Running on Empty (25 page)

AnnaLise tapped Kathleen on the arm and they leaned forward across the table so they
could hear each other over — or in this case, under — the older women's discussion.

'Anyway,' AnnaLise said. 'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be,' Kathleen said, an unexpected touch of venom entering her voice. 'Turns
out, you're right.'

'Right?' AnnaLise whispered.

'It wasn't an' — matching exaggerated finger quotes — '"accident".'

AnnaLise sat back as though she'd been slapped across her face. 'You're kidding.'

'Believe me,' Kathleen said, following suit, 'I didn't stay up all night enjoying
the joke.'

'What joke?' Daisy asked.

'Somebody has a joke?' from Phyllis. 'I heard a good one the other day. Now just let
me think on it.' She tapped a finger to her temple.

AnnaLise had learned from experience that it didn't pay to keep things from her two
mothers. 'Kathleen was just...'

She looked toward the young widow and Kathleen took it from there. 'The chief came
by last night to tell me that Rance's shooting... wasn't an accident.'

'Joe Palooka did in Rance on purpose?' Daisy gasped.

'No,' Kathleen said. 'That's just the point. The police lab says the bullet that killed
Rance came from a deer rifle. Joe and Rance were both just plinking bottles with pistols.'

'A poacher, then?' AnnaLise asked. 'According to Chuck, Dickens Hart was shot by a
deer rifle, too.'

'Not just "a" deer rifle,' Kathleen Smoaks said, eyes now clear and a little hard.
'The
same
deer rifle.'

'The bulletistics came back?' Phyllis Balisteri was a faithful fan of
CSI
shows, if not a reliable learner from them.

'Ballistics,' AnnaLise corrected.

'I don't know the specifics,' Kathleen said. 'All I was told is that Rance and Dickens
Hart were shot with the same gun.'

Now AnnaLise understood Kathleen's sleeplessness. The widow — the newly enriched widow
— would naturally become the prime suspect in her scumball husband's killing. But
given the ballistics convergence between the two shootings, would she also be implicated
as Hart's assailant? Or, again given the convergence, exonerated of both?

'It doesn't make sense,' AnnaLise said. 'What possible connection could there be between
Rance Smoaks and Dickens Hart?'

'Hold on,' Daisy said, 'that sounds―'

'No, she's right,' Kathleen said. 'Rance was a mean, out-of-work drunk and Hart is
a rich, successful―'

'Egomaniac,' AnnaLise supplied. 'Maybe that's what they had in common.'

'Big heads?' Mama looked at Daisy and they both giggled.

If synchronized eye-rolling were an Olympic event, the two younger women would have
received medals.

'Their
egos
.' Kathleen glanced up at the clock. Swinging her legs out of the booth, she dug a
five-dollar bill from her bag. 'Thanks for the cake and conversation.'

'Feel better?' Mama said, taking the five to the cash register.

'Not so much, but also not your fault.' Kathleen Smoaks went out the door.

'Nice girl, but a pretty undeveloped sense of humor,' Daisy said as she and AnnaLise
got up to leave as well.

Then Mother Griggs looked around. 'Phyllis? Did you cut us two more pieces of Coffee
Time?'

'Of course not. What if there's somebody wanting to buy them in the meantime?'

'You'd sell our cake right out from under us?' Daisy protested.

'You'd ask me to turn away a paying customer?'

'I'm a customer, too,' Daisy pointed out.

'But not paying.'

'Only because you won't let us,' AnnaLise said. 'We'd be happy to...'

As if on cue, the door chimed and Mrs. Bradenham swept in. '
Please
tell me you still have a cake.'

'A whole one?' Mama said, taking aluminum foil off a pan big enough to hold the aforementioned
entire cake — but now, of course, minus three large squares. 'How many times have
I told you, Eee-mah? For a whole cake, you got to call ahead of time. Otherwise it's
not fair to my other―'

'I apologize, Phyllis, but I am entertaining a few people for tea this afternoon,
and I simply
must
have one of your cakes.' Mrs. B was stripping a bill out of her wallet as she spoke.

'Sorry, Ema,' Daisy said, approaching the counter, 'but I'm afraid that cake's already
been spoken for.'

Stand-off at the 'I'm OK, You're
Not
' Corral.

'How about a compromise?' AnnaLise, as Intervening Adult, suggested. 'Daisy will purchase
— ' with a look toward Mama — 'one piece and Mrs. B can buy the rest.'

'Which reminds me,' Mrs. B said. 'I dearly hope Lorraine can come to my little party.'

She turned to Daisy. 'Tell me you will, please? It has been far too long, and I promise
plenty of goodies.'

'Goodies?' Daisy said it like
Sesame Street
's Cookie Monster says, 'Cookies'. The only thing missing was furry blue paws clapping
together.

AnnaLise knew all was lost, cakewise. The only thing she could hope for was leftovers
from the 'tea'. Unless Mrs. B...

'And I am so sorry I cannot include you, Little One,' Bobby's mother said to AnnaLise,
'but it will be just we old gals.' Tee-hee.

Us
old gals. Tee-hee that.

