by Sandra Balzo
Daisy slapped gently but firmly at Joy’s hand. ‘You were smoking weed with the old lady in the wheelchair?’
Joy chuckled. ‘Cool broad – went to Woodstock, even.’
And, given the wheelchair, unlikely to have gone on the walk, even if the group could have stayed on only the more level surfaces.
‘At least the two of you will be hungry for dinner,’ Daisy said.
‘True. Rose’s having a little nap this second.’
AnnaLise frowned. ‘Where is her room? I thought there was just the master suite on the ground floor.’
‘Righty-oh, but if you’re asking me how Grandma Ironsides is getting up and down between floors, well, the elevator of course.’ Now Joy opened the refrigerator.
Phyllis slammed it closed, almost catching the younger woman’s fingers, but also managing to knock the receiver off the wall phone in the process. ‘Hear that, AnnieLeez? You got an elevator in your new house.’
The new ‘heiress’ retrieved the dangling receiver. ‘It’s not mine. Besides, why does a two-story house need an elevator?’
‘Would you want to haul furniture up the staircase in the foyer?’ Joy was inspecting her nearly-mangled fingers. ‘Hart had a freight elevator installed.’
AnnaLise frowned again. ‘But where? I—’ The sound of the patio doors opening and a burst of conversation interrupted her.
‘Hellooo …’ Patrick Hoag’s voice called. ‘We’re back.’
‘Perfect timing,’ Mama said, opening the oven to check her turkey. ‘We’ll give this bird another twenty minutes or so and then let it set before the carving. That’ll give the casseroles time to brown up and everybody to have a much-needed drink before our feast.’
Feeling, if regretting, the mantle of being in charge descend upon her shoulders, AnnaLise said, ‘I guess I’d best go in and explain to them what’s happened to Dickens.’
Joy followed her friend into the Lake Room which, given the patch job to one side of the French doors, was half sunlit, half wood-shaded. ‘What’s wrong? Is the good girl a little stressed?’
‘The good girl, if you mean me, is a lot stressed,’ AnnaLise said. ‘My father’s just been “homicided,” remember?’
‘Oh sure. Now he’s your father.’
‘Joy, cut me a break, OK? Apparently he’s always been my father, just nobody chose to tell me. Including those two,’ she instinctively lowered her voice, ‘smart-asses in the kitchen.’
‘Steady, girl,’ Joy said. ‘You update the assembly and I’ll staff the bar.’
A stoned bartender – just what they needed. ‘Given the situation, I’d prefer that those few of us who still have our wits about us stay that way,’ AnnaLise said, leading the way into the big room.
‘Ah, lighten up,’ Joy said, slipping behind the drinks station on the shady side of the room. ‘And catch up. The twenty-four hours before Thanksgiving dinner is one of the heaviest drinking periods of the year and you’re running behind.’
AnnaLise stopped. ‘Is it really?’
‘Even has a name: “Blackout Wednesday.” Everybody – except you, apparently – goes back to their home towns for Thanksgiving and gets shit-faced.’
‘In order to tolerate their relatives at the big dinner?’ AnnaLise watched her crowd of at least potential family, piling their coats onto Nicole’s outstretched arms.
‘That, and they don’t have to get up the next morning.’ Joy raised a bottle of vodka over her head. ‘Who wants a Bloody Mary?’
A collective roar of approval went up.
AnnaLise glanced behind the bar, expecting to see the re-corked bottle of the cabernet Nicole had nearly served the prior night. No sign of it, but maybe the young woman had mistakenly put it in the wine cooler. The handling of fine wine was not something Nicole would have necessarily learned from her grandfather at Sal’s Taproom. But she probably drew a hell of a pint of draft Hickory Stick Stout or Honey Badger Ale, not to mention all the local micro-brews.
As people gathered around the bar, AnnaLise raised her hand. ‘Everybody?’
Nobody paid her any attention, so she raised her voice. ‘Excuse me?’
Tyler Puckett, who’d just entered the room with Eddie, caught her eye and smiled.
‘You watch that boy, AnnieLeez.’ Mama had arrived from the kitchen with Daisy. ‘He’s just sidling up because he wants your money.’
AnnaLise ignored her and tried again. ‘Please?’
