Backstab by Elaine Viets Page A

Calledit Ralph’s Greatest Hits. Said it was the best part of the job.”
    I laughed. There is still a lot of little boy in Ralph. Correction. There was.
    “I went upstairs,” Jamie said. “There were drop cloths down over the floors, and the staircase, woodwork, and floors were covered with thick gray plaster dust. Gravel-sized chunks of old plaster crumbled underfoot. I found Ralph in a room that had primrose wallpaper. He was lying on his back on the floor near his ladder, with hunks of plaster and drifts of dust all around him. There was a bloody cut over one eye. Ralph was slate-gray, almost blue. I knew he was dead, just by that color. He didn’t go peacefully. He’d ripped off his face mask and clawed at his chest for air.”
    I shuddered to think of Ralph, who looked so cool and aristocratic, fighting frantically to breathe. He was so scared in December when the asthma attack sent him to the hospital. I remembered he never went anywhere without his inhaler after that.
    “Didn’t his inhaler work?”
    If I asked calm, reporter-type questions, I would think calm, reporter-type thoughts, instead of picturing my friend gasping like a fish flopped out of an aquarium.
    “He didn’t have it in his pocket.”
    “Ralph always had his inhaler. Always. He never forgot that asthma attack last winter. He said it felt like a big rock was crushing his chest.He kept inhalers everywhere. He even had one hanging on his ladder. What about that one?”
    “It wasn’t there.”
    “Something’s wrong, Jamie. Ralph always had inhalers around.”
    “Nothing’s wrong,” Jamie said. “Ralph was sick and used them all up. He didn’t have time to go to Walgreens for more.”
    “For that, Ralph would make time.”
    Jamie stayed silent, which is how he gets when he disagrees with you but doesn’t want to fight. He was right. There was no point in arguing. A debate wouldn’t bring Ralph back.
    “What can I do to help?”
    “Can you get Lucy and bring her over to his mother’s house? She’s parked on McDonald, in back of the Utah Place job.”
    “Sure.” Lucy was Ralph’s red truck, named for his favorite redheaded actress, Lucille Ball. The truck definitely had personality.
    After a few more words I can’t remember, we hung up. I did remember Ralph’s message on my answering machine. The one I’d forgotten to return yesterday. Ralph had a question for me the night of Burt’s wake, but I wouldn’t pick up my phone. I was too tired to talk to my friend. I told myself I’d get back to him the next day, but I didn’t. I was distracted by Burt’s funeral and the column I had to write. I didn’t have time to call Ralph back. Wouldn’t have to worry about that now, would I? He would never bother me again. Well, I wasn’t going to cry a bunch of useless tears. I was going to help him the one way Icould. I called Lyle so he could follow me when I drove Ralph’s truck to his mother’s. Lyle said, “Hello?”
    I burst into tears.
    Now I sounded like Jamie: I was sobbing and gulping and trying to tell Lyle about Ralph’s awful end. Finally, I pulled myself together enough to make Lyle understand that I needed to deliver Ralph’s truck to his mother’s house.
    “Wait there,” Lyle said. “I’ll come by the paper and pick you up. You’re in no shape to drive right now anyway.”
    I dried my eyes with an old Kleenex I found at the bottom of my purse and looked around my department. It was two o’clock, and the neighboring desks were empty. The staff was still at lunch. Nobody had seen me crying. Good. It was bad for my image. Now if they saw my red eyes, they’d think I was hungover or just plain surly. Much better. I reached for my briefcase, and knocked over the dregs of the day-old coffee on my desk. It ran all over the letter from the Aryan Avenger. The black letters smeared over the SS lightning bolts. The phone started ringing. I left it all—the coffee-soaked papers and the crazy ringing phone—and went