Running on Empty Page 14

  'I told y'all that he hired me to run the fitness center at the White Tail Spa, didn't I?'

  'Y'all?' Sheree repeated. 'Aren't you from Brooklyn?'

  'Where'd you get that idea? I'm from Indiana. Southern Indiana. Now, may I continue?'

  'Certainly,' Sheree said. 'But, to reprise, I think what AnnaLise meant was that if you're truly not a slut, you clearly aren't Dickens' type.'

  Joy looked at AnnaLise.

  AnnaLise shrugged. 'I think Sheree meant more summarize than reprise, but... yeah, I guess that's where I was eventually going.'

  'Hah. Well then, good question,' Joy said. 'But surprisingly, Dickens is an honorable guy in his own, self-involved way. Not quite the pig you might think.'

  'How much of a pig is he?' Chuck, suddenly seeming alert.

  'Not enough for me to shoot at him, if that's what you're wondering.' She retrieved her glass from the low table. 'If I were you, I'd be looking at the people who've been investing in Hart's Landing.'

  Apparently, all gloves were now off when it came to keeping the development's financial issues quiet.

  'Hart's Landing?' Sheree asked. 'Why? Is there a problem?'

  AnnaLise realized her friend had no way of knowing the development was underwater. And wouldn't be terribly crushed by the news, given that she'd feared rentals there would become competition for her inn.

  Joy shrugged. 'Just Dickens and his partner over-promising, then under-delivering. I wouldn't want to be in a room with them when the construction loan comes due.'

  'Speaking of David Sabatino — what about him?' AnnaLise asked Chuck. 'Would he have a reason to shoot Hart?'

  The eyes stayed closed. 'Only if their partnership agreement stipulates that Hart's half-interest goes to the survivor in the partnership instead of the decedent's personal heirs,' Chuck said. 'Besides, half of noth―'

  'Heirs?' Joy interrupted. 'And exactly how is that devil in the details defined?'

  Chuck shrugged. 'Depends on whether Hart has a will or not. If he dies intestate, his estate would be divided amongst his children or their descendants. Assuming he didn't have children, you'd move on to his parents, then siblings, etc.'

  'Sounds like ex-wives are pretty far down the list,' AnnaLise said. 'And even then, there are two others ahead of you.'

  'No ex-wives need apply,' Chuck said, 'unless there were children from the union. Then Hart's ex might be able to glum something.'

  'I think you mean "glom",' said AnnaLise. 'Like "glom onto something". Unless you're talking "plumb", as in "plumb the depths".'

  The other three turned to look at her.

  'Sorry,' AnnaLise said meekly. 'The reporter in me.'

  'More like the pain in the ass, in you,' Joy growled.

  Sheree turned to Chuck. 'What about Bobby?'

  'What about him?'

  'You don't know?' she asked, looking eager to spread the word. 'From what I hear, Hart sold Mrs. B that place for peanuts back in the Eighties. She has no visible means of support, so how's she keeping it up?'

  'I don't know,' Chuck said. 'I assumed she had family money or that Bobby's father, the guy that died in the car crash, was loaded.'

  'Bobby's father may have money,' Sheree said, 'but I bet you'll find no evidence he died in a car crash.'

  'Cryptic doesn't suit you,' Joy barked, looking upset. 'Are you saying Dickens and that Bradenham woman... what's her first name?'

  'Ema,' AnnaLise supplied. 'E-M-A.'

  'That Dickens and 'Ema, E-M-A, Bradenham,' Joy said, 'did the dirty and Bobby was the result?'

  'Ema Bradenham?' Chuck repeated, seeming to find the thought troubling. 'But she's... old.'

  AnnaLise rolled her eyes. 'So is Dickens Hart. Sixty-eight, according to his journals.'

  'Journals?' Sheree asked. 'Why do you―'

  'AnnaLise is right,' Joy interrupted, glaring at Chuck. 'Ema Bradenham has to be at least a full decade younger than Dickens.'

  'But if she was older, what's the big deal?' AnnaLise demanded, her voice rising. 'Guys "do" younger women all the time and nobody seems to have a problem with it. In fact, it's a badge of honor.'

  AnnaLise stopped, realizing all three had again swiveled toward her.

  She cleared her throat. 'I'm just saying.'

  'Hey, no need to get mad,' said Joy, shaking her head. 'You're preaching to the choir here, girl.'

  'Amen,' Sheree said under her breath, earning a glare from Joy.

