3 A Brewski for the Old Man (29 page)

That alarm bell, which had started ringing earlier, far off and distant, now was clanging like I’d stuck my head in the belfry. “You seem to know a lot about it.”

She got to her feet and headed to the bar cart. “Everyone does, that’s all they talk about out here. The Preserves,” she snorted, “more like purgatory.” “People are scared.”

She threw ice cubes at her glass. “You bet they are.” Her tone was angry and aggressive, not frightened. At least one person in the compound had it together.

“Are people scared about what’s going to come out or are they scared because they’ve got a murderer in their midst?”

“Who the shit cares?” she replied. The weepy woman from the Royal Palms had evaporated.

I tried a new gambit. “Ray John had a hold over a lot of people.”

“Not me.” She plopped back against the overstuffed cushions, knees spread and heading in opposite directions, clogs dropping off her feet to the floor. “No way I’d let that piece of shit beat me.”

“Ray John,” I looked for tactful words, “well, he was playing a big part in Thia’s life.”

“Ray John is dead. Things will get back to normal. People will forget. Ray John Leenders can’t hurt anyone now. He was a bastard. Do you know where he was shot?” She made a gun of her hand and pointed to three places as she said, “He was shot in the head, the heart and the crotch, but on him they were all the same organ.” She laughed, a nasty depraved sound.

And I laughed. Don’t know why it seemed funny but it did. Control seemed to be slipping away. The room was strangely out of kilter. After yeoman amounts of practice, and at great expense to my liver, it seemed I was losing my ability to handle alcohol. I was so sleepy I could barely keep my eyes open. Perhaps it was the combination of near death and the joy of escape, mixed with the adrenalin rush and booze, but a heavy blanket of tiredness was swamping me. I stretched out my arm to put the glass on the table. I misjudged where the table was and it tilted dangerously before I shoved it further onto the ebony surface using both hands. I wasn’t well. “Have to go.” I struggled out of the depths of the couch, almost made it to my feet and fell back.

“You haven’t finished your drink yet, barely touched it.” Anita’s voice wasn’t friendly.

“Air…need to go.” I made it to my feet this time.

“You don’t look so well. Just stretch out where you are until you feel better.”

“Saturday…busiest day.” I was walking slowly, dragging my feet through molasses. What was wrong with me? “Short-staffed.” I headed for the front door and not back out the way I came in.

From behind me I felt a hand clamp on my shoulder, fingers digging in, Anita holding me back with her cruel and painful claws.

“You know, don’t you?”

“Don’t know.” The head shake to go with the words threw me off balance. “Don’t know.”

“You were there that night. I thought it was a young girl but it was you. I saw your license plate as you were leaving, RIF RAF, and you saw me coming through the hedge, didn’t you?”

“No, no, wasn’t there.”

“I made a mistake at the Sunset when I told you RJ was shot three times.”

Bingo, the thing I’d forgotten and wanted to ask Styles — how many times was Ray John shot?

“The cops haven’t told anyone that piece of news, have they? And I shouldn’t have told you about my gun.”

“Did you use it to shoot Ray John?” Stupid question. Wrong, wrong, wrong thing to say. Why did I want to know?

“Didn’t have to, RJ’s was right there on the desk, just waiting for me.” She smiled at me. “Good of him to provide the weapon. No one will ever connect it with me.” She smiled again. “And I went out to shoot my own gun so any powder residue could be explained. Smart of me, wasn’t it?”

I backed away from her, my hand scrambling for the door, hunting for the knob, but she grabbed me by the front of my blouse.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” she said and shook me. What was wrong with me? I couldn’t defend myself, couldn’t make my arms work enough to push her away.

“He called me an ugly old skank. He shouldn’t have done that.”

“What did you give me?” was what I tried to say but my tongue was too large and it came out all garbled. My body, growing heavy and no longer obeying, slumped. Only Anita’s grip on my shirt held me up.

“You are such a nosey bitch,” Anita told me. A noise came from outside the front door…she stopped and looked at the door, her eyes widening as she heard the key.

The front door opened and I heard footsteps. I couldn’t make my body cooperate enough to turn my head and see what was happening. Thia walked around us.

“What are you doing home?” Anita demanded, still gripping my shirt.

Thia looked from me to her mother and said, “What’s up?” “Why are you here? You weren’t supposed to come home,” Anita screamed. “Go away, you can’t be here.”

I thrust my weight backwards towards the open door. The force of my momentum ripped my shirt from Anita’s grip and threw her off balance. Thia caught my arm as I stumbled. She held me upright.

Anita recovered quickly, reaching out for me but Thia used her right arm to hold her mother off.

“You don’t look too good, Sherri. How much did you drink?” Thia asked me.

