Running on Empty (13 page)

That stopped Mrs. B in her elitist tracks. 'What? That... inebriate?'

AnnaLise nodded. 'Sheree Pepper called the amount "a bundle".'

'$1.6 million, to be exact,' Bobby said. 'A life insurance policy that Nanney Estill
had forgotten about. When she died last month, Rance became a millionaire overnight.'

'Just last month?' AnnaLise asked. 'Did he get to spend any of it?'

'If there's any justice left in this world, only on the Jim Beam bottle he was emptying
when he died,' Bobby said. 'Other than that, Kathleen gets it all.'

'Well, she certainly earned it,' AnnaLise said. 'Whatever did she see in him?'

'Power,' Mrs. B said. 'Powerful men are immensely attractive.'

Like... Dickens Hart?

Bobby was looking at his mother. 'Rance Smoaks was a bully and a drunk.'

'But chief of police at the time,' AnnaLise said. 'Good-looking, too, back then.'

'Please,' Bobby said. 'You're not telling me you were "attracted", too.'

'No, I—'

'Star-fucker.'

Bobby and AnnaLise turned to Mrs. B.

She actually blushed. 'Sorry, but that
is
what they call people who want to be with someone only because they are a celebrity
or person of note.'

'I've heard the phrase,' AnnaLise said, well aware that she herself could be accused
of 'star-fucking.' At least until two weeks ago.

'Movie actor, famous author, star football player,' Mrs. B prattled on, 'it does not
matter. The woman involved is so impressed by the hero's reputation that she forgets
he likely still leaves the toilet seat up and his underwear on the floor. All she
sees is the glory.'

Idiot.

'Glory? What glory?' Bobby demanded. 'Hot shit high-school quarterback turned lukewarm
college prospect?'

'Turned cold-blooded abuser,' AnnaLise added.

'Why did she stay?' Mrs. B seemed distressed at both the distasteful subject and the
inconvenience of someone being abused.

Bobby shook his head. 'I asked Kathleen, but your guess is as good as mine.'

AnnaLise nodded. 'I've talked to a lot of victims and there's no one answer to that.
In Kathleen's case, at least, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise — not that
I would suggest it.'

'Suggest what?' Bobby's mother asked. 'You are simply not making yourself clear, dear.
One wonders what is being taught in schools these days.'

No need to worry about Mrs. B — she was back to normal.

'Suggest,' said AnnaLise through clenched teeth, 'that anybody should stay in an abusive
situation. In Kathleen's case, it happens she didn't divorce him before he died and,
therefore...'

'Therefore,' Bobby took over, 'she'll inherit
his
inheritance. If they'd gotten divorced, it would have gone to his heirs. In this case,
probably some second-cousin twice-removed.'

'Instead, Rance is removed,' AnnaLise mused. 'And it took just "once".'

Silence, and AnnaLise realized both Bobby and his mother were staring at her in horror.
'Not that I'm saying anything of the sort happened, of course.'

'Of course,' Bobby said, with a head tilt toward his mother for AnnaLise's benefit.

'Anyway,' AnnaLise continued, trying to oblige with a change of subjects, 'we were
talking about DNA?'

'An abomination,' Mrs. B thundered.

Whoops. Wrong subject. 'I—'

'Yet another way of controlling people,' Mrs. B continued as Bobby turned a scathing
look on AnnaLise. 'That
Big Brothers
movie was prophetic.'

'Big brother, singular,' Bobby corrected. 'But the film was actually
1984
.'

'When?'

'Not when, what.'

'What?'

'The movies, both versions.'

Mrs. B was struggling to regain ground. 'Fine. I shall take your word on the date,
Bobby, as well as the fact that Richard Burton's last picture was
Big Brother
. Singular.'

'For the last time, Ma,' Bobby said testily. '
1984
.'

AnnaLise stepped in before he knocked his mother's block off. 'The title of the book
was
1984
, Mrs. B, written by George Orwell in the year 1949. The movie you saw with Richard
Burton was released during the year 1984.'

'And called...
1984
?'

'Correct.'

'Huh. Hardly a coincidence, I would suspect.'

'No, actually Orwell's widow—'

'Will you two stop it!' Bobby exploded. 'Big Brother isn't watching and so what if
he is? We put everything online anyway — what we do, where we go, what we think. Apparently
we don't value our privacy all that much if we're the ones who give it away.'

Mrs. B looked hurt. 'Now Bobby, there is no need to raise your—'

Bobby kept going. 'I, for one, think the ancestry projects are a great idea. In fact,
I sent in my own DNA swipe about a week ago.'

'Bobby, you had no right to do that without consulting me!' Mrs. B roared. 'Our family
is no one else's business.'

If AnnaLise had any further doubt that Mama was right and Bobby was Dickens Hart's
son, it evaporated.

'Jesus, Ma, do you ever think about anyone other than yourself? It's like you're wearing
blinders. Self-imposed blinders.'

'That is quite enough, young man.' Mrs. B gave him a little shove so she could get
up off the chaise. 'Your friend's dying is no reason to be rude. AnnaLise, if you
will excuse me?'

AnnaLise nodded and Mrs. B took her leave, tip-tapping her kitten-heeled sandals over
the bridge and toward the house.