  Chuck held up his hands. 'Don't anybody look at me. I don't even have a filly in this race.'

  Everybody laughed, awkward moment evaporated.

  Having supervised the refreshment of drinks, Sheree changed the subject back to Dickens Hart. 'Any relationship he could have had with Bobby's mother would have been well before you came on the scene, Joy.'

  '1981,' AnnaLise supplied, grateful — and not a little surprised — by Sheree's tact.

  'Fourteen years before, then,' Joy said. 'Dickens was fifty-three when we met, and God knows he hadn't been exactly celibate. And if he knew Bobby was his son, Dickens would have taken care of him. That's what I meant about him being oddly honorable.'

  'Then shouldn't he be "taking care" of a gaggle of "Bobbies" and "Robertas"?' Sheree asked, her sensitivity reservoir apparently drained for the day. 'As you said, the man's never been known to keep it in his pants. And not just around the Fawns of White Tail Lodge.'

  'Yeah,' conceded Joy, 'but, in or out of his pants, Dickens was shooting blanks.'

  AnnaLise couldn't believe her ears. All this talk of Bobby being a 'little Dickens' and the man was... 'Sterile? Like from mumps or something?'

  Joy laughed. 'Nah, he had himself clipped.'

  'Ahh, a vasectomy,' AnnaLise said, wondering if she'd find any mention of the procedure in Hart's journals. Dear Diary: Today I got my weenie snipped.

  'Do you know when?' Sheree asked Joy.

  'Before I came on the scene. The early eighties sounds about right.'

  'So he learned from his mistake,' Sheree said. 'No offense to Bobby.'

  'Or me, I guess.' Joy said.

  Uh-oh, AnnaLise thought. Maybe Joy's biological clock isn't so different than that of her sorority sisters, no matter what the Frat Pack leader might maintain.

  'It's not a mistake, it's a baby,' Chuck intoned, not so soberly. He swung his legs off the couch.

  'Where are you going?' AnnaLise asked.

  'Gotta get a good night's sleep,' he said, rising to full height. 'Tomorrow I need to talk to a man about a will. And a partnership agreement.'

  AnnaLise left her car at Sheree's inn and walked home, since the five-block distance didn't warrant risking a DUI or worse, hurting herself or someone else.

  It was well after eleven, so Sal's was closed and the only sign of life — or even light — on Main Street was the glow coming from Torch.

  Speaking of illumination, AnnaLise loved Chuck dearly, but she was starting to think he might not be the brightest bulb on the tree. Hadn't he thought to check the partnership agreement and ask Hart about his heirs? After all, 'who benefits from this crime' was always the first question TV cops asked themselves.

  Then again, the chief was smart enough to lie there on the couch, maybe feigning a near stupor while quietly absorbing local gossip that might advance the investigation of his case.

  Or now, cases.

  It didn't surprise AnnaLise that Chuck seemed as unaware of the rumor regarding Bobby's paternity as AnnaLise had been. All of them, including Bobby, so far as she knew, had hook-line-and-sinker believed that Bobby's father died in an accident involving a car he had been driving and in which the infant Bobby and his mother had been riding. And spared.

  Now, seemingly out of the blue, there was all this speculation. Maybe Bobby had said it best: people shared the most intimate details of their lives online, not to mention on television. Maybe that trend had desensitized us to the point that we were willing to open old wounds, talk about things long hidden?

  Or may
be Phyllis 'Mama' Balisteri was just really good at starting rumors and Sheree Pepper at repeating them.

  Whatever, AnnaLise was just as happy to have Chuck investigating Dickens Hart's heirs, since that would distract him from Ichiro Katou's murder. And, more to the point, Daisy's alibi, or lack thereof.

  Tucker had promised not to volunteer the fact that Daisy — contrary to what AnnaLise had assured Chuck — hadn't arrived at Torch until after midnight the evening Ichiro died.

  Unless the police chief asked, of course, and the fact he was busy with Hart — a higher profile, if still-breathing victim — might give AnnaLise the time she needed to dig up an alternative suspect in Ichiro's death.

  Tucker, to her surprise, also had been happy to affirmatively help her. 'Hey, Daisy's my bud and, besides, I'm psyched to work with an investigative reporter.'

  Ahh, youth. They'd made an appointment to meet outside Ichiro's apartment at ten the next morning, the young man with a key to same.

