False Impressions (13 page)

She woke up several hours later, feeling stiff. She dressed quickly and came down the ladder. The clothes she’d left in the bathroom were neatly folded and placed on the floor. Charlotte drew the line at coming into the loft, but she couldn’t resist picking up after April, no matter how often she asked her not to.

The business card that J.B. had given her was on top.

It was the card of a pharmacist, Dr. T. Adama, from a small chain located in Mountain Top, about fifteen miles away. That’s where he’d told Kit he’d been living. This was the kind of place that J.B. would have frequented when he was shopping for the legal drugs that were needed to make meth.

April’s curiosity was piqued.

She was due at Deana’s in fifteen minutes. She still had half the filing to do. She called the funeral home.

“Hey, April, honey. Good morning.”

“Dee, I’m going to be late today,” she began.

Deana interrupted her. “Listen, I can’t work on the files with you this morning. Why don’t you come in later? I have an autopsy to do.”

April’s heart stopped. “An accident victim, from last night?”

Deana was cautious, never wanting to reveal too much. “All I know is the family is requesting one. I don’t know anything more.”

“It might be Mary Lou’s brother.”

“Her brother Gregg?” Deana asked. “He’s in California, I thought.”

April felt her exhaustion take over. This was too complicated. “I’ll explain later when I come in to finish the filing,” April said and hung up.

April fingered the business card. Why had J.B. given her this? It was practically a dying declaration. It must mean something to him. Something important. While Deana found out how J.B. died, she could find out where he lived during the year he was supposed to be deceased.

She ought to go downstairs and bake something. This is the way it worked in a small town. Death came with condiments. Everyone would be making dishes for Mary Lou and her family. If Bonnie was home, she’d bake a huge lasagna. Suzi would probably make her lemon bars. Neighbors would bring over tuna casseroles and homemade nut breads. Rocky would go to HoneyBaked and bring them a spiral ham.

People would gather in Mary Lou’s country kitchen, offering food and comfort. But April wasn’t welcome there now. She’d find another way to bring solace to her friend. By finding out where J.B. had been.

She waved good-bye to Grizz and Charlotte, who were parked in front of the TV. A small child was sparring with Regis, both of them dressed in silk shorts. Regis looked like a leprechaun. Charlotte put down her knitting, the precursor to getting up and making her a late breakfast, but April held out a hand.

“I’ll be out all day. See you tonight,” she said.

“Meatloaf tonight, dearie,” Charlotte called.

 

Half an hour later, she pulled into the Crestwood Center
parking lot in Mountain Top. It was anchored by a grocery store. The drugstore was right in the middle. It was a national chain, one that had taken over most of the family-owned businesses that had been the norm when she was a kid. Avoiding the snow piled around the light standards, April found a spot not too far from the door.

The brightly colored aisles looked the same as the one she’d patronized in San Francisco and in Lynwood. It felt a bit surreal, and for a moment she wasn’t sure where she was.

April walked to the back of the store. The cold remedies were under lock and key. A sign indicated that the store was complying with federal laws by limiting the sale of certain ones. The drugs needed to make meth.

The pharmacist-on-duty sign indicated that Dr. Adama was here. She looked beyond the counter into the glassed-off area where the filling of prescriptions took place and saw two people in lab coats, both with their heads down, concentrating on their work.

Why did J.B. have this business card? Was this someone who sold him drugs when he was buying? A pharmacist would be a good person to have on your payroll. Someone who could sell the legal drugs needed to make meth.

April took a deep breath. She’d have to be careful. If this guy was involved in something illegal, he wasn’t going to be up front with her.

She was a few feet away from the patient privacy zone, trying to formulate a way to ask for information about J.B. without bringing up the drugs, when the customer in front of her cleared away.

“Can I help you?” a clerk asked, her eyeglasses bouncing on her chest, held there by a fancy beaded chain.

April glanced down at the card, even though she knew the name. “I need to speak to Dr. Adama.”

The clerk was nonplussed. “Please step over there, to the consulting area.”

April moved down a window, under a sign that read “Ask Your Pharmacist.”

