by J. A. Jance
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “Other than a little bruising here and there, everything’s fine as frog’s hair. By my calculations you’ve got another six weeks to go. From now on, though, you might tell Gordon to ease up on you some. I’m sure you can find some other way to satisfy his needs besides spreading your legs.”
Enid nodded. She knew exactly what Dr. Johnson meant as a substitute because she had done it before. She also knew that Gordon liked it and she didn’t. “I’ll tell him,” she said.
“Good girl,” he said, patting her tummy in a possessive way that made her want to squirm off the table. “That’s the spirit. You get dressed now while we see what’s going on with Aunt Edith.”
As Dr. Johnson left the room, Enid scrambled off the table and pulled on her clothing. She was in such a hurry that she buttoned the front of her dress wrong and had to undo it and start over. She pulled on the light jacket she had worn when she left home and checked to make sure that the cheese sandwich she had smuggled out of the kitchen was still safely in her pocket. So was that precious piece of paper, the tiny one that promised Enid and her baby had a future that wasn’t a part of The Family. Last of all, she picked up the cloth pouch.
Enid was grateful that Aunt Edith was missing from the waiting room when she emerged from the examining room. Behind the counter another of Dr. Johnson’s wives, this one named Donna, was intent on what appeared to be a game of cards laid out on her computer screen. Gordon kept a computer on the desk in his office. If Enid had ever been allowed to touch it, she wouldn’t have wasted a moment playing cards.
Enid walked to the door, moving calmly and hoping to arouse no suspicion. “I’m going outside for a while,” she announced over her shoulder as she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“Sure,” Donna said, giving her an unconcerned wave. “Go right ahead.”
Enid stayed outside in the early afternoon overcast for only a minute or so before she opened the door again and stuck her head back inside. “Bishop Lowell just came by,” she said. “Tell Aunt Edith I’m riding home with him.”
“Will do,” Donna said, again without looking up.
Enid closed the door behind her, then turned and walked away from the office, traveling in the same general direction as where she would be expected to go. She walked past the post office and the little storefront library filled with long shelves of books that she had never been able to check out or read. As she walked past the grocery store where Aunt Edith would stock up before driving the twenty miles or so of dirt road back to The Encampment, Enid couldn’t help smiling. Aunt Edith would be furious when she learned that she’d have to push the grocery carts herself and load the bags and boxes into the minivan without Enid along to do the heavy lifting. Aunt Edith would be even more furious when she got home and realized Enid had played her for a fool.
Walking through town, Enid knew exactly where she was going, but it was a desperate gamble. She had no idea if her carefully thought-out plan would really work, and she knew that severe punishments awaited her if she was caught and taken back home. Rather than think about that, she concentrated on moving forward and doing so at a steady pace. Running would attract too much attention—something Enid Tower could ill afford.
Neither could her baby.
4
Ali wasn’t surprised when the doorbell rang in the middle of the afternoon. Bella, having lived most of her life in a condo where there had been a knocker rather than a doorbell, had taken several weeks to learn that a ringing doorbell meant company. With B. out of town, the dog had taken possession of B.’s customary chair. When the bell rang, Bella bounded down and scampered to the door. Leland soon ushered Athena into the library with Bella barking at her heels. As Athena sank into the chair opposite Ali’s, the dog leaped into her lap. Athena hardly noticed. Absently patting the dog’s head, she looked distressed and uncertain. Ali was surprised to see her usually self-possessed daughter-in-law in such apparent disarray.
“Are you all right?” Ali asked.
“I’m not,” Athena answered, “but thank you for talking to Gram. I called between classes. She said you made her day because it sounded like you believed her.”
“I did believe her,” Ali agreed, “and I still do. As soon as I called, she knew exactly who I was, and she had no difficulty keeping her story straight. I’ve learned a thing or two about Alzheimer’s in the last year or two, and Alzheimer’s patients have trouble doing that. In fact, she didn’t seem impaired in any way. When I asked her if she had any enemies or if she knew of anyone who might wish her ill, she mentioned something about a disagreement over Communion glasses at church. That didn’t strike me as the kind of quarrel that would rise to the level of an attempted homicide.”
“Did you speak to Sheriff Olson?”
Ali nodded. “I did. He seems to be of two minds on the subject. His first choice is that Betsy turned on the burners herself and doesn’t remember doing it. His second option is that the whole incident is a figment of her imagination. He felt compelled to imply that anyone who would go outside barefoot in the snow is a couple tacos short of a combination plate.”
“In other words, one way or another, he thinks this is all Gram’s fault. What do you think?” Athena asked.
“If my house was filled with gas and I thought it might explode, I’d boogie out through the nearest door, barefoot and stark naked, too, if necessary—snow or no snow.”
“So you think someone really did try to kill her?” Athena asked.
“I do,” Ali answered.
“But who?” Athena asked.
“That’s the question, isn’t it. Let’s think about that. If you look at the homicide statistics in this country, most of the victims and perpetrators are involved in some kind of criminal enterprise. Drug users and drug dealers knock one another off with wild abandon. Your grandmother’s not likely to be involved in any kind of illegal activity, so we can discount the idea that this is some kind of criminal infighting.”
