Hit and Run (16 page)

Still, Coy Pitchford was in charge for now and he seemed determined to make that clear.

‘Do you know how Dickens died?' Sugar Capri asked, her daughter next to her now. The older of the two was visibly shaking and Lacey slipped a protective arm around her mother's waist.

AnnaLise glanced over at her own mother, still standing side-by-side with Mama. One had the feeling that, together, the pair was indestructible. AnnaLise hoped that was true, given Daisy's recent medical problems. And bills.

‘There's apparent blunt-force trauma to the head,' Pitchford was saying. ‘Though it will take an autopsy to confirm that was the cause of death. In the meantime, we'll need to get your names, addresses and connection – or connections, plural – to the decedent.'

Eddie Boccaccio raised his hand. ‘Officer, some of us may not know your last part for sure as yet.'

‘And why is that?'

‘Let me explain.' AnnaLise was dreading her next words before she clearly formed them. ‘Dickens invited his ex-wives to this weekend as well as ex- … umm, girlfriends. He was hoping to find out whether more heirs to his fortune might exist.'

Pitchford scratched his head. ‘You mean in addition to yourself?'

AnnaLise nodded.

‘Well, that's interesting, I have to say.' Now Coy Pitchford rubbed his chin. ‘Mighty interesting, indeed.'

‘W
elcome to Thanksgiving with the Hatfields and the McCoys,' said attorney Patrick Hoag.

He was seated on one side of AnnaLise, with Joy on the other. Across from them were Mama, Daisy and Shirley.

On the opposite end of the table, just past the massive cornucopia centerpiece, were the Boccaccios, Pucketts and Capris. Sugar was sobbing quietly as Nicole Goldstein, elevated to the only empty seat – that of Dickens Hart – handed her tissues. Lacey was looking on with wide eyes, probably wishing she'd stayed in their room or, better yet, home. As for Boozer, he was hopefully sleeping it off somewhere.

What with the police needing to talk to everyone before dinner, it had been mid-afternoon when they'd finally sat down to eat. That meant the turkey had cooked longer than even Phyllis Balisteri liked. Her scalloped corn and green bean casseroles had formed congealed, crusty brown tops, and part of the marshmallow topping on the sweet potatoes had turned to ash and been scraped off, leaving only a cake-like icing of white goo.

The brown-and-serve rolls had been spared, but only because they still rested, forgotten, in all their plastic-bagged, gummy goodness on the kitchen table.

‘I didn't realize Sugar was so … attached to Dickens,' AnnaLise said, leaning out to see past the sprawling centerpiece. ‘Nicole's going through that whole box of Kleenex.'

Patrick Hoag lifted a wine glass halfway to his lips. ‘Truth be told, the whole lot of them look considerably more stricken than those of us occupying this end of the table.'

‘That's just because we experienced Hart more recently and frequently,' Joy said, displaying the amazingly precise diction of the recently stoned. ‘Pass the sweet potatoes, please?'

AnnaLise obliged, managing to get some marshmallow topping on two fingers. She licked it off.

‘Table manners,' her mother counseled. ‘Use your napkin.'

Her daughter shook her head and held up the monogrammed square of starched linen. ‘I'd hate to get this dirty.'

‘You'll get over that once you've lived here for a while,' Shirley said, helping herself to another serving of stuffing. ‘Just pretend the “D.H.” stands for “dickhead.”'

‘Ha! That's what
I
used to do, too,' Joy said and the two former wives knuckle-bumped each other over the platter of desiccated turkey.

‘Who says I'm going to live here?' AnnaLise dropped the napkin back into her lap.

‘AnnaLise, honey,' Daisy said, leaning across the table with an opened palm, ‘you really should consider it.'

‘You want to move?' AnnaLise asked, surprised that her mother would even consider leaving their family home.

‘No, dear.' Daisy reached for the sweet potatoes Joy had just set down. ‘I want
you
to move.'

AnnaLise's mouth dropped open.

‘Grown-ups need their privacy,' Phyllis intoned solemnly. ‘You can't live with your mother forever.'

‘But I moved back to Sutherton, just so I would be—'

Patrick Hoag, oblivious to the recent turn in the conversation, broke in. ‘It
is
odd, now that I think of it.' He was still focused on the opposite end of the table. ‘From what you all have said, neither Sugar nor her daughter had any legitimate hope to inherit anything from Hart.'