“Few sips, don’t understand.” I had to get out of there. I twisted my body, pushing forward with my weight, intent on getting out the door.

“What did you give her, Mom?” It was hard to tell if Thia’s hand on my arm was helping or holding me back. “Have you been in my room?”

I threw myself forward and bumped up hard against the edge of the open door, rolled off it and out onto the step.

I could hear them arguing behind me. I didn’t look back. I tried to run but it was more of a stagger.

I wobbled down the flagstone path, not running as much as I was trying to keep going forward and stay on my feet. The uneven walkway curved left to the drive where the small sports car sat, still running with the door open. Could I beat them to the car, close the door and drive away?

Momentum and a misstep sent me stumbling across the flagstones and onto the grass away from the car. Control was gone. I couldn’t go back to the vehicle. I hurtled forward across the front lawn. Escape was all.

Somewhere in the night I heard laughter and a voice calling goodnight. Safe, a haven, that’s what I needed. I stumbled towards the voices, over the curb and onto the street. Arms windmilling, I fought to stay upright. “Wait, wait,” Anita called behind me.

Across the street a man and a woman were getting into a Jaguar.

“Help,” I croaked, stumbling towards them. “Help.” My arms flapped.

The man turned. “Sherri?” He started towards me. I focused on staying upright, intent on the man in front of me and I fell into his arms as the world went dark.

My eyes opened to see beautiful brown eyes in an equally beautiful brown face. “How are you feeling?” the nurse asked. “Bad.” I closed my eyes and left the world again. The next time I opened my eyes, Dr. Travis said, “Welcome back.”

“You were there,” I said.

“Yes,” he answered. “I was there.”

“Thank you.”

He smiled. “You’re welcome.” I looked down. He was holding my hand. How strange was that? In the nearly ten years I’d been married to Jimmy he had never been more than polite. I’d practically done cartwheels to get Jimmy’s parents to like me but it had never happened. Now he was holding my hand and as I watched he covered both of our hands with his other one as if I might escape. Very strange. I closed my eyes. Styles’ voice called me back. “What the hell happened?” I ignored him and slid my head to my right on the pillow and looked at Dr. Travis. “What was in that drink?” My mouth was thick and wooly.

“We think it was Rohypnol.” He saw my confusion and tried again, “Flunitrazepam.” “A roofie,” Styles put in.

“Good god,” I wailed. “Date-raped by the bride of Chucky.”

“What?” Styles said. “Try and make sense.” He was annoyed with me. Well, he better get used to it because there was a whole lot more to come. His annoyance would soon know no bounds.

“How?” I asked.

This question Styles seemed to understand. “The mother and daughter are denying any knowledge of what happened to you. The mother said she found you in the parking lot, said you were sick so she brought you home. Said you’d been at some other woman’s house and it must have been put in a drink there.”

“I didn’t have anything to drink there. Anita slipped it into the Scotch she gave me.”

“Why?”

“Because she made a mistake when she told me Ray John had been shot three times.” Carefully, I turned my head to face him. “I forgot to tell you.”

His jaw clenched. “The gun registered to her wasn’t a twenty-five. She didn’t use her own gun to shoot Leenders.”

“Well, it was Anita that gave me the roofie. She probably got the drug from Thia, who got it from Ray John. That would be my guess. Lots of weird stuff was going on out there. I don’t think I’d ever have gotten out of that house alive if Thia hadn’t come home.”

“I need details,” Styles said.

“Need to sleep.”

“No, Sherri,” Dr. Travis said, shaking my shoulder gently.

“You must try and stay awake. It will be better. Talk to the detective, it will help you stay awake.”

“Okay.” I licked my lips with a tongue like a slab of liver.

“Here…” Dr. Travis let go of my hand and slipped an arm under my shoulders, lifting me off the bed. “You need to drink as much as you can.” He brought a glass to my lips.

Not even my lips would behave. Nothing was working and the glass was at the wrong angle. More water spilled out the sides of my mouth than ran down my throat.

“Sorry,” Dr. Travis said. “I should have gotten you a straw. Go get a straw,” he said to Styles. Styles trotted off just as he was told.

“Wow,” I said in disbelief. “He listened to you. He never listens to me, must be all that medical training.”

He laughed and laid me gently back against the pillows. He went to the small bathroom and came back with a towel and started dabbing lightly at my face and damp chest. “I’ve got you all wet.”

Had the planet spun upside-down while I was asleep? “Like the converters we had as kids,” I told him. He looked confused. “What?” “Toy man that turned into a car.” Dr. Travis said, “I don’t understand.”

I shook my head. “Neither do I.” Dr. Travis was a robot who had converted into a human. Maybe it would last, but I doubted if he could change a lifetime of ice. I’d best not give in to this nice side of him, keep myself in check until I saw if this was an aberration. “I was surprised to see you there…and grateful,” I told him.

