Rob Cornell - Ridley Brone 01 - Last Call (18 page)

“Just make sure you keep her out from behind the wheel.”

I drove back to the convenience store where Sheila had picked me up, went inside, and bought a couple bottles of water, a Snickers bar, and some Advil. Back in the car I rolled down all the windows, handed Sheila a bottle of water and the Advil.

“Drink some water and take a couple of these.”

“I don’t have a headache,” she said.

“You will.”

“Only if I stop drinking.” She reached down and popped open the glove box. From inside she withdrew a pint of Irish whiskey. She saluted with the bottle, uncapped it, and chugged.

I tried to reach for the bottle, but she smacked my hand away.

“Don’t you dare.”

I tossed the Snickers bar into her lap. “At least eat something.”

She swatted the candy off her lap like a child throwing a tantrum. I rubbed my face, shaking my head. The drinking was catching up with her. She wouldn’t be able to fake sober for much longer, if at all.

“You should see yourself.”

“To hell with you judging me. You’re the one fucking a murderer.”

“I’m not …” I almost said “fucking her” but I pinched the lie off before it left my mouth. Sheila had no way of knowing what had happened at the cabin, and it was none of her business anyway.

Sheila took another swig of whiskey. “How are we going to get to the
High Note
?”

“You’re set on doing this?”

“Yes.”

“Then put your bottle away and let’s go.”

I climbed out of the car without waiting for her. If she wanted to see the remains of the
High Note
she would have to keep up.

I walked the three blocks west and one block north without looking behind to check if Sheila followed. When we reached the opposite side of the same block where the
High Note
sat, I stopped in front a sprawling Spanish style office building. Smoke hung thick in the sky. Several people in suits or skirts stood outside the office building, gazing up at the smoke. A few milled about on a raised terrace, staring in the direction of the
High Note
. The office building’s parking lot sat back-to-back with the bar’s, a wall of shrubbery and a chain link fence separating the two lots.

I finally glanced over my shoulder at Sheila.

“We can probably see from up there.”

She marched toward the orange tiled steps leading up to the terrace without a word.

I followed, though I couldn’t imagine seeing the damage again. Maybe the shock had worked as an accelerant on my imagination, painting the destruction in larger strokes. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Sheila reached the terrace first and froze at the top of the stairs. Her hands went up over her mouth. I heard a muffled squeal.

I capped the steps a second later.

The terrace provided a perfect view, slightly raised and far enough back to give a full shot of the entire structure and the surrounding parking lot. I could see my parents’ BMW next to Tom’s Taurus. I could see the gaping hole in the building where the front door used to be. Besides the big hole, a couple sections of the roof had collapsed. On the ground a few yards from the front lay a broken portion of the neon sign, only three letters remaining: N-O-T. A smoke haze gave the sight a gritty, unreal quality, like an old photograph.

“Who would have done this?” Sheila said, and without waiting for an answer, shuffled forward to the far side of the terrace. A couple people gave her curious glances as she passed. Others stepped out of her way as she crossed the terrace, sensing her grief.

I gave her a moment alone at the stone railing, then walked up next to her. All the bitching we’d done before, mostly about the
High Note
, seemed pointless while we stood silent and gazed through the smoke.

Sheila cried.

I cried.

When I regained some control of my voice, I cleared my throat and turned to Sheila.

“I think I know who did it.”

Sheila closed her eyes and pressed her lips together.

“I went to see someone about… about Autumn’s situation. Someone I thought might be involved.”

She took a deep breath as if steeling herself against my words. I had the feeling she knew the general direction I was headed, but I had to tell her the details, get it out.

“I might have pushed too hard to get the answers I wanted. This person threatened my life.”

Sheila plucked her earrings off, tucked them into the pocket on her blouse. With trembling fingers she reached behind her head and unfastened the bun in her hair, letting the silver locks drop around her shoulders. She shook her hair out, combed it with her fingers.

“Are you trying to take the blame for this?”

A breeze dried the tears on my face. I rubbed at a cheek with a knuckle and looked down at the
High Note
.

“I’m just telling you—”

“When did this altercation happen?”

“This morning.”

“And you think this person set this up so quickly?”

“The timing’s off, I’ll admit. But this person, his name is Sam, is a criminal, has done time. I’m betting he had some friends he could have called to help out.”

“Are you sure?”

Sam was probably still at work. It would be hard to pin this on him, especially if he did have someone else do it.

“I’m not sure of anything.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Could have been an angry customer. Like those guys you served… you know.”

She wiped a tear off her cheek. “Yes, I know.”

My chest tightened when I realized what it sounded like I was implying. “Not that you… not that this was your fault in any way.”

“If you can think it was your fault, I have every right to believe it was mine.” She turned to me, straightened the collar of my windbreaker. “I’m leaving.”

“We’ll go back to the car. I can drive you home.”

“That’s not what I meant.” More tears pushed from her eyes. “I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about the stipulations in your parents’ will. Maybe, in some harsh way, what happened today happened for a reason. I’m not really one to think that way, but let’s pretend I am.”

“Sheila, we don’t have to do this now.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do. There’s so much you don’t know. About your parents. About me. Life went on while you were gone.”

“I never said it didn’t, I—”

“Just listen,” she said. “Your parents death, I wasn’t ready for it. A long time ago they saved my life in a way. They were there for me when I didn’t deserve them. Now they’ve left me with a responsibility, and again I feel like I don’t deserve them, never did.”

She touched her lips with the tips of her fingers.

