Act V (5 page)

“
Oh no! I mean…yes, I gave
it to him. Did I do the wrong thing? You didn’t want him to know
it?”

Glynnis rolled her eyes, thankful that
her mother couldn’t see through the phone. “Mama, you know that I
bought this house on my own after Dorsey and I broke up, and got an
unlisted number. Who do you think I was trying to
avoid?”

“
I’m so sorry baby. I
wouldn’t have given it to him for anything if I’d
realized.”

She heard the hurt in her mother’s
voice and softened her tone. “Don’t worry about it. He would have
gotten it from somebody else eventually.”

“
Why don’t you want to talk
to him? He’s a nice young man.”

A nice young man that
couldn’t handle the idea of marrying somebody who might need a
wheel chair one day.
But Mama didn’t know
that part of the break-up story. Glynnis had only told her that
they had grown apart.

“
You need a nice young man
around to help you when, when…”

“
When I can’t do things for
myself?”

Her mother backed off as quickly as she
had started. “Now baby, I didn’t say that. It’s just that I worry
about you there by yourself. What if you have…trouble or
something?”

Glynnis shook her head. It always came
back to this, ever since she’d been diagnosed a year ago. “Mama,
can we forget about the MS for a little while? I usually manage to
get through each and every day without thinking much about it. I’m
doing great. Even my doctor says so.”

“
I know, and I’m glad. But
it’s not just that. Something else is going on isn’t
it?”

Time to shut down that
merry-go-round right now.
“Look,
everything’s fine. Stop worrying. Mama, I need to go dose up. It’s
Friday and I’ll forget if I don’t go ahead and do it. Talk to you
later?”

“
I’ll call you tomorrow
then.” Translated that meant,
this isn’t
over by a long shot. I’m just letting it rest for now.

“
Love you, bye.”

She shut off the phone and wound her
way around Carl, who was sitting smack in the middle of the hall at
the air conditioning vent, to get to the bathroom and pop a couple
of ibuprofen. An hour from now, she’d go back and inject herself
with the Interferon meds she used three times a week. She hadn’t
been lying about feeling good. Doctor Manse was thrilled with her
progress. The drugs were very effective and she hadn’t had a
relapse in five months, nor had she had to put up with any of the
nasty side effects other patients reported: nausea, flu-like
symptoms, etc. Other than an occasional bruise or red mark at the
injection site, she had no complaints. It could be a lot
worse.

The problem with her condition wasn’t
so much the condition itself, but the way people reacted to it when
they found out. Yes, it was a serious, crippling disease, but right
now she was hopeful. There were times when it acted up or mimicked
other diseases, or just made her feel tired, but that wasn’t the
worse part. She just hated when people looked at her with pity, or
tried to treat her like she was on death’s door. That just wasn’t
the case. Glynnis had always approached life with a belief that
attitude was 90% of the battle and it had served her well. This was
no exception.

She picked up the phone again and
dialed Erica. It rang four times then the machine picked
up.

“
Hello, this is me but I’m
not available. Leave a message. BEEEP.”

She groaned. “Stay home every
once-in-a-while and I’ll take you out for pizza. Call me.” Erica
was doing just what she ought to be doing right now, having fun.
But she hadn’t started dating again since Dorsey and she wasn’t
much of a party girl. She’d get back to it sooner or later. She
didn’t want to think about it now.

“
Come on, Carl,” she scooped
him up off the floor. “You smell like a dog; I think it’s time you
had a bath.” She grabbed several old towels, her headphones and the
dog shampoo and dragged the unhappy Carl into the
bathroom.

*****

Brice drove slowly past the three-story
monstrosity that was Claude Danning’s home. He wondered how many
bedrooms the place had and exactly what kind of money it took just
to heat the thing in the winter or cool it in the summer. “Dan, my
boy,” he mused, “you must make some seriously big bucks at Janico.
I heard that the computer business is booming.”

He stared at the home and those
surrounding it. Yes, the houses were enormous, but there was little
or no yard to speak of on any given lot. Looking at the spare
distance between any two houses, he laughed. “I’ll bet you could
watch your neighbor’s television from your own bathroom and catch
all the words if the windows were open.”

Brice would take a smaller house on a
bigger lot any day. He lived on a large lot in an older
neighborhood where there were a good many newlyweds and
nearly-deads. Most of the houses there were standard three bedrooms
with two baths and a living room or a dining room. He couldn’t
think of a single house that had both. That was fine with him. He
had moved there as a married man six years ago, only to discover
that his wife, the lovely and talented Corina, preferred the
company of her yoga instructor to him. He knew this to be true from
first-hand experience. A year after moving into the neighborhood,
Brice had gotten his detective’s badge. Armed with a promotion, an
increase in pay and a bundle of mixed flowers from Easy Mart, he
had driven to the gym to surprise Corina and take her out to
dinner. Her yoga class wouldn’t be over for another fifteen
minutes, but he figured he’d wait in the office to give her the
good news.

Knowing that you’re not supposed to
disturb the ambiance or aura or whatever it was about the class, he
slipped past the darkened workout area where Indian music chimed
softly and opened the office door to find a place to sit and wait.
What he found there was Corina on top of the desk on her back, her
yoga outfit piled on the floor beside her, her long hair hanging
off the desk. Hovering between her knees was a tall, extremely
flexible man, with long, blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. He had
way too many tight muscles, all of which were presently visible due
to his lack of clothing. Both of them looked a bit surprised to see
Brice there since apparently the yoga studio had been closed for a
good hour. Corina moved in with the yoga instructor that night and
the two of them ended up opening a studio in Atlanta.

