Dead Lift Page 21

  “So I’m being electronically stalked by a practiced con-man and meticulous killer.” I looked at Richard. “I should be earning hazard pay.”

  He didn’t look up from his screen.

  “I’m scared,” I continued. “He knows who I am and why I’m asking questions. He’s warned me several times to stop. He’s been here and he knows about Annette. What if he comes back and goes after her?”

  My breath caught.

  Vince put a hand on my arm. “She’s safe with Betsy and Nick,” he said. “And you’ll stay at my place for a while like we talked about.” He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into him sideways, trying to be reassuring.

  A new idea came to me and I straightened. Burke had tracked me down on-line, broken into the apartment, and stolen some jewelry—all scary things, but hardly anything life threatening.

  “Burke’s a pro,” I said. “He knows I’m suspicious. When Platt and Daniel got suspicious, they ended up dead. All I got were e-mails. Why?”

  Richard pushed back from the table and stood. “I think I’ve figured that one out,” he said, wiping his hands on a paper napkin. “Printed something.” He walked through my little kitchen toward the printer in the laundry room and returned with a sheet of paper that he passed to me.

  It was a list of excerpts, all in different fonts and formats, that he’d obviously cut and pasted from various websites while we’d been eating.

  “The theme was clear,” he said. “I only copied from a few of their bios.” He nodded to the paper in my hand. “You’ll see.”

  Vince faced me and I read aloud from Richard’s haphazard list:

  “Bach’s mother died in 1694 and his father in 1695, when the boy was only ten years old.

  “Tolstoy’s mother died when he was two and his father died when he was nine.

  “Aristotle, whose parents died when he quite young, was raised by a guardian who later sent him to Plato’s academy in Athens.

  “Born Norma Jean Baker to an unmarried woman, Monroe was in foster care until she was nearly seven.

  “Malcolm X’s father was murdered by white racists in 1931. Years later social workers removed him and his siblings from his mother’s care and put them into a children’s home.

  “Fitzgerald never knew her father and her mother passed in 1935.”

  I could hardly believe it. When I glanced up from the page, Richard was the only one watching me. Vince stared at the table and Jeannie at my front window. Both seemed lost in somber thought, same as me. I stepped backward and felt for the couch. Finding it, I took a seat and exhaled. “He’s telling us he was orphaned.”

  “That’s not all,” Richard said. “What’s frightening is that he counts himself among great people in history who grew up without parents. I think he views himself as some sort of…overcomer.”

  I squeezed the back of my neck, thinking. “I wonder if he found out about Annette when he broke in here,” I said. “Or maybe he knew about her already, from looking up articles about me on-line.”

  Richard shook his head. “Impossible to know, but I think Annette saved you. He knows you’re her only parent and he has a soft spot for orphans. He’s anxious, though. I don’t think he’ll hesitate if we cross him again.”

  “Me either,” Vince said. Then, turning to Richard he added, “I suppose you’re taking it from here then? Emily can’t stay involved now.”

  Richard shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “Homicide. When the detectives download her report there’s going to be an instant follow-up.” He looked at his watch. “They’re probably at the Saunders house right now.”

  I wanted nothing further to do with Kevin Burke and his twisted schemes but couldn’t help thinking about William. No matter how much care was taken, detectives would confuse and frighten him. There was no getting around that and William had nobody left to soften reality for him.

  For my part, I didn’t like the way Richard and Vince were suddenly making decisions for me as if I weren’t in the room. But the rational part of my brain, where my maternal instincts lived, told the willful, independent remainder to sit down and shut the hell up.

  So while they talked about packing bags and coordinated plans for Jeannie and me to relocate, I didn’t say a word.

  Chapter Thirty

  I’d been to Vince’s house plenty of times but it felt strangely foreign when I stepped inside carrying an overnight bag for the first time.

