Queen of the Night

“Hey there,” he said. “I must have dozed off. How long have you been here?”

“Not long,” Brandon replied. “Just a couple of minutes.”

In actual fact, it had been over an hour. One silent set of auto-racing laps had morphed into another, but Brandon had been too preoccupied to pay any attention to the muted announcer’s narrative, which scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

“Where’s Sue?” Geet’s voice was whispery and hoarse, as though he needed to clear his throat but couldn’t. His breath came in short, tortured gasps.

“She went out to run some errands.”

“Good. She hardly ever gets out these days,” Geet said. “This is real hard on her.”

It’s hard on you, too, Brandon thought. “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Water? A soda?”

Geet shook his head. “Did Sue give you the box?”

Brandon patted it. “It’s right here.” He made as if to take the cover off, but Geet stopped him.

“Don’t look at the contents now,” Geet said. “You can do that later.” He spoke in short sentences, as though anything longer was too much effort. “Right now we need to talk.”

He punched a button that raised the head of the bed. Then he opened a drawer in the bedside table and took out a stack of envelopes. From the looks of them, most appeared to be greeting card envelopes. One was not. That was the one Geet handed to Brandon. There was no return address in the upper left-hand corner.

“I’ve been working Ursula Brinker’s murder all my adult life,” he said. “She was a kid when she got murdered. I had just signed on to my first law enforcement job. I was a campus cop at ASU. Ursula died in California—on a beach in San Diego during spring break. ASU was a real community in those days—a smaller community. She was a cute girl—an outstanding student—and everybody took it hard.”

Brandon nodded. He knew it was true. He also knew much of this history, but he let Geet tell the story his own way.

“When Ursula’s mother won that huge Mega Millions jackpot of lottery money and wanted to start The Last Chance, she came looking for me. Hedda Brinker wanted to help others, but bottom line, she wanted to help herself.”

Geet paused for a spasm of coughing. Brandon waited until it passed. Geet took a sip of water before he continued.

“So I’ve been working Ursula’s murder all along,” he said.

“Any leads?” Brandon asked.

“When it came to ‘alternate lifestyles’ in 1959, you could just as well have been from another planet.”

“What are you saying?” Brandon asked. “That Ursula was a lesbian?”

“I don’t know that for sure. I’ve heard hints about it here and there, but nothing definitive. I’ve spoken to all the girls who went to San Diego on that spring-break trip, all but one, her best friend, June Lennox. Holmes is her married name. I’ve known where she lived for a long time, but she would never agree to speak to me before this.”

That caused another spasm of coughing.

Brandon understood the issue. As a TLC operative without being a sworn police officer, Geet would have had no way of compelling a reluctant witness to cooperate.

“And you couldn’t force the issue,” Brandon said.

Geet nodded. “The letter came two months ago, just as I was going in for another round of surgery.”

“You want me to read it?”

“Please.”

The note on a single sheet of paper was brief:

Dear Mr. Farrell,

It’s time we talked. Please give me a call so we can arrange to meet.

Sincerely,

June Lennox Holmes

The 520 prefix on the phone number listed below her name meant that it was located somewhere in southern Arizona—or that it was a cell phone that had been purchased in southern Arizona.

“Did you talk to her?” Brandon asked as he folded the note and returned it to the envelope.

Geet shook his head. “I’ve been too sick,” he said. “I thought that eventually I’d bounce back and be well enough to follow up myself. At least I hoped I would be, but that’s not going to happen. This time there doesn’t seem to be any bounce, and I need some answers, Brandon. I couldn’t find them for Hedda, but maybe you can find them for me.”

Opening the top of the brimming evidence box, Brandon put the envelope inside, then closed it again.

“So you’ll do it?” Geet asked.

“I’ll do my best,” Brandon said.

“Don’t take too long,” Geet cautioned. “I don’t have much time, but don’t say anything about that to Sue. She doesn’t know how bad it is.”

Yes, she does, Brandon thought. She knows, and so do you. Maybe it’s time the two of you talked about it.

Tucson, Arizona

Saturday, June 6, 2009, 2:00 P.M.

93º Fahrenheit

“Who was your company?” Lani Dahd asked her mother, as they left the house in Gates Pass and headed into Tucson. Mrs. Ladd was in the passenger seat, while Gabe had moved to the back and was listening to the conversation.

“What company?” Mrs. Ladd returned.

“I don’t know,” Lani said. “Gabe told me there was a man sitting and talking to you when we got to the house.”

Frowning, Mrs. Ladd turned and looked questioningly at Gabe. Her eyes were a startling shade of blue, like the color of the blue jays that sometimes strutted around the yard. Her skin was surprisingly pale. Her silvery hair had been pulled back with a turquoise-studded comb.

“No one was there,” Mrs. Ladd said after a long moment, turning back to Lani. “Just me. Gabe must have been mistaken.”

Gabe was shocked. He wasn’t mistaken. He had seen the man with his own eyes, and he was telling the truth. Lani Dahd and his parents always said it was important to tell the truth, no matter what. And he did. So why was it okay for Mrs. Ladd to lie and say that the man wasn’t there when he had been?

Now that Gabe thought about that man again, the one who wasn’t there, he realized one more thing about him. The man sitting across from Mrs. Ladd at her patio table was blind. He had to be. He had been sitting there staring up into the sky, looking directly at the sun. He couldn’t have done that if he hadn’t been blind already.

Gabe started to voice his objection and to insist once again that the man really had been there, but then Mrs. Ladd suddenly changed the subject.