Seeming to realize something was wrong, Tyler put the pinkies of both hands to his lips and emitted a nerve-curdling whistle.
This time everybody shut up, except for his mother, Lucinda. ‘Goodness, Tyler. Do I still have to tell you it’s not polite to make that awful sound in someone else’s—’
‘Listen up, folks!’ Joy yelled. ‘AnnaLise wants to tell you why the gendarmes are here.’
‘The police?’ Patrick Hoag – apparently both an attorney and bilingual – pushed to the front of the group. ‘This is Dickens’ house and obviously it’s his call, but there’s no need to involve the police in a simple homeowner’s claim.’
‘Homeowner’s …?’ AnnaLise repeated blankly, before she registered that he was talking about the broken window. ‘No, it’s not that. There’s been a …’ She swallowed and tried again, ‘I’m afraid that Dickens Hart was found dead this morning.’
‘In his bed,’ Mama contributed.
‘Alone?’ Shirley Hart asked, and a couple of nervous giggles were stifled.
‘What happened?’ Eddie Boccaccio asked. ‘Was he on medication? Was it an overdose?’
AnnaLise frowned. ‘Overdose? Why would you—’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Joy contributed from the bar. ‘Dickens didn’t take sleeping pills.’
‘Not when I knew him,’ Lucinda Puckett agreed.
‘Same here,’ Shirley agreed.
Sugar Capri, who was wearing a beret to go with her skirt and thigh-high socks, looked shell-shocked. ‘I don’t know. I mean, neither of us slept—’
‘Can it, honey.’ Rose Boccaccio had wheeled in silently from wherever she’d been napping. ‘Anything Dickie taught you he learned from me.’
AnnaLise tried to keep her eyes from rolling up into her head. ‘Could we all just—’
But it was a lost cause. Everybody was talking as Lacey Capri entered the room, looking bewildered. ‘Is something—’
‘I told you we shouldn’t have come.’
‘What do we do now?’
‘Maybe we should just—’
‘Your attention, please!’ a voice thundered from the hallway and, unlike AnnaLise’s similar bid for attention, everybody actually shut up.
Coy Pitchford stood in the doorway, seemingly transformed. Maybe it was the booming voice he’d found or that his wife and fellow officer Charity was now standing beside him, but the acting chief seemed to have gained confidence and purpose.
Pitchford glanced curiously at the boarded-up window before he cleared his throat. ‘As AnnaLise has no doubt told you, Dickens Hart is dead, the victim of a definite homicide.’
A gasp from the crowd.
‘I hadn’t quite gotten to that part,’ AnnaLise said apologetically.
‘Let me just say,’ Pitchford continued, ‘that this is still a fluid situation. And an active crime scene. Our technicians will be working in the master bedroom and that entire suite will be off limits with a guard posted. The county sheriff’s department has also been contacted for their backup and assistance.’
Even though AnnaLise had anticipated the move, the words brought home the seriousness of the situation. Once the county came in, they’d likely take over the case from the town’s meager force.
Not only was the chief of police out of the country – something AnnaLise hoped wouldn’t bite Chuck Greystone in the butt – but Dickens Hart was well known in the state and even the region. The county, with its laboratory and experienced detective squad, would be better equipped than Sutherton to handle a high-profile
investigation.
Still, Coy Pitchford was in charge for now and he seemed determined to make that clear.
‘Do you know how Dickens died?’ Sugar Capri asked, her daughter next to her now. The older of the two was visibly shaking and Lacey slipped a protective arm around her mother’s waist.
AnnaLise glanced over at her own mother, still standing side-by-side with Mama. One had the feeling that, together, the pair was indestructible. AnnaLise hoped that was true, given Daisy’s recent medical problems. And bills.
‘There’s apparent blunt-force trauma to the head,’ Pitchford was saying. ‘Though it will take an autopsy to confirm that was the cause of death. In the meantime, we’ll need to get your names, addresses and connection – or connections, plural – to the decedent.’
Eddie Boccaccio raised his hand. ‘Officer, some of us may not know your last part for sure as yet.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Let me explain.’ AnnaLise was dreading her next words before she clearly formed them. ‘Dickens invited his ex-wives to this weekend as well as ex- … umm, girlfriends. He was hoping to find out whether more heirs to his fortune might exist.’
