Running on Empty (32 page)

AnnaLise, recognizing a cue when she heard it, stood up. 'Actually, there was.'

Neither Mrs. B nor Daisy seemed surprised to see her there.

AnnaLise started across the bridge toward them. 'The only difference was, that little
boy wasn't strapped into an infant seat like the fictional one was. Japan didn't require
them.'

AnnaLise was guessing, but Mrs. B made no effort to correct her.

Instead, she said, 'He died.'

'He did,' AnnaLise replied. 'But not then.' She drew the envelope from her pocket
and waved it. 'You wrote this letter to your in-laws after you settled here in Sutherton.'

Ema didn't move to take it. 'They never answered and I could certainly understand.'
She looked at AnnaLise. 'I was the reminder of what they'd lost and... well, they
just couldn't accept it.'

'No, Mrs. B,' AnnaLise said. 'It's you who can't accept that all these years your
inlaws had what
you
lost. Your son. And they didn't answer because they didn't want to give him back.
The more contact, the higher the possibility you'd find out your baby survived the
accident. They were afraid you'd take their grandchild to the United States and they'd
never see him again.'

Mrs. B was shaking her head, but AnnaLise wasn't sure the woman had even heard her.
'Bobby Bradenham is my baby. My
only
son.'

A sound suspiciously like the notes from
The Twilight Zone
theme came from Daisy. When AnnaLise looked at her mother, the seated woman rotated
an index finger next to her temple.

AnnaLise cleared her throat. 'Ichiro must have found your letter in the house after
his grandfather died. The DNA tests had already sparked his curiosity and the letter
just confirmed what he already knew. His grandparents had been lying to him. Just
like you've been lying to Bobby.'

'Those damn tests,' Mrs. B snapped. 'That's what started all this.'

'No,' AnnaLise said, gaining confidence. 'I'm pretty sure you did.'

'Why, what do you mean?' Daisy asked, eyes round.

AnnaLise leaned down and plucked something from between the planks of the decking.
'Ichiro came here Saturday night, when he knew Bobby would be at Sal's. Your
other
son wanted to talk to you in private.'

No reaction, even to the word 'son'.

AnnaLise plunged on. 'But you wanted nothing to do with him. An argument broke out
and became violent. So violent, your pearl necklace broke, didn't it?' AnnaLise held
up the object she'd snagged. 'Here, you missed one.'

She tossed the pink pearl toward Ema Bradenham, but the woman didn't seem to see it.
'That man attacked me, tried to steal my necklace. I did the only thing I could do
when he lurched at me like a hulk. I pulled the cane away and hit him.'

'Ichiro wasn't stealing from you.' AnnaLise was remembering the photo of the young
Japanese woman. June Cleaver, as Tucker had put it, right down to the necklace. 'The
pearls had been his grandmother's. He even had an old photograph of her wearing them.
If you'd only given him the chance, he could have shown you.'

'That strand was a gift from my husband.' Her hands were at her throat, caressing
pearls that weren't there. She'd loved them so much she'd destroyed them. Along with
her eldest son.

'They were only jewelry.' AnnaLise wanted to cry. 'Ichiro was the gift. And you killed
him in cold blood.'

'I certainly did not.' Again, with the phantom pearls. 'I merely hit him and he fell.'

'But then why didn't you call for help? Ichiro was still alive when he went into the
water.'

Mrs. B looked startled, and AnnaLise had a glimpse of the girl who had awakened, only
to be told her husband and son were dead.

Then the face changed. A wall went up, as sturdy as the deck under their feet. 'I'm
afraid that was impossible."

'Impossible?' AnnaLise echoed.

'She has too many secrets.' Daisy, suddenly lucid, was leaning forward. 'I think Ema
already had killed Rance Smoaks. She couldn't admit she'd attacked another man and
then have him live to talk about it.' 'I let the water close over him,' said Ema,
gazing out over the lake. 'It was like he'd never been here.'

'And stashed the murder weapon in my garage,' Daisy said. 'Why?'

Mrs. B pulled herself up to full height, seemingly about to deny it. Then, like a
balloon pricked by a pin, the air whooshed out of her and she seemed to shrink. 'I
knew the lake current would carry the body away, but I wasn't sure whether his cane
would float or sink. I wiped the thing off and put it in my car's trunk, intending
to dispose of it later elsewhere. When I saw the garage door open and you at Mama's,
I decided it would be as good a place as any.'

'Meaning, you framed my mother,' Annalise said.

'Lorraine was already acting strangely. I thought the police would buy it.' Mrs. B
shrugged. 'It was worth a try.'

'Who's strange?' Daisy — or was it Lorraine? — demanded. 'I'm rubber, you're glue,
Ema Sikes.'

Mrs. B rolled her eyes. 'It was in the chief's office the next day I realized that
young Lorry, crazy, might well be more dangerous to me than middle-aged Daisy, sane.'

'Because she knew the truth about Bobby's father.'

'And, more importantly, couldn't be depended on any longer. That's why I invited Lorry
over for a private... party today.'

One that could well have resulted in another private burial, AnnaLise realized, feeling
sick.

Mrs. B extended a hand. 'You have to understand, Little One. It was all unraveling.
First Dickens tells me my allowance has to be reduced because he's having money problems.'

'Hart's Landing is underwater,' AnnaLise said.

Mrs. B dropped her hand. 'That left me with no choice but to renegotiate Rance Smoaks'
stipend.'

'His blackmail, you mean. Or maybe his cut would be more accurate.'

