Edge Of Evil

by J. A. Jance

  Thursday, March 17, 2005

  Welcome to a brand-new day at cutlooseblog.com.

  Cutloose is one of those tricky English language terms that has more than one meaning. On one side of the coin, cutting loose can mean going out and having fun—acting wild and crazy. On the other side, being cut loose means you’ve been shoved out of or away from something (a job or a marriage, maybe) when you didn’t really want to go—like being shoved kicking and screaming out of an airplane, for example, with no real belief that the parachute somebody strapped on your body will actually work.

  I worked in the news industry for a number of years. Now after passing the magic forty-year mark, I’m being “cut loose” for being too old. Simultaneously, I’m being “cut loose” from a decade-old marriage, it turns out, for exactly the same reason—I’m seventeen years older than the new light in my husband’s life.

  “Cut loose” from my previous life, in what’s often called the “mainstream media,” I have decided to try my hand at the “new media.” I’ve been told that bloggers usually put on their pajamas and take up their keyboards because they feel passionately about something. That’s certainly true for me. I’ve started cutlooseblog.com at a time when I’m still mad as hell about what happened to me.

  At first I tried writing about what had happened to me according to the old news-media model—as in “monologue.” But along the way, something strange happened to my monologue routine. I found out I wasn’t alone—far from it. It turns out a lot of other people have been “cut loose” in much the same way and for many of the same reasons I was. That’s where the “conversation” part of this process started.

  Cutlooseblog.com has morphed into a real conversation. If you don’t believe me, check out The Forum section and see what people are saying back. It has also become my own personal parachute at a time I didn’t even know I needed a parachute. It allows me to continue to have a voice after the powers that be shut me down and turned off my microphone.

  People tell their stories to me and to the other people who log on. We compare notes. I’ve decided, however, that due to possible legal complications, real names are no longer allowed, not for me and mine and formerly mine or for people who want to add their own posts to the site.

  On the blog, I’ve decided to be “Babe.” (Hey, I may be too old to cut it on television news in LA, but in my mind and the place where I’m living now, my self-proclaimed babeness is just fine, thank you very much!) For the purposes of this discussion, my ex—bless his pointed head, and with sincere thanks to one of my mom’s favorite comediennes, Phyllis Diller—is referred to as “Fang.” His new future wife is “Twink” as in, well…you fill in the blank. His other girlfriend, who may not know about Twink I will be Twink II. Or maybe I should call them Tweedle Dum(b) and Dweedle Dee. (No, I think I like Twink I and II better.)

  My son, who was and is blameless in all this, is Tank. When he started crawling as a baby he went through or over whatever obstacles got in his way. He never went around them. He’s still like that, so Tank it is.

  If you’re sending me pieces of your own story, you’d be well advised to choose your own pen name. Otherwise, as editor, I’ll be obliged to choose one for you. Posts can be sent to me at Babe@cutlooseblog.com. If you don’t want what you send posted on The Forum, all you have to do is say so.

  So welcome aboard www.cutlooseblog.com. There are parts of my story of which I’m not very proud. That may be true for others as well. See the post listed several stories above this one, which I like to call “The Case of the Sinking Clickers.” In that one someone named Tami found her own special way of “cutting loose.”

  Send me your stories. I’m sure you’ll be just as amazed as I am at what comes back—sometimes advice, sometimes a version of “can you top this.” But remember, from now on, names must be changed to protect the innocent, because some people are innocent in all this—most especially our kids.

  Posted 11:55 P.M., by Babe

  The alarm dragged Ali out of a deep sleep at five A.M. Her feet were still sore when they hit the floor, and as she limped into the shower she was questioning her sanity in offering to wait tables. Slower moving than she had been the day before, she trudged into the Sugarloaf at five past six to find the first breakfast rush already well underway.

