by Lynn Bulock
“So that will be fairly smudged and probably unusable,” he said. It sounded more like he was talking to himself, but since I wasn’t exactly fully lucid right now it was hard to object.
“After I opened the door, I remembered Heather was still in the house. I got her out here to the patio and went and found the phone to call 911. Then I went back to check on Edna again. I was pretty sure she wasn’t breathing. And I don’t know CPR. I’ve been meaning to learn, the nurses at the Board and Care kept telling me it would be a good idea in case Dennis ever came home…” Okay, I was over the edge. Rambling now, and close to tears, and feeling awful.
Ray noticed. “I think I’ve got everything I need for the moment. Is there anything else you can think of that might be very important?”
Thankfully this time I remembered not to shake my head. “No. That’s about it.”
“Do you need a phone book or anything to make your calls?”
“There’s a little notebook on my dresser. Should I get it, or do you want to?”
“I can get it. You just stay here.” He sounded so kind for a change, I felt like crying even more. It was a side of this man I hadn’t seen, at least not directed at me. Seeing it almost made me panic. Was I worse off than I thought? I pushed away the thought and just sat there, trying to get the landscape to settle down and not spin while I waited.
Fernandez brought me the notebook, and just about the time I started making the first call the crime scene techs got there and he excused himself to go deal with them. I could tell they were the crime scene people because their uniforms said just that.
I motioned for him to go on with them while I listened to Linnette’s phone ring until her answering machine picked up. It dawned on me then, while I was leaving a message, that she had said the night before that she’d be in the bookstore after five this morning.
I left that call until later and looked at what I’d jotted down for Pastor George. Fortunately I’d taken down his home number along with the church, and took a couple of deep breaths to steady myself and then called him at home. A sweet-sounding lady answered. The tone of her voice said she was used to calls at any time of day and wasn’t fazed by someone calling her husband before breakfast.
I told him what was happening when he came to the phone, and it took a few moments for him to answer me. “That is terrible, Gracie Lee. Are you all right? And what about Heather?”
“Heather is already at the hospital. She went in the first ambulance. I’ll be going in a few minutes, but I don’t expect they’ll keep me for long. I’m fine, really.”
“Do you want someone else to deal with Dodd and Sons? I would be happy to do that for you.”
“That would be great, Pastor.” I could feel my shoulders sagging with relief at his suggestion. After last night I was ready to let somebody take over my complicated affairs anyplace they offered. “I’ll get hold of Linnette Parks, and she will probably call the rest of the Christian Friends group. And the police will take care of notifying my husband’s daughter about her grandmother.”
“When you get to the hospital, put me on the list of people who are allowed to receive information about you. That way I’ll know if they keep you or not, and where I should come to pray with you.”
Oh, no. I was getting weepy again. “I will,” I choked out. “And thank you for what you’re doing already.”
“Part of the job,” he said softly before we said goodbye and he hung up.
I felt so surrounded by good people and God’s love most of the time. This was another horrible situation, but amazingly, I was alive. Not only alive, but now that I was out in the fresh air, I was feeling much better. I said another quick prayer for Heather and her baby that they were all right, too. Then I looked in my notebook for the bookstore number.
I wasn’t sure that anybody would pick up this time of day, but after quite a few rings, someone did. It wasn’t Linnette, but one of the student workers, who agreed to go get her once I told him it was very important.
I didn’t even explain the whole situation before she said “Oh, Gracie Lee, honey,” with such sympathy that I immediately started crying. “I’m coming right over there,” she said firmly.
“No, you’re not.” I put as much force behind my words as I could with a tight throat and a runny nose. “You’ll call the rest of the Friends, get them all praying for Heather and the baby and go back to your inventory. Promise me.”
She sighed. “Okay. But only because you aren’t going to let me argue you out of this, I can tell. I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I can do all this and get there. Don’t try to tell me differently. Bye.” And with that she hung up before we could negotiate anything else.
I sat there with the phone in my hand, trying to think if there was anything else I needed to do. This had left me even more confused than Dennis’s death, and between the situation and being in the house full of fumes, I couldn’t get my thoughts together.
Detective Fernandez was suddenly there beside me, making me jump. “Gracie Lee, the second ambulance is here. Is there a spare key to the house where you can get to it, so that I can make sure the doors are locked when I get done here?”
I knew there was, but remembering where took a moment. “The key is in that big stone pot right next to the front door, stuck in the dirt right next to the geranium.”
He rolled his eyes. “Figures. Why hasn’t this house been broken into before now?”
“I have no idea. I keep telling Edna…” That’s as far as I got before it hit me. I wasn’t going to keep telling Edna anything anymore. Once I started crying I didn’t even argue with the ambulance personnel about getting on the gurney or anything. I sent one of them inside the house for my purse, which she found, and we left for the hospital. Under the oxygen mask they clapped on me almost immediately, I think I cried all the way there.
“Thankfully, we’re this close to a hospital with a good emergency room,” Linnette said as I started signing the paperwork that would let me out of Los Robles Hospital in nearby Thousand Oaks. It was only a seven-mile drive or thereabouts from Rancho Conejo. I was still feeling grumpy even though the E.R. personnel had pronounced me fit to leave.
