with Dad?”
“Because your father wants you with us,” Diane returned. Her voice was firm, but she also sounded tired and exasperated.
“I’ll take care of Sam,” Ali offered. The words were out of her mouth before she even considered what she was saying.
Gratitude flooded Matt’s young face. “Would you?” he asked. “Really.”
“Sure,” Ali said. “No problem.”
Chapter 7
Once Ed and Diane Holzer finished loading the kids and took off for Cottonwood, Ali stuck Samantha and her cat carrier into the back of the Cayenne. The moment the carrier hit the floorboard, Sam started screeching bloody murder. Ali wanted to wait around long enough to talk to Howie, but with everyone gone, there was no way to hang around the house. Feeling at loose ends and with no real purpose in mind, Ali drove to Reenie’s old office.
The Flagstaff branch of the YWCA was located in part of a strip mall on South Milton Road just south of Northern Arizona University. NAU, hungry for useable real estate, had gobbled up the YW’s previous location, and Reenie had masterminded the move to a more modern space that included a day-care center, an exercise room, and a complex of conference and counseling rooms as well as administrative offices. There were children and teachers visible inside the building, but the brightly colored playground equipment, sitting in a fenced side yard and covered with dingy snow, looked abandoned and forgotten.
Seeing all Reenie had accomplished put a lump in Ali’s throat. Reenie was responsible for all of this. When the creaky old building had been sold, conventional wisdom had said that the YWCA in Flagstaff should probably fold its tent and disappear as well, but Reenie Bernard was too much of a fighter to simply close up shop. Instead, she had masterminded a major capital fund-raising campaign that had, in a few short years, made this new building and all its programs possible.
But is it solid enough to continue without her? Ali wondered. There was no way to tell that right then.
Walking inside, Ali found Andrea Rogers, Reenie’s receptionist, staring blankly at her computer screen. “I thought I’d come by and check on you,” Ali said. “How’re you doing?”
Ali had met Andrea on previous occasions. She was a frumpy, never-married woman in her late fifties who had worked for the Flagstaff branch of the YWCA all her adult life. She had been Reenie’s right-hand helper for years.
Andrea reached for a nearly empty Kleenix box sitting next to her keyboard. “It’s all so awful that I still can’t believe it,” she said tearfully. “I have to come in and keep the doors open. I’m so sick at heart that I’d rather be home in bed. But I can’t. The day care has to stay open and so do we, but I can’t imagine how we’ll get through this.” She paused and took a deep breath. “How are Reenie’s kids?”
“Not too good,” Ali said. “Reenie’s parents took them to Cottonwood for a few days.”
“And Howie?” Andrea asked. “How’s he?”
“I haven’t seen him yet, but I think he’s okay,” Ali told her.
“Have they found a note?”
“Not that I know of.”
“They’ll find one,” Andrea said confidently. “They’re bound to. She wouldn’t do such a thing without saying something to the people she was leaving behind.”
“So had she talked to you about her…situation?” Ali asked.
Andrea nodded. “Of course,” she said. “As soon as she got the diagnosis she told me about it. She said we needed to make a plan, and to start looking for someone to take over as executive director.”
“Had she found anyone?” Ali asked.
“In a week?” Andrea returned. “Are you kidding? Of course she hadn’t found anyone. Where would we find someone willing to work as hard as she did? I’m not sure we’ll even be able to keep going, although I know she’d want us to.” Andrea blew noisily into a tissue, tossed that one and reached for another.
“All I can think of,” she continued, “is that her doctor down in Scottsdale must have given her some really bad news. But why didn’t she say something to me when she called. I couldn’t have done anything to help-nobody could-but at least I could have been there for her, could have listened to her and talked to her. She wouldn’t have been so alone, and maybe…”
It struck Ali that Andrea’s comment about Reenie taking her own life without a word of warning to anyone was the workplace equivalent of Matt’s plaintive “Didn’t she love us anymore?” That was Ali’s complaint as well, and it took a moment for her to process the rest of what Andrea had said.
“You talked to her after her doctor’s appointment?” Ali asked.
“Yes,” Andrea replied. “She told me she was stopping by the bank and then she was on her way back here.”
“To the office?”
“That’s what she said, but she wasn’t here when I left. I assumed she’d changed her mind and gone home instead.”
“Which bank?” Ali asked.
“She didn’t say. That’s what the cops wanted to know, too-which bank? I told them I didn’t know. I think they use Bank of America, but I have no idea which branch. Detective Farris said he’d be able to find out. He said she probably needed to cash a check or something, but if she was going to drive herself off a cliff, why would she need money?”
Good question, Ali thought. “So you have spoken to the cops about all this?” she asked.
“Over the weekend,” Andrea said. “The first time was on Saturday afternoon. They came to my house. Then they came here again on Monday, after they found the body. They wanted to know if Reenie was upset about anything. Talk about a stupid question. With that kind of diagnosis, who wouldn’t be upset? Still, she acted more relieved than anything.”
“Relieved?”
“She’d been feeling sick for months-just not herself-and no one could tell her what was wrong. But once what was wrong had a name-even though it was awful-at least she knew what she was up against and nobody could call her a hypochondriac.”
“Somebody called her that?” Ali asked.
Andrea nodded. “Her sister. Sometime around Christmas. So once Reenie knew it was ALS, she was gung-ho to fight it. At least that’s what she told me. That she was going to research it, find out everything she could, and see if there were any programs she might qualify for-you know, experimental things that might help.”
“She said that?” Ali asked. “That she was going to try to be accepted into one of the ongoing protocols?”
“That was just a few days ago,” Andrea added. “What would have made her change her mind?”
Ali shrugged. “I can’t imagine,” she said.
Walking past Andrea’s desk, Ali took a step toward the doorway of what had been and still was Reenie’s private office. The office space itself was modern enough, but the furniture was old-fashioned wooden stuff that had come from the other building. Given a choice between purchasing new playground equipment for the day-care center or new furniture for Reenie’s office, there had been no contest. Playground equipment had won hands down.
Lots of people decorated their offices with framed degrees and plaques-walls of honor. None of Reenie’s degrees were on display. Instead, most of the walls were papered over with a colorful collection of greeting cards in all shapes and sizes. Scattered among the cards were pieces of childish handmade art.
“She did love cards,” Ali observed.
“Isn’t that the truth,” Andrea agreed with a sigh. “She went through more cards than anybody I ever knew. She sent cards for big occasions, little occasions, and no occasions at all. With her gone, that Hallmark store out at the mall will probably end up going out of business.”
Ali thought of the greeting card Reenie had sent her-the one that had arrived after Reenie’s death and was