  Sedona is a tourist town—a town where wealthy retirees from California and elsewhere have built multimillion-dollar houses designed and situated solely to capture the vivid red rock views. It’s a place where busloads and carloads of tourists arrive daily to browse through the high-priced fine art galleries and the low-priced curio shops. Few of those—the upscale residents or the Bermuda shorts–clad tourists—ventured into the Sugarloaf Café.

  Tourists occasionally stepped inside, but it was the local working stiffs—the construction workers and the linemen, the hotel clerks and maintenance men—who came in before and after their shifts each day to drink coffee and wipe out that day’s supply of sweet rolls. By 6:30 each morning the same rowdy crew of television cable installers usually took over the big corner booth. They all wore wedding rings, and they all flirted outrageously with Jan and Edie. Now that Ali was there, they flirted with her as well.

  “Come on, Edie,” one of the installers called to Ali’s mother when she delivered an order to the kitchen service window. The name sewn on his shirt pocket was Sean. “Give us a break. Put Jan back behind the counter and give us a shot at Ali for a change.”

  “I’ll give you a chance at Ali, all right,” Edie called back. “But I’ll lend her one of my rolling pins first.”

  Jan showed up at their table and slammed a coffeepot down in front of them. “What’s the matter, Darlin’?” she demanded of Sean. “I always used to be good enough for you.”

  Her good-natured response was greeted by hoots of laughter.

  The cable guys were still there and just finishing up a half hour later when an outsider showed up. Over the years Ali had learned that it was easy to spot wintertime visitors and guess their place of origin.

  In the early spring when it was still brisk in Sedona, natives would be hunkered down in utilitarian jackets and sweaters while people from back East and from the Midwest tended to show up in shorts. Like the natives, visitors from California dressed for warmth, but with more style.

  The out-of-towner who came in that morning and grabbed the end stool at the counter was of the latter variety. His designer sweats weren’t something available from the nearest Wal-Mart. Neither were the running shoes, which had probably set him back to the tune of several hundred dollars. He clutched a razor-thin cell phone to his ear while he perused the menu. Ali came by with the coffeepot and a questioning look, but he waved her away and continued with his call.

  Everything about him rubbed Ali the wrong way—the clothes, the phone, the attitude. For years she’d been embarrassed by similar behavior on Paul’s part. Caught up in phone calls, he’d resort to pointing at items on menus or making his way through a checkout line without ever interrupting his conversation or even acknowledging the overworked clerk who was trying to wait on him.

  With that in her background, it wasn’t surprising that Ali bristled when he waved her away, as though her offering to pour coffee for him was an unwelcome intrusion. That’s once, she thought.

  When he was done with the call, however, he expected instant attention. As Ali added up the bill for the two people seated next to him, he drummed his fingers on the countertop.

  “What kind of a joint is this?” he asked. “Anybody here ever hear of a latte? They’re not listed on the menu.”

  Ali resented the guy’s automatic assumption that the Sugarloaf was a lowbrow hangout full of dimwitted rubes. That’s two, she thought. To their credit, the roomful of rubes fell obligingly silent, waiting to see how Ali would handle the interloper.

  “Lah tay.” She repeated the word wonderingly, as though it was entirely foreign to her. “Never heard of one of them,” she drawled. “What is it?”<
br />
  “My God, woman!” the man exclaimed. “Haven’t you ever heard of Starbucks?”

  Starbucks was just down the road, but Ali was enjoying herself. “Sure,” she replied, managing to keep a straight face. “StarMart gives ’em out as coupons every summer. You can use ’em for rides and stuff at the county fair.”

  The guys in the corner howled with laughter. Shaking his head in disgust and without placing an order, the man turned and headed for the door. He got as far as the cash register where he stopped abruptly, turned around, and came back.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, gesturing toward Edie’s gallery of publicity shots. “I thought you looked familiar. I’ve seen you before on TV. On the news in LA. That’s you, isn’t it.”

