Ali’s husband, B. Simpson, was a huge fan of the Coen brothers, and of all their films, including The Big Lebowski, but Fargo was B.’s all-time favorite. He and Ali had watched the movie together numerous times, and B. could recite many of the lines verbatim. When B. used the expression “He’s a funny-looking little guy,” it was definitely not high praise.
Sheriff Olson’s distinctive manner of speaking, with its emphasis on the word “isss,” made him sound as though he had stepped straight off the set of Fargo.
“My name is Ali Reynolds,” she answered. “I’m calling from Sedona on behalf of Betsy Peterson and her granddaughter, Athena.”
“Oh, that,” Sheriff Olson said dismissively. “The whole ‘somebody’s trying to kill me routine.’ And now it sounds as though she’s calling in reinforcements. Who are you again, and what’s your interest in all this?”
“I’m Athena’s mother-in-law,” Ali replied. “She’s at school right now and can’t call herself, but she spoke to her grandmother earlier. Athena said Mrs. Peterson sounded very upset, and she asked if I would call to get an idea of what’s really going on.”
“What’s really going on, Ms. Reynolds, is that Betsy Peterson is a frail, elderly woman who has no business staying on in that big old house way out in the country all by herself. Jim and Sandra, her son and daughter-in-law, are worried sick about her, but they can’t do a thing about it. My mom pulled the same stunt—wouldn’t leave the family farm no matter how much she needed to. I talked myself blue trying to get her to see reason, so it’s not like the Petersons have a corner on the market when it comes to having issues with aging relatives.”
“It sounds to me as though you’re discounting what happened to her.”
“What she claims happened to her,” Sheriff Olson corrected. “Athena’s always been a bright girl. If she’d care to read Deputy Severson’s report, I’m sure she’d agree that nothing about Betsy’s wild imaginings rings true. My deputy examined the scene and there was nothing to be found—including no evidence at all of a break-in. It snowed here last night. He found no unusual tracks leading to or from Betsy’s house—no sign of any vehicles and no sign of anyone on foot, either, other than some footprints in the snow out in the backyard. Those belonged to Betsy herself, by the way. She evidently went running around out in the backyard, barefoot in twenty-degree temperatures. If that’s not nuts, what is? If she had wandered off into the woods like that—in her bare feet and wearing nothing but a robe and a nightgown—she would have been dead as a doornail by morning, gas or no gas.”
Ali didn’t like the man’s tone. “In other words, on the basis of her fleeing a possible gas explosion without returning to the far end of the house to retrieve her shoes, you’re prepared to disregard her claim that someone entered her home, turned on the gas, and tried to kill her?”
“As I said, ‘claim’ is the operant word here, Ms. Reynolds. By the way, when Deputy Severson arrived at the scene, there was no sign of any gas—none at all. He thinks she made the whole thing up, maybe just to gain a little attention. Or else it could be something else like the first stages of dementia. That’s what those folks do, by the way. They wander around in the middle of the night doing things that make no sense and that they never remember doing. They claim things happened that never happened.”
“Has Ms. Peterson been diagnosed with any form of dementia?”
“Not to my knowledge and not officially, I suppose,” the sheriff conceded. “But I’ve heard from Jim that odd things have started to happen. Betsy lost her hearing aids a while back. Weeks later Sandra found them in the freezer in a bag full of chopped-up Jimmy Dean sausages. Then Sandra stopped by Betsy’s house one day and found medications for her yappy little dog mixed in with Betsy’s. No telling what would have happened if Sandra hadn’t straightened that mess out. Betsy could have died or else the dog could have. Oh, and then there was the thing with her reading glasses. She left them in a gadget drawer in the kitchen.”
“And you know about all this because . . . ?”
“This is a small town, Ms. Reynolds. People know their neighbors. We talk. Maybe you’re not accustomed to that kind of thing where you live. Jim Peterson and I are lifelong friends. Our parents are aging, and a lot of the folks in our generation are dealing with the same kinds of issues. We’re all in the same boat, don’t ya know?”
Ali could see that Sheriff Olson’s being in the same boat with Jimmy Peterson meant that he was far too close to Betsy Peterson’s situation to be an impartial bystander.
“How long was it after the 911 call before your officer arrived at the scene?”
“Forty minutes or so. Why?”
“Was the door open or closed?”
“The front door was closed when Deputy Severson arrived, but the back door was still wide open.”
“Wouldn’t that open door, added to a forty-minute delay, allow for the gas to dissipate?”
“I suppose,” Sheriff Olson allowed grudgingly, “but that presumes the gas was present in the first place. Now look, Ms. Reynolds, I have places to go and things to do. You might mention to Athena that if she really cares about her grandmother, she’ll use her influence to talk Betsy into letting go of that big house and moving into one of those assisted-living places where she’ll be properly looked after.”
Ali felt her temper rising. By the time her parents, Bob and Edie Larson, sold their Sugarloaf Café, they had both spent a lifetime cooking for other people. Done with cooking, they had moved into Sedona Shadows, a retirement community that came complete with a dining room where someone else handled the daily meal service. As far as Ali could see they were having a blast living there.
Although the move had surprised Ali at the time, her parents had made the decision on their own, in their own good time, and far earlier than expected without any prompting from what her mother had laughingly referred to as “the peanut gallery.”
Listening to Donald Olson, Ali suspected Betsy Peterson’s situation differed greatly from that of her parents. In Bemidji, the peanut gallery seemed to be holding all the cards.
“Thank you, Sheriff Olson,” Ali said, struggling to keep a civil tongue in her mouth. “I’ll be in touch.”
The sheriff didn’t have to say “don’t bother” aloud as she ended the call. His tone of voice made his opinion of Ali’s unwelcome interference entirely clear.
She was still glaring at the phone in her hand, as if holding it responsible for her bad mood, when it rang again. This time her husband’s phone number showed in the screen.
“Boy,” she said, “am I glad to hear from you. Are you still in Switzerland?”
“I am at the moment, but I’m leaving for New York City tomorrow afternoon. I have a day and a half of meetings there. I should be home in time for dinner on Friday.”
“Good,” she said. “I’ve missed you, and so has Bella. She moped around here for days after you left. What do you want for your homecoming dinner?”
“My first choice would be some of Leland’s meat loaf.”
“Fair enough,” Ali said. “I’ll make sure meat loaf is on the menu.”
“After that,” he said, “I’d like to spend the rest of the weekend having a little quiet downtime with my wife and my dog.”
“Sounds perfect,” Ali said. “That’s what Bella and I are hoping for, too.”
“What’s happening on your end?” B. asked.
She told him about her call from Athena and her subsequent conversation with Sheriff Olson.
“So Betsy says somebody tried to kill her and everyone else says she’s losing her marbles?”
“That’s about the size of it,” Ali agreed glumly.