"In other words, she's a wreck," Joanna concluded.
Jeff managed a rueful grin. "We both are," he agreed.
Looking down, Joanna remembered the flowers. "These are for you," she said, handing them over. "They're for all of you. I brought them, but they were Jenny's idea."
"Thanks." Jeff put the vase down in the middle of a small conference table that sat next to the vending machines. "We're not allowed to take flowers into the ICU itself," he explained. "But if we leave them here, everyone can enjoy them. Besides, for the next day or two, we'll probably be spending more time here than anywhere else."
Stuffing his hands in his pocket, Jeff sighed. "It was nice of Butch to stop by. He and I had a good visit. Just guy stuff-cars and baseball, mostly. But I was glad to have a chance to think and talk about something else. I can only deal with this for so long before I start to lose it." He broke off and shrugged. His eyes welled with tears. "Butch is a nice guy, Joanna. A real nice guy. You're lucky he's around."
"I know," she said. That was part of the problem. Butch Dixon was a very nice guy.
The door to the ICU waiting room swung open and several people came in at once. Joanna recognized them all-people from Bisbee's Canyon United Methodist Church come to offer prayers and moral support.
"It looks like you have another whole batch of company," she told Jeff. "I'll leave you to visit with them."
"You don't have to go."
"No," she said. "There's someone else in the hospital I'm supposed to see. I'll come back a little later when I finish up with her."
After pausing long enough to say hello to the newcomers, Joanna hurried back down to the lobby and was given directions to Belle Philips' room. Since Belle was a possible homicide suspect, Joanna had briefly considered posting a guard outside her hospital room, but then, with all the confusion of dealing with multiple cases, she had forgotten about it. Seeing Belle swathed in bandages and with casts on both an arm and a leg, Joanna realized that a guard wouldn't be necessary. Belle lay like an immense beached whale on her hospital bed, gazing up at a wall-mounted television set.
She flicked her eyes away from the set as Joanna entered the room. "I can't never answer any of these questions, can you?" she asked.
Jeopardy! was playing on the screen. "I can some of the time," Joanna replied, "but I don't watch it very often."
"I suppose not," Belle said. "You're a busy lady."
They were quiet, letting the television fill the room with low-level noise while Joanna searched for some way to start. "I'm sure this will be painful for you, Ms. Philips, but I need to talk to you about Clyde."
Belle bit her lip and nodded. "It's all right," she said. "I don't mind. What do you want to know?"
"When's the last time you saw him?"
"Saturday," she said. "He came by the restaurant and I cooked him breakfast."
"What about Sunday?" Joanna asked.
"I never saw him on Sunday," Belle said.
"But you did go by the house," Joanna pressed.
For a long time Belle Philips didn't answer. "Yes," she said finally. "I did go by, but I didn't see him."
"Did you go into the house?"
"Yes, but he must have been asleep," Belle said. "I didn't wake him up and I didn't see him, neither. I went in and came straight back out."
"If you didn't go to see him, why were you there?" Joanna asked.
Belle sighed. "I needed money," she said. "To pay my utilities. So I did that sometimes, when I was short. Went by aid helped myself to a dollar or two. He always had money in his wallet. And he never seemed to miss it. Least-wise, he never complained about it. But I never killed him, Sheriff Brady. I never did nothin' to hurt the man. You're not sayin' I did, are you?"
"No," Joanna responded, "I didn't say you did. I'm just trying to understand what all was going on in Clyde's life the last few days before he died. We don't have autopsy results yet, but Dr. Daly-the investigator for the medical examiner's office-thinks Clyde may have committed suicide. What do you think?"
"He never," Belle said flatly. "Clyde never would of done that, not less'n he got a whole lot sicker than he was already."
"You knew he was sick, then?" Joanna asked.
Belle shrugged. "I guess."
"With what?"
"Who knows? All I know is, the last few months he was always tired. Just dragging. Like he could barely stand to put one foot in front of another. Losing weight no matter how much food I stuffed into him. But Clyde wasn't one to go to doctors much. Didn't believe in 'em."
Joanna stared. Dr. Daly had taken one look at Clyde Philips' body and suspected that the man was suffering from AIDS. If Clyde didn't go to doctors, was it possible that he himself hadn't known what was wrong with him? Or was his former wife the one who didn't know?
"So as far as you know, Clyde didn't have a personal physician?"
"If he did, he never told me. And what's the point? Even if he was sick when he died, once he's dead, can't see how it matters."
It matters, all right, Joanna thought, to anyone else who's ever been with the man. It matters to you. She said, "So after you moved out, Ms. Philips, did you maintain any kind of relationship with your former husband?"
"I cooked for him," Belle admitted. "Did his wash. Cleaned for him when the house got so filthy that I couldn't stand to see it. He paid me for it, too, for doing all those things, but I probably would of kept right on doin' even if he hadn't had no money to pay me."
"But you and he weren't… well… intimate."
Belle's laugh was hollow. "We weren't hardly ever what you call intimate when we was married, so why would we be after we was divorced? He told me real early on that I wasn't his type. That I wasn't no good in the bedroom department. So I put as good a face on things as I could and acted like we was just like any other normal married couple. You know, complainin' about it sometimes the way women do, about their husband all the time wantin' 'em to come across. That kind of thing. 'Cept in our family, it was me all the time doin' the wantin' and him sayin' he had a headache."
And that's probably a good thing for you, Joanna thought.
For a few minutes the television set droned on overhead while Joanna considered her next question. "Pomerene's a small town," she said finally. "It's the kind of place where people know things even though they may not necessarily want to. So do you have any idea who any of Clyde's partners were after you left?"
For the first time, Belle Philips' eyes strayed from the flickering television screen. "Sex partners you mean? I can't rightly say I do. And even if I did, I don't know that 1'd say. Since Clyde's dead, what people say about him now really don't matter. But I draw the line at spreadin' gossip about the livin'. Gossipin' ain't my style."
"What made you divorce him, then? Did you leave be-cause he was getting sick?"
Belle sighed. "Clyde was sick a long time before I divorced him, and not with nothin' catchin', neither. I just always kept thinkin' I could make him better. 'Fix him, like. They're all the unit tellin' folks that at church, sayin' that the unbelievin' spouse can be saved by the believin' one if'n they just pray hard enough. 1 prayed. Lord knows, 1 prayed for years, but it wasn't never enough."
"What do you mean he was sick then?"
"Sheriff Brady, the man is dead. Can't we just let sleepin' dogs lie?"
"No, we can't, Belle," Joanna returned. "You just told me yourself that you don't believe Clyde committed suicide. If that's the case, then he was murdered. Somebody else did it-some unidentified person put that bag over his head and closed it up tight. In order to find out who that person is, we need to know everything we can about Clyde himself. Everything. Good and bad."