‘I'm thinking that the mother had her heart set on getting Dickens back,' Daisy said.

‘Cute as pie with him, that's true,' Mama agreed. ‘And Daisy here says Sugar same as admitted being a gold-digger.'

‘I thought she said
every
one who came here this weekend was a gold-digger.' AnnaLise reached across Joy to score a slab of white meat turkey. ‘Speaking of which, does anybody know when Chef Debbie was last seen before she went missing?'

‘The chef's gone?' Patrick looked down at his plate of food. ‘I should have guessed.'

‘You shut up now, do you hear, Patrick Hoag?' Phyllis said. ‘You oughta be grateful you're not eating oysters or some such foreign thing on this all-American holiday.'

AnnaLise didn't want to be the one who informed the domestic oyster industry that it was no longer part of the United States.

‘Oh, we are,' Patrick Hoag covered gracefully. ‘It was just that she looked like a … nice person.'

‘She
looked
,' Joy said, ‘like another one of Hart's Bimbettes.'

‘Patrick,' AnnaLise whispered to the lawyer next to her. ‘Did Coy tell you anything more when you spoke with him?'

‘He can't tell you that,' Daisy said. The woman had the attuned senses of a foraging fruit bat. ‘Attorney/client privilege.'

‘Thank you, Judge Daisy,' AnnaLise said, smiling. ‘But I didn't mean anything that Patrick told Coy, rather the other way around.'

‘Either way,' Patrick said, ‘the answer is no. I just wanted to let him know that I was here if I could help.'

AnnaLise glanced around, making sure that neither Coy nor Charity was lurking. ‘I'm not sure if I should be telling you all this, but I've already told the police … There was a woman's overnight bag in Dickens' bedroom last night.'

‘Whose?' The question came from Shirley. Apparently good hearing was another thing Hart's former wives and other lovers had in common.

‘I don't know,' AnnaLise said, leaning forward. ‘But it wasn't there when I entered the room, so I'm thinking that the person I heard come in – who I thought was Dickens – was this woman, instead.'

‘Wait a second,' Patrick said, pushing his pseudo-spectacles up on his nose. ‘If it wasn't there when you entered, when did you see it?'

‘When I left, of course. That's why I know whoever brought it must still have been there.'

‘And where were you?' Patrick asked. ‘Hiding under the bed?'

‘Not a chance,' Daisy said, in a down-home, matter-of-fact tone. ‘It's a platform bed.'

‘I bet she hid upstairs,' Shirley chimed in.

‘Of course, the library,' Joy said. ‘Smart girl.'

Phyllis Balisteri was looking around at her tablemates. ‘For goodness' sake. Am I the only woman here who
hasn't
spent time in that man's bedroom?'

‘Don't be silly,' Daisy said to her. ‘We've all just been nosing around. Are you telling me you weren't curious?'

‘I certainly am,' Phyllis huffed. ‘Curious as to what everybody saw in him.'

‘I ask myself that same question, Mama,' Joy said. ‘But he must still have it, given Chef Bimbette.'

‘Chef Debbie,' AnnaLise said automatically. ‘And we can't be certain the bag belonged to her.'

‘Hopefully Coy will be able to narrow it down by going through the contents,' Patrick said.

‘But that's just it,' AnnaLise said. ‘It wasn't there this morning when Boozer, Daisy and I found the body.'

‘I sure didn't see it,' her mother said, ‘but then Boozer was doing his darndest to keep me away from seeing anything. Where was it, AnnaLise?'

‘On the slipper chair by the stairs.'

Daisy frowned. ‘But that's where you said the champagne bottle was.'

‘Exactly,' AnnaLise said. ‘She must have taken the bag and dropped the murder weapon there.'

‘Talk about your poetic justice.' Joy whistled. ‘Killed by his own shtick.'

‘Joy, please?' AnnaLise had heard enough penis jokes from the weekend's assemblage to last her a lifetime.

‘Not “stick,”
shtick
,' Shirley clarified. ‘As in the champagne.'

‘He'd pop its cork before he popped his own,' Joy expanded.

They all looked at Daisy for an additional contribution, but she just pressed her lips into narrow bands. ‘No help here. I didn't drink back then.'

