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16
After Michael left, I went over our conversation. He'd made it clear he was only trying to anticipate how the police could interpret the situation. He still seemed to believe he had to find the murderer to remove suspicion from his daughter-and from Denise and himself, I thought. And from me, too.
If I had these crazy ideas, what did other people think? Michael was right; we couldn't fully trust anyone until we learned who was responsible for the two deaths.
Now I realized I no longer doubted. If Joey had been murdered, he was not a random victim. Somehow he'd acquired dangerous information, and it had to be about Harry Stokes. Nothing else made sense.
I turned this over. What could Joey have learned? The police had investigated the prescription records of Denise and of everyone in the Stokes family. But not his father-in-law's, that persistent inner voice said. Michael's pharmacy record would be down in Tucson.
Be logical, I cautioned myself. If they're in Tucson, Joey wouldn't have had access either. And besides, Michael had probably been in Tucson until his daughter needed him, which wasn't until after Harry's death.
But what could Joey have found out that no one else knew? He was a technician, not a pharmacist. Well, that didn't mean anything. A good technician, and he'd been one, could pick up quite a bit. After two years at Food Go, someone with Joey's inquiring mind probably knew more about the practical aspects of pharmacy than many a senior-year pharmacy student. But I still couldn't see how Joey would be the only one with knowledge dangerous to the killer.
Exhausted though I was, I tried looking at the problem from different angles as I got ready for bed. Because I desperately wanted to believe in the people I cared about, I assumed Denise, Michael, and Betsy were all innocent. Yes, I admitted to myself. I care about Michael and about his daughter, too. And Denise was my best friend. That left Richard Stokes, his wife Nancy, Sheila Stokes, and Sheila's boyfriend—whatever his name was. What could any of them have done that Joey discovered? I finally dozed off with the same questions spinning in my mind.
Although I had the night shift on Tuesday and could sleep late, I awoke at six, drenched in perspiration despite the air-conditioning and the ceiling fan over my bed. Even on the hottest nights, I liked to sleep under a light cotton sheet. This morning, one end of the sheet was twisted round and round as if I'd transferred my confused thoughts to the bedclothes.
It was during breakfast that I decided Joey's parents might know something. I couldn't just barge in and ask questions, but as Joey's manager, I should visit them. It would be easier to ask Denise to come along, but I decided to make this condolence call alone.
Here was another thought to be examined. Was I mistrustful enough of Denise to exclude her? No, I assured myself; I just didn't want distractions.
At eleven, I passed the fountain and pulled up to the guarded gate at the Franklin's complex. The guard took my name and telephoned for clearance before he raised the electronic arm and let me drive through.
Following his instructions, I made two right turns and pulled up in front of a two-story pink condo with roof tiles of a paler pink. Just beyond its wrought-iron fence, also pink, I could see Joey's motorcycle in the side yard. A Ford pickup and a late-model sedan were visible in the carport, but no other cars were parked outside. It looked like I was the only visitor, and that's what I'd been hoping for.
Ordinarily, I'd have wanted other visitors to help with the small talk. I dreaded this condolence visit to Joey's family, but it could be my only chance for some insight into why Joey was killed. And I needed to remove suspicion of the people I cared about.
A heavy-set woman in a sleeveless housedress opened the door. I'd met Joey's parents several times. Although this woman looked familiar, I knew she wasn't Mrs. Franklin.
"I'm Ruth Morris, the pharmacy manager at the Food Go where Joey worked," I told her.
"I know," she said. "Don't you remember me? I get all my medicine from you."
I looked at her again, trying to put a name to the face, but it wouldn't come. For a minute, I was tempted to try a social lie, but I was never good at lying. "I'd like to see Mrs. Franklin," I said.
The flabby face took on a hurt expression. "I'm surprised you don't recognize me. Dr. Ellis calls in all my medicines to you." We stood in the entry hall while I waited for her to ask me in, but she hadn't finished with her grievances. "Because of Joey, I always drove all the way to Food Go. Five other drug stores. That's how many I pass every time. Well," she added plaintively, "I guess I won't bother any more."
Just what I needed, I thought, as she moved away from the door and I followed without invitation. The pink slate tiles of the entry met deep-pile mauve carpeting in the living room, and I wondered if Joey's mother liked pink or if a previous owner had chosen the exterior and interior colors. I tried to recall how long the Franklins had lived here, focusing on irrelevancies to avoid thinking of what I must do.
