Unfinished Business

by J. A. Jance

  “You mean you took them without paying for them?” he asked after a pause.

  Harvey nodded.

  “Do you have any money to pay for them now?”

  Harvey shook his head.

  “What do you suppose we should do about that?” Mr. Wilcox asked.

  Harvey shrugged.

  Mr. Wilcox appeared to be considering the problem. “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose you could work it off. Do you know how to use a broom?”

  Harvey nodded.

  Mr. Wilcox turned and disappeared into a back room, returning a moment later with a huge push broom that he handed over to Harvey.

  “Supposing you spend the next half hour sweeping the sidewalk on this side of the block,” Mr. Wilcox suggested, “and we’ll call it even. Fair enough?”

  Harvey nodded again.

  “All right, then,” Mr. Wilcox said. “I’m setting my stopwatch. I’ll come let you know when your time is up. Perhaps your mother would like to take a seat at the fountain and have a cup of coffee while you’re doing that.”

  Lugging the heavy broom, Harvey scurried back to the front of the store. Thankfully, Ida Mae didn’t follow him outside. The broom was nearly twice as tall as he was, making it unwieldy and difficult to use. Except for a few cigarette butts, there wasn’t much dirt on the sidewalk, but Harvey swept it diligently anyway. The sun was hot on his face. He was sweating and puffing as he worked. It seemed like he’d been sweeping forever when a trio of girls from school showed up. The three of them were inseparable. They were mean and spiteful and liked to lord it over everyone else because their daddies were bigwigs with Anaconda, and they lived in large houses in the nicest part of town. Rhonda Ward, the ringleader, zeroed in on the hapless Harvey. “What are you doing?” she wanted to know.

  “I’m sweeping,” he muttered.

  “But why?”

  “It’s none of your business. Leave me alone.”

  Rhonda turned back to her pals. “From now on maybe that’s what we should call him,” she said, pointing in his direction. “We’ll call him Broomy—Broomy McCluskey.”

  Pretty soon the name caught on, and everyone at school started calling him Broomy. The moniker stuck until after he graduated from high school and was able to join the army.

  But that day, even with the girls taunting him, he continued to sweep, all the while burning with indignation. Ida Mae was the cause of this. Here he was, sweeping to pay for candy bars that had already been returned and for peanuts he hadn’t even gotten to eat. The injustice of it really rankled, and having the girls jeering at him and shaming him made it that much worse.

  Two weeks later, after school, Harvey used the pocketknife his dad had given him for Christmas to slash both tires on Rhonda’s bicycle. He got even with her, but he didn’t really hate her for calling him names. The person he hated more than anyone in the world was his mother.

  After Ali Reynolds left, Harvey removed the envelope from his shirt pocket. Without opening it, he set it down on the counter in front of him and sat there in silence, staring at it. He had no idea how much time passed before Joe, the bartender, roused him from his reverie.

  “Hey, Harve,” Joe said, placing an icy cocktail glass on the counter in front of him. “Pull yourself out of your doldrums and drink up. This one’s on the house.”

  Harvey studied the contents in the brimming glass. These days he mostly drank beer and shots as opposed to fancy cocktails, and he didn’t recognize this one right off the bat.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Vodka, Galliano, and orange juice,” a grinning Joe told him. “Otherwise known as a Harvey Wallbanger, but tonight only, for happy hour, we’re calling them Harvey Ballbangers, and I’m selling them for a buck apiece.”

  The bartender seemed to think this was the greatest stand-up joke ever, and everybody who’d been on the scene during the earlier confrontation seemed to agree. It was downright hilarious to all concerned—to everyone, that is, except Harvey himself.

  “I’ll have me a Ballbanger,” one of his barstool neighbors said.

  “I believe I’ll have two,” someone else added.

