Live Ringer

by Lynda Fitzgerald

  Once her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see that the bar was not crowded. She assumed that the happy hour crowd was gone; the diehards hunkered down at one end of the bar with their eyes glued to a wall-mounted television droning sports scores.

  Sheryl sat at the empty end of the bar farthest from the television. It was the first time Allie had seen her out of uniform since she got back, and she looked even more incredible. Her jeans were molded to her body, and a cotton sweater hugged her perfect curves. On her feet were high-heeled boots. She waved when she saw Allie.

  Allie climbed on the stool beside her. “Is this the local cop hangout?”

  “Hell, no. No cops come here. That’s why I picked it.” She motioned to the bartender, who brought her another Bloody Mary. She pulled out the celery and held it up. “Dinner.”

  “What’ll you have?” the bartender asked Allie.

  Allie laughed. “Since that’s dinner, I guess I’ll have the same thing. And maybe some chicken wings for dessert.”

  As she sipped her drink, Allie took a good look at Sheryl, wondering how her eyes could be so bright and clear after pulling a sixteen-hour double shift. “OK, how do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Come off a double looking like you just stepped out of the spa.”

  Sheryl grinned and took a bite of celery. “I slept all day.” She waved the celery stalk in the air. “This is breakfast, but I didn’t want to sound like a layabout in front of the bartender.” She gave Allie a quick onceover. “You look like a refugee from a concentration camp. Because of your divorce?”

  Allie didn’t want to talk about it, but she couldn’t see any way around it. “Garrison liked his women slim.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “What a jerk. You gonna start eating again?”

  “I ordered chicken wings, didn’t I? That should put back on five pounds at least. I’ll have to buy a new wardrobe before the week is out.”

  “You can afford it. You’re an heiress now.”

  Allie examined Sheryl’s face for any sign of accusation, but found none. “It blew me away, Sheryl. I didn’t know Aunt Lou had money. You know how she lived. Small house. Simple lifestyle. I couldn’t believe it when the attorney told me what was in her will.”

  “How much did she leave you?”

  From anyone else, the question would have offended her, but Sheryl felt simple curiosity. “Almost two million,” she said, embarrassed nonetheless.

  Sheryl’s grin widened. “Hot damn, girl. You’re picking up the tab.” She stirred her Bloody Mary with her celery. “So, Lou was rich. Who woulda thunk?” She shook her head. “Where do you suppose she got all that money? Think she robbed banks?”

  “I asked her attorney the same thing—well, not about the banks. He said she inherited some money from my great-grandparents and grandparents way back when and made a lot of good investments over the years. Because she didn’t have anyone to support but herself, she invested every extra cent she made. He said it was her hobby.”

  Sheryl snorted. “Some hobby.” She took a bite of her celery. “So, you were clueless? No Wall Street Journals tossed around the house? No ticker tape stuck under a refrigerator magnet?”

  Allie laughed. “Nothing, and her attorney said she bought the house for a song and paid it off fifteen years ago, so she didn’t even have a mortgage.”

  “Wow,” Sheryl breathed. “So, what will you do now, be a lady of leisure?”

  “For the moment, anyway. I’m not qualified for anything—”

  “Are you nuts?” Sheryl screeched. Several people at the end of the bar turned to look at them. Sheryl gave them her stony cop face, and they looked away. She lowered her voice. “Lou said you got a degree in journalism. You worked at that newspaper in Atlanta before you married dipshit, didn’t you?”

  Allie bit back a grin and nodded.

  “And you don’t think you’re qualified for anything?”

  “When you put it that way, maybe I am qualified for something,” she said, laughing.

  “Bet your ass you are. Stop putting yourself down.” Sheryl blew her bangs out of her face. “Just don’t go to work for the Sun.”

  “Whose son?”

  “Sun. S-U-N. As in the Brevard Sun. Our local newspaper.”

  “Why not?”

  “Rupert Cornelius.”

  Allie remembered how frustrating it could be to get information out of Sheryl. “Who’s Rupert Cornelius?”