Pitchford scratched his head. ‘You mean in addition to yourself?’
AnnaLise nodded.
‘Well, that’s interesting, I have to say.’ Now Coy Pitchford rubbed his chin. ‘Mighty interesting, indeed.’
SIXTEEN
‘Welcome to Thanksgiving with the Hatfields and the McCoys,’ said attorney Patrick Hoag.
He was seated on one side of AnnaLise, with Joy on the other. Across from them were Mama, Daisy and Shirley.
On the opposite end of the table, just past the massive cornucopia centerpiece, were the Boccaccios, Pucketts and Capris. Sugar was sobbing quietly as Nicole Goldstein, elevated to the only empty seat – that of Dickens Hart – handed her tissues. Lacey was looking on with wide eyes, probably wishing she’d stayed in their room or, better yet, home. As for Boozer, he was hopefully sleeping it off somewhere.
What with the police needing to talk to everyone before dinner, it had been mid-afternoon when they’d finally sat down to eat. That meant the turkey had cooked longer than even Phyllis Balisteri liked. Her scalloped corn and green bean casseroles had formed congealed, crusty brown tops, and part of the marshmallow topping on the sweet potatoes had turned to ash and been scraped off, leaving only a cake-like icing of white goo.
The brown-and-serve rolls had been spared, but only because they still rested, forgotten, in all their plastic-bagged, gummy goodness on the kitchen table.
‘I didn’t realize Sugar was so … attached to Dickens,’ AnnaLise said, leaning out to see past the sprawling centerpiece. ‘Nicole’s going through that whole box of Kleenex.’
Patrick Hoag lifted a wine glass halfway to his lips. ‘Truth be told, the whole lot of them look considerably more stricken than those of us occupying this end of the table.’
‘That’s just because we experienced Hart more recently and frequently,’ Joy said, displaying the amazingly precise diction of the recently stoned. ‘Pass the sweet potatoes, please?’
AnnaLise obliged, managing to get some marshmallow topping on two fingers. She licked it off.
‘Table manners,’ her mother counseled. ‘Use your napkin.’
Her daughter shook her head and held up the monogrammed square of starched linen. ‘I’d hate to get this dirty.’
‘You’ll get over that once you’ve lived here for a while,’ Shirley said, helping herself to another serving of stuffing. ‘Just pretend the “D.H.” stands for “dickhead.”’
‘Ha! That’s what I used to do, too,’ Joy said and the two former wives knuckle-bumped each other over the platter of desiccated turkey.
‘Who says I’m going to live here?’ AnnaLise dropped the napkin back into her lap.
‘AnnaLise, honey,’ Daisy said, leaning across the table with an opened palm, ‘you really should consider it.’
‘You want to move?’ AnnaLise asked, surprised that her mother would even consider leaving their family home.
‘No, dear.’ Daisy reached for the sweet potatoes Joy had just set down. ‘I want you to move.’
AnnaLise’s mouth dropped open.
‘Grown-ups need their privacy,’ Phyllis intoned solemnly. ‘You can’t live with your mother forever.’
‘But I moved back to Sutherton, just so I would be—’
Patrick Hoag, oblivious to the recent turn in the conversation, broke in. ‘It is odd, now that I think of it.’ He was still focused on the opposite end of the table. ‘From what you all have said, neither Sugar nor her daughter had any legitimate hope to inherit anything from Hart.’
‘I’m thinking that the mother had her heart set on getting Dickens back,’ Daisy said.
‘Cute as pie with him, that’s true,’ Mama agreed. ‘And Daisy here says Sugar same as admitted being a gold-digger.’
‘I thought she said everyone who came here this weekend was a gold-digger.’ AnnaLise reached across Joy to score a slab of white meat turkey. ‘Speaking of which, does anybody know when Chef Debbie was last seen before she went missing?’
‘The chef’s gone?’ Patrick looked down at his plate of food. ‘I should have guessed.’
‘You shut up now, do you hear, Patrick Hoag?’ Phyllis said. ‘You oughta be grateful you’re not eating oysters or some such foreign thing on this all-American holiday.’
AnnaLise didn’t want to be the one who informed the domestic oyster industry that it was no longer part of the United States.
‘Oh, we are,’ Patrick Hoag covered gracefully. ‘It was just that she looked like a … nice person.’
