[To Die For 01] - A View to Die For (2012) (13 page)

“Yeah. You just missed her. She couldn’t get her car started and got a ride with one of our regulars.” Sam let go of my hand and went back to wiping the counter. “Speaking of which, I hope Meg’s okay with all the shit that’s been coming down on her. Her and Mike were some of my best customers.”

“Thanks. Nice to know someone who isn’t out to get her because she’s not from around here.” All this patronizing was starting to get to me. I couldn’t help but imagine what he really thought of my sister and her late husband.

“I can empathize. I’m from the big city myself. My dad bought this place after he retired, and I came to work after losing my job in Saint Louis when the economy tanked. It keeps me busy until the market comes back, and I can go back to selling mortgages instead of beer.” He picked up his towel and began wiping some glasses that had been sitting in a rack next to a sink under the bar. “Well I doubt you want to hear my troubles. What can I get you?”

“How about a couple of Bud Lights. I’d really prefer a Coors, but when in Rome…” I thought better of ordering Megan a mixed drink after seeing how the glasses were cleaned. “And let me have another of whatever Amy is drinking.”

He smiled and said, “Two Coors and a Jack Daniels on ice. Anything else? The grill’s not open for another hour, but I can serve some snack food if you’re hungry.” Then he pointed to a hot dog machine at the end of the bar. The hot dogs looked like they had been cooking since last Christmas.

“I’ll pass on the snacks. We just came from McDonalds,” I answered while watching him mix Amy’s drink.

Sam opened two bottles of Coors and wiped off the condensation before placing them on a tray alongside Amy’s. “That doesn’t sound like the Meg I know. Mike used to say she wouldn’t go within fifty yards of there.”

I made a mental note to re-wipe the top of the bottles with a clean napkin. “Sounds like you knew Mike pretty well.”

“He used to stop by almost every afternoon with his buddies Bill and Ron. Everyone got to calling them the three amigos. Hard to believe both Mike and Bill are gone.”

The mention of Bill triggered a memory about the anonymous phone call made from here, and I looked around for a phone. There wasn’t one I could see. “Speaking of Bill, did you know Bennet tried to arrest Meg and me for his murder?”

“News travels faster than a rabbit at a greyhound track in these small towns, Jake. The whole town knows that, but I didn’t feel I knew you well enough to mention it.”

“Do you know why Bennet thought we did it?”

Sam looked around the place before answering. The only other customers were a couple of guys in their fifties at the far end playing pool. Then he reached under the bar and brought out a half-filled glass of what looked like whiskey and took a sip. “Bennet sort of told me already. He came by this morning and said someone called in a tip from here. Asked me if I had let someone use the phone yesterday.”

I was afraid to say anything. The wrong response and he might remember that bartenders are supposed to keep gossip to themselves. He was acting like someone who was revealing top-secret plans on the B-2 bomber to the Russians. I waited for him to continue.

“I told the sorry SOB it could have been anyone. The phone is right here under the counter. And besides, Monday’s are slow, and I let Linda run the place herself on Mondays. I wasn’t even here.”

I picked up my Coors and took a drink, forgetting about the thousands of germs that had jumped off his bar-rag. “Do you think it was Linda?”

He bent closer and spoke in a near whisper as though the pool players might be listening. “My thought too. So I checked the call list. I’ve got one of those newer models that store the last twenty calls coming in and going out. I don’t know who made the call, but I know who didn’t.”

Sam grinned like he just lost his virginity. “There was a call from Hal and another call to Ron Nixon only minutes before the call to the sheriff. So, we know it wasn’t Ron or Hal.”

“Hey, Sam, how about a couple more beers?” It was the pool players.

“Thanks for your help, Sam,” I said, handing him my last twenty. “I better let you get back to work. And keep the change.”

Amy was doing better when I joined the girls at their table. She must have made a trip to the restroom when I wasn’t looking. She had washed away the black streaks, but she hadn’t replaced her makeup. She was more beautiful without it. “What took so long, Porky?” We were about to get our own drinks.” Megan said.

I winked at my sister and said, “Went on a fishing trip and caught a big one.”

Megan gave me her blank look. “What does that mean?”

