unpaid housekeeper. I spend most of my time in the master, while I count the days until they leave for school next September. Once they do, they’ll be fully qualified to live in any frat house on the planet. Then I’ll be able to muck the place out and have a life again.”
Ali looked around what could best be categorized as an upscale pigsty and compared it to Sylvia Sanders’s far more humble but compulsively neat living room. Ali suspected the same would be true for Valerie’s twins-that they wouldn’t compare very favorably with Sylvia’s son, A.J.
“You’re here to talk about Gemma?” Valerie asked. She had perched herself on one arm of the sofa in a none too subtle hint that she didn’t expect Ali to stay long.
“Yes,” Ali said. “I’m a freelancer doing a research project on the investigation into Gemma’s homicide.” That little white lie was getting easier to say every time she repeated it.
“I’ve already told the cops everything I know,” Valerie said. “Couldn’t you talk to them?”
“I’m sorry for the loss of your friend, but I’d rather talk to you,” Ali said placatingly.
“All right,” Valerie said, giving in. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about Tuesday. I understand you’re the person who reported Gemma Ralston missing.”
Valerie nodded. Her eyes misted over briefly, then she shrugged off the sadness in the same determined way she had shifted the stack of clothing from the couch to the floor, as though she didn’t have either the time or energy to give way to an overly emotional response. “When Gemma didn’t show up for our tennis date and didn’t answer my calls, I went to her place to check on her. She wasn’t there, but her stuff was-her purse, keys, and car. The front door was unlocked and open. I called the cops. They took over from there. End of story.”
“You’ve been friends a long time?”
“Since college,” Valerie replied. “Gemma, Molly, and I ended up as roommates our freshman year at ASU. I was dirt-poor. Gemma’s parents were gone; she had been raised by her grandparents. They had a fair amount of money. Molly’s family was absolutely loaded but judgmental. In spades. Since Molly was at odds with her family most of the time, she dragged Gemma and me along to family get-togethers and used us as human shields to keep her parents off her back. That’s how we ended up at a Christmas party at their house our freshman year, when Chip came home for the holidays.
“Gemma had told us at the beginning of the year that she was going to find a good-looking guy who was going to be a doctor, preferably a surgeon, to marry. We thought she was kidding. Molly had told Gemma that her brother was doing premed at USC, but she didn’t pay much attention. That changed as soon as Gemma saw Chip in the flesh. Once that happened, it was like she flipped a switch and turned into a heat-seeking missile. After that, no matter how long it took to land him, Chip Ralston was the only guy she was interested in. She never dated anyone else.”
“Until after her divorce,” Ali offered.
Valerie waggled her hand up and down as if to say maybe not quite until after. “Their marriage lasted for fifteen years,” she said. “Mine, too.”
“What happened?” Ali asked.
“To my marriage?” Valerie asked. “My husband-now ex-had a midlife crisis and an affair. Brad and his new wife have a two-year-old now. You can imagine how thrilled my twins are about that!”
“What about Chip and Gemma’s marriage?”
“Chip had his midlife crisis early on, while he was in the last year of his residency. From the time Chip and Gemma started dating, she told everyone who would listen that Chip was going to be a world-famous surgeon someday, just like his dad. Gemma believed it. Chip’s mother believed it. I think his father believed it, too. The only problem was Chip didn’t believe it, and it never happened.
“During his residency, one of the patients under Chip’s care died. I don’t know all the gory details. It’s one of those things people don’t talk about, and it’s not polite to ask. Gemma told me it was some kind of routine surgery that went terribly wrong, where the guy shouldn’t have died but did, and it was held to be Chip’s fault. After that, Chip walked away from surgery and never looked back. Pissed Gemma off, too, I can tell you.” Warming to the conversation, Valerie had dropped from the arm of the sofa and settled on the seat. “What else do you want to know?”
“How long were they married?”
“Like I said,” Valerie answered, “fifteen years, give or take.”
“Do you know why it ended?”
“A bad case of terminal boredom, I suppose,” Valerie said. “At least on Gemma’s part. She told me that being married to Chip was like being married to an Eagle Scout. From my point of view, the big advantage of being married to an Eagle Scout is maybe you don’t have to worry about picking up an STD.”
That rueful remark told Ali way too much about the end of Valerie Sloan’s own marriage.
“Gemma spent years waiting for him to get through medical school. Because the surgeon thing turned out so badly, I think she always felt like she’d been sold a bill of goods-as though Chip never lived up to his end of the bargain. I think Chip’s parents were disappointed, too. The thing is, disgruntled parents don’t get to divorce their kids the way disgruntled wives get to shed husbands and vice versa. When Chip got into financial trouble, Gemma didn’t see any point in hanging around. She bailed.”
“What kind of financial trouble?” Ali asked.
“Chip made some bad investments along the way. Bought more houses than he could afford, and just before the bubble burst. Bought high and had to sell low. He’s still trying to sell some of them. When the downturn came, his retirement accounts dropped like rocks, too. Gemma could see that she needed to get out while there was something left to take. Once she was gone, Chip had to go back home to live. Doris was already sick by then, but I don’t think anyone knew how bad it was, and her condition has worsened since then.”
“Given Chip Ralston’s expertise, I don’t understand why the full burden of their mother’s care falls on Molly.”
“Because that’s the way Dr. Ralston-the elder Dr. Ralston-wanted it,” Valerie answered. “Turns out it’s the way Molly wants it, too. Given her history with her parents, I was a little surprised that her father gave her a durable medical power of attorney, but he did. And that’s why, once he was gone, Molly took over as Doris’s caregiver on a twenty-four/seven basis.”
“From what you’ve said, I take it Molly has a history of troubled relations with her parents?”
Valerie nodded. “Chip wasn’t the only kid who disappointed the Ralstons, although Molly went off the rails a lot earlier than Chip did. She was the wild one in the family-the rebel, the one who got bad grades and partied way too much.”
“What do you mean, partied?” Ali asked.
“What do you think I mean? Booze and drugs. She managed to get accepted to ASU, but by the end of our freshman year, she was on academic probation. She dropped out after the first semester of our sophomore year and eloped with her then-boyfriend, who by that time was a senior at NAU up in Flagstaff. For years after that, Molly was completely estranged from her parents. They didn’t see her for several years and probably wouldn’t have for a lot longer than that if Gemma hadn’t insisted that she come home and be in the wedding.
“Molly’s first marriage lasted five years. Number two less than that. She’s still married to number three, a guy named Barry Handraker. He’s currently an out-of-work pharmacist in Minneapolis. Their marriage was on the rocks when she came home for her father’s funeral, and she didn’t bother going back. She stayed on to help with her mother.”
“So during the time Molly was off living her life and running through less than wonderful husbands, Doris was busy turning all her motherly focus on Gemma.”
Valerie nodded. “Gemma and Doris were always birds of a feather, almost from day one. I’m sure all of Doris’s constant harping about Gemma is tough on Molly; hurts her feelings. I know I’d probably resent the hell out of it if my mother decided she liked my brother’s wife better than she liked me. But what can Molly do? I can understand why she’s resigned to her fate. She’s dead broke. If she weren’t staying with Doris Ralston and looking after her, she wouldn’t even have a roof over her head.”
“She and her husband lost their house?” Ali asked.
Valerie nodded. “Foreclosure.”
“They’re not divorced?” Ali asked.
“Molly’s emotionally stuck,” Valerie said. “That’s one of the things Gemma and I were trying to encourage her to do-cut her losses and dump the guy while she still has her looks and a chance of hooking up with somebody
