My mental uh-oh is quickly countered by the heightened interest Mom is now showing William. “You are so right,” she says, apparently in control of her voice again. “I’m constantly on these girls about stuff like that. One can’t be too safe when it comes to germs.”
She locks eyes with William and I imagine love being born over the mental image of a Petri dish. I’m thinking this dinner is going to be a huge success on all counts when Ethan enters the room.
“Aunt Mattie,” he says. “Check out my new pet.” He thrusts his arm out as he approaches and there sitting on his sleeve is a three-inch-long bug. “It’s a Madagascar hissing cockroach,” he says proudly. And as if on cue, the bug sits back on its haunches, waves its hairy antennae in the air, and hisses.
The hissing sound is closely followed by a high-pitched screech and a loud crash as William faints dead away, taking one of the bar stools down with him.
Chapter 32
D
espite all the drama, the evening isn’t a total bust. When I couldn’t arouse William right away and the gash on his head refused to stop bleeding unless I put direct pressure on it, Desi called for an ambulance. There was some brief confusion when the ambulance arrived and saw a hearse already parked out front, but that was cleared up with a few explanations.
William is now awake but foggy, his comb-over safely contained inside a gauze turban, his body loaded on a cot rather than in a coffin. We follow the entourage outside to the driveway and watch as the EMS crew loads William into the ambulance. Mom insists on riding along with him and makes a big enough stink with the ambulance crew that they finally cave and allow her in the rig. As the ambulance pulls away, I can see my mother sitting next to William, stroking his arm and murmuring in his ear.
Lucien, who briefly appeared in the kitchen right after the incident, has been ensconced in his office ever since, searching his law books in case William decides to sue. Ethan is in his room, hopefully locking his pet roach back inside its cage.
As Desi and I watch the ambulance disappear down the street she says, “I do believe you made a love connection there.”
“Not exactly the way I hoped the night would go but hey, I’ll take it.”
“I’m sorry about Ethan,” she says. “I keep telling him he needs to be careful about showing his bug collection to other people, but he gets so excited he forgets. The kid loves bugs. He reads everything he can get his hands on: books, Internet sites, magazines . . . you name it.”
“It’s okay. In fact, I think it bonded Mom and William faster than any quiet dinner would have.”
“It could have been much worse, you know,” Desi says as we turn to head back into the house. “Ethan could have brought out one of his fly farms.”
I’m afraid to ask but do it anyway. “Fly farm?”
“It’s an enclosed terrarium type of thing filled with maggots and flies. Ethan has six different ones in his bedroom because he’s studying the reproductive cycles of various types of flies for a school science project.” Desi pauses and shudders. “He’s pretty much done with it at this point. All he has left is to organize his data and write a report. It can’t be soon enough for me. I don’t mind the flies so much but all those maggots give me the creeps.”
I can sympathize and the mere mention of maggots has me feeling them crawling on me all over again.
Desi lets me eat a plate of her wonderful dinner and after scarfing it down, I say my good-byes, shoo Erika and her friends out of the hearse, and head for the hospital to check on William.
Most of the people on duty in the ER at this time of day are night-shifters, and I don’t know them as well as I do the day folks. So rather than venturing into the ER proper, I head for the waiting room, where I find my mother sitting in one of the chairs, reading a magazine.
“Hey, Mom, how’s William doing?”
She sets her magazine aside and motions for me to sit next to her. “They stitched up his scalp wound, but only after William made the doctor clean everything five times. He’s down having a CT scan of his head now. The doctor said he’s pretty sure it will be negative.”
“That’s a relief,” I say.
“He’s an interesting guy, very clean. Are you dating him?”
I shake my head. “We went out on a blind date once, but it didn’t work out.”
“I see.”
“So he’s all yours.”
She gives me a sly look and says, “Is it that obvious?”
“Well, it is to me. After all, I’ve seen you court before. I know the signs.”
She flashes me a grim smile. “I haven’t had the best track record when it comes to husbands and beaux, have I? I’ve always been proud of you girls for marrying so well.”
Here we go.
“Well, it turns out I didn’t do as well as we originally thought,” I counter.