Both of Joey's parents were seated on a rattan sofa covered in a floral chintz, the style of furniture I associated with Key West and Ernest Hemingway. Mrs. Franklin's eyes were red-rimmed. She clutched a handful of tissues and, as I walked into the room, she was reaching for another one from a box on her rattan and glass coffee table. Her expression seemed unfocused, and it didn't change when she saw me. I wondered what drugs they had put her on.
"Ruth Morris," I said into the silence, and shook hands with her and the dour-looking man beside her. "I wanted to tell you how sorry we all are. Joey was the best pharmacy technician we ever had at Food Go," I added so she could place me.
"Oh, yes. Food Go. Ruthie. Joey always called you Ruthie." The words were choppy and seemed to be forced out of a mouth that trembled when she said her son's name.
"I used to tell him to have more respect," Mr. Franklin said. "Who ever heard of calling your boss 'Ruthie'? I always call mine 'Mr. Williams.'"
Although they were my contemporaries, the Franklins seemed older, which was surprising for a couple whose son had barely passed his teens. On the other hand, their daughter, Detective Moreway's wife, was eight or nine years Joey's senior. I looked around the room, surprised not to see her.
After an awkward pause, they introduced my ex-customer as their next-door neighbor, which explained why there were no extra cars parked outside. I wondered whether I could outstay her and, if so, how I could get the Franklins to talk.
The neighbor offered to make coffee for everyone and bustled off to the kitchen. I could hear her rattling cabinet doors and thought uncharitably about this opportunity for her to examine the contents of every closet.
I waited, very self-conscious, not sure what to say. The Franklins waited, too. When the silence became unbearable, I remembered how people had seemed afraid to talk to me about Bob after his death. Yet, I would have preferred reminiscences to stilted conversation and awkward pauses.
"Joey had such a quick mind," I said. "He absorbed information so fast I sometimes thought he knew more about pharmacy than some of our new graduates."
"He wanted to be a doctor," Mrs. Franklin said and reached for her tissues again.
"I told him to become a druggist," her husband said. "We don't have money for medical school. All those years, and studying so hard he wouldn't be able to earn."
"Joey could've done it." Mrs. Franklin turned to face her husband. "You know he could. Once he made up his mind ..."
"Well, he liked working in the drugstore. So, I told him to become a druggist."
"He would've been a wonderful doctor."
They seemed to be repeating an old argument, one that saddened me immeasurably. I had to speak. "Joey was good with people. He really cared about them."
"He was always like that," Mrs. Franklin told me. "If I had a headache, if his sister had a cold, he'd wait on us hand and foot. Hand and foot. Most boys aren't any use around a sickroom. But Joey felt real bad if someone was hurting."
"Druggists help people, too." Mr. Franklin wasn't giving up.
"Do you like your coffee black?" The neighbor asked me. Despite her hurt feelings or maybe because of them, she'd taken pains to arrange slices on a tray—something that looked like banana bread interleaved with a darker bread I didn't recognize. She handed cups and saucers to each of us and poured the coffee.
The coffee occupied us for a few minutes, making it unnecessary to search for topics of conversation. I concentrated on my slice of banana bread, noticing the pink rose pattern of the dishes. The neighbor spoke first. "I have to get home, Edna. I'll look in again later to see if you need anything."
She made no move to leave but sighed as she helped herself to a second piece of the darker bread. "I keep thinking he's going to walk in and tease me to bake zucchini bread for him."
"Yes," Mrs. Franklin said. "Joey always loved your zucchini bread."
I had taken the last forkful from my plate, and it suddenly thickened into a lump that I couldn't swallow. How awful for the Franklins if I choked up here. I made an effort, aided by a quick sip of coffee, and managed to swallow after all. "Did you bake this?" I gestured toward the tray. "It's delicious."
She looked directly at me for the first time since I'd disappointed her at the door and, at that moment, her name burst into my mind. Stephenson, Alice Stephenson.
"Don't you like my zucchini bread? You only had the banana bread."
"Thanks, Mrs. Stephenson." I reached for another slice, thinking of the old joke about the mother who bought her son two shirts for his birthday. He put one on right away only to hear her ask, "What's the matter? You didn't like the other one?"
My mind was playing tricks on me again because I didn't know how to bring the conversation around to the things I wanted to know. And it would be even more difficult with the neighbor listening.
