Running on Empty Page 12

  Chapter Fourteen

  'What are you going to do?'

  Bobby and AnnaLise had returned to the Griggs' kitchen. And also to being friends.

  'I don't know.' She walked over to glance up the stairs to where Mama and Daisy, now seemingly back to normal, were watching television in one of the two bedrooms.

  'What I do know,' AnnaLise said, sitting back down and drumming her fingers on the table, 'is that I can't leave tomorrow like I planned.'

  'Are you going to bite my head off if I tell you I'm glad? I've missed you.' He raised his hands as if to ward her off. 'Platonically, I mean.'

  'I've missed you, too,' AnnaLise said. 'And I'm sorry I yelled at you. I'd forgotten what it's like to have a friend without limits on what you can tell him.'

  She stared off into the distance for a moment and then met his eyes. 'Especially things you've been afraid to tell yourself.'

  Bobby covered her hand with his, probably to quiet the drumming. 'Saying something out loud makes it real, remember? That's what we always thought as kids, at least.'

  'Which is why we never 'fessed up, even to each other, about breaking Mrs. Peebly's window.'

  Bobby nodded. 'I looked at you and you looked at me.'

  'Then we ran away as fast as we could and hid in the crawl space under the market.'

  He nodded again. 'And got stuck down there.'

  'Three hours, and not one word was spoken about that window.'

  'Until now.'

  Silence.

  'Bobby, I hate that crawl space.' AnnaLise gave his hand a squeeze before pulling away her own.

  'So say it.'

  'Say what? That we broke Mrs. Peebly's window? There, it's been said.' She stood up to open the refrigerator door. 'You want something to drink?'

  'No. And that window's not what I'm talking about and you know it.'

  AnnaLise turned, can of Diet Coke in her hand. She held it out to him like a wireless microphone. 'So tell me, Mayor Bradenham. What things do you think I'm not admitting to myself?'

  He took the can away and set it on the table, but that didn't stop AnnaLise.

  'Let's see.' She plopped into her chair and popped the top on the soda. 'How about that I thought I was crazy in love with a married man in Wisconsin who, as it turns out, is pretty crazy himself?'

  Bobby's eyes widened.

  'That when I came to my senses and ended it, he apparently wasn't listening, because he keeps texting and calling.'

  She lifted the cellphone which had been face down next to her hand. It showed nineteen incoming messages. AnnaLise slammed it back onto the tabletop.

  'Have you contacted the police up there?' Bobby asked, reaching out to cover her hand again.

  'The police?' AnnaLise wanted to laugh. 'Now that would be a little awkward. He's the district attorney. Besides, he hasn't been threatening. He just — ' she shrugged — 'wants me back.'

  'Can't blame him for that.' The smile on Bobby's face invited her to smile back.

  She tried. 'I'm sorry to unload like this, Bobby. It's just...' She pulled back her hand once more and looked skyward, blinking back tears. 'This is my fault. I had an affair with a married man. A high-powered one at that, so—'

  'So you've been keeping this all bottled up inside you.'

  AnnaLise bit her lip. 'Who could I tell?'

  'Me, Annie,' Bobby said. 'You can always tell me.'

  She studied his face. It wasn't — wouldn't ever be — that of a lover, but Bobby was her best friend. How could she have forgotten that?

  'I know. And now I have and, buddy — ' a nervous laugh — 'aren't you sorry?'

  'Never. What can I do?'

  'You've already done it.' AnnaLise drew in a deep, amazingly cleansing breath, then let it out. 'Thank you.'

  'Any time.'

  'The real question for me now is... Daisy.'

  'There's something very wrong,' Bobby said. 'You do know that, right?'

  'Hell, I knew — or feared — that when I decided to come back here. Alzheimer's, dementia — I've been trying to convince myself otherwise, but...' She shrugged.

  'Listen, Annie. I don't blame you for being afraid. That spell in Chuck's office was...'

  'Creepy,' AnnaLise finished for him. 'And you're right, I am scared. Scared for Daisy and — I'm so ashamed — but I'm scared for me, too. Despite everything that's haywire with my life up north, I don't want to stay in Sutherton for the rest of it.'

  Now she put her hand out to him. 'I'm sorry, Bobby, but I don't.'

  'Not to worry. I'm the mayor and sometimes I don't want to be here.'