  As Joe hustled off to mix their drinks, Harvey picked up the glass and downed his without pausing, swallowing it in one long gulp. As a serious case of brain freeze spread from his nose to his forehead, Harvey had someone else to hate besides his mother—Ali goddamned Reynolds.

  |CHAPTER 4|

  SEDONA, ARIZONA

  With the Harvey McCluskey problem handled for the time being, Ali set off on her half-hour commute from Cottonwood back home to Sedona. While she’d been in the Cowpoke, two texts had come in, first one from B. followed by a second from Chris:

  On my way to bed now. Meetings today went well. They should sign on the dotted line. Will meet with another prospective client tomorrow morning. I’ll give you a call during the day when you’re in the office. Get some sleep. After being up all night, I’ll bet you’re bushed. Chris sent a picture of Logan. Cute, but I’m glad they’ll be the ones taking him home and not us.

  You’ve got that right, Ali thought with a laugh. Next up was the one from Chris.

  Athena and Logan seem to be doing fine. Should be released tomorrow or the next day. I collected the twins from Alonzo. We’ll be staying with friends here in Prescott until they get out. Good thing it’s spring break.

  Much as Ali loved Colin and Colleen, she couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief at being excused from grandmother duty for the remainder of the evening. B. was right. She was bone tired. As the adrenaline rush from her confrontation with Harvey McCluskey faded, so did she. She was driving along listening to the Broadway cast recording of Man of La Mancha when a phone call came in from Alonzo. Since he seldom called her during work hours, Ali was immediately concerned that something was amiss, and she wasn’t wrong.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Your mother’s here,” Alonzo answered, speaking in a hushed voice as though worried about possibly being overheard. “She didn’t say anything, but she’s clearly upset. And she came equipped with a suitcase. Fortunately, I had already done the sheets in the guest room, so I put her things in there. I offered her tea, but she asked for a gin and tonic, so I gave her one of those. She and Bella are sitting together in the library.”

  Ali was totally bewildered. Her mother had shown up unannounced and uninvited and was planning on spending the night? How come? And if she was so upset that she was soaking up comfort from B. and Ali’s rescued dachshund, Bella, Edie Larson had to be beyond upset. She wasn’t someone who naturally gravitated to dogs or cats, either one. As for indulging in a daytime cocktail? That was unheard of, especially at four o’clock in the afternoon. Everything about Edie Larson’s unexpected visit was completely out of character.

  “No hint about what’s wrong?” Ali asked.

  “None whatsoever,” Alonzo replied.

  “All right, then,” Ali said. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  She spent the next fifteen miles trying to imagine what was going on and gearing up to deal with it. Her folks were well into their eighties now. Since they were both slowing down, there was a good chance whatever was wrong had to do with some kind of health issue. That was a scary prospect, but thanks to Alonzo’s call Ali at least had a little time to prepare herself for whatever was coming her way rather than walking in on it cold.

  Entering the house through the garage door that led to the kitchen, she noticed that Bella didn’t come racing to meet her as she usually did. Even so, that was hardly surprising. Soon after Bella had become part of their household, Ali had noticed that whenever someone was dealing with any kind of emotional distress, the dog stuck to that person like glue.

  “Library?” Ali asked Alonzo as she walked by.

  He nodded in reply.

  Ali found her mother dozing in one of the easy chairs in the library with Bella curled in her lap and one hand resting on the dog’s long back. When Bella raised her head
and wagged her tail in response to Ali’s arrival, Edie shook herself awake. The haggard expression on her face took Ali’s breath away.

  “Hey, Mom,” Ali said, in a voice filled with concern. “Is something wrong?”

  “You have no idea,” Edie said.

  “Tell me,” Ali urged.

  Edie emitted a heavy sigh. “It’s your father,” she said at last. “He threw me out of our apartment and says he wants a divorce.” Once the D-word escaped her lips, Edie Larson dissolved into a storm of tears.

  “A divorce?” Ali repeated the word, more for her own benefit rather than her mother’s. She had expected bad news, but certainly not this kind of bad news, especially in view of the fact that her folks had recently celebrated their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary with a big party at their retirement community, Sedona Shadows. That shindig had occurred a bare two months earlier, and now her father was ready to call it quits? Ali took a seat in the easy chair opposite her mother’s and sat in silence, waiting for Edie to regain control.

