Deadly Interest (24 page)

“
The further we get away
from the date of the murder, the less gripping the story,” he said
to my back. “It’s already been a week. How much more time do you
want?”

I spun. “As long as it takes, Bass.” I
advanced on him then, taking small satisfaction in the fact that he
gripped the arms and leaned back in the chair, as if trying to get
away from me. “And if you go airing this next week, you’re going to
screw up the entire investigation. For crying out loud,” I
muttered, pacing. The frustrations of getting nowhere, no matter
where I turned, suddenly blossomed upward in my chest like a silent
explosion.

I ranted, unable to stop myself if my life
depended on it. Grabbing each of my fingers, in turn, I enumerated
my problems. “Despite the fact that David Dewars is convinced I’ll
find incriminating evidence against Barton Vicks, I get nothing
from Banner Bank but aggravation,” I said, my voice rising. “And
then Big Bart comes here to intimidate me. At the same time . . .”
I took a breath, winding up, “I find out that there’s this lowlife,
Laurence Grady, who’s involved with Mrs. Vicks’ roommate. Now, this
guy’s hanging around my neighborhood, and I caught him talking to
my sister. How do you think that makes me feel?”

Bass shook his head, for once in his life,
wisely remaining quiet.

Still indicating my frustrations on my
fingers, I stopped long enough to point. “The detective, Lulinski,
doesn’t trust me. And with good reason. If we’re planning on
running this story without all the facts we’re going to totally
screw up his efforts.”

“
He doesn’t trust
you?”

I’d stopped long enough to allow my thoughts
to catch up with my mouth. “Well,” I hedged, “I think he’s
beginning to. He asked me to talk with Diana’s psychiatrist to find
out what I can from him.”

Bass’s little hazel eyes lit up. “And?”

Anger flaring again, I snapped. “And
nothing. The guy got more out of me than I got out of him,
okay?”

“
If the detective’s
starting to trust you, then use it. Get what you can out of
him.”

“
Have you met the man?” I
asked.

“
No.”

“
Well, let me tell you, it
ain’t that easy. He doesn’t trust any media people. He hates Dan
Starck in particular.” I mumbled that I’d like to know what that
was all about, then blew out a breath. “This Lulinski guy plays his
cards close to his chest. Real close. I get nothing from him.
Nothing from him—nothing from anybody.”

“
What’s with you anyway?”
Bass asked. “This story hit too close to home?”

I glanced up at that, expecting to see
understanding in his eyes.

Instead, he glared at me. “Is this too much
for you, little girl?” he asked. “Maybe you just can’t handle
it.”

“
I’m handling it
perfectly,” I lied. “I just need more time.”

“
Uh-huh,” Bass said
without conviction. He squirmed forward in the chair till his feet
hit the ground, then stood, staring at me. “We pay you based on
results. A half–story is the same as no story. Get it?”

We stared at one another till he finally
broke eye contact.

“
Monday,” he said. As he
walked out my office door, he threw a parting comment over his
dandruff-covered shoulder. “That’s plenty of time.”

Right before pulling out of our underground
parking lot, I remembered to call my aunt to let her know I’d be
late getting back tonight. I wanted to stop by the hospital and
talk with Diana myself, no matter what Dr. Hooker preferred. I
decided it was time to get the information straight from the
horse’s mouth. Apologies to Diana.

While I updated Aunt Lena on my plans, and
she assured me that Lucy was fine and I needn’t rush, the cell
phone’s low-battery-sound signaled in my ear. “Gotta go,” I said,
after it blipped a second time. One more and I’d be
incommunicado.

I shut down the phone and turned my mind
toward navigating traffic. One nice thing about working late was
avoiding the rush-hour.

The hospital, a massive multi-winged
structure built in the early part of the twentieth century, spread
itself over four city blocks like a giant petrified spider. It was
the sort of place that imposed itself, taking up my entire field of
vision as I pulled into the multi-storied open-air visitors’
garage.

As I followed signs that led me from my
twelfth-floor parking spot through two antiseptic-smelling
hallways, I had time to gather my thoughts and decide how to
approach Diana.