“A stupid metaphor,” I answered. I realized this wasn’t the time to tell her it looked like Linda was our anonymous tipster.

She rolled her eyes and looked at the tray. “Where’s my drink?”

I slid Amy’s drink over the table and proceeded to wipe the necks of the beer bottles with a napkin from the dispenser in the middle of the table. “I’m sorry, Meg. I thought you were kidding about the double. I got you a beer instead.”

“Whatever,” she answered. “Amy needs a ride home. That bastard just left her here and drove off.”

Amy took her drink and downed half of it, then she looked at me. “Do you mind giving me a ride, Jake? It doesn’t look like Hal is coming back to get me.”

“Sure, no problem.” Other than asking her to run away back to Colorado with me, it was all I could think of to say. I kept the vision of her in Daisy Mae shorts and a halter top at my cabin to myself.

I spent the next hour listening to my sister and Amy talk about men as though I wasn’t one. I guess brothers are invisible, or eunuchs, in the world of female gossip. Sam didn’t give me an excuse to leave the table. My tip had insured table service whenever he saw an empty glass. When it finally came time to pay up and leave, I tried using my credit card. It didn’t clear. Amy jumped in with a hundred-dollar bill before I could try my debit card.

I was too embarrassed to say much on the short drive home, and I just let the two girls talk. I had tuned out most of what they were saying until Megan offered her friend my room. “You can’t go home tonight. That creep might beat you again. You can have the guest room. Kevin’s staying the night at your house, so Jake can take his room.”

I ended up sleeping on the couch in the family room. Kevin and Taylor were at the house; Hal had started in on Taylor about cleaning up his act. Amy took the guest room, slash office, where I’d been sleeping, and Fred and I got the couch. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but somehow he had managed to squeeze in at my feet.

* * *

Fred woke me around two in the morning having to go. It was a ritual he started about a year ago, and I attributed it to a shrinking bladder as he got older. I should know. I was wide awake anyway, so I let him out on the back deck where he could use the stairs to get to his bathroom. I fetched a beer from the refrigerator and, while enjoying the full moon reflecting off the water, waited for him on the deck.

“Can I join you?” It was Amy wearing only a bathrobe.

“Sha shure,” I muttered after getting a glimpse of her naked breasts. “Can I get you something to drink?”

She realized it was open, and she quickly closed the robe before sitting down. “Sorry about that. I just took a shower, and Meg’s robe seems to be missing a few buttons. One of those beers would be great,” she answered with a smile.

While I was getting up to fetch the beer, she let her hair fall from the bun it was in and flung it behind her. The moonlight bounced off her wet hair and lit her face.

When I returned a few minutes later, I found Fred was getting a massage I could only dream of. He must have heard her on the deck and cut his tree watering short to join her.

“I’ve been meaning to ask how your headache is. You must think I’m pretty self-centered not to have asked sooner,” she said.

“Thought never crossed my mind,” I lied.

Amy stopped massaging Fred and reached for one of the beers. Her eyes locked onto mine, and she smiled. “You are so different from Hal. He would not only agree, but gone on to call me a narcissistic gold-digger.”

“Hal didn’t strike me as a man who knew any ten dollar words,” I tried to joke, all the while gazing into her eyes. Her pupils were large in the dim light of the moon and hid the beautiful violet I remembered.

She laughed at my remark nonetheless. “You got that right. He probably thinks a narcissist is one of those drugs he pushes.”

I didn’t let on the fact that I wasn’t too sure of the meaning either. I was already feeling embarrassed for getting caught looking past her open robe. I didn’t want to look stupid, too, so I quickly changed the subject. “Meg mentioned you might be staying awhile. You’re more than welcome to keep the guest room, and Fred and I will move downstairs.”

“But that room’s unfinished, Jake. I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she answered, no longer smiling. “God only knows how long I’ll have to stay before he goes on another sales trip.”

“No problemo, my Lady. Meg has a hide-a-bed in storage I can fetch, and there’s a bath down there; it will be just like a suite.”

“Wish I’d met you sooner, Lancelot. That is so sweet of you,” she said. Then she stood up and walked over to the deck railing. “I’m going to miss this view. The lake is so beautiful this time of the year.”

“Are you planning on going somewhere?” I asked.

