“Wait a minute,” he said, gesturing toward Edie’s gallery of publicity shots. “I thought you looked familiar. I’ve seen you before on TV. On the news in LA. That’s you, isn’t it.”
Ali was dressed in her Sugarloaf sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. She wore minimal makeup and her hair was pulled back into a scrunchy-held ponytail. Carrying two plates that were part of one of Jan’s orders, her current situation bore little resemblance to the glamorous creature featured in those black-and-white glossies. Not only that, with Watching’s threatening e-mail still reverberating in the back of her head, she didn’t much want to be that other version of Ali Reynolds, either.
“Nope,” she declared. “That would be my twin sister, the smart one in the family. She got the brains; I got the looks.”
Shaking his head, the guy headed for the door, reaching for his cell phone as he did so. Once the door closed behind him, the whole front of the restaurant erupted in applause and raucous laughter, but the next time Ali picked up an order from the service window, the expression on her mother’s face was grim.
“What if that had been our buyer?” Edie demanded. “And for your information, we do too have lattes, three kinds in fact-vanilla, mocha, and hazelnut-at three bucks a pop. We make ’em in the back, because there wasn’t room enough to put the new equipment behind the counter. And they’re not on the menu because your father thinks they’re a pain in the butt, but we do have them! And the customer is always right.”
“Got it,” Ali said, feeling chagrined. “I remember now…You don’t really think that was your buyer, do you?”
“No,” Edie relented. “Probably not. The buyer’s coming in with a business broker. Those guys never go to work until after nine.”
At 8:30, Detective Dave Holman took his usual spot at the far end of the counter. He seemed particularly downcast. A little embarrassed by the curt way she had treated him the previous morning and newly reminded of her customer-relations failings, Ali offered him a good morning smile as she poured his coffee.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “My ex just told me that she and her new hubby are taking my kids and moving to Lake Havasu, of all the godforsaken places in the universe!”
Ali had been to Lake Havasu on occasion. One of Paul’s friends owned a palatial mansion on a bluff overlooking the Colorado River. The town hadn’t seemed that bad to her at the time, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to mention that to Dave Holman.
“Sounds tough,” she said. “How old are your kids?”
“Six, ten, and fourteen,” he said. “Two girls and a boy. Rich is the one I’m worried about-the fourteen-year- old. There’s a whole lot of stuff going on over there on the river-drugs, cars, gangs-you name it-and I don’t want my son getting caught up in that stuff. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all sweetness and light here, either, but at least I can keep an eye on him and know what’s going on. Over there, I’ll have no way of knowing whether or not he’s hanging out with the wrong crowd, which is exactly where his slimeball stepfather fits into the picture, by the way.”
As the man railed on, Ali remembered what she’d said in the blog about customers coming to restaurants for more than just the food. Dave Holman came to the Sugarloaf Cafe every morning looking for food and human contact. On this particular morning he needed sympathy and understanding far more than he needed his ham and eggs.
“Fourteen is about how old my son Chris was when I married my slimeball,” Ali told him. “And Chris has turned out fine.”
“You’re right,” Dave agreed. “I met him the other day. He’s a nice kid.”
“With you for a dad, I’m sure Rich will be, too,” she said. “No matter what your ex and her new husband do.”
Dave looked up at her with the smallest glimmer of hope in his eyes. “You think so?” he asked.
Ali nodded. “I’m sure of it,” she said. “Now what can I get you?”
“The usual,” he said. “Ham and eggs, over hard. Whole-wheat toast.”
Ali was busy for the next while. She waited until she brought Dave’s order and his second cup of coffee before saying anything more to him.
“I talked to Howie Bernard the other night,” she said casually.
“He’s another piece of work,” Dave replied.
“You know he has a girlfriend, then?” Ali asked.
“Pretty much everybody knows about her,” he said.
So they know about Jasmine, Ali thought. But are they really looking at her?
“Everybody but Reenie?” she asked.
Sipping his coffee, Dave nodded thoughtfully. “Probably,” he said. “The wife is usually the last to know. Or the husband,” he added.
“He told me about the suicide note.”
“We’re lucky the note stayed in the car when everything else went flying,” Dave said. “A miracle, really. If it had been thrown out into the snow, it never would have been found.”
“Is it possible that Reenie didn’t write the note?” Ali asked. “I mean, it wasn’t signed was it? Anyone could have written it.”
Dave gave Ali a searching look. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Ali shrugged. “This will probably sound really lame, but I don’t think she’d type a note like that. She’d use a card.”
“A card?” Dave returned. “Somebody’s started a line of suicide note cards now?”
“Reenie always sent cards,” Ali explained. “For as long as I can remember. And she always found just the right one for whatever occasion. A piece of computer paper wouldn’t have done it for her. She would have found a note card-a pretty blank one-and used that to say good-bye to her family, especially her kids.”
“A card,” Dave repeated, but he sounded unconvinced.
“If you don’t believe me, go look in her office up in Flag,” Ali said. “One whole wall is covered with cards-the ones people sent to her over the years, and she kept them all. But I’m sure that during that same period of time she sent out way more cards than she received.”
“What are you saying?” Dave asked.
“What if Reenie didn’t write the note?” Ali asked. “What if someone staged the whole thing? What if they murdered her and made it look like suicide?”
Dave didn’t answer.
“Reenie sent me a note that day, too,” Ali continued. “She sent it by regular mail and on a cute little card. I didn’t get it until after she died, and it didn’t say a word about suicide. Not a word. We were friends, Dave, good friends. Since she went to the trouble of sending the card, don’t you think she would have said something to me about what her intentions were?”
“What did she say?” Dave asked.
Ali’s next order was up. After delivering it, she hurried into the employee’s restroom and retrieved Reenie’s card from her purse. She brought it back to the front counter and handed it to Dav e. He read through it and then handed it back.
“Have you showed this to Detective Farris?” he asked.
“No,” Ali said. “I didn’t think he’d be interested.”
“He might be,” Dave said. “You’re right. It doesn’t sound like Reenie’s referring to the bumps on Schnebly Hill Road. How about if I have Detective Farris give you a call?”
“Thanks,” Ali said.
“What’s your number?”
Ali gave it to him. “Hey,” Edie called to her from the kitchen. “No hanky-panky with the customers while on duty.”
Blushing, Ali turned away, but when she went back to clear Dave’s place a few minutes later, she found more than double the usual tip shoved under his coffee cup.
The remainder of the morning went by quickly. The potential buyer and the business broker showed up exactly when Edie had predicted-9:30 on the dot. They were both dressed in suits and ties, which made it easy to separate them from the rest of the Sugarloaf’s khaki-and jeans-wearing clientele.