  “He’s the pond scum owner of the Brevard Sun.”

  Allie sat back on her stool. “Have I met him?”

  “Probably not. He’s a jerk. Inherited the newspaper when his stepmother died. Another loser.”

  Allie shook her head. “Don’t you like anyone?”

  “Sure, I do.”

  “Name someone.”

  Sheryl tossed her curls. “I like me. And I like you.”

  “And?”

  “And the sheriff isn’t bad. Joe’s OK.” She took a sip of her drink. “So, tell me about Mr. Big Shot Garrison.”

  Allie almost blurted it out. Sheryl was already poised to hate him like any good friend should, and Allie wanted to tell someone, especially someone like Sheryl, who would be sympathetic rather than critical. As of now, she’d told no one at all. She had shouted, railed, and wept, but she hadn’t confided. All her friends in Brussels were Garrison’s friends first and hers only by default. She knew it would be a relief to talk. She could feel Sheryl’s eyes on her. She came within a hair’s-breadth of telling her, but she couldn’t. “He wasn’t what I thought he’d be. He wanted a social hostess, and I wanted more. In the end, we decided a divorce was the best thing for us.”

  Allie could tell Sheryl wasn’t buying it, but she let it drop. “What about you?” Allie asked. “What happened with Ernie?”

  Sheryl waited until the bartender put their chicken wings in front of them and walked away before she answered. “Silly little problem. He wanted a house full of kids, and I can’t have any.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. We went through the whole whose-fault-is-it routine before we finally went and got tested. Doctor couldn’t figure out who to blame, so Ernie decided it was me.” She shrugged, looking away. “I let him. It would have killed him to think his little swimmers weren’t up to snuff.”

  Sheryl could make light of it, but Allie could see the pain in the way she held her body—shoulders hunched over as if to protect herself. Could he have divorced his childhood sweetheart because she couldn’t have kids? Could he have been that shallow? That insincere? “What about adoption? Couldn’t the two of you have adopted a child?”

  She shrugged. “Ernie nixed that. He wanted a little Ernie clone. Or clonette. Besides, by that time we didn’t like each other very much anymore.”

  Allie groaned. “I’m so sorry, Sheryl.”

  “Don’t be,” she said, picking up a chicken wing. “I probably would have made a lousy mother.”

  At the other end of the bar, the sports scores gave way to a game in progress. The crowd around the TV was noisier now, voices raised to yells in competition to be heard over the metallic din of the TV. The bartender drew beers in a continual stream. Allie admired his skill, as he pulled one beer mug from under the tap and slipped another glass in its place without a break in the flow. No doubt, an hour from now, those same guys good-humoredly slapping one another on the shoulders would be drunk on their fannies.

  After a minute, Sheryl asked, “How’d your parents take your divorce? Wasn’t it Lou’s divorce that made them hate her so much?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. Part of it, at least. They never talked about it. Besides, it happened long before I started coming down here.” She drew a circle on the bar with her sweating glass. “They were disappointed.” She left the words “in me” unsaid. It was nothing new. She’d spent her life disappointing her parents. She didn’t have enough ambition to suit her mother, and her professor father gave up on her when she switched her major f
rom English—his expertise—to journalism and then compounded the sin by being satisfied with a mere bachelor’s degree. Fortunately, for her mother, Allie’s older brother Len became all Vivian Grainger could have wished for in a child, soaring to great legal heights under her tutelage, but her father had to soothe his disappointment as best he could with his more promising students.

  Sheryl was watching her. Allie did not intend to get into any of that woe-is-me stuff now. “What about your parents?”

  Sheryl shook her head. “They were nice, but I could tell they wanted to keep Ernie and chuck me.”

  “Did you tell them what happened?”

  “Nah. No reason to depress them. They want grandkids so bad they can taste it.”

