J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 2: Trial by Fire, Fatal Error, Left for Dead (114 page)

When she came in the front door and saw the voice-mail light blinking on her phone, she was tempted to ignore it. After all, it was bound to be more bad news. But when she saw the number listed on the display and realized it was Ali Reynolds calling, she picked up the phone and dialed back.

“Sorry it took a while for me to get back to you,” Patty said. “I stopped off and had some dinner on the way home.”

“I’m doing the same thing on the way to the hospital,” Ali said. “Some relative or other of Teresa’s showed up this afternoon to help with the little ones, so I got a break. But I did stop by to see Christine.”

“And?”

“She seems to think Phil had a girlfriend.”

For a moment Patty said nothing. This was not news to her. She had suspected Phil had a girlfriend for a long time, and why shouldn’t he? He was devoted to Christine, but Patty was of the opinion that, after years of being punished for his daughter’s death, he deserved to have some kind of life and some kind of fun.

Months ago Patty had noticed Phil starting to take a little more pride in his appearance: He didn’t wear the same uniform two days in a row; he took more trouble arranging his comb-over; sometimes he even whistled or hummed as he took the mail bins out to his truck.

Yes, Patty had noticed, and she hadn’t said a single word about it to Phil or to anyone else, either, because it was no one else’s business. That didn’t mean she hadn’t wondered, though. Who was it? Where had he met her? Phil wasn’t the kind to hang out in bars. Maybe it was someone he had met at the café, but if that were the case, someone probably would have noticed and mentioned it. When she noticed he was often late coming back from his route, especially on Mondays, Patty concluded that it had to be someone on his route.

The idea that Phil would casually pull his mail truck off into someone’s yard and park it while he indulged in a nooner was more than a bit disturbing, but obviously, he and his gal pal were incredibly discreet, because not a whisper of it ever came back to Patty. The previous week, when he had come back later than usual, claiming he’d had to help a stranded motorist change a tire, Patty had started to tease him about it, but then she had let it go. She had already decided that if Zambrano asked her about it in his interview, she would keep it under her hat. For one thing, it was nothing more than a rumor. Patty knew no details of any kind. Besides, why bring something up like that at a time when all it would do was hurt Christine? Now, to her surprise, word about a possible girlfriend had come from Christine herself.

“Hello,” Ali asked. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” Patty said. “Just a little taken aback is all. What did she tell you?”

“That she found a letter he had written sometime back—a letter to someone named Ollie.”

“That’s an unusual name for a woman,” Patty said. “It’s not one I recognize.”

“It was like a pen name or something,” Ali said. “He signed his letters Popeye, and Ollie was evidently short for Olive Oyl.”

Patty blinked in surprise. That was the tune she remembered hearing Phil whistle on occasion, the theme song to that old cartoon—“I’m Popeye the sailor man.”

“What’s really important,” Ali continued, “is that Christine thinks Ollie, or whatever her name is, was at their house this morning.”

“She saw her?”

“No. Christine claimed she smelled the girlfriend’s perfume, and she was offended that Phil would bring another woman into the house when she was right there.”

“Offended enough to kill him?” Patty asked.

“According to her, more like hurt,” Ali answered. “Besides, at this point, I don’t think Christine understands that Phil is dead. She’s sitting there fully expecting him to get off work, come pick her up, and take her home. But you’re sure you have no idea who this Ollie person might be or where we could find her?”

“None at all,” Patty answered. “But if Phil did have a gal pal, she’d have to live on or near his regular route.”

“Could he have met her anywhere else?”

“Not that I can think of,” Patty said.

“Whoever she is, we need to find her,” Ali said. “Right now the cops have only one suspect in Phil’s homicide, and that’s Christine. If someone else was at the house, there’s a possibility that the person may have either witnessed or been involved in what happened.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Patty said.

She put down the phone and stood staring at it, thinking about what Ali had told her. Christine had found a letter. That meant a letter on paper. Not an e-mail. Not a text. But a letter, and where there was one letter, there might be more.

