J. Jance: Trial By Fire

Ali nodded. “Don’t tell Mom,” she said.

“I don’t have to,” Bob observed cheerfully. “I’m pretty sure she already knows.”

“Great,” Ali muttered. “I suppose that means I’ll get the third degree from her, too.”

“Not necessarily,” Bob said. “How about if you tell me and I tell her? What’s going on?”

“It turns out your daughter is a pawn, caught between two feuding unions. When I walk into a room-it doesn’t matter if it’s the break room, an office, or a lobby-people simply stop talking. When I try to interact with them, they answer direct questions only. The other day somebody left a paper Burger King crown on the seat of my desk down at Village of Oak Creek, and on Friday, when I drove up to Ash Fork and Seligman to introduce myself to the folks up there, someone let the air out of three of my tires.”

“So the people you have to work with all think you’re stuck-up, and as far as the tires are concerned, no one saw a thing,” Bob said. “Right?”

“Right,” Ali agreed.

“So how many more of these introductory substation visits do you have to do?”

“I have to drive down to Congress tomorrow. That’s it.”

Just then Athena had emerged from the house carrying a pitcher of iced tea. “Refills, anybody?” she asked.

Athena, an Iraq war veteran, had returned from her national guard deployment minus two limbs-her right arm below the elbow and her right leg below the knee. She had become amazingly proficient at using her two high-tech prosthetic limbs, but she had also made great progress on becoming a lefty. She wielded the full pitcher without any problems or spills.

Ali’s father waited until Athena went back inside before he spoke again. “What those guys are doing is hazing you.”

Ali laughed. “Do you think?”

“And they’re watching to see how you react.”

“Correct.”

“So don’t give them the satisfaction,” Bob said. “Besides, you know what your aunt Evie would say.”

For years, until her death from a massive stroke, Ali’s aunt Evie, Edie Larson’s twin sister, had been partners with Ali’s parents in the Sugarloaf Cafe, a restaurant started originally by Ali’s grandmother. Aunt Evie had always been considered the wild one in the family. She had also been one of the most positive people Ali knew.

“I’m sure she’d say, ‘Brighten the corner where you are,’” Ali said with a laugh, remembering some of her aunt Evie’s Auntie Mame antics. That particular line had come from one of Aunt Evie’s favorite hymns, and it had been her personal watchword.

“Exactly,” Bob said.

“What do you say?” Ali asked. She liked her parents and was interested in their opinions.

“If there’s a rattler in your yard, wouldn’t you rather know where he is?”

Ali nodded.

“So make friends with your enemies,” Bob advised. “It’ll surprise the hell out of them.”

When the barbecue ended, Ali went home to her new place on Manzanita Hills Road. She had taken a crumbling jewel of midcentury modern architecture that had never been updated and brought it into the twenty-first century. She had invested money, time, and effort in the process. Leland, who had more or less come with the house, had fought the remodeling war at her side. Now he and Ali were both enjoying the fruits of their labors-a job well done.

Leland had taken Memorial Day weekend off, and the house seemed impossibly quiet without him. Ali went from room to room, turning on lights and music. She settled into one of the comfy armchairs in the library and picked up the textbook she was still studying. A few minutes later she was joined by Samantha, her sixteen-pound one-eyed, one-eared tabby cat. Sam clambered up into the matching chair, circled three times, then sank down silently to wait for bedtime.

Ali hadn’t made it through two whole pages when the phone rang. Checking caller ID, she answered with a smile in her voice.

“Hi, Mom,” she said. “What’s up?”

Ali already knew that once the barbecue ended, Bob Larson would have immediately reported the gist of his conversation with Ali to his wife.

“You should have told us about all this the minute it started,” Edie scolded.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Ali said.

“Worry? Of course we’re worried,” Edie said. “One of those practical jokes could go way too far. Your father is right. You need to make friends of your enemies. Who’s the worst one of the bunch?”

Not a hard question to answer, Ali thought.

“That would be Holly Mesina,” she said. “She’s a clerk in the public office over in Prescott. She’s also best friends with the evidence clerk who’s out on administrative leave.”

“With Sally Harrison?” Edie Larson asked.

It came as no surprise to Ali that her mother would be tuned in to all the sheriff’s department’s goings-on. Ali sometimes wondered if running the Sugarloaf Cafe wasn’t merely a cover for Edie Larson’s real job of keeping track of everyone else’s business. She had an impressive network of unnamed sources, and her up-to-the-minute intelligence was often uncannily accurate.

“Didn’t Sally go to school with you?” Edie asked now. “I thought she graduated a year or so after you did.”

“I don’t remember anyone named Sally Harrison,” Ali replied.

Edie sighed. “Don’t be silly. Harrison is her married name. I believe her maiden name was Laird. That’s right. Sally Laird. Her father drove a dairy truck, for Shamrock. He was just as proud of his little girl as he could be. Never stopped talking about her, especially when she got elected homecoming queen.”

Given her mother’s hint, Ali did remember. The name Sally Laird made more sense than Sally Harrison did.

A cute little blond, Ali thought. Right about now, her father’s probably not nearly so proud of his darling daughter.

“Dad says you have to drive down to Congress tomorrow,” Edie continued. “What time are you planning to leave?”

Ali was somewhat taken aback by the seemingly abrupt change of subject.

“I’ll probably head out a little after eight,” Ali said. “I expect to drive down through Prescott. There’s road construction on Yarnell Hill, so I may come back home the long way around, through Wickenburg and over to I- 17.”

“All right, then,” Edie said. “Stop by the restaurant on your way out of town. I’m going to make a couple of extra trays of sweet rolls for you to drop off at the sheriff’s office in Prescott on your way through.”

Working together day after day, Edie and Bob Larson squabbled a lot, but they were definitely of a mind on most things, especially anything concerning their daughter. Clearly the two of them had decided that helping fix Ali’s difficulties at work was a project worthy of a team effort. Sugarloaf Cafe sweet rolls were legendary throughout the Verde Valley, where they routinely placed first when it came time to tally the votes in annual Best of Sedona contests. Ali knew that passing some of her mother’s rolls around the office would be a very effective tactic for keeping her departmental enemies close.

“I’ll also put my ear to the ground,” Edie Larson promised. “I may be able to learn something useful. But right now I’d better hit the hay. Since I’m doing extra batches of sweet rolls in the morning, I’ll need to get an early start.”

Ali knew Edie was usually in the restaurant baking rolls by four o’clock in the morning. “Thanks, Mom,” she said. “I’ll stop by and pick them up.”

“Kill ’em with kindness,” Edie added. “That’s what I always say.”

Ali put down the phone. Leaving the book she had been reading facedown on the side table, she walked over to the shelf that held her yearbooks. Family finances had been so tough her senior year in high school that Ali hadn’t been able to buy one of her own, and she never expected to have one. Two years earlier, however, her best childhood friend, Reenie Bernard, had died tragically. In the aftermath of her death, Reenie’s less-than-grieving husband and his girlfriend had packed up all of Reenie’s worldly possessions and shipped them off to Goodwill. Fortunately, one of Ali’s friends had intervened and intercepted the castoffs before they could be unpacked and sold.