Aunt Lena had told me which building, which
room, but as I arrived in the hospital’s lobby, I caught the tail
end of an argument between a heavily pierced young man with shaggy
hair and the prim forty-something woman behind the desk. He held a
cellophane wrapped bouquet of pink roses down at his left side,
while his right hand trembled with frustration.

The woman shook her head, making tiny
touches to her upper lip with her tongue, just waiting for her
moment to jump in. Another head shake. “I’m sorry,” she said with a
gleeful lilt. “There’s nothing I can do. Visiting hours are
over.”

I veered off to the far left alcove that
housed a bank of in-hospital phones. Leaning against the wall with
my back toward the reception desk, I hoped it looked like I was a
person who belonged there, making some important phone call.
Keeping my movements slow, I dug through my cavernous purse and
pulled out my trusty notebook.

They were still arguing as I emerged from
the alcove, and I’d arranged my face into my best imitation of
bored worker bee. I draped my down coat over my arm, knowing that
my business-suit attire wasn’t going to hurt me either. The woman
gave me no more than a passing glance before she returned her
attention to the young man, and I turned the corner away from them
just as an elevator opened, as if waiting for me.

Once I made it to her floor, I was fine. No
one seemed to question my being there; no one seemed to have any
care that it was past eight. Encouraged, I strode into her room
full of purpose.

But when I saw her, all my carefully nuanced
questions went out the window. They’d moved her out of intensive
care into a ward of four women. Diana had the left-hand bed closest
to the window and as I made my way toward her, I nodded hello to
the three other ladies who dragged their eyes away from the
television to watch me with patent curiosity. I couldn’t begin to
guess at their individual ailments.

“
Diana?”

She’d been staring out the wall of windows
at the eastern sky which winked with starlight. Her eyes fluttered
in a way that I knew she’d heard me, but as she turned, she grit
her teeth, and the tendons in her neck stood out in bas-relief. Her
mouth curved in a peculiar way as she croaked out my name.

Pulling a heavy wooden chair to her bedside,
looking around at the barrenness of her surroundings compared to
those of her roommates, I realized I should have brought something.
Flowers, maybe. One of the other women had a bouquet next to her
bed, carnations and roses. The scent of them reminded me again of
Mrs. Vicks’ funeral, and I reassessed the flower idea. Get well
balloons, maybe.

So consumed with getting answers, I’d come
empty-handed and I apologized for that. Diana waved the free
fingers of her left hand, as if to dismiss my concerns. She wore a
cast on that arm which encompassed everything from the knuckles to
her shoulder and whenever she moved, even slightly to adjust
herself, she winced and used her free arm to bolster herself.

“
How’s it feeling?” I
asked, indicating her arm.

“
Not terrible,” she said
in a rusty voice. “But it figures that I broke this
one.”

“
You’re left-handed?” I
said. “I didn’t know that.”

“
Yeah.” Her mouth turned
downward in an exaggerated frown. “Left-handed people are supposed
to be cursed, you know. My mom used to tell me I had to work harder
to beat the curse.”

I was about to respond to that with some
reassuring remark, but she interrupted.

“
You look pretty
good.”

“
I was lucky, I
guess.”

She coughed out a laugh and her dark eyes
clouded. “No,” she said. “I watched you go down. You got hit worse
than me.”

I pointed to her arm. “But—”

“
Cursed.” She gave what
might have been a shrug. “Don’t even remember this happening. All I
remember is that you didn’t leave me, Alex.” Shaky tears gathered
just below her eyes, catching the vaguely bright reflection of the
fluorescent lights above. “He would’ve killed me.”

“
Who
would’ve?”

As she blinked, the trembling pools
released, dripping sideways across her face to fall in fat splashes
onto the pillow beneath her cheek. She stared out the windows
again. “The guy who was in the house.”

Sotto
voce
, I said, “You know who it
was.”

Avoiding my eyes, she bit her upper lip and
shook her head.

“
We both know who it
was.”

More blinks, more tears, and she now sucked
in her upper lip so hard that it pulled her nose downward. Long
full-bodied sniff.

