The Easter Egg Murder (8 page)

18

Harrie drained her wine glass.
Steve refilled it.

“Whoa there
,” said Harrie. “I still have to drive home, you know!”

“We could always drive you instead,” he shot back jovially.

Ginger shook her head. “I think my husband is trying to render you incapable of driving so you’ll be forced to stay with us tonight.”

Steve raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. Then his smile faded, and he became serious. “I think it’s a good idea for you to change your routine a bit, Harrie. What would it hurt if you stayed here tonight?”

Harrie looked puzzled. “I can’t stay here tonight. I have to get home and feed Tuptim.”

Steve sighed. “I’m worried about you.” He shifted his gaze to include Ginger and said, “I’m worried about both of you. This thing with Nick calling today is more than a little strange, and the timing is odd, don’t you think?”

Harrie looked at Ginger, who shrugged, and then back at Steve. “Well, I definitely think it’s odd for Nick to call but I don’t get what you mean about the timing.” Harrie had told them about her trip back from Lowe’s that afternoon and the man who seemed to be watching her in his side mirror. She didn’t see any connection.

“Look, all I’m saying is that you’ve seen a suspicious automobile several times in the last few days.
Now, after – what, ten years? twelve? – Nick calls you.”

Harrie held up a hand. “It’s been thirteen years, but who’s counting?
”

“
My point is you got the divorce by default. He never even responded to the notification. He literally dropped out of sight. So suddenly, it’s urgent for him to speak with you? Call me cynical if you want, but it’s too much of a coincidence. And I haven’t been able to find out anything about why he would be back.”

Ginger sat quietly, listening to the conversation
. Harrie hoped her friend would join her protest against Steve’s unfounded concern. But Ginger said, “I wasn’t going to tell you this. It seemed silly to get you all upset for nothing. Except now . . .”

A chill crept up
Harrie’s spine. An image flashed into her mind, the figure in the hooded jacket. The person from her dream two nights ago turned slowly toward her and pushed back the hood. Only now, instead of being faceless, there was a person with features.

Harrie gasped.
She reached for her wine, but her hands were trembling so much that she stopped short of grasping it.

“Harrie,” Ginger stammered,
“what happened? What’s wrong?”

Steve knelt down beside Harrie and took her hands in his. “Your hands are like ice and you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s going on?”

“It’s the dream,” she whispered. “The man in the dream—I told you about him Tuesday, remember, on the way to Philips’ house?”

Ginger knelt down on the other side of Harrie. “But Sweetie, you said you couldn’t see a face
—that you couldn’t tell who it was. What’s gotten you so upset?”

Harrie took deep, steadyi
ng breaths and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she said, “Something fell into place as I listened to you. My brain dumped the dream back into my mind, and I saw his face. I’ve never had anything like that happen before.” A sense of wonder and curiosity now replaced her fear. “I have no idea if my mind made up things to fill in the gaps, or if I really did dream it, but the person I told you about pushed back the hood, and I clearly saw his face for the first time.” She looked from Steve to Ginger and back again.

“The man in my dream was Nick.”

Steve looked skeptical, and a stunned expression covered Ginger’s face. She stood up and sputtered, “You mean you just now saw Nick’s face as the man from the dream, and you didn’t see that part before? How is that possible?”

Harrie shook her head. “I have no idea.
You started to tell me something, and you hesitated. That’s when the dream popped back into my head, and I saw Nick. Please, tell me what you started to say.”

“Okay. I might as well tell you. It can’t be any worse than what you’ve already seen. A week ago I found a message on our answering machine. It was a man, and he sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place the voice. He didn’t leave a number. Said he’d call back when his plans were firmed up.” She slumped in the chair and shook her head. “I forgot all about it until today.”

Steve looked puzzled. “What made you remember now?”

“When Harrie showed me the message that Nick had called, it hit me maybe that’s why the voice sounded familiar. Don’t you see? He could have been in town
all week. He could be the one who’s been hanging around in the black SUV.”

“Are you saying Nick was the voice on the answering machine?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve heard his voice. But when I found out he had called Harrie, I thought the first call might also have been Nick. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am.”

