LANCE-A-LOT
She didn't reply to that one.
Ali's cell phone rang just then. She hurried to answer it, thinking it would be the hospital. It wasn't.
'Aunt Ali?'
She recognized the voice of ten-year-old Matt Bernard. Months earlier, Matt's mother, Ali's childhood friend Reenie Bernard, had been murdered. In the messy aftermath of Reenie's death, her husband, a professor at Northern Arizona University, had taken off on sabbatical with a new wife in tow and had left his two children, Matt and his younger sister, Julie, in the care of their maternal grandparents in Cottonwood. Ali had stayed in touch with Reenie's two kids as much as possible. Thanks to their grandfather's pet allergies, Ali was also looking after their cat, the plug-ugly, one-eared, sixteen-pound wonder, Samantha.
'Hi, Matt.'
'How's Sam?'
'Sam's fine,' Ali said. She didn't know that with absolute certainty, but she felt confident in saying so.
'Grandpa and Grandma are driving to Sedona tomorrow afternoon after church,' Matt went on. 'I was wondering if Julie and I could come by your house for a while to visit and play with Sam.'
That was the weird thing about cell phones. Callers dial numbers with a complete mental image of where the other person is and what he or she is doing. No doubt Matt was envisioning Ali in her spacious mobile home in Sedona, curled up on her living room sofa with Sam right there beside her. Instead, Ali was several hundred miles away, sitting in a hotel room, and embroiled in a set of circumstances that might well keep her from returning to Sedona for some time. Ali didn't want to go into any of those messy details with Matthew Bernard right then. Or ever.
'Oh, Matt,' she said. 'I'm so sorry. I've been called out of town. I won't be there tomorrow.'
'Who's taking care of Sam then?' he asked.
'My dad,' Ali said. 'He loves cats, and they love him. If you're coming up in the afternoon, after the Sugar Loaf is closed for the day, maybe you could visit with Sam at my parents' house.'
Matt sounded dubious. 'Wouldn't your father mind?'
Ali thought about Bob Larson, a man who adored animals and little kids. 'As long as it's after hours, I'm sure he'd be thrilled to have you, but why don't you call him and ask?'
'I think that would be weird.' Suddenly Matt seemed stricken with an uncharacteristic case of shyness. 'I mean, I don't really know him.'
'By the time you and Julie spend Sunday afternoon with him, you will know him,' Ali countered. 'He may be my father, but he's also a really nice guy.'
The call waiting signal beeped in Ali's ear. She glanced at the readoutChris's cell phone. As soon as she saw the number, she felt guilty. She hadn't called her sondeliberately hadn't called himwhen things started going bad. She had considered the mess to be her problem. With Chris starting a new job and a new life, she hadn't wanted to embroil him in her difficulties. But then, she hadn't much wanted Edie Larson and Dave Holman to be dragged into the situation, either.
Ali ended the call with Matt as soon as possible, but by then, Chris had left an irate voice-mail message: 'Mom. What the hell is going on out there? Call me.'
'I knew you were busy,' she said, once she had Chris on the phone. 'I didn't want you to worry. How much have you heard?'
'I just got off the phone with Gramps, who had talked to Grandma. I know Paul is dead. I know April's mother fell down a flight of stairs and could very well die, and that the cops think you're a suspect in both cases.'
'That just about covers it then,' Ali said as lightly as she could manage. 'Sounds like you're completely up to date.'
'Mother!' Chris exclaimed accusingly.
Chris hardly ever called her 'Mother.' It usually meant that the two of them were on the outs. And the reverse was true when Ali called him Christopher. This time she was the one who had crossed their invisible line.
'Tell me now,' Chris ordered. 'I want to hear it from you.'
And so Ali didshe told him everything.
'I'm guessing April's mom is the one who came up with the idea of pushing for a postmortem divorce,' Chris said when she finished.
'Either she did or her lawyer did,' Ali said. 'I'm not sure which.'
'If anybody would know the ins and outs of divorce, Monique Ragsdale would probably be it,' Chris said.
'What do you mean?'
'Monique's had several,' Chris replied. 'Divorces, that is. Scott Dumphey, one of the guys I used to play basketball with in college, is good friends with Jason Ragsdale, April's stepbrother. That's how I found out about Paul and April in the first placethrough Scott.'
The comment made it clear to Ali that there was a whole lot she didn't know about April Gaddis's family situation.
'April has a stepbrother?' Ali asked.
'Had' is the operative word,' Chris corrected. 'Jason is a former stepbrother. From what I remember of the story, Jason's dad was a widower, an optometrist with a fairly decent nest egg, when April's mother arrived on the scene with April in tow. When Monique dumped the poor guy a couple of years later, his nest egg was a whole lot smaller.'
Ali had no way of knowing if any of this information would prove useful or not. Nonetheless, she used a piece of hotel notepaper to jot down all the relevant names.
'What about April's dad?' Ali asked.
'What about him?' Chris returned. 'I'm assuming he was several husbands ago.'
The little tidbit of information made April's way of dealing with the world much more understandable. She had been raised by an often-married gold digger of a mother. With that in mind, it was entirely reasonable for her to grow up thinking that someone else's husbandanyone else's husbandwas fair game. If that was how Monique had gotten ahead in the world, why wouldn't her daughter try doing the same thing? Given that context, April's involvement with Paul Grayson must have seemed like business as usual.
'Anything else you can tell me about April?'
'Dropped out of college after only a semester or two,' Chris replied. 'According to Scott, she's not all that bright. At least he didn't think so.'
Even with the door to April's room pulled shut, Ali wasn't prepared to comment on that either way.
'What's going to happen now?' Chris asked. 'And should I call in to work and have them get me a substitute teacher so I can drive over to help out?'
'No,' Ali said. 'Absolutely not. Mom's here. So's Dave Holman.'
'He is? What's Dave doing there?'
'Grandma called him and he came.'
'She called him, but she didn't call me.'
Chris sounded understandably hurt.
'I'm sure she was thinking the same thing I wasthat we didn't want to bother you or take you away from what you're doing.'
'Thanks a lot,' Chris said. 'To both of you. Like mother like daughter, I guess, but I'm a grown-up now. I get to choose, remember?'
Ali would have said more, but call waiting buzzed again. The readout said Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. At the same time, her phone was telling her she was running out of battery power.
'Sorry, Chris,' Ali told her son. 'There's another call. I have to take it.' She switched over.
'April Gaddis?' a male voice asked.
'No. April's in the other room, lying down.'
'This is the contact number we were given, and it's about her mother. Can you put her on the line,