Mrs. B turned to Mama. 'I know you need to be here, Phyllis, tending to your business.
I so admire that quality in you. Now, if you will just wrap up my cake?'

She slapped a one-hundred-dollar bill on the glass-topped counter.

As the door closed behind Mrs. B, Mama held the bill up to the light, flexing and
straightening it like a flag in the wind. 'Give my regards to the "old gals" this
afternoon, Daisy. Me and Ben Franklin here, we'll be having a little party of our
own.'

It was barely eight a.m. on the kitchen wall clock when Daisy and her mother returned
home.

'I don't have to meet Tucker until ten,' AnnaLise said, 'so I think I'll start going
through Hart's journals. Maybe I can find something that'll shed some light on who
might have wanted to kill him.'

'Or still wants to see him dead. I have to say I don't picture Kathleen killing anyone,
even her lowlife husband.' Daisy set her handbag on the kitchen table.

AnnaLise looked at it. 'They say you shouldn't put purses on tables. The leather picks
up all sorts of bacteria. You know, from public restrooms and restaurants, where you
set them on the floor.'

'I'd like to be there when you suggest to Phyllis that her floor is dirty,' Daisy
said, leaving the purse where it was.

'One fray I think I'll avoid, thank you very much.'

'Good decision,' Daisy said, dumping out the coffee she'd made hours ago. 'Speaking
of staying out of things, please don't get involved in whatever is going on here.
Just let the police handle it.'

'I'm sure Chuck is very capable,' AnnaLise said, 'but you know me. Poking around is
what I do for a living.'

'Well, then, when exactly are you going to go back and do it?' Daisy was looking firm,
unusually so for her. She set down the rinsed pot. 'I thought this was supposed to
be only a weekend visit.'

Honesty is universally touted as the best policy, though in AnnaLise's experience
that always hadn't been the case. 'I asked my newspaper for a temporary leave of absence.'

'Because of me?' Daisy's arms were defiantly crossed in front of her breasts.

'Originally.' AnnaLise shrugged her good shoulder. 'Now maybe I'm eligible for temporary
disability.'

'You're lucky it's not permanent. You could have been badly hurt. I think you should
go back to Wisconsin and your life there.'

'While I still have it? Is that what you mean?'

'You have to admit, everything was fine until you rode back into Sutherton.'

Ouch. Though AnnaLise's mother — while patently unfair — was right, if you discounted
her starring role in Mrs. B's near exsanguination.

'So what are you saying, Daisy? That I'm the cause of Rance Smoaks and Dickens Hart
being shot? Then what about Ichiro Katou? I didn't even know the man until four days
ago.'

'Yet the cane that hit him was found in our garage.'

'In
your
garage, and by
me
.'

'Yes, by you. And don't tell me you didn't suspect that I put it there.'

Daisy had her on that one. 'Maybe at first. You have been suffering... spells, you
know.'

'I'm forgetful, not homicidal.' Daisy picked up a dish towel, looked at it and then
threw it back toward the counter. The towel hit the edge and slipped to the floor.
AnnaLise picked the thing up, waving it like a red-striped flag of surrender.

'Truce, please? I don't think you hurt anyone, Daisy. But you can't possibly believe
I did, either.'

'I don't.'

'Then why are you so angry at me?'

'Because I want you to be safe. I want you to go home to Wisconsin and mind your own
business.'

'Sutherton
is
my home, Daisy. And back in Wisconsin, I'd still be a police-beat reporter and therefore
not minding my own business. Besides,' AnnaLise was relenting a little, 'I'm not going
anywhere until I know that everything's OK here. That this mess is all figured out.'

AnnaLise swung away toward the stairs, wondering why she was espousing exactly the
opposite of what she'd told Bobby just two days earlier. Now angrily declaring Sutherton
home and swearing her allegiance — not just to Daisy, but to the whole damned town
and all its current, major problems?

The Prodigal Daughter, halfway up the steps, needed to have her head examined.

'Well, then, let's do it.' Daisy's words stopped AnnaLise, not so much for what she
said, but for the tone in which she said it. Calm. Measured. Almost... resolved.

AnnaLise turned. 'Do what?'

'Let's sort this all out, so you can go back north where you belong.'

'How can we do that? You know something I haven't been told?'

'Lots.' Daisy shrugged. 'Mostly not very interesting or important. But you know the
right questions to ask and I'm thinking maybe if we put our heads together, some sense
can be made of these goings on.'

This was a Daisy that AnnaLise wasn't accustomed to. Her mother tended toward follower
— of Mama, even of AnnaLise — not leader. But maybe she was turning over a new leaf.
Or just really, in her heart of hearts, wanted AnnaLise long gone and hard to find.

Daughter took one step down to sit on the landing next to the gun cabinet. She looked
at her mother through the spindles of the railing. '
Oookay
. So where do we start?'

'Well, like people said — ' Daisy was now leaning against the cupboard — 'I don't
see Kathleen killing Rance. With Joe Palooka right there, she'd have to shoot her
husband in cold blood and then fool Joe into thinking he'd done it himself.'

'Not so high a bar, given how much both men had drunk, but I agree. Besides, why wouldn't
Kathleen have put Rance out of her misery years ago?'