  Not wanting to encourage questions from her eager apprentice that she couldn't answer — for example, what AnnaLise hoped to find in Ichiro's rooms — she avoided Torch's entrance, instead crossing Second Street diagonally to get to Daisy's front door.

  Her mother's car wasn't parked anywhere in sight — unusual, considering the hour. AnnaLise had her house key in its lock when she noticed a muted glow coming from the garage. Daisy must have put her car away for the night and forgotten to turn off the now-faithful light.

  AnnaLise returned her key to a pocket and moved toward the garage. No wonder the lamp's always out. 'Batteries don't last forever, Daisy.'

  However, as AnnaLise reached down to grasp the door handle, the light went off.

  'Y voila. What did I say?' AnnaLise yanked the handle with the angry strength of the consistently confirmed. The door slid up, but the light from the street lamp above revealed no sign of Daisy's cream-colored Chrysler.

  Stepping in, AnnaLise reached for the light, finding and then pushing it.

  And 'on' the little dome came.

  AnnaLise pulled her hand away like the thing was scorching hot and took a convulsive step backwards, instinctively wanting to be out of this particular cave.

  The groan of ancient wood caused her too look up, just in time to see the overhead door come crashing down. The clatter of something metallic on the concrete was the last thing she registered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  'Ouch!'

  AnnaLise opened her eyes. 'Ouch?' she asked, looking up at Dr. Jackson Stanton.

  'Sorry.' The doctor was gingerly lowering himself to the sidewalk, presumably to examine her. 'My knees have hurt ever since I ran the Piedmont marathon.'

  Amazing how people who've accomplished admittedly impressive things like a marathon manage to drop the fact into casual conversation. Even at the most unlikely moments.

  Say, for example, after you've been pounded like a carpet tack into concrete by your mother's rogue garage door.

  'Are you OK, AnnaLise?' Daisy asked.

  'Does she look OK?' Mrs. Peebly asked. 'A garage door just fell on her head.'

  'I think it got me... more in the shoulder.' AnnaLise struggled to sit up.

  As the doctor helped her, Mrs. Peebly peered down at AnnaLise, a hairy but bleached chin resting on the frame of her aluminum walker. The woman was amazing flexible for a ninety-something. Hell, she was lithe for a twenty-something.

  Especially one who had run into a door. Or vice versa.

  'See, Daisy?' Mrs. Peebly was now shaking a finger. 'I told you these doors should be kept locked.'

  'For the last time,' Mother Griggs said, 'you can't jam both doors shut from the inside and still get out yourself.'

  AnnaLise decided that particular horse had been beaten to death. With umbrellas.

  'I am buying you new doors,' she said, slowly but firmly, as the doctor examined her shoulder, 'with real locks, lights and a modern opener.'

  Mrs. Peebly winced. 'These old wooden ones weigh a ton.'

  'Forgive me,' Dr. Stanton said, 'but more like a hundred, hundred-fifty pounds.'

  'I was speaking figuratively,' Mrs. Peebly replied. 'And, besides, nobody likes know-it-alls.' She shot a look at AnnaLise.

  AnnaLise ignored it and glanced around. The street was still dark and, with the exception of herself, the two older women and the doctor, it seemed deserted.

  'How'd you all get here?' she asked. AnnaLise didn't think she'd lost consciousness, but the blow certainly had left her disoriented, struggling to focus.

  'It was me who found you,' Mrs. Peebly said proudly. 'I was just turning off my television set after Hondo.'

  'From the novel by Louis L'Amour,' AnnaLise said. She might be disoriented, but she was still a writer.

  'And starring John Wayne and Geraldine Page,' Dr. Stanton said. 'Not to mention Ward Bond, pre-Wagon Train. Great movie.'

  Apparently Tucker's 'classic-television' apple didn't fall far from his father's 'classic-movie' tree.

  Mrs. Peebly looked pleased. Daisy, on the other hand, said, 'Don't encourage her,' but AnnaLise wasn't sure if that was directed at daughter or neighbor.

  Stay on the beam, even if it's wavering a little. 'So you turned off your TV,' AnnaLise reminded Mrs. Peebly, 'and...'

  'And,' the elderly woman took up, 'I heard a clang, like somebody'd dropped something, and then a bang. I knew right away it was the garage door again, but this time it sounded different. Like it was muffled. Or maybe padded.'

  'By me and my shoulder, as it turns out,' AnnaLise said. 'One more step, and I would have been clear before the door came slamming down.'

  'Maybe you should work out more,' Mrs. Peebly said. 'That explosive, out-of-the-blocks reaction doesn't come as naturally to some people as it does to me.'

