J. Jance - Edge of Evil

He’s probably not even home, Ali told herself. I should have stayed at the hospital.

Grabbing the fragrant bucket of chicken, Ali made her way gingerly up the icy sidewalk past the dwindling snowman. The afternoon sun had diminished him even more, and now the snowman was little more than a knee-high ghost in the reflected glow of the porch light.

Sure she was on a fool’s errand, Ali rang the bell. Seconds later, though, a light came on somewhere in the interior of the house, followed shortly thereafter by a lamp in the living room. The dead bolt clicked. When Howie opened the door to let Ali in, he was holding a cordless phone to his ear. He smiled in welcome and drew Ali inside before shutting the door behind her. He swayed slightly on his feet as he turned to go back into the house. His ungainly walk and the smell of liquor on his breath told Ali that he’d had at least one drink and probably several more than that.

“Your mother’s friend Ali is here,” he said into the phone. Then, after a pause, he added. “Just a minute. I’ll ask her. It’s Matt. He wants to know how Samantha is doing.” The words slurred slightly and ran together.

“Tell him she’s fine,” Ali said. “She’s out of her crate and making herself at home.”

Without waiting for directions, Ali took the bucket of chicken out to the kitchen and set it on the counter. She and Diane Holzer had cleaned up the breakfast dishes earlier that morning. It appeared that the kitchen had remained unchanged since then. That probably meant that no one else had stopped by to visit with Howie, which struck Ali as odd. People usually rallied round bereaved spouses-even unfaithful ones-no matter what.

When she returned to the living room and took a seat on the couch, Howie was finishing up his phone call. “You be good now,” he was saying. “Don’t give Grandma and Grandpa any trouble. And I’ll come get you soon. Tomorrow probably, or else the next day…Right…Love you, too. Good night, Matty. Talk to you tomorrow.”

He put down the phone. He turned unsteadily in Ali’s direction and gave her a boozy hug. “Thanks so much for coming,” he mumbled. “After what I’ve been through the past few days and hours, it’s good to see a friendly face.”

“What’s been going on?”

“The cops put me through hell today, that’s what!” he said. “I didn’t ask for an attorney at first because I didn’t think I needed one. I thought they were just going to ask me a few routine questions like when did Reenie leave, what time was she supposed to get back, that kind of thing. And they did ask those things at first. But later on they came after me like gangbusters. They kept after me for hours on end, even though I told them I had an alibi, even after I offered to take a lie detector test-which I took and passed by the way-and even after that. From the way they treated me, I thought I was on my way to jail for sure. I was afraid I wasn’t coming back.”

“But you did,” Ali interjected. “You’re here.”

“That’s right. I am here! About an hour or so ago, they found Reenie’s suicide note and suddenly everything changed to sweetness and light. Suddenly I’m no longer the scumbag husband/homicide suspect. Now it’s ‘yes, Mr. Bernard,’ and ‘no, Mr. Bernard,’ and ‘of course you’re free to go, Mr. Bernard,’ and all that happy crap.

“They found a note?” Ali asked.

Howie nodded. “In the car. Or in whatever’s left of the car. They didn’t find it until just a little while ago.”

Ali felt numb. “What did it say?” she asked.

Howie shrugged. “That she couldn’t face dragging it out. That this way would be better for all of us-that she wanted to spare us.”

He paused long enough to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye, but Ali was having a hard time sorting out the conversation. Was Howie Bernard grieving for his dead wife or for himself. It was hard to tell. Maybe it was a little of both.

“So it really was suicide?” Ali asked.

“Of course it was suicide,” he replied. “What else could it have been?”

A bottle of Oban single malt scotch sat on the coffee table in front of them. Howie reached over, poured another generous shot or two into a tumblersized glass, and nodded. “At least now I can go ahead and plan the funeral. It’ll be Friday, by the way. Two o’clock. At Reenie’s old Lutheran church down in Cottonwood. She’ll be buried there, too, in the family plot.”

He stopped and looked at Ali a little fuzzily. “I’m forgetting my manners,” he said. “Can I get you something? A drink? Some of that chicken you brought?”

Ali shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said.

For several seconds, he stared morosely into his glass. “It’s good of you to drop by, Ali. I really appreciate it. As for the rest of my so-called friends, who needs ’em? Where the hell were they when the cops were busy accusing me of putting Reenie in a car and running her off a cliff to get rid of her? I mean, just because…”

Even drunk he must have realized that he was rambling on more than he should have. He stopped.

“Because what?” Ali prodded eventually.

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Not important.”

“It is important,” she insisted. “Tell me.”

Howie gave her an odd look. Finally he answered. “Reenie and I may have been having our little difficulties, but for them to think that I’d kill her…it’s utterlypre…pre…preposterous.” It took three tries before he managed to get his tongue around the word.

“What kind of difficulties?” Ali asked the question without really expecting an answer.

“Oh, you know,” he said, waggling his glass. “The usual thing-a bit of a rough patch. We might have got through it, or it could be we would have ended up in divorce court, but then, when the bomb-shell dropped about her health…You know about that-about the ALS?”

“Yes,” Ali said. “I know.”

“Godawful stuff, ALS,” he continued. “But what I can’t understand is why she did it now. She wasn’t that sick, at least not yet. She could still drive. She was probably just making a point.”

Ali was surprised to hear Howie voice his own doubts about the suddenness of Reenie’s departure.

“You thought she was going to stay to fight?”

“That’s what she said,” Howie replied.

“And what did you mean when you said she was making a point?”

“She was mad at me,” Howie continued. “Furious. We barely spoke the last two weeks, but I had no idea…”

“You quarreled?” Ali asked.

“She was talking about going to Mexico to try out some new treatment. Something with supplements that the FDA hasn’t approved yet and may not ever approve. It’s expensive as hell and not covered under our insurance. I told her it was too risky and probably a waste of time and money.”

“Risky?” Ali asked. “She was dying anyway. How risky could a treatment be, especially if there was even the smallest chance it would help?”

“Well, then, a rip-off maybe. I’ve heard of all kinds of quacks who’ve set up phony treatment centers. They take people’s money. When it’s gone, they put their patients either in a pine box or on a bus and ship them home.”

So we’re back to the money, Ali thought. Reenie wanted to try some new treatment, and Howie said no-solely to keep from having to spend the money.

“Do you know anything about this treatment center?” Ali asked. “Where it is? What it costs?”

“A one-time payment of eighty-thousand bucks,” Howie muttered, staring into his almost empty glass. “And you know what you get for all that dough? Not a cure, that’s for sure. Probably just the symptoms slowed down for a couple of months and a few extra months at the back end, but for part of that time she wouldn’t even be here. She’d have to be in the treatment center.”