5 Highball Exit (14 page)

CHAPTER 30

Marnie Mitchell lived in a crumbling apartment building out by the airport—a faded yellow building, where maintenance was kept to a bare minimum. Tall pines dwarfed the two-storey structures and all the screened porches across the front were in tatters or missing.

“It’s so good of you to come.” Mrs. Mitchell stepped aside so we could enter the tiny furnished apartment put together from the leftovers of someone else’s life. The air smelled of her flowery perfume, and the sounds of a crying child and the laugh track from a sitcom intruded from next door.

She pointed to a tiny sitting area. “Please sit down.”

I edged around the coffee table and slumped down into the couch. The springs had gone from under the brown Naugahyde and if Aunt Kay joined me I’d need a crane to get her out. Aunt Kay wisely opted for turning around a straight-back chair from the tiny dinette set.

Mrs. Mitchell sat on the floral loveseat across from me, knees together and back rigid. She was an older version of Holly, like an aged ghost of the person I knew, the same face, build and bone structure. Most of all she used her hands just like Holly. They were never still, always reaching out to touch something before changing their mind and moving on. They fluffed her hair and picked at her clothes until you wanted to slap her hands into stillness.

“I appreciate your coming to see me, really, really appreciate it.” She was bird-bone thin, her chest sunken and collarbones juttingout from under the polyester blouse she wore. She looked as though even the gentlest of touches could break her. Her skin was pale and her hair was an orange color with white roots. With no makeup on, she looked tired and washed out.

Her hands, close to her chest, went round and round each other. “So many people forget you when you’ve been away for a while.”

Her words made me feel like a fraud.

“I just can’t get used to the idea that Holly is gone.” She started to cry in a soft, unobtrusive way, tears spilling silently down her cheeks. “Poor Holly.”

Aunt Kay rose and moved her chair over to sit beside Mrs. Mitchell. The two women, sitting side by side, looked like a before and after picture of extreme weight loss.

Cradling Mrs. Mitchell against her, Aunt Kay made all the soothing sounds necessary. I looked away.

Mrs. Mitchell started to talk about Holly. Her account was long and rambling, with lots of details about people I’d never heard of, just the way Holly told a story.

This is what it came down to. Three years before, the Mitchells moved up to Georgia for an amazing job opportunity. In Atlanta, Mr. Mitchell met someone else and stayed there with all their worldly possessions. About April Marnie Mitchell had returned to Florida and this sad little apartment at the end of the runway.

“Starting over is so hard, especially when you’re alone,” Mrs. Mitchell said.

Aunt Kay said, “But at least Holly was near.” Mrs. Mitchell shook her head. “I never saw her. She always promised but something always came up.”

“I really had it in my mind that Holly had a baby,” Aunt Kay said.

“No, sweetie,” Mrs. Mitchell patted Aunt Kay’s hand. “You must be mixing her up with someone else. Holly never got a chance to do all that. She wanted to be in show business, to be famous, so you see she couldn’t have a baby. She was waiting to have a family until after she had her career. Now I’ll never be a grandma.” Her tears started again, and I wished I’d waited outside. They didn’t really need me and it would have been about the same temperature. The air conditioner was working about as well as the drooping screens on the porch.

Aunt Kay asked, “When are you having a service for Holly?”

“As soon as her body is released, her father will come down.” Her right hand went to her hair and wavered over the crown. “I must get my hair done. We’ll have a memorial service when he gets here, or more a celebration of her life. I think that’s how it should be, don’t you?”

A plane took off over our heads and we all looked up. When we could hear ourselves speak again, Aunt Kay said, “Yes, of course. And I’d like to help. If you could give me a list of her closest friends in high school I’ll get in touch with them and advise them of the memorial service.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you.” Mrs. Mitchell shed more tears. Aunt Kay stood up and turned her chair back to the two-persondining table. “Let’s make out the list now, while I’m here, and I can begin.”

She pulled out the second chair before settling herself down at the table. “I’m sure you’ll think of more people over the next few days, and I can always call them as well, but this will give me a good start.”

It took the better part of another hour and several glasses of ice tea to get out of there. Aunt Kay handed me the list as I unlocked the passenger door. There were only three names on it. Unfortunately, there were no phone numbers to go with them.

I handed the list back to Aunt Kay and helped her into the pickup. “Maybe she didn’t know any of Holly’s friends.”

“Do you know any of these girls?” Aunt Kay asked.

“Yes. Lisa is a flight attendant and lives up north. She came into the Sunset with some friends one night when Holly was working. They sat at the bar, having a high old time, and Holly kept drifting by to talk to them. It was really ticking me off—she had tables to wait. Holly finally got down to business after Lisa told her that she didn’t have what it took to be any kind of an actress or model; told Holly she wasn’t tall enough or pretty enough.”