She gives me her classic pish-paw wave of dismissal. “You did fine. David made a little mistake. That’s all. I think you’re writing him off too easily. It’s every girl’s dream to marry a doctor. You shouldn’t be so eager to just throw all that away. It gives you social standing and credibility.” She pauses, then adds, “The cream always rises to the top, you know.”
So does pond scum, I think.
“Sorry to disillusion you, Mom, but that never was my dream. My dream is to be married to a man who loves me, a man who is faithful, a man who doesn’t risk my health and my life for the sake of a little sexual gratification.”
“Well, he wouldn’t have looked elsewhere if he was getting what he needed at home,” she says with a sniff. “You know what I’ve always told you girls about keeping things interesting.”
I did. It was Rule #6 in Mother’s Rules for Wives: don’t be afraid to experiment in the bedroom. David and I did experiment some, but it was pretty chaste. Mostly it consisted of trying different positions and him asking me to wear sexy lingerie. I always went along until the day he came home with a Xena, Warrior Princess costume. I put it on but rather than looking sexy, I looked like the starring role in a Wagner opera. The only thing lacking was one of those Norsky Viking helmets, which would have been somewhat appropriate given my real name, though it also would have lent a whole new meaning to the term
horny.
I’m groping for a way to get Mom off topic when a nurse comes out of the ER care area and approaches. It’s Lucy “Lupus” Julseth, someone I used to work with and one of the people whose names was on Luke Nelson’s patient list.
“Mattie!” she says, greeting me with a smile. “How the heck are you?”
“Good as can be expected,” I tell her.
Lucy looks to my mom and says, “He’s back from his CT so you can come and sit with him if you’d like.”
“I would,” she says. She looks over at me with a questioning expression and I wave her on.
“Go ahead. I have to get home but I’ll call you in a day or two.” As my mother heads for the care area of the ER, I say to Lucy, “So you’re working the night shift these days?”
“Not by choice. Mark and I split up so I needed to make other arrangements for childcare.” She sighs and looks longingly out the window toward the parking lot. That’s when I remember that Lucy is a smoker.
“Want to step out for a puff?” I ask her. She nods and looks relieved. We head outside to an area just off the hospital property and Lucy lights up. She takes a long drag and blows it out slowly, taking care to see that the smoke blows away from me.
“It’s hard to arrange childcare when you work these twelve-hour shifts,” she says, taking another drag. “But I need the money and the night shift differential helps. So for now, the kids are spending the nights at my parents’ house and I sleep during the day while they’re in school.”
“I’m sorry to hear about you and Mark. When did it happen?”
“A month ago. He said he needed to find himself.” She finger quotes the last two words and rolls her eyes. “What a bunch of bullshit.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
She puffs on her cigarette, shrugs, and nods.
“Is that why you’re seeing Luke Nelson?”
Her brow furrows and she gives me a startled look. “How do you know about that?”
I explain about my investigation into Shannon’s death and how I came across the list of names. “I assure you I’ll keep the fact that you’re seeing Nelson confidential,” I tell her. “I don’t really need to know why you were seeing him, but I’d like to ask you some questions about him, if you don’t mind.”
“If you want to know if I had an appointment with him on the day Shannon died, some detective already asked me. I did.”
“What time was your appointment?”
“Three o’clock.” She stubs her cigarette out on the sidewalk and stuffs the butt back in her pack. “I was there for an hour.”
“Have you been seeing Nelson for a long time?”
“I started a couple of months ago when I sensed that Mark and I were drifting apart. I thought some counseling might help me figure out how to get things back on track.”
“Did it?”
“Obviously not,” she says with a wry chuckle. She turns to head back inside and I follow along beside her. “Maybe if Mark had gone with me it might have helped but I couldn’t get him to do it and Nelson said he’d prefer to keep it one-on-one for the time being anyway.”
This strikes me as odd since I’ve always heard that marital counseling is more effective when both parties are involved. “Has seeing Nelson helped you deal with the breakup?”