“Why didn’t you say something this morning after he called? I couldn’t imagine why he would be in town, much less calling me, and why in God’s name would he have become a stalker? I still can’t believe there’s any connection,” Harrie folded her arms in front of her chest, a look of defiance on her face.

“Like I say, I wasn’t sure. And you were already so jumpy from Sunglasses showing up. That’s why I suggested we have Steve return the call. I figured he could find out what was going on, and maybe you wouldn’t have to talk to Nick at all. Also, if he had been the one who left the message last week, he’d tell Steve, and the mystery would be solved.”

Harrie’s face relaxed into a smile. “You’re right. I was having a
bad day even before I got the phone message.” She patted her friend’s hand. “You did the right thing.”

They
were exchanging theories about why Nick would be coming through town and what he could possibly want when Ginger interrupted. “I bought a chocolate fudge cake. It hasn’t been cut yet. Come help me.”

When the phone rang, Steve
took the call in the den.

When he returned, Ginger and Harrie were setting out desert plates
with slices of the cake. Ginger looked at him, a teasing remark on her lips, but she stopped when she saw his face. “Steve, what’s wrong?”

He stared at her. “
The call was from Presbyterian Hospital. Nick’s been in an automobile accident. My business card was in his pocket so they called me. They don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

19

Harrie watched the hands on the waiting room clock reach ten o’clock. Two hours, she thought. How much longer could this go on? Ginger also watched the clock as if her stern attention could make time move faster.

“How much longer do you think Steve
will be in there? He’s been gone forever.” Harrie didn’t really expect an answer. She said it just to keep from jumping up and running out of the building.

When they’d arrived, Steve insisted he be allowed to speak to Nick’s doctors. He hadn’t made much headway until he mentioned he was an attorney
. After that, the nurse admitted him to the inner sanctum of the Emergency Room. They had seen him only briefly since then. Steve’s business card they had found in Nick’s wallet had a notation that Steve was to be notified in case of emergency. Harrie and Ginger had chewed over that bit of news ever since Steve dropped it on them during his brief return at about eight-thirty. He’d gone back inside before they could question him further, and with nothing else to go on, they ran out of ideas about how Nick came to list Steve as his emergency contact. It all seemed so unlikely and out of character.

Ginger looked back at the wall clock. “If he doesn’t come back within the next half hour, I’ll go see for myself.
”

As if on cue, the heavy door opened with a mechanical hiss, and Steve emerged. Before either woman could question him, he stopped them. “He’s still in surgery. There were some problems because he lost so much blood. One of the doctors came out just a few minutes ago to tell me we
might as well go home. They promised me they’ll call the house when they know something. They brought in a neurosurgeon. That’s really all I know about his condition.”

“But what about the other thing,” Ginger pressed. “Why did he name you as his emergency contact?”

Steve gave his wife a tired smile. “Think about it, my love. If the man is unconscious, how exactly would I find out why he did that?”

“Oh
. Right.” Ginger grinned sheepishly. “It took that steel trap mind of yours to set me straight, as usual.” She put her arm around her husband and gently massaged his back. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s all go back to our house and see if we can get some sleep. Harrie, before you say anything, I propose we stop by your house on the way, pick up Tuptim and some of your clothes, and you stay with us. It’ll be a lot easier if we are all in one place.”

Too tired to argue, Harrie
headed to the car with them. “Steve, were you able to get in touch with your friend at APD?” Steve had tried earlier in the evening to contact Lieutenant Bob Swanson who might be able to get details about the accident.

“Yeah,” Steve said. He looked over his shoulder
as he steered out of the parking lot. “He called me on my cell phone while I was in the surgery waiting room. He said he would contact the responding officers and get whatever information they had. They were still at the scene of the accident and hadn’t finished their reports yet, so it’ll probably be morning before he can get back to me.”

“So, we still don’t know what caused this accident, why Nick was in Albuquerque, why he wanted to see us, or why he called Harrie,” Ginger ticked off on her fingers each unanswered
question. “Do we even know what kind of car he was driving?”

“As a matter of fact, we do. It was a late model Cadillac Escalade.”

Harrie furrowed her brow as she tried to picture that automobile. “Isn’t that a big old SUV?”

