Hit and Run (2 page)

AnnaLise had a tough time believing that Boozer had missed many of his boss's self-described ‘peccadillos.' Maybe if Hart was so concerned about appearances, he should have kept his ‘peccer' in his pants. ‘But you don't mind that your own
daughter
sees these “performance grades”?'

‘As you've just resurrected, AnnaLise, we are, after all, family.' A shadow crossed Hart's face. ‘Though you might want to skip over any entries about Lorraine. And certainly don't pass them on to Boozer.'

All of a sudden, Mr Sensitive.

AnnaLise reminded herself of the medical bills stacking up on the Griggs' kitchen table for Daisy's initial battery of neurological tests. And how many actual dollars her daughter might need to pony up toward covering the rapidly accruing twenty percent of those costs that Daisy's insurance wouldn't.

So,' AnnaLise said, ‘to sum up, I should give Boozer the “most current pertinent data” on each wom—' AnnaLise looked up. ‘I assume they
are
all female?'

‘Yes.' Hart's surprise at the question turned to a blush of apparently genuine embarrassment. ‘I mean, I did once consider—'

‘Sorry I asked,' AnnaLise said, to ward off any remainder of his answer. ‘What do you consider to be “pertinent data” so far as Boozer is concerned?' Height? Weight? Bra size?

Her father looked relieved to move onto safer ground. ‘My black-and-white notebook entries are, not surprisingly, chronological. You'll find names, dates and, uhm … places?'

AnnaLise looked up. ‘As in cities, states?'

‘Well, both. But more … specific details, too, such as rooms.'

‘Hotel rooms?'

‘Sometimes.'

AnnaLise began to wonder about the ‘specific' aspect. Perhaps entries like
Tuesday, October 3, 1974: 6 p.m., linen-topped table in dining area; 9:05, bearskin rug before a roaring fire near
—

Hart cleared his throat. ‘I think simply providing Boozer with each woman's name and the date and location of my being with her should be adequate. You'll find a cross reference of sorts in the back of the book.'

‘Cross reference?' AnnaLise's sometimes accursed reporter's training made her reflexively ask cringe-inducing questions. Cringe-inducing for the questioner, at least.

‘By state and city, as you guessed earlier. Oh, and when necessary, by country also.'

Now AnnaLise cleared her own throat and, not as successfully, her mind. ‘Might you also have noted where a given woman was from? And her age, at least approximately?'

‘So far as I knew at the time, yes. Which is just the kind of information Boozer should find helpful in searching for each, as opposed to—'

‘How good you thought she was in bed?'

‘Exactly.' AnnaLise's father, bless his lustfully dark heart, sounded relieved. ‘As a journalist, you'll instinctively know what's important.'

Instinctively, AnnaLise thought, she knew the whole scenario stank to High Country heaven. ‘You had a vasectomy at some point after I was conceived?'

‘Yes, mid-eighties, roughly,' Hart said. ‘But how could you – oh, from my journals. Of course.'

It hadn't been, though AnnaLise wasn't going to tell the man that. Her friend Joy Tamarack had the misfortune of being Hart's third – and last – wife more than a decade after his one-nighter with Daisy had resulted in AnnaLise's conception. It was Joy who had been the not-so-confidential source on the operation.

The fiery little blonde was also not the most discreet of people under any circumstance, but she really threw caution to the winds when it came to her ex-husband. Except, of course, for keeping hidden whatever tidbit of information Joy had on Hart that leveraged her high enough to receive pretty much whatever she wanted from him, starting with a handsome divorce settlement.

AnnaLise hoped to find out more about the ‘tidbit' via Hart's own journals, though she was less anxious to reach ‘My Vasectomy: The Inside Story.' Especially if Hart wrote about it as extensively as he had about every other aspect of his life so far. Even after thoroughly studying the first half-dozen spiral notebooks crammed with boyish scribblings about classroom and playground triumphs, AnnaLise had barely reached the young man in seventh grade. All the chronicling and introspection made her wonder how much validation the thirteen-year-old had received from
out
side his own head. Like, for example, from his parents.

Setting that question aside, as well, AnnaLise said, ‘I raise the snip-'n-clip only because, after that procedure, you couldn't have impregnated anyone else. Do you want me to stop there?'

‘Why?'

