“You know her then? Molly, I mean.”
He shrugged. “Not well. I’ve only known her since she got back to town, but I’ve heard stories about her family. You know the type-the sons are the fair-haired boys and can do no wrong, and the girls are second-class citizens who are supposed to grow up and be wives and mothers and join the Junior League. When you’re playing that game, being beautiful helps. Molly’s not bad-looking, but taking care of her mother is wearing her down. I feel sorry for her.”
“What can you tell me about Gemma Ralston?”
Luis gave Ali a searching look, then shook his head. “Gemma’s another story,” he said, “and this would probably be an excellent time for me to keep my mouth shut. How about those Cardinals?”
Turning his back, Luis walked away from Ali’s end of the bar. For the next few minutes, he made dutiful rounds of all the other customers, mixing cocktails and pouring drinks for them and for waitresses from the dining room, and providing another pitcher of beer for the guys watching the golf tournament. Finally, he returned to Ali.
“I take it you didn’t like Gemma Ralston?” she asked.
He gave her a baleful look. “What’s your deal in all this?”
“I’m a freelancer,” Ali said, producing a business card and handing it over. “My name is Ali Reynolds, and I’m doing a writing project on early-onset Alzheimer’s.”
She had noticed that the word “freelancer” prompted far fewer negative reactions than the word “reporter.” Maybe freelancing put people in mind less of out-of-control journalists and more of men out in armor, tilting at windmills and slaying the occasional dragon. What could be a more understandable dragon to slay than a dread disease that scared the hell out of everyone?
“Luis Cruz,” he said, accepting both the card and the explanation. “I’ve never had a problem with any of the other Ralstons, but Gemma is another story. Let’s just say whoever took that woman out did the whole world a favor. And in case you’re interested, I told the cops the same thing.”
“They talked to you?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t they? Gemma Ralston was here on Monday night, the same night she went missing. As a matter of fact, she and Molly Handraker were here together. I overheard them talking about a diamond necklace, Mrs. Ralston’s most likely. It had disappeared, and Gemma mentioned dropping by the next day to help look for it. Molly said something like ‘You don’t need to bother-she won’t even remember,’ and Gemma says, ‘I told your mother I’d come help, and I will.’ Molly stayed around a while longer after that, but when she left, I got the feeling that she was upset about something.”
“Did Gemma leave then, too?” Ali asked.
“It would have been great if she had, but she didn’t,” Luis continued. “As usual, she stayed on, drinking and throwing her weight around. As soon as Molly’s back was turned, Gemma started bad-mouthing the woman who was supposed to be her best friend. That didn’t sit too well with me. Snobs don’t bother me-there are plenty of those around here-but I don’t like two-faced snobs.”
“Did she leave with anyone?”
Luis shook his head. “The cops asked the same question. She left by herself around nine or so. Not quite drunk but getting there. She raised hell when I cut her off and suggested she call a taxi. She threw a fit and went screaming to my manager about it. She wanted him to fire me on the spot.”
“I guess that didn’t work,” Ali observed with a smile.
“No, it didn’t, but no thanks to her,” Luis replied. “Even though I was in the right for cutting her off, I still ended up getting a write-up. Customer complaints are a big deal around here, so pardon me if I say good riddance. By the way, she evidently disregarded my advice and drove herself home after all. So don’t bother asking where I was on Monday night, because I was here working until two A.M. You can check the time clock. I’m sure the cops already did. And after I left work, I went straight home. There’s a security camera on the parking garage of my building. It’ll show that I was home safe and sound at two-thirty. They’re welcome to check that for themselves, and so are you.”
Two more golfers, one of them in an ordinary polo shirt and chinos and the other in vivid yellow-and-orange-checked pants with a matching orange shirt, bellied up to the bar and ordered Bloody Marys. While Luis mixed their drinks, Ali considered her next move.
“When Gemma left, did she say where she was going?”
“It was hard to tell. She was so busy screeching at me and telling me to go to hell for eighty-sixing her that I don’t believe she mentioned any destination in particular. And let me tell you, as long as she wasn’t in my bar, I didn’t care where she was going.”
“So if you were going to make a wild guess about who might have wanted her dead. .”
“Besides me, you mean.”
“Right,” Ali said with a smile. “Who else besides you?”
“My money’s on the guy in jail,” Luis replied. “Doris Ralston’s son, the ex-husband. I, for one, don’t blame him a bit.”
“Was Chip Ralston here on Monday?”
“Hardly,” Luis said. “He’s not a member anymore. From what I can tell, when he and Gemma divorced, he got the shaft, and she got the membership.”
“Did you ever hear Gemma talking with or about someone named Dennis?” Ali asked.
“Dennis who?”
“I have no idea,” she replied. “All I have is the first name.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Luis said.
Ali glanced at her watch. It was twelve-forty-five.
“Let me guess,” Luis said. “The old lady stood you up?”
“Looks like.”
Luis nodded sagely. “I’m not surprised. She does that a lot. Makes a reservation and then doesn’t show.”
Ali pulled a five-dollar bill out of her purse and slapped it on the bar. “Thanks for the water,” she said. “Turns out it was just what I needed.”
Dodging the hostess in the dining room, Ali made for her car. Once she reached it, she sat inside for several long moments, thinking. It was one thing for Gemma Ralston to be vilified by her ex-husband or the ex-husband’s new girlfriend. They were bound to have their own kind of biases. Hearing the same thing from the bartender, however, gave Ali pause.
The professional bartenders she had known over the years, especially ones who worked in high-end clubs and bars, generally maintained a certain client confidentiality as far as their regular customers were concerned. The fact that Luis had blurted out derogatory comments about Gemma Ralston to a complete stranger came as something of a surprise. If someone like Luis had no trouble wishing Gemma ill, there might be a few others out there as well, and who more likely to know where some of those bodies were buried than Gemma’s ex-sister-in-law and maybe not such a great friend Molly Handraker?
And what about that missing diamond necklace? Molly hadn’t mentioned it. Was that a deliberate oversight on her part or an accidental one? Maybe in a household like theirs, where someone was operating with severe mental deficits, misplaced pieces of jewelry were so commonplace that they weren’t worth discussing, to say nothing of bringing in someone else to help with the search.
Luis had said that Molly had seemed upset when she left. That was something else that had gone unsaid in Molly’s version.
Dave Holman had obviously already gotten Luis’s take on the situation and probably had come to similar conclusions. Therefore, the Yavapai County homicide cop could hardly complain if Ali wound up following the same trail of leads.
Dave was investigating, and so was she. With that in mind, her next stop would be Upper Glen Road, but before she went there, she needed answers to a few more questions. To that end, she got out her phone and dialed the number for the Yavapai County sheriff, Gordon Maxwell.
“Hey,” the sheriff said with an easy chuckle when he heard her voice on the phone. “Dave Holman tells me you’ve been running circles around him this morning, but now that he’s busy duking it out with the Phoenix PD over the custody of a possible suspect, I believe he’s a lot happier with you at the moment than he was a little earlier. His exact words to me were ‘We owe her one.’”