  'But you are.' AnnaLise shook her head. 'You're a good person, Bobby. Me? I'm selfish and self-absorbed — the prodigal daughter — what kind of caregiver does that combination make?'

  'Human, Annie. Forgive yourself.'

  She mustered the ghost of a smile. 'First you want me to talk to myself, now you want me to forgive myself? What is this? Do-it-yourself confessional?'

  He grinned back. 'You're not Catholic. What do you know about repentance and absolution?'

  'Not much, but I'm aces on guilt. You Catholics don't have anything on us Lutherans when it comes to that.'

  When Bobby let that lie, AnnaLise squared her shoulders. 'OK, first thing I'm going to do is get Daisy in to see Dr. Stanton. Tomorrow. Second, I'm going to contact my boss at the paper and tell her I need to take some personal leave. Then...'

  'Then you'll go on from there,' Bobby said. 'No need to make any further decisions right now, and you've got a lot of good friends here to help you with future ones.'

  'Right.' AnnaLise picked up her cellphone and moved toward her computer.

  'And one more thing?'

  She turned. 'Yes?'

  'Don't you dare underestimate yourself, Annie. You can take care of Daisy. No matter what.'

  AnnaLise closed both eyes, tears now really threatening to fall. 'How can you possibly know that, when even I don't?'

  'Because you already are.' Bobby's voice was low. 'And you always have, ever since the day your daddy died.'

  AnnaLise Griggs began to sob, then shudder, until she felt Bobby Bradenham's hands clamp on her shoulders. First gently, then more strongly, helping his friend keep herself together, while she allowed herself the first full-body cry since the age of five.

  Crying for a father she'd barely known, and a childhood she knew was past.

  Words. You can place them on the page or on the wind, but can you ever take them back?

  Though that was precisely what AnnaLise had considered doing with both Dickens Hart's check and archived memories as she'd toted the boxes out of her car and up the staircase, on each trip barely clearing her father's old gun cabinet that stood on the landing to the upper level.

  Stairs safely negotiated, AnnaLise had dropped the boxes in her bedroom. She couldn't see the bed or dresser past all Hart's crap, but AnnaLise did feel better when the stevedoring was done.

  Accomplishment can do that for a person.

  She and Dr. Stanton had finally connected by phone and Daisy was to see him in his office at nine a.m., Tuesday. The next morning.

  AnnaLise also emailed her boss, Jan, to ask for the coming week off or, failing that, whatever the union rules provided as a temporary leave of absence. No reply yet, of course, but at least AnnaLise had gotten the ball rolling. Put the request — OK, the need — into words. The upside of Bobby's and her belief that if you said things out loud, they became real.

  Jan and the newspaper could say either yes or no. But, whichever, AnnaLise was prepared to deal with it. Especially since she had — thanks to the stacks around her — the equivalent of two years of severance, if her Wisconsin employer decided to pull her proverbial plug.

  AnnaLise sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, surrounded by the boxes relating to the years of Hart's life that she thought might be the more — or, at least, somewhat more — interesting.

  'If I have to read his elementary school diaries,' she
said aloud, 'I'll crowbar the lock off Dad's gun cabinet and just blow my brains out.'

  AnnaLise pawed through the boxes until she found the volume she was looking for: 1981. The year of Bobby Bradenham's birth. Was he Dickens Hart's son? The answer, AnnaLise thought as she put her hand on the bound journal, could be inside. She felt more than a little surge of excitement. Intrusive? Perhaps. But the question intrigued AnnaLise and with everything else going on right now, she needed some diversion. Failing a trashy celebrity magazine, this was likely to be as close as she'd get.

  'AnnaLise?'

  Daisy's voice echoing off the stairwell walls.

  The journalist struggled to her feet, lower spine jibing her for sitting hunched over so long. Oh, to be age twelve again, when body parts seemed perfectly lubricated against each other and synchronized to create a smooth, silent machine.

  And she wasn't even thirty yet.

  AnnaLise opened the door and called down to her mother on the first floor. 'Yes, Daisy?'

  'The chief is here.'

  Uh-oh. 'For me?'

  'No, for me.'

  It took a second for AnnaLise to realize her mother was kidding. 'Can you send him up?'

  When Chuck Greystone stepped into her bedroom, he looked around. 'The décor is a little different than I remember.'

