Once in the office, I started going through Harley’s desk, looking for anything that would tell me why she’d been lying to me since the day she took the job as my assistant. Grandmother my ass! That “grandmother” was the reason she’d given for taking the job with me, instead of at a large firm in Chicago where she’d been offered the moon. Harley was good at what she did. So if no sick old lady was holding her back, why work here, where she had no chance of stretching her wings?
And who was this guy she was living with? A husband? A boyfriend? There had only been one bed; whoever he was, he was living there. There were too many clothes, too many male toiletries, to be left for the occasional overnight. Was it his house? Or hers?
I stopped long enough to attach a sticky-note to my computer screen, reminding myself to meet Sean at noon for his press conference, and then checked my phone messages. The most disturbing, was the one from the airport – no names of private pilots would be forthcoming.
I began the tedious task of phoning the general managers of the stations in Tony’s network, to give them the bad news. By the time I’d finished, I was pretty sure his career had come to an end; the stations would find another way to deliver traffic reports. It also meant that a huge chunk of my income was now just flat-out gone.
Okay then, back to Harley’s desk. I pulled out her chair and started with the top left drawer. The search netted me nothing more than I would have expected; client folders, website access codes, and a list of florists, caterers, and our utility providers. In another drawer I found printer paper and a small assortment of makeup items - a tin of what looked like pancake foundation, lipstick, aspirin, and not much else. I sat back in the chair to think about what I would say to her, but within a few minutes, Miller knocked on the door.
He made two trips to his vehicle to bring in the tools and all the crap he needed for the installation. He most likely expected me to stay after he finished to discuss when I would take over his advertising, but I couldn’t do that today. “You have to be done by 11:30 – is that do-able?” I asked, “I have to be somewhere at noon.”
“Not a problem,” he said, and he went to work, “but we need to set up a meeting pretty soon to get started on my marketing.”
His credit check had been stellar. “Absolutely,” I said.
At 11:30 on the dot, Miller was packed up and had launched into an explanation of the ins and outs of my shiny new security system. I put in the code, using the last four digits of the office phone number; the same code we used on everything around here, because Harley was awful with numbers and could only seem to remember the one. “The alarm will automatically react to smoke and fire,” he said, “but it will also go off if the temperature in the building falls below 45-degrees. And if the glass is broken on any of the downstairs windows, the alarm will also be triggered, even if you forget to set the code at the panel next to the door here.” We made an appointment to meet the next day and drove off in different directions.
When I got to the police department, the microphones for the press conference were all set up, and I waved to Sean, who indicated with a backwards wave that he wanted me to stand close to the podium. “Hi,” he said. “Thanks for coming – you’re the only person I know here and I’m a nervous wreck.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said. “Just speak from your heart. The police will do some of the talking; you won’t have to do all of it.”
Precisely at noon, the press conference began. TV cameras from the local affiliates were there, panning the folks on and near the podium, zooming in on the police chief as he spoke. Then, flanked by two police officers, one of whom was Officer Morey, Sean pleaded for his brother’s safe return. One of the officers spoke directly to the captor or captors, stating in no uncertain terms, that letting Fergal Finnegan go was in their best interest. Sean returned to the microphone and offered a $100,000.00 reward to anyone who could provide information leading to the safe return of his brother, then, choking back tears, held up a large photo of Ferdy.
“You did great,” I told him when the media had drifted away.
“I’m headed back home,” he said, “but I’ll keep in touch with the police and of course I’ll come back if there’s something else I can do to help find my brother.”
After I said goodbye to Sean, Officer Morey approached me. “Listen,” he said, “would you want to have a cup of coffee? Maybe grab some lunch?”
Now I have to tell you, this was something that had never crossed my mind. But how bad could it be, to be seen having lunch with law enforcement? My faithful paranoia told me that it couldn’t hurt. “That sounds good,” I said. “We’re not going in your squad car, are we?”
“That would be a no,” he smiled. “We’ll have to meet at the restaurant.” He had a nice smile. And great Irish eyes. I hadn’t noticed those features before. How could I? There had always been a crisis happening when we were together. I felt a little twinge of excitement at the prospect of sharing lunch with a handsome man, who also happened to be a protector of the people.
In the restaurant, I stared at the menu, wondering what I could order that wouldn’t end up waving at him from between my teeth.
“What looks good?” he asked.
“Maybe just a salad,” I said, as I polished the fork with my napkin.
“I always get beef on a wick when I come here,” he said.
“Oh, that sounds good, maybe I’ll try that.”
“You seem nervous,” he said, as he watched me rub the tines.
The word is anxious, I thought. I began to breathe slowly and put down the fork. “Do I? Well, I guess you’re asking me out to lunch was kind of unexpected. Did you want to talk to me about the incident at my office? Or Tony? Ferdy?” Heat pickled the back of my neck.
“No, I think I just got used to bumping into you, and then realized that I was hoping to bump into you again. I figured you might be at the press conference, so I traded duties with a guy who was supposed to be there.”