“
Diana,” I tried again,
“It was Laurence Grady, wasn’t it?”

This time her eyes snapped my direction,
widening and tearing up with an immediacy that took me by surprise.
Her right hand shot toward me, grabbed my arm. “It wasn’t him. He
swears it wasn’t him.”

Her words stunned me. “He’s been here?”

“
He’s got his life back
together, Alex. This time he really does. And he wants me
back.”

The catch in her voice spoke volumes, and I
looked away, needing to gather my thoughts. I noticed the three
other women in the room had turned their attention from the
ceiling-braced TV, to watch us. They’d even turned down the volume.
Lately, it seemed I was forever on display.

I spoke in whisper. “I talked with Dr.
Hooker.”

Her pained expression relaxed. “You did?
Good. Because he’ll tell you, too. It wasn’t Larry who hurt us.
Larry wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“
That’s part of what I
want to talk with you about. Dr. Hooker won’t tell me much about
Laurence.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to refer to him as Larry.
“He says he’ll only tell me what I need to know.”

Diana’s dull expression told me that she
didn’t see the problem.

Tamping down my exasperation, I tried to
soften my words with a smile. “Dr. Hooker might not realize
something’s important. Maybe if you give him permission to talk to
me about Larry . . .” I let the thought hang, and take hold.

She bit her lip, and seemed to ponder
that.

“
I know Larry didn’t hurt
us, and I know he didn’t hurt Mrs. Vicks,” she said, finally. “So,
okay, when I talk with Dr. Hooker next, I’ll tell him he can tell
you anything. Would you like me to do that?”

I patted her hand, just as a black nurse
came in with a tiny paper cup of pills for Diana to take. “Visiting
hours were over at eight,” she said with more than a little
annoyance. She grabbed at the privacy curtains and tugged. The
ceiling-mounted hooks slid with set-your-teeth-on-edge-scraping,
till Diana’s bed was completely blocked from view of anyone else in
the room. “And it’s time for her to sleep.”

* * * * *

The hospital smells seemed to have shifted
in the short time I’d spent with Diana. On the way out, through the
labyrinthine corridors, I caught the scent of fresh-brewed coffee
and microwave popcorn. It was after nine o’clock, and my guess was
the night shift needed to gear up for the long lonely hours ahead
with snacks and solid jolts of caffeine.

I probably shouldn’t have stayed so late, I
mused, as I exited the final corridor and headed for the parking
garage elevator. I’d missed the herd that must have departed just
as I’d arrived, and it left the area quiet except for a few
stragglers.

Two men, one elderly, one young, obviously
together, but not talking with one another, both looking deep in
thought, made me wonder who they’d been visiting. The young man’s
mother, perhaps? They waited with me and we took the same elevator.
They got off at two, and I continued the climb to my level,
stepping out of the bright box at eleven.

The door sliding shut behind me—the
accompanying whirr from the electric box that operated the elevator
systems—these were lonely sounds in the dark.

I started up the gentle ramp to my Escort.
The only car on the entire level now, it caught the reflection of
lights from the city surrounding the open-air lot. I heard my
footsteps echo, making tiny clip-clops so loud in my ears that it
drowned out all thought.

Maybe it was the lack of direct lighting, or
the distant train whistle that sounded, but I shivered, suddenly
vulnerable as the weight of all that had happened resurfaced in my
memory.

Jitters. Too much going on, too quickly, I
thought.

Like a dream where I run but can’t move, I
felt as though every step I took toward my goal fought against an
unseen current, making my movements slow and heavy. Even as I tried
to pick up my pace, the car didn’t get closer. My clipping steps
annoyed me. Too noisy, they broadcast my location, my alone-ness. I
wished I’d worn my Reeboks.

An out-of-place sound stopped me in my
tracks. A whishing, scraping noise, like fabric against
concrete.

I turned my head in short twists, trying to
catch the source.

Nothing.

There were two main pillars at each end of
my section of ramp. Both were fat columns of cement, and the one
I’d passed had had a bright red metal call box, with a huge white
sign above: “If you need assistance, please call security.”