J Jance - Queen of the Night

Finally the guy next to him got up and went to pay his bill, leaving an untidy stack of maple-syrup-spotted Sunday newspaper sitting on the counter. Jonathan appropriated it and opened it to the front page. The article about the shootings on the reservation didn’t add much to what had already been reported on the local television news.

Using the newspaper as cover, he sat there for some time, reading it and drinking one cup of coffee after the other, but he wasn’t really reading. Jonathan was thinking. When he finally put down the paper and went to pay his tab, he had analyzed his situation and come up with a plan of action. Leaving his waitress a respectable tip, he exited the restaurant and went looking for a grocery store. He was pretty sure that was where he’d find what he needed.

Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 7, 2009, 12:00 p.m.

81º Fahrenheit

By the time Brandon and Diana made it back to Tucson from Sonoita, it was early afternoon. They rode with the convertible’s top closed. Even so, they could tell that the Invicta’s aging air conditioner was losing ground in its war with the summer heat.

Rather than driving straight through to Casa Grande in that, they stopped by the house in Gates Pass long enough to trade Diana’s vintage Buick for Brandon’s CRV. As for Damsel? After her morning’s adventure, she was more than happy to curl up in her favorite place on the couch and snooze the rest of the day away while her people went off to do whatever people do when they’re out.

On their way north, Brandon and Diana talked. Yesterday Brandon had been trying to run away from his own worst fears. Today those fears were realized. Yesterday, isolated and dreading what the unknown future might hold, he had felt impotent and hopeless. Now he knew that there was a very real possibility that he would lose Diana-that she would drift away from him into that strange fog of unknowing. That was a terrible prospect-an appalling prospect, but if that truly was what was happening, if Diana’s strange visitations were part of early-onset Alzheimer’s, at least now they were dealing with a known opponent, a named opponent.

And, if nothing else, he and Diana were finally talking about it. They were dealing with it together-would deal with it together. Somehow that made it less scary as far as Brandon was concerned. They had made it through tough times together before, and they would do so again.

One by one they tried to look the worst-case scenario in the eye, attempting to sort out strategies that would help them navigate whatever was coming and make the best of it. Now that they had decided the Invicta would remain in the family, they also determined that from now on, in case the fog descended again-or, rather, when the fog descended again-Brandon would take charge of all car keys, including locking them away in his gun safe if he deemed that course of action necessary.

Brandon had never tried his hand at golf. He just wasn’t interested in chasing little white balls across grassy lawns and trying to herd them into holes, but he remembered reading somewhere that Alzheimer’s patients who had once played golf were still able to do so long after their other mental faculties seemed to desert them.

For that very reason he was enthusiastic about Diana’s sudden interest in trying her hand at making pottery. It was something that she had enjoyed once in the distant past. He hoped it would help hold her interest now. Since the Invicta would still be occupying its space in the garage, however, one of the bedrooms-most likely the one that had been Davy’s-would be turned into Diana’s pottery studio.

And if they needed more help around the house-both of them carefully avoided saying the word “attendant”-maybe Lani could help them find someone from the reservation who would be willing to come live in and be there to help out out as necessary.

As they talked, the miles seemed to melt away. Today, as Brandon drove into Geet and Sue Farrell’s neighborhood, it didn’t look quite as grim as it had appeared to him on the previous day. Yes, the trim on the house still needed scraping and painting and the thirsty palm trees were still wilting in the heat, but it wasn’t as distressing as it had seemed yesterday.

The day before when he had noticed the wheelchair-accessible van parked in their driveway, he had taken that as a sign of defeat. Today, that same van with its handicapped-parking placard spoke to him in a different way. It was one of the tools Sue and Geet were using to get along-had used to get along. Brandon doubted Geet would be up to taking many more trips away from his living room hospital equipment and oxygen mask, but the van was part of how he and Sue had coped so far. It was how they had made it to here.

And we’ll make it, too, Brandon thought.

He pulled into the driveway and parked next to the van. “Do you want me to wait in the car?” Diana asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s too hot. Come on in. You can talk to Sue while I visit with Geet. She needs company, too.”

When the time comes, so will I, he thought.

He led Diana around the house to the back-door entrance and knocked. When Sue answered she looked marginally better than she had the day before. The haircut helped, but she also looked better rested.

“Back so soon?” she asked.

Brandon nodded. It seemed odd to him that he and Geet had been friends for years, but until this moment their wives had never met. Once the necessary introductions were out of the way, Brandon left Diana in the kitchen with Sue while he made his way back into the living room. This time he was better equipped to deal with the hospice equipment he saw there. Sue’s tangle of sheets still covered the sofa, but now a kitchen chair had been drawn up close to the bed.

Geet himself lay propped up in his hospital bed with his closed eyes turned toward a muted television set where the Padres were playing the Diamondbacks. It seemed to Brandon that in those few intervening hours the man had wasted away that much more. The skin on the gaunt bones of his face was gray. His lips were almost white. Death was coming and it was coming soon. Brandon knew what this looked like. He had seen the same thing in the hospital room where they had taken his father.

Geet’s eyes blinked open without warning. He studied Brandon for a moment as if unsure of who he was. Then he grinned-at least it looked like a grin.

“Hey,” he said. “Weren’t you just here, or do I have you mixed up with someone else?”

“I was here,” Brandon said. “Yesterday. You handed over that case file.”

“Ursula’s,” he said.

“Yes,” Brandon agreed. “Ursula’s.”

Geet stirred. Cancer had robbed him of almost everything, but for a few moments the old intensity burned through. His eyes focused. He paid attention. “Did you talk to her-to the witness?”

“To June Holmes?” Brandon returned. “Yes, I did.”

“Why wouldn’t she talk to me before this?” Geet asked. “Why now?”

“Because her husband was still alive,” Brandon explained. “She didn’t send you that note until after Fred Holmes died.”

“Why?” Geet asked. “What does that have to do with the price of peanuts?”

“She claims Fred was the one who did it-the one who murdered Ursula Brinker. She said she didn’t know about it until five years ago. When Fred finally got around to telling her, he had just been diagnosed with cancer. She waited until after he was dead to send you that letter.”

“But I checked Fred Holmes’s alibi,” Geet objected. “I had witnesses who placed him in Phoenix that whole weekend.”

Brandon was struck by the fact that even after all these years and even in the throes of cancer, Geet still had a complete grasp of the details of that case. He had no difficulty recalling the names of the people involved.