Either Hart was dense as a post or AnnaLise had become so. ‘I thought you wanted to find your natural children. Therefore, once—'

‘Oh, yes. Yes, I see what you mean.' There was a glint in the man's eyes. ‘I have to admit, though, I wouldn't mind seeing
all
my old flames, whether technically baby-mamas or not.'

There was something very wrong about a near-septuagenarian warmly using the expression ‘baby-mama.'

‘Even your mansion here isn't big enough for that size of a crowd,' AnnaLise said, snapping her notepad closed and standing up. ‘So, I'll find the appropriate information, pass it on to Boozer and he'll carry the project from there.'

Hart rose as well, rubbing an apparent crick from his lower back after their long, seated discussion. ‘Of course, you and your mother must come. And I'll invite my ex-wives, as well as Bobby Bradenham, if only for old time's sake.'

‘Old time's' being when Hart thought the young boy was his son. For his part, Bobby never knew the man living just across the lake thought he was his father. Good thing, given it turned out to be untrue, as confirmed by the paternity test Bobby had taken at the same time AnnaLise had hers. It was a push as to which of them was more disappointed by the results.

‘That's very nice of you,' AnnaLise lied, moving toward the office door. ‘And just when are you planning this soiree?'

‘Actually, I've been thinking about that,' he said, following his acknowledged daughter into the mansion's two-story, marble-floored foyer. ‘As I mentioned earlier, a long weekend seems appropriate, since some people will no doubt need to travel. On my tab, naturally. But there's plenty of room here, so most, if not all, can stay under one roof.'

AnnaLise had to admit the idea of being feted – along with any other illegitimate children, their mothers and assorted ex-wives and ‘girlfriends' – at Dickens Hart's east-shore estate did have its attractions.

If only for people who loved watching sunsets and train wrecks.

‘I do hope you'll come, AnnaLise,' Hart continued. ‘Although I have to warn you: I intend to use the opportunity to conclusively identify my heirs and put them in my will.'

She stopped, dead-center on a huge marble tile. ‘Meaning I'll be required to share my inheritance? No need to worry, Dickens. I don't want anything from you.'

‘Like mother, like daughter,' Hart said, opening the closet across from the sweeping staircase to retrieve AnnaLise's jacket. ‘I hope the other attendees aren't burdened by the same scruples, or Boozer may not be able to assure their attendance.'

‘Don't worry. Patrick Hoag's invitation letter will tell them upfront that you're searching for heirs, right?'

‘Wrong,' Hart said, now holding the coat spread so she could easily slip into it. ‘But Boozer probably will. And should.'

‘Ah.' AnnaLise turned as she buttoned up against the November wind beyond the main entrance. ‘Might he also allow them to assume – mistakenly, of course – that you're in poor health?' As opposed to what appeared to be the real
why
behind the event: the aging, randy scoundrel wanted to revisit his conquests. Or, more accurately, have them revisit him.

Another theatrical shrug. ‘Perhaps. I'll leave the optional tools of persuasion to Boozer.'

Shaking her head, AnnaLise reached to open the door before Hart could. A reprehensible bastard in every way save circumstances of birth, the man had the manners of a Sir Walter Raleigh.

She stepped out onto the veranda, flipping up the collar of her jacket. ‘You aren't just out of your mind, Dickens. This “reunion” of yours can only stir up trouble.'

‘I know that, and rest assured Boozer is of the same opinion. However, we are talking about
my
life. And even if I can't change the way I've lived it, I do intend to provide for my progeny, as I will for you. None of us – not even me – is getting any younger.'

Supressing a smile at the God-like ‘not even me,' AnnaLise started down the steps, reaching the circular drive before she turned back. ‘Much as I hate to admit it, Dickens, I wouldn't miss your get-together for the world.'

He winked over a sly smile. ‘It will be an event, I can promise you that.'

AnnaLise had her hand on the door handle of her mother's old Chrysler before she realized Hart hadn't given her any dates for his soiree. ‘So, when might all this take place?'

‘I've just decided while we've been talking,' he said. ‘It'll be on Thanksgiving weekend. That way people can arrive Wednesday night or even the next morning. We'll have a gourmet feast of turkey and all the trimmings on Thursday, allowing everyone to stay on afterwards and enjoy the grounds here before leaving Sunday to travel home.'