  “Betsy said I could stay with her,” her mother continued eventually, once she had quieted enough to be able to speak. “But she has a one-bedroom unit with only a foldout couch. That would just kill my back. Since I didn’t know where else to go, I came here. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Betsy was Betsy Peterson, Athena’s grandmother, who had sold her home in Minnesota and moved to Sedona to be closer to Athena and Chris. With encouragement from Bob and Edie, Betsy, too, had moved into Sedona Shadows, where the two great-grandmothers, thrown together by family ties, had morphed into the best of friends.

  “Of course I don’t mind,” Ali assured her. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you need to, but tell me. What on earth is going on?”

  “I’ve officially canceled your father’s driving privileges,” Edie admitted, “and he hit the roof. I’ve never in my life seen him as furious as he was this afternoon. I was afraid he was going to put his fist through the drywall.”

  Ali was stunned. Her father had always been a gentle giant of a man—patient and unflappable. Around town Bob Larson was known as someone who loved his neighbor as himself. For decades needy folks in the community, ones living on the edge for whatever reason, had been astonished to have Bob show up outside with his aged Bronco loaded down with whatever was needed most, be it food, clothing, or firewood. As far as Ali knew, he had never once raised a hand in anger to anyone, and most especially not to her mother, who he often said was the love of his life.

  “Maybe you should start at the beginning,” Ali suggested. “Tell me what happened?”

  Edie took a deep breath. “It’s been building for a while now,” she confessed, “but today is when it all came to a head.”

  It? Ali wondered. She was completely in the dark and had no idea what her mother could possibly mean. “What came to a head?” she asked.

  “You know how Dad likes to spend his mornings down at Nick’s, tinkering on the Bronco?” Edie asked.

  Ali nodded. When her folks had first moved to Sedona Shadows, their unit had been assigned only one parking place. They’d decided that Edie’s Buick would take that and the Bronco would be farmed out somewhere else. For several years now, the Bronco had been garaged in a back bay of Nick’s Auto Care, a mile or so away from their retirement home. The owner, Nick Ryder, and Bob were old friends, and Nick made it clear that Bob was welcome to drop by and hang out whenever he wanted. Not only that, Bob was allowed free access to Nick’s superb collection of tools in the event the urge to tinker became overwhelming.

  Nick’s place was close enough to Sedona Shadows that in good weather Bob could walk there on his own, getting what he liked to call “his daily constitutional.” In bad weather—either too cold or too hot—Edie dropped him off and picked him up. And Ali knew that her mother was right. Bob Larson was never happier than he was when he was hanging out in the garage and messing around with his Bronco. It was a social milieu that allowed him to shoot the breeze with his pals. People like Harvey McCluskey hung out at dive bars. People like Bob Larson hung out at Nick’s.

  “So what happened?” Ali prodded.

  “This morning, while it was still cool, Bobby decided to walk to Nick’s on his own. We both knew it would be too hot for him to walk home later, so I was waiting for him to call and say he was ready to be picked up. Instead he showed up not only in a squad car but in handcuffs.”

  “Are you kidding me?” An unbelieving Ali demanded. “The cops brought him home?”

  For a moment she expected her mother to dissolve into tears once more, but after a momentary pause Edie stiffened her shoulders, nodded, and resumed her story. “Yes, the cops,” she repeated. “It’s a wonder they didn’t arrest him and throw him in jail. If the responding officer hadn’t been someone who knows us through Chris and Athena, I’d be bailing your father out of the hoosegow about now.”

  Edie’s roundabout way of telling the story left Ali dying a thousand deaths. She wanted her mother to get on with it in a more straightforward fashion. Unfortunately, she knew Edie was far too fragile right that minute to deal with any kind of interference. Difficult as it was, Ali had to stifle her impatience and simply wait it out.

