Holman shrugged. “Spent some time in the military-the Marines-and I’m still in the reserves,” he answered. “Graduated from college. Got married; had kids; got divorced. All the usual stuff. Now I’m a homicide detective with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s department. But back at Mingus Mountain High, Billy Garrett was a good buddy of mine. Remember him?”
Ali tried to reconcile this powerful-looking, middle-aged man-this Dave Holman-with the tall scrawny boy she remembered from high school. As for Billy Garrett? She recalled him as an even skinnier but much shorter kid-a regular smart-ass-who, his senior year, had mustered up enough courage to invite Ali to the prom. And she had turned him down. Not because she was playing hard to get, as Dave Holman seemed to assume, and not because Billy Garrett wasn’t tall enough, either.
Finances had been tight in the Larson household the last two years Ali was in high school. Remodeling the restaurant had taken more time and cash than anyone had anticipated. That was the reason Ali had graduated from high school with no class ring to show for it and with no yearbook for those two years, either. She had helped out at the restaurant during the summer and on weekends, but she had done so without pay, and her tips had gone into the family coffers to help keep things afloat. An academic scholarship to Northern Arizona University was the only reason she’d been able to go on to college.
But right now, with her mother standing there behind the counter, smiling and waiting for Dave Holman to place his order, Ali couldn’t very well tell Dave the real reason she had spurned Billy Garrett’s prom invitation-she simply hadn’t been able to afford a dress.
“The usual?” Edie asked Dave. He nodded. Edie hurried away, jotting down his order as she went.
“I never have been big on dancing,” Ali said. “Not then, and not now, either.”
“Too bad,” Dave said, shaking his head. “Broke poor Billy’s heart. He went straight out and married the very next tall blond he ran into. Her name was Doreen, I think. She was a handful. You could have spared the poor guy all kinds of grief and at least one really bad marriage if you had just said yes our senior year instead of no.”
At that point, though, the corners of his mouth went slightly upward, and Ali realized Holman was teasing her-most likely for the benefit of several other Sugarloaf regulars who were listening in on the conversation with avid attention.
“Billy didn’t really marry that woman because I turned him down for the prom, did he?” she asked.
Dave grinned. “Makes a great story, though. And Billy’s fine, by the way. He’s a professor of philosophy somewhere in Colorado, and his second wife is great.”
For the next few seconds, Ali tried to imagine Billy Garrett either studying or teaching philosophy. It just didn’t compute.
Meanwhile Dave Holman turned serious. “You’re here because of Reenie Holzer?” he asked.
It was always easier to remember girls from high school by their maiden names rather than by their married ones. Ali nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I remember the way the two of you were in high school-always together. One tall, one short. One blond, one brunette. One thin and the other”-he paused-“well, rounder,” he concluded diplomatically. “Reenie always had way more curves than you did.”
By mentioning Reenie’s name, Detective Holman had given Ali an opening, and she took it. “Are you making any progress finding out what happened?”
“Some,” he said.
“I’m planning on going up to Flag later this morning to see Howie and the kids and to find out if there’s anything I can do.”
“I’m guessing he’ll be pretty busy this morning,” Dave said.
“How come?” Ali asked.
Dave set down his coffee cup and lowered his voice, although by then most of the people who had been eavesdropping on Ali and Dave’s encounter had resumed their own breakfast conversations. “I talked to Lee Farris last night. He’s my counterpart in homicide in Coconino County. He’s planning on bringing Mr. Bernard in for questioning this morning.”
“Howie?” Ali asked. “They’re going to be questioning Howie about this?”
“We have to talk to everyone,” Dave said. “That’s how you get to the bottom of what really happened.”
“But you’re not saying he did it, are you?”
“I’m saying we have to talk to everyone,” Dave repeated firmly. “At this point it could be an accident, but no one’s ruling out suicide, either. If you start down Schnebly Hill Road in a snowstorm, you’re pretty much asking for trouble. And considering what she was looking at, with spending the next few years dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease, who could blame her if she did choose a shortcut? I sure as hell would.”
“But what about her kids?” Ali objected. “From what I understand, she had just been diagnosed and was still in reasonably good health. I know her better than that. She wouldn’t just abandon her kids like that, not before she had to.”
Dave shrugged. “She might,” he said.
Bob Larson emerged from the kitchen carrying Chris and Ali’s orders. He set the plates down in front of them. “Morning, Dave,” he said. “See you’ve already met my grandson, Chris.”
Dave shook his head. “I haven’t, actually. I’ve just been jawing with your daughter.” He reached in front of Ali and offered his hand to Chris. “Glad to meet you,” he said. “Your mother and I go back a long way.” Noticing Chris’s UCLA sweatshirt he added, “Think the Bruins will make it all the way to the Final Four this year?”
Chris responded with an enthusiastic affirmative. Chris, Dave, and her father wandered into a spirted discussion of which teams were likely to make it to the championship and which ones wouldn’t. Meanwhile Ali was left to consider how easily men’s conversations-regardless of whether the participants were friends or strangers- immediately devolved into sports talk. It was one of those annoying male traits, an auto-cloaking device designed to keep each of them from knowing anything personal about the others.
Right now mindless chatter was keeping Ali from learning more about what really mattered-whatever it was that had befallen her friend Reenie.
“Hey, sport,” Bob said to Chris. “What say we hit the slopes for a while this afternoon, assuming your grandmother will give me time off for good behavior.”
Chris glanced questioningly at Ali. “It’s fine with me,” she said. “I’m on my way to Flagstaff. I have no idea when I’ll be back.”
“Your grandfather can have the afternoon off,” Edie agreed, “but only if he gets his tail back in the kitchen and finishes up the rest of breakfast.”
Waving his wife’s good-natured nagging aside, Bob retreated to the kitchen. Meanwhile, Ali’s phone rang once more. She could see from the display that Paul was calling again. Leaving her place at the counter, she went out to the parking lot to take the call.
“What?”
“What?” Paul repeated. “Not even hello? Not even good morning? Why didn’t you call me back?”
“April,” Ali said bluntly. “I believe her name is April.”
“My administrative assistant,” he said. “What about her?” He was cool, wonderfully cool.
“I hear she has plans to get married soon-to you,” Ali told him. “And then there’s Charmaine as well- something about your skinny-dipping with Charmaine. Tell her she’s fired by the way. I don’t think I want to have anything more to do with her.”
Paul paused but only for a moment before going on the counterattack. “Who’ve you been talking to?” he wanted to know. “What kind of nonsense is this?”
“It doesn’t matter who my unnamed sources are,” she returned. “And it’s not nonsense.”
“I asked you to talk to that attorney of yours-Marvella or something like that. Did you do it?”
“Marcella,” Ali corrected. “And, yes, I talked to her all right. She told me that you’d made some pointed suggestions to one of her firm’s managing partners about what kind of good things they could expect if they convinced me to drop my wrongful dismissal case. But I’m not dropping it, Paul, and they’re not dropping me, either. If the old guys at the station get to stay on the news desk, then the old girls should get to stay on as well. What’s fair is fair. Now let’s talk about April and Charmaine.”
“Come on, Ali,” Paul returned. “Forget them. They’re not important. Those women mean less than nothing to me. You should know that by now.”
“Actually,” Ali returned, “I don’t know anything of the kind. “‘Those women’ as you call them may not mean
