I was in high school and college I waited tables at the Sugarloaf. Since they’re in desperate need of a pinch hitter at the moment, I’ve volunteered. That means I’m going to have to rise and shine very early in the morning, and I don’t know how well I’m going to do. Check with me tomorrow afternoon. Make that THIS afternoon.
And if I don’t have enough energy left over to log on to cutloose in the foreseeable future, don’t be surprised.
Posted 12:05 A.M. by AliR
She went back to bed after that and still couldn’t sleep. Lying there her mind mulled over all she had learned. From what Howie had said, it sounded as though the investigating police officers were more than happy to latch on to the suicide theory and be done with it. But Ali wasn’t.
The very fact that Reenie had been exploring the treatment program in Mexico—fraudulent or not; effective or not—only served to reinforce what Ali already believed: Reenie’s determined intention had been to fight ALS with everything she had and with every weapon at her disposal.
Regardless of whether or not Reenie had known about Jasmine Wright’s cozy relationship with Howie, it must have been galling for her to have Howie tell her that they simply couldn’t afford the proposed treatment.
Parsimonious bastard! Ali thought. Howard Bernard was looking out for Howard first and foremost. What was good for his bank account was good for him, regardless of what was good for Reenie. It would leave him that much more to spend on Jasmine later on.
And who the hell is Jasmine Wright anyway? Ali wondered. Where does she come from? And how much of a proprietary interest does she have in Howie Bernard’s future?
That brought Ali back to the note. The printed note. A note with no corresponding document file on Reenie’s computer. If it was printed, that meant it wasn’t signed. Anyone could have written it, printed it, and concealed it in Reenie’s car. Two people stood in the way of that note being automatically accepted as the gospel—Andrea Rogers and Ali Reynolds. But Andrea had already tried stating her objection only to be soundly ignored by Detective Farris. That means he probably won’t listen to me, either, Ali thought.
Eventually, Ali drifted off to sleep. But she didn’t sleep well. In her dreams Howie and Jasmine were getting married, and Ali was the matron of honor but the flower girl came down the aisle tossing out handfuls of bread-and-butter pickles instead of rose petals. That dream was still close to the surface of Ali’s consciousness when the alarm sounded less than three hours later. Even though it felt like the middle of the night and she was more tired now than when she went to bed, Ali couldn’t help laughing as she made her way into the shower. The last time she ever remembered dreaming about pickles, she had been pregnant with Chris.
Dressed, showered, and determined, Ali pulled into the Sugarloaf at six on the dot. Clearly Edie had made it up at four since the first thing Ali noticed as she stepped out of the Cayenne was the enticing aroma of freshly baked sweet rolls.
“You made it,” Edie said with a smile as her daughter entered through the back door. “Extra sweatshirts are in the locker in the employee rest room.”
Two minutes later, dressed in a sweatshirt two sizes too large for her, Ali picked up her order pad and a coffeepot and walked through the swinging door into her past—a past she had never expected to revisit.
By nine o’clock in the morning, her feet were killing her. That was about the time Detective Dave Holman slipped onto the end stool at the counter. “Heard about your dad,” he said, as Ali poured coffee into his cup. “Is he going to be all right?”
“Eventually,” Ali said. “But he’s got bones broken in one ankle and in the other leg, too. In other words, he’s going to be off work for some time.”
“And you’re pitching in?”
Ali nodded.
“Isn’t that a bit of a come-down for you?’ he asked.
Ali bit back a sharp remark. “No,” she said coolly. “I believe it’s called stepping up. What’ll you have?”
Ali had thought that she might mention what she had learned about Howie and Jasmine Wright to the detective the next time she saw him. Once he made that comment, however, she wasn’t about to tell him anything. If the cops didn’t already know Howie was screwing around on Reenie, too bad. As Dave had pointed out the previous day, he and Ali were on opposite sides of the fence and unlikely to be either friends or allies.
It turned out to be a very long day. By the time Ali got home at three in the afternoon, she was dead tired. She lay down on the bed, planning to put her feet up for a few minutes. She awakened to a ringing telephone two hours later. In order to answer the phone Ali had to reach across Samantha, who was cuddled up next to her.
“I’m
headed up to Flag to see your father and to give Chris a break,” Edie said. “Want to ride along?”
Ali laughed. “Obviously you’re a whole lot tougher than I am,” she said. “My feet are killing me. I came home, dropped onto the bed, and fell sound asleep.”
“I’m used to it,” Edie told her. “That makes all the difference.”
“Do you need me to ride along?” Ali asked. “I’ll come with you if you want me to.”
“I’m perfectly capable of driving myself back and forth to Flagstaff,” Edie told her. “I’ve been doing it for years. Besides, you sound beat. You should probably stay home.”
Feeling guilty, Ali allowed herself to be convinced. Once off the phone, she forced herself off the bed and into the shower. Only then, did she go near her computer:
Today has been a day for going back to my roots and for remembering any number of things that I didn’t know I’d forgotten. There’s the light, fluffy texture of my mother’s award-winning sweet rolls and the aroma of bacon, eggs, and hash browns cooking on a hot grill. There’s the heady smell of coffee when the hot water first hits the grounds. There’s the feeling of relief when the last customer has finally walked out the door, the cash register has run off the day’s receipts, and the last bag of trash has been hauled out to the Dumpster.
But the main thing I had forgotten, was just how hard the work of running a restaurant can be. Waiting tables in even a small-town diner is hard on your feet and on your back. It’s also hard on your spirit. Doing it again after all this time has given me a whole new appreciation of what my parents and their former partner, my aunt Evie, have done all their adult lives, keeping alive the restaurant my grandmother started more than fifty years ago.
Working in the Sugarloaf today has also made me value anew the work done by countless people in the food service industry all over this country. They’re the men and women who every day, morning and evening, greet their customers cheerfully and courteously. In the process of serving whatever food has been ordered, they also serve up something else. Along with bacon and eggs and hash browns, they dish up human connections and spiritual sustenance.