“Yeah, but not good enough for them to keep Heather.” I felt bad that she’d been whisked away to somewhere even bigger. She’d been through so much today that I felt like it was my fault.
“Gracie Lee, we’ve been over this already. It’s not your fault. Pregnant women with suspected carbon monoxide poisoning are scary people for doctors. She may have looked good and felt stable, but nobody wanted to run the risk of the baby being poisoned, as well. And hyperbaric chambers are standard treatment for this kind of problem if you’re pregnant.”
Not being pregnant myself, a few hours of intense oxygen therapy had me ready to leave the hospital. Linnette had shown up by nine, assuring me that everybody was notified and praying and the bookstore inventory was in good hands. I’d told her what I knew about Heather, which wasn’t much at that point besides she’d been transferred somewhere else, and she’d found out the rest.
“But they’re pretty sure she’ll be okay?”
“As sure as doctors ever are. Apparently they told Sandy that she’d be out by tonight, or possibly early tomorrow morning at the latest. She’ll be there for Dennis’s funeral, Gracie Lee. The doctors all but promised.”
“Good. There’s no way we can delay things again, and she’ll want to be there. She went without knowing too long to have things end that way.”
“And they won’t,” Linnette said firmly. “Now let me take you back to the house long enough for you to pack a bag, and we’re going to Dot’s.”
“I don’t know about that. I’ll have to call the sheriff’s department first and make sure that’s all right.”
“Don’t bother. I already talked to Detective Fernandez, and he’s the one who suggested that you stay someplace else. And since Dot had already offered you use of the apartment last night, I called her
back and asked about putting you there temporarily tonight. She doesn’t have any problem with it. She’d probably even lend you a dog to keep you company.”
Now that sounded like a plan I could live with. “Then let’s go pack that suitcase. I could use a furry hug,” I told Linnette, savoring the bright sunshine that met us as the doors to the emergency room whooshed open to let us out.
By noon I was in the sparsely furnished apartment above Dot and Buck’s freestanding garage. They lived out from Rancho Conejo a little bit off the main roads, into the hills where it was easy to imagine tumbleweeds rolling by in a drier time of year.
Back behind the main house there were half a dozen kennels with runs, and standing off to itself the four-car garage, with the apartment making a second story to the building. Stairs at the side of the building led to a balcony with a large picture window and the door to the apartment.
“I’ve been airing it out since Linnette called,” Dot told us she led us up to the doorway. “It’s not real fancy, but it’s clean and it will do okay for tonight, I’m sure.”
She rambled on as she ushered us in. “There’s two bedrooms, but only one of them has furniture anymore, so I made up the bed in there for you, Gracie Lee. Even though nobody’s lived here for close to four years, I still have a cleaning service do the bathroom and the kitchen once a month. When we get excess company we use it for housing, and we still keep saying we are going to rent it out.”
It was a fairly compact apartment, but as advertised, it was clean and neat. The living room had a couch and a chair, a small television set and a set of three laminated coffee and end tables. Looking into the kitchen, I could see that past the divider that separated it with a high counter and stools from the living room, it was a simple galley with white appliances and a patterned vinyl floor showing at the doorway.
“There’s the one bath.” Dot flipped on the light. “That’s the biggest drawback to renting someplace with two bedrooms, just having the one bath. It was okay for Candace and Susie, but for pickier renters they’d want at least a second half bath, anyway. And here’s the bedroom.”
Again, it was a small, tidy room. There was plenty of space for the single bed, a dresser, a wide closet and a bare desk. With a little fresh paint and a few knickknacks, it wouldn’t have been half bad if you didn’t mind green shag carpeting. Ben, with his penchant for retro, would have loved it.
At this point, it looked wonderful and I told Dot so. I got a hug in return, which brought me close to tears again. Almost everything was doing that in the past twenty-four hours.
“There isn’t a phone line or cable,” Dot said, sounding as if she were apologizing for not having the essentials instead of luxuries for an empty apartment.
“For one night, my cell phone and a radio will be just fine,” I told her. “If I get lonely, Linnette told me you’d lend me a dog.”
“You could have two if you really wanted them. Dixie has a sister who’s due to have pups in about a week. We’ve been letting her sleep in the house in case anything happens early.”
“I might take you up on that,” I told her. It sounded better than being alone, even if I ended up delivering puppies at two in the morning. Watching new life being born would be better than watching what I’d seen today so far. Puppies were such great examples of God’s creation and I could certainly use that kind of example.
In an hour I was ensconced in the apartment, having unpacked what little I’d brought over, and settled in to make calls on my cell phone. Dot insisted on bringing me soup and crackers for lunch, as well as some other essentials like milk and coffee, and I ate while I called my mom to give her the basics of the situation so that she could tell Ben. And, oh, yeah, I cried some more while I made the call. I really needed to find a brand of mascara that was truly waterproof if this kept up much longer.