  Jeannie brushed past me with her bag-on-wheels and oversized tote and stood in the middle of his vast living room to have a proper look around. “Nice place, Cowboy. I especially like this vaulted ceiling.”

  I flipped on his porch light and closed and locked the door behind us. Vince’s Yellow Lab, Cindy, was in the back yard scratching at the glass door, whining to be let inside. I dropped my bag beside the couch and left Vince to enumerate all his recent home improvement projects for Jeannie. When I opened the back door, Cindy rushed to greet me and nearly took me out at the knees. Her tail wagged so violently that the back half of her body twisted with every swing. She followed me to his couch where I sat down and coaxed her into rolling over for a belly scratch.

  Vince told Jeannie to make herself at home. “Emily knows where everything is.” He walked past the dog and me on his way to the kitchen. “Beer?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Jeannie paced the room’s perimeter, inspecting shelves and photos.

  “Emily?” Vince said from the kitchen.

  “None for me,” I said. “Not in the mood.”

  As if she understood, Cindy licked the back of my hand. I leaned close to her face and ignored the dog breath. “What am I supposed to do here tonight?” I whispered.

  She only thumped her tail. Glasses clinked in the kitchen, the familiar sounds of a warm, inviting house. Exhausted, I slipped off my shoes and curled up under an afghan Vince kept draped over his sofa. Mostly reclined, I scratched Cindy’s ears with my free hand.

  Vince returned with the beers and tapped me on the leg with a cold bottle of Shiner Bock as he passed. I pulled myself further under the blanket.

  “You look tired.”

  He passed a bottle to Jeannie. I nestled into a throw pillow and let my silence speak for me.

  “Can I get the five cent tour?” Jeannie said. “Or do guys not do that?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Let’s start back here.”

  I listened to them chat as Vince led Jeannie down the hallway. My eyes closed and I made no effort to keep them open. Sleep was near and I was weak for it.

  ***

  When I awoke, I had no idea how much time had passed. The house, dark now, gave no hint about where Vince or Jeannie might have gone, but judging from its stillness, I could guess. I sat up. Someone had laid a quilt over me. I pressed the Indiglo button on my watch and saw that it was 11:21.

  Going comatose on the sofa had solved the problem of sleeping arrangements, but I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed about where I’d ended up. I thought about Vince, only a few yards away in his room, and felt lonely without him. I leaned back onto the pillow and pulled the quilt over me again. In the dark, all I could see was a green, blinking LED on the ceiling. I assumed it was a smoke detector and stared at its persistent little light, asking myself on a scale of one to ten how ridiculous it was to be sleeping alone on Vince’s couch with him so near that I could almost smell his cologne.

  Jeannie was right about him. He was too polite for his own good. And I’d made so many big decisions, so fast, lately that the prospect of initiating another huge life change was terrifying. With this much self-doubt it was no wonder I couldn’t send consistent signals. I wondered what was keeping him around.

  Well, I knew. We both knew, didn’t we? We could just never find the right words.

  In our short history, we’d always said more when neither was talking. There’d been our first dance. Surrounded by hoards of mostly drunk people, I remembered the way he’d pulled me close and how I’d eventually res
ted my head on his shoulder, eyes closed. Despite the noise and hullabaloo, while we were dancing it had seemed we were having our own private conversation. In the time between the beginning and end of that song, something between us changed. Maybe something inside me had changed as well.

  Once, he’d found me crying. He hadn’t said a word then either, just held me close and kissed my forehead. That was special, too.

  I pushed the quilt back and sat up a second time, listening to nothing and staring into virtual blackness. The ice maker in the kitchen rumbled, then stopped. My chest felt a little bit tight, but when I stood, anxiety faded into resolve.

  His door had been left partially open, which I hoped was a good sign. I entered slowly, unsure if he was asleep, and silently closed the door before walking toward the bed. In the shadows, I made out the form of his silhouette but couldn’t tell whether he was facing toward or away from me. For a moment I stood over him, wanting to crawl in but scared of screwing everything up.