"Alice has been so good to us," Mrs. Franklin said. "I don't know what we'd do without her."
"No more than anyone else would do for you," the neighbor mumbled. She walked over to the sofa, hugged Joey's mother and father, gave me a brief wave, and left the house.
One obstacle out of the way, I thought. As I considered my next move, Mr. Franklin returned to our previous conversation. "Joey would've been a wonderful druggist."
"He knew just how to talk to our customers," I said. "They all liked him."
"That's because he cared about them," Mrs. Franklin said.
We were going in circles and I was afraid we'd say the same things over and over no matter how long I stayed. And what would I do if their daughter walked in with Frank Moreway? I was trying so hard to figure out how to get information from them that I nearly missed it.
"Really cared about people. Not like most boys his age," Mrs. Franklin was saying. "That man who died a couple of weeks ago. You wouldn't believe how upset Joey was."
"Do you mean Harry Stokes?"
"Yes, that's the one."
"And Joey was upset?"
"He said the man came into Food Go all the time. Of course, it bothered Joey. I told you he cared ..."In my impatience, I cut off the flow of words. "I know he was a caring person, Mrs. Franklin. But how could you tell he was so upset? What did he say? What did he do?"
I was afraid the Franklins would wonder at the strange turn in the conversation, but they didn't seem to find anything odd in my questions.
"He wasn't eating right," Mrs. Franklin said.
"And he talked about the old guy all the time," her husband, who wasn't much younger than Harry, added.
I tried to think back to the day we'd learned of Harry's death. Joey had seemed excited. Then he'd surprised me by wanting to go to the funeral. Had he been upset or worried? I'd been aware of Denise's mood, but I didn't remember consciously observing Joey. After I left the Franklins and had more time to think, I would try to reconstruct those two weeks.
"What did he say about Harry Stokes?" I asked, and held my breath. They'd surely find this question strange.
"He talked about the summer colds or flu or whatever that was going around," Mrs. Franklin said. "When I think how I used to worry about Joey being exposed to all those sick people, and now ..." Her voice trailed off and she reached for another tissue.
"This old guy had the flu, but he came in for his other medicine." Mr. Franklin made a croaking sound that could have been a laugh and patted his own bald head. "You probably know he was taking something to grow hair."
So much for patient confidentiality, I thought, but nodded and quietly waited for Joey's father to continue.
"Someone on television or in the movies, I could see it. But to spend so much money every month. And that other stuff, too." Mr. Franklin flushed and stopped talking.
"I never like to take anything unless I have to," his wife added. "Joey said the more you take, the more careful you have to be. Some drugs are okay by themselves, he told me, but they can kill you if you mix them." She looked squarely at me for the first time. "You probably know all that."
"That's why we keep patient records in the computer. Patient profiles we call them." Now or never, I thought, and just as I told myself I had to be more direct to find out anything, the telephone rang. Ordinarily, I might have used the ringing phone as an opportunity to say goodbye and escape, but I was determined to learn more from Joey's parents.
Mrs. Franklin excused herself and went into another room to take the call. She was one of those people who pitched her voice higher for the telephone than for in-person conversation. "You don't have to rush over here again. Just rest up." She paused. "Okay, if you want to." She paused again. "No, we haven't been alone. Alice came by. And now Joey's boss is here." Another pause. "Okay, I'll tell Dad."
As I'd guessed from Mrs. Franklin's end of the conversation, Joey's sister would be here soon. "She's expecting again," her mother explained to me. "I don't want her to get overtired."
Now I knew I would only have Joey's parents to myself for a short time. I had to find out as much as I could and as quickly as possible. But what could they tell me that the police, including their son-in-law, hadn't already asked? On the other hand, I had no way of knowing if the police saw a connection between Harry Stokes's death and Joey's. Maybe they weren't asking the right questions. The trouble was I didn't know the right questions either.
I'd learned that Joey was concerned about drug interactions, but so was Detective Moreway when he interviewed me. And Joey's interest might have been awakened by his brother-in-law, rather than the reverse. This family certainly revealed professional information to each other. I wondered whether Joey's sister knew of her husband's suspicions about me and what her reaction had been to the news that I was at her parents' home.
"So you don't really know why Joey wasn't eating right?" I raised my voice at the end to make it a question rather than a statement.
"He cared about people. That's why."
"Yes, of course." I tried it differently. "Did his appetite change all at once or did it happen gradually?"
