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14
Eventually Denise fell asleep. She didn't hear the phone when Greg Blackstone called to see how we were doing, and she didn't awaken when Tim Barnard called to ask about a prescription that had come in earlier that day. I looked in on her from time to time, but mostly I sat in my kitchen drinking iced coffee and thinking about Joey.
My mind kept returning to thoughts of murder even though I'd already decided there was no rational basis to connect the deaths of Joey and Harry. One possibility kept nagging at me. If Joey's brother-in-law had been right, if Denise ... No, I refused to consider it.
But I couldn't drive away the suspicion. I would have to think it through. Frank Moreway had questioned Denise and then me about the possibility that she got something from the pharmacy and used it to kill Harry. He knew Denise and I were friends and surmised that gave her access to the pharmacy.
I had no doubts about my own actions: Denise couldn't have gotten any such drugs from me, either overtly or covertly.
Now I had to consider Joey. Was it possible he had allowed Denise into the pharmacy? Again, I was certain this had never happened when I was on duty. And Tim never let anyone into the pharmacy, not even the store manager.
We did have a few relief pharmacists who filled in for days off and vacations. But it hardly seemed likely they'd even know Denise, let alone invite her into the pharmacy.
And my thoughts careened head on into the same wall they'd hit days ago. We had nothing for a murderer to use. The times when someone could buy arsenic to kill mice or weeds or whatever were long past—if they'd ever existed outside of fiction.
I suddenly felt ashamed of my suspicions, but I knew I had to work them through before facing Detective Moreway's inevitable questions. A detective who refused to accept Harry Stokes's passing as a natural occurrence would be relentless in probing his own brother-in-law's death.
Now I'd come full circle. After convincing myself the two deaths were unconnected, why was I so sure Frank Moreway would take the opposite view?
I went to the refrigerator and got more ice. The house was hotter than I liked it, but I was afraid to cool it down. Denise was still asleep, wrapped in the blanket, and I figured she would have kicked it off if she were too warm.
No one else telephoned. Twice I started to call Michael but hung up after pushing two or three numbers. I considered phoning one of my friends just for someone to talk to, but there was no one else I wanted to share my worries with.
At about 5:30 in the afternoon, Denise came into the kitchen. Her eyes looked swollen, underlined by dark smudges where her makeup had run. With her uncombed hair and creased dress, she seemed very different from the impeccably turned-out woman I was used to seeing.
"I'm sorry, Ruthie. It must be awful for you to have me on your hands right now."
"Stop apologizing. You would do the same for me."
"That's just the point. You were even closer to Joey." Her voice shook when she said his name, and I was afraid of another crying jag. She clenched her teeth and went on. "I should have been helping you over the shock, not the other way around."
"You did help me. You gave me someone else to think about."
Denise shook her head but was quiet. I offered her a sweater if she still felt chilled, but she insisted she was better.
"What can I fix for dinner?"
She started to protest. "Denise, the best thing we can do is spend some time together and talk it out. Otherwise, we'll each eat alone and be even more miserable."
"Then let me pitch in. I make a great salad."
"Okay, just take whatever you need from the fridge. I've got oil, vinegar, and cans of tuna and anchovies in the cabinet by the window."
I took out the gray placemats; they matched my mood. On second thought, I added napkins with a peach and gray floral design. No reason to make dinner any gloomier than I expected it to be.
While Denise tore apart a head of lettuce she found in the crisper, I arranged slices of cheese and rye bread on a platter. Then I started a fresh pot of decaffeinated coffee. We took our time over the light meal, not saying much at first.
Denise suddenly put down her fork. "We've been avoiding the subject. We need to talk."
"There isn't much to say."
"Yes, there is. I was awake for a while before I came out to find you. Going over everything." She stared across the table as if wanting to pull words from me.
I obliged. "Everything?"
"Let me ask you, Ruthie. Haven't you noticed how strange it all is?"
There was no way I could tell her about my suspicions since she was their object. So I played dumb. "What do you mean?"
"Two deaths in less than two weeks."
"People die every day. Every hour. Even more often."
"These two people knew each other."
I let my eyebrows show skepticism. "It's the shock, Denise. You're still not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking very clearly. First Harry, then Joey. It can't be a coincidence."
It was hard to contradict Denise when I'd considered the same possibility. But I felt it necessary to dispel her morbid ideas. "They only knew each other casually."
"You'd be surprised. They talked a lot."
"Joey and Harry Stokes?"
"Why do you think Joey wanted to tag along with us to the funeral?" She stopped for a moment, and I knew she was thinking we'd be going to another funeral now.
"I don't know. I figured he wanted to pay his respects because he knew Harry as a customer."
"Ruthie, twenty-year-old boys don't worry about paying their respects."
"Well, maybe he was curious."
"Curious about what?"
"He probably overheard us talking about Harry and Betsy and that whole situation."