  I needn’t have worried. Blankets rustled and shadows changed as Vince slid the covers back.

  I slipped in with him and my feet felt something solid at the end of the bed. Cindy’s collar jangled as she gave up her spot and slinked to the floor. Vince’s arms enveloped me under the sheets with him.

  The bed was already warm.

  He was shirtless, nearly motionless, and his touch was talking in that silent way I cherished. I couldn’t find his eyes, and it didn’t matter. He ran a hand lightly up my arm to my shoulder and barely squeezed, enough to reassure me we were having the same conversation.

  He kissed me slowly then, deliberately, and retraced his path down my arm so tenderly that the gesture was incredibly seductive. I gave myself fully over to him then for the first time, feeling everything coming back—his vulnerability, desire, all of him.

  Even though no words were said, in the morning I awoke beside him, comfortable in knowing we’d finally talked it all out.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Friday morning, Vince climbed out of bed while it was still dark, showered, and got an early start. I stayed behind, mostly asleep, and smiled when he kissed me before sneaking out the door. It seemed only moments later that Jeannie was bumping around in his kitchen, but when I finally opened my eyes, light was streaming through the window.

  Still in pajamas, I shuffled out to meet her and propped myself on a stool along the bar. Grinning, she passed me a just-poured cup of coffee that I assumed was originally meant for her. “Blankets on the couch this morning,” she said. “But no Emily.”

  “I’m not going to talk about it,” I said. “Thanks for the joe.”

  Without looking at me, she turned and pulled four eggs from a carton on the counter and cracked them into a bowl with surprising precision. “That’s fine,” she said. “Because I’m trying a new thing. Respecting boundaries.”

  “How very mature of you. Need some help?”

  “With the boundaries or the omelets?”

  “Either.”

  She found the silverware drawer and produced a fork. “No.”

  She used the fork to whip the eggs, then pulled a knife from Vince’s cutlery set and cubed a block of cheddar cheese, her back still to me. “So what’s the plan for today?” A skillet, I noticed, had already been positioned on a front burner. She turned the knob to start the gas.

  “I didn’t feel guilty,” I said.

  She faced me, cheese cubes in hand. “What?”

  “Last night. Does that make me bad? Should I have felt guilty?”

  She tossed the cheese in the skillet and poured the eggs in too. As if she hadn’t heard me, she pulled open a series of drawers before finding a spatula and stirring the mixture. Finally she said, “What would you tell Annette?”

  “If she asked about Vince?”

  “No. If, twenty years from now, she were you and you were me and the same thing happened to her.”

  I felt my face scrunch. Jeannie snapped her fingers at me. “Just answer.”

  “I’d want her to be happy, and not to be alone. I’d tell her there was nothing to feel guilty about.”

  Jeannie opened her hand and motioned as if to say “there you go.”

  “Of course,” I said, “It’s different when the person in question is me.”

  She turned the heat down on the burner and leaned backward on the counter, still within arm’s reach of the pan. Her expression softened. “I can absolutely guarantee what Jack would say.”

  I tapped my nails on the ceramic mug. The coffee was too hot.

  Her point made, Jeannie redirected her attention to the stove and used the spatula to test the edges of the omelet. After all the months of haranguing and unwanted advice regarding my tardy milestones with Vince, her new restraint flummoxed me.

  I let it ride.

  “Diana King deserves to know what we learned yesterday,” I said. “I’ll try to catch her at the club this morning. Not sure if she’ll see me, but either way the day is ours afterward. I’m sorry your whole week here revolved around the case. What do you feel like doing?”

  “Laying out on the beach.” She folded the omelet over onto itself and then maneuvered it clumsily onto the reverse side. “How much time do you need at Tone Zone?”

  “Not more than fifteen minutes.”

  “Enough time to tan. Hand me the phone. I’ll see if I can get in.”

