Just then the doorbell rang. When Betsy opened the front door, she was dismayed to see her daughter-in-law standing on the front porch. “What’s going on?” Sandra asked, glancing over her shoulder at Joe Friday’s work van parked prominently in the driveway.
Betsy’s first instinct was to say what she really felt—It’s none of your business. But with Joe in the house installing his hidden cameras and with his toolbox and boxes spread out all over the living room, she couldn’t afford to get into a tiff with Sandra.
Biting back a sharp response and sticking to the story they’d agreed on, Betsy said, “I’m having some electrical work done, and I’m also getting a new computer.”
“A computer?” Sandra asked. “You hardly ever used the one you used to have. The sign on the van says your contractor is from Minneapolis. Couldn’t you find someone local? I’m sure Jimmy could have found someone to do the work at half the price.”
“Yes,” Betsy agreed. “I’m sure he could, but he’s so busy these days. I didn’t want to bother him with my concerns.”
“Well,” Sandra asked in her usual pushy fashion, “are you going to ask me in or not?”
“Not,” Betsy said. “This isn’t a good time, not with the power going on and off all over the house. I was about to call Marcia to see if she could pick me up and take me into town to pick up a few items from the store. Since you’re here now, maybe you wouldn’t mind. I could even treat you to an early dinner at the diner.”
Unaccustomed to being told no, Sandra was momentarily taken aback. Then she glanced at her watch. “I could take you into town, I suppose, and wait while you have something to eat,” she agreed reluctantly. “But no dinner for me. We have plans.”
“All right, then,” Betsy said. “You go wait in the car. I’ll put Princess in the laundry room and get my purse.” With that, Betsy closed the door in Sandra’s face, leaving her standing on the porch, thunderstruck and sputtering.
Harold, Betsy’s neighbor, had come by late in the afternoon the day before, apologizing for his tardiness in getting her driveway plowed and her walkway and wheelchair ramp shoveled and deiced. With her coat on and her purse on her arm, Betsy was happy to use the cleaned-up ramp to walk out to Sandra’s Volvo. Cataracts or not, once in the passenger seat, Betsy had no difficulty in seeing the tight-lipped expression on her daughter-in-law’s face as she jammed on the gas and shot past Joe’s van.
“I can’t believe you’d go off like this and leave a complete stranger working in your house.”
“He’s not a complete stranger,” Betsy said. “He’s a friend of Athena’s.” That was close enough to the truth to sound plausible.
“Oh,” Sandra fumed. “I suppose that explains it.”
Betsy took her own sweet time in the grocery store and the pharmacy both, using her magnifying glass to examine labels and making a show of having trouble making up her mind. She couldn’t resist. Having Sandra pacing in the background and checking her watch was just too much fun. With a little thought she was able to stretch her errands until well into the afternoon.
When Betsy finished shopping, she insisted they stop by the café. Betsy ordered a roast beef sandwich and Sandra her cup of black coffee. Only then did Sandra finally get down to business and broach the conversation Betsy had been expecting.
“Donald came by and talked to James last night,” Sandra said. “They’re both very concerned about you, you know. We all are.”
Betsy knew exactly where all this was going, but she played dumb. “Concerned?” she asked innocently.
“Of course we’re concerned,” Sandra said. “It’s one thing for you to lose your hearing aids or misplace your glasses, but it’s quite another to have the kind of episode that ends up involving law enforcement.”
“Ah,” Betsy said, as if only now realizing what this was all about. “The situation the other night where Donald Olson thinks the burners on my stove came on either by magic or else all by themselves. Which is wrong, of course. I think someone tried to murder me.”
Sandra didn’t actually say that she doubted Betsy’s version of the story, but the message came through nonetheless. “That’s what has us so worried—that you’ll have a moment of forgetfulness or confusion and come to some kind of harm. James wants you to go see Dr. Munson and have a complete evaluation.”
Betsy considered that last comment in silence. Elmer Munson was another one of Jimmy’s good pals. He had earned a certain reputation among some of her fellow bingo players down at the VFW as the go-to guy in town when recalcitrant parents needed to be brought to heel by their baby-boomer offspring. In fact, some of the more outspoken retirees suspected that Munson had been the driving force behind having his own mother declared incompetent.
Betsy’s food came. She tried a taste of it before she replied. The sandwich was just the way she liked it, thinly sliced beef on a piece of plain white Wonder bread instead of on a slab of whole-wheat cardboard some restaurants tried to pass off as “healthy eating.” And the rich brown gravy slathered over the top was thick and tasty.
“When exactly would you and Jimmy like me to schedule this checkup?” Betsy asked at last.
The whole time they had been together that day, Betsy had noted a kind of nervousness in Sandra that she had never exhibited before. Jimmy didn’t like rocking boats, and Betsy wasn’t surprised that her son had sent Sandra to do the dirty work rather than facing the music himself. No doubt Sandra had expected Betsy would object to the very idea, but Betsy’s apparent willingness to consider it sent a look of relief flashing across Sandra’s face. Betsy found that look more disturbing than the whole Dr. Munson scheme.
Sandra reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card. “James already called Dr. Munson’s office and booked an appointment for you,” she said, sliding the card across the table. “Monday afternoon—two-thirty. I’ll be glad to pick you up and bring you into town for the appointment if you like.”
Which was no doubt Sandra’s way of making sure Betsy didn’t ditch the appointment.
“Oh, no,” Betsy said casually, pretenting to examine the handwritten time on the back of the card and then slipping it into her own pocket. “That’s not necessary. I don’t like causing you any inconvenience, especially since you were kind enough to bring me into town today. I’ll call Marcia. She’s always happy to earn a little extra cash by driving me around. With this much notice, she’ll have no difficulty working me in.”
Sandra took the rejection in stride. “If you want to have Marcia pick you up, that’ll be fine,” she said with a smile. “All the same, I’ll plan on being at the appointment, too. For moral support, you know.”
“Of course,” Betsy agreed with a nod. “For moral support.”
13
Ali was still shaken when she left the hospital a few minutes later. She had no doubt that Sister Anselm’s critically injured patient had been on her way to Flagstaff hoping for help from Ali’s good friend Irene Bernard when she ran away from home. But Reenie had been dead for years. How was it possible that the injured girl hadn’t known that Irene Bernard was no longer available to help her?
Hoping for answers, Ali got in the Cayenne and drove straight to the YWCA. She parked in a visitor’s space near Irene’s Place, the domestic violence shelter that Reenie had founded and championed and that was now named in her honor. Ali was always struck by the irony in that because Irene had died as a result of an act of senseless domestic violence, too, albeit from an unexpected source.
Ali rang the security bell and identified herself before being allowed inside. She went straight to the office of Andrea Rogers. At the time of Reenie’s death, Andrea had been Irene Bernard’s assistant. Now she was in charge. In the intervening years, Andrea had honed both her public-speaking and management skills. Like Reenie, Andrea spent a good deal of her time out in public raising both awareness and needed funds. Like her predecessor, Andrea took an active and personal interest in every traumatized family that showed up on the shelter’s doorstep.