She was obviously uncomfortable with Marlena lingering in the adjoining kitchen, so Gabe suggested that they go sit in the police cruiser. Daphne pulled on her sweater, smiled meekly at Marlena, and followed him out the door.
Daphne had never been in a police cruiser before and marvelled at all the bells and whistles. She smiled at Gabe as he settled into his seat.
“Everyone is so comfortable around you,” she said. “You seem like a nice man.”
“So you don't remember me?” he asked.
She shook her head timidly.
“We graduated together, in the class of '79.” Gabe pulled out his pad and pen. “Joan tells me you were sick, meningitis or something?”
She corrected him. “Encephalitis. It's affected my long-term memory from before I got sick, but my short term is fine. Very good, in fact.” Her face suddenly lit up with recognition. “Gabe, Gabe Theissen!”
“You do remember?”
“Yes, no. I mean, I remember your picture. From the yearbook.” She seemed genuinely pleased by the connection. “And now you're a cop.”
“We went to school together for twelve years. I know it's been a tough few days, for everyone, but I have to ask you a few more questions.”
She nodded.
Gabe confirmed the statement Des had taken about Friday. She'd gone home before the music ended that night because she didn't want Peg to be alone. She'd brought her a piece of lemon cake from the buffet wrapped in a napkin, but Peg hadn't wanted anything to eat. Daphne had urged her to see a doctor and offered to go with her in the morning, but Peg had refused, insisting that it was the flu and would pass. Gabe noted that as Daphne told the story she became increasingly distraught.
“On Saturday, yesterday, Peg said she was doing better. Tired, she said, that's all. She was so insistent that I go out to the games night. She didn't want to hurt Mr. Fowler's feelings.” Daphne looked up. “She was always so thoughtful.” She sniffed and caught a tear on her cuff. “I thought maybe she wanted some privacy. We'd spent so much time together since I got here. It was so kind of her to invite me to stay with her. I couldn't have afforded the trip otherwise. I decided to be a good guest by giving her some space. Once I got to the Couch I had a really good time. I connected with so many people.” She became wistful. “It was all a bit odd, though. People knew me, but it was like I was meeting them for the first time. Mr. Fowler drove me home last night. Peg was asleep when I got in.”
“Did you talk to Peg this morning?” Gabe asked.
Daphne nodded. “She was awake when I got up and chirping like her old self. She talked about getting up. I made her a boiled egg and toast before I left and told her she should just stay in bed and rest.”
“Was she expecting anyone that you know of?”
“No. Oh, except Officer Cardinal.”
“Anyone else,” asked Gabe. Daphne shook her head. “And the door, did you lock it when you left?”
“Oh, no. Peg never locks her door.”
“And you came home just before noon,” said Gabe, referring to the police report.
“I could see the police car when I turned the corner.
They'd taken Peg's body away. She hadn't seemed that sick. I wouldn't have left her otherwise.” Daphne trailed off. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, leaving rivulets in her caked makeup. He handed her a tissue and she dabbed at the muddy tracks of mascara. “I'm so selfish. I should have stayed.”
Gabe asked, “Where did you go?”
She looked at him, then blurted it out. “You'll find out anyway. I was with Ray. At a motel.” The tears gushed forth.
She confessed that she had put so much stock in returning to Madden. Her own marriage had faltered after she got sick. It had just withered away. Her husband just left one day. They had never actually divorced.
“My daughter, Patti, she deserved so much more than I could give her. It all makes me feel like such a loser, my whole life. I dreaded making this trip.” She hung her head and avoided looking at him. “But there's another part of me, the part that wants to fill in the blanks. I feel so empty inside.”
“How did that happen,” said Gabe gently, “with Ray?”
“Friday, when the band was on a break, Ray gave me directions to the bathroom. Afterward he asked if I was having a nice time.”
“He was flirting?” Gabe was surprised.
“No. Oh, no. He wasn't trying to pick me up or anything. He was just nice, a nice normal guy. From what I could see, he was by himself.” She looked up from beneath thick false eyelashes. “Plumbers, they don't wear rings you know.”
