by J. A. Jance
Ali chose oatmeal and whole-wheat toast.
“What questions?” Dave asked when she finished ordering. “About Reenie? …Did you ever have a chance to talk to Lee Farris?”
“I did,” Ali answered, “but nothing much came of it. As far as he’s concerned, she committed suicide and that’s it. Case closed.”
“But you’re still not convinced.”
“Let’s just say I have some concerns,” Ali said.
“You think someone else is responsible?”
Ali nodded. “Maybe.”
“Who?”
“Her husband has a girlfriend, for one thing,” Ali said. “What about him? Maybe he got greedy. With half a million dollars in insurance proceeds there for the taking, Howie and his new pal are going to be left with a lot more money to throw around in view of Reenie’s sudden death. Had her ALS had been allowed to run its course, Howie probably would have been looking at all kinds of medical bills in co-pays alone.”
“Could have been,” Dave corrected. “But that’s only one concern. What else?”
“The supposed suicide note,” Ali said. “The alleged suicide note. It was written on a computer. There’s no signature on it. Anyone could have typed it, printed it, and planted it in Reenie’s vehicle. And there’s no indication Reenie wrote it on her own computer, by the way, at least not the one at work. There’s no trace of it in any of her files.”
“You know that for sure?” Dave asked. “My understanding was that Lee had taken charge of her computer.”
“He did,” Ali said. “But Andrea Rogers, Reenie’s secretary, had a back-up copy of Reenie’s files. So she looked. According to her there was no sign of any note.”
“What about a home computer?” Dave asked. “She could have used one she had there.”
“Detective Farris says not,” Ali said. “His idea was that maybe she stopped off at a Kinkos and wrote and printed the note there while she was down in Phoenix, but I don’t think so.” Ali didn’t bother mentioning the greeting card issue. That was a non-starter. “And then there’s the thing about possible treatments,” she added.
“What treatments?” Dave asked. “I didn’t think there were any treatments for ALS.”
“There aren’t any cures, that’s for sure,” Ali admitted. “There are some things that may help stave off symptoms for a while. And although there’s lots of research going on, there’ve been no real breakthroughs. A lot of what’s out there may be outright frauds—things that play on people’s hopes and fears. One in particular has an initial entry fee of $80,000. What you get back for that amount of money, I have no idea.”
Dave Holman whistled. “That much? Was Reenie involved in anything like that?”
“Maybe. I talked to her father about it last night. According to Ed Holzer, she was considering signing up for something. That he expected she’d fight ALS to the bitter end. I thought so, too. Which brings me to the bank.”
“What bank?”
“I have no idea. Andrea Rogers says she talked to Reenie after she finished up with her appointment at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. She told Andrea she would be stopping by a bank on her way home.”
“So?” Dave asked.
Ali gave him a sharp look. “Why would she need to go to a bank at all if she was planning to drive off a cliff in a few hours time?”
“Maybe she needed cash to buy gas for the trip home.”
“I thought she might have been thinking about signing up for one of the treatment programs,” Ali said. “According to Detective Farris, though, there was no activity on any of the Bernards’ Bank of America accounts that day and nothing at any of the branches.”
“So Lee’s already checked this out?” Dave asked.
“As much as he’s going to,” Ali conceded. “But what if there’s another bank involved, one we don’t know about?”
Ali’s breakfast arrived. “If things were rocky at home,” Dave mused after a pause, “maybe Reenie was starting a new account somewhere else. That’s what my ex did,” he added. “She left enough money in the joint account to keep it open then she started a new account of her own, one that didn’t have my name on it.”
Ali thought about Howie Bernard and Jasmine Wright. “That is a possibility,” Ali said.
“But doing that is bound to leave a trail of some kind,” Dave said. “There’d be e-mails or phone calls or names in her address book. I know Reenie’s cell phone was smashed to pieces in the wreck, but I wonder if anyone’s taken a look at her phone records from her cell or from work, either one. If she was starting up a new banking relationship, we’ll be able to trace it by tracking down the phone calls. And if we learn which bank she visited, we may start filling in some of the missing hours between the time she left the doctor’s office and the time she went off the cliff.”
“Detective Farris could look at the records if he wanted to,” Ali said. “But I doubt he’ll bother. I don’t think he’s interested.”
“I might be able to take a look at them,” Dave suggested quietly.
A wave of gratitude washed over her. “Would you do that?” she asked. “Really?”
“Glad to,” he said. By then he had finished his breakfast while Ali was still working on hers. Dave stood up. “I’ve got a meeting to go to. See you this afternoon.”
Ali had intended to ask him for advice about how to deal with Ben Witherspoon, but that hadn’t happened. Coping with Watcher’s threat had been pushed to the back burner by their discussion about Reenie. To his credit, Dave had listened thoughtfully to Ali’s concerns about Reenie’s case. That was far more than could be said for Detective Lee Farris.
“Thanks, Dave,” Ali said. “For everything.”
As Dave left, Bob Larson arrived. It took some maneuvering on Kip Hogan’s part to get Bob’s wheelchair up the ramp and in through the heavy glass door. Kip was aided in the effort by a suit-clad black man Ali had never seen before, who held the door open to allow the wheelchair access.
