Hit and Run (29 page)

‘From being here?' AnnaLise asked.

‘Hell, no.' Joy gave a shiver. ‘From having been in the same room as Roy Smoaks.'

Once through the front door, AnnaLise resumed her hunt for the authorities, while Joy opted for a nap.

Given that AnnaLise hadn't spotted the overnight bag at the bottom of the lake, she planned to relate only her first theory – that the call to Debbie Dobyns' cellphone was not only made from the house, but received in it. No need to bombard Coy and Charity with too many theories at once and look desperate.

Which, of course, was how she increasingly felt.

Charity Pitchford was sitting behind Dickens Hart's desk when AnnaLise stuck her head in. ‘Can I come in?'

Charity looked up from writing yet another something in her notebook. ‘It's your house now.'

‘Through no fault of mine,' AnnaLise said, not bothering to sit down. ‘Listen, I've been thinking. We know that a call came in to Debbie Dobyns' cell early Thanksgiving morning from this house, correct?'

‘Correct.'

‘Is there any reason why it couldn't have been made by Debbie herself? You could check the GPS on her phone, or—'

Charity pushed back in the chair, making it squeal like a metallic pig. ‘Ms Dobyns called … herself?'

‘Yes. Think about it.' AnnaLise put her palms on the desk and leaned forward. ‘She conks Hart, maybe in self-defense. She's still in the master suite with his body, trying to figure out what to do.'

‘And Ms Dobyns stays there for what must have been another five, even six hours? Why?'

‘First of all, assuming our Debbie's not a stone-cold killer, she's trying to calm down, think things through.' Something else suddenly occurred to AnnaLise. ‘Or, and maybe more likely, she'd been drugged. Hart gave her the wine with the Rohypnol, making—'

Charity frowned. ‘And just how would you know we found that?'

‘You asked Nicole if Chef Debbie had mentioned roofies. You can't honestly think that this stuff doesn't get around, even among relative strangers. This may be a big house, but Dickens' death is the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the bedroom.'

A resigned sigh. ‘Continue.'

‘Anyway, Debbie realizes she's been drugged and – outraged – slugs Hart with the champagne bottle.'

‘And then passes out.' It wasn't a question – Charity seemed to be seriously considering the possibility.

‘And wakes up hours later, remembering – or not, depending on a roofie's power – what happened. Either way, she'd want out.'

‘And to remove any evidence of her ever being there.'

AnnaLise sensed something. ‘Like fingerprints?'

Charity hesitated, and then nodded. ‘The glass with the sediment only had one set of fingerprints on it, and according to the Las Vegas police they're not hers.'

AnnaLise looked at her own fingertips, still smudged with ink. ‘Are you saying they're mine?'

‘Not surprising, seeing as you told us about carrying it in. For what it's worth, there were no usable prints on the other glass. Or the bottle.'

AnnaLise shook her head. ‘But there should have been Nicole's and mine, at least. And Hart's for that matter. He tasted the wine in the first place.'

‘Does seem odd now, doesn't it?'

‘Somebody wiped down the bottle and one glass, but not the other? Why?'

‘Time will tell, as it generally does.'

AnnaLise barely heard Charity's observation. ‘So, we have Debbie in the master bedroom, waking up after being drugged and finding herself with Dickens' body. She cleans up, but misses … Wait, that unwiped glass was on the stairs to Hart's library. In fact, the top step. With the trauma and the Rohypnol, Debbie certainly could have forgotten to check up there.'

The police officer cocked her head. ‘Except I've just told you that her fingerprints aren't on the glass.' Then a level gaze. ‘Sure you haven't … forgotten that
you
carried it up there?'

For a panicked moment, AnnaLise wondered. But then, no. She was sure she'd left both glasses on Hart's dresser. What happened to them after that was anybody's guess.

‘I'm sure. And as to the call I supposedly made to Chef Debbie's cellphone, is it possible she called from the phone in Hart's bedroom? She'd have had to turn her ringer off, so it didn't—'

But Charity was raising her hand up and toward AnnaLise like a school-crossing guard to an oncoming car. ‘Only there is no telephone in that bedroom. We checked.'