“Well, that’s very sweet,” I said, “but you have me at a disadvantage. You’ve learned a lot about me, but I don’t know anything about you, except what you do for a living; what your first name is, where you live, you already know those things about me. You’ve been to my place, seen me in my pajamas - and don’t get me wrong, you seem like a nice guy, but the way my luck is running, you’re probably up to your neck in debt, have three ex-wives, and are a couple of hours away from popping out a gigantic cold sore.”
“Wow,” he said, sitting back in his chair, “where did that come from?”
I shook my head. “My life; my big, fat, mess of a life. My clients are being picked off one-by-one, in one way or another, which means I’ll be out of business soon, my assistant was roughed up by some thug - she’ll be okay, but now I’m wondering if she’ll sue me because it happened at the office. I can’t afford that. Absolutely nothing is going right, so it seems that the last thing I should do is get mixed up with someone who carries a gun.”
“First,” he said, “my name is Jack, so please call me that. Second, I live on Tip Hill. Do you know that area?”
I loved that section of the city. Tipperary Hill had a wonderful zoo, an arboretum, and Irish pubs and shops. It was the section of the city where so many people from the Old Sod lived, that its main traffic light had the green on top. I smiled, and relaxed a bit. “You must love it there.”
He nodded. “So tell me,” he said, “does your family live around here?”
“I don’t have a family.”
He looked surprised. “No one?”
I shook my head. “My father died when I was a baby, my mother when I was six.”
“Aunts? Cousins? Siblings?”
“No, no, and no. No one.”
“Sorry to hear that. What did your father do?”
“He was an investment banker. The only reason I have any idea of what he looked like, is because my grandmother gave me this gold locket,” I said, as I pulled it out from under my shir
t. “She could have put a picture of anyone inside; I wouldn’t have known the difference.”
“So your grandmother raised you after your mother passed?”
“Until she died, and then I went to live with my aunt. Money from my parents’ life insurance, as I was told, went into a fund to pay for my upkeep. The money apparently followed me as I was passed from my grandmother to my aunt.”
“Is she still alive? Your aunt?”
“No. Can we talk about something else, please?”
“Sure,” he said, “I didn’t mean to pry. Listen, I want to help you as much as I can with all of the things that are going wrong, but out of all of it, only your office break-in and Mr. Finnegan’s disappearance, are within my jurisdiction.”
“So when you came to my apartment…”
“It was an unofficial visit. I came because you called me; you were upset.”
I smiled at him. “That was nice.”
“One thing I do want to follow up on,” he said, “is what you told me about Stearns himself. The robbery happened ten years ago, so how can you be positive that he was the guy who bumped into you?”
“Because I’ll never forget his face – or those eyes,” I said. “Never. It was him.”
“Well, if that’s true, you could be the only witness.”
“But the police reopened the case because of an anonymous tip – that means I’m not the only one who knows it was him.”
“Yeah, anonymous,” he said. “They have no idea where the tip came from. It panned out, but an unknown person isn’t going to be of any help at the time of trial.”
It’s getting hot in here, I thought, and I took a deep breath. “Look, I have what’s known as Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I’ve had it for twelve years. I’ve managed to control it for the last ten, but the strain I’ve been under with my clients and Harley – well, I had to start seeing someone again because stress is the one thing that can bring it back full-on. I don’t want that. That’s why I don’t want to get involved in the Danny Stearns thing.”
If he was shocked, he didn’t show it. I guess in his line of work, it wasn’t even close to the worst thing he’d ever heard. “I’m not familiar with that,” he said, “are you on medication for it?”
I nodded. “To help me sleep and to relieve stress.”
“Ask your therapist, or whoever it is you see, for guidance about speaking to the police in Rochester. It’s your duty to provide information that could help put Stearns away.”
Again, what felt like tiny hot teeth nipped at the back of my neck, and heat built throughout my body. “They already know about me?”
“Of course,” he said, “I couldn’t sit on information like that.”
I was suddenly fatigued and wanted to go. “I have to leave.” I put my napkin on the table and stood up.
Jack reached for my wrist. “Take a day. Talk to your therapist. I don’t want anything to happen to you, but you’re going to have to talk to them, Audrey, so you have to find a way. ”
This is not how I had envisioned our lunch going. Not having been involved with a member of the opposite sex for a long time, I’d felt the thrill of new possibilities when he’d asked me to join him; I certainly found him attractive. But now that he’d reported our conversation about Danny Stearns, fear and trepidation were thrown into the mix. I left the restaurant with my head spinning.
I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to have it out with Harley, but I headed to the hospital to do just that before she was released; I wanted her in a confined space where she couldn’t run. I found her still in her bed. Good.
“Hi Audrey,” she said with a big smile. “I’m out of here as soon as the doctor comes back and signs my release papers; the nurse said it should be no more than a couple of hours. I can’t wait. I’m going stir crazy in here.”
“Not so fast,” I started. “I went to your house yesterday to check on your grandmother.” I watched as her smile faded. “I was worried about her because of the storm, but there was no sign of any grandmother there!”
Harley’s face turned ashen. “I told you a neighbor was looking in on her. Maybe she was next door.”
