J. Jance: Fatal Error

“What the hell do you mean stowing me in this fleabag hotel and taking my car keys?” she demanded.

No good deed goes unpunished, Ali thought.

“You were drunk,” she said calmly. “You were in no condition to drive. Would you like me to bring your keys?”

“You’re damned right I want you to bring me my keys.”

“I have to be in class by eight, but between now and then, I’ll treat you to breakfast. There’s a Denny’s just up the street.”

Brenda started to say something else and then stifled. “All right,” she said grudgingly. “I’ll meet you there.”

By the time Ali got out of the shower, she saw the text message from B. that she had missed earlier when the phone rang.

Bordng now. CU at home. Dinner? LV. B.

By the time Ali reached the restaurant, Brenda, dressed in an oversized man’s shirt and a pair of ragged jeans, was already seated in a booth, drinking coffee and sulking. She had evidently showered in the motel room. Her hair was still damp and smelled of shampoo, but a cloud that reeked of tequila still lingered around her.

Ali remembered a friend of hers who had gone into AA after he got tired of what he called “drinking and stinking.” Ali wondered if Brenda was there yet. If she wasn’t, she ought to be.

Ali put the car keys down on the table and then slid them across to Brenda. “I couldn’t let you drive,” Ali explained. “You were an accident waiting to happen, a danger to yourself and others. What if you’d had a wreck? What if you had ended up in a hospital or if you had killed someone else?”

Brenda closed her fist around the key fob. “Thank you, I guess,” she muttered, but she sounded mutinous rather than grateful.

Ali slid into the booth and picked up her menu. The waitress was there with a coffeepot before Ali found the breakfast pages.

“Coffee?”

Ali nodded. The waitress slapped a mug on the table, filled the mug with coffee, and then took off. Efficient? Yes. Personable? No. The service made Ali long for the down-home comfort of her parents’ Sugarloaf Cafe.

“So,” she said, for openers and hoping to break the ice. “Last night you told me about your boyfriend, Richard Lattimer, and your difficulties with him. Do you still want me to have someone run a background check on him for you?”

Brenda looked surprised. “You’d still do that? Even after. . well. . you know.”

“You mean after you made a complete fool of yourself?”

Brenda made a face and nodded. “Yes,” she said meekly. “I guess I just got carried away.”

To Ali’s relief it sounded as though Brenda was genuinely sorry.

“So yes, I’ll still do it because I told you I would,” Ali said. “I’ll need an address so I can send you the report.”

“But. .” Brenda began, then she stopped. “I don’t have an address right now,” she admitted. “I don’t have a computer either. I guess you can send it to my mom’s house.”

Ali located the piece of paper Brenda had used the night before to jot down her missing fiance’s e-mail address. “Use this,” Ali said. “That way I’ll have all the information in one place.”

Brenda scribbled an address on the paper. The waitress came, took their order, and disappeared again.

“I don’t have much money,” Brenda said, as she handed the paper back to Ali. “How can I possibly pay for a background check?”

As a customer of High Noon Enterprises, Ali knew she could ask for a routine background check with no charge, but Brenda didn’t need to know that.

“I’ll tell you how you can pay for it,” Ali said.

On the way to the restaurant, Ali had decided that she wasn’t going to pull any punches. “You’re a mess right now, Brenda-a wholesale mess. Yes, your fiance dumped you, but considering the way you look and act right now, I’m not surprised. If you don’t believe me, you might take a gander at yourself in a mirror.”

Two bright angry splotches appeared on the surface of Brenda’s once-narrow cheekbones. “How can you talk to me like that?” Brenda demanded, as tears of self-pity welled in her eyes. “I thought you were my friend!”

Ali didn’t relent. “I am your friend,” she declared. “And that’s the very reason I’m telling you this. Your broken-down wreck of a BMW is parked outside. It looks like you’re living in it.”

At least Brenda had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I lost my apartment,” she said. “Living in my car beats living on the street. What was I supposed to do?”

“You’re supposed to pull yourself together,” Ali told her. “Find a job, any kind of job. You say you don’t have money, but you had enough money to buy tequila last night.”

“My mother gives me an allowance,” Brenda said.

“That allowance isn’t helping you, Brenda. It’s enabling you,” Ali said. “Stop using your mother and stop using whatever else you’re on. I don’t know if it’s just booze or if it’s something more than that. You told me Richard dropped you. I don’t blame him. He probably didn’t want to be involved with an addict. He’s not the one who’s sick or dying. You are. The amount of tequila you put away just last night should have been enough to kill you.”

Brenda stared into her coffee cup and said nothing.

“If booze is all you’re on, go to AA,” Ali continued. “If you’re on drugs, go to Narcotics Anonymous. Put yourself in a treatment center if you have to. Get your life back on track. Once you’re clean and sober, if Richard Lattimer is the kind of empathetic guy you seem to think he is, maybe he’ll take you back.”

Their order came. Instead of touching it, Brenda shoved the plate across the table. Then she stood up and stormed out of the restaurant without touching a bite.

The waitress came back over. “Something the matter with the food?” she asked, picking up Brenda’s abandoned plate.

“No,” Ali said. “Something’s the matter with her.”

The waitress shook her head. “Some people don’t have a lick of sense.”

A few minutes later, when the waitress brought Ali the bill, the charge for Brenda’s food had been removed. Ali left enough cash on the counter to cover Brenda’s breakfast along with a generous tip. Outside in the parking lot, Brenda’s BMW was long gone.

At least I tried, Ali told herself. It was the best I could do.

Peoria, Arizona

Ali headed back to the academy. She was there in plenty of time to get into her uniform for the early morning session. Some of the swelling had gone down, but the bruise on her cheek was still purple. Ali thought about trying to cover it with makeup but decided against it. She had earned it the hard way; she might as well show it off.

Cell phones were forbidden during class. The last thing before she went out the door, she turned on her cell phone and called B.’s number. “You’re still in the air,” she said. “I won’t have access to my phone again until after four. You had said something about going out for dinner. I’m ready to stay home. I’m going to call Leland and ask him to pull together a light dinner for tonight. Hope you don’t mind.”

Then she called Leland and asked him to do just that. “Very good, madam,” he said. “I think a nice chilled fusilli pesto salad would fill the bill. Sam will be glad to have you home. I think she much prefers your company to mine.”

Sam was Ali’s aging cat, a one-eyed, one-eared, sixteen-pound tabby who had come to Ali on a supposedly temporary basis, which was now comfortably permanent for all concerned.

“I miss her too,” Ali said with a laugh.

Off the phone, Ali hurried to the parade ground, where she was dismayed to find Jose Reyes waiting for her.