  Allie vaguely remembered Sheryl’s parents as prim and uptight. Mr. and Mrs. Conventional America who doubtless blamed Sheryl for the breakup the same way Allie’s parents blamed her. The difference was that Sheryl kept silent out of some kind of misguided loyalty to a man who dumped her after fifteen years together when it turned out she wasn’t a brood mare. Allie admired her for it and wanted to give Sheryl’s parents a quick call. She wouldn’t, though. It wasn’t her truth to tell. “Where do they live now?”

  “Fort Pierce.”

  “And you’re in Titusville.”

  Sheryl nodded.

  “That’s a long way from home.” She didn’t need to explain that she meant Cape Canaveral.

  She shrugged. “Thirty miles of long way, but it’s near work.”

  “Do you miss the old neighborhood?”

  “I didn’t. Until you came back.”

  Allie basked in the warmth of that for a minute. The bartender appeared in front of them, but Allie covered her glass. “I’m not used to this. Not on an empty stomach.”

  They glanced over as the outside door opened, letting in a shaft of artificial light. Allie gasped.

  Chapter 5

  “What?” Sheryl demanded.

  “That man,” Allie whispered.

  He stood at the entrance looking around for a minute, his silver hair reflecting the bar lights. Although his eyes never rested on Sheryl and Allie, she felt certain he saw them. He took a seat with the group at the other end of the bar. She could tell by the quick glances he got that nobody knew him. Now, Allie was certain he was following her. Cocoa Beach was small, but not that small.

  “Who is he?” she asked Sheryl in a whisper.

  Sheryl looked down the bar, then back at Allie in surprise. “Beats me. Why?”

  “I think he’s following me.”

  Sheryl craned her neck to get another look. “And you’re complaining?”

  “I’m serious,” Allie hissed. “I see him everywhere I go. I saw him at the jetty the day they found that woman’s body, and he’s showed up everywhere I’ve been since then.”

  Sheryl grew still, and her eyes narrowed. “You sure?”

  “I’m positive.” Well, almost positive. She shifted in her seat so she could keep half an eye on the man. “I thought he was related to that other guy at the jetty that day.”

  “What other guy?”

  “Tall. White-haired. Fiftyish. He and the sheriff were together, and I saw him talking to some of the reporters.”

  Her eyebrows met near the middle of her brow. “Sounds like Rupert Cornelius.”

  “Your Rupert Cornelius?”

  Sheryl made a face. “No way is that asshole mine, but yeah. That Rupert Cornelius. He’s an arrogant ass.”

  Allie ignored that. “So, they’re not related? Cornelius and that guy?”

  Sheryl shrugged. “Beats me. He’s not married, so if he has any kids, he’s not talking about them. Want me to find out who this joker is?”

  “How?”

  “Piece of cake. You get up and leave. If he follows you, I’ll go after him and get his tag number and run him.”

  Allie turned and grinned at her. “That’s very cop-like thinking.”

  Sheryl tapped herself on the shoulder, never taking her eyes off the guy at the bar. “They don’t call me Sherlock Levine for nothing.” She chugged the dregs of her Bloody Mary. “Why don’t you get going? I’ll wait here to see if he follows you.”

  Allie motioned for the bartender. “Will you call me and let me know what you find out?”

  “Sure.”

  Allie dropped two twenties on the bar and slid off the stool, giving Sheryl a quick hug. She made a point of looking straight ahead, as she crossed the long room and walked out the door. White-Hair didn’t turn when she passed him, but she felt certain he watched in the bar mirror.

  With the traffic on A1A, Allie couldn’t tell if anyone followed her home. She quickly let herself inside and locked the door behind her. No dog in sight.

  Almost an hour passed before the phone rang. She snatched it up. “Well? Did you get his tag number?” Silence. Then, a click in her ear. She hung up the receiver slowly. When the phone rang a few minutes later, she let it ring four times before she answered it. “Hello?”

  “Hello, yourself,” Sheryl said. “You sound winded. Were you outside?”

  “No.” She shook off the uneasy feeling. “Did he follow me?”

  “Yeah, until you veered off into Cape Canaveral. Then, he went on.”

  “You didn’t follow him after that?” Her voice squeaked.