  Ali was dressed in her Sugarloaf sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. She wore minimal makeup and her hair was pulled back into a scrunchy-held ponytail. Carrying two plates that were part of one of Jan’s orders, her current situation bore little resemblance to the glamorous creature featured in those black-and-white glossies. Not only that, with Watching’s threatening e-mail still reverberating in the back of her head, she didn’t much want to be that other version of Ali Reynolds, either.

  “Nope,” she declared. “That would be my twin sister, the smart one in the family. She got the brains; I got the looks.”

  Shaking his head, the guy headed for the door, reaching for his cell phone as he did so. Once the door closed behind him, the whole front of the restaurant erupted in applause and raucous laughter, but the next time Ali picked up an order from the service window, the expression on her mother’s face was grim.

  “What if that had been our buyer?” Edie demanded. “And for your information, we do too have lattes, three kinds in fact—vanilla, mocha, and hazelnut—at three bucks a pop. We make ’em in the back, because there wasn’t room enough to put the new equipment behind the counter. And they’re not on the menu because your father thinks they’re a pain in the butt, but we do have them! And the customer is always right.”

  “Got it,” Ali said, feeling chagrined. “I remember now…You don’t really think that was your buyer, do you?”

  “No,” Edie relented. “Probably not. The buyer’s coming in with a business broker. Those guys never go to work until after nine.”

  At 8:30, Detective Dave Holman took his usual spot at the far end of the counter. He seemed particularly downcast. A little embarrassed by the curt way she had treated him the previous morning and newly reminded of her customer-relations failings, Ali offered him a good morning smile as she poured his coffee.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Not really,” he said with a shrug. “My ex just told me that she and her new hubby are taking my kids and moving to Lake Havasu, of all the godforsaken places in the universe!”

  Ali had been to Lake Havasu on occasion. One of Paul’s friends owned a palatial mansion on a bluff overlooking the Colorado River. The town hadn’t seemed that bad to her at the time, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to mention that to Dave Holman.

  “Sounds tough,” she said. “How old are your kids?”

  “Six, ten, and fourteen,” he said. “Two girls and a boy. Rich is the one I’m worried about—the fourteen-year-old. There’s a whole lot of stuff going on over there on the river—drugs, cars, gangs—you name it—and I don’t want my son getting caught up in that stuff. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all sweetness and light here, either, but at least I can keep an eye on him and know what’s going on. Over there, I’ll have no way of knowing whether or not he’s hanging out with the wrong crowd, which is exactly where his slimeball stepfather fits into the picture, by the way.”

  As the man railed on, Ali remembered what she’d said in the blog about customers coming to restaurants for more than just the food. Dave Holman came to the Sugarloaf Café every morning looking for food and human contact. On this particular morning he needed sympathy and understanding far more than he needed his ham and eggs.

  “Fourteen is about how old my son Chris was when I married my slimeball,” Ali told him. “And Chris has turned out fine.”

  “You’re right,” Dave agreed. “I met him the other day. He’s a nice kid.”

  “With you for a dad, I’m sure Rich will be, too,” she said. “No matter what your ex and her new husband do.”

  Dave looked up at her with the smallest glimmer of hope in his eyes. “You think so?” he asked.

  Ali nodded. “I’m sure of it,” she said. “Now what can I get you?”

  “The usual,” he said. “Ham and eggs, over hard. Whole-wheat toast.”

  Ali was busy for the next while. She waited until she brought Dave’s order and his second cup of coffee before saying anything more to him.

  “I talked to Howie Bernard the other night,” she said casually.

  “He’s another piece of work,” Dave replied.

  “You know he has a girlfriend, then?” Ali asked.

  “Pretty much everybody knows about her,” he said.

  So they know about Jasmine, Ali thought. But are they really looking at her?

  “Everybody but Reenie?” she asked.

  Sipping his coffee, Dave nodded thoughtfully. “Probably,” he said. “The wife is usually the last to know. Or the husband,” he added.

  “He told me about the suicide note.”

  “We’re lucky the note stayed in the car when everything else went flying,” Dave said. “A miracle, really. If it had been thrown out into the snow, it never would have been found.”