We are at the entrance to the ER waiting room and Lucy pauses with her hand on the door. “I started having panic attacks about a week after Mark left and despite trying several medications, they’ve been getting worse. So for my last few visits, Dr. Nelson tried something new, some sort of hypnotherapy. I guess it’s working because I haven’t had an attack since, though to be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot about the sessions.”
“Interesting.”
“Look, I have to get back to work, but it was good to see you again. You doing okay since you and David split?”
“I have good days and bad days.”
“Any chance of reconciliation?”
I shake my head. “No, we’re done. I can’t get past the whole cheating thing. I’m a pretty forgiving person, but that’s a bit more than I’m willing to take.”
Lucy nods and looks away. I sense she’s uncomfortable with my comment and wonder if Mark has strayed, too.
“You take care,” she says, and before I can ask her anything else, she opens the door and disappears inside.
Chapter 33
L
ucy’s comments about her experiences with Nelson get me to wondering, so I dig out my cell phone and give Hurley a call.
“Hey, Winston,” he answers. That whole caller ID thing still freaks me out. “What’s up?”
“I’m wondering if you could give me some information. You provided us with a list of names for Nelson’s patients but not the times of their appointments. Do you recall who it was that had the four o’clock slot on the day Shannon was killed?”
“You’re still focusing on him?” he says tiredly. “I know you don’t want to believe your friend could have done this but Nelson’s alibi is solid for the time in question. He didn’t do it. Even with your discovery about Shannon’s eating disorder and the change in the time of death, Erik Tolliver is still our most likely suspect.”
“Humor me, would you? There’s something about Nelson that bothers me. I can’t put my finger on it, but I can’t let it go yet, either.”
Hurley sighs and says, “Hold on a minute.”
I hear him set his phone down and shuffle some papers, and wait until he comes back on the line.
“Okay, here you go. The four o’clock appointment was a woman named Carla Andrusson. I’ve already talked to her and she verified that she kept her appointment that day.”
“Thanks,” I tell him, glad Carla is someone I know. She’s the wife of my dentist, Brian Andrusson, and also a former patient of mine. I was on duty eight years ago when she came into the ER after having a seizure and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The tumor was surgically removed and fortunately proved to be benign. But during the surgery Carla suffered a small stroke that left her with some left-sided facial paralysis and right arm and leg weakness.
After getting Carla’s home phone number from Hurley, I hang up. It’s well past nine o’clock, so I decide to head for home. I stop at the Kwik-E-Mart on the way to pick up some treats and discover they are out of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. I settle on Cookie Dough instead, and by the time I lug it and my other treasures to the counter, my hands are nearly frostbitten.
When I get home, Rubbish greets me at the door, winding his way around my feet and purring contentedly. I scoop him up before he can trip me, and carry him to the kitchen, where I fix him up a nice plate of the tuna I just bought for him. While he eats I kick off my shoes and plop down on the couch with my ice cream, turn on the TV, and flip channels until I settle on an old episode of
Cheers.
Twenty minutes later, I’ve dug out all the cookie dough chunks and have nothing but melting ice cream left. I pour a little of the molten remains into a dish for Rubbish, who cautiously sniffs and then laps it up. Nice to know we share similar tastes. I wash the rest of the ice cream down the sink, feeling slightly virtuous for not having eaten the whole thing.
Sated, I head for the bathroom to take a shower but my cell phone rings. I curse, thinking it must be Izzy with a death call, but to my surprise it’s Hurley.
“Hey, Winston, what are you doing?”
“I was just getting ready to hop in the shower before bed. Why?”
“Can I interest you in joining me for a drink?”
My heart skips a beat and I start to feel all flushed again. “Sure,” I say. “Where?” Before he answers I start a mental chant:
your place, your place, your place.
“How about the Nowhere Bar in fifteen minutes?”
I hope this isn’t a sign our relationship is going nowhere. “Okay, see you there.”