  Daisy ignored her. 'She called, probably wanting to scold me...'

  'It was late, Daisy,' Mrs. Peebly protested. 'You oughta know better than to make that kind of noise.'

  'The late hour doesn't stop you from blasting those movies of yours,' Daisy said. 'Besides, it wasn't me. It was AnnaLise, remember?'

  'Oh. Right.'

  'Your car's not in the garage,' AnnaLise said to Daisy. 'Where is it?'

  'On the street.'

  'Where?' The doctor's car blocked the driveway apron, but there was no sign of Daisy's vehicle.

  'Around the corner,' said AnnaLise's mother.

  'In the angle parking on Main Street? ' Daughter tried to ger her head around that. 'But you hate backing out into traffic.'

  'Honestly, AnnaLise.' Daisy glanced at Dr. Stanton, embarrassed. 'You make me sound like I'm ninety. Oh, no offense, Mrs. Peebly.'

  'Some taken.'

  Daisy shrugged. 'Anyway, AnnaLise, you're being silly. Next thing you'll be saying is I don't like to make left turns.'

  'You don't.'

  'Neither do I,' Dr. Stanton said. 'You're taking your life in your hands even trying that during tourist season.'

  'And when is it not tourist season?' Daisy said, spreading her hands. The two laughed.

  AnnaLise's mother and Dr. Stanton? Could it be?

  'Stop making moon eyes over there,' Mrs. Peebly groused. 'Like I said, when I heard you drop the door, AnnaLise, I called your mother.'

  'I was asleep,' Daisy said, 'but the telephone woke me up. When I realized you weren't home―'

  'We both hightailed it down here to the garage,' Mrs. Peebly said triumphantly, 'and there you were, laid out like a deer carcass on this very ground.'

  'So they called me,' Dr. Stanton said, getting to his feet with a grin, but also another 'Ouch'.

  'I know, I know,' AnnaLise said. 'Running injury. Marathon.'

  Dr. Stanton's grin grew wider. 'Give me your right hand and I'll help you up.'

  She did and he eased her to a standing position, her left arm lagging a bit behind the exercise.

  'Sore, but no sharp pain,' AnnaLise said, rubbing at the joint gingerly. 'The shoulder doesn't feel dislocated.'

/>   'It's not,' Dr. Stanton confirmed. 'But I'm pretty sure you do have a slight separation. I want you to ice it for fifteen minutes each hour for the next four. Then stop by the office tomorrow and we'll do a quick X-ray to make sure you haven't cracked anything. I think you'll be fine, though.'

  'Does she need a sling?' Mrs. Peebles asked. 'I have just the thing. The sheet from Larry's crib.'

  'Larry's nearly seventy,' Daisy pointed out, 'and you still have his crib?'

  'Never know,' Mrs. Peebly said, lifting up her walker to get it past a rough spot. 'He likes 'em young. I could be a grandmother yet.'

  It was as though AnnaLise had fallen asleep during the cougar discussion at the inn earlier and awakened to the same one, but with a very different set of characters. Through the Looking Glass kind of different, where the seventy-year-old Larry was a cradle-robber and Daisy, a cougar. Kind of.

  'I don't think a sling will be necessary,' Stanton, the younger 'stud', said as he opened his car door. 'But if letting the arm hang at your side hurts...'

  'I'll elevate it,' AnnaLise said quickly. Her own childhood sheets having been emblazoned with Smurfs, she couldn't imagine what baby sheets, circa 1930, sported. Coats of arms? Mastodons and sabre-toothed tigers?

  Given the circumstances, though, no need to find out. Daisy was bound to have a spare pillowcase.

  'I don't understand,' AnnaLise said. 'Why can't we get this to work?' Her left shoulder was starting to ache as she held up the elbow for Daisy to tie a knot at the neck.

  'I told you, the pillowcase isn't big enough. You should have taken Baby Larry's crib sheet.'

  AnnaLise shuddered, causing Daisy to once again lose her grip. 'I think not. Besides, this has to work. I always used pillowcases as slings back when I was pretending to have a broken arm.'

  'And sitting on the stool next to the cash register at Mama's, trolling for sympathy.'

  'And candy. Don't forget the candy,' AnnaLise mumbled over the cloth corner she was trying to hold in her teeth.

  'You were six,' Daisy said. 'The pillowcases didn't get smaller, you just got bigger.'

  There was that.