And, if nothing else, he and Diana were finally talking about it. They were dealing with it together-would deal with it together. Somehow that made it less scary as far as Brandon was concerned. They had made it through tough times together before, and they would do so again.
One by one they tried to look the worst-case scenario in the eye, attempting to sort out strategies that would help them navigate whatever was coming and make the best of it. Now that they had decided the Invicta would remain in the family, they also determined that from now on, in case the fog descended again-or, rather, when the fog descended again-Brandon would take charge of all car keys, including locking them away in his gun safe if he deemed that course of action necessary.
Brandon had never tried his hand at golf. He just wasn’t interested in chasing little white balls across grassy lawns and trying to herd them into holes, but he remembered reading somewhere that Alzheimer’s patients who had once played golf were still able to do so long after their other mental faculties seemed to desert them.
For that very reason he was enthusiastic about Diana’s sudden interest in trying her hand at making pottery. It was something that she had enjoyed once in the distant past. He hoped it would help hold her interest now. Since the Invicta would still be occupying its space in the garage, however, one of the bedrooms-most likely the one that had been Davy’s-would be turned into Diana’s pottery studio.
And if they needed more help around the house-both of them carefully avoided saying the word “attendant”- maybe Lani could help them find someone from the reservation who would be willing to come live in and be there to help out out as necessary.
As they talked, the miles seemed to melt away. Today, as Brandon drove into Geet and Sue Farrell’s neighborhood, it didn’t look quite as grim as it had appeared to him on the previous day. Yes, the trim on the house still needed scraping and painting and the thirsty palm trees were still wilting in the heat, but it wasn’t as distressing as it had seemed yesterday.
The day before when he had noticed the wheelchair-accessible van parked in their driveway, he had taken that as a sign of defeat. Today, that same van with its handicapped-parking placard spoke to him in a different way. It was one of the tools Sue and Geet were using to get along-had used to get along. Brandon doubted Geet would be up to taking many more trips away from his living room hospital equipment and oxygen mask, but the van was part of how he and Sue had coped so far. It was how they had made it to here.
And we’ll make it, too, Brandon thought.
He pulled into the driveway and parked next to the van. “Do you want me to wait in the car?” Diana asked.
“No,” he said. “It’s too hot. Come on in. You can talk to Sue while I visit with Geet. She needs company, too.”
When the time comes, so will I, he thought.
He led Diana around the house to the back-door entrance and knocked. When Sue answered she looked marginally better than she had the day before. The haircut helped, but she also looked better rested.
“Back so soon?” she asked.
Brandon nodded. It seemed odd to him that he and Geet had been friends for years, but until this moment their wives had never met. Once the necessary introductions were out of the way, Brandon left Diana in the kitchen with Sue while he made his way back into the living room. This time he was better equipped to deal with the hospice equipment he saw there. Sue’s tangle of sheets still covered the sofa, but now a kitchen chair had been drawn up close to the bed.
Geet himself lay propped up in his hospital bed with his closed eyes turned toward a muted television set where the Padres were playing the Diamondbacks. It seemed to Brandon that in those few intervening hours the man had wasted away that much more. The skin on the gaunt bones of his face was gray. His lips were almost white. Death was coming and it was coming soon. Brandon knew what this looked like. He had seen the same thing in the hospital room where they had taken his father.
Geet’s eyes blinked open without warning. He studied Brandon for a moment as if unsure of who he was. Then he grinned-at least it looked like a grin.
“Hey,” he said. “Weren’t you just here, or do I have you mixed up with someone else?”
“I was here,” Brandon said. “Yesterday. You handed over that case file.”
“Ursula’s,” he said.
“Yes,” Brandon agreed. “Ursula’s.”
Geet stirred. Cancer had robbed him of almost everything, but for a few moments the old intensity burned through. His eyes focused. He paid attention. “Did you talk to her-to the witness?”
“To June Holmes?” Brandon returned. “Yes, I did.”
“Why wouldn’t she talk to me before this?” Geet asked. “Why now?”
“Because her husband was still alive,” Brandon explained. “She didn’t send you that note until after Fred Holmes died.”
“Why?” Geet asked. “What does that have to do with the price of peanuts?”
“She claims Fred was the one who did it-the one who murdered Ursula Brinker. She said she didn’t know about it until five years ago. When Fred finally got around to telling her, he had just been diagnosed with cancer. She waited until after he was dead to send you that letter.”
“But I checked Fred Holmes’s alibi,” Geet objected. “I had witnesses who placed him in Phoenix that whole weekend.”
Brandon was struck by the fact that even after all these years and even in the throes of cancer, Geet still had a complete grasp of the details of that case. He had no difficulty recalling the names of the people involved.
For him it’s like golf, Brandon thought. Or throwing pots.
“The alibi came from his mother?” Brandon asked.
“Yes.”
“She may have thought he was there, but he wasn’t. He drove to San Diego and back without his mother ever knowing he was gone.”
“Why did it happen?” Geet asked.
“Ursula and June started out as friends. On that trip they evidently became closer than friends.”
“As in a homosexual encounter?”
Brandon knew Geet had suspected as much. He nodded. “Someone walked in on them and caught them in the act. Word about what had happened got back to Fred. According to June, it was just a onetime thing. Maybe it was; maybe it wasn’t. At any rate, this was a long time before Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. Fred and June had both been raised as devout Mormons where that kind of thing was then and still is a big no-no. When Fred heard about it, he went ape and drove straight to San Diego to put a stop to it. Ursula ended up dead.”
“Who spilled the beans and told him about what was going on?”
“June said she thought maybe it was Margo.”
“The girl who owned the car.”
Brandon nodded.
Geet thought about that for a moment. “A couple of people hinted around that something like that might have happened between Ursula and June. I wondered about Fred from the beginning, but as far as I could tell, his alibi checked out. What if she’s lying?”
“What if June Holmes is lying now?” Brandon asked.
Geet nodded. “What if June was the one who ran up the flag to Fred in the first place?” he asked. “Maybe she knew he was likely to overreact?”
“I don’t think so,” Brandon said. “I don’t think she told Fred about what happened before Ursula died, but she did shortly after it happened. She thought that when she made her confession to him that he’d drop her like a hot potato. She’s spent most of the last fifty years being grateful that he didn’t. When he finally got around to telling her what had really happened, he was counting on her standing by him the same way he had stood by her. He figured those forty-five years of gratitude would keep her from spilling the beans. It was also a form of punishment.”
“Sounds like it worked on both counts,” Geet grumbled.
Brandon nodded. “She didn’t say a word to anyone about it until after he was dead. By the time you reopened the case, Fred had already confessed to her. That’s why she refused to talk to you. She didn’t want her kids and grandkids to know what Fred had done. And she didn’t want them to know about what she and Ursula had done, either.”