She half turned toward me to answer, and I realized why she had left the table. I could see the reflection of the moon in her damp eyes. “That’s the trouble with alcohol. It always makes me talk too much or do something stupid,” she put down her empty bottle on the deck rail.

“No way. You could never do anything stupid.”

“Leaving Hal would be. You have no idea how close I came to asking you to take me back to Colorado with you.”

I nearly dropped my beer.
Can this woman read minds
, I thought. Then she blew my fantasy. “I was thinking of hitching a ride with you as far as Denver. I’ve got an aunt who lives there that I could stay with for a while.”

“I’d love to have the company. Fred doesn’t say much when we’re traveling. But it may be some time before I can leave Meg and head home.”

“Thanks, Jake. But it was a stupid idea. Taylor wouldn’t leave his friends, and I doubt if Megan would want him moving in permanently. Besides, I’m not about to let Hal have everything.”

I couldn’t think of a quick comeback. Not that I needed one. Someone inside the house turned on the deck light, and we both looked toward the sliding door. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Megan asked.

Amy quickly checked to make sure her robe was closed. “No. I heard Jake talking to Fred out here, so I thought I’d join them. We didn’t wake you did we?”

“Yeah,” she answered, looking at Amy. “My room is right above you guys, and I like to sleep with the windows open. But I couldn’t sleep anyway. I keep thinking about what Jake said back at the Pig’s Roast.” Then she looked over at me. “What did Sam tell you anyway?”

Amy picked up her empty beer bottle and started to leave. “Thank you for the beer and the company, Jake. I’ve got a double shift at the hospital tomorrow, and I really need to get some sleep.” Fred woke up just as she was leaving. She bent down and patted him on the head. “Take care of your master, Boy. He’s a real gentleman.”

I watched her go back into the house and wanted to shoot my sister for scaring her away. “Thanks a lot, Sis,” I said after Amy closed the door.

“Forget her, Porky. You can’t afford her, believe me,” Megan said, sitting down across the table from me. She leaned back in her chair and looked me straight in the eyes. “Now you want to tell me what Sam said?”

* * *

Fred was the first one up a few hours later, and he wanted out again. I can usually buy a few more minutes of sleep by petting him on the head and telling him to lie down, but just like the snooze button on an alarm clock, he will start in again within ten minutes. “Okay, Fred, I didn’t need to sleep anyway,” I told him and got out of bed.

When I opened the door to let Fred out, I saw the boat down by the dock again. Fred saw it too. He started barking at it and ran down the stairs. I’m sure it was the same boat I had seen the first day I came here. With all that had happened since, it seemed like a long time ago, but it had only been a couple of days.

Meg’s deck was nearly two hundred feet from the dock. My eyes were no longer what they used to be, and I couldn’t make out the driver. I quickly rushed over to the spotting scope Meg had on the deck to get a better look. The boat had been slowly pulling away from the dock, but when he heard Fred, he pushed the throttle full forward and was gone before I could focus the scope.

Fred made it to the water by then, but it was too late for him to get a good look at the intruder, not that he would tell me what the guy looked like in this lifetime anyway. I yelled down to Fred to quiet down before he woke everyone in the house.

“What’s all the commotion?” Meg asked. I could also see Amy through the glass doors as she went into the bathroom.

“Earth to Porky,” Megan said. “Are you with us or did your circuits disconnect.”

“Sorry, Sis, just thinking.”

“I can see that, Rodin. What’s Fred barking at?” she asked as she went over to the spotting scope.

“It’s that boat again, and this time I know it wasn’t a fisherman.” I said, watching her adjusting the focus. “Don’t waste your time. He’s gone”

“And how do you know it’s not a fisherman, Sherlock?” she said, still trying to find something in the scope.

“Since when do fishermen carry picks and shovels?” I asked.

She stopped fiddling with the scope and turned toward me. “He had a shovel?”

“And a pick. By the time I managed to focus that thing, the pick and the name on the side of the boat were all I caught,” I answered and leaned back in my chair to prop my feet on the table.

Her pupils seemed to get larger when she asked, “Was it the Bass Tracker?”

I tried to act smug with my answer, but my feet slipped off the table just as I said, “Yep.” The chair fell backwards throwing me on the deck.