“How far could she walk dressed like that?” She paced away, paced back. “A few miles maybe.”
“In any direction,” Tate pointed out. “We sent her clothes off to State. Their forensic people will go over them, look for something that might tell us more. But that’s not going to be quick as a whistle, either, Bodine, as all of this takes time. You need to trust me on this. There’s not a stone I won’t turn over to find who did this to her.”
“I’m not doubting that, not one bit. I just need a sense. I need to have something I can work through my own head. The idea she might’ve been snatched up and held since she left home—”
“I don’t think that’s the case. The truck she took back then was found in Nevada. She sent postcards from California.”
“That’s right, that’s right. Nobody much talked about Alice, but I knew that. She must’ve been back around here. She must have been taken around here, Sheriff. She couldn’t have traveled from California or Nevada in a housedress and slippers.”
So that gave her a sense, at least.
“All right.” She nodded, decisively. “That’s something to think about.”
She turned back to him. “You said she’d had children. Where are her children? God, they’d be cousins to me.” As it struck home, she pressed her fingers to her eyes. “She’s my aunt. I never thought about her that way.”
Bodine looked back down the hallway. “I hardly ever thought of her at all.”
She would now, Bodine told herself.
*
Bodine convinced her mother to go home with her and Rory, used Grammy as the lever. Grammy couldn’t stay sitting in a hospital waiting room all night. Grammy should come stay at the ranch, and needed a little tending.
Cora wouldn’t budge, so Sam and Chase stayed with her.
They’d take shifts.
Since no one had eaten at the hospital, Bodine warmed up the meal the loyal Clementine had finished cooking and stored away. When two of the women she loved poked at the food on their plates, Bodine put her foot down.
“Looks like Rory’s the only one who’ll get a shot of whisky after this late dinner. I happen to think we could all use one, but I’m damned if you’re putting that whisky on empty stomachs.”
“That’s an incentive.” Miss Fancy managed a half smile, ate a bite of beef. “I’ve held such anger in my heart for that girl.”
“So have I,” Maureen agreed. “Anger, resentment, and all the hard words I’d say to her if I ever got the chance.”
“Oh, stop it, both of you.”
More than a little shocked, Rory sat up straight. “Just hold on, Bodine.”
“The hell I will. The anger and resentment and hard words came from what she did. She took off, and this doesn’t change that careless act. The anger and all the rest was because you were thinking of Nana. You were thinking of your daughter’s hurt, and you your mother’s. Alice did what she did and deserved a good kick in the ass for it.”
“Jesus, Bodine,” Rory began, but Bodine shut him down with one scorching look.
“But that careless act doesn’t mean she deserved what happened to her. Nobody deserves that. And nobody at this table is responsible for what did happen. So stop it, and eat.”
“I don’t care for that tone,” Maureen said stiffly.
“I don’t care for sitting here while my mother takes on guilt that isn’t hers to take, and taking it tosses a share on my grammy. I don’t care for my grammy doing the selfsame thing to my mother.”
“I don’t like the tone, either.” Miss Fancy ate another bite. “Just like I don’t much like that the girl has a point.”
“One that could be made more respectfully.” But Maureen picked up her fork again.
“If she’s getting away with it…” Rory glanced around the table. “Feeling bad about how you felt doesn’t do a thing to help, Nana. What’s going to help is the family standing together, doing what needs to be done, together. Guilt’s not a uniter, and we’re going to be united on this.”
He added a smirk for his sister. “That’s how you make the point respectfully.”
“I plowed the field,” she reminded him.
Miss Fancy waved that away. “Every now and again the boy makes sense.” She reached over, rubbed the back of his hand. “She’s going to need us, Reenie. They’re both going to need us.”
Maureen ate carefully. “The doctor says physically she’d be able to leave the hospital in a few days. But it might take longer for her to be emotionally ready. They’ll transfer her to the psychiatric unit until … But I…”
“What, honey?”
“I talked a little with Celia Minnow. She’s going to be treating her. She needs to evaluate and talk with Alice, and decide what’s best. It may be we could bring her here. She grew up here. Her family’s here. We’ll get a nurse if we need to. And Celia will either come out here for her sessions or we can take Alice to her. I need to talk it over with Sam, and with all of you because it’s a lot to ask, a lot to expect.”
“Of course she’ll come here.” Bodine looked at Rory, got his nod. “Bodine House is too small when you add in nurses and doctors. There’s plenty of room here, and it’s somewhere she knows.”
“That lightens my burden,” Miss Fancy stated. “Bodine, I can’t eat any more this late at night, but I think I earned one scant finger of whisky to help me sleep. I dearly want that and my bed.”
Bodine rose, got glasses, poured one for Miss Fancy, cocked an eyebrow at her mother. Maureen held up two fingers. She poured that, the same for Rory and herself.
“Well.” Maureen lifted her glass. “However hard a road it’s been for her, however hard a road’s still to go, let’s drink to Alice. To the prodigal’s return.”
Using Grammy again, Bodine convinced her mother to go upstairs, settle Grammy in, get some rest herself while she and Rory dealt with the kitchen.
“She can’t be left alone. Alice,” Rory said. “Do we call her ‘Aunt Alice’？ Jesus, Bo.”
“I think Alice will do. We’ll have to take shifts there, too, if and when she comes here. Probably hire nurses with psychiatric experience. Mom will handle that part, and having something tangible to handle is going to help her deal with the rest. It may be Nana and Grammy end up staying here for a while, too.”
“We’ve got room. I wonder how long she’s been back here. Back in the area.”
As she wiped the counter, Bodine sent him a look of approval. “We’re tugging the same line on that.”
“You’d have to figure … I always figured she was dead.”
“I did, too. I couldn’t understand how she could be alive and not even write a letter or call now and then. Nothing for years. Knowing now somebody held her like a prisoner, and was so cruel to her—and all the time close by. Close enough by here. Rory, we could have driven or ridden within a mile of where she’s been.”
“Has to be isolated, don’t you think?”