  'Granted, corrugated cardboard wasn't the new black then. But not to worry, my 'N Sync bedspread is still in the closet.'

  'What a relief,' Chuck said, moving a box to sit on the bed. 'I loved that thing.'

  'I know you did,' AnnaLise said, resuming her position on the floor. 'I should have known a guy who shared my taste in music was too good to be true.'

  'You can be forgiven,' Chuck said. 'I sure didn't know, either.'

  He waved toward the boxes. 'Moving in or out?'

  'Still to be determined. But for now I'm rooming with Dickens Hart — The Untold Story.'

  'You have my sympathies.'

  She shrugged. 'Maybe I'll find him interesting.'

  'Not as interesting as he finds himself. The man's left town, you know.'

  Huh? 'No, I didn't. Because of the shooting?' One measly flesh wound? Sutherton folk were usually made of sterner stock. Hell, Mrs. B had lost a bucket of blood and she kept on ticking. Not that AnnaLise was going to remind Chuck of the incident guided by Daisy's own hand.

  'He's convinced some disgruntled current investor has targeted him.'

  'Maybe not such a bad guess,' AnnaLise said. 'Ichiro did say Hart's Landing was underwater.'

  'He did?' Chuck asked, suddenly more than mildly engaged. 'When was this?'

  'Saturday afternoon. Daisy and I wanted to take a look at the new development and saw Ichiro there.'

  'Bobby told me he'd seen you. Was he or anybody else around when Katou mentioned this?'

  'Just Joy Tamarack, but she already knew. In fact, Ichiro found out by accidentally eavesdropping on her, Hart, and I think this David Sabatino.' AnnaLise looked at Chuck curiously. 'Why do you ask?'

  A shrug. 'Hart's not talking about it, as you might expect. He's afraid if potential new investors hear, they'll turn tail and run, leaving the current investors holding the bag. And blaming him.'

  'It makes some sense, I suppose. But why does Dickens think somebody already in the fold is mad enough to take a potshot at him?'

  'Guilty conscience would be my guess. If you're asking what someone might gain by shooting him, it gets kind of twisty.'

  'How about pure and intense self-gratification?'

  'Hey,' Chuck said with a grin. 'I don't rule anything out.' His face changed. 'Listen, I need to talk with you about the Katou case. Your mother, too.'

  'OK.' AnnaLise got back onto her feet. 'Did you want to talk to Daisy after me, or should I go get her now?'

  'No, I mean I want to talk to you about... your mother.'

  Reflexively AnnaLise crossed her arms into a defensive posture. 'What about Daisy?'

  Chuck moved another stack of journals and patted the bed next to him. 'How about sitting down? I'm not the enemy here, Lise.'

  'I know that.'

  Problem was, she didn't know who — or what — was. But AnnaLise sat. 'Listen, if you checked for fingerprints on the cane, you know that Daisy didn't touch it.'

  Even as AnnaLise's words hit the air, she was praying they would come true.

  'You're right,' Chuck said, and AnnaLise let out her breath. 'In fact, the only fingerprints on it were yours.'

  Well, that wasn't good, on two counts. 'So somebody wiped it.'

  'Correct.'

  AnnaLise was thinking furiously. Someone strikes Ichiro in the head with his own cane, then cleans the thing and finally hides it in the Griggs' garage.

  But why? 'Do you have a cause of death yet?' she asked.

  'Drowning,' Chuck said. 'Mr. Katou was alive when he hit the water.'

  'But unconscious?'

  'Presumably. Or he couldn't swim, maybe on account of the bum hip.'

  Hip, not leg. 'Have you been able to contact his family?' AnnaLise asked.

  'We're working on it,' Chuck said. 'The closest relatives seem to be Mr. Katou's grandparents, who raised him, but his grandmother died a few years back and his grandfather just months ago.'

  'Maybe Ichiro had been taking care of his grandfather and now he was free to see the world.' In the still unlikely form of Sutherton, North Carolina.

  'Using any inheritance to open a sushi restaurant in the High Country?' The irony of chosen locale apparently hadn't been lost on Chuck either.

  'No wife or kids?'

  'Nope.'

  'Well, that's good.' She saw Chuck cock his head at her. 'I mean, Ichiro's not leaving a family behind, one that depended on him.'

  Chuck shrugged. 'Family comes in many forms, but so far as we can tell, he also wasn't in a serious relationship.'