Gabe watched her fold her manicured hands on her lap. He hadn't known Daphne well when they were in school. Her parents were strict about her associating with boys. She still had a shy, girlish quality about her.
“This morning I saw Ray at the gas station and I recognized him from Friday. I suppose you'll have to tell Marlena. She'll be devastated. Really, really choked.”
Gabe responded that it wouldn't be necessary, at least not at the moment.
“You're sure?”
He nodded.
“You're a very nice man, listening to me like this,” she said, as she dried the last of her tears.
“What about Roger, do you remember anything about your relationship with him?”
As far as Daphne was concerned, Friday night was the first time in her life that she'd seen Roger.
Gabe watched her walk to the house. He could swear that she'd been almost disappointed that Marlena wouldn't hear about her fling with Ray. His job, however, was not to enforce the moral code of Madden.
H
AZEL AND
L
ILA OCCUPIED A SUITE
on the top floor of the Twin Pines Hotel. The six-story tower, added to the original motel in recent years, made it a skyscraper in local terms. When Joan called up to the room, Hazel asked if she would mind coming up. They could have coffee in the room.
Joan gasped when Lila answered the door. Standing almost six-feet tall, with a mane of wavy auburn hair over her shoulders, she wore slim fitting blue jeans and a cashmere sweater that hugged her fit but ample torso.
“I have waited so long to meet Hazel's best friend from childhood,” Lila gushed in a lush southern accent, then hugged her.
Joan did a double take at the heady fragrance of angelica and fern fixed with the violet tones of orris root. She couldn't place the perfume; it might have been a custom blend, but she would've expected a delicate magnolia or some other floral scent. In all her musings, she hadn't imagined Hazel's partner to be so striking or so young.
Hazel was working on her sermon for the following Sunday. She explained that her church was part of an inter-denominational rally for peace and it was quite a big deal. She stacked papers and books on the small table by the window. “How could our lives have become so busy that we haven't reconnected until now?”
Joan wondered if it had to do with Lila. Did she keep Hazel on a short leash? Did Lila's jealousy extend beyond Roger? Just as likely, though, that Hazel's prominent work kept her frenzied.
“I can't believe Marlena accused you of stabbing Roger to death,” exclaimed Lila. Hazel and Joan grimaced at one another. It didn't surprise either of them.
“What worries me,” said Joan, “is that Staff Sergeant Smartt is on my tail. He seems to think that Marlena is credible. Peggy was the one person who could have cleared me.”
“How's that?” asked Hazel.
“The cops have the impression that I crashed the reunion. I didn't even want to come, and I don't want this mess to bite me in the butt when I get back to Vancouver. I have to clear my name.”
Hazel handed her a coffee. “So, what can we do, Joannie?”
“I need to know more about Roger.” She looked into her friend's grey eyes. “Haze, how did you reconnect with him? It's the last thing I would have expected.”
“When I first joined the First Metropolitan Church I was an associate minister. My duties included going out onto the streets to help those in need. Boy, I was young.” She shook her head at the memory. “And naive.”
“From Madden to San Francisco. Must've been huge culture shock,” said Joan.
Hazel nodded. “One day, nearly twenty years ago, I was at a San Francisco hospital doing rounds, listening to lonely lost souls and finding out what I could do to help. Usually it meant hooking them up with social service agencies that deal with housing, mental-health care or addiction treatment. I was on the psych ward. Some patients were in such bad shape that they had to be strapped to their beds to keep them from ripping out their IV tubes or trashing the room. That's when I saw him.”
“Roger?” she asked.
Hazel nodded. “It was the hair that caught my attention. The bond curls. They'd lost their luster but those ringlets still made him stand out, especially in a crowd of drug addicts. There he was, sitting on a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, chatting up a cute little Asian nurse. He didn't look so bad then. All I could think about was that stupid basketball photograph. Oh, Joannie, I knew that I should've been able to look beyond that, to have mercy, but...” Hazel shrugged.