I’m disappointed we’re meeting in such a public place, though I’m delighted to be meeting him at all for something that isn’t work related. But the suddenness of the call throws me into a frenzy because I’m far from date ready. I don’t have enough time to wash my hair because it takes me fifteen minutes just to blow dry and style it. So I pin it up and hop in the shower, washing everything from the neck down. I hesitate when I look at my legs. I haven’t shaved in nearly a week; when the weather gets colder and long pants become a daily fixture, I tend to get lazy. Now I’m regretting it. What if I get lucky tonight? What if Hurley and I end up somewhere in bed together? Can I risk grossing him out with hairy legs?
I decide I can’t and shave them in record time, leaving myself with two good-sized nicks that refuse to quit oozing blood. I get out of the shower and dab some toilet paper on them, praying that scabs are less of a turn-off than winter fur.
I do a quick fix to my hair and make-up, and then change my outfit five times in an effort to find a pair of pants that don’t make my ass look bigger than the fender on a Buick. Rubbish thinks I’m playing with him and each time I remove a pair of pants and toss them aside, he pounces on them, biting and clawing like it’s a life-and-death struggle.
I settle on a pair of pants I find the least offensive—black and made out of a very forgiving stretchy knit fabric—and smooth my blouse down over them. I grab my coat, purse and car keys, and head out with one minute to spare.
I find Hurley sitting at a table in a back corner. He waves to me when I enter and I meander my way through the crowd of people standing around the bar. When I get to the table, he stands and pulls out a chair for me. I catch a faint whiff of some exotic scent emanating from him and my hormones kick up a notch.
“Thanks for the invite,” I say.
He settles back into his own chair and motions at a barmaid. “Wait until you hear what I have to tell you before you thank me,” he warns, his expression taut.
He takes a swig of his Samuel Adams as the barmaid arrives to take my order. I settle on a Miller Lite on tap and the second the barmaid turns away I lean toward Hurley.
“What is it?” I ask.
“We found Erik Tolliver’s gun.”
He just drops it out there, like a bomb, with no further explanation. Judging from his earlier warning, I’m guessing that the circumstances surrounding this find won’t bode well for Erik.
“Where?”
“It was tucked in between some sheets in a linen cabinet in the radiology department at the hospital. One of the techs found it this evening when she was rotating the linens.”
“Fingerprints?” I ask.
Hurley shakes his head. “It was wiped clean. But that reminds me. We got the fingerprint evidence back from Madison and several of the prints we collected in the house belonged to Erik.”
“Of course they did. He lived there for a long time so I’d expect to find some of his prints. Were any of them found in blood, or in the mess in the kitchen?”
“No,” Hurley admits.
The barmaid brings my beer and I take a swig to avoid looking at Hurley, knowing my disappointment is probably showing on my face. “Have you done any ballistics yet?” I ask, grasping at straws.
“No, but given where we found it . . .” He lets the thought hang there, knowing I’m smart enough to come to the obvious conclusion. Then he further depresses me by adding, “I did some follow-up this evening on those women whose names you gave me and their alibis check out. So if you’re right about Erik, we have no suspects at all. I think it’s time to admit defeat.”
“I’ll wait for the ballistics report.”
Hurley smiles. “You are a stubborn woman, Winston.”
“It’s not stubbornness, Hurley, it’s my gut. I consider myself a pretty good judge of character and I truly don’t think Erik Tolliver could have done this.”
“Despite all the evidence?”
“It’s circumstantial, just like it was with David.”
An awkward silence stretches between us. When Karen Owenby was murdered, the primary suspect, at least in Hurley’s eyes, was my husband, David. But despite my anger and disappointment with David over his affair, I couldn’t make myself believe he was a killer, despite some pretty damning evidence. Hurley and I butted heads then much as we are now. That time, I prevailed, but I have to confess that this time I’m a little less sure. I know Erik fairly well, but not nearly as well as I know David. And despite what I just said to Hurley about my gut, I’m clearly not as astute as I might think, given that David managed to carry on an affair for a long while without my knowledge.
Hoping to lighten the mood and keep my hasty leg shaving from being a total waste of time, I challenge Hurley to a game of darts. But my heart isn’t in it tonight and he beats me handily. With my beer now gone, I tell Hurley I’m going to call it a night.
“Okay,” he says, draining the last of his second beer. “I’ll walk you out.”