‘A champagne bottle
would
make an excellent weapon,' Patrick said. ‘Weighted on one end like a juggler's club or bowling pin, and the glass itself has to be thick to withstand the internal pressure of the carbonation.'

‘I wondered about that,' AnnaLise said. ‘I mean, why it didn't break when Dickens—'

‘God rest his soul,' Phyllis interjected. When the others looked at her, she shrugged. ‘Deserving or not.'

AnnaLise glanced toward Daisy, who was tearing up again. ‘As bizarre an idea as this gathering seemed when Dickens raised it, I think in his own way he did want to make amends.'

‘Or,' Joy offered in her stoner tone, ‘get an accurate body count of his personal effect on our planet's exploding population.'

Raised voices drew their attention to the other end of the table.

‘What do you suppose that's all about?' Shirley asked in a low voice.

‘No idea, I'm sure,' Phyllis said. ‘But I do know they're not doing justice to my meal.' The duplicate set of food-laden serving dishes on the opposite end of the table were nearly untouched. The restaurateur didn't take kindly to picky eaters.

‘Poor Nicole looks miserable, sitting there in the midst of them,' AnnaLise said. ‘Maybe I should tell her to—'

Mama cut her off. ‘Don't be foolish. Once dinner is over, I plan on getting hold of that child and pumping her for information on what they're plotting.'

‘Plotting?' Shirley asked. ‘What makes you think that? They barely know each other.'

‘Divided by age, but united in a common purpose,' Joy observed. ‘Getting their greedy fingers on money they don't have now.'

‘I don't think either Eddie or Tyler are hurting financially,' AnnaLise said. ‘Tyler's a broker, though I'm not sure whether real estate or stock, and—'

‘Stock,' Shirley supplied. ‘And from what Lucinda said, the current market volatility hasn't been kind.'

‘Sounds like many of us might be members of the same busted club,' Patrick said, chiseling a piece of congealed Ritz topping away from the corn and nibbling on it like a cracker. ‘What about Eddie?'

‘Dentist,' AnnaLise said. ‘And I must say he's a little touchy about it.'

‘I'm not surprised,' Joy said. ‘His pupils are barely pinpoints.'

‘But what—'

‘Opiate addiction, dear,' Daisy said, reaching across to pat her hand. ‘Remember Ethel Allan up at the top of the mountain?
Her
dentist prescribed Percocet after an extraction and wanted her to come by with the pills, just to make sure they were right.'

Phyllis was nodding. ‘Turns out, he was having all his patients do that. Would take the pill bottle for a closer look and swap the Percocet out for sugar pills. Ethel was left hurting and the dentist was higher than a kite, selling what he didn't swallow himself.'

‘Now that's unfair,' AnnaLise protested. ‘Just because Eddie's a dentist doesn't mean he's hooked on Percocet.' Though it might explain why Eddie's first thought on hearing about Dickens' death was that he'd overdosed.

‘Of course not,' Joy said. ‘Besides, if Eddie wants to get high, all he has to do is talk to his mom.'

‘That's right,' Shirley said. ‘I hear Rose was at Woodstock.'

AnnaLise's headache was creeping back. She used the pads of her index and middle fingers on both hands to massage her temples in forward-and-back concentric circles.

Mama noticed. ‘Now don't you worry. We're not going to let these vultures get ahold of your fortune.'

‘She doesn't have—' Hart's attorney started before slapping his mouth shut.

Not that Phyllis noticed. She was busy stabbing a turkey leg with her knife and dragging it off the serving plate and onto her own. ‘If I were them, I'd be looking to get some of that paternity testing done. And double quick, too.'

Joy seemed to have been thinking about that. ‘They'll need DNA from Hart, and I'm not quite sure how they'd get that at this point.'

Patrick Hoag put a finger up. And then down again, as if he'd reconsidered.

‘A comb or a toothbrush, probably,' Phyllis said, around the turkey leg. ‘That's what they'd do on TV. Once the police are done in that bedroom and they cart him away, we'd best lock that door, keep out pilferers.'

AnnaLise shook her head. ‘As far as I'm concerned, if they want DNA, they're welcome to it.'

The other five all stopped eating and looked at her.

Mama lowered her turkey leg. ‘Honestly, if you weren't practically my own kin, I'd slap some sense into you. You gotta protect yourself here.'

‘Maybe she should hire an attorney,' said Shirley. ‘Like Patrick here.'