prove I’m stable. Told my kids I’d been dating Bernard for a year. We were going to get the license and be engaged long enough for Conrad to lose interest in me and find some other life to ruin. The plan had been working right up until the car accident. Now Elizabeth is back on the fence. She says she believes in personal freedom but doesn’t know if I’m capable of making the best decisions for myself anymore.”
“Wow.” I dropped heavily into the bedside chair. “You did a crap job raising those kids.”
“You’re telling me.”
“So what’re we going to do?”
“
“What?” The printouts of Bernard’s criminal past were burning through my purse. “Bernard is a dunce.”
“Exactly.” She fiddled with a gaudy glass ring on her finger. “Dumb enough to marry me and do everything I say. He’d be my legal guardian, even if my traitor children managed to declare me incompetent. Of course, if Bernard murdered the bobber, it’s all over for me. He’ll go to jail and my kids’ll ship me off to old lady prison. You’ll never see me again.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I said, unwilling to admit how hard my heart had constricted at her words. “I’m sure there’s another way. I’ll talk to Elizabeth.”
“Do what you want as long as you do what you promised: find out who killed the man in the motel. What have you uncovered so far?”
I wrinkled my forehead. “I don’t know any more about that than I did last time I saw you.”
“Have you asked that Glokkmann if she did it? She looks like a bad sort.”
“I’ll talk to her this week.” I was stalling. I knew I should tell Mrs. Berns about Bernard, but I didn’t want to increase her stress right now. I’d have to find a different way to keep her out of the maximum security home so she wouldn’t have to marry him. How’s Freda?”
Mrs. Berns grew serious. “She’s out of ICU, but she’ll be in the hospital a little longer. You should visit her before you go. She doesn’t get many visitors. Her sister and most of her friends are too old to drive.”
“Will do,” I said. I was about to tell her I’d had flowers delivered to Freda’s room on my way up when my attention was arrested by one of the top five most annoying sounds in the world: someone saying “knock knock” rather than actually knocking.
“Anybody home?” And in peeked Tanya Ingebretson, whom I hadn’t seen since the debate, where she’d been the only local besides me. She disliked Mrs. Berns for the same reasons she hated me, so seeing her in the hospital room was puzzling.
Mrs. Berns tilted her bed so she was sitting upright. “Tanya! Thank you so much for coming. I wasn’t sure you would.”
I switched my surprise from Tanya to Mrs. Berns. I’d never heard her so polite in her life. I surreptitiously checked to make sure she wasn’t hiding a morphine drip after all.
She glared at me, but out of sight of Tanya. “Mira, you must know Tanya Ingebretson. She does so much good for Battle Lake.”
“Surely I must,” I said sarcastically, reaching my hand out to Tanya. She slipped a business card into it: “Tanya Ingebretson, Life Coach,” written in swirly girl letters.
“I’m board certified.”
“What board?” I asked. A heady dose of expensive perfume wafted up from the card.
“The Global Life Accreditation Bureau. If you ever want to take charge of your life, give me a call.” She turned her attention to Mrs. Berns. “I have to say I was surprised to receive your message. You of all people! But I suppose it makes sense because who needs more help than those who have fallen the farthest from The Light?”
I could hear the capital letters. And see them on the card I was still holding: Let Her Walk with You to The Light. “Where does one go to school to learn to be a life coach?”
She gave me a brittle smile. She was used to naysayers. “I went to the school of life, honey.”
“Hmm. Maybe I should be a life coach.”
“You can.” She didn’t sound convinced. “You have to practice for two years to be certified, not have any ethical violations, and pass a ten-point life coach multiple-choice test with a score of 70 percent or higher to be board certified.”
She said it like it wasn’t the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. “Mrs. Berns, what’d you call Tanya about?”
Mrs. Berns hid the grin that had been fed by my light bickering with Tanya. “To get my life in order, of course. I’ve made many mistakes”-here Tanya nodded in profound agreement-“and it’s time for changes. I want to live in The Light.”
I rolled my eyes. I was sure that Tanya was in the picture for the same reason as Bernard Mink and the granny pants, but that didn’t make fake Mrs. Berns any easier to swallow. On an up note, however, I was glad she hadn’t put all her buns in the Bernard Mink basket. “I think I’ll visit Freda and leave you two to your business. Call me if you need anything.”
“Of course, Mira,” Mrs. Berns said, in a voice so cultured it made my ears hurt. “And I’d love to treat you to dinner at Stella’s after you drive me home from the hospital on Wednesday. Is that proposition acceptable?”
“Yes, most certainly.” I ducked out as quickly as I could and tracked down Freda. Her bruises colored her as brightly as an Easter egg, and one eye was still swollen shut, but she was thrilled by the company. We shared dinner, me eating a turkey and cheese sandwich that was surprisingly good for hospital food until I remembered it was my first solid food in nearly two days. I must have inhaled it because Freda offered me her applesauce. She tried to be good company but was still in a lot of pain. The doctors had told her they wouldn’t know until the end of the week if she’d be able to walk without help, but her attitude was as sunny as spring. I promised to stop by to visit on Wednesday when I picked up Mrs. Berns.
My next and final stop before reuniting with my beloved bed was the Old Brick Inn to find out if Brad had, in fact, slept with Sarah Glokkmann’s daughter on Saturday night. If he had, their stories didn’t jibe. He’d told me they’d only bumped uglies between sets, but Kennie’d said that Glokkmann’s daughter couldn’t offer her mom an alibi because she was out with a band all night. I wanted to know which version was true.
By the time I arrived at the busy bar, it was past ten o’clock at night and I was so tired that I was hallucinating. I exited the car into a night that was cool enough for a medium jacket and smelled as clean as frost and woodsmoke. A lonely wind rustled through the dried leaves still clinging to trees. It was the perfect weather for curling up in a quilt. I hadn’t slept in my own bed since Friday night, and had logged six total hours of sleep since then. The sandwich seemed to be staying down fine, but my stomach wasn’t yet at 100 percent. I’d make this quick.
It was unusual to find a live band in town playing on a Monday night, so either Brad was correct that Not With My Horse’s Octoberfest gig had increased their following or all the news crews in town didn’t have anything better to do. I certainly didn’t recognize most of the people seated in the darkly-lit main room, but bars tend to create their own small communities, and I’d never frequented this one much. The band had launched into a techno cover of “Delta Dawn” just as I entered. Disappointed that I hadn’t caught them on a break, I squeezed up to the bar and ordered a club soda.
Somebody tapped my arm “You here to see the band?”
I turned, immediately defensive, and then did a double take. The woman who’d addressed me was Grace Swinton, Glokkmann’s handler. “What?” I’d heard her, but I used the noise of the band as a cover to decide what I wanted to ask. I hadn’t planned on running into Glokkmann or a member of her entourage.
She indicated my club soda and raised her voice. “Not many reasons to come to a bar if you’re not going to drink.”
I took a swig. “Just needed to get out of the house. You?”
She appeared thoughtful for a moment, and then held up her drink. It was dark, and I recognized the smell of whiskey, at least a double shot. “Me too. Just needed to get out of the house.”
I considered lying, but up close, she seemed defenseless. The dim lighting colored her hair like mud, and she had worry lines feathering her eyes and mouth. I chose the straight route. “You’re in town with the representative, aren’t you?”
Her eyes flashed and she turned away.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I saw you at the news conference Saturday morning. This must be a stressful time for
