license.”
“Has something happened to Abby?” Mildred asked. “Yes, I know she put my name on her license, and she’s on mine, but that was back before she got married. The person you’ll need to contact now is her husband, Jack.”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Brian said. “Abigail Tennant is deceased and so is her husband. We’re attempting to notify Mrs. Tennant’s next of kin. We also need someone who can give us a positive ID.”
Mildred had returned to the door barefoot and carrying a porcelain coffee mug in one hand. That crashed to the floor, splattering coffee and pieces of broken cup in every direction.
“Dead?” she gasped, looking at Brian in horror, all the while backing away from the doorway. “Abby’s dead? That’s impossible! You can’t be serious!”
“I’m afraid I’m very serious, ma’am,” Brian said.
Mildred Harrison hadn’t invited him into her home, but when she wobbled and looked as if she was in danger of falling, he stepped over the threshold uninvited, took her by the arm, and led her to a nearby sofa.
“This is terrible,” she moaned. “I can’t believe it! I just can’t!”
As she rocked from side to side in a combination of shock and disbelief, Brian made himself useful. Returning to the open doorway, he began collecting pieces of broken mug. Once he had most of those in hand, he walked as far as the kitchen, where he located a trash can under the sink and a roll of paper towels on the counter. He returned to the living room carrying both of those and started mopping up spilled coffee.
“Thank you so much,” Mildred said, dabbing at her eyes. “You shouldn’t have to clean up my mess.”
“It’s not a problem, ma’am,” he said. “I don’t mind doing it at all, but I would appreciate your help.”
“Of course,” she said. “Whatever you need.”
“As I said, we’re attempting to do next-of-kin notifications. Does Abby Tennant have any near relations living around here?”
“No. Her son lives in California somewhere-I’m not sure where. His name is Jonathan, Jonathan Southard. I’ve never met the man, but he must have a screw loose somewhere. He somehow got it into his head that his mother was the cause of his parents’ divorce, even though his dad had taken up with another woman long before the divorce was filed. Jonathan blamed everything on Abby and hasn’t spoken to her in years. It broke her heart, I can tell you that much.”
“What about her ex-husband?”
“His name is Hank, Hank Southard. As far as I know, he still lives in Ohio. But tell me. What happened to them? Was it a car wreck, or what?”
Brian shook his head. “There was a shooting overnight…”
“Oh, my!” Mildred exclaimed. “Don’t tell me! Is this about those four people out on the reservation? That story was just on the news a few moments ago, but I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that it was someone I knew.”
“Yes,” Brian said. “That’s where it happened. Out on the reservation.”
“Who did it? Drug smugglers? Usually when people around here get killed like that, you can bet it has something to do with the drug trade, although why they’d go after Jack and Abby I can’t imagine. Abby barely uses aspirin, and I can’t see Jack shooting back. I never heard of him carrying a weapon of any kind. And why drug smugglers would go around doing that kind of thing with a baby in the car! That’s more than I can fathom.”
“What baby?” Brian asked.
“That’s what the reporter on the news said-that four people had been gunned down and that the only survivor of the incident was some poor little girl who had been transported to the hospital in Sells. I believe he said she was something like four years old.”
Great, Brian thought grimly.
He had wanted to keep Angelina Enos’s presence at the crime scene out of the public eye in order to keep her from being targeted. Obviously he had been overruled by someone higher up the food chain.
“When’s the last time you saw Mr. and Mrs. Tennant?” Brian asked.
“I talked to Abby yesterday afternoon,” Mildred said. “She had just come back from having her hair and nails done. I thought for sure she’d be coming to the party at the park last night, but she told me that she and Jack had made other plans.”
“What party?” Brian asked.
“The Queen of the Night party at Tohono Chul. It only happens once a year. Abby Tennant has been in charge of that event for years. She was supposed to be this year, too, but she backed out at the last minute. She told me she had an unexpected conflict and she was overbooked.”
In a homicide investigation, Brian understood that it’s important to know everything about the victims, including any last-minute sudden changes of plans.
“Why did she back out?” Brian asked.
“It was their anniversary,” Mildred explained. “She and Jack met at the Queen of the Night party five years ago. According to Abby, Jack had come up with some out-of-this-world ‘big surprise’ for their celebration and Abby went along with it. Men are like that, you know,” she added. “When one of them comes up with some tomfool idea, it’s better not to make a fuss.”
“But Jack didn’t say anything to you about what he had in mind?”
“No. Not a word. All I know is it was supposed to be a big surprise. I think Abby thought he was taking her out for a nice dinner. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I had seen him loading all kinds of stuff in his car-a folding table, chairs, a picnic hamper, and a cooler. You don’t need a cooler to take someone out to a nice restaurant for dinner. If my husband had ever pulled a stunt like that, I don’t know what I would have done. When a woman goes to the trouble of having her hair and nails done, she doesn’t want to be dragged off to somebody’s godforsaken picnic.”
Brian had a pretty clear idea that an outdoor picnic wasn’t all Jack Tennant had had in mind. Before Law and Order arrived, Brian and Dan Pardee had followed the trail of footprints and the luminarias to that humongous night-blooming cereus. It occurred to Brian that Jack Tennant had gone to a lot of trouble to honor his anniversary by creating his very own Queen of the Night party. Brian was sure it had been a spectacular surprise, but that was before it turned into a massacre.
“Other than Jack Tennant loading stuff in the car, did you see anything else out of the ordinary?”
Using the arm of the sofa for support, Mildred Harrison hauled herself upright and then tottered over to a picture window that looked out on the street. In front of the window was an easy chair along with a small table. On it sat a pair of binoculars and a notebook.
She picked up the notebook, opened it, and brought it back to Brian, who had taken a seat on the couch.
“We had some break-ins around here a year or so ago and kids rummaging through mailboxes,” she explained. “So we started a neighborhood block watch program. I went out last night to the party at Tohono Chul, but most of the time I’m right here at home, so I volunteered to serve as block captain, and I do keep watch.”
Brian looked down at the open notebook, its lines covered in an old-fashioned spidery script. The writing was so shaky that it was almost illegible.
“Check out the last two pages,” Mildred advised. “The last entry is for yesterday, and the one before that is for the day before. See it there? I saw the same vehicle two days in a row-a light gray minivan with California plates- and I made a note of it each time.”
“Make and model?” Brian asked.
Mildred shook her head. “I have no idea. These days all those minivans look alike to me, but all the same, you can see I took down the plate information, just to be on the safe side. I did that because I hadn’t heard that anyone on the street was expecting company, not in the middle of the summer. Sure, out-of-towners come to visit in droves in January, February, and March, but most Californians have better sense than to show up in Tucson in June or July.”
“This may or may not be related,” Brian said, “but did you happen to get a glimpse of whoever was inside?”
“Both times I saw the vehicle, there was just one person in it-the driver.”
“Man or woman?”
“Definitely a man.”
“Race?” Brian asked.
“White, I’m sure. He was going bald, so probably middle-aged. He wore glasses-well, sunglasses,