Denise helped herself to more salad and reached for the pepper, covering the entire surface of the salad. I'd seen people in the southwest eat this way since my childhood in Tucson but had never picked up the habit. She seemed to be marking time while deciding how much to tell me.
"A few times when Joey was on the late shift, he'd have lunch in the coffee shop first."
"Well, that's nothing unusual. Many Food Go people do that."
"Yeah, but why would he have lunch with Harry Stokes?"
I thought over this piece of news. What did the two of them have in common? It was an unlikely combination. "You tell me, Denise."
"Joey was trying to get money from him."
"What?"
"You don't have to shout at me. I'm not trying to say anything bad about Joey—not blackmail or anything like that."
I forced myself to laugh. "You do have a vivid imagination."
She was angry now. "You always say that. But I've been right before, and I know what I'm talking about. Maybe I don't have much education, but I ..."
"Please, Denise, I wasn't trying to put you down."
"I'm sorry. It's hard to make sense of what's happening, but I need to tell someone. You know how small the coffee shop is, so I couldn't help overhearing them."
"You don't have to apologize. Just tell me, and I promise not to interrupt again."
Denise, when she got down to it, gave the details concisely. She had forgotten about those lunches until this afternoon, but she was sure they represented a connection between the two deaths. "Joey wanted a loan to help with his college expenses. He said it was too hard to work so many hours at Food Go and get good enough grades for medical school."
"Yes, he did talk about medical school all the time."
"His family lives comfortably, but Joey's always had to help out with tuition and his other expenses."
"I know that. But why would he expect Harry Stokes to finance him?"
"It was supposed to be a business deal. They would have a lawyer draw up a note and Joey would return the money with interest to Harry or his heirs."
"Why didn't he just get student loans the usual way?" I asked.
"That was Harry's question, too. Joey said student loans are more difficult to get nowadays."
"And how did Harry react to all this?"
"It was hard to tell, Ruthie. I heard him turn Joey down, but they continued to lunch together and discuss it."
"You and I must be the only ones who didn't want money from Harry Stokes," I said.
Denise's summer tan suddenly turned an unbecoming reddish brown. I looked at her in surprise. "You, too?"
Her eyes wouldn't meet mine but were fixed on the last bits of lettuce and diced tomatoes on her plate. "I wanted to become a dental hygienist," she mumbled.
"You never told me."
"I got the idea from Joey. I mean, I had the dream for a long time but no money to make it real."
I didn't know what to say. All I could do was thank God that Detective Moreway didn't know about this aspect of Denise and Harry's relationship. He was digging for information, suspecting an affair, but here was another strong motive for revenge.
"Maybe it sounds tacky when I put it this way. But I kept thinking that I'd known Harry for years. If he was going to help anyone through school, it should be me."
"Yes, but why should he? He had his own family to think of." I nearly mentioned the expected baby but stopped myself in time.
"It would have been strictly business. I made the same offer as Joey—a legal note, interest, the works."
I sighed. It seemed a lot of people were playing Harry like a private Arizona lottery. "Why not take an equity loan on your house and use that money?"
"There's no way I could make the extra payments."
"Then how could you have paid Harry back?"
"The arrangement would have been to start paying back as soon as I finished and got a good job," Denise said stiffly.
It sounded unrealistic to me. As far as I knew, dental hygienists didn't make all that much. "What did Harry say?"
"He told me everyone was after his money."
"I guess they were."
"His children never paid back. They got money from him for years. Called it a loan each time, until he finally got wise and refused to give them more."
"You mean after he remarried."
"Probably."
"Denise, did you and Joey approach him recently?"
"You don't have to be so tactful. Why not ask me straight out if it was before or after he married Betsy?"
"Okay, was it before or after?"
"It was two months ago." She refilled our coffee cups, acting as hostess in my kitchen, or maybe she was just used to refilling coffee cups.
I found it hard to meet her eyes. "Does anyone else know all this?"
"Maybe."
"What does that mean?"
"I think he told Betsy. She started avoiding me around that time."
In this, my sympathies were with Betsy, but I couldn't say so. I wondered whether hearing about her from Michael's point of view had influenced me. "I don't know what to say, Denise. If Detective Moreway questions you again, it might be better to tell him the truth before he hears it from someone else."
She looked even more upset. "That's what worries me."
"Let's sit in the living room and talk. And if you're warm enough now, I'd like to lower the thermostat."
Denise started to clear the table, but I insisted it was more important for us to talk without interruption. So she followed me out of the kitchen and waited while I detoured to the thermostat, lowering it to 68 degrees.
"Give me your opinion, Ruthie."
"I just did."
"No, not about telling Detective Moreway. About what's been happening."
I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible. "We can't have an intelligent opinion until we know more about how Joey happened to drown in that fountain. There may be a simple explanation."
"Let's check the local news tonight. Maybe they'll have something about it."
So we talked of other things until it was time for the news. I turned on the TV, and we watched world and national news, sports, the weather. I really didn't expect to hear about Joey, but it was the first local item. And the police were investigating his death as a suspected murder.
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