by Sandra Balzo
The charming Tyler’s problems had to do with the market. Prickly Eddie’s? Apparently Daisy was spot on about the drug habit, and that, in AnnaLise’s journalistic experience, always translated into a need for money as well.
Interesting that Rose, the sixties’ stoner, had begotten a son who was addicted—
‘Mangia!’ The shouted word, followed by laughter, interrupted AnnaLise’s thoughts.
She trailed the sound to the stoner herself in the kitchen with Phyllis Balisteri, the latter doubled over in hilarious reaction to something.
‘Everybody OK in here?’ AnnaLise asked.
‘Sure, sure. We’re just fine.’ Phyllis was trying to catch her breath. ‘Rose was just telling me stories about her family.’
‘From the name Boccaccio, also Italian, I assume?’ AnnaLise snitched an olive from a tray of antipasto Rose was arranging at the table.
‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ Rose asked, sending both two older women into paroxysms again.
AnnaLise smiled, hoping the hilarity was from people of Italian heritage sharing nostalgia, not cannabis, especially given the police presence in the person of Officer Fearon. Though he was apparently so in love with Mama’s cooking that he was willing to forego sleep. That might encourage his just winking at a little of the wacky-terbaccky as well.
‘AnnieLeez, don’t you go ruining your dinner now,’ Mama said. ‘Rose is teaching me to make that antipasto and her macaroni.’
‘Macaroni?’ AnnaLise repeated. ‘Like the elbow kind?’
‘No, no,’ Rose said. ‘My own mother called all pasta macaroni. We’re making penne with homemade sauce.’ She nodded to a huge kettle bubbling on the stove top.
‘It smells fabulous,’ AnnaLise said, going over for a closer inspection.
Phyllis looked on approvingly. ‘There’s meatballs and pork and sausage and … What did you call those rolls, Rose?’
‘Bracciole – kind of Italian rouladen. We were saying that both our families came over in the nineteen thirties, so what we consider “Italian food,” is as dated in Italy as … well, whatever people were eating here in the U.S. in the thirties.’
Phyllis gave Rose a look. ‘Well, isn’t that … depressing,’ sending the two off again.
AnnaLise didn’t get it. ‘What’s so funny about—’
‘The nineteen thirties. You know, The Great Depression?’ They both opened their palms to her in a ‘get it?’ gesture.
‘Oh, right. And funny, too.’ Like a stick in somebody else’s eye was funny. ‘Um, have you seen Daisy?’ AnnaLise actually hoped to talk to Boozer Bacchus, but figured if she found one, odds were she’d find the other.
‘Daisy took the younger generation downtown,’ Phyllis said.
‘Downtown’ consisted of three blocks, centered on Sutherton’s Main Street.
‘I hope with Coy or Charity’s permission.’
Phyllis’s chin dipped toward her chest. ‘Don’t know.’
Given AnnaLise’s trips to the inn and Bradenham, she didn’t have grounds to scold. ‘That’s OK. Who went?’
‘That Tyler, Eddie and Lacey,’ Phyllis said. ‘Oh, and our Nicole, too.’
AnnaLise asked, ‘You two didn’t want to go?’
‘The only important thing on Main Street is Mama Philomena’s,’ Phyllis said, ‘and we’re not open. Besides, Rose and I are having a fine time in this lovely kitchen.’ She ran her right hand almost sensually along the granite countertop.
‘You’re a lucky woman, AnnaLise,’ Rose said. ‘A lot of people would kill for a house like this.’
Phyllis’ eyes bugged out. ‘Rose Boccaccio, you didn’t really just say that, now, did you?’
‘Say what?’ Realizing, Rose clapped a hand over her mouth and the two dissolved into giggles again.
Not seeing a way to improve on the situation, AnnaLise went through the back hall and out the rear door of the house. Reaching the driveway, she rubbed her arms against the cold, but didn’t go back to don one of the slickers she and Joy had returned inside the door.
Yet that’s exactly what she believed Chef Debbie had done early on Thanksgiving morning – pulled on one of the slickers for her walk through the clump of trees to the end of the pier. There she’d dumped the overnight bag before returning to the house where she would have hung the disguise/raincoat back on its hook and made the call – to herself – from the kitchen phone before driving to the Sutherton Inn.