“Bernice and I were just coming out of John and Judy Wood’s after having dinner with them. I was so surprised to see you stumbling towards us with that horrible woman coming after you.” He put the towel on the night table. “She was going to kill you, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” I answered, the reality of it only now sinking in. Styles came back with the straw and put it in the glass. This time Dr. Travis used a button to raise the bed. Styles held out the glass and I sipped from it. I was pretty sure I could do all this for myself but I was enjoying the novelty of being fussed over. Besides, it was giving me some time to sort through things.

“Enough,” Styles said and plopped the glass back on the night table. “Talk.”

Dr. Travis answered for me. “Take it easy. She’s still woozy.” “All right,” I mumbled. “This was what happened. Lacey told me about Ray John meeting a woman in the Preserves he had once arrested for prostitution when he was in the sheriff’s department. Lacey didn’t know her name but it was easy enough to figure out who it was. It was Sheila Dressal.”

“What?” Dr. Travis gasped. “She’s engaged to a guy I play golf with.”

Styles wasn’t distracted. In a cold and angry voice he asked, “Why didn’t you just call me and tell me?”

“I didn’t want to just destroy her life,” I said. “She was starting over. I saw her the day after Ray John died. I knew she was celebrating his death, definitely relieved that he was dead, but I didn’t think she killed him.” Styles snorted with disgust. “You’re equipped to judge?” “Yeah, you’re right, but like I said, I couldn’t just drop her in it, could I?”

“No,” Dr. Travis said and patted my hand, which he was holding again. When had that happened? “Being you, you wouldn’t want to hurt her.”

Okay, this was just too weird. “What?” I slid sideways on the pillow to look up at him. “Who are you?” “You still should have called,” Styles said.

“I was stopped for speeding by Mark Cummings.” I told him what I figured had been happening in the Preserves. “And then I got lost and Anita captured me. When she took that shortcut home behind the recreation hall she saw the license plate on the truck. Like Mark Cummings, she saw it the night Ray John was murdered and remembered.” “Stupid plate,” Styles said.

“It was Anita who killed Ray John Leenders.” My brain took a right turn. “Was he shot three times — in the head, the heart and the crotch?”

“How did you know that, it wasn’t released to the public?”

“Anita told me. She enjoyed telling me. She didn’t think I was ever going to get out of that house. And I wouldn’t have gotten out if Thia hadn’t have come home unexpectedly.”

Styles didn’t need to hear any more. “Is there anything else I should know before I go down the hall and tell her she’s under arrest?”

“Down the hall? What is she doing in here?” Styles raised his eyes to Dr. Travis.

I turned to look at the man holding my hand. “It was Bernice,” he said. “She saw that woman chasing you and took a swing at her with her bag. Dropped her like a sack of potatoes right onto the curb. She wasn’t unconscious but she did seem confused so I thought it was best that she come to the hospital in case of concussion.” “And in case of a lawsuit,” I put in.

“That too,” Dr. Travis said, but he wasn’t looking too nervous. Actually, he was looking quite pleased. “Bernice always was a fine athlete with a wicked backhand.”

I started to laugh but it was too painful. I put my hands up to my head where the guys with hammers were.

“Take it easy,” Dr. Travis cautioned me before turning to Styles. “I think she’s had enough for now, don’t you?”

Styles went on a bit about getting a statement from me and then left the room without a goodbye, plenty pissed off with me. I didn’t care. My head hurt and my stomach wasn’t feeling too good either. I just wanted to sleep.

That wasn’t going to happen. There was a racket in the hall and Tully burst into the room with a nurse on his heels.

“It’s all right, nurse,” Dr. Travis said and rose from the bed where he’d been sitting. “This is the patient’s father.” He held out his hand and shook hands with Tully. “She’s going to be fine, a little hungover but that’s all. She can go home whenever she’s ready. I’ll go and talk to her real doctor and get it cleared.” He turned back to me. “And you,” he leaned over and pecked me on the forehead, “try to stay out of trouble. Bernice may not be there to rescue you the next time.”

Tully patted Dr. Travis on the back. “Thanks, and thank Bernice for me.”

“Sure,” Dr. Travis replied and left the room.

“Well, beam me up, Scotty. I’ve seen it all,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Bernice called me and told me you were in the hospital. I’ve been waiting forever to get in. They said the doctor and a cop were in here and I should wait until they were done. Couldn’t wait any longer. How you doin’, little girl?”

“Like the doctor said, fine except for a hangover but we both know they won’t kill you.”

“Are you ready to go home?”

I threw back the covers. “Call in the dogs and piss on the fire,” I said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”