Ali paused. “She has arthritis, right?”
Athena nodded.
“Elderly folks are often easy targets for druggies looking for stashes of narcotics. The problem with that is that after I spoke to Sheriff Olson, I also spoke to the deputy who responded to her 911 call. Deputy Severson said there was no sign of rifling or attempted burglary, and that Betsy could find nothing missing from the house—including checking her supply of medications, which were right there on the kitchen counter. In other words, we can disregard the idea that whoever did this intended to rip off her meds.”
“What does that leave?” Athena asked.
“Jealousy, maybe?” Ali asked. “What about her love life?”
“Gram’s love life?” a disbelieving Athena asked. “Are you kidding?”
From her expression, it was clear that Athena had never considered the idea that her grandmother might have a love life.
“Older people can fall in love, too,” Ali said gently. “Maybe Betsy is caught up in some kind of love triangle.”
“No,” Athena said, shaking her head. “Not possible. I can’t imagine Gram doing such a thing.”
“We have to find out,” Ali said. “You’ll need to ask her.”
“Me?” Athena asked faintly. “Why me?”
“Who else is going to do it? Right now you and I are the only ones who have Betsy’s back and are taking her concerns seriously. To find out what really happened up there, you’ll probably have to go there. You’ll need to find out what’s going on in your grandmother’s life and who her friends are, including any possible love interests. Maybe Sheriff Olson is right. Maybe she has reached a point where she needs more help than she’s willing to accept. And if it turns out she is having mental difficulties, you may be the only one who can help her make whatever arrangements are deemed necessary.”
“I’m not a detective,” Athena objected. “I wo
uldn’t have any idea how to go about doing something like that.”
“You’re Betsy’s granddaughter,” Ali said. “You don’t have to be a detective to ask those kinds of questions. In fact, it’s an obligation, and you’d be remiss if you didn’t. Which brings us to yet another possible motive.”
“What’s that?”
“Greed,” Ali answered. “As in, follow the money. How well off is your grandmother?”
Athena shrugged. “She’s okay, I guess. I mean, we’ve never really talked about her finances. It’s not my place.”
“Again, if someone tried to murder her and the authorities are brushing it off, it’s your place now. For instance, is her home paid for?”
“I’m sure,” Athena said, “and what’s left of the farm is paid for, too. Gramps owned a lot of land around Bemidji, land he sold off years ago. What we still call ‘the farm’ is really just a house on twenty acres. It’s not a real farm, not the way it used to be.”
“Has she ever seemed hard up to you?”
“Not at all,” Athena said. “Never. When Gramps was alive, he bought a new car every other year, and he always paid cash. He bragged that he never bought a car on time. After he retired, he and Gram took long road trips every year, driving all over the country, sometimes for as long as a month or more at a time. That stopped after Gramps died. That’s also when Gram stopped getting a new car every other year, but that was her choice. It wasn’t because she couldn’t afford it. She said that she did so little driving on her own that she didn’t need a new car every time she turned around.”
“Tell me about your parents,” Ali pressed quietly. In the years she had known Athena, she had said little about her parents. Ali knew Athena was estranged from them, but both Athena and Chris had been guarded about supplying any details. Now, however, the ground rules had shifted in Ali’s favor. To help guide Athena through this current crisis, Ali needed more information—the backstory that Athena had previously been reluctant to share.
Athena’s eyes filled with tears. “You remember when Chris and I went to Minnesota?”
Ali nodded. She remembered it well. She remembered hoping Chris would be able to help mend whatever fences needed mending.
“What happened?”
“You don’t know my mom,” Athena said. “We’ve never gotten along, ever. When I was little, she wanted me to wear dresses and play with Barbie dolls. I wanted to wear overalls and hang out with Gramps. When I’d go stay with them, he’d let me sit in his lap and drive a tractor. Mom was appalled. When it was time for college, Mom wanted me to go to the University of Minnesota and join the same sorority she belonged to. She made it clear that if I didn’t do things her way, she and Dad wouldn’t pay a dime of my schooling costs.” Athena paused. “Mom’s not big on unconditional love.”
“I guess not,” Ali agreed.
“The problem is, I’m not big on being bossed around, either, so we’re not exactly a good fit. When I told them I’d choose my own school and that I had no intention of joining a sorority ever, Mom said that was it. If I wasn’t going to do things the way she and Dad said, then I was on my own as far as schooling was concerned. I’d have to pay for it myself. That’s when I joined the National Guard. That was a place where my early tractor driving with Gramps came in handy. I trained in a transport unit and ended up getting deployed to Iraq where I got blown up by an IED. I came home like this,” she added, glancing down at her prosthetic arm and leg.
Ali nodded. “I know about that. I also know that your grandmother came to visit you at Walter Reed while your parents didn’t.”
“Yes,” Athena said bitterly. “Their position was that I’d made my own bed and now should lie in it.”
There are conversations mothers-in-law are allowed to initiate and ones they are not. Taking a deep breath of her own, Ali stepped into uncharted territory. “Tell me about your first husband,” she said.
When Chris had first mentioned that he and Athena were dating, Ali had been concerned that not only was Athena six years older than he was, she had already been married and divorced.
