Sedona after the collapse of her marriage, she and Dave had been an item for a while, but the demands of his being a single dad with sole custody of his kids had proved too much for their budding romance. At a time when kids and work were his two top priorities, their love life had placed a very distant third. Their breakup had been amicable, and they had managed to remain friends. Ali had taken up with B. Simpson, and when Dave’s kids had gotten old enough, he had hooked up with and eventually married Priscilla Morse, a savvy businesswoman who owned a local chain of nail salons.
Living in a small town meant there were very few secrets. From the beginning, Priscilla Morse Holman had known about Dave’s previous relationship with Ali, but she had also been one of Edie Larson’s staunchest supporters in the campaign for mayor. Initially, there were a few awkward moments between Ali and Priscilla, but the kinks had worked themselves out over the course of several months. Although the two women weren’t exactly close friends, they weren’t rivals, either.
“Sorry we’re late,” Priscilla said. “He was working,” she said, sighing and sending a pointed look in Dave’s direction. “Give this guy a murder case to work on, and he’s like a dog with a bone-he just can’t let it be.” The sweet smile she sent in Dave’s direction took some of the edge off what might have been considered bitchy criticism. “Now, where’s that mother of yours?” Priscilla asked, looking around the room. “I assume she’s got a handle on being a good loser?”
“See for yourself,” Ali said, pointing to the dance floor, where Bob and Edie Larson were doing a credible job of rocking to Bill Haley and his Comets’ iconic “Rock Around the Clock.”
“I heard there were sweet rolls,” Dave said, glancing hopefully in the direction of the refreshment table.
“Sorry,” Ali said. “They’re gone.”
“All of them? Too bad!” Dave’s disappointment was obvious. As a single guy, he had been a regular customer at the Sugarloaf Cafe and a devoted fan of Edie’s sweet rolls, which the new owners still made according to Edie’s recipe and specifications.
“You snooze, you lose,” Ali said. “All that’s left is coffee and punch and maybe a Girl Scout cookie or two. But what case?” she asked, leading him toward the coffee urns. “I’ve been so buried with election doings that I haven’t paid attention to anything else.”
“It just happened this morning,” Dave said. “So you haven’t missed much. Someone sent a text to 911 about an injured woman found off I-17 near General Crook Trail. By the time we could get to her, she was already dead, and whoever placed the call was long gone, too. No ID on the body, but we found a cell phone; we hoped it would lead us to the victim’s name, but that turned out to be a dead end. The owner of the cell phone is alive and well and living down in Surprise. She claims that her cell phone disappeared overnight sometime last night, so that puts us back to square one on IDing our victim. The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow morning in Prescott. I’d like to know who she is before the ME cuts into her, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Maybe someone will file a missing persons report,” Ali suggested.
Dave nodded. “Let’s hope,” he said.
At one time Ali had been on track to serve as a sworn officer with the Yavapai Sheriff’s Department. After passing a challenging police academy course, she was disappointed when a budget shortfall had caused her to miss the cut. She was officially listed as a reserve officer with the department, although in the months leading up to the election, she had done no shifts. Had Ali been an ordinary civilian, Dave probably wouldn’t have spoken so freely about the difficulties of the new investigation. In listening to him, Ali felt the tiniest twinge of regret-jealousy, almost. Dave Holman was working a case. Ali Reynolds wasn’t.
At the table, Dave snagged the last remaining Thin Mint and a pair of Girl Scout badge-shaped shortbreads. “Missed dinner,” he added, reaching for a coffee cup. “We were out working the crime scene until just before dark, then I had to go into the office.”
Yavapai County covered over eight thousand square miles and was only slightly smaller than the state of New Jersey. The Investigations Unit worked out of the departmental office in Prescott, eighty miles away. That meant that between leaving the crime scene and arriving at the party, Dave had done about 160 miles’ worth of driving. No wonder Dave and Priscilla had arrived at the party late.
“But Priscilla would have had my ears if we hadn’t made it, so here we are.” Dave reached for one of the last remaining shortbreads.
“If she hadn’t, I’m sure my mother would have,” Ali said with a laugh.
“Your mother would have what?” a beaming Edie Larson asked, arriving on the scene with Priscilla and Bob Larson trailing behind her.
Dave grinned at her. “You would have taken off my ears if we hadn’t shown up for the party.”
“That’s right. You don’t get off just stuffing envelopes and ringing doorbells.”
“What are you going to do now?” Dave asked.
“I’m not sure,” Edie said. “I’m exploring my options.”
“What about taking another cruise?” Bob suggested. “What’s that song Mike was playing a little while ago?”
“I suppose you mean ‘If You’ve Got the Money, Honey, I’ve Got the Time’?” Edie responded.
“Exactly,” Bob said, “and since we do have the money, I think we should have as much fun as we can while we can.”
The idea that her father would become a cruise enthusiast was an unintended consequence of Ali’s having sent them on a Caribbean cruise several years earlier. Since then they had chalked up a cruise to Alaska, but Bob had a whole list of cruise possibilities, and he was determined to cross off as many as he could.
With that Bob excused himself to help Mike disassemble his portable dance floor and pack that up, as well as all the DJ equipment. Dave’s cell phone was ringing as he and Priscilla let themselves out. Leaving Edie to say good night to the rest of the departing guests, Ali busied herself helping a handful of campaign volunteers clean up. Chairs and tables had been relocated in order to create room for the dance floor. Those all needed to be returned to their customary positions. By the time Edie said goodbye to the last guest, Ali was carefully moving a half- completed fifteen-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle back to its allotted place.
“Everyone keeps asking me what I’m going to do next,” Edie said. “The problem is, I have no idea.”
Ali gave her mother a sympathetic smile. “Welcome to my world,” she said. “I’ve been grappling with that very question ever since the whole police academy thing blew up in my face. You handled yourself really well tonight, Mom. You did yourself proud under very difficult circumstances.”
Edie nodded. “Thanks. I told myself this morning that win, lose, or draw, I was going to look like I was having fun no matter what. When the returns started coming in and I could see we were falling behind, I told myself, ‘Stiff upper lip and all that.’ The funny thing is, I started out pretending to have fun, but pretty soon I really was having fun. Besides,” she added, “I know your father’s relieved. Bobby’s been a brick about all this, and he never would have voted against me in a million years, but I’m equally sure he would have hated it if I had won.”
“He would have continued to be a brick,” Ali assured her mother, “but I think he’ll be glad to have you all to himself. From what you’re saying, though, I take it you’re not that disappointed that we lost?”
“I don’t suppose I am,” Edie agreed after a pause. “Not really. It was our first time out, and we came really close to unseating an incumbent. That counts for something. And I’m glad I ran. Doing that taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to. Now all I have to do is figure out what that is. Speaking of same, now that you’re out of a job, too, what’s your next step?”
“I’ll have to start thinking about next year’s scholarship nominees, and the symphony has been after me to take charge of next spring’s author luncheon. I’ve been putting them off because I was too busy with the election.”
Edie smiled. “You don’t have that excuse anymore.”
“No, I don’t,” Ali agreed. “I guess I’ll give them a call and see if they’ve gotten someone else to handle it.”
“When does B. get in?” Edie asked.
“He’s due back from Hong Kong tomorrow afternoon.”
“Does he know about the election?” Edie asked.
Ali nodded. “I sent him a text while you were giving your concession speech. He said you gave it the old college try and that he’s proud of us both.”
“We did give it a good try, didn’t we?” Edie said. “We certainly did.”
There was a hint of sorrow in her voice that belied her words, and Ali suspected that her mother was
