J. Jance - Hand of Evil

“Thank you,” Ali said. “Cocoa sounds nice. I’ll have some of that, too.”

Jane took a seat on a nearby sofa and leveled her questioning gaze on Crystal. “I suppose you’re a friend of Mr. Hogan’s as well?” she asked.

Crystal shook her head. “Not really,” she said.

“She’s with me,” Ali said. “I apologize for bringing her along, but I didn’t have anywhere to leave her.”

“Oh,” Jane said.

After that an uneasy silence enveloped the room. It took only a few minutes for Jonathan to return, bringing with him a tray laden with two cups and saucers. He handed one to Crystal. She held it nervously, with the bottom of the delicate china cup clattering on the saucer. For a moment Ali was reminded of herself, all those years ago, nervously sipping her first cup of Anna Lee Ashcroft’s tea.

Jonathan sat down next to his wife. “Call her,” he said.

Jane looked at her watch. “It’s too late,” she said. “She’s probably already asleep.”

“Call her,” he urged again. “Wake her up. He’s her son after all. What if this turns out to be Elizabeth’s last chance to see him? You wouldn’t want to be responsible for her missing that opportunity.”

With an angry shrug, Jane Braeton rose abruptly and stalked off to another room, slamming the door shut behind her.

“I had no idea Kip’s mother was still alive,” Ali said. “No one was able to sort out where she went after she left Kingman.”

“She’s in her nineties,” Jonathan explained. “She lives in an assisted living facility down in Queen Creek. She has macular degeneration, Parkinson’s, you name it. Having to put Elizabeth there almost broke Janie’s heart, but eventually it reached a point where it was too much. We could no longer have her here at home, not even with live-in help.”

He stopped and steepled his fingers in front of his chin before adding thoughtfully, “I suppose you can see that Janie’s family situation is a bit…shall we say…problematic. I won’t presume to go into all that. It’s Janie’s story and it’s entirely up to her whether or not she decides to share it. But tell me more about Mr. Hogan. How did you come to know him?”

For the next several minutes Ali explained about how Kip Hogan had come into her parents’ lives straight from the homeless camp on the Mogollon Rim; how Kip had helped care for Bob Larson in the aftermath of his snowboarding accident; and how he had stayed on and continued to work around the place long after Bob was back on his feet. She ended by telling him about the refinished bird’s-eye maple credenza-the last job Kip had completed before he had been assaulted.

“So he was trying to straighten himself out then,” Jonathan said.

“Yes,” Ali said. “Very much so. He’s been attending AA regularly and he has a steady girlfriend, Sandra Mitchell. She’s been at the hospital all day. She’ll be devastated if she loses him. My parents will be as well.”

Ali had known for sure how much Bob was affected. Her mother might not admit it, but the very fact that Edie had jumped into her Alero and driven down to the hospital was a strong indication that she, too, cared about Kip Hogan and what happened to him.

Just then the door came open down the hall and Jane Braeton marched back into the living room. She was wearing shoes now-a pair of stylish black pumps. She had a purse in one hand and a coat slung over the other arm.

“You’re right,” she said grudgingly to her husband. “She wants to go. The night supervisor said it’ll take forty-five minutes or so for an attendant to get Elizabeth out of bed and dressed. They’ll bring her down to the front entrance.”

Jane paused and gave Jonathan a searching look. Then she turned to Ali. “I suppose my husband has been running off at the mouth and giving you my whole life history?”

“I did no such thing,” Jonathan protested. “I told them that was up to you.”

Jane sighed. She tossed her purse onto the coffee table and then sat down on the couch. “I could just as well, I suppose,” she said. “My version will be mercifully shorter than Elizabeth’s will be. Do you mind getting me a cup of tea, Jon? I think I’m going to need it. And maybe our guests would like some more cocoa.”

“Would you care to help me?” Jonathan asked Crystal.

To Ali’s surprise, Crystal leaped willingly to her feet and followed Jonathan into the kitchen.

Jane waited until the door swung shut behind them. She sighed again. “I suppose you can tell I don’t much like talking about this,” she said. “It’s painful to have to acknowledge that you were unwanted. Not entirely unwanted. Elizabeth Hogan wanted me, and I bless her for it, but she was the only one who did.”

Puzzled, Ali nodded but said nothing.

“The man you know as my father, Kip Hogan, was a native of Kingman. Both his father’s people and his mother’s, the Brownings, came from there as well. Kip’s father and grandfather both worked for the railroad. His dad was a brakeman who died in a train accident when Kip was only three. As for his mother? Since the family name was Browning, when their first child turned out to be a girl, they decided to name her Elizabeth Barrett. It was supposed to be a joke, but Elizabeth ended up having the last laugh. She was the first girl in her family ever to go to college. She went to Flagstaff back when Northern Arizona University was still the Northern Arizona State Teacher’s College. She graduated from there with a teaching certificate and eventually a full-fledged degree in English. She went back home and taught English at Kingman High School for her entire career.”

“Hence Rudyard Kipling Hogan,” Ali offered.

Jane nodded and smiled apologetically. “Exactly. So Kip grew up there. He was a typical teacher’s kid, which is to say he was a born hell-raiser. He never even finished high school. Instead, he dropped out and volunteered for the army, then got shipped to Vietnam. Elizabeth always told me he was different when he came back-different-but at first he seemed to be okay. He came back home and hired on with the fire department. That’s where he was working when he met my mother.”

“Amy Sue,” Ali said.

Jane gave her a shrewd look. “Yes,” she said. “Amy Sue Laughton Hogan. She said she was from Virginia, but that was probably a lie. Everything else she said was a lie, so why would that be any different? She showed up in town on a Greyhound bus with nothing but a couple of suitcases. She rented herself a room, went to work in one of the local dives, and set her cap for Kip Hogan. And voila, next thing you know, she tells him she’s pregnant. By then, he’s trying to be the man, so he trades shifts, takes two days off from work, and off they go to Vegas to get married. That was July fourth, 1973.”

The kitchen door swung open. Jonathan came in with his tray, two cups and saucers-a new one for Ali and one for his wife, and no Crystal.

“That poor little girl is starving,” he said to Ali. “I’m making her some toast and cheese. I hope you don’t mind.”

Having fed her one meal on the way here, Ali wondered if Crystal had a hollow leg. Jane Braeton, on the other hand, sent a grateful smile in her husband’s direction. Seeing it, Ali realized that keeping Crystal in the kitchen was a ploy on Jonathan’s part, a way of giving his wife some privacy in order to tell a story she most likely wouldn’t want to relate in front of a thirteen-year-old girl.

Jane waited until Jonathan returned to the kitchen before she continued. “They were in Vegas on their honeymoon when a train derailed coming through Kingman. A tanker loaded with liquid propane was involved, and the resulting BLEVE was huge.”