Bobby shook his head. 'Aw, geez. I'm going to pay for that.'

AnnaLise decided it wasn't the best time to point out that if Bobby didn't still live
with his mother, he wouldn't have to worry so much about what she thought. Though,
arguably, the miles of separation didn't stop Daisy and Mama from attempting to kibitz
in AnnaLise's city life. AnnaLise's solution was to tell them the parts she believed
would make them happy, and keep the rest to herself. Which didn't always make
her
happy.

'I wish I knew what Ichiro had planned last night,' Bobby was saying. 'Then maybe
we'd know if he got to do it or something happened to him on the way.'

'Did Ichiro drink?' As Dr. Stanton had said, it was the obvious question to ask in
a Sutherton drowning.

'Very little. And he was coming to Sal's, so I doubt he'd get half-stoked in preparation.'

The former reporter was fighting the urge to ask questions. And losing. 'Could Ichiro
swim?'

'Honestly, Annie? I'm not sure. We never talked about it. Or, for that matter, the
cause of his limp. Ichiro is — was — one of those rare people more interested in other
people than himself.' Bobby's tone implied: unlike my mother.

'Which is why you can't be expected to know where his family is. He never told you.'

Hanging his head. 'The man could be married with five kids, for all I know.'

'I doubt it, or he wouldn't have suddenly decided to stay here and open a restaurant.'

Which, when AnnaLise thought about it, was still more than a little odd in and of
itself. How many Japanese tourists entering the United States go directly to the mountains
of North Carolina on vacation and decide to open a sushi restaurant?

Only one, to her knowledge.

And he was dead.

Mama's, when AnnaLise finally got there, was abuzz with the news. Even in Sutherton,
drownings on consecutive days got people's attention. Especially when the second body
was discovered by vacationers who were more than eager to share their experience.

'Stuck right there on the mailboat, not three feet from where I was sitting,' a plump
bottle-blonde woman in white capris was saying to Daisy at the cash register. 'Imagine.
If I'd glanced down, I would have seen...' A shiver with a little too much delight
in it, despite the following, 'Eeww.'

'You have to wonder how long he was there,' a gray-haired version of the woman said.
'When you think about it, we could have latched onto him anywhere along the route.'
A matching shiver from her.

'Hitch-hiker,' Daisy said as the women left the counter.

'Hitch-hiker' was what Daisy and Mama had dubbed ants who crawled onto a car's windshield
before you pulled out, then rode with you 'a-ways'.

AnnaLise didn't like to think of the nice man she'd met as a doomed bug. 'You do know
who it was, right?'

'That EeCHEER-oh — Bobby's friend — is what they're saying.' Mama had come up behind
her with a stack of dirty dishes.

'EE-chir-oh,' AnnaLise corrected automatically, though she wasn't sure why she bothered
any more. 'And yes. I was at the post office when they docked.'

'With him still attached?' Mama asked. 'Must have been a mess.' As she spoke she was
scraping the remains of a waffle special off the top plate and into a garbage bin.

'Was the chief there?' Daisy asked.

'Yup,' AnnaLise said, before adding wearily, 'and yes, I know he's gay. He told me
last night.'

Daisy was breaking open a roll of quarters to put in the change drawer. 'You didn't
know? I was just going to tell you he called this morning, early, to ask if you'd
be at the parade tomorrow.'

'Wouldn't miss it,' AnnaLise said. 'I'll call him later.'

'Thought you said you saw him at the launch,' Mama said, stacking the dirty plate.
'You should've told him then.'

'Chuck was there, but we didn't talk. He was a little busy.'

'I suppose.' Daisy slid the cash drawer closed. 'Oh, and Dickens Hart called, too.'

'What's that pervert want?' Mama demanded. 'You stay away from him, you hear, AnnieLeeze?'

'Yes, Mama.' Amazing how elastic apron strings can be. From Sutherton to Wisconsin
and back. Boing, boing, boing.

'AnnaLise is working for "the pervert".' Daisy said. 'And don't you utter a word,
Phyllis. I've already said it all.'

Enough. 'Hart's hired me to write his memoirs.'

Now Mama looked really disgusted. 'It'll be all lies, you know. And you watch that
man. He'll—'

'He'll give me his notes,' AnnaLise said. 'And journals, whatever. When I'm safely
back in Wisconsin, I'll read them and put them into narrative form. At worst, he'll
pay me scads of money upfront even if the book's never published.'

'And at best,' Daisy said, giving Mama the evil eye for some reason, 'he'll lie his
way to a best-seller and Oprah will out him.'

'Oprah?' asked AnnaLise, now puzzled.

'Like that James Frey and his supposed memoir,
A Million Little Pieces
.' Daisy said. 'Once she found out he'd made up a lot of it, Oprah had Frey on the
show and told him just what she thought.'

'She sure did,' Mama agreed, coming around the counter to sit on the stool where Daisy
had been when AnnaLise arrived. 'That Oprah is one amazing woman. She don't take crap
from nobody.'

'Nobody,' Daisy echoed. 'Now there's someone I'd vote...'

And off they went on another adventure through Mama-in-Daisyland.