Aunt Kay gave a little hiss of annoyance. “No wonder you remember her.”

“I sure hope that isn’t where Angel is. But I don’t think Holly would consider Lisa the kind of friend you give a baby to, and really, how old is Lisa? Holly’s age, twenty-one, twenty-two at most, too young to take on a child not her own. I don’t know the other people on the list . . . Amber? Is that her name?”

Aunt Kay nodded.

“Well, would anyone Holly’s age be prepared to raise someone else’s child?”

“You have a point. But maybe there is someone who knew, someone who would have a reason to take Angel.”

“Who?”

“Dan has a sister a few years older than him. She’d have a reason to take her brother’s baby.”

“Without telling Dan?”

“Maybe Holly contacted her and told her about the affair with Dan. If Dee wanted to avoid a family confrontation, she would adopt Angel without telling anyone Dan was Angel’s father.”

“I hope it’s true. It would be the best solution for Angel.”

“I’ll call Dan’s mother about the memorial. Grandchildren will come up naturally when I ask about Dee. Did you find a yearbook, some way of tracking down people Holly knew?”

“No, and it wouldn’t help us unless we close our eyes and stick a pin in a picture.”

CHAPTER 31

It was the quiet period in the bar, before people sneak away from work and a little too early for the regulars to stop in on their way home.

I was alone, slicing up lemons and filling up the trays of garnishes, with Tom Waits growling in the background. This was my time of the day, doing routine tasks, getting ready for the evening to come, settling into myself and thinking about nothing. I like this time. That was only one of the reasons I groaned when Cal Vachess walked in.

He grinned at me like he was sure I was glad to see him. I’ve been a bartender so long no one would ever know I wasn’t happy when they appeared.

No longer concerned with impressing me, Cal clambered up on the bar chair by holding onto the back of the seat and stepping up on a rung, swiveling around and settling down. He got a good look at my leopard print and leather and said, “You didn’t have to get all dolled up for me, but I like it.”

“Did they run out of booze in Sarasota?”

“It’s the bartender, not the booze, I’m interested in.”

And that’s what was worrying me. I set a Jim Beam in front of him. The conversation went around in circles for a bit and then he got to what I figured had brought him. “So . . . you find Holly’s little girl yet?”

“Nope, and we’re not going to either. Aunt Kay was just upset by Holly’s death and needed to feel she was doing something.”

I looked up from the glasses I was unloading from a tray. “Why are you taking such a big interest in Holly’s baby? I thought you barely knew Holly.”

“Maybe it’s not Holly I’m interested in. Maybe she’s just an excuse to see you.” He leered.

I tossed the towel over my shoulders. “Oh, please, don’t try that one on me. You don’t have the chops for it. It’s Holly you’re interested in all right.”

He grimaced and said, “Actually, it’s her baby. I thought there might be a little money to be had in this situation. People might pay to know where the baby ended up.”

“Well, good luck to you if you find the baby and then find someone who cares. I don’t think anyone but Aunt Kay is interested in the kid and she hasn’t any money.” I considered him a bit before I added, “I think you may have another reason for finding the baby.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“You want to know if your brother is the father.”

“Why would I think that?”

“Because you know your brother dated Holly months ago and your brother is reckless and stupid.”

He raised his palms and his shoulders. “Okay, you got me. I thought it might be Ryan’s baby. That thing with Holly went on a long time before I knew anything about it.”

When lying becomes an Olympic event, I’ll be representing the
US
. . . a gold medal winner for sure, but I got to thinking right there and then that Cal might be on the podium next to me. “Why don’t you just ask Ryan if he’s the father?”

“He never tells a straight story, and if the baby is his, well . . .” He drew the word out and shrugged his shoulders. “We take care of our own.”

“You would take the baby?”

“Sure.” He made it sound like I was crazy for thinking anything else. “Actually, I been working it out in my mind. You know, what it would be like to have a kid around, growing up and going to school, all those things.” He looked sheepish. “It wouldn’t be so bad.”

I turned away to hide my face from him. A man who lived off women, proposing to raise a little girl? I had a vision of Uncle Cal interrupting a bedtime story to take a call from a john, saying, “Sorry, honey, Uncle Cal just has to find a nice lady for this man to screw.”

“I’d get someone to live in and take care of her but I’d be there until after lunch. I could do that much. I work mostly at night, but I could even work from home if I needed to.”

The thought creeped me out and turned me crazy. “If the baby is Ryan’s, I want it.”

And if she wasn’t Ryan’s, Cal might still want her. Maybe I hadn’t been too excited about this baby search in the beginning, maybe it was all about the money for me, but the horror of the Vachess brothers with a child was a game changer. No way was Cal Vachess getting anywhere near Angel if I could help it.

“A little girl,” he grinned. “It would be nice to have a little girl around.”