He gathers both of our coats from our table and holds mine for me while I put it on. As he settles the coat around me, his hands gently grip my shoulders and linger there for a second longer than necessary. I stand frozen to the spot, afraid to move and afraid
not
to move, until his hands finally drop away. My face feels like it’s about one foot away from a blast furnace so I keep my eyes focused ahead, worried that if I look at Hurley the raw emotions I feel will be apparent from the color in my cheeks.
The cool night air seems to help some but I still avoid looking at Hurley until I get to my car. As he looks at the vehicle, a smile crosses his face. “How’s it driving?” he asks.
“So far, so good. The engine seems to run well and the seating is pretty comfy. The lingering aroma of formaldehyde is a bit of a bummer but my niece now thinks I’m a truly rocking aunt and wants to know if I’ll give her and her friends a ride in it with them lying down in the back.”
Hurley chuckles. “So are you going to buy it?”
“I don’t have much choice. It’s the only thing I can afford right now.” I pause and look up into Hurley’s baby blues. There’s a twinkle there, but I also see a hint of something else, something hot and smoldering that makes me squirm in a deliciously uncomfortable way. Something impulsive comes over me and before I can think about it, I lean up and kiss him on the cheek. His skin is warm and spicy smelling, and the bristles from his five-o’clock shadow make my lips thrum.
“Thanks for helping me find it,” I stammer as I step back.
When I look at his face I see that his smile is gone. Embarrassed by my boldness, I start to apologize but all I can do is stammer.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t want to . . . I just . . .”
Any further attempts to explain myself are cut off when Hurley takes my shoulders and pulls me close. Our faces are only inches apart and since I haven’t bothered to zip up my coat, I can feel his chest against my breasts. I’m close enough to be in touch with several of his other anatomical parts, too, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a nightstick I’m feeling. My nipples harden into exquisite little bumps and I have to fight an urge to grind my pelvis against him.
“No apology necessary,” he says, his voice thick and husky. “I rather liked it.” His face lowers and our lips touch in a gentle spark that quickly explodes into a raging fire. He pulls me into him and my entire body comes exquisitely alive with wondrous sensations everywhere it’s touching his. When his tongue probes its way between my lips, I part them willingly, ready to share every inch of myself. My hormones start flaring like sunspots, and just as I’m about to bodily toss my stud into the back of the hearse and do my best imitation of a kinky cowgirl, I hear a familiar male voice behind me.
“Well, well, isn’t this interesting?”
Hurley pulls away from me and it’s all I can do not to grab him back, wrap my legs around his waist, and rein his lips back into submission. But my ardor dies a quick death when I see the source of the voice: Luke Nelson.
Hurley looks embarrassed; his face is beet red and the front of his jeans make it obvious he was enjoying what we were doing. As was I, and I’m pretty pissed off at Nelson for interrupting.
“So are you two always a team?” Nelson asks, smiling at the two of us. “It makes sense, of course, given your jobs and all. I’m sure you share a lot of interests in common.” He pauses and adopts an exaggerated expression of worry. “Though I’m thinking it might make for some conflict-of-interest issues, eh?”
Hurley’s eyes narrow, as does the tent in his pants. “What do you mean?” he asks. “What conflict of interest?”
Nelson shrugs, his smile back in place. “Well, it seems that your respective investigations would require a certain level of objectivity,” he says. “You two didn’t look very objective just now.”
Hurley’s eyes narrow down to a dangerous glint. He says nothing but the look he’s giving Nelson communicates volumes. I imagine the average person would feel rather intimidated—I do, and he’s not even looking at me. But Nelson is no average person.
He stares Hurley down for several seconds and then shrugs again. “You two have a nice night,” he says, and then he turns and heads into the bar.
Hurley’s eyes shoot darts into Nelson’s back. “I think I understand now why you don’t like him,” he mutters. “He’s a smug bastard.”
“That he is,” I concur, wishing Hurley would shift his attention from Nelson back to me. Some of those delicious tingly feelings he triggered in me are still circulating. But Nelson has successfully killed the mood.