“No hard candy, no doilies, no old lady smell,” I said, feeling mean, “no old lady at all. But there was plenty of evidence that some guy lives there. Who is he? And why have you been lying to me all this time?”
She covered her face with her hands and started to cry. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You don’t understand.”
“You bet your ass I don’t understand,” I said too loudly. I had to be careful. I didn’t want a nurse to come in and make me leave. “Out with it.”
“I had to tell you I lived with my grandmother. I needed an excuse to leave the office whenever I had to and it was the best, most logical story I could think of.”
“What are you talking about?”
She dropped her eyes and fidgeted with the blanket. “My boyfriend.”
“Keep going,” I said, not knowing whether to believe her, wondering if this was going to be just another lie to cover up the first one.
“He’s abusive. He’s jealous and controlling, and when he calls and tells me to come home, I have to go. If I don’t, there’s always trouble. Audrey, every day he makes me to talk to him on my cell all the way home, so he knows exactly where I am and exactly when I should be pulling into the driveway.”
“So you’re telling me that’s what you were doing when you said you had to take your grandmother to the doctor?”
She nodded. “I’m so sorry, Audrey. I hated lying to you. You’ve been so nice to me.” She reached for the water glass on the table, and at the edge of the hospital gown’s sleeve, I saw that bruise again; the one that had gone green; it wasn’t new. I immediately felt like shit.
I thought about the pancake makeup in her desk drawer, and understood now that she used it to mask bruises that couldn’t be covered by clothing. I got mad thinking about how little of that makeup was left in the tin. “Well, you can’t go back there.”
“Oh, I have to! I’m supposed to call him when I leave the hospital, so he knows when to expect me. He’s probably already furious that I haven’t been there to cook his meals.”
“Does this guy have a job?”
“If he had a job, he couldn’t control me all day long.”
“How do you live? On what little I pay you?”
“You’ve seen the place,” she said.
“He wasn’t there when I went in yesterday. The door was unlocked.”
“He only leaves it unlocked when he runs out for beer or cigarettes. You probably came within minutes of having him find you. I wouldn’t want to think about what he would have done.”
My temperature skyrocketed. “Okay,” I said, “here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to leave your car here; don’t worry about the parking charges – I’ll cover those. It just so happens I want to stay away from my apartment for a while; I’ll explain that later. As soon as you’re released, the two of us will move into the second floor of the office. If your car isn’t there, your boyfriend – what’s his name?”
“Carl.”
“If your car isn’t in the parking lot, Carl won’t know you’re staying there. I just had a security system put in, so we should be okay. Sound good?”
“I don’t know, Audrey, I don’t want to piss him off any more than I’m sure he is already. He’ll look for me at the office, and he’ll kill me if he finds me.”
“You can’t go back to him,” I said, “I won’t hear of it. Has he visited you since you were admitted?”
“He wouldn’t show his face around here, even though it’s probably killing him not to – I’m sure he’s convinced himself that I’ve been flirting with every doctor on staff and he’s just waiting for me to get back home to punish me for it.”
I gave her a hug. “I’m sorry about all this. I’m going over to the office now and get the place ready. I’ll stop by my apartment and grab some things we’ll need
; we’ll figure out how to get your stuff out of your place later. Hang in there.”
“Thanks, Audrey,” she sniffed.
“I’m just glad you’re okay. And I’m really happy that the guy at the office didn’t injure you any more than he did. It’s awful that two men have hurt you like that.”
She started to cry all over again. “Audrey, oh, God, there was no guy. No ski mask. It was Carl. He got angry over something stupid and came to the office when he knew you weren’t there. I’m sure he’d been sitting in his truck across the street, waiting for you to leave. He pounded on the door and said if I didn’t open it, he’d break it down.”
In disbelief, I stared at her. “You let him in?”
She nodded. “I know it’s hard to understand how he can have such a hold over me, but I’m terrified of the guy. If I wasn’t, I’d have left him long ago. But he said if I did, he’d find me and kill me, and I believe him.”
If there was one thing I understood, it was how a person could be controlled, either by another person, a drug, or a disorder like mine. “Don’t worry,” I said, “he won’t get another shot at you.”
Fueled by fury, I went home and loaded stuff I thought we would need into Nelly. I dug out paper plates, and plastic forks, spoons, and cups, from last year’s Labor Day picnic. Harley was about my size, so I threw some extra clothes and PJs into a bag, and grabbed a bunch of washcloths and towels from my little linen closet. As I carried my small TV out to Nelly, a sense of panic began to set in that I was taking too long. What if Carl did show up to take Harley home? Moving as quickly as I could, I packed a box with some non-perishable food, and then put everything salvageable that wasn’t coming with me, into the freezer. The rest went into a garbage bag, which I threw into the dumpster on the way out. I stopped into the saloon to tell my landlord I’d be out of town, just in case anyone asked.
By the time I reached Harley’s room, she had her paperwork in hand. I was relieved beyond words that Carl was not there. “I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s go before I lose my nerve.”
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