But … why did Debbie feel the need to get rid of the bag in the first place? Had she seen AnnaLise sneaking out of the bedroom after all? Or did Debbie know that something on – or in – it could link her to the crime? Like Dickens’ DNA … The bloody champagne bottle had been left on the slipper chair, where the bag had been. Blood certainly could have smudged it as the killer wiped and dropped the murder weapon.
As AnnaLise walked onto the driveway, an exterior door cracked open on the second floor of the garage and Boozer Bacchus stepped out between two webbed-and-aluminum lawn chairs on the tiny balcony. ‘Can I help you, AnnaLise?’
‘Actually, yes. I was wondering if you knew where Chef Debbie’s car was parked on Wednesday night.’
‘I do,’ Bacchus said, not bothering to pull the door closed behind him. ‘I asked her to put it about where you’re standing, so she wouldn’t get blocked in by the arriving guests.’
‘Of course,’ AnnaLise said, ‘because you thought she wouldn’t be staying overnight.’
Bacchus leaned forward, his arms braced on the railing. He was wearing short sleeves, exposing tattooed arms that didn’t seem to be feeling the now swirling, chilly air. ‘I have to tell you, I never liked to ask about sleeping arrangements when it came to the lieutenant’s women.’
AnnaLise jumped on that. ‘So, Debbie was one of Dickens—’
‘Now, I don’t know that for sure, I have to say. Definitely his type, though, even these recent years.’
‘“Recent years,” but not days?’ AnnaLise backed closer to the house so it could act a wind break. ‘Had something changed?
‘Well, like all of us, he was getting older, for one thing.’
‘I thought a man could keep it up—’ She raised her hand, hoping the flush in her cheeks could be blamed on an ambient, phantom guest of wind as she saw Boozer try to hide a grin. ‘I don’t mean that literally. Let’s say, instead, that an older man can continue a full sex life. I mean, look at …’
She’d been about to say, ‘you,’ but given the circumstances, thought better of it. ‘… Hugh Hefner, Dickens’ idol.’
‘That’s true. But then things had come along to make even the boss reconsider his wicked ways.’
‘What things?’
‘Well, you, for instance.’
‘Sorry, but I don’t see how that can be true. Dickens believed Bobby Bradenham was his son for decades and, by all accounts, that didn’t stop him from hounding around.’
‘True enough. But you were different, somehow – maybe being female. And there was your mama, Lorraine, too. I think he always felt bad about … that part of his life.’
Because Dickens’ only real friend was in love with Lorraine ‘Daisy’ Kuchenbacher Griggs, even back then?
Perhaps. But AnnaLise could tell there was something else. ‘Was Dickens ill, Boozer? Rose said she found marijuana in his nightstand earlier that evening.’
‘Now why was that woman nosing around in—’ Bacchus started angrily, but then seemed to realize it didn’t matter anymore. He rubbed his chin. ‘I got him it to try when chemo made him so sick. The boss had prostate cancer.’
A neighbor of AnnaLise’s in Wisconsin had been diagnosed with it. She could recall him saying, ‘If you’re male, and you’re going to get cancer, this is a good one to get.’
Still, AnnaLise shivered. ‘But that’s very curable, isn’t it?’
Boozer nodded his head once, and then kept it down. ‘It was when they first found it, some years ago. The boss’ own daddy died of the same way back, so you
r daddy was checked “early and often,” like they say today.’
‘And treated?’
‘He was, but, well, Mr Hart was a proud man and he didn’t want … um …’
‘Erectile dysfunction?’ AnnaLise guessed, echoing the commercials on television. ‘But there’s medicine for that.’ As put forth by those same commercials.
Bacchus nodded. ‘There wasn’t, so much, when he was originally diagnosed, so he chose a more conservative path and thought he was cured.’
‘But Dickens wasn’t.’
‘No. Started with him having pain sitting. In the lower back.’ Bacchus seemed near tears.
‘That was his cancer?’ AnnaLise asked gently. She was remembering Dickens’ discomfort while seated at his desk as they’d first discussed this weekend. And the red cushion on the chair at the head of the dining table.