‘She looked,’ Joy said, ‘like another one of Hart’s Bimbettes.’
‘Patrick,’ AnnaLise whispered to the lawyer next to her. ‘Did Coy tell you anything more when you spoke with him?’
‘He can’t tell you that,’ Daisy said. The woman had the attuned senses of a foraging fruit bat. ‘Attorney/client privilege.’
‘Thank you, Judge Daisy,’ AnnaLise said, smiling. ‘But I didn’t mean anything that Patrick told Coy, rather the other way around.’
‘Either way,’ Patrick said, ‘the answer is no. I just wanted to let him know that I was here if I could help.’
AnnaLise glanced around, making sure that neither Coy nor Charity was lurking. ‘I’m not sure if I should be telling you all this, but I’ve already told the police … There was a woman’s overnight bag in Dickens’ bedroom last night.’
‘Whose?’ The question came from Shirley. Apparently good hearing was another thing Hart’s former wives and other lovers had in common.
‘I don’t know,’ AnnaLise said, leaning forward. ‘But it wasn’t there when I entered the room, so I’m thinking that the person I heard come in – who I thought was Dickens – was this woman, instead.’
‘Wait a second,’ Patrick said, pushing his pseudo-spectacles up on his nose. ‘If it wasn’t there when you entered, when did you see it?’
‘When I left, of course. That’s why I know whoever brought it must still have been there.’
‘And where were you?’ Patrick asked. ‘Hiding under the bed?’
‘Not a chance,’ Daisy said, in a down-home, matter-of-fact tone. ‘It’s a platform bed.’
‘I bet she hid upstairs,’ Shirley chimed in.
‘Of course, the library,’ Joy said. ‘Smart girl.’
Phyllis Balisteri was looking around at her tablemates. ‘For goodness’ sake. Am I the only woman here who hasn’t spent time in that man’s bedroom?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Daisy said to her. ‘We’ve all just been nosing around. Are you telling me you weren’t curious?’
‘I certainly am,’ Phyllis huffed. ‘Curious as to what everybody saw in him.’
‘I ask myself that same question, Mama,’ Joy said. ‘But he must still have it, given Chef Bimbette.’
‘Chef Debbie,’ AnnaLise said automatically. ‘A
nd we can’t be certain the bag belonged to her.’
‘Hopefully Coy will be able to narrow it down by going through the contents,’ Patrick said.
‘But that’s just it,’ AnnaLise said. ‘It wasn’t there this morning when Boozer, Daisy and I found the body.’
‘I sure didn’t see it,’ her mother said, ‘but then Boozer was doing his darndest to keep me away from seeing anything. Where was it, AnnaLise?’
‘On the slipper chair by the stairs.’
Daisy frowned. ‘But that’s where you said the champagne bottle was.’
‘Exactly,’ AnnaLise said. ‘She must have taken the bag and dropped the murder weapon there.’
‘Talk about your poetic justice.’ Joy whistled. ‘Killed by his own shtick.’
‘Joy, please?’ AnnaLise had heard enough penis jokes from the weekend’s assemblage to last her a lifetime.
‘Not “stick,” shtick,’ Shirley clarified. ‘As in the champagne.’
‘He’d pop its cork before he popped his own,’ Joy expanded.
They all looked at Daisy for an additional contribution, but she just pressed her lips into narrow bands. ‘No help here. I didn’t drink back then.’
‘A champagne bottle would make an excellent weapon,’ Patrick said. ‘Weighted on one end like a juggler’s club or bowling pin, and the glass itself has to be thick to withstand the internal pressure of the carbonation.’
‘I wondered about that,’ AnnaLise said. ‘I mean, why it didn’t break when Dickens—’
‘God rest his soul,’ Phyllis interjected. When the others looked at her, she shrugged. ‘Deserving or not.’
AnnaLise glanced toward Daisy, who was tearing up again. ‘As bizarre an idea as this gathering seemed when Dickens raised it, I think in his own way he did want to make amends.’
‘Or,’ Joy offered in her stoner tone, ‘get an accurate body count of his personal effect on our planet’s exploding population.’
Raised voices drew their attention to the other end of the table.
‘What do you suppose that’s all about?’ Shirley asked in a low voice.