Brice had repeatedly wondered how
anyone with good enough observation skills to be a detective had
managed to miss all the warning signs. But then, he’d been away
from Corina a whole lot more than he’d been with her. Could any of
this possibly have been his fault or was Corina just a faithless
wife? He would decide later that yes, it was partly his fault and
yes, Corina had been a faithless wife. Who says you can’t have your
cake and eat it too?

Brice took the corner of the
block one last time and rolled up past the Danning home. Nothing
looked to be out of the norm. A few lights were on here and there.
A television flickered in one room. Brice decided to take the route
once more, then call it a night. Why he’d decided to go on this
fool’s errand, he couldn’t say. People couldn’t see the future.
Glynnis Nuckolls was eccentric. Okay, maybe she was just a nutcase.
Either way, she couldn’t predict Claude Danning’s death. So, why
was he here? Because
she
believed it with all her heart, and she was
scared. Brice knew a liar when he met one, with the exception of
his ex-wife of course, and this Nuckolls woman was no liar. She
believed Claude Danning would be murdered. So what was one more
trip around the block? He had nothing better to do.

Thirty minutes later, the caffeine he
had consumed during the day began to dissipate and lethargy took
over. Brice turned up the radio in his ’66 Impala. He always drove
it to the station and traded it for his cruiser when he got there.
He wasn’t about to put the Impala into serious police business, but
this was just a stop on his way home, so it couldn’t hurt.
Everybody he knew, except for a few classic car enthusiasts, kept
asking him why he didn’t just trade in the gas guzzling piece of
junk and buy a real car, one that might make it another few years.
But Brice loved the Impala. It was an exact duplicate of one his
parents had bought him when he’d gotten his driver’s license, a
two-door, sea-foam green hardtop with a 396 V-8 engine, a.m. radio
and no A/C. Even back then, the car had been ancient. He had
pampered it as only a seventeen year old boy could, washing and
waxing it every week and changing the oil religiously. That had
gone on until the day he hit the gas too hard from a full stop at a
traffic light, and spun out in the rain, rolling his treasure down
an embankment. It was his first touch with the awareness that he
might not be immortal. He had lain there in the flattened Chevy,
his head in the place where his feet should have been, due to the
lack of a seat belt, waiting, terrified, while rescue equipment
lifted the car. His ankle had been pinned between the roof and the
steering column, keeping him from crawling out. Since the car had
settled upside-down, lifting the floor to release the pressure was
the only way to get out. Except for the bruise and a little
swelling on his ankle, Brice had walked away without an injury. But
he had never forgotten the gut feeling that he could have died.
He’d also never gotten past the loss of that car. He supposed he
just hadn’t had it long enough to get tired of it. He’d seen one
years later sitting in the parking lot at Goodwill. He’d walked in
the door and purchased the thing without even starting her up for
$300. The car ran, but not too well, so he’d done extensive updates
and repairs, consulting internet sites, maintenance manuals and
anything else he could get hold of. Corina had referred to it
frequently as the “Mobile Money Pit”. Being a spoiled city boy, and
too old to do without, he’d gone back and had the a.m./FM/CD player
installed, along with air, and he’d been in love ever since. His
car had lasted him longer than his marriage.

Cranking up the radio helped a little,
but it was late and he was yawning more often than not. Brice
decided all was well in the Danning home and drove slowly out of
the neighborhood.

*****

He picked a piece of chicken from
between two molars as the old Chevy rolled away from the well-to-do
neighborhood. He was going to have to get to the dentist soon; his
tongue delved into what was surely a cavity forming back there. But
first things first. He’d watched the Impala circle the block
several times since he’d arrived here. His own car parked six
blocks away, he’d hidden behind a bunch of azaleas to observe for a
while. This was too important to leave to chance. That was when
he’d spotted the Chevy. He watched it slow down in front of the
house, then drive around and do the same thing over again. Was this
some kind of security lookout? In an old Impala? Maybe a thief,
casing the neighborhood? He didn’t have the luxury of chancing a
witness that could place him in the area. He waited. Patience paid
off. The man in the Impala finally drove off and so he was free to
start his business for the evening. He waited a few more minutes
just to be sure. He was a no-surprises kind of guy.

He grabbed the baseball equipment bag
at his feet along with the empty pizza box and approached the door.
He’d done his homework. Every Friday night Gloria Danning took the
kids and went to a movie with a trip to the local ice-cream place
following. Claude Danning would be home alone for another two hours
at least. That would be more than enough time.

Chapter 4

Dan sat with his red tie
loosened, feet up on the coffee table, and today’s
Clearview Journal
in his
lap. Beside him was the
New York
Times
. He read both religiously, along with
the
Wall Street Journal
. If you wanted to compete in business today you had to keep
up with the climate and trends of the whole world, not just your
local goings-on. His brother had been a businessman, too; much more
driven than himself. Hamilton had started Janico two years after
graduating college, had built it up from a local manufacturing
plant that made plastic cases in which typewriters were carried.
The plant went eventually went on to manufacture the typewriters,
themselves. After a few years, he’d built up enough revenue to hire
technical advisors and eventually began manufacturing mother
boards, microchips and almost everything else computer companies
needed to build a product. Finally, the plant began to manufacture
laptop and desktop computers. Attention to quality control and
prompt service had made the company hugely successful and Dan had
been brought into the business after his graduation from college
and subsequent marriage. He’d worked in every area of the company,
eventually taking on a sales position, Head of Sales, then Vice
President in charge of sales. His older brother had been kind to
him, but almost a tyrant when it came to work. And he’d been harder
on himself moreso than anyone else. Nobody had been very shocked
when Hamilton had fallen over one day during a staff meeting and
never gotten back up. An autopsy concluded that Hamilton had died
from a massive coronary brought on by stress, overeating and lack
of exercise.