A chill went down my spine. What was to stop him from selling a child as well as adults? “It isn’t Ryan’s baby.” My voice was too loud in the empty room.

“How do you know?”

“The father is in the army, that’s what Holly said. She told Aunt Kay all about Denny.”

His glass thunked down on the bar. It only took him a minute to choose how he was going to handle this news. “I’ll decide when I see the baby if it’s Ryan’s.”

“The baby was born before Holly met Ryan. Doesn’t matter anyway. The baby is dead.”

“What?”

“It’s so sad. Don’t tell Aunt Kay. I’m trying to keep it from her.”

“You sure?” His stare turned me to ice.

I nodded. “It’s too much for Aunt Kay to hear after Holly’s suicide. I don’t know how to tell her. I just told her I’d try to find the baby to ease her mind a little.”

His eyes narrowed.

I gave it my all. “I can understand why Holly took her life. First the guy leaves her, and then her little baby dies. Holly was never what you could call a strong person.”

He stared at me intently. He hadn’t made up his mind yet if he believed me.

“It was some birth defect.” I patted my chest. “Her heart, something called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, that’s why she died.”

Maybe it was the words
birth defect
, or the impressive reality of the name, but he winced as if I’d slapped him. Cal believed me now.

He looked away. “A little girl. I . . . well, I was making plans.”

He gave a small bitter laugh and his eyes came back to me. “I was even planning to redo a room and went to one of those kid’s places to look at furniture. It was going to be all pink and frilly with a white crib . . . lots of stupid ideas.”

He picked up his glass, started to take a drink but set it down on the wood instead, missing the napkin. He pushed the glass around and watched as the damp circles grew. “I thought maybe . . . I thought she might be like me.” His jaw turned to granite. He put the palms of his hands flat on the bar and thrust his prominent chin towards me as if he expected me to argue. “Well, those silly ideas will stop now.” It was as if I’d tricked him into having such thoughts and he was angry at me for suggesting it.

“Sorry,” I said. What was I apologizing for? But it seemed to be necessary. “I’m surprised you thought Holly’s baby was Ryan’s. Didn’t you ask him how long he’d known Holly?”

“Ryan just says what makes things easiest for him and what he thinks I want to hear. I thought I’d take a look at the kid.”

I laughed now, as much in relief as anything. “Did you think you could tell by looking at a baby that it was Ryan’s?”

He gave me a sheepish smile. “Kinda dumb, huh?”

“Kinda.” But maybe he just wanted it to be true, wanted her to be Ryan’s, needed to have someone else to live for when Ryan’s excesses killed him.

Or maybe Cal had other weird plans that I didn’t want to think about.

I left the restaurant just after eleven, earlier than most nights, and ahead of Miguel. Whatever was behind Cal’s search for Angel, I believed my lies meant I was done with the Vachess brothers. I thought I was safe.

Still, I made sure I left the building with a group of diners, walked quickly to my truck under the light by the door, had my keys sticking out through my fingers in a defensive mode and locked the door behind me as soon as I was safely inside.

For all my precautions I felt more cheerful and secure than I had in months. But like always I watched for lights in the rearview on the drive out the beach. I had the road all to myself. I turned on the radio, listening to my favorite Tampa rock station and relaxing, going home and thinking about cashing Aunt Kay’s check, planning who I’d pay and who I’d let slide a bit. It gave me a sense of power over the people who had been dunning me for money. A minor win but I’d take it.

All in all I was pleased with myself. I’d kept Aunt Kay happy and got rid of Cal Vachess. And if I never found Angel it didn’t matter; I figured I’d stopped Cal from looking for her. I felt good about that.

It was garbage pickup the next morning. Taking out the trash constitutes housekeeping for me. In the kitchen, I dumped my keys and purse on a chair and kicked off the red stilettos. I pulled the bag out of the can below the sink and slipped on my flip-flops.

In the darkness of the carport, while I tied a knot in the handles of the plastic grocery bag, I listened to the crash of the waves and small critters chirping and croaking in the thick underbrush, a secret chorus in the night.

I wheeled the trash can out towards the road, the warm night air on my skin and the smell of saltwater soothing me as the large rubber container rumbled over the sand and crushed shells of the drive.

Suddenly a light appeared at the end of the drive. Without thinking, I let go of the bin and darted into the sea grapes growing along the driveway. The crackle of the deep leaves under my feet seemed too loud. The smell of sandalwood rose around me and suddenly the night was silent.

I craned my neck to look down the drive and watched the light dance. It was the same light I’d seen the night before. Then the overhead came on in the car and I saw clearly inside the vehicle parked across the end of the drive.

Cal Vachess was talking on his cell. He looked down at something on the seat beside him as he talked on the phone. Then he slapped his cell together and reached up and turned off the overhead. It was black again.