Hotter than Helen (The "Bobby's Diner" Series) (14 page)

He pushed her back just inches from his chest. His pelvis and stomach smashed into her gut. He stood about five inches taller than she did. Her breasts bulged out through her tee shirt and he seemed to examine every part of her with his eyes and with his body.

“When I can, I’ll try to keep you informed as much as I can. Okay?”

She nodded, enjoying their closeness and, laying her head against his chest, she looked up at him.

He placed his warm lips on her forehead and kissed her for longer than what she thought would appear appropriate, especially in the office. She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy it.

Then his closeness become something different, something desperate.

“Oh no.”She felt his penis tense for the briefest second.

“Shh. Don’t move.” She felt him draw in a deep breath, trying to strangle off his growing erection. With his breath tight in his chest, he pulled away from her slowly and, thankfully, without an erection.

28

His wavy, ash hair looked gelled flat. Roberta was surprised he showed up. She couldn’t believe his gall. He flagged her from the table where he sat eating a late dinner.

Her cell phone went off inside the pocket of her jacket. Busy-ness was always like that, in spurts. The diner was either busy or dead. Roberta now wished she hadn’t agreed to Georgette taking off early but she had been called into the police station regarding evidence surrounding Helen’s death and simply couldn’t stay to help with the dinner crowd.

She put a finger up to him, pulled her phone out and showed it to him, then flipped it open and answered it. Leaning to one side, she spoke into the receiver.

“Yes?... Hi, sweetheart… You’ll be home, when, next Saturday?... I’ll do something special …” She turned around and whispered to Rick, implying a promise of romance upon his return. “Okay, love you too. Bye.” She flipped the phone closed and turned around then cashed out a waitress who had come up with someone’s bill. Roberta eyed Tanner as she counted out the change onto the tip tray. “There you go.” She slammed shut the cash register and Tanner connected with her and waved her over, again.

As she crossed over thirty steps or so and watched him as he wiped his mouth on a napkin, sliding on the booth over to the wall, making room for her on his side. Roberta sat across from him.

“Hi Martin. What’s going on? I’m a little surprised to see you.”

“Why is that, Roberta? I get hungry too.” His dark brown eyes, the color of compost, looked dead of emotion.

“Yes, but, well,” then she stopped before saying too much. “What can I help you with?”

“Well, I haven’t seen Hawthorne around lately and wondered if Georgette has spoken with him. I want to talk to Helen. Haven’t spoken with her either since the four of us went to Chavelo’s.” He smiled. She couldn’t read him.

“So you don’t know?”

“Don’t know what, Roberta?” The inflection of his words sounded practiced and Roberta wondered why someone might go to this much trouble putting themselves in a direct line of suspicion if they were culpable of any wrongdoing.

“Helen. You don’t know what happened?”

“Roberta, I just told you I haven’t spoken with her in days.” He added for his alibi.

Roberta looked down and then leaning over the table, making Tanner lean in too, she spoke in a whisper. “Helen, um, Martin.” He nodded, trying to look as sincere as he could. “Helen, is, , I’m afraid, Martin. Well, Helen has died.”

He pulled back leaning against the wall. Still staring at Roberta, putting on a good show. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry, Martin. It’s been a shock to all of us.”

“Holy crap. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I’m afraid I am.” She sat back against the booth as well and clutched the edge of the table. Her thumbs and fingers pinched the thickness of the table.

“I think I’ve lost my appetite.” He pushed the plate away from him. It wasn’t exactly what Roberta expected him to say but then again, Helen and Martin, as far as she knew had not yet been intimate. Then, he followed his show with the appropriate question. “What happened, Roberta?”

“We’re not sure yet.” She wasn’t about to tell him anything more.

“What does that mean? Was it a heart attack, an accident? What?”

“Like I said, we’re not sure but, Martin, I’m the mayor. I really can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”

“So it’s being investigated.”

“Martin, like I said. Until we know exactly what happened, I cannot comment further.”

“Of course. I understand.”

“So, let me ask you, Martin. Have you seen Hawthorne lately?”

He tucked in his chin, acting surprised by the question. “Like I said, not since the night the four of us went out. Why do you ask?” he said, stopping at the obvious.

“Georgette hasn’t spoken with him either in a couple of days.” She wasn’t going to mention the affair if Tanner didn’t already know.

“Oh. That’s odd. No, I haven’t seen Hawthorne. Haven’t spoken with him. We’re not that close.”

Roberta cocked her head and squinted. She remembered them talking about good old college days at the engagement party. “But, I thought you and he…”

“College, you mean?” She nodded. “Yeah, well, we kind of went our separate ways. We only recently hooked up when we met each other again at the golf club here. I moved close to Sunnydale, about twenty miles southeast of here. Sunnydale’s the only decent golf course for miles. Anyway, within a week or two so did Hawthorne. Kismet. It works in mysterious ways.” She ignored the mix of clichés and agreed, nodding again and looking down at her hands that were turning red with tension.

When she looked back up again, he was staring at her with what she could only describe as bile and hatred. She slid to the edge of the booth to get back to work and to get away from him.

“Sorry to have to tell you like this.”

“It’s awful, Roberta. Just awful.”

“Yes, well, um, good night, Martin.”

“Night, Roberta.” He scooted his plate of food back in front of him. Roberta walked back to the cash register to help Cammy who had taken over for her. When she got behind to the machine, she glanced back at Tanner. She noticed is appetite had returned. In fact, he looked ravenous.

29

Roberta’s mind was still on closing the diner when she pulled her car into the Safeway parking lot. She wanted a bottle of cabernet plus she wanted to pick up a box of scented salts for her bath tonight. She needed to unwind.