Athena sighed and squared her shoulders. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Jack and I met in basic training. He was from Minneapolis, where he had been an all-star quarterback in high school. He was used to being a big deal. He joined up for the same reason I did—to get some help going to school. My dad’s a dentist, and it was ironic that I fell for a guy who wanted to go to dental school. By joining the National Guard he hoped to get through school without accumulating a crushing amount of debt.
“It was a first relationship for both of us. You remember that old song with the line ‘we got married in a fever’? That was us. We were in lust, not in love. We eloped right after basic training. I’m sure Mom thought we were pregnant. We weren’t. What surprised me, though, was that the moment my parents met Jack, they adored him, my dad even more than my mom. I think Dad saw Jack as the son he never had.”
“Did you love him?” Ali asked.
“Jack?” Athena shrugged and paused for a moment before continuing. “I cared about him, but what I felt for him isn’t anywhere near what I feel for Chris. I can see now that I married Jack more to get back at my folks than anything else, and the whole thing blew up in my face. It turns out, karma is like that. Jack just graduated from dental school. The plan is that he’ll gradually take over my father’s practice so Dad can retire. And that’s what hurts more than anything—the idea that my parents would choose an ex-son-in-law over their own daughter.”
Athena paused again and seemed to be thinking about what to say next. “I can see now how wrong it was for us to rush into marriage. We were both too young. He wasn’t ready to settle down; he still wanted to sow some wild oats—which he did, by the way. We ended up in different National Guard units. Mine deployed; his didn’t. I found out he was cheating on me with Janice before I even shipped out. Jack started talking divorce while I was still in Iraq. He had me served with the papers while I was deployed, and the divorce became final while I was in Walter Reed. I didn’t fight it because by then a divorce was what I wanted, too. Still, it blew me away to think that he and Janice were already married and expecting a baby before I got out of rehab and made it back home to Bemidji.”
Ali remained quiet. She knew more than most how much loving and losing at a very young age can hurt. If there was more to this story, she needed to wait patiently until it finally spilled out.
“There was no way I was going to go back home and live with my folks, so I stayed with Gram instead,” Athena went on. “She had a wheelchair ramp built on the front of the house and let me sleep in her downstairs bedroom. I felt guilty that she had to go up and down the stairs, but she said climbing stairs was good for her. I lived with her while I went through rehab, got fitted with my prostheses, and got my teaching degree. I was able to sign up for school with one of the earliest distance-learning programs, one that allowed me to take courses online and go at my own pace. I finished my degree in three years and took the first job I was offered—here in Sedona.”
Ali nodded. “What happened when you and Chris went back to visit?”
Athena sighed. “I didn’t tell my folks we were coming. I told Gram, of course, because we were going to stay with her, but I asked her not to tell my parents. I wanted to surprise them. They were surprised, all right, and so was I. It turns out that Janice now works in my dad’s office as a receptionist, and Mom takes care of Jack and Janice’s son, Jason, while they’re at work. While Jack was away at school, Janice and the boy stayed with my parents, living in my old room. I found that out when I went by the house. Mom wasn’t exactly overjoyed to see me. I left and haven’t been back.”
Ali already knew that Athena’s parents had never bothered to acknowledge the arrival of Chris and Athena’s twins, which made their betrayal of volunteering to look after a non-grandchild all the more hurtful
to their daughter.
“That must have been a shock,” Ali said. “Why didn’t Betsy warn you?”
Athena shrugged. “She probably didn’t know about it. She and my mother aren’t exactly pals. Never have been; never will be. Mom and Dad try to boss Gram around the same way they tried to with me.” Athena paused. “So what am I supposed to do now?”
Ali thought for a moment before she answered. “We make sure your grandmother knows that we’re behind her—that we believe that someone did indeed try to harm her last night. Now, tell me. Does Betsy have a security system?”
“Yes, but she turned it off when she came home from bingo. She doesn’t leave it on when she’s at home because it’s inconvenient when she has to take the dog out. Thank goodness Princess smelled the gas and woke Gram up.”
“But she didn’t bark earlier when whoever turned the burners on was in the house?” Ali mused.
“I guess not.”
A dog that didn’t bark? Ali didn’t like where that thought was taking her. The last time that had happened it had been because the intruder had been someone the dog in question knew quite well.
“Okay,” Ali said, without passing along that last conclusion. “Tell your grandmother that from now on, inconvenient or not, the alarm stays on.”
Athena nodded.
“Is there anyone left in town that you trust who could stay with your grandmother for the next little while?”
“Not really.”
“Does Betsy’s house have Internet access?”
“It does. She had Wi-Fi installed while I was there, but she may have discontinued the service. She had a computer, but it’s most likely dead by now. She doesn’t use it.”
“Tell her she needs to reinstate her Wi-Fi because she’ll have a new computer shortly,” Ali said.
“Why?”
“Because your grandmother is about to become a client of High Noon Enterprises,” Ali said with a smile. “I’ll talk to B. and to Stuart and see what kind of security equipment is needed in this particular situation. Come to think of it, I may even have to go to Bemidji myself to oversee the installation.”