  “According to Nick, Bobby had been working on the Bronco earlier, doing something that required him to start the engine,” Edie continued. “So Nick brought him the keys from his office. Then, while Nick was occupied with a customer, Bobby simply got in the Bronco and drove off. Nick didn’t think that much of it at the time. He assumed Bob had taken the Bronco out for a test drive. Instead of doing that or coming home, Bobby drove to the Sugarloaf, barged into the kitchen, and started raising Cain with the cook and demanding to know what the hell the guy was doing in his kitchen. If Derek or Elena had been there, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But they were in Phoenix today, shopping for a new stove, and the guy who was subbing in the kitchen didn’t know Dad from Adam’s off ox. The cook was the one who called the cops.”

  Husband and wife Derek and Elena Hoffman were the couple who had bought the Sugarloaf Café several years earlier when Bob and Edie had retired.

  “That nice Officer Hernandez—his wife teaches with Chris and Athena—was the one who responded to the call, and he’s the officer who brought Bobby home, through the front lobby and down the hallway to our unit. Since it was noontime, and people were heading to the dining room for lunch, everybody and their uncle saw exactly what was going on. I wanted to go through the floor. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.”

  “What about Dad?” Ali asked.

  “He was all kinds of upset, still insisting that complete strangers had taken over his restaurant and he wanted them out of there. I was able to talk him down enough that Officer Hernandez took off the cuffs, and things seemed okay for a while. He had worn himself out so completely that he ended up falling asleep right there in his recliner. Officer Hernandez had given me the keys to the Bronco, so while your father was asleep, I called Nick, and the two of us went over to the Sugarloaf to retrieve the Bronco. Nick generally keeps the keys in his office so he can move the Bronco around as needed and start it from time to time to keep the battery from going dead, but I told him that from now on, Bobby is no longer allowed to drive. And when I came back home, after Bobby woke up, I gave him the same message in no uncertain terms. Just to make sure he understood I wasn’t kidding, I took his driver’s license out of his wallet and cut it to pieces.”

  “You actually cut up his driver’s license?”

  “I most certainly did,” Edie declared, “and that’s when he came completely unglued. He yelled and cussed at me something fierce, which you and I both know is not at all like him. And that’s when he told me he wanted a divorce. He said since I still had the Buick, I was the one who needed to move out, so he could stay on at the Shadows, where he’d at least have access to a bus. Not knowing what else to do, I packed a bag and left,” Edie finished lamely, “and here I am.”

  For a moment Ali was too thun
derstruck to respond. The idea that her mother had unwittingly inserted a pair of scissors, a potentially dangerous weapon, into that volatile situation was utterly terrifying. That was bad enough in and of itself, but for her father to have forgotten that they no longer owned a restaurant that hadn’t been theirs for years now…

  Ali took a deep breath. “You said earlier that all of this has been coming on for a while. What did you mean by that?”

  “Bobby just hasn’t been himself for the past few months,” Edie replied. “He’s been moody and unpredictable, but up to now it’s been handleable. I mean, between the two of us we’ve been able to cope.”

  Ali realized that last statement about her parents’ ability to cope was absolutely true. During family gatherings around Christmas, Ali had noticed that her father wasn’t exactly himself. He’d been far less sociable than in the past. He had planted himself in front of the nearest television set and mostly stayed there rather than interacting with others. He’d been grumpy and morose a lot of the time, barking at the twins, who up until that time could do no wrong.

  Ali felt a sudden stab of guilt. Although she had noticed the subtle changes in her father’s behavior, she’d been too preoccupied with her own life and times to pay that much attention. She had waved off every separate occurrence, attributing each one to nothing more or less than her father’s having a bad day.

  Now, however, an element of anger merged with that initial sense of guilt. If her father’s situation had been building for a number of months, why the hell hadn’t her mother mentioned it? But without having to voice the question aloud, Ali already knew the answer. Bob and Edie Larson were both very private people—independent and determinedly self-reliant. They didn’t go around airing their dirty laundry in public. And in Edie Larson’s book, admitting something was amiss at home was tantamount to admitting failure.

  But with her mother sitting there awaiting some kind of response, Ali ended up offering the least offensive comment she could think of.