Several high security lights beamed high above the cars casting off what looked like misty ghosts around them. The lot was brightest closest to the concrete curb of the store. She angled her white SUV into a diagonal spot in between two other vehicles. The twenty-four-hour store always seemed busy, even this late after work. As she set the gear handle into park, Roberta looked up and noted the wavy flaxen hair, tall build and broad shoulders of a man moving through the cars. Martin Tanner had just stepped off the curb onto the pavement and was heading toward the cars. He looked both ways as he crossed the lane between the parking spaces and the store.

She slipped down into her seat so he couldn’t spot her. The engine still idled in park but with cars pulling in and out she didn’t worry about her car making too much noise. Angling the rearview mirror to follow him, she watched him as he got into a nondescript cream-colored four-door sedan. The lights flicked on, signaling to her that he started his engine. He began to back out.

Roberta didn’t know why, but she reacted rather than planning out her next few steps.

She backed out slowly and followed him, keeping her distance when he pulled off into the street. She turned the same way he turned, to the right. He stopped at the first red as it changed to green, then continued through. Roberta, keeping about two or three car lengths between them, slowed. He drove about a mile, through several lights that changed as he got to each intersection, causing him to slow down but not stop. He finally turned left and pulled into the hotel where they had found Helen’s body.

Tanner drove around the back near a bank of a high oleander hedge where a dry riverbed ran tight alongside the hedge. The riverbed acted as a diversion drain way for the occasional flashflood.

Upon turning, she had trouble locating his car. It was like it disappeared. She slowed down, examining each parked car as she passed by, trying to see within their dark interiors. The time since he turned and was out of her vision and when she turned down this dark lot had only been a matter of seconds. He couldn’t have gotten out of his car and into the hotel that fast. She assumed was still sitting in his car, hiding.

The thought sent a cold chill up her neck that covered her scalp.

She hated when she began manifesting frightening scenarios. So she talked herself down. She supposed from the many entryways that lined the back of the hotel, that someone in a big hurry could have made it out of their car and into the hotel without her noticing, especially if they parked right next to a door. He might’ve also driven around the other side of the parking lot opposite of where he turned in, but why? Still, he could have.

Roberta felt a little embarrassed when she realized she wasn’t really even sure if the person she saw at the market was Tanner at all.

She sped up, realizing she had let her imagination lead her there. She pulled from behind the hotel and headed out, deciding she would go back to the store.

30

Roberta sat for a couple of minutes in her driveway. Her house, like most others on the street, didn’t have a garage. They had acreage instead. Well, a half-acre, but it provided privacy, quiet and a sense of space in their sparsely housed neighborhood community.

She didn’t mind not having a garage. They had plenty of storage without a garage after Rick built another storage shed in the back.

Breathing in, she realized that this night, for the first time in a long time, she could spend alone—enjoying a glass of wine and taking a long, hot soak in the tub. As she stood outside her car, she looked up into the sky. The storm clouds had been building and then receding for day, but the sky opened up like a kaleidoscope over her house making the stars appear bright and almost fake. Looking northeast toward Laughlin where Rick had gone, city lights blossomed under a cloud cover, killing the stars and leaving a huge mushroom hundreds of miles off in the distance that somehow reflected off a dark oversized truck parked on her street.

She turned again to the south, toward Phoenix. The light swelled even brighter and crossed a wider expanse down there. Phoenix also somehow reflected off the cars that lined her street, catching the shine of the city lights on them like a mirror one hundred miles off.

Sunnydale had been her home for almost forty years and she was thankful that she didn’t live in a big city any longer. Her street still felt like the country with the only lights around coming from the neighboring houses. In fact, they still had an ordinance forbidding street lights at each corner. Roberta enjoyed having the night feel like nighttime. Plus, the quiet of the desert had a peace that no city could equal.

Crickets sang, roadrunners cracked out calls to their mates, the wind rustled scattering tumbleweeds and windchimes added the harpsichord for contrast. But there was also a desert lore that if you held your breath and listened hard, you could hear the ancient natives whisper your name in the wind blowing over, rustling off the needles of saguaros. Roberta pulled in a deep breath of air and as she held her breath, she waited, like she had since she was a kid after first hearing the story. When she let out her breath again, she said to herself, “Maybe next time, when they’re ready for me to hear.” The strap of the grocery bag started to cut into her hand, so she switched sides making her switch her keys into her right hand to open the door. A breeze rustled up and blew a thin pelting of sand into her face and into the window. A bath would be a welcome respite.

Once she unlocked the door, she flipped on the light, she stepped into the house, then closed the door and locked it. She could see from where she stood, where she kicked off her pumps by the door, a note from Rick folded like a tent set on the counter.

She placed the bag and her keys next to the note, pulled her jacket off and threw it over one of the counter’s bar stools. Next, Roberta opened a kitchen drawer, the one with the wine opener. A wind scudded outside, causing something to bang against the house. She looked up momentarily trying to see if she could see out back where the noise came from but the darkness prevented her. She pulled the wine out of the bag and grabbed his note, continuing to read it.

He loved her. He missed her already. He couldn’t wait to get home to her. He wanted to make love to her.

He drew a huge heart around the entire message and then stabbed an arrow into where it disappeared until it came out the back side again. He’d checked off three X’s and drawn three O’s and signed it, “Love you forever, Me.”

She smiled and said in a whisper, while pouring her wine, “I love you too, honey.” It didn’t seem possible today that five years ago they nearly called it quits. He was the love of her life, no matter how trite or corny that sounded. It was true. A thought crossed her mind that she could die today and be happy.