I left a message with Jeannie at the detective division about where I was, and she promised to get the news to Ray. Helen at the church said she’d do the same for Pastor George, and added the word that she was sorry to hear about my latest troubles. Of course that brought on another need for waterproof mascara.
I’d finished my soup and my phone calls, and had nearly run out of tissues in the square box from the bathroom when there was a knock on the door. There was no peephole, but the view from the picture window was just wide enough to see Ray Fernandez at the door.
I let him in and showed him into the living room, such as it was. He stood near the doorway, looking a bit uncomfortable. “You’re doing okay?”
“Well enough that the hospital let me out, obviously. What can you tell me about what you’ve found so far?”
“Not a whole lot. I do have a question, though,” he said, settling down into the armchair. “Is there a reason that your motherin-law would have, along with other papers, a copy of your life insurance policy? And did you just forget to tell me about it, or what?”
I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. “I only have one life insurance policy, for fifty thousand dollars. It was taken out a few years after Hal and I divorced, so that Ben would be taken care of if I died. He’s the sole beneficiary. I can’t imagine where Edna would have gotten a copy of it.”
Ray showed me the paper. As I read it, I gasped. This policy was for a half-million dollars and it had been taken out a month before Dennis’s accident…the accident that was supposed to kill me instead. The most twisted detail was that the policy named Edna as the beneficiary.
Ray sighed. “I figured you were going to say that. And it really makes everything so much more convoluted.”
“Yes, but it looks like something I’d say Dennis would do, now that I know how he operated. He would have no problem forging my signature on the section saying that I knew about the policy. And making the beneficiary Edna instead of him made it appear less like this was a plan to make himself wealthy.”
“The only thing Dennis would have needed would be an insurance agent willing to look the other way when he presented the policy already signed by you. I can see him being able to convince an agent it was an oversight.”
“Especially if the agent was a woman.” There was so much more we needed to talk about. “Let me put on a pot of coffee. I think we’ll need it while we sort this out.”
Ray nodded in agreement and I went to make coffee.
13
A few minutes later we settled in with the coffee and the folder of papers that Ray brought with him. “Okay, now I have to remind you, like I said before, this is a little outside regular procedure. Giving you this information goes against the way I normally do things anyway, but I need some answers to questions that I suspect only you can give me.”
“I’ll do anything I can. Did you get in touch with Becca?”
Ray nodded. “When I called earlier this morning, I reached her on her cell phone, and she was at her mother’s. She agreed to stay there once I told her that the funeral was being delayed until tomorrow, and I got over there before noon. She seemed upset and surprised.”
“Did either of them admit to knowing where Edna had been for over a week?”
“Not to me. After I met Becca there at her mother’s I started to regret having her stay there. It would have given them time to straighten out any kinks in their stories if they needed to do that.”
I leaned forward. It was surprising to me that the detective might have come around to my way of thinking on this issue. “Was there anything in what they said that made you suspicious?”
“Nothing I could put my finger on. And while we know a lot more now from the note that Mrs. Peete left, where she’s been since she left the Board and Care isn’t one of the things we know from her.” He stopped for a moment and took a drink of his coffee. “I thought you might want to know that when we processed the car, we found a small suitcase full of clothing in the trunk. You were right about the depression in the carpet.”
I shrugged, feeling helpless instead of vindicated. “Not that it makes much differ
ence now.”
“Well, it confirmed what you told me. Now if you could look at this for a minute, I’d like you to tell me if this is your motherin-law’s handwriting.” He pulled out several sheets of paper that looked like copies of a letter written on sheets of a legal pad.
The writing was easy to recognize. “It looks like her handwriting. That or someone was able to copy it surprisingly well.”
“Since it was found next to her after a suicide attempt, we will at least start out assuming that it’s her handwriting. The lab is looking at the originals for fingerprints and other information for us.”
“Can I read this?” I looked at the folded sheets, noticing that he had shown me the second half of a page. I could only read parts of a couple sentences. It was enough to recognize Edna’s handwriting, but not to see what she’d actually written.
He took it from me gently. “I’d rather you didn’t. Can I ask you to trust me to tell you what it says?” His eyes were softer than they’d been most of the time I’d known this detective, and I got the funny feeling he was protecting me somehow. Remembering some of the things that Edna had said about other people in my presence, I could guess that he was probably trying to shield me from some unkind words about me.
I had to make a decision, and this one was easier than a lot of them I’d made over the last few days. “I have to trust you, Detective Fernandez. You’ve been straight with me so far.”
He gave me a weak smile. “You might as well call me Ray. We’ve seen so much of each other now, and we’re going to see plenty more of each other in the next two days.”
This morning after I’d gotten out of the house, I remembered that he called me by my first name instead of Ms. Harris. It marked a change in our relationship, such as it was. I had to believe that this man no longer suspected me in any way of killing my husband. It was a relief.
“All right, Ray. So what does Edna’s letter say?”
He took another sip of coffee, almost as if he wanted to put things off as long as possible. “It’s not pretty. She says she gave Dennis the tea from your cup by mistake, thinking she’d picked up something else. Because of that, she takes full responsibility for killing her son and says she couldn’t live with the knowledge.”