Once situated in the corner booth recently vacated by the second team of cable guys, Bob immediately began issuing orders to Jan and Susan. According to Bob there was a whole lot that wasn’t right in the room. The stack of menus on the front counter wasn’t straight. Two booths needed clearing, and no one had gotten around to sweeping up the sprinkling of Cheerios some restless toddler in a high chair had left scattered on the floor. Meanwhile the black man stepped up to the counter.
“My name’s Rodney Williams,” he said to Susan. “I’m here to see Mr. or Mrs. Larson. I believe they’re expecting me.”
Ali groaned inwardly. Having the restaurant consultant blow in at exactly the same time as Bob Larson was a bad omen, and it was bound to provoke a battle between her parents. Glad Susan’s ample presence made it unnecessary for Ali to hang around for the inevitable fireworks, she headed out the door.
Back at the house, she found Chris packed up and ready to go. He was sitting at the kitchen counter with his computer open in front of him.
“How come you’re home so early?” he asked. “Is it already time to go to the funeral?
“The funeral’s not until this afternoon,” she told him. “I’m home now because Mom fired me.”
“She fired you?” Chris repeated. “What did you do wrong?”
Ali went over and flopped down on the couch where Samantha immediately joined her. “I did nothing wrong,” Ali said. “Jan convinced her cousin Susan to come up from Phoenix and take over my duties. Mom and Dad evidently decided they were somehow taking unfair advantage of me. They don’t want to stand in the way of my getting on with my life and going out and looking for another job. Of course, they didn’t bother asking me about it. If they had I would have told them I can’t do any kind of real job search right now because of the non-compete clause in my contract.”
“Bummer,” Chris said.
Ali nodded. “That means that, by actual count, I’ve been let go twice in the space of a week. I’m sure I’m setting some kin
d of record, and it’s very hard on the ego.”
“Have you thought of podcasting?” Chris asked.
“What?”
“Pod-casting. It’s kind of like a blog, only recorded—on video and/or audio. Instead of being posted as text—or in addition to text commentary, you read what you have to say into a video camera, just like you used to do when you read the news on TV. In podcasting, though, you’d be doing both the writing and reading. Once the segments have been uploaded, viewers can download them and watch or listen at their leisure.”
“This sounds highly unlikely,” Ali said.
“Don’t be so negative,” Chris countered. “You’re getting lots of traffic on your site—more than I would have thought possible. Look,” he said, pointing at the screen. “You may not have noticed, but there’s a counter at the bottom of the page so you can see how many hits you’re getting—more than three thousand in less than a week. I think that’s pretty respectable. Between the domestic violence stuff and the items dealing with ALS, you’ve got a variety of interesting and powerful content, and, because of your work in LA, you already have an established audience. If you can attract enough readers, you might be able to find yourself some advertisers as well.”
“As in advertisers who’d actually pay money?” Ali asked.
“I don’t know how much, but I think so,” Chris replied. “Maybe not enough to live on, but I’d guess you weren’t making money hand over fist working at the Sugarloaf.”
“What are you doing?” Ali asked. “Looking for a back door into the world of television news?”
Chris smiled. “Sort of,” he said. “Except this time the only news director on staff would be you.”
“I suppose it’s worth looking into,” Ali agreed. “How soon do I have to decide?”
“Whenever,” he said. “If you want to do it right away, I can come back and help you set it up when I’m finished with finals. Otherwise, it can wait until after graduation.”
Ali watched as he scrolled back to the top of the page. Just below the cutlooseblog.com header, there was now a photo of her, one she remembered Chris taking the previous year during Paul Grayson’s annual pre-Christmas holiday bash.
“Where did that come from?” she asked.
“I had a jpeg of it downloaded on my computer,” he said. “I read Velma’s post about wanting to see your photo. It seemed to me she had a good point, so I posted one. In fact, that’s what made me think about podcasting in the first place. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Melissa’s probably not going to like it,” Ali said.
“Melissa?” Chris asked. “Who’s she?”
“The lady who thinks I should wear a bag over my head.”
“Oh, her!” Chris replied. “If I were you, I never would have posted that one.”
Ali’s phone rang. “I can’t believe it,” Andrea Rogers said, her voice shaking in outrage.
“What’s going on?”
“I drove by Reenie’s house this morning on my way to have my hair done,” Andrea said. “There’s a whole stack of boxes on the front porch, like moving boxes or something. And Jasmine’s car is still there, parked right in front of the house in the same spot where it was last night when I left. Reenie’s not even buried yet, and Howie’s having some tart sleep over? I swear, the man has no shame!”
“Neither does Jasmine,” Ali pointed out. “They deserve each other.”
“Doesn’t he care about what people think or what the neighbors are saying?”
“Howie’s so full of himself I doubt he’s capable of taking other people’s opinions into consideration,” Ali said.
“But is he capable of murder?” Andrea asked. “Is she?”
