know why those men broke into my house like that. I tried to make them leave me alone-I was screaming at them-but they put handcuffs on me and brought me here. They tried to tell me that Phil is dead, but I don’t believe it. It’s not possible. He was fine yesterday. Why would he be dead today? Someone needs to let him know where I am so he can come get me.”
Christine’s state of denial was so complete that Ali decided the best approach was to go along with it and pretend that Phil was alive.
“I’m sure your husband loves you very much,” she said.
“Yes, he does,” Christine agreed. “Although I’m sure he loves Ollie, too.”
“Ollie?” Ali asked, taking a seat in a nearby chair. “Who’s Ollie?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Christine stopped pacing and sat down beside Ali. “Ollie is Phil’s girlfriend,” she explained. “I don’t mind that he has a girlfriend, you see, but I wish he wouldn’t bring her to the house. That’s not right. Not with me living there. It’s disrespectful. I don’t like it. Cassie won’t like it, either.”
Ali had picked up enough of Christine’s life story to know that Cassie, Phil and Christine’s daughter, had been dead for years. If Christine somehow thought her daughter was alive, how much of the rest of the story was true? At this point, did Christine Tewksbury have any idea what was real and what wasn’t? For that matter, what was her grasp on the difference between right and wrong? But the idea of a girlfriend thrown into the mix put the whole situation in a different light. And since Christine was willing to answer questions right then, Ali went right on asking them.
“Phil has a girlfriend?”
“Oh, yes,” Christine said, “for months now. It’s supposed to be a big secret, and I haven’t let on that I know, but I found a letter he wrote to her. He left it sitting on the counter. It was silly. ‘Dear Olive Oyl,’ he said. And in the middle of the note, he called her Ollie, and he signed it, ‘Love, Popeye.’ That was the only part of the letter that was silly. The rest of it was real. He was telling her all about me-about what’s wrong with me. That wasn’t right. What’s wrong with me is nobody else’s business, especially not hers.”
Patty had said that Christine hadn’t left the house in years. Had Phil Tewksbury been so thoughtless as to bring the other woman in his life into the house with Christine still there?
“You’re saying Ollie’s been to your house?” Ali asked.
“Oh, yes. She was there this morning,” Christine said confidently.
“Did you see her?”
“No, but I smelled her perfume. At least I think it was her perfume. It wasn’t mine. Who else’s would it be?”
“Did you tell the officers who came to your house earlier that you suspected someone else had been there?”
“I didn’t tell them anything. I wanted them out of my house. I wanted them to leave me alone, but they wouldn’t.”
“This is important, Christine,” Ali said. “Do you have any proof that some other person was in your house today?”
“Only the bat,” Christine said. “Cassie’s new bat. It wasn’t there in the living room last night when I went to bed. I thought Phil had gotten rid of it, but this morning it was there by my chair as if by magic, and just when I needed it, too, when all those people came charging through my house without my permission. You do believe me, don’t you?”
In a way, Ali did believe her. Part of the story sounded like the fantastical ravings of a madwoman, but part of it sounded like undeniable truth. Ali knew that the Tewksburys’ house had been searched earlier in the day. Chances were that if Phil had entertained a girlfriend there, they would have found some evidence of her visit. And if there had been correspondence between Phil and Ollie squirreled away, that would have been found, too. Under the circumstances, the fact that Phil had had a girlfriend would be another black mark for Christine. In a homicide investigation, it was often only a short step from insane to insanely jealous.
But what about the presence of another person in the house that day, as either a possible perpetrator or a possible witness? Had Christine tried to tell Deputy Carson or Sheriff Renteria about that earlier when they had accosted the poor woman in her home? The presence of another person might be vitally important, but with Christine screaming at them and brandishing a lethal weapon, Ali doubted the officers on the scene had paid close attention to what she said. After all, everyone in town seemed to be convinced that Christine Tewksbury was crazy, and listening to crazy people was … well … crazy.
“Do you happen to know someone named Jose Reyes?” Ali asked. “Is he a friend of your husband’s?”
Christine shook her head. “I don’t recognize the name. He might be one of the guys at the cafe. Phil goes there every morning for breakfast.”
“What about drugs?” Ali asked.
“What about them?”
“Is there a chance Phil might be involved in the drug trade?”
“What kind of drugs?”
“Marijuana,” Ali said.
“Phil?” Christine said with a harsh laugh. “Are you kidding? He doesn’t even smoke cigarettes. What would he do with marijuana? Besides, he’s too busy working. That’s all he does, really-he works, and he looks after me.”
Ali glanced at her watch. Haley had an evening class to go to, and it was close to time for her to drop off the girls. Ali wanted to be back at the hospital in case she was needed to help chase after Lucy and Carinda. She stood up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Tewksbury,” she said. “I need to go now.”
“Can I go with you?” Christine asked. “Please? What if Phil doesn’t come get me today? What if he doesn’t know I’m here?”
In some part of Christine’s tangled reality, she truly believed that her husband was alive and coming to get her. It wasn’t Ali’s responsibility to convince her otherwise.
“I’m sure he does,” she said reassuringly. “And I’m sure he’ll come for you as soon as he can.”
“But what if he doesn’t?” Christine asked. Distress took over. Her voice rose to a keening wail. “What if I have to stay here forever? Please take me with you. Please.”
By then, alerted to the disturbance by Christine’s raised voice, a pair of uniformed attendants rushed into the room. While they tried unsuccessfully to calm Christine, Ali hurried to the door and buzzed to be let out. All the way down the hall and out through the lobby, she could hear that terrible, despairing cry. She felt guilty. Ali’s presence was what had caused Christine’s outburst, but Christine was the one who would suffer the consequences.
Back in her vehicle, Ali had to call information to get Patty Patton’s telephone numbers. She tried both the home number and the one listed for the post office. In each case, the phone rang and no one answered. Patty was a landline person, and she evidently wasn’t home.
“Patty, it’s Ali Reynolds,” Ali said into what sounded like an old-fashioned desktop answering machine. “It’s about Christine, and it’s important. Give me a call when you get this.”
44
5:30 P.M., Monday, April 12
Tucson, Arizona
In the course of the afternoon, Sister Anselm ushered family members into Rose Ventana’s room in the ICU. She knew that the visits were wearing on Rose, not only emotionally but also physically. The difficulty of communicating through her wired-shut jaw made speaking exceptionally difficult. Between each visit, she needed time to rest and regroup.
Sister Anselm was also aware that Detective Rush had taken her words of advice to heart. She and Al Gutierrez had spent the afternoon sitting on the sidelines. Sometimes Al seemed to be fielding phone calls while Detective Rush worked on her computer. Sister Anselm knew they were hanging around in hopes of interviewing Rose Ventana.
That opportunity came at five-thirty in the afternoon, with Rose’s long-awaited move from the ICU to a
