years. They’re not. The best years were when the kids were little and there was a lifetime of those golden possibilities ahead for Fitz and me. Things to do, places to go, young bodies and young muscles to go and do with. No arthritis, no daily pills, life stretching out endlessly before us.” She finished her vodka collins in two swallows. “No, these sure as hell are
Michael breezed over about then. “Everything all right here?” he asked cheerily.
Martha held up her empty glass. “Another one of these, please.”
They both glanced at my wineglass. It was still half full.
“I’m driving,” I said.
When we finished eating and the bill came, Martha insisted on paying.
“Then I’ll leave the tip,” I said.
I opened my wallet to fish out some bills and a small slip of paper floated to the floor. It was the ATM receipt.
Martha saw me frown and asked, “Something wrong, sugar?”
“Not really,” I answered.
What I had remembered could wait. No point in wrecking Chelsea Ann’s evening by calling Detective Edwards in the middle of their supper cruise, and it probably wasn’t important anyhow.
CHAPTER
26
At the hospital, I went back in with Martha on the off chance that Fitz was wide awake and I could ask him about who he’d seen Saturday night.
He wasn’t. But his doctor had been by and had, as the nurse predicted, told Chad that he was much encouraged by the slight improvement in Fitz’s vital signs.
Reid was there in the ICU waiting room with Chad and a couple of Fitz’s colleagues from the district who had known Chad since he was a teenager, when his father first came on the bench.
While Martha immediately went in to see Fitz, Chad said, “I asked the doctor if there was any chance that Dad would remember what happened to him.” A law professor at USC, he had naturally been very interested in learning that Fitz had probably been targeted because he could have named Kyle Armstrong as the last person to see Jeffreys alive. “He won’t remember the accident itself, of course.”
“No,” I agreed. “It all happened so fast and besides, he had his back to the car. He never saw it coming. What about earlier, though?”
“Very iffy, according to the doctor. He might remember everything up to the moment of impact or he might not remember anything past last month.” He gave an unhappy palms-up shrug. “Or for the last ten years for that matter, but I don’t want Mom worrying about that possibility till he’s conscious and we can know for sure where we stand.”
I walked out of the hospital with Reid. The trial lawyers’ conference had ended that afternoon and he was on his way back to Dobbs. It was still early, however, and he was in no particular hurry. There was no one waiting for him at the moment.
“There’s a place down on the river. Why don’t I buy you a drink before I hit the road?”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll follow you.”
I’m not particularly squeamish, but I admit I had a moment’s hesitation when Reid pulled into the parking lot where Pete Jeffreys had been killed Saturday night. I did park right at the front, though, instead of following Reid to the far end under the mulberry trees. Nor did I look for signs of police activity when we passed the spot on the riverbank where I had found the body.
Small tables were scattered around the rear entrance to a bar a hundred feet or so further up the Riverwalk from Jonah’s. A live jazz piano was playing inside and the mellow notes spilled out to the half dozen people who were there to enjoy the music and the soft evening air. Small boats passed back and forth on the river and we could see the lights of an oil tanker moored upriver across the way. The moon had not yet cleared the roofline of the buildings on our side of the river, but it already illuminated the marshy opposite bank where dilapidated pilings marked a line of once-busy piers. Downriver, more lights crossed the high arching bridge. A funky aroma rose from the water itself, a combination of tidal flats, mud, and decaying vegetation, a yeasty summer smell that almost made me want to wade out and set some crab pots.
I sighed and settled happily into a roomy wicker chair and when someone came out to take our order, I said, “Regular coffee, please. No cream or sugar.”
“Really?” asked Reid.
“Really.”
“Well, in that case…” He smiled up at the waitress. “I don’t suppose you have desserts?”
“Just pie. Pecan and key lime.”
“Deborah?”
“Not for me.”