Making up her mind, Patty picked up her purse and her car keys and left again. She drove straight back to the post office. What she and Phil had always referred to as the sorting table was really an antique partner desk that Patty’s mother, Lorna, had bought from a used-furniture auction in Tucson thirty-some years ago. The desk had two knee wells and two sets of drawers, one set on either side. For years, one of those sets had been Patty’s private domain. The other was Phil’s.

Once inside the back room, Patty ignored another blinking message light and went straight to Phil’s side of the desk. She found what she was looking for—a packet of envelopes fastened with a rubber band—squirreled away in the back of the bottom drawer. There were no stamps or postmarks. The letters hadn’t been sent through the mail. Written in flowery, feminine script on the outside of each envelope was a single word: Popeye.

Patty Patton had spent her entire life believing that handling the mail was a sacred trust. She didn’t pry, not even so much as to read the notes on picture postcards back when more than a handful of people sent them. Her whole being recoiled at the idea of reading a letter that was addressed to someone else, but with Phil Tewksbury dead and with Christine’s life hanging in the balance, Patty didn’t feel as though she had any choice. She picked up the top envelope and removed the single piece of paper.

Dear Popeye,

Up all night with Oscar. He’s still bad this morning. I can’t leave him for more than a few minutes.

Won’t be able to see you today. Miss you.

Ollie

And that was it. As far as Patty knew, there was only one Oscar living in the area—Oscar Sanchez. Oscar’s quarter horse ranch out in the San Rafael Valley had to be one of the last stops on Phil’s mail route. And if Oscar Sanchez were the topic of the note, than the person writing it, Ollie, had to be Olga Sanchez. Patty stood staring at the paper, thinking about Olga Sanchez, about the way she wore her hair—pulled back and wound in a knot at the back of her neck, just the way Olive Oyl in the cartoons wore her hair. Olive Oyl and Popeye.

But maybe there was more to it. Wasn’t Olga the former mother-in-law of Teresa Reyes, and a seriously estranged former mother-in-law at that? It seemed like an odd connection between Jose’s shooting and Phil’s murder, but surely it was more than a simple coincidence.

With the letter still in her hand, Patty picked up the telephone receiver. The last call had come from Ali Reynolds’s number. She pressed redial.

“Christine is right,” Patty said when Ali answered. “I found a packet of letters hidden in one of Phil’s drawers here at the post office. Ollie is probably a woman named Olga Sanchez. She and her husband, Oscar, live on a ranch called the Lazy S that’s on Phil’s mail route, between here and Lochiel.”

“Wait,” Ali said. “Olga Sanchez? Teresa Reyes’s former mother-in-law? I’ve actually met her. Thin. Black hair pulled back in a bun.”

“Yes,” Patty said. “Just like Olive Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriend in those
old cartoons. That’s where the Ollie part comes from, but you’ve met Olga? How?”

“She came to the hospital where Jose is being treated, offering to help out by looking after Teresa’s two older girls.”

“Her granddaughters,” Patty added.

“She even apologized to Teresa for some of her past behavior.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Patty said. “It’s about time. Life is too short to carry grudges around like that, and there’s been bad blood between Teresa and Olga for a long time. Olga always blamed her daughter-in-law for her son’s death.”

“Was Teresa responsible in some way?”

“Not in any legal sense. The way I heard it, Teresa and Danny had a big fight, Danny went out drinking with his pals and ended up in another fight—this one in a bar—and died as a result of a drive-by shooting. It’s a relief to know that they’re finally getting over it,” Patty added. “It’ll be better for them and certainly better for the daughters.”

“Who are being raised by Jose Reyes, her daughter-in-law’s second husband,” Ali said. “Was the bad blood between Olga and Teresa serious enough that Olga would target Jose?”

“I don’t think so,” Patty said. “I’ve known Olga all her life. Her father came from Mexico years ago and worked as Oscar’s foreman. Olga grew up on the ranch and ended up marrying Oscar after his first wife died. She was twenty, and he was a lot older, but as far as I can tell, it’s been a good marriage. Oscar has had some serious health issues in the last few years. Olga seems to have been his devoted caregiver.”

“Like Phil with Christine,” Ali said.

While they’d been talking, Patty had removed another letter from its envelope. As she unfolded the paper, she noticed that a faint hint of lingering perfume came off the page as she scanned through it.