  I grabbed Vince’s cordless off its base and tossed it to her. “Why tan in a coffin if we’re going to the beach?”

  She shook her head as if I had the intelligence of a plank of driftwood. “No tan lines.”

  Jeannie pulled her temporary club pass from her purse and, finding the club’s number, placed the call. With the phone squeezed between her shoulder and ear, she made an appointment while sliding a giant cheese omelet onto a plate and dividing it in halves. She passed me a plate but no fork, so I watched her talk tans with someone on the phone and rinse utensils absently. Her multitasking was mild, but watching it tired me.

  Too lazy to get off the stool and find my own fork, I tore a piece off the omelet and ate it. Jeannie caught me and rolled her eyes. She hung up the phone and opened the silverware drawer, drew a breath as if to say something, and then didn’t.

  She carried her plate to my side of the bar and sat down beside me, slid me a fork, and then, with apparent effort, returned her attention to her omelet.

  “What?” I finally said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  She shook her head.

  Respecting my privacy was killing her.

  “Thank you,” I said, not looking up from my plate.

  “You’ll be fine, Em. He’s a good guy.”

  I lifted my mug with both hands, reassured by its warmth, and almost didn’t notice the tremble.

  ***

  “We never know what the day holds in store,” Diana King said from the other side of her desk, “but I confess this is a shock.”

  She’d been writing when I showed up and held her pen barely over the page as if any moment she’d continue her written thoughts. I stayed in the doorway, partly afraid to go inside but mostly not wanting to give the impression I cared either way. I smelled apples, and wasn’t sure if it was air freshener or Diana’s fragrance of the day.

  “I figured you’d want to know what we’ve learned.”

  Her posture relaxed and she pushed back from the desk and moved her hand to her lap, the pen casually resting between long fingers. Huge rings, one silver, the other a shimmering amethyst, momentarily distracted me.

  “My boss had a guy on you.” I said. “We know you were the one who left the key to Dr. Platt’s house.”

  She cut a glance to a chair beside her desk and I slid into it.

  “I used it. Found your old letters and the other half of this.” I pointed to the impressive geode on the corner of her desk. “It’s pretty clear you cared for each other.”

  Diana’s lips tightened. Something in her express
ion morphed toward determination.

  “I wondered why you’d let me inside, and why you’d have that key in the first place, but—”

  “He traveled,” she said. “To conferences and such. I kept an eye on things when he was away. Picked up the mail.”

  “You forgot the fish.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “After he died. No one took the fish.”

  Her gaze fell to the desktop and flitted over it.

  “I gave it to my daughter,” I said. “Hope that’s okay.”

  “Poor thing,” she said. “I’d completely forgotten.”

  Diana’s bauble necklace and matching bracelet, both with ridiculously oversized beads, made me wonder if some part of her depended on these external distractions to ignore whatever was going on inside.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?” I said. “I spent a lot of energy this week trying to convince a jackass attorney and a control-freak private-eye that you didn’t kill Platt. It was harder than you’d think, too—I couldn’t tell them how I knew it.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Because I didn’t have permission to be in his house.”

  “Nonsense. I let you in.”

  “Unless you’re the property custodian, a judge isn’t going to care.”

  She frowned. “I couldn’t have investigators calling the house and dropping by to see me about Wendell,” she said. “My husband thinks all that ended years ago, before we met.”

  “It never ended?”

  There was the slight tensing of her jaw again. She was apparently unused to personal questions. Good thing for me that the case was as good as over. The only one who stood to lose anything now was Diana.

  “Wendell was honorable,” she said. “Nothing in our history disrespected our spouses. Still…” She seemed unable to find suitable words. “We shared a friendship that my husband would never understand. Some in our social circle might deem its nature inappropriate for a married woman. But ‘friendship’ remains the best description for what it was.”

  Her expression drooped, much as it had Tuesday night on my front steps. I suspected Burke had taken away Diana’s only real friend.