Ames shook his head gravely. 'I haven't had a chance. I've been too busy. She's back in custody, of course, although so far she's just here in the hospital under guard. Fraymore tells me she's claiming amnesia. Says she doesn't remember anything at all from the time she was in her room getting ready to go to work until she woke up in the hospital.'
'How very convenient,' I said, making no attempt to mute the full effect of my intended sarcasm.
'At the moment, Alex is still looking after Amber, but that will probably change. I expect the state will step in any minute. Since we've found no responsible relatives to designate as guardians, it will be out of our hands.'
Maybe Ames was hoping I'd come up with some bright suggestion to the contrary. Admittedly, Amber was a cute kid, a great kid, and I personally have very little faith in the ability of the state-any state-to step in and provide even the most rudimentary of parenting. But I had reached the end of my rope when it came to trying to save the whole damn world. If Amber Dunseth was destined to become a ward of the state, so be it.
The longer I kept quiet, the more aware I was that Ames' eyes were watching me closely, searching my face. 'What's going on, Beau?' he asked finally. 'What's really going on?'
Isn't that what friends are for? I broke down and spilled my guts, told Ralph what I hadn't been able to tell Gordon Fraymore, about asking Guy Lewis to make that fatal call.
'So you're blaming yourself?' Ralph asked when I finished.
'Wouldn't you?'
'Guy Lewis did make the call,' Ames replied slowly. 'If he hadn't, the fire crews wouldn't have responded nearly as fast as they did. Had that fire escaped the house itself, it could have gone for miles, exploded into an ecological disaster.'
'What are you saying?'
Ralph Ames shrugged. 'Guy Lewis died a hero, Beau. Let it go at that.'
That's one of the things I like about Ralph. He's pretty damn perceptive, and he hadn't even talked to Guy Lewis the way I had. Maybe the king of chemical toilets, that brokenhearted court jester with his murdered trophy wife, was indeed glad to die a hero's death and be done with it.
Down the hall, a bustling nurse emerged from Kelly's room carrying an armful of pink that she toted back to the nursery. With baby-feeding done for the time being, I could go into the room to see my daughter-a daughter who was, surprisingly enough, also a mother.
When I stood up and tried to walk, my heel spurs raged at me. I should have thought to ask the doctor for some anti-inflammatories, but I had forgotten, and by then it was too late. 'I'm going to visit with Kelly for a few minutes,' I said, limping away.
Ralph nodded and waved. 'Sure,' he said. 'Go ahead. I'll wait here and take you back home when you finish.' He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. 'You could use a shower.'
Kelly had heard all about the fire and knew about the cut on my face as well. Relieved to see me, she looked altogether better. 'My doctor says I'll probably be able to go home day after tomorrow. After what happened today, with the fire and everything, I didn't see how I could. But Jeremy says Mr. Ames has already found us another place to live. He's pretty wonderful, isn't he?'
'Who's wonderful, Jeremy or Ralph Ames?'
Kelly looked at me and smiled. 'Both, actually,' she said.
I knew then that looks weren't deceiving. She really was getting better.
We didn't talk long, just enough to touch base, for each of us to assure the other that we were both all right. Then I went back out, and Ralph Ames gave me a ride to Oak Hill B amp; B. A somewhat familiar-looking Lincoln Town Car was pulled up next to the house.
'Isn't that the same one Dave and Karen used?' I asked.
Ralph shrugged. 'Could be,' he said. 'I don't know how many Lincolns they have at the airport in Medford, but it's probably not an unlimited number.'
A man from Budget was waiting for me to sign off on the paperwork on the car. Afterward, he and Ralph left together. Alex stood in line until I finished up with the car-rental business before she had her crack at me.
Women are funny that way. When something bad happens, they can't seem to decide whether to hug your neck because they're glad to see you or chew your ass because you're a stupid jerk who never should have pulled such a dumb stunt in the first place. She took the ass-chewing option, but it was probably the nicest bawling-out I've ever had.
When it was time for me to go take my bath, Alex disappeared into the kitchen to finish feeding Amber. I didn't want to talk about Amber or what was going to happen to the child within the next day or two. Some things are better left unsaid.
Out of habit, I undressed the same way I always do-emptying my pockets one by one onto the dresser and bedside table. The last thing I took out were the faxes from Ron Peters that I'd been carrying around with me all day long.
I filled the tub as full as I dared and dumped in a handful of bath gel. I felt a little silly crawling into a tub full of bubbles, but silly gave way to luxury as the hot-water soak relaxed the muscles I'd strained and pulled trying to drag Guy Lewis and Tanya Dunseth out of harm's way. In the end, I lay there with my eyes closed, enjoying every moment of it. Finally, though, when my skin was wrinkled and shriveled and when the water grew too tepid, I climbed out and toweled myself dry.
Then, with the towel still draped around me, I sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the faxes. My intention was simply to glance through them. Before I came upstairs, Alex had made it clear that she was still holding me to the promised dinner. She had even located a substitute baby-sitter. At that point, I didn't have a thought in my head of standing her up.
Ron Peters had said he was sending ten or twelve pages. In actual fact, there were eleven. Seven of them were strictly text, with several articles from various sources pasted together on the same page. Because of the nature of fax machines, particularly gray-scale resolution, the reproduction on the four photos wasn't high quality. The print in the various articles and in the captions under the photos was legible enough, but the pictures themselves were primarily unrecognizable blobs of light and dark.
So I settled for scanning the articles and reading the captions on the pictures-Daphne and Guy Lewis at a benefit for the Bagley Wright Theater, Daphne and Guy picking up the keys to the Bentley, and Guy mugging with actors from the Rep at some special event for Children's Hospital. The last picture in the batch was of Margaret Lewis at a Humane Society auction holding a puppy named Sunshine, the high-priced golden Lab she had just adopted.
My eyes stopped moving. So did my brain. Sunshine? The caption said 'Sunshine'! I read it again, and the name hit me like a swift slap in the face! Another dog named Sunshine? Or could this be the same Sunshine I knew-the cataract-blinded, stiff old dog who formerly held sway on Marjorie Connors' front porch? If so, what the hell was she doing in a newspaper photo with Maggie Lewis?
I held the paper up to the bedside lamp and tried to squint some details into the fax-generated globs of light and dark. The woman in the picture was very heavyset and wearing a dark-colored dress, probably an evening dress of some kind, but there was no way to discern a single detail about the woman herself. The specific features of her face had been scrubbed away by a technology that allows for amazing speed at the expense of detail. The puppy was a vaguely dog-shaped blob superimposed on the much darker surface of the woman's clothing.
A wave of gooseflesh ran down my leg. If Sunshine was Live Oak Farm's Sunshine, then was Marjorie Connors also Maggie Lewis? For the second time that day, I felt as if I couldn't quite gather a lungful of air. This time the disability had nothing to do with liquid-propane gas displacing oxygen.
Dropping the towel, I scrambled into my skivvies, pants, socks, and shoes. I was still buttoning my shirt as I scurried downstairs. I raced into the family room and commandeered Florence's telephone and phone book both. Luckily, Ashland is a small town. In Seattle, homicide cops can't afford to have listed telephone numbers. In Ashland they do.
Gordon Fraymore's wife answered the phone and made it quite clear that she didn't appreciate having her husband called away from his evening meal, especially on his day off.
'What's up?' Fraymore asked, when he learned who I was.
'How well do you know Marjorie Connors?'
'Some,' he said guardedly. 'Why?'
'I think you'd better come over here right away,' I said. 'I believe we have a problem.'
