“Is that why you never visited us?” Beth said. “You thought you’d mess up my life?”
Lana swallowed. “The day you left, I was so angry. But now . . . I had no right to tell you what to do, Beth. I kept waiting for you to come crawling back to Los Angeles so I could tell you that. So I could look out for you. Instead, you started carving out this impossible little glimmer of a life up here with Jack. And I decided you were better off without me harping on you, trying to control you.”
Beth looked down at the hedgehog in her mother’s lap. “You decided, huh?”
“It seemed like you were making it work.”
Which was true. Once Beth got to know Flora and the other single moms at day care, they’d worked out a patchwork system of babysitting swaps and emergency handoffs, Beth gladly trading medical advice for steaming pots of black beans and tostones. But it took years to build that support network. When they first arrived, Beth had no one. She remembered resurfacing the floors on her own, bone-tired, sawdust everywhere, Jack screaming her head off in the secondhand crib.
“I must have packed up the car fifty times that first year to come back,” Beth said.
“But you didn’t.”
“I didn’t. But I needed you, Ma. Every time you sent a package of gold-plated shoes or cashmere baby blankets, I wished it was you instead.”
Lana dropped her eyes to the hedgehog, not talking for a long time. “I’m sorry, Beth.”
Beth used her foot to gently prompt the porch swing into motion. Lana blinked out at the dead-end street, rewrapping the fleece blanket around her shoulders.
“You know, I’m glad you started this investigation,” Beth said.
Lana looked at her curiously.
“You needed a project,” Beth continued. “Something more useful than redecorating the house. And you’ve clearly lit a fire in Jack . . .”
“She should never have gone out this morning without telling anyone. Completely unacceptable.” Lana abruptly stopped the swing with her foot and the hedgehog bounced to the ground.
Beth bent, smiling, and scooped it back up. “Sounds like something you would do.”
Lana still looked uncertain.
“Ma, if it’s possible Mr. Rhoads was murdered, I want to know too.”
“There is something I wanted to ask you about Hal Rhoads,” Lana said. “About his medical care.”
Without meaning to, Beth stiffened. “The nurses at Bayshore Oaks are very good—”
Lana waved her off. “Of course you are. But listen. I found a notation in Ricardo Cruz’s appointment book about a doctor Ricardo was taking Mr. Rhoads to on Wednesdays.”
“Okay . . .”
“It started once a month. Then every other week. At first I assumed the appointments were just until he moved into Bayshore Oaks. But the dates kept going, almost every Wednesday, all the way until he died. So I wondered—”
“Almost every Wednesday?” Beth’s forehead scrunched into a question mark. “That can’t be right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Rhoads had strokes. Three of them. His rehab, all his appointments, happened on-site at Bayshore Oaks. It was one of the reasons his daughter brought him to us. So she wouldn’t have to cart him to occupational therapists multiple times per week.”
“When he moved into Bayshore Oaks, he didn’t go off premises to appointments anymore?”
“Maybe once or twice for neurological exams. But nothing regular. Nothing I knew about. And besides, if Ricardo Cruz was coming to Bayshore Oaks most Wednesdays, I would have recognized him.”
“And you didn’t.”
Beth shook her head.
Lana considered what Beth was telling her. If Ricardo wasn’t taking Hal Rhoads to doctor appointments, what was he doing?
“Do you know of any doctors who practice down here in Elkhorn?” Lana asked.
“Practice what? Kayaking?”
“I’m wondering if maybe the appointments were for Ricardo, not Hal.”
“There’s a shrink with an office near the marina. A dental clinic, the kind you go to if you don’t have insurance. And a couple veterinarians who work with farm animals. But that’s it.”
Beth felt a buzz in her pocket. She pulled out her phone. “It’s Martin.”
Lana leaned forward eagerly. “Put it on speaker.”
Beth stared at her.
“Fine. I’ll give you some privacy. But ask him about his father’s doctors, okay?”