“This letter is all about Oscar’s medical problems and going to Tucson to see doctors. So that’s something Phil and Olga shared, being caregivers. Based on my experience looking after my mother, I can tell you, it’s a pretty thankless task.”

Patty opened another envelope. This one was about the picnic lunch they’d had together. Olga had brought tuna sandwiches and some chocolate chip cookies; Phil had supplied the sodas. They’d eaten lunch on a blanket under a tree with his mail truck parked nearby.

“So far this all seems pretty innocent,” Patty said. “More like pen-pal stuff than love letters. And nothing salacious. Nothing about meeting somewhere and making mad, passionate love. More like having someone to talk to who knows what you’re up against.”

And nothing about drug dealing, either,
Patty thought.
Not a word about that.

If Phil had been involved in drug dealing, his gal pal, Olga, was probably as much in the dark about it as Patty was. And Christine.

All afternoon, since the moment Eunice Carson had told her Phil was dead, Patty had been grieving for the man. Now, for the first time, she was pissed at him instead. All the time he had been pretending to be one thing, he had evidently been busy
being
something else.

“I think you need to go to Sheriff Renteria with this,” Ali said.

“With the letters?”

“Yes, with the letters. The cops need to know that there’s another woman in Phil’s life, a woman who isn’t Christine.”

“But won’t that make things worse for her?”

“I don’t see how. Christine already knows Phil had at least one outside interest,” Ali said. “Maybe there was another one we know nothing about. If nothing else, knowing about the letters between Olga and Phil will give the detectives someone to investigate who isn’t Christine. In any event, you can’t withhold this information. It’s a homicide investigation. If you don’t call Sheriff Renteria about it, I will.”

“Why don’t I go talk to Olga first? Shouldn’t I give her some kind of advance warning?”

“Are you asking my opinion?” Ali asked.

“Well, yes,” Patty said. “I suppose I am.”

“Talk to Sheriff Renteria. Do not talk to Olga,” Ali advised.

“All right,” Patty agreed. “I will.”

She ended the call and put down the phone. Then she sat there and read through all the letters. The last one in the stack, the most recent, was a simple thank-you card—to Phil for changing Olga’s flat tire. As far as Patty could see, this was all harmless, innocent stuff. Olga Sanchez was a neighbor, a local, someone Patty Patton had known all her life. Ali Reynolds was an outsider; a stranger.

In the small-town world of Patagonia, that’s what tipped the scales for Patty Patton that night—insider versus outsider; neighbor versus stranger. Olga was in; Ali was out. Patty knew she would call the
sheriff eventually because she had said she would, but not until after she had given Olga Sanchez a heads-up. Patty knew how what appeared to be a perfectly platonic relationship between Olga and Phil would be viewed through the prism of Patagonia’s small-town gossip, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Patty stuffed the packet of letters into her purse. Picking up her keys and shutting off the light, she locked the door behind her and headed out. The Lazy S was only ten miles south of Patagonia on Harshaw Road, but it would take the better part of an hour to get there. It was full dark out. Much of the unpaved road was open range, where wandering cattle made nighttime driving treacherous.

It was fine for Patty to head out on what she regarded as an errand of mercy. It was not fine to wreck the Camaro in the process. She drove carefully and smoked one cigarette after another along the way.

When her tires lumbered across the cattle guard at the entrance to the Lazy S, Patty could see the house in the distance. With no lights glowing in any of the windows, she guessed no one was home. Still, having come that far, she decided not to leave without at least going to the door. A minivan was parked next to a gate that led into a small fenced yard, and she pulled up next to it. When the Camaro stopped, a small dog, barking frantically, came racing to the front gate. The dog, a Jack Russell terrier–like creature, sounded completely prepared to go into full-attack mode, and Patty was glad he was apparently locked inside the yard.

It wasn’t until she looked away from the dog that she saw, caught in her still-glowing headlights, the figure of a man sitting in a chair near the front door of the covered front porch. Despite the fierce racket from the dog, he sat with his chin resting on his chest as though he were asleep.

Warily, still worried about the dog, Patty rolled down the window. “Hello,” she called. “Are you all right?” The man didn’t move or respond in any fashion.