“If Gemma’s dead, maybe Lynn is, too. The killer always turns out to be the ex-husband or the ex-wife. What if Chip turns out to be a serial killer masquerading as a good-guy doctor? It wouldn’t be the first time Lynn got involved with someone who wasn’t what he professed to be. My first thought was that if Chip did it and Lynn found out about it, maybe he took her out, too.”
“I believe the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department is investigating that homicide,” Ali said. “If you have any pertinent information, you should be in touch with the local investigators. Did you try contacting them?”
Beatrice shook her head. “That’s what Brenda said I should do, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. That’s when she suggested I contact you. She said that with your connections to the Sheriff’s Department here, maybe you could do that for me.”
That was the moment when B. chose to make his entrance, carrying a tray loaded with coffee, as well as a collection of Ali’s Royal Limoges china-cups and saucers, along with a matching sugar bowl and creamer. “Do what?” he asked.
“This is Beatrice Hart,” Ali said quickly, “and this is B. Simpson, my partner.”
The word “partner” was out of Ali’s mouth before she had a chance to reconsider. In a discussion centering on Lynn Martinson’s less than stellar choice of boyfriends, that word had been devalued enough that Ali was reluctant to use it in reference to B. She could tell by the small smile creasing the corners of his mouth as he set down the tray that her use of the word hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Ali said to B., “Ms. Hart’s daughter, Lynn, may be involved in some fashion with one of the cases Dave Holman is currently working on. Would you mind looking after her while I try to reach Dave?”
“Of course,” B. said smoothly as Ali made her exit. “Cream and sugar?”
By the time Beatrice answered, Ali was already through the swinging doors into the kitchen and pulling her phone from her pocket. She found Dave Holman’s cell phone number, still in her favorites file, and dialed it.
“Hey, Dave,” she said when the call switched over to voice mail. “Give me a call when you have a minute. I have someone here at the house who would like to speak to you about the Gemma Ralston case.”
Going back through the swinging doors, she crashed into B. coming the other way. “How’d it go?” he asked.
Ali shook her head. “Dave didn’t answer. I left a message. What are you doing?”
“I think our guest needs food more than she needs coffee. Your ‘partner’ offered to heat up a bowl of stew, which she gratefully accepted. Thank you for that, by the way,” he added. “I consider ‘partner’ to be a big step up.”
“We’ll see about your signing bonus later,” Ali said with a smile. “Now I’ll go entertain our guest while we wait to see how long it takes for Dave to call me back.”
9
Back in the library, Ali found Beatrice Hart seated next to the fire, sipping coffee from one of Ali’s delicate Beleme patterned cups. Beatrice glanced up worriedly as Ali resumed her seat.
“Sorry,” Ali said. “My contact didn’t answer. I left a message for him to call me back.” She didn’t mention that the contact was most likely the lead investigator on the Ralston case.
“Mr. Simpson offered me some stew, and I accepted. I hope you don’t mind,” Beatrice said.
“Not at all, but while we’re waiting for that return call, why don’t you tell me what you know about this Chip Ralston. Do you have any reason to make the leap from his being your daughter’s beau to his being a possible murderer?”
“Lynn met him because he was my late husband’s doctor-Horace’s doctor,” Beatrice explained. “Chip’s specialty is Alzheimer’s patients and their families, and I have to say, in that regard, he was a huge help to me and to Lynn. He helped us understand that Alzheimer’s is a process that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that all those stages are longer or shorter depending on the individual. When your life is spinning out of control, it’s reassuring to have someone telling you that what you’re experiencing is within the parameters of some kind of normal. Dr. Ralston did that for our family and does it for a lot of other families, too.”
“Sounds like a good guy rather than a bad guy,” Ali suggested.
Beatrice nodded. “Except that where I come from, doctors don’t become romantically involved with their patients or their patients’ families. He waited a while, I’ll give him that. He called me several times in the weeks after we lost Horace, ostensibly checking to see how I was doing, and he always asked about Lynn. Then one day he called when I wasn’t home. Before you knew it, they were going out.”
“I take it you don’t approve?”
“For one thing, it’s too soon. I know from asking around that Chip is still dealing with the aftereffects of divorce-a rancorous divorce-and Lynn is still in recovery mode, too. First there was her divorce, followed by that mess with Richard. Then her son, Lucas, my grandson, committed suicide. She lost her job and her house, and then Horace died. You put all that together, and it adds up to way too much. I told her she needed to give herself some time before she got involved in a serious relationship.”
Before Ali could comment, B. returned with another tray, this one loaded with a bowl of steaming stew and several slices of buttered bread. He set the tray on the coffee table in front of Beatrice and then sat down on the love seat next to Ali. Beatrice gave him a questioning look.
“He knows all about this,” Ali said, nodding in B.’s direction. “It was due to a background check from his computer security company that Brenda Riley found out the truth about Richard Lowensdale.”
“Oh,” Beatrice said, nodding. “I remember. The High Noon guy. So I guess I have both of you to thank that Lynn wasn’t hurt worse than she was.”
The man who had helped Ali in the trenches had been B.’s second in command, Stuart Ramey, but neither Ali nor B. corrected Beatrice’s understandable misapprehension.
Ali waited while Beatrice tasted a tiny spoonful of Leland’s stew, then said, “Delicious. You’re a wonderful cook.”
Ali nodded her thanks and asked the next question without bothering to correct Beatrice’s erroneous assumption about the stew. Sometimes it was simply better to let people be.
“You mentioned that Dr. Ralston was going through a rancorous divorce,” Ali said. “How did you know about that?”
“Because Lynn told me,” Beatrice answered. “The woman and her lawyers have taken the man to the cleaners. He ended up having to unload several properties in a disastrous real estate market. He also had to buy out her interest in his medical practice. That put him far enough behind financially that he had to go back home and live with his aging mother-not a good sign, if you ask me. According to Lynn, Chip’s pet name for his ex is ‘the green-eyed monster.’”
Ali managed to keep from smiling, and so did B. After B.’s own ego-damaging divorce, “green-eyed monster” was how he sometimes referred to his ex-wife, too.
“Did Lynn ever mention what caused the divorce? Was there any indication of domestic violence issues? For instance, did Chip ever voice any threats toward his ex?”
“Not as far as I know,” Beatrice answered. “Still, it strikes me as a strange kind of divorce. According to Lynn, Gemma treated Chip like dirt, and yet she stayed in close contact with Chip’s mother and his sister, Molly. I know a couple of times, when Lynn was staying over with Chip, Gemma dropped by to visit with either the former mother-in-law or the former sister-in-law. I don’t know how most divorces work or even how they’re supposed to work-Horace and I were married to each other for fifty-eight years-but you can bet that if I’d divorced him, I would have written his mother out of my life immediately. That’s what Lynn did with her former mother-in-law, too.”
“As far as you know, there was nothing unusual going on this week between Chip and his ex? No new crisis of any kind?”