I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. I’d grown up knowing this woman, but that was forever I go. I realized I didn’t really know her at all.

“My feelings are too biased,” she said. “I can’t be the one to say whether you’re handling the
High Note
properly or not. Especially not while I’ve slipped off the wagon.”

“None of that matters right now.”

“The insurance,” she continued, “will be enough for you to repair the place and sell it. I won’t stand in your way.”

“You really think that’s what I want?”

She smiled sadly. Her hand took mine. “Be honest with yourself. Don’t let guilt run your life.”

I tried to imagine my life back the way it was, without the
High Note
, without kicking up the past like dust on a baseball diamond every time I took a step in Hawthorne. I could see it, and I wanted it, and I hated myself for wanting it.

“I never was much of a son.”

“No one is a perfect son or daughter. No such thing.”

“Some are better than others.”

“And what good does regret do you now?”

I looked down at the remains of the
High Note
. The pavement was dark and wet from the fire hose. Debris littered the lot. I realized I couldn’t find Tom’s body. Had they moved it already? Or had it burned up to such a degree that it was no longer discernible from the rest of the wreckage?

I turned away.

“What about the clause?”

“Forget it,” she said. “I won’t be around to enforce it anyway.”

“That’s what you meant by leaving.”

“I have a flight to Florida booked for tomorrow afternoon. Seemed as good a place as any for an old bag like myself. There are too many ghosts for me in Hawthorne.”

“I might have been gone for a while, but I’ve got plenty of those here, too.”

“That’s why I wouldn’t dream of forcing you to stay. Do you understand, Ridley? You’re free to go back to California. Sell the house. Sell the cars. Pick up and get out. It’ll be easier that way, right?”

My throat closed and I couldn’t speak. I swallowed, got my voice back. “You decided this before the fire.”

“I decided this last night. I had such a wonderful time running the bar, the excitement, the music—some bad, some good. It reminded me of old times.”

“And you want to leave that?”

“Yes,” she said, looking at the
High Note
as if addressing the bar instead of me. “Because it wasn’t old times. Old times are long gone, and I’ve no business trying to cling to them.”

Chapter 16

After Sheila dropped me off at home, I took the first full tour of the house since I inherited it. I walked every hall, strolled through each bedroom, crept down into the wine cellar and inhaled the sweet must thickening the air. I flicked on lights and shucked aside curtains. I opened windows and left doors wide.

Every square foot seemed to hold a memory, and I let them hit me in the chest until I couldn’t tell the difference between the pang of a new memory and the beating of my heart.

Sheila was leaving, and she said I could leave too.

I didn’t feel as free as I thought I should.

I had returned to Hawthorne and taken over the
High Note
all before I knew anything about the clause in the will that took it all away if I didn’t live up to expectations. Fifteen years was a long time not to speak with your parents. Out in LA I’d almost called home dozens of times, but always put it off. When I got the call from Sheila telling me what happened to Mom and Dad, my mind raced back to those aborted attempts to contact them. Then I got mad. They could have called me, too.

I stood at the window of my parents’ bedroom, staring out at the back yard and the dying garden that I hadn’t even noticed was dying because I never looked back there. I leaned my head against the glass. The room was warm and musty from being shut up for so long, but the windowpane felt cool against my forehead.

I came here on my own.

Sheila said not to let guilt run my life. I hated to think guilt alone had brought me back.

Now nothing kept me from leaving.

I returned to my own room, picked out a change of clothes, showered, replaced the bandages on my face, and generally made myself feel as close to human again as possible.

I went downstairs to the kitchen, brewed a cup of coffee, and used the coffee to refocus my mind.

With Tom dead, I had no way to corroborate Sam’s story. My mind didn’t like the idea of Tom as a murder suspect anymore, either. I wasn’t sure if that was because he’d been killed, letting my own guilt deny his. It didn’t matter. Without Tom, there was only one other person I knew of besides Sam that could confirm Autumn’s actions during that time.

From a metal lockbox under my bed I retrieved my second gun, a Smith & Wesson 686 revolver. I tucked the gun in my belt loop at the small of my back, threw on my windbreaker, and headed out to my Civic.

Lincoln’s estate—you couldn’t just call it a house—was located only a few miles from my parents’, and while a number of Hawthorne’s residents were wealthy, only Lincoln Rice’s property had a manned gate at the driveway. Back when dating Autumn in high school, I had to scale the fence on the far side of the property if I wanted to make an unplanned visit. It felt so
Romeo and Juliet
sneaking in like that. Man, I thought I was cool.

On this visit, I took my chances at the gate, although the look on the guy’s face when my beat up Civic pulled to his little kiosk told me climbing the fence might have been easier.

The man wore a dark suit with a tie, had a fashionable amount of stubble on his head, and an equal amount on his face to give him a hard edged look. The sunglasses with the round lenses were a nice touch. The guy resembled a hit man more than he did a gate guard.

I rolled down my window, gave him a big grin.

His head jerked back like I scared him.

I glanced at my reflection in the rearview mirror and realized the grin with all the cuts and bruises on my face made for a gruesome sight. I tried to recover by offering a friendly wave.

“Here to see Mr. Rice,” I said as chipper as I could manage. It’s hard to be chipper when your face hurts.

The man yawned into a fist. “He know you?”

I pointed to my face. “He tried to add to my collection of bruises the other day. I think that makes us bosom buddies.”

His brow crinkled. He yawned again. “Oh, you’re real funny.”