‘It had metastasised, the doctors told him, to his bones and spine. He’d done his best to hide it this weekend, what with pain pills and standing up more than sitting down.’
The pain pills would have been the prescription drugs Charity said had been found in Dickens’ system. Along with alcohol. ‘He was drinking wine,’ AnnaLise said. ‘Couldn’t the combination of alcohol and his pain meds have—’
Boozer rocked forward, both hands on the railing in front of him. ‘It’s an argument I plain tired of having with him, AnnaLise. The fact was your daddy didn’t care, so long as the hurting stopped for a while.’
This time AnnaLise didn’t flinch at the word ‘daddy.’ ‘Was he undergoing any kind of treatment?’
‘Not in the last couple of months, since he first got the idea for this weekend in his head. Said he didn’t want to feel sick as a dog with everybody here. But he hadn’t given up, by no means. No, he just wanted to … well, get his affairs in order.’
And Dickens Hart had certainly succeeded in that, his last night on earth: former lovers arrayed chronologically in his home, from cougar Rose Boccaccio to aspiring graphic artist Lucinda Puckett, AnnaLise’s own mother Daisy to underage Sugar Capri and, finally and perhaps fatally, chef Debbie Dobyns.
‘I warned him it was a bad idea.’ Bacchus was shaking his head. ‘And, it turns out, more deadly than his cancer.’
The loyal soldier turned and went back through the door, closing it this time.
THIRTY
The sounds of a car approaching reached AnnaLise as she stood thinking about what Bacchus had said. It was likely Daisy returning from squiring the ‘younger generation’ around Main Street. Instead of circling to the front to greet them, AnnaLise went in the other direction, to the rear of the house.
She didn’t feel like talking to anybody right then.
Picking up one of the blankets Joy and she had left outside the door, AnnaLise wrapped it around her shoulders and threaded her way through the trees to the pier.
At its end, the crystal clear water of earlier now looked murky gray to her as the clouds had lowered. A ‘brumal’ sky, she thought. The word had been on the 5 January page of the Word a Day calendar one of her co-workers had gifted her for their holiday exchange. The perfect present for somebody like AnnaLise, who loved words nearly as much as she did people.
Sometimes even more so.
Brumal means ‘wintery.’ It would snow by morning. AnnaLise, a child of the High Country, knew that as surely as she did that her mothers loved her. And that Boozer loved Daisy.
A gust of wind blew the blanket off her shoulder and AnnaLise caught it, a metaphor for the theory she was also trying to hold onto.
But maybe she had it all wrong.
Dickens Hart knew he had cancer – a reoccurrence of the prostate variety that had already spread to his bones. AnnaLise hadn’t asked Bacchus what the prognosis had been, but it must have been dire enough that ‘the boss’ was putting his affairs in order.
Hart’s being ill shouldn’t have been surprising to his daughter. Rose had even suggested it as a possible explanation for the pot in Dickens’ nightstand. What better trigger to make a man reconsider life than the specter of his own death?
But … Dickens had prostate cancer. Taking into account that and the fact it had metastasized so painfully to his spine, would he have invited Debbie Dobyns to the master suite for a – possibly last – fling in the sack?
AnnaLise was by no means an expert – or even an intermediate – on men’s sexual psyches, but it didn’t make sense to her. Bacchus, though, hadn’t ruled out the possibility. Maybe there were other things Dickens and Debbie could have ‘done’? Maybe …
‘Aren’t you cold out here?’ a man’s voice said.
AnnaLise turned to see Eddie Boccaccio stepping on to the pier. She felt no desire to exchange pleasantries or ask how the excursion had gone. She wanted only to get rid of him. ‘Your mother’s in the kitchen with Mama.’
‘Making sauce, from what I’ve heard and smelled,’ he said, refusing to take the hint and instead walking toward AnnaLise. ‘Your lake’s beautiful.’
‘The lake is cold,’ she said flatly, not even looking at him. ‘And it’ll only get colder. Sutherton is not the most pleasant place to spend a winter.’
‘Skiers seem to think otherwise,’ Eddie said, seeming a bit surprised and now standing next to her. ‘They certainly pay big money to hit Sutherton’s slopes.’
