High Country Fall

didn’t he notice?”

“Because Sunny didn’t give him a chance.” I described to Dwight how Sunny Osborne suddenly—conveniently —became menopausal and had everyone convinced that she was so wigged out that she couldn’t stand to have Norman out of her sight. “She was driving Bobby and Joyce nuts with all her questions and writing things down and making them explain. Those questions weren’t for her own benefit, though, they were for his. She was turning herself into his backup memory. Just last night, Joyce said Bobby was getting fed up with the way Norman couldn’t seem to concentrate because of Sunny’s distractions. It was her distractions that covered up his growing inability to concentrate.”

“So when Ledwig found out about the merger, he would’ve tried to get Osborne to pull out before the Ashes got burned.”

“And they would have been burned bad. If it’s a standard policy, the partnership insurance they had on each other wouldn’t pay out for debilitating conditions, only for death. The Ashes would have had to front the buyout of his share of the partnership from their own pockets or else keep paying him a big part of their annual take as long as he lived. That could’ve been years. Osborne must have figured that this was the best way to protect what he’d acquired and secure his and Sunny’s future at the same time, a future that was nothing but a long and expensive descent into total senility.”

“Alzheimer’s?” asked Dwight.

“Or dementia.”

I spoke from experience, the experience of dealing with distraught adult children who came to me to seek a power of attorney for a parent when I was in private practice. Often, the parent seemed as clearheaded as ever. He could speak cogently about the running of his businesses down to the smallest detail. Then I’d ask him what year was it? Who was president? What did he have for breakfast? And he’d look at me blankly.

“I think that Ledwig threatened to tell the Ashes. I think Sunny went over there that day to try to persuade him to keep quiet for just two more days, and when he refused—”

“And he would refuse,” George said grimly, as if remembering his wife’s uncle.

“—then she smashed him with his own hammer and pushed him over the side.”

“But when did she kill Osborne?” asked George. “Everybody says— Hell! You said it yourself. She was playing her dulcimer right beside you when he went missing.”

Again I shook my head. “She could never have hurt him.”

“But—?”

“What you said before, bo,” said Dwight, who sometimes knows the way my mind works. “This Bobby guy. He wasn’t born yesterday.”

“The last time I noticed Norman Osborne,” I said, “he was standing at the bar talking to Bobby Ashe. He probably said something that gave the game away and all the pieces dropped into place for Bobby, just as they did for me, only in Bobby’s case, he was looking at probably two or three million out of pocket. It was a case of ‘If it were done, ’twere well it were done quickly.’”

“Huh?” George flicked a puzzled look at Dwight, who shrugged.

“Sorry. My former law partner used to quote Shakespeare all the time. Bobby must have realized he couldn’t afford to let Osborne’s condition become general knowledge or he’d be the first suspect in any murder case.”

“So he carpayed the damn diem.”

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” I said.

CHAPTER 32

Although I had been on an adrenaline high, the margarita brought me down to earth with a bang and suddenly all I wanted was to go to sleep.

“C’mon, shug,” Dwight said when my head drooped against his shoulder. “Time you got to bed.”

“My laptop,” I said. “My guitar.”

“In my car,” said George.

Dwight paid the bill and we walked out together. Every inch of my body hurt and I was so weary that my brain seemed to be fogging over.

“He won’t confess, you know,” I told George as Dwight took my things and stowed them in his truck. “And there’s no hard evidence.”

“Worry about that tomorrow,” Dwight said. He shook George’s hand with great ceremony. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Anytime,” George said, giving Dwight’s shoulder a pat.

Men are sweet the way they bond.

I managed to direct Dwight back to the condo. The twins weren’t due in for another half-hour and he helped me to the bedroom, where he eased my clothes off my sore body. It felt so good to lie down.

“Thank you for coming,” I said formally and then I was gone.

Sometime later—it could have been five minutes, it could have been an hour—I felt a cool ice pack against my temple, but I couldn’t make my eyes open.

When I awoke in the early dawn hours, Dwight was not there beside me. In fact, he hadn’t been there at all. I sat up and was so stiff and achy that it was a true act of will to get out of bed. The doors to both bedrooms were closed. Out in the living room, there was enough light to see that the couch had been opened into a bed and Dwight was there sound asleep. I watched him for several long minutes, filled with turmoil and feeling strangely unsettled by the steady rise and fall of his breathing. Then I turned and went back to bed.

When next I woke, it was to a drizzly gray day. I looked out the window and the horizon was gone, whited out