This time, Mrs. Franklin did look puzzled, but she answered nonetheless. "No, it didn't happen right away. He talked to us about the man that died just the way he told us about a lot of the customers. We liked to know what Joey was doing at work. And he made it interesting."
I said nothing although I blamed myself for not emphasizing confidentiality to Joey. Had he talked about the customers to all his friends, too?
Mrs. Franklin still seemed uncertain, but now I suspected it was because she was trying to recall when Joey's eating habits had changed. I waited, hoping I could get out of there before their daughter arrived. Not knowing how long it would take her to drive over, I shifted uneasily at the sound of every passing car.
"Don't you remember?" Mr. Franklin asked his wife. "It was the day of that funeral. You thought he was just late for work when he rushed off without dinner."
"That's right. He didn't eat anything before work, so I had hamburgers waiting for him. On those nice onion buns. The ones we buy at Food Go. Joey loved burgers on onion buns, but he said he was tired and went right to bed."
Maybe he was tired and I'm being foolish, I thought, remembering how exhausted I'd felt the night of the funeral. But I was quite a bit older than Joey, and talking to Michael had drained me emotionally.
"Joey said you never had children, so you probably don't know how much a teenage boy eats. Well, he wasn't a teenager anymore." Mrs. Franklin pressed a tissue to her face and was silent, while I sat there hating myself for doing this to her. "But he still ate like one. I used to make all his favorites. He was always rushing off to school or work. And I wanted to be sure he had regular meals."
Mrs. Franklin seemed so obsessed with Joey's eating habits, I couldn't tell how much of her concern was justified. "And he was oversleeping and cutting classes," she suddenly added.
"That's because he was walking around all night," her husband told her.
"You never said."
"I didn't want to worry you. A couple of nights, when I got up for the bathroom, Joey was sitting here with the television. Just the picture—no sound."
"Why? Did he say why?"
"He said he was thinking. Listen, I figured it was that girl he broke up with last winter. You know, he wanted to keep seeing her and she wanted to date other boys. Joey was miserable."
"But he got over that," Mrs. Franklin protested.
"They act like they're over it, but it's just an act. I know he wanted to get back with her again. She wouldn't have him."
"She wouldn't have Joey!" His mother was outraged.
"What's the use of talking about that now?" Mr. Franklin rose suddenly and left the room.
I listened to their conversation and suddenly remembered that I, too, had thought Joey wasn't sleeping enough. But I couldn't sort out the details now. It was time for me to leave and I got up, trying to rationalize my terrible intrusion because I was there to help find Joey's murderer. And to clear my friends and myself from suspicion, I said silently.
Before I could take Mrs. Franklin's hand, say goodbye, and go, I heard the front door open and then sharp steps on the entry tile. Joey's sister, whom I'd met once or twice at Food Go, rushed into the room and hugged her mother. Despite my dismay at not getting away before her arrival, I felt some relief that she was alone.
"And you're Ruthie," she said. "It's so nice of you to come."
"I was just leaving."
"No, please don't. It does my folks good to have people to talk to."
So I sat down again, thankful that at least her husband, the police detective, hadn't accompanied her. Carolyn Moreway took the armchair across from mine. "Joey really loved working for you," she said.
I half expected to hear that he should have been a druggist, but Mr. Franklin had not reappeared. "And I was telling your parents he was the best pharmacy tech we ever had."
Carolyn sighed. "You'd think people would be safe in a gated complex. Guard service twenty-four hours a day. And it costs my folks plenty for that."
"Did Frank find out anything?"
"They're still trying to trace all Joey's movements on Sunday. Frank is questioning someone right now."
"I told Frank he was with his friends all day."
"Yes, Mom. Frank talked to all of them. They were hanging out at Bill Reed's, mostly playing volleyball in the swimming pool."
"Did the Reeds invite him for dinner?"
I was trying not to seem too interested in the conversation between mother and daughter, but I wondered again why Mrs. Franklin was so worried about food. Maybe she was right and I didn't appreciate how normal her concerns were because I'd never had children.
"Bill's parents weren't home. The boys sent out for pizza, but Joey only had one slice. He was meeting someone later for dinner at the Sizzler."
"A girl?"
"That's what Bill Reed and Joey's other friends figured. But it was a man. They didn't remember his name, only that Joey was talking about a customer who died. And this was the wife's father. Frank thinks he was the last person to see Joey alive, and he's questioning the man right now."
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