Ask what exactly?

A woman in a white coat joined April on the other side of the counter, wearing a professional, quizzical expression. According to the embroidery on the pocket, this was Dr. Adama. Dr. Tina Adama.

April was struck dumb for a moment. This was Dr. Adama? She didn’t know what exactly she’d been expecting, but she definitely wasn’t expecting a round-faced chubby woman who looked younger than she did.

“How can I help you?” the pharmacist asked. Her lab coat strained across her middle. She was in danger of popping a button or two.

“Do you know J.B. Hunsinger?” April asked.

Dr. Adama’s eyes changed. She suddenly looked wary. Maybe she
was
involved with the meth making. Perhaps J.B. had burned her, too. Used her like he’d used his sister.

“Is he a customer of yours?” April asked.

Dr. Adama shook her head quickly, but April didn’t believe her.

To the right of her, a small bent-over woman was quizzing the clerk about her medication. She was very deaf so the conversation was getting louder by the second. “I need my water pills.”

Dr. Adama glanced their way. April was going to lose her if they didn’t move along their conversation.

“Is there some place we can talk?” April asked. “A little more private.”

Dr. Adama took a step away from the window. She glanced behind her. A large Brillo-haired woman stared at April from behind the glass.

“Why don’t you state your business? I’m at work, as you can see.”

State her business. April didn’t know exactly what she’d hoped to find out. Why J.B. had given her the card, of course. It was obvious that the doctor was lying, but without accusing, she couldn’t make her talk.

The Brillo woman was moving as if to come around and rescue her friend. Time was running short.

“I’m a friend of Mary Lou Rosen’s. J.B. was her brother,” April began.

The pharmacist’s eyes widened. Her skin paled quickly, suddenly looking like the skin of an uncooked chicken. She gripped the counter tightly, her knuckles going as white as her face. Her coworker frowned in April’s direction.

“Please don’t tell his sister he’s here. Alive,” Dr. Adama whispered desperately. “He’s started over. He’s doing fine. Jimmy is a changed man. If you’ve come here to drag him back into that life, I won’t let you. We’ve made a new life for ourselves.”

Her friend caught the frantic quality in Dr. Adama’s voice and spoke firmly. “Tina,” she said. “You need to sit down.”

They both looked down at her belly. The pharmacist rubbed her stomach. At first, April thought she had indigestion, but the way Tina Adama stroked the contours of her lab coat, April realized there was a definite bump under there.

Dr. Adama was pregnant. April felt a stab in her own belly. She had to tell this pregnant woman, who obviously knew and cared about J.B., that he was dead. She rolled around sentences in her head trying to find the right words.

It wasn’t going to be pretty.

April looked at the friend by her side. She tried to convey to this women that she had bad news. “Can we go somewhere to sit down and talk?” she said, her voice softening.

The Brillo-haired woman took stock of April, looking her up and down. April kept her expression serious, hoping she understood that this was for Dr. Adama’s sake. The woman seemed to get it.

“Why don’t you go into the break room, Tina?” she said. “Get off your feet for a few minutes.”

“I don’t know,” Tina said, looking back at the office she’d left. “I’ve got a lot to do.” Dr. Adama continued, her eyes going unfocused. “He’s a new man,” she said, the lines around her mouth softening. “I barely remember J.B. Jimmy is a sweet, caring, gentle soul.”

April realized she was talking to a woman in love. A woman in love with a guy she didn’t know was gone. She put a hand on her cold fingers, willing the woman to finally stop talking and look at her. Dr. Adama raised eyes to April. April gulped. This was up to her.

“There was an accident,” April began. Dr. Adama waited for more information. April could see her making calculations. Which hospital? Where to go see him? Probably she was getting ready to call doctors she knew to tend to him.

April swallowed hard. There was no way to make this easier.

“J.B.—What did you call him? Jimmy—is dead.”

The doctor gasped. She tottered and swayed like a sky-scraper in a windstorm. Her coworker grabbed her. April’s stomach sickened. She grabbed Dr. Adama’s hands over the counter, trying to keep her in an upright position.

