Jennifer dashed back into the house. The old man stepped closer to Joanna. This time, when he spoke, it was almost a whisper. “I don’t mean to pry, Joanna, but are you and Jenny gonna be all right as far as money’s concerned?”
He asked the question awkwardly, as though he knew he had no right to ask but found himself powerless in the face of his agonizing need to know.
“We’ll be fine, Daddy Jim,” Joanna answered. “I work for an insurance company, and Milo saw to it that we owned some. There’ll be money from that and from Social Security as well. You don’t have to worry on that score.”
He sighed with relief. “I’m real happy to or it. Maybe it’ll help me sleep a little better tonight, but then again, maybe not.”
Once more the screen door banged. Jennifer appeared between them carrying a lunch bag and a stack of books. Jim Bob Brady patted her shoulder fondly. “I suppose we’d best be getting along. Otherwise, you’re gonna be tardy.”
Jennifer headed toward the Honda, but despite his words, Jim Bob made no move to follow. He stood with both hands shoved deep his pockets.
“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “Mama and me were both pretty upset way back then when you and Andy turned up pregnant and all. We thought you was too young and crazy get married and make it work, to make a go of it, but you did, by God.
“You were still just a kid, Joanna, but you de him a hell of a good wife. You helped him with school and made him grow up in a way Mama and I never could have. I want you know right now that you’re as much a daughter to me as Andy ever was a son, and I don’t want you to forget it. If you and Jenny need something, anything at all, you come to me first, you hear?”
Joanna nodded wordlessly, her eyes filling with tears.
“Good,” he said. “I just wanted you to know.”
With that, he pulled his hand from his pocket and held it out to Joanna. It was an odd, surprising gesture. After all he’d said, she expected a hug, but Jim Bob Brady came from stem, dry-land farming stock where physical displays of affection didn’t come easily.
Joanna reached out to return what she thought was a proffered handshake. Instead, he placed something in her upturned palm and pressed her fingers shut around it.
Startled, Joanna opened her hand and looked. There, neatly folded into a tiny square, lay a piece of paper money. She unfolded it, thinking it might be a ten or a twenty. Instead, she found it to be a single hundred dollar bill.
“There’s more where that came from,” Jim Bob Brady declared in a forceful whisper.
With that, her father-in-law turned and strode away. Blinded by tears, Joanna stumbled back into the kitchen, sank into the break-fast nook, put her head down on her arms, and bawled her eyes out, grateful that there was no one else around the house to see or hear her do it.
It was some time later before she managed to pull herself back together enough to get up and pour a second cup of coffee. She supposed it would be like this for some time-one step forward and two back, then she’d be fine for while until something set her off again. In her present condition, kindness was almost ore difficult to handle than anything else.
The fit of crying had passed and she was just beginning to work on a complex TO-DO list when the phone rang. Afraid it might be her mother, she almost didn’t answer. Finally she did.
“Mrs. Brady?” a man asked. The voice sounded familiar, although at first Joanna couldn’t place it.
“Yes.”
“Dr. Sanders,” he announced. “From University Hospital.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, thinking she must have fled to fill out one of the billing forms properly. “What can I do for you, Dr. Sanders?”
He paused. “This may sound funny, Mrs. Brady, but with all due humility, I’m a good doctor and an excellent surgeon. When you ked about your husband’s prognosis yesterday morning, I gave you the worst possible scenario. I always do that as a matter of course, so that families have a chance to work backwards from there. I couldn’t predict the eventual outcome of the possible paralysis, but from the family’s standpoint, a partial recovery would have been better than no recovery at all, if that’s what you’re prepared for. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.”
“I usually take Wednesday afternoons off. If I had thought your husband’s condition was that critical, I never would have left the hospital. That’s why I wasn’t there when your husband’s status deteriorated so rapidly. Now, I’m trying to make sense of what happened.”
“They scheduled an autopsy,” Joanna said.
“I know. Actually, I’ve already seen it. The preliminary results are inconclusive. With the kind of extensive injuries your husband sustained, I would have expected to find a stray blood clot that had come loose and made its way to either the heart or lungs, but the medical examiner found nothing of the kind. She’s ordered a full battery of toxicology tests, but those take time.”
“Toxicology?” Joanna asked. “Why that?”
“Because,” he answered, without really addressing the question. “The reason I’m calling you right now,” he continued, “is to see if you noticed any change in your husband’s condition the last time you saw him.”
“No. None. I was away from the hospital, too, when it happened. Have you spoken to the other doctor?”
“What other doctor?” Sanders demanded sharply.
“The one who stopped by just before Andy went into cardiac arrest. My mother said he told her everything was fine.”
There was dead silence on the other end of the line. “Mrs. Brady,” Dr. Sanders said slowly. “I have your husband’s chart right e in front of me. There’s no indication of a doctor’s visit after my last rounds at 11:30 A.M. just before I left for the day. Did your mother mention a name?”
“No, but she did say she talked to him when came back out to the waiting room. He told her there wasn’t anything to worry about.”
“Has she spoken to the police about this?” Dr Sanders asked.
“The police? Why would she?”
“She’d better,” Dr. Sanders said quietly. Someone posing as a doctor would explain a lot.”
“What are you talking about?” Joanna ed.
“As I said, we can’t be positive until after toxicology report, but once you’ve seen or two O.D.’s you know what they look like.”
“O.D.,” Joanna repeated. “As in drug overdose? How could that be? You mean someone accidentally administered the wrong thing?”
“I’m not saying anything of the kind,” Dr. Sanders returned. “This so-called doctor your mother told you about wasn’t a doctor at all.”
The room spun around her. Joanna gripped the counter top in order to maintain her balance. “He was an imposter then?”
“Yes. I don’t know about the bullet wound. I’m saying that I think there’s a good possibility you were right. Those powder burns on your husband’s hand and fingers may or may not have been faked, but at the time of his death, your husband was in no condition to self-administer a lethal dose of anything.”
“You’re saying he was murdered after all,” Joanna managed.
“Damn right!” Dr. Sanders returned forcefully. “To be perfectly frank, Mrs. Brady, my initial interest in the autopsy was strictly from a medical malpractice standpoint. A patient was dead and I wanted to know, for my own benefit, if I was in any way liable. But after our conversation I wanted to call you right away and let you know what’s going on. I would imagine the Tucson police will attempt to get in touch with your mother.”
“I’m sure they will,” Joanna agreed.
When she hung up the phone, Joanna didn’t waste a moment before dialing her mother’s number herself, but there was no answer. Eleanor Lathrop was already up and gone. Joanna was disappointed, but there was one small consolation. If she couldn’t find her mother, neither could the Tucson police.