“What happened?” asked Joan.
“I couldn't bring myself to approach him.” She bent her head and stared at her lap. “I turned around and walked out of the room before he saw me.” She paused. “Anyway, months passed and I forgot about it.”
Lila sniffed impatiently and moved away. “We have a soup kitchen at the church. One afternoon, after we'd finished serving lunch, I went out to deliver a meal to an AIDS patient a few blocks from the church. On the way there I heard all this screaming. There was a crowd gathering on the street around a man lying on the sidewalk. There was a syringe hanging from his arm. It was Roger. He was a skeleton.”
“He became her hobby,” said Lila. “Like some people collect pretty pieces of glass. They might cut you but they're mesmerizing.” There was a savage tone in her voice.
Hazel ignored her. “I resuscitated him, called 911. Then I got him into a rehab program.”
“It wouldn't be the last time,” Lila said.
“I always believed that if I'd talked to him that day in the hospital I could have kept him safe.”
“You gave him a chance,” insisted Joan.
“Roger made me understand my mission in life,” said Hazel. “He taught me the most important lesson I'd ever learn. Forgiveness. We came here to visit his parents. They became a surrogate family for me. I quit hating this town.” She gazed out the window overlooking the rooftops of Madden. “Sometimes we get the most from where we least expect it.”
At that moment there was a knock at the door.
Lila opened it.
“Gabe!” said Hazel.
“Well, it looks as though this has become reunion central.” Lila's voice was thick with sarcasm.
His wool-and-coffee smell sent Joan back to the previous evening. She gave him a weak smile.
“Ms. Parker,” he said.
She felt herself blush and hoped that neither woman noticed. Lila had distanced herself from the door and Gabe. She had greeted Joan so warmly. Maybe she just didn't take well to men.
“I'll be in the restaurant reading the newspaper,” said Lila, grabbing her wallet.
Hazel didn't try to stop her. Now, finally, they were together again, just the three of them. Though Gabe had come on business, he dropped his formal demeanor immediately. Flopping down on one of the double beds, he stretched out completely.
Hazel laughed. “Hey, Theissen, the shoes!”
It reminded Joan of the hours they had spent in one another's bedrooms as teenagers. Those had been the only places they could be guaranteed privacy in houses full of siblings and parents. They'd crank up their record players or radios full blast so that their conversations wouldn't be overheard. Discussions about hot crushes, parties, and where to get the next bag of grass were their world. Joan couldn't get enough of looking at her two friends.
Gabe rolled onto his side and looked directly at her. “I'm supposed to keep an eye on you.”
“Who says?” she asked, mockingly defensive.
“My boss on this case.” He sat up and became serious. “Marlena's not backing off from her story. She's conceded that she didn't actually see Roger come out of your room but is convinced that the two of you were making out in the hallway on Friday night.”
“What about hard evidence â fingerprints, blood splatter, all of that stuff? Is my DNA in Roger's room?”
He sighed and explained that all that television detective stuff burned his ass. Everyone expected answers by the next commercial. That kind of analysis could take weeks, some of it months. “Smartt still thinks that you invited yourself to the reunion.”
“So what if I had?” argued Joan.
“Did you?” asked Hazel.
“No!” Gabe and Joan replied in unison.
He continued. “The fact that you deny it is what bugs him. Now that Peg's dead there doesn't seem to be any way to prove that she approached you.”
“Candy was working closely with Peg planning the reunion,” said Hazel. “Has anybody asked her?”
“I met with her but I didn't ask her about the list. I will. I need a statement from you too, Hazel,” said Gabe.
“Should I leave?” asked Joan.
Gabe hesitated, then shook his head. Joan knew she shouldn't be there during official questioning but was glad to learn from watching a pro.
“We stopped before reaching Madden on Friday and spent the night at a motel,” said Hazel.
“Did either of you leave the room?”
“No. Lila will back me up, if she's in the mood.”
He scribbled on his pad. “What time did you arrive in Madden?”
“Sometime mid-morning, I'd say . . . ”