But his mention of the holiday had slammed into AnnaLise Griggs like a sledgehammer – or, better, a meat mallet – to her chest. She managed to croak, ‘Thanksgiving?'

‘And I'm hoping we'll
all
have a lot to be grateful for.' With the sly smile virtually plastered on his face, Dickens Hart, self-appointed Emperor of the High Country, waved haughtily before disappearing into his hard-won palace.

‘D
oes your mother know about this, AnnieLeez?' Phyllis ‘Mama' Balisteri – Daisy Griggs' best friend and, after Timothy Griggs' death, AnnaLise's second mother – was shaking a crooked finger at the girl. ‘Does she know you're gonna spend your first Thanksgiving home in ten years with that rich retrobate you've started calling “Daddy”?'

AnnaLise, sitting red-faced in the ‘family' booth of Mama Philomena's restaurant, didn't bother to tell Phyllis the word was ‘reprobate.' Nor point out that the calendar had turned just seven, not ten, years since she'd been home in Sutherton for Thanksgiving. To do so would only be splitting hairs, and besides, AnnaLise had long ago given up on correcting Phyllis. Even the older woman's mispronunciation of the younger's first name as ‘AnnieLeez' rather than ‘Anna-
lease
.'

But the reporter did intend to set one thing straight. ‘I don't call him “Daddy,” or even “Father.” He's just “Dickens” as far as I'm concerned. Besides, Daisy—'

‘And that means what, can you tell me?' Phyllis interjected. ‘Why, you call your own
mother
by her first name.'

At least that was true, though ‘Daisy' itself was actually a nickname. AnnaLise had taken to calling Lorraine Kuchenbacher Griggs that instead of ‘mom,' ‘mommy' or ‘mama' because, according to the then five-year-old, her mother ‘looked like a daisy,' the halo of curly yellow hair like petals around the center of a tanned face.

It had been a comforting fiction for the little girl as her father –
real
father still, in her opinion – lie in a hospital bed slowly dying. Even so young, AnnaLise knew she didn't have the power to make Timothy Griggs well, but she could turn her mother into a flower. The nickname stuck and, quite frankly, simplified things, since AnnaLise also had a surrogate ‘Mama' in her mother's lifelong friend.

Phyllis Balisteri had inherited the cozy handle from her own mother, Philomena, when the older woman died, leaving Mama Philomena's, a landmark on Sutherton's Main Street, to her daughter. The only complication? Philomena had been so busy cooking for all of Sutherton and its tourist visitors that she'd neglected to pass the craft of traditional Italian cooking on to the next generation, resulting in Phyllis subsisting on convenience food while all sorts of other folk savored Philomena's made-from-scratch delicacies.

After a few unsuccessful attempts at replicating the Italian classics her mother had never reduced to actual, written recipes, Phyllis had resorted to what she knew: down-home dishes featuring the likes of Campbell's mushroom soup and Bisquick baking mix, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and whatever else one might find on a grocery shelf.

In fact, on the booth tabletop next to AnnaLise was Phyllis' trilogy of inspiration:
Best Recipes from the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars, 1979; The Kraft Cookbook, 1977; and Favorite Brand Name Recipe Cookbook, 1981.

All of AnnaLise's life, she and Daisy had helped out in the restaurant, just as Phyllis had in Griggs' Market until it closed the prior year. AnnaLise had grown up bouncing between the two of them – the older women as well as the business establishments that provided both a living and a way of life for all three of them.

That explained why AnnaLise was now seated at the ‘family booth' amongst the cookbooks, menu boards and dry-erase markers as a line of patrons waited outside for tables. It was also why the twenty-eight-year-old had to convince Phyllis to amend the unconventional family's Thanksgiving plans, as well as her own mother.

Who – or ‘whom' – truth to tell, AnnaLise hadn't even informed of Hart's holiday weekend invitation yet.

Silly girl. She'd thought that Mama might be the easier of the two to start with, at least regarding the reunion.

‘Dickens is inviting Daisy,' AnnaLise told her. ‘And you, too, of course.'

That last sentence was a fib, unless Phyllis Balisteri's name was to be found in Hart's Black Book, which AnnaLise dearly hoped would not prove to be the case. Regardless, though, as the daughter of all three by nature or nurture, AnnaLise had the clout to make the invitation happen, especially given her new assignment as the keeper of the soiree's invitation list, such as it was.