Page 88 of A Rose of Steel
“No,” Chase said, “I didn’t say that. He made me best man because he made a promise to me and that was his way of showing me he meant it.” Chase huffed. “My grandmother...” he closed his eyes and groaned. “My grandmother got this telephone call one day.” He shook his head. “It was a scam. These people calling her offering her help with her prescriptions and things and she sent them $500. It was all the money she had and when she found out that she’d been taken, it killed her.”
“It killed her?” Auntie asked.
“Not literally, I guess. But that’s how I see it. She was so depressed after that. I found out later that that was her bill money for the month. Her grocery money. Everything she had. She didn’t want to tell anyone so she just figured she’d suffer through the month and she’d be okay. But she got so sick about it. You know, mentally sick.”
“I understand that,” Auntie Zanne said. “I have a friend who gets that way. They can just waste away to nothing.” That changed Auntie’s tone.
“And that’s what happened,” Chase said. “She died not long after that and I just think it’s what killed her. You know, she was sick and old sure, but that scam just seemed to... I don’t know. It took her over the edge. But Michael said he might could help me. That maybe he knew something about it. I told him I just wanted those people brought to justice, they shouldn’t go messing with old people. He said he agreed. Said he’d ‘do the right thing’,” he made air quotes, “when he got home.”
Chase stuck his hands deep in his pockets. “I didn’t believe him though, because he’d come home before, you know after I’d told him about it, and hadn’t done it. Said he didn’t have the chance to. I told him just to tell me what he knew, and I’d go to the authorities about it. But he didn’t want to do that. So this time, he said I could come with him, be his best man, prove to me he was going to do it.”
“Your grandmother lived around here?” I asked.
“She lived in Hemphill.”
“So why did you lie about not knowing where Bumper’s inhaler was?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that,” he said.
“I asked you had you seen it and you said no.”
He shook his head. “No. You asked me did I know whathappenedto it, and I don’t. I gave it to that doctor. The one that gave Michael CPR.”
“Alex?” I said. “Rather, Dr. Hale?”
“Yeah, that’s the name you said when we spoke at the funeral. Dr. Hale.” He nodded. “I gave it to Dr. Hale when he followed Michael onto the ambulance.”
“You touched it?” Auntie Zanne said. “Did your fingers turn red?”
He looked down at his fingers and rubbed them with his thumb. He hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know. I think they were.”
“You don’t know?” Auntie asked.
“I remember they got red later that night, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with that inhaler. I just picked it up and put it in my pocket. Then when I saw Dr. Hale. I gave it to him, told him that Michael might need it.”
“And what did he say?” I asked.
“He took it and said okay.”
* * *
“Well, what do you think about that?” Auntie said as we walked toward Angel’s Grace. She glanced back at Chase.
“I think that Chase’s grandmother was involved in the same scam that Miriam Colter and some of the other JOY Club members were involved in.”
“And Bumper knew who did it?” Auntie Zanne asked.
“Must have known.” I dug in my purse and pulled out my phone. “But we’ve gotta make sure he’s telling the truth.”
“And how are you going to do that, darlin’?” Auntie Zanne said. “Make him take a polygraph test?”
“What?” I looked at her. “No. I’m going to call Alex and find out if Chase really did give him the inhaler.”
“Have you talked to Alex since dinner?” she asked.
“That has nothing to do with this,” I said firmly.
“I just think it would be kind of awkward to call him to ask him questions when you haven’t discussed your relationship lately.”