Step back and start over. ‘So Debbie used another extension. Maybe here in Dickens' office or … yes, the kitchen. There's an old wall phone. I remember because Mama slammed the refrigerator door so hard she made the receiver fall off it. Having worked in there, Debbie would certainly have seen the thing.'

‘And used it to make the call,' Charity took up. ‘She wouldn't even have needed to talk, just stay on the line long enough that it would appear that a terse conversation took place and she was fired.'

‘What do you think?' AnnaLise asked.

The officer cracked the first smile AnnaLise had seen from her in some time. ‘I think that it's certainly worth telling the county detectives tomorrow.'

AnnaLise resisted pumping her fist in victory. ‘Thank you.'

‘Don't thank anybody,' Charity said. ‘All we're doing as the Sutherton town police is maintaining the crime scene. And collecting information to provide the county with when they get here.'

‘Still, I appreciate you're being comprehensive. Did you say the sheriff's department will be here tomorrow?' AnnaLise pursed her lips, thinking. ‘Which is … Saturday? I'm losing track of time in all this.'

‘I wish your guests were,' Charity said, putting away her notepad and rising. ‘I've been asked no less than ten times how soon they all can leave.'

She tamped her pen into a narrow pocket on the sleeve of her uniform. ‘All of a sudden, I'm getting the impression these people would gladly let you fry if it meant they could get back to their dental practice or brokerage by Monday. And maybe as heirs.'

Dental practice/brokerage heirs. ‘You're talking about my – perhaps – half-brothers, Eddie Boccaccio and Tyler Puckett?'

‘And their mothers, who we've also spoken to, along with everybody else. Apparently the “boys” aren't doing particularly well financially.'

AnnaLise wasn't surprised that the police had interviewed Rose and Lucinda, but she did find it interesting that Charity included the women amongst those willing to let AnnaLise ‘fry.'

A mother/son team, with the mother diposing of the bag in the lake? Rose, at least, had to be a longshot despite admitting she managed to ‘hoist herself out' of the wheelchair on occasion.
And
she'd admitted to being in Dickens' room the night of the murder to snag the marijuana, albeit well before the crime was committed. And as for Lucinda … ‘I heard that the market has been unkind to Tyler. What with all the ups and downs—'

‘He's had more downs than ups, from what we've been able to find out, his clients even more so.'

‘You've been looking into Tyler?' AnnaLise asked. ‘And Eddie, too?'

‘The junkie dentist? Of course.' The officer lifted her uniform jacket.

AnnaLise sensed that Charity, as forthcoming as she'd been, had nevertheless reached her limit. ‘Any word from Chuck?' AnnaLise asked, trailing behind her and into the foyer.

‘Not surprisingly, our chief called in practically the moment he got off that plane in Ireland,' Charity said, shrugging into her jacket. ‘His mother's the one who booked their flights, so they stopped in Rome, Paris and London.'

‘Wow. They visited each of those cities?'

‘More like each of those airports, from what I gather. The time on the ground was barely long enough to pass through security and high-tail it to the next flight.'

‘Yet, Mrs Greystone will always have bragging rights,' AnnaLise said. ‘After all, how many people in Sutherton can say they've visited Rome, Paris, London and Dublin?'

‘Not to mention all in less than twenty-four hours,' Charity acknowledged. ‘Anyway, once the chief picked up his messages and realized what was going on here, we had to do some heavy talking to keep him from flying directly home.'

‘Or indirectly, if Mrs Greystone had anything to say about it.' AnnaLise was making light of the situation, but there was a part of her that desperately wanted the police chief back in Sutherton. Though having Chuck Greystone and Roy Smoaks in the same county, much less the same town or even room, admittedly might not be the best idea. ‘So you convinced him to stay, I hope?'

‘We did. Told him we were already doing everything the way he would.' Charity opened the front door. ‘Thoroughly and professionally.'

‘Again, thanks for that,' said AnnaLise.

‘And again, none necessary.' Charity stepped out onto the porch.

‘You'll be back tomorrow?'

‘We will, with the county. Fearon is pulling another long shift here tonight.'

‘Poor guy.'

‘Hey, he volunteered. Seems the man can't get enough of Mama's cooking.'

AnnaLise smiled and was about to close the door when Charity stopped her. ‘One word of advice?'