‘That’s because they’re here to party. They don’t have to go to work. They don’t have to make a living. They get snowed in, they sit and drink. Or strap on skis and go downhill.’ Much like her attitude.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eddie said. ‘Did I say something to offend you?’
AnnaLise knew that she should be careful. After all, she was standing on the lake end of a long pier with one of the guests who would benefit from her being ‘gone,’ as Charity had put it. But AnnaLise simply didn’t care. She was just plain pissed at the world. ‘So, potential-half-brother Eddie. What exactly are you abusing?’
He flinched like she’d punched him. ‘What—’
‘You’re not fooling anybody,’ AnnaLise said. ‘Even Daisy noticed your eyes. And the police have made—’
‘The police?’ Eddie grabbed her at both elbows.
AnnaLise shook him off, teetering a bit on the not-quite-even planks. ‘Of course the police. If you’re hooked, you probably need money. Think, motive?’
‘A motive for … are you saying they think I killed Hart?’
‘Not such a cause for celebration when it’s you they’re sizing up for handcuffs, is it?’
Eddie now pantomimed warding her off with his palms. ‘Listen, I don’t need this.’
‘Apparently you do. As does our handsome, potential half-brother, Tyler.’
‘Tyler?’
‘People repeat what somebody just said to them to buy time, did you know that?’ AnnaLise said. ‘I’m a police reporter, or have been, and it’s the first thing I noticed about liars.’
‘Liars? Why, you—’
AnnaLise pushed past him.
‘Wait.’
She kept walking.
‘AnnaLise. Please?’
Safely off the pier now, she did stop. Beyond her, the house lights were coming on and the place would look festive, if you didn’t know better.
Eddie drew alongside, glancing at her and then away, seeming to be weighing something. ‘OK.’
‘OK, what?’
‘I take a few pills. I have back problems and take Percocet. Sometimes … too many.’
Tote up another one for Daisy. ‘I can understand that. Given you’re a dentist, you can prescribe it for yourself. Or for patients that don’t exist?’
‘I’ve never done that. But even if I could have, it doesn’t mean I need money so much that I killed Dickens Hart in the faint hope I’d get his.’
AnnaLise started walking again, circling around the knot of trees so as not to be caught alone there with him. ‘Somebody did.’
‘Sure,’ Eddie said, falling in step with her. ‘This chef—’
; ‘Have you had your back checked?’ AnnaLise asked.
‘Checked … what do you mean?’
‘I mean, did a doctor tell you why your back hurts?’
‘Not specifically. Just said I must have pulled something.’
‘He or she prescribed Percocet because you probably pulled something?’
‘You know how it is.’ Eddie seemed to search for something plausible. ‘Professional courtesy?’
‘So, another dentist …?’
‘No. No, it’s a family practice guy. He just … well, I take care of him and his family’s mouths for free and he—’
‘Takes care of you. Got it.’ Reaching the patio, AnnaLise dropped her blanket on a chair.
Eddie touched her arm. ‘I admit that I may be addicted to painkillers, but I didn’t write illegal prescriptions. The police can look all they want. They won’t find anything.’
AnnaLise looked at his hand until he dropped it. ‘Good for you. But I’d suggest you have that back checked.’
‘Why?’
‘Could be cancer. Runs in the family, ’case you didn’t know.’
‘There you are,’ said Daisy as AnnaLise entered the Lake Room. ‘People were looking for you.’
‘I was down at the pier. But how did your tour go?’
Daisy touched her daughter’s cheek. ‘You’re freezing. How long were you—?’
‘Too long, apparently.’ AnnaLise reached the bar, its counter bare. ‘We out of wine?’
‘I don’t think Hart’s Head will be “out” for centuries. Nicole is getting some from the wine cellar. Really now, AnnaLise. Are you all right?’
The younger woman turned, not sure why her eyes were welling with tears. ‘Oh, God, Daisy. I thought I had it all figured out, but now … I’m so confused.’
Her mother pulled AnnaLise to the couch and sat her down. ‘I was going to ask, “About what?” but it’s pretty obvious.’
AnnaLise passed the back of her hand quickly, even roughly, across her eyes. ‘Did Boozer tell you that Dickens had cancer?’
Daisy hesitated, and then nodded. ‘Yes.’