Hit and Run (23 page)

‘Did the police ask you for Debbie's cellphone number?'

‘They asked, certainly, for all the good it did them. The reservation was in her name but, like I said, the charge card and contact information were Hart's.'

A bell jangled, Sheree popping up immediately. ‘Sorry, but duty calls. Come over for margaritas this week, assuming they don't just clap the lot of ya'll in jail.'

‘I'll come if she can't,' Joy, getting up, called after her while glancing at AnnaLise.

‘Thank you, friend,' AnnaLise said, following Joy into the front hall.

Joy opened the door. ‘No
problema
.'

AnnaLise stepped out first. ‘How are the police going to track down this woman? No address, no phone number, no credit information.'

‘Do you remember the phone number you saw?'

AnnaLise shook her head. ‘Just the seven-oh-two area code, and Las Vegas is a big place.'

‘Then it seems that Debbie Dobyns done disappeared.' Joy started down the porch steps.

‘Cute,' AnnaLise said, following her. ‘The alliteration, I mean.'

Reaching the BMW, AnnaLise got in the passenger side. As Joy slid onto the driver's seat, AnnaLise saw her slip something into the side pocket of the door.

‘What was that?' AnnaLise asked.

‘Protection,' Joy said, starting the car.

Geez, was
everybody
planning on getting lucky this weekend? So much so that her friend had to get condoms or similar from her room at the inn? ‘What kind of protection?'

Joy hefted a snub-nosed revolver. ‘The Smith and Wesson kind.'

‘A
re you going to carry that gun into the
house
?' AnnaLise Griggs whispered harshly as she and Joy Tamarack exited the car at Hart's Head. ‘Isn't it bad enough that somebody shot out the window? We have to have guns
in
side, too?'

Joy stopped and frowned. ‘To your first point: no, I planned to leave the revolver in the car, so my BMW can cover the other vehicles' asses. Hell,
yes
, I'm taking it in the house.' Joy now engaged her friend's eyes directly. ‘As to your second point, though, I thought that big ol' owl broke the glass.'

Too late, AnnaLise realized only she and Boozer knew about the bullet he'd found. And, as of last night, Charity. ‘I'll tell you later,' she said, noting a second marked cruiser parked beside Fearon's. ‘But for now, get rid of that gun before Coy sees it.'

‘I have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.'

‘Well, then, “conceal” it somewhere, OK?' AnnaLise was holding up her hands, like she was warding off a demon.

‘Sure,' Joy reached around and tucked it into a holster under her long sweater. ‘Why do you think I changed clothes?'

‘I'm surprised you even had that much sense. I don't know why you—'

Joy turned. ‘For God's sake, AnnaLise. You were a police reporter. You know bad things happen. Your father and my ex-husband was murdered in there two nights ago. You should be glad my snubbie and I will be in the next bedroom down the hall from yours.'

‘Just so you don't shoot me through the wall accidentally.'

‘Glaser safety slugs. They're frangible, meaning no penetration of walls and such.'

‘But they will “penetrate” people.'

Big smile. ‘And devastatingly.'

Lovely.

The front door cracked open and Officer Fearon stepped out onto the porch.

‘Hey, Gary,' Joy called cheerfully.

AnnaLise scowled at her armed-and-dangerous friend before gesturing to the second cruiser. ‘Your relief has arrived, I see. I imagine you'll be glad to go home and get some sleep.'

‘I will that,' Fearon said, blinking in the bright sunlight. ‘Though with us shorthanded, there's no rest for the weary.'

‘Hopefully that'll be true of the wicked as well.' Coy Pitchford had emerged right after him.

‘Our temporary chief is looking at you,' Joy whispered to AnnaLise.

‘He is not.' AnnaLise elbowed her friend.

Joy sidestepped, nearly knocking into Fearon as he trotted down the steps and flashed her a quick smile before continuing to his car.

‘Who's not?' Coy asked. The officer's eyes narrowed, but whether that was because of the bright sun or suspicion, AnnaLise couldn't decide.

She
did
decide, however, to put her cards on the table. Better AnnaLise know now where she stood with the Sutherton police. ‘Joy felt you were referring to me when you said “wicked.”'

‘Stoolie,' Joy Tamarack muttered under her breath.