  AnnaLise was quiet.

  Chuck cleared his throat. 'I hate to ask this, but I need some... whereabouts. On Saturday — after you met Bobby Bradenham and Ichiro Katou on the island — where did Daisy and you go?'

  AnnaLise swallowed hard. She knew he had to ask, but it nevertheless stung a bit. 'You know where I was — Sal's. Daisy went to Torch.'

  'What time?' Chuck pulled a notepad from his jacket pocket.

  'We had dinner at Mama's.' Not exactly a revelation. 'Then Daisy walked down the block to Torch and I crossed the street to Sal's. When I sat down for Frat Pack it was seven thirty.'

  Chuck was writing. 'Good. Now I know you left Sal's at eleven when it closed. Did you go right home?'

  'No,' AnnaLise said. 'I went to Torch, make sure Daisy was OK. Don't you remember? I asked you if you wanted to come.'

  Chuck looked up. 'Just because I came out, Lise, doesn't mean I want to sit through an evening of show tunes any more than I did before. Maybe you should have asked Bobby.'

  'By the time you turned me down, he'd already left.'

  'So you got to Torch just after eleven and joined Daisy?'

  No hesitation. 'Yes.'

  More writing. 'Until when?'

  'One thirty. I remember seeing the time on my alarm clock as I was going to bed.'

  AnnaLise pointed toward the clock on her nightstand, only to find it obscured by notebooks.

  Chuck moved them. 'Ahh, T-Rex lives. The alarm still work?'

  'Don't know, I haven't needed it.' She reached for the clock with the face of a dinosaur. She pushed a button and got a reverberating 'ROARRRRRR'.

  'Yup.'

  Chuck took it. 'You were a child of — to put it charitably — eclectic tastes.'

  'I like to think so.' She smiled brightly and stood. 'Any other questions?'

  'Nope, that should do it.' Chuck tucked the notebook back into his pocket and followed AnnaLise downstairs.

  'I'm going to be here for a few more days, as it turns out,' she said on the bottom step. 'Maybe lunch?'

  'Dinner would be better. I never know when something else is going to blow up.'

  'I
hear you.' She turned at the front door. 'At least the Smoaks case is easy. You even have somebody in custody.'

  'Palooka, the idiot. Or, as I should call him, Stewart Chapel. Not a bad guy, but his new best friend is whichever yahoo last bought him a round. He and Rance each had blood-alcohols of nearly triple the legal limit.'

  AnnaLise opened the door and they both stepped out onto the sidewalk. To their right was the garage. 'That cane was planted, Chuck. You have to know that. Daisy and I had no reason to hurt Ichiro — we liked him, even though we also hardly knew him.'

  'You and everybody else, it seems.' He was studying the sidewalk between them.

  AnnaLise looked down and saw a large black ant.

  Chuck stepped on it.

  'Why'd you do that?' AnnaLise protested.

  'Carpenter ant. You may have an infestation.'

  'But they don't eat wood like termites. They just tunnel into it and build their nests.'

  Living with Daisy, AnnaLise had been the one to deal with bugs — usually by picking them up gingerly in a paper towel and relocating them. Outside. Where neither mother nor daughter had any problem with them.

  'You're right,' Chuck said. 'Which only means you have structural posts and beams that might look like Swiss cheese. You should check.'

  'Check,' AnnaLise said, making a giant check-mark in the air with her index finger.

  Chuck hesitated. 'Listen, I should have asked earlier, but how's your mom doing?'

  'Fine. Why?' AnnaLise had been fairly certain that Chuck was oblivious to Daisy's momentary regression in his office.

  'Somebody mentioned she's having... problems. And beyond the mistake at the blood drive.'

  'Honestly? Daisy does seem forgetful,' AnnaLise admitted. 'I've made an appointment with Dr. Stanton. Might be a vitamin deficiency.'

  That was her story and she was sticking to it.

  Chuck met her eyes and AnnaLise looked down. 'Oh, look. He's going to help his friend.'

  A second ant was levering the wounded one onto his own back.

  'More like helping himself,' Chuck said, turning toward the parked patrol car with what AnnaLise had learned on the police beat in Wisconsin was a 'cop-laugh.'

  'Huh?'

  'Waste not, want not.' Chuck opened the car door. 'Carpenter ants got into recycling long before man began walking this earth of ours.'