Running on Empty (22 page)

'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 maybe 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.

'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?'