AnnaLise ignored her. ‘Coy, straight up and straight out. Am I a suspect in Dickens' death?'

Coy, who seemed to have picked up a bit more swagger during the prior twenty-four hours, pulled at his shirt collar thoughtfully. ‘Well, now, I wouldn't say exactly that. We're investigating all sorts of possibilities. And the county, when they get here, will be—'

‘Any update on when they're expected?' AnnaLise asked. She wasn't sure if the arrival of the sheriff's department would improve matters or not, but they would certainly move things along. Despite the fact that it had been only a single day since the discovery of Dickens Hart's body, it felt like she'd been sinking in quicksand ever since.

‘… what with the holiday,' Coy was saying. ‘To make matters worse, there was a twenty-car pile-up on the highway this morning.'

‘Where at?' AnnaLise asked, unconsciously echoing rhythms of speech that had faded during her time away.

‘Down by Tuckerville, where the fog sits some mornings,' Coy said. ‘And a bad one it was, too.'

‘Coy?' Charity was in the doorway with a cellphone in one hand and her notebook in the other. ‘Still nothing on the chef.'

‘But Sheree told us Debbie left the inn yesterday morning,' said AnnaLise. ‘Shouldn't somebody have—'

Now Coy interrupted her. ‘You've been down to the inn, AnnaLise?'

‘Yes, Joy needed to get … something from her room there.'

Mercifully, Joy didn't pull out that ‘something' for display.

‘As to the chef,' Charity said, consulting her notebook as she stepped out to join them. ‘I don't suppose you remember the rest of that phone number you saw?'

‘Afraid not,' AnnaLise said.

‘What good would it do anyway?' Joy asked. ‘If this Debbie's a killer, she's certainly not going to answer her cellphone.'

‘You'd be surprised,' Coy said. ‘Most criminals don't have lots of smarts. Especially ones who act in haste and then react in panic.'

‘Is that what you assume happened?' AnnaLise asked.

‘I don't assume anything,' Coy said, hooking a thumb in the leather super-structure of his holster rig.

‘Seems like a crime of opportunity,' Joy said. ‘Dickens pissed somebody off and they took that opportunity to smack him one.'

‘At least one,' Coy said with a poker face.

‘So you got the autopsy results?' AnnaLise asked.

She expected him to prevaricate with technical terms or outright refuse to answer, but he nodded. ‘Just the preliminary, but no surprises. Cause of death was blunt-force trauma.'

‘No drugs involved?' AnnaLise was thinking about both the kind you smoked and the kind you dissolved in some unsuspecting person's drink.

Coy cocked his head. ‘Now why would you ask that?'

AnnaLise didn't bring up the weed, lest Coy wanted to know where it had gone. ‘As I told Charity last night, I saw something granular in the bottom of the wine glass Morris bagged upstairs.'

‘The glass AnnaLise said was hers,' Charity added for Coy's benefit, putting away her cellphone and taking out a pen.

‘The one I
assumed
was mine, since it was empty. But as I told you, Charity, and Joy can corroborate,' the police reporter hooked a finger toward her friend, ‘there was no sediment in the wine either of us was drinking.'

Seeming to be confused, Joy cleared her throat. ‘No. I mean, yes, there was no sediment. And given the way AnnaLise was guzzling, I'm sure there wasn't a drop left.'

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but AnnaLise would take it. ‘If that
was
my glass, somebody added something to it. The other option is that it was the full glass I'd brought in for Hart, and there was something already in it.'

Charity was shaking her head. ‘Nothing in that wine, or the bottle either. As for the victim, the preliminary labs are clean of everything but alcohol and the prescription drugs we've accounted for.'

‘Do you think you've given our suspects enough information?' Coy snapped.

‘Oh, for God's sake,' Charity said, turning on him. ‘We need information, which means interviewing instead of you walking around as the cock of the roost, buffing your own badge until the county gets here.'

But Joy had gasped. ‘We're
both
suspects?'

Coy grinned. ‘Not so much you.'

‘Hey, Joy's the ex-wife,' AnnaLise protested, her misery yearning for a little company. ‘And we have another one of them around here, too, someplace. Not to mention a chronologically tiered array of gold-diggers-cum-potential heirs.'