  “I followed him to 528. He could have been headed for Merritt Island or Cocoa or, hell, Orlando for all I know, so I came back and buzzed past your house. Everything’s quiet.”

  Too quiet.

  “I’ll run his tag tomorrow.” Silence, then, “You all right?”

  “Of course, I’m all right,” she lied. “Thanks, Sheryl. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Sleep tight, chickie.”

  Allie moved from room to room, unable to settle in any one place. Finally, she made a pot of coffee. What harm could a little more caffeine do? She was already a wreck. When the coffee finished dripping, she poured a cup and stood looking sightlessly out the kitchen window until she noticed the mug on the windowsill. Still sandy. Still unsettling.

  She reached out and touched her aunt’s face on the mug. Louise Smith was a beauty in her youth, with yards of curling brown hair and huge brown eyes. Allie had seen pictures of her back then, black-and-white snapshots, usually in a bathing suit on the beach. Over the years, her hair grayed and lines formed on her face as gravity began its downward pull, but she always seemed beautiful to Allie. She bit her lip. She would never forgive herself for wasting the last years they could have spent together. She should have come back to stay the minute the doctors diagnosed Hodgkin’s in her aunt. She should have moved down here then, so she could have been with her through it all. She never should have married Garrison.

  “Should, should, should. It’s a useless word, Allie. A harmful word.”

  “But—”

  “You did what you thought best at the time. It’s what we all do.”

  “I wasn’t here when you needed me.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for that. You didn’t know I needed you.”

  “I should have—”

  “Should have what? Divined it, somehow? Honey, even I didn’t know I needed you until it was too late. That’s how this disease works.”

  “But I didn’t make it back for the funeral. How can I forgive myself for that?”

  “You were dealing with a funeral of your own.”

  “My marriage.”

  “Your marriage, and Garrison would have made life impossible for you. He was jealous, you know.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Of our feelings for each other. Of our closeness.”

  “Oh, Aunt Lou.”

  The sound of her own voice startled her. She blinked. What happened? Had she dozed off standing at the window? She looked at her full cup of coffee. She hadn’t spilled a drop. The dog stood beside her looking up, his head tilted at an angle. Did he hear something? Now, she was being ridiculous.

  She put her cup down on
the counter and knelt to stroke the dog’s head. He let her pet him for a minute. Maybe he missed Lou as much as she did. Allie felt the warmth of her aunt’s words wash over her. They might be all in her head, but right now, they felt good.

  *

  The sand dunes behind the house blocked the view of the beach, but her aunt solved the problem years before by adding a rooftop deck to her house. It was nothing fancy—waist-high rails around the back half of an already flat roof. She’d added drainage to keep the rain from puddling on the surface and tacked on a wrought iron staircase for access. Next to the jetty, it was Allie’s favorite place in the world.

  She climbed the staircase the next morning with her coffee. She slept surprisingly well considering a white-haired stranger stalked her and she was conversing with a ghost. The thought brought a smile to her lips until she topped the roof. Her aunt’s sunglasses lay forgotten on the table beside her favorite chair—a glass that probably once held iced coffee, her aunt’s drink of choice, beside them. A book, soggy and disintegrating, lay next to the chair, almost as if Lou had run downstairs for a minute. She picked up the book and smiled despite the emotions churning within her. Lewis Grizzard, a Georgia humorist who pretended to be a redneck. She’d read a few of his books.

  She dropped into her aunt’s chair, still holding the book in her hand. At least she knew Lou was laughing the last time she came up here. She picked up the sunglasses and put them on, smiling as they slid down her nose. She always teased Lou about having a big head.

  A breeze blew in off the water, lifting Allie’s hair from her neck. She put her coffee on the table beside the glass. Even with the pain of her memories, it seemed peaceful up here. When Allie was a girl, she begged her aunt to let her camp on the roof with Sheryl and Joe. To indulge Allie’s childhood fantasy, Lou rigged a tent out of sheets and chairs turned backwards and piled blankets to cushion the gravel floor. Lou did that a lot—encouraged her fantasies, telling her life would be grim if we didn’t have our dreams.