Steve looked at her in the rear view mirror and raised an eyebrow. “The lady gets the prize. Congratulations. It is, indeed, a ‘big old SUV,’ as you say. Would you care to guess what color it is?”

20

Thursday Morning, April 13, 2000

Harrie pushed her way through the fog of sleep. Tuptim was pawing at her head under the blanket. It slid off, and she saw the headboard of a bed she didn’t recognize.
“What the—“

Ginger
stuck her head in with a bright and altogether too cheery, “Good morning, sleepyhead!”

Tuptim streaked through the opening, and disappeared down the hall. Harrie surveyed the wreck she had made of the bed linens and grumped, “Please, have some respect for the dead!”

Ginger brought in a steaming cup of coffee, placed it on the bedside table and sat down on the rumpled bedding. “Somebody looks like they had a restless night.”

Harrie said, “What time is it? Why do you serve coffee in the middle of the night?”

Ginger laughed as she retrieved Harrie’s robe from the chair. “It’s already seven. If we intend to get to the office at a decent hour, I suggest you drink some coffee and rejoin the living. I’m making bacon and eggs and you have 15 minutes to get your butt to the kitchen.” She tossed the robe to Harrie and bustled out.

“Y
ou know you sound just like my mother, don’t you,” Harrie shouted at the receding figure.

By nine they were in the office. Steve had insisted they carry on as usual while he went back to the hospital alone. Except for one phone call from the doctor about two in the morning, there had been no further word. Nick was out of surgery, but still in critical condition. Steve said he would call if anything changed.

They drove to the office together in Ginger’s car. When they arrived, Caroline had already been there an hour, and she had accomplished quite a bit. Things were put away, and supplies were stacked neatly in the file room. Her new computer purred, and files were organized and labeled. In Harrie’s opinion, it was nothing short of a miracle.

Of all the things Harrie would have expected from Nick, returning to Albuquerque was the
next to last. The very last was that he would stalk her. But based on his having a black SUV, he evidently had done exactly that. But why? And what about the dreams? Were those connected to Senator Lawrence and his book? If that was true, was Nick’s part of the Senator’s story? As she thought more about it, her list of questions grew longer and her list of answers remained at zero.

She set aside the editing and opened her laptop. Maybe it would help to make a list of all the questions and the
facts. Perhaps something would jump out at her.

A few minutes after four,
Ginger dropped into the chair in front of Harrie’s desk. “Steve just called. He’s on his way over here.” Ginger took a deep breath. “It’s over. They tried their best, but there was too much damage. He died half an hour ago.”

Harrie
stared at Ginger as though someone had just slapped her. She couldn’t speak, and she didn’t understand her reaction. Her throat felt like she had swallowed a large rock. She felt the tears start, and tried unsuccessfully to hold them back. She shook her head and finally found her voice.

“I don’t underst
and. I didn’t even like the man, much less love him. In fact, I would be more inclined to say I actively hated him. So why am I all teary-eyed over a louse who walked out on me and took not only my savings but also my dignity?”

Ginger went to Harrie
and put her arms around her. “You’re a loving, gentle person. In spite of all he did to hurt you, there’s something sad about the fact he’ll never have the chance to become a better person. Maybe you feel grief for the loss of all the hopes you had before you married him.” She smiled. “Maybe it’s that you never got a chance to tell him what a jerk he was.”

Harrie
returned the smile. Then she said, “Maybe it’s frustration at knowing we’ll never be able to figure out why he was here, what he was doing, and why he was trying to contact me. I guess I’ll just have to live with the fact that my curiosity will never be satisfied, and it’s all because of a stupid traffic accident.”

Ginger looked up, startled. “Oh, God, I didn’t have a chance to tell you. I
got sidetracked by your crying. Steve assumed the head injury was caused by the crash, but the police report said he had his seat belt on. The air bag deployed and would have cushioned him from such a bad head injury. It wasn’t the accident that killed him. The doctors . . .” Ginger trailed off.

Harrie’s knuckles were white as she gripped the edge of the desk. “Are you going to tell me what you’re talking about, or do I have
to wait until Steve gets here?”

“The doctors found a bullet in his brain.”