“Offended enough to kill him?” Patty asked.
“According to her, more like hurt,” Ali answered. “Besides, at this point, I don’t think Christine understands that Phil is dead. She’s sitting there fully expecting him to get off work, come pick her up, and take her home. But you’re sure you have no idea who this Ollie person might be or where we could find her?”
“None at all,” Patty answered. “But if Phil did have a gal pal, she’d have to live on or near his regular route.”
“Could he have met her anywhere else?”
“Not that I can think of,” Patty said.
“Whoever she is, we need to find her,” Ali said. “Right now the cops have only one suspect in Phil’s homicide, and that’s Christine. If someone else was at the house, there’s a possibility that the person may have either witnessed or been involved in what happened.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Patty said.
She put down the phone and stood staring at it, thinking about what Ali had told her. Christine had found a letter. That meant a letter on paper. Not an e-mail. Not a text. But a letter, and where there was one letter, there might be more.
Making up her mind, Patty picked up her purse and her car keys and left again. She drove straight back to the post office. What she and Phil had always referred to as the sorting table was really an antique partner desk that Patty’s mother, Lorna, had bought from a used-furniture auction in Tucson thirty-some years ago. The desk had two knee wells and two sets of drawers, one set on either side. For years, one of those sets had been Patty’s private domain. The other was Phil’s.
Once inside the back room, Patty ignored another blinking message light and went straight to Phil’s side of the desk. She found what she was looking for-a packet of envelopes fastened with a rubber band-squirreled away in the back of the bottom drawer. There were no stamps or postmarks. The letters hadn’t been sent through the mail. Written in flowery, feminine script on the outside of each envelope was a single word: Popeye.
Patty Patton had spent her entire life believing that handling the mail was a sacred trust. She didn’t pry, not even so much as to read the notes on picture postcards back when more than a handful of people sent them. Her whole being recoiled at the idea of reading a letter that was addressed to someone else, but with Phil Tewksbury dead and with Christine’s life hanging in the balance, Patty didn’t feel as though she had any choice. She picked up the top envelope and removed the single piece of paper.
And that was it. As far as Patty knew, there was only one Oscar living in the area-Oscar Sanchez. Oscar’s quarter horse ranch out in the San Rafael Valley had to be one of the last stops on Phil’s mail route. And if Oscar Sanchez were the topic of the note, than the person writing it, Ollie, had to be Olga Sanchez. Patty stood staring at the paper, thinking about Olga Sanchez, about the way she wore her hair-pulled back and wound in a knot at the back of her neck, just the way Olive Oyl in the cartoons wore her hair. Olive Oyl and Popeye.
But maybe there was more to it. Wasn’t Olga the former mother-in-law of Teresa Reyes, and a seriously estranged former mother-in-law at that? It seemed like an odd connection between Jose’s shooting and Phil’s murder, but surely it was more than a simple coincidence.
With the letter still in her hand, Patty picked up the telephone receiver. The last call had come from Ali Reynolds’s number. She pressed redial.
“Christine is right,” Patty said when Ali answered. “I found a packet of letters hidden in one of Phil’s drawers here at the post office. Ollie is probably a woman named Olga Sanchez. She and her husband, Oscar, live on a ranch called the Lazy S that’s on Phil’s mail route, between here and Lochiel.”
“Wait,” Ali said. “Olga Sanchez? Teresa Reyes’s former mother-in-law? I’ve actually met her. Thin. Black hair pulled back in a bun.”
“Yes,” Patty said. “Just like Olive Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriend in those old cartoons. That’s where the Ollie part comes from, but you’ve met Olga? How?”
“She came to the hospital where Jose is being treated, offering to help out by looking after Teresa’s two older girls.”
“Her granddaughters,” Patty added.
“She even apologized to Teresa for some of her past behavior.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Patty said. “It’s about time. Life is too short to carry grudges around like that, and there’s been bad blood between Teresa and Olga for a long time. Olga always blamed her daughter-in-law for her son’s death.”
“Was Teresa responsible in some way?”
“Not in any legal sense. The way I heard it, Teresa and Danny had a big fight, Danny went out drinking with his pals and ended up in another fight-this one in a bar-and died as a result of a drive-by shooting. It’s a relief to know that they’re finally getting over it,” Patty added. “It’ll be better for them and certainly better for the daughters.”
“Who are being raised by Jose Reyes, her daughter-in-law’s second husband,” Ali said. “Was the bad blood between Olga and Teresa serious enough that Olga would target Jose?”
“I don’t think so,” Patty said. “I’ve known Olga all her life. Her father came from Mexico years ago and worked as Oscar’s foreman. Olga grew up on the ranch and ended up marrying Oscar after his first wife died. She was twenty, and he was a lot older, but as far as I can tell, it’s been a good marriage. Oscar has had some serious health issues in the last few years. Olga seems to have been his devoted caregiver.”
“Like Phil with Christine,” Ali said.
While they’d been talking, Patty had removed another letter from its envelope. As she unfolded the paper, she noticed that a faint hint of lingering perfume came off the page as she scanned through it.
“This letter is all about Oscar’s medical problems and going to Tucson to see doctors. So that’s something Phil and Olga shared, being caregivers. Based on my experience looking after my mother, I can tell you, it’s a pretty thankless task.”
Patty opened another envelope. This one was about the picnic lunch they’d had together. Olga had brought tuna sandwiches and some chocolate chip cookies; Phil had supplied the sodas. They’d eaten lunch on a blanket under a tree with his mail truck parked nearby.
“So far this all seems pretty innocent,” Patty said. “More like pen-pal stuff than love letters. And nothing salacious. Nothing about meeting somewhere and making mad, passionate love. More like having someone to talk to who knows what you’re up against.”
If Phil had been involved in drug dealing, his gal pal, Olga, was probably as much in the dark about it as Patty was. And Christine.
All afternoon, since the moment Eunice Carson had told her Phil was dead, Patty had been grieving for the man. Now, for the first time, she was pissed at him instead. All the time he had been pretending to be one thing, he had evidently been busy
“I think you need to go to Sheriff Renteria with this,” Ali said.
“With the letters?”
“Yes, with the letters. The cops need to know that there’s another woman in Phil’s life, a woman who isn’t Christine.”
“But won’t that make things worse for her?”
“I don’t see how. Christine already knows Phil had at least one outside interest,” Ali said. “Maybe there was another one we know nothing about. If nothing else, knowing about the letters between Olga and Phil will give the detectives someone to investigate who isn’t Christine. In any event, you can’t withhold this information. It’s a homicide investigation. If you don’t call Sheriff Renteria about it, I will.”
“Why don’t I go talk to Olga first? Shouldn’t I give her some kind of advance warning?”
“Are you asking my opinion?” Ali asked.