“Follow me,” Brillo said. April avoided the eyes of Tina’s friend, sure she wouldn’t like what she saw there. She was ready to kill the messenger.

April and Brillo led Dr. Adama to a swinging door and into an employee lounge. A metal table sat in the middle of the room. A yellow laminate counter held a microwave and coffeemaker. Posters about employees’ rights covered the empty wall. The water cooler gurgled, and Tina’s coworker got them both cold drinks. The clang of the coins falling into the machine’s chute made April jump.

“Thank you, Gloria,” Tina said. “I’ll be okay. Go on back to work.” She grasped the soda can and regained some composure, although tears streaked her face.

“Who are you?” Tina asked when her friend had closed the door.

“My name is April Buchert, and I live in Aldenville.”

From the stricken look on her face, she knew about Aldenville. “Was that where he was?”

April nodded.

“I was afraid when he didn’t come home last night.”

“Home? So you lived together?”

Tina rubbed her stomach again. “How did he die?” Tina asked quietly.

“His car went off the road.”

Tina seemed to break apart. Her face caved in, and she slumped forward, cradling her head in her hands, leaning heavily on the table. She was silent for so long, April wondered if she should leave her alone and get her coworker back here.

When Tina did speak, her voice was thick with tears. Her chin quivered. “Oh God. I thought you were going to tell me he’d been murdered. Jimmy was afraid to go back to Aldenville.”

“Why?” April asked. “He had family there. Family that loved him.”

She shrugged. She was spent, the sadness making lines down the side of her mouth. “He said there were people there that wanted to kill him.”

Tina sat back in her chair. She tried to cross her legs but gave up when her belly got in the way.

“How far along are you?” April asked.

“Five months. And yes, it’s Jimmy’s.”

April ignored the sarcasm. She wasn’t here to judge this woman’s choices. She just wanted to know if J.B. had been happy. That was something she could go tell Mary Lou. “How did you two meet?” April asked.

Tina shifted. “About eighteen months ago, Jimmy came in here to buy cold meds. I scanned his ID. It came up as no-sale. He’d bought the same drugs at a CVS fifteen miles away earlier in the day. I was scared. I’d never had to refuse to sell to anyone before. I expected him to go ballistic. Instead, he smiled at me.”

She smiled now, remembering. “He told me later he was so blinded by my beauty, he handed me the wrong fake ID.” She laughed. “Beautiful was not something I’m usually called.”

April could see he wasn’t the only one smitten that day.

Tina continued. “He kept coming back. Never again to buy drugs. Just to see me. Once a week at first, then twice. He brought me coffee and a jade plant. He courted me. An old-fashioned word, I know, but that’s what it was.”

This woman didn’t look like someone desperate enough to get involved with someone making meth. She wasn’t model pretty, but she was smart and educated. J.B. must have been something special. April felt a pang at never getting to know this guy. He was special to Kit, to Mary Lou and now to Tina.

Tina went on. “I looked forward to his visits but didn’t let it go any further. I knew what he was, after all. I couldn’t kid myself into thinking he wasn’t trouble. Still, he was a nice guy. You know how hard nice guys are to find?”

April nodded. God, how she knew. The relief of having Mitch in her life flooded her like a warm bath. Everyone had to find love in their own way. Tina and J.B. had found each other in the opposite of a meet-cute, but it seemed to work for them.

Tina leaned back, closed her eyes and crossed her arms over her stomach protectively. “He wasn’t the picture of a meth maker. I got the feeling he was working off a debt of some kind. He said he never cooked the stuff, just bought the cold meds. He never used, and he said he’d stopped drinking the day he met me.

“Then, in a moment, everything changed. One night he showed up here, out back in the parking lot. He was waiting for me when I got off work.” Tears spilled out of Tina’s eyes. The realization that he would never be waiting for her again seemed to sink in even more. She caught a sob in her throat.

April touched her arm.

“He was a mess. The meth house had blown up. He’d been on his way back there, using one of the cars that they’d kept at the property. He saw the place go up, knew there were people inside and knew he was going to be wanted by the police.”