‘Fine way to talk about your houseguests,' Patrick Hoag said with a smile as he rounded the corner from the side of the house. ‘Can I be of help in any way?'

‘Please,' AnnaLise said, honestly glad to see an attorney,
any
attorney. ‘Patrick, tell Coy that other people were here Wednesday night who could gain from Hart's death.'

‘Did you draft Mr Hart's will?' Charity asked the lawyer.

‘Estate plan, actually.'

‘Wait a minute. You can't ask him about that,' Joy said.

‘Will you let the man speak,' AnnaLise hissed to Joy. ‘Whose side are you on, anyway?'

‘His client is dead,' Coy said. ‘Besides, we can get—'

Patrick Hoag held up his hands. ‘I'm happy to tell you what's in the plan. I don't have a copy with me, obviously, but Bacchus may know where Dickens had one that's conveniently accessible. If not, Bacchus will certainly have his own as Dickens Hart's executor.'

AnnaLise felt a seismic shift ripple from her feet through the ground beneath them. ‘
Boozer
is Dickens' executor?'

‘See?' Joy glared at Coy. ‘Another suspect.'

‘Dickens' estate plan is exceptionally straight forward,' Patrick said. ‘Other than an annual stipend to Bacchus, everything goes to AnnaLise as Hart's acknowledged daughter.'

Everybody looked at her.

‘What about the
other
heirs?' AnnaLise asked between gritted teeth.

‘Ach, that's true, isn't it?' Coy said, scratching his head. ‘That's why everybody's here in the first place.'

‘Yes,' said AnnaLise. ‘Tell them, Patrick.'

‘They aren't “heirs,” as such. At least, not yet. No recognition in the will. Nor were they legitimatized by Hart before—'

‘Neither am
I
,' AnnaLise exploded. Honest to God, the welcomed ‘mouthpiece' was becoming absolutely obtuse. ‘Eddie, Tyler and me – all illegitimate.'

‘If you'd let me explain what I mean by “legitimatized—” Patrick tried, but Charity interrupted.

‘Do these other – call them “potential heirs” – have proof?' she asked.

‘Not yet.' AnnaLise knew she was throwing her potential half-brothers under the bus to join Joy, but at this point she didn't care.

Twelve weeks ago, she'd been a fatherless child minding her own business, scratching out a living by covering the crime beat for a Wisconsin newspaper. Now she was a purported heiress and perhaps the central suspect in a homicide. Three guesses on which she'd have preferred.

‘But,' AnnaLise continued, ‘all they'll need is Hart's DNA. Seems like they could get that from the coroner.' She was looking toward Charity for support.

The officer shrugged. ‘I suppose. Probably need a court order.'

‘Even if they can't get that,' Joy said, ‘there's plenty of DNA around this place. Starting with the mirror above his bed.'

An involuntary ‘Eeeuw,' from Charity, but Coy and Patrick seemed rather impressed.

AnnaLise, for her part, turned to Joy. ‘There's
no
mirror above the bed. I was wondering about that, because it sure seemed in character.'

‘It was up there in my day,' Joy said. ‘The old man must have redecorated.'

Well, that was a kick in the DNA, AnnaLise thought, then rallied. ‘Just a hair or toothbrush would probably suffice, right, Patrick?'

But the lawyer was holding up his hands again. ‘Let's step back and take this one issue at a time. First of all, in North Carolina, an illegitimate child has the same rights to inherit property from his or her
mother
and the mother's family as any other child.'

‘Only seems fair,' Charity said, nodding.

‘On the other hand,' Patrick went on, ‘an illegitimate child does
not
have a right to inherit from his or her putative birth
father
—'

Joy interrupted with, ‘“Putative,” like we're going to jail the guy?'

‘No.' It was obvious that Patrick Hoag was not lightly suffering the intrusion on his mini-lesson about the law. ‘The word here is “putative,” as in alleged or supposed birth father, not “punitive,” as in punishing someone.'

‘Too bad,' said Joy, disappointment the major tone in her voice. ‘The “putative birth father” should probably have at least one nut cut—'

‘Joy?' AnnaLise said, sensing her friend knew full well what ‘putative' meant, but couldn't resist sniping anywhere that Dickens Hart was concerned, even now. ‘Please?'

Her friend shrugged unhappily, but didn't continue.