  “Is it possible that Reenie didn’t write the note?” Ali asked. “I mean, it wasn’t signed was it? Anyone could have written it.”

  Dave gave Ali a searching look. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Ali shrugged. “This will probably sound really lame, but I don’t think she’d type a note like that. She’d use a card.”

  “A card?” Dave returned. “Somebody’s started a line of suicide note cards now?”

  “Reenie always sent cards,” Ali explained. “For as long as I can remember. And she always found just the right one for whatever occasion. A piece of computer paper wouldn’t have done it for her. She would have found a note card—a pretty blank one—and used that to say good-bye to her family, especially her kids.”

  “A card,” Dave repeated, but he sounded unconvinced.

  “If you don’t believe me, go look in her office up in Flag,” Ali said. “One whole wall is covered with cards—the ones people sent to her over the years, and she kept them all. But I’m sure that during that same period of time she sent out way more cards than she received.”

  “What are you saying?” Dave asked.

  “What if Reenie didn’t write the note?” Ali asked. “What if someone staged the whole thing? What if they murdered her and made it look like suicide?”

  Dave didn’t answer.

  “Reenie sent me a note that day, too,” Ali continued. “She sent it by regular mail and on a cute little card. I didn’t get it until after she died, and it didn’t say a word about suicide. Not a word. We were friends, Dave, good friends. Since she went to the trouble of sending the card, don’t you think she would have said something to me about what her intentions were?”

  “What did she say?” Dave asked.

  Ali’s next order was up. After delivering it, she hurried into the employee’s restroom and retrieved Reenie’s card from her purse. She brought it back to the front counter and handed it to Dav e. He read through it and then handed it back.

  “Have you showed this to Detective Farris?” he asked.

  “No,” Ali said. “I didn’t think he’d be interested.”

  “He might be,” Dave said. “You’re right. It doesn’t sound like Reenie’s referring to the bumps on Schnebly Hill Road. How about if I have Detective Farris give you a call?”

  “Thanks,” Ali said.

  “What’s your number?”

  Ali gave it to him. “Hey,” Edie called to her from the
kitchen. “No hanky-panky with the customers while on duty.”

  Blushing, Ali turned away, but when she went back to clear Dave’s place a few minutes later, she found more than double the usual tip shoved under his coffee cup.

  The remainder of the morning went by quickly. The potential buyer and the business broker showed up exactly when Edie had predicted—9:30 on the dot. They were both dressed in suits and ties, which made it easy to separate them from the rest of the Sugarloaf’s khaki-and jeans-wearing clientele.

  It had been another chilly morning during which the sweet rolls had disappeared at an alarming pace. Edie had put two aside, just in case. As soon as the buyer bit into his, a look of pure ecstasy passed over his face.

  That would be fitting, Ali thought, if one of Myrtle Hansen’s sweet rolls helped start the business and another one helped end it all these years later.

  The two men were seated in one of the booths in Jan’s station, so Ali didn’t wait on them, but she kept a close eye on the progress of their breakfast. From the kitchen, Edie Larson did the same. Only when they were finished did Edie, now sporting a clean apron, emerge from the kitchen to chat with them. Her arrival at their booth was followed by handshakes and introductions all around. Al Sanders, the taller of the two, was the business broker. Kenneth Dobbs was the potential purchaser.

  Dobbs’s praise for the food was nothing short of effusive. “That was by far the best sweet roll I’ve ever tasted in my life. Do you make them yourself?”

  “Every day,” Edie answered.

  “I thought your husband would be here too,” Sanders said, glancing back toward the kitchen.

  “Our grandson is here visiting from California,” Edie returned without missing a beat. “Bob decided to take a few days off. But you can talk to me,” she added. “My husband and I are equal partners in this place. Talking to one is like talking to both.”

  “Mr. Dobbs is considering making an offer,” Sanders continued. “But before he does, he’d like to bring in a restaurant consultant to have a look at the place. Would you mind?”