Again, no acknowledgment. 'Rance didn't seem to understand that he needed to absorb
some of the shared loss. He threatened to inform Dickens that Bobby wasn't his son.'

'Told you so,' Daisy sing-songed.

Now Ema Sikes 'Bradenham' finally lashed out. 'You shut your mouth, Lorraine Kuchenbacher.
You've been sitting here preaching about how I should've told the truth.'

Mrs. B nodded toward AnnaLise. 'Why don't you tell
her
the truth, Lorry?'

'I said nothing.' Daisy stood up. 'Not to Phyllis, not to anyone.'

'Until now.' This from Mrs. B.

The two were toe-to-toe and nose-to-chest, given their respective heights, and far
too near the low railing for AnnaLise's taste. Behind them on the lake a waverunner
zipped past. 'Can you just shift―'

'I couldn't let you hurt anyone else,' Daisy said. 'The lies―'

'You're a fine one to talk about lies, Lorry. What about your own precious Tim?'

Timothy Griggs? AnnaLise thought, her head spinning. 'What does my father have to
do with this?'

'Yes, Lorry. What does her father have to do with this?' Mrs. B parroted.

'Tim knew the truth.' Daisy brought up both hands and shoved Mrs. B. 'It didn't matter
to him.'

'Yes, but do your beloved AnnaLise and her
real
father feel the―'

Daisy hurled herself into the other woman, and the two of them toppled over the rail
and into the lake below.

'Damn good thing neither one hit her head or we'd have another body on our hands,'
said Bobby Bradenham.

'Or two, possibly,' AnnaLise amended. 'Daisy never really learned to swim and, given
all the splashing and thrashing going on, I don't think either of our mothers
wanted
saving, if it meant not being able to kill the other.'

Bobby and AnnaLise were sitting on a black vinyl couch, tufts of white stuffing peeking
through the seams, in the hospital waiting room. AnnaLise couldn't help but wonder
if it could be the same furniture she'd sat on with Mama way back when.

AnnaLise remained slightly damp from the lake water. Bobby and she were waiting for
their mothers to be processed — Daisy to go home, Ema into police custody. Chuck had
been true-blue enough to volunteer for a decent-coffee run.

AnnaLise would have preferred a shot. Of anything that assayed out at over 80-proof.

'Lucky those waverunners came by,' Bobby said.

'Lucky I didn't nail them with my car before they ever launched,' AnnaLise muttered.

'What?' Bobby looked startled.

AnnaLise did a quick mental survey. The fact that she'd nearly collided with the SUV
pulling the trailer holding the Sutherton-despised waverunners that ultimately rescued
their mothers should be the least of Bobby's worries right now.

'Not a big deal.' She looked over at him. 'You OK?'

'Frankly, no. You?'

'Ditto.'

Bobby sighed. 'Talk about "mother" issues. It's going to take a shit-load of therapy
to get me through all of ours.'

'Not to mention the father ones.' She looked at him. 'But, while we're on the subject,
who do you figure mine is?'

'From what
you
said
they
said? Dickens Hart. My once presumed, if now former, illegitimate father.'

She gave his arm a squeeze. 'Does this make us presumed bastards-in-law?'

'Once removed,' Bobby said, with a weary smile.

'Randy Smoaks begat Bobby Bradenham, and Dickens Hart begat... me. Huh.' AnnaLise
was probably in those journals. Or a gleam in the eye of one of them.

'Hey, things could be worse,' Bobby said. 'My father, a drunken blackmailer; my mother,
a murderer.'

'There is that.' AnnaLise laid her head on his shoulder. 'I am so, so sorry.'

'Me, too.' He rested his cheek atop her head. 'I liked Ichiro and it turns out he
was my half-brother. Would have been interesting to get the chance of knowing him
better.'

'Given the events of the last few days, do any of us — at the risk of sounding trite
— really know anyone?'

'
Sounding
trite? Trite 'R Us.'

'Trite
Is
Us.'

Bobby cuffed her on the side of the head that wasn't against his shoulder.

'That's assault.' Chuck had returned with two paper cups. 'Coffee machine was broken,
so I brought you bourbon.'

AnnaLise took one. 'Ahh, the cure turns out to be better than the disease.'

'Sutherton has
bourbon
vending machines?' Bobby asked, taking the other. 'Is this a great town or what?'

AnnaLise just looked at him. 'Bobby, you're the mayor of this town.'

'I sent an officer to get it from my office,' Chuck said mildly.

'Bourbon vending machines in the police station. Even better.' AnnaLise raised her
cup. 'To the High Country.'

'To the High Country,' Bobby saluted, and they bumped cardboard cups.

AnnaLise took a sip and shuddered.

'Cold?' Chuck asked. 'Here's the blanket the EMTs left.'

'Thanks, but I prefer heating myself from within right now.' AnnaLise had another
hit and set her cup down on a two-year-old copy of
Good Housekeeping
. 'So, have you talked to... them?'

She really wanted to know about Daisy, but it seemed rude not to include Bobby's psycho
mother.

'More like listened,' the chief said, pulling over a matching black vinyl chair to
sit across from them.

'The Ema Bradenham dam has been eroded?' Bobby asked.

'More like busted and hurtling downstream,' Chuck said. 'Your mother is spewing like
a volcano.'

AnnaLise said, 'Chuck, no mixing of metaphors, OK?' She tilted her head toward Bobby.

'Sorry,' Chuck said, 'I didn't mean to seem insensitive.'

Bobby shook his head. 'I think we're way past that line. Annie told me that Ma killed
my half-brother — also, by the way, her own son — by hitting him with his cane, then
pushing him off our deck and into the lake.'