‘Any I can get.'

‘Not everybody here is your friend, and many stand to gain something with Dickens Hart gone. Some would benefit even more if you were gone as well.'

Charity flipped on her parade hat, then straightened and tugged it down onto her forehead, as though she were about to brave a windstorm.

AnnaLise said, ‘Thanks, Charity. But from our conversation just now, I'm not quite as worried about being hauled off to jail.' Operative word: quite.

Charity Pitchford smiled once more, but this time grimly, and glanced around as if for eavesdroppers. ‘AnnaLise, when I said “gone,” I meant one way,' she pointed an index finger to the police logo on the crown of her hat, ‘or … another.'

The officer drew the same index finger across her own throat from ear to ear.

A
nnaLise Griggs shut the door, shuddering more than the solid wood did thudding into its frame.

All right, settle down. And make at least a quick, mental list of who might consider acting against you in Charity's ‘another way.'

The obvious people who would benefit most with Dickens Hart dead and AnnaLise out of the estate picture were Eddie Boccaccio, Tyler Puckett and, by extension, their mothers. Neither man, according to Charity, was doing well financially.

The charming Tyler's problems had to do with the market. Prickly Eddie's? Apparently Daisy was spot on about the drug habit, and that, in AnnaLise's journalistic experience, always translated into a need for money as well.

Interesting that Rose, the sixties' stoner, had begotten a son who was addicted—

‘
Mangia!
' The shouted word, followed by laughter, interrupted AnnaLise's thoughts.

She trailed the sound to the stoner herself in the kitchen with Phyllis Balisteri, the latter doubled over in hilarious reaction to something.

‘Everybody OK in here?' AnnaLise asked.

‘Sure, sure. We're just fine.' Phyllis was trying to catch her breath. ‘Rose was just telling me stories about her family.'

‘From the name Boccaccio, also Italian, I assume?' AnnaLise snitched an olive from a tray of antipasto Rose was arranging at the table.

‘Is the Pope Catholic?' Rose asked, sending both two older women into paroxysms again.

AnnaLise smiled, hoping the hilarity was from people of Italian heritage sharing nostalgia, not cannabis, especially given the police presence in the person of Officer Fearon. Though he was apparently so in love with Mama's cooking that he was willing to forego sleep. That might encourage his just winking at a little of the wacky-terbaccky as well.

‘AnnieLeez, don't you go ruining your dinner now,' Mama said. ‘Rose is teaching me to make that antipasto
and
her macaroni.'

‘Macaroni?' AnnaLise repeated. ‘Like the elbow kind?'

‘No, no,' Rose said. ‘My own mother called all pasta macaroni. We're making penne with homemade sauce.' She nodded to a huge kettle bubbling on the stove top.

‘It smells fabulous,' AnnaLise said, going over for a closer inspection.

Phyllis looked on approvingly. ‘There's meatballs and pork and sausage and … What did you call those rolls, Rose?'

‘
Bracciole
– kind of Italian
rouladen
. We were saying that both our families came over in the nineteen thirties, so what we consider “Italian food,” is as dated in Italy as … well, whatever people were eating here in the U.S. in the thirties.'

Phyllis gave Rose a look. ‘Well, isn't
that
… depressing,' sending the two off again.

AnnaLise didn't get it. ‘What's so funny about—'

‘The nineteen thirties. You know, The Great Depression?' They both opened their palms to her in a ‘get it?' gesture.

‘Oh, right. And funny, too.' Like a stick in somebody else's eye was funny. ‘Um, have you seen Daisy?' AnnaLise actually hoped to talk to Boozer Bacchus, but figured if she found one, odds were she'd find the other.

‘Daisy took the younger generation downtown,' Phyllis said.

‘Downtown' consisted of three blocks, centered on Sutherton's Main Street.

‘I hope with Coy or Charity's permission.'

Phyllis's chin dipped toward her chest. ‘Don't know.'

Given AnnaLise's trips to the inn and Bradenham, she didn't have grounds to scold. ‘That's OK. Who went?'

‘That Tyler, Eddie and Lacey,' Phyllis said. ‘Oh, and our Nicole, too.'

AnnaLise asked, ‘You two didn't want to go?'