Ali thought about her meeting with Jasmine Wright. “Maybe,” Ali said. “That’s why we need to find out where they both were last Thursday night and exactly what they were doing.”
“I’m trying,” Andrea said determinedly. “Believe me, I’m trying.”
“So am I,” Ali said. “Chris figured out Reenie’s password. I’m about to log on and see what, if anything, I can find in her e-mail account. It bothers me, though. It seems disloyal to be prying into her private affairs.”
“I know,” Andrea agreed. “I felt the same way when I was going through her files last night. But if we don’t look, who will?”
“Who indeed?” Ali returned.
Minutes later, armed with Samantha as the password, a conflicted Ali Reynolds was scrolling through the e-mails Reenie Bernard had sent and received in the last seven days of her life. The account had been set up to keep sent and previously read e-mails for a maximum of fourteen days. Reenie had been dead for a week. That meant that a full week’s worth of correspondence had already been deleted from the files. It also meant that whatever information might have been gleaned from those messages had already been lost.
What remained intact was at once both mundane and surprising. Almost all the messages Reenie had sent dealt with the day-to-day realities of keeping the Flagstaff YW up and running. They concerned what was going on right then as well as in the future, when Reenie would no longer be in the picture. She had been in touch with several head-hunting agencies as well as with several other YWCA branches in search of someone who might be interested in taking over the helm in Flag. She had also sent out notes to any number of people—major donors most likely—elling them that her medical situation was changing rapidly and asking for their help in devising a suitable transition plan.
Reenie’s notes, brimming with bad news, were written, however, in a matter-of-fact tone and without any discernable trace of self-pity. There was nothing in them that bemoaned her own personal situation or her declining health. Instead, in the days leading up to her death, Reenie Bernard had been totally focused on keeping her beloved YWCA afloat.
Reading through the correspondence, Ali remembered what Ed Holzer had said about his elder daughter, that she was “a do-gooder to the end.” It was true.
Lots of incoming e-mails had arrived on that Thursday itself and in the days following Reenie’s disappearance before people knew she was gone and before she had been declared dead. Those, along with e-mails that had arrived since Monday, had all been opened and then saved as new—presumably by Detective Farris.
Who gave him the password? Reenie wondered. But then she remembered that Lee Farris was a detective after all. Surely he was every bit as smart as Chris and had figured out the Samantha bit all on his own.
Most were notes sent in reply to Reenie’s earlier communications. In them people expressed their shock and dismay about what was happening and asked what they could do to help.
Then, as she sat there, Ali was surprised to hear the distinctive click that announced the arrival of new mail. With Reenie dead for more than a week, Ali opened the e-mail more than half expecting it to be meaningless spam:
* * *
Dear Reenie,
As you suggested, I’ve been in touch with the US Postal authorities. They’re launching a fraud investigation of the way Rodriguez Medical Center does business. The people I spoke to aren’t very hopeful that we’ll ever be able to get back any of my mother’s money, but thanks so much for all your help. I’ll keep you posted. We’ve got to keep this from happening to anyone else.
Randy Tompkins
As the message sank in, Ali realized at once that she’d been wrong. She had supposed all along that Reenie had been going to opt for the high-priced treatment being offered in Mexico. Instead, she had ended up helping to expose it as exactly what Howie had thought it was—a rip-off. It meant that the unexplained trip to the bank Ali and Andrea had put so much store in counted for nothing. Dave Holman was probably right. Reenie had been busy establishing a banking presence somewhere else, somewhere apart from her joint accounts with Howie.
After switching over to her own e-mail for a moment, Ali retrieved Don Trilby’s address. She forwarded Randy’s note to him along with the following addition:
*
* *
Dear Don,
I discovered the following e-mail among my friend Reenie’s files. You may want to be in touch with Mr. Tompkins yourself before you make any permanent decisions on the course of your treatment. I haven’t contacted Mr. Tompkins directly about this, but I suspect he’d be more than willing to discuss this with you.
My very best to you and your family,
Alison Reynolds
Finished with that, Ali returned to Reenie’s mailbox where she glanced through Reenie’s Favorites list and found a number of the ALS support sites Ali herself had visited in the previous days.
A sharp knock on the door compelled Ali out of Reenie’s correspondence and back to the present. Samantha immediately abandoned her place on the couch in favor of a hiding place behind it.
“Danny’s here,” Chris announced, shouldering his backpack and picking up his single suitcase.
“Do you need help getting the Bronco down the hill?”
“No. Danny and I will caravan it down. I don’t know why Gramps is in such a hurry to get it back. After all, I don’t think he’s going to be driving for a while.”
Ali laughed. “He’s had that Bronco since I was a kid,” she said. “Driving or not, I’m sure he’s lost without it. What about your skis?” she asked.
“They’re down in the basement,” he said. “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to leave them there for the time being. That way, if I do end up getting that teaching job, it’ll be one less thing to move.”
“Your stepfather is going to be very annoyed when he finds out you’re ‘squandering’ your education on being a teacher. He always thought you’d end up doing something in the entertainment world—building sets or something.”
“Let’s don’t tell him, then,” Chris said with a wink. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”