Richmond considers my request for a few more seconds and then shrugs. “Sure, I don’t see what it will hurt. Come on.”
Steph buzzes me into the back and I follow Richmond into a large office that holds four desks. He walks over to one of them, flips through some files, and then says, “Here we go.” He pulls the phone company paperwork from a manila folder and hands it to me. I see a list of dates with corresponding phone numbers lining the pages. I immediately zero in on the date of Callie’s diary entry for the police corruption phone call and scan the numbers there.
“So how do you know who these numbers belong to?” I ask.
“We run them by the phone company if we see anything that looks interesting. For instance, we ran all the numbers that appear on the day she was killed and for a day or two before that.”
“And did you find anything useful?”
“Nah, it was all work-related stuff, or calls to her family.”
Most of the numbers I see appear more than once on the list and they are labeled with names of Callie’s coworkers, the TV station, and her family. When I look at the numbers for calls made or received on the day of the diary entry, they are all family or work-related calls. Then I notice something peculiar. “Why does this Ackerman guy have, what, at least three different phone numbers?”
Richmond rolls his eyes. “Apparently the guy has a cell for work and another one for his personal use that is unlisted. Plus he called her from his office phone a number of times. That’s this one here,” he says, pointing to an oft-repeated number.
I hand the papers back to Richmond. “Thanks, Bob. That was very helpful.” I turn and head back out front with him on my heels. When we reach the front desk Richmond says, “Want to go hit the gym now?”
“I can’t,” I say, and Richmond’s face turns momentarily angry. “I need to run by the hospital and check on David first, but I’ll meet you at the gym after that,” I add hastily. I glance at my watch and see it’s almost noon. “How about one o’clock?”
“One o’clock it is,” Richmond says looking appeased. “See you there.”
He waddles out the door, leaving me alone with Steph. “I’m sorry if I did anything that might get you in trouble,” I tell her.
She dismisses my apology with a wave of her hand. “It’s okay. I don’t think Richmond cares anyway. And speaking of Richmond, what’s this about a health club?”
“When I made the mistake of lecturing him on his weight, he begged me to go to the gym with him so he wouldn’t be the only fat person there.”
“You’re not fat,” Steph says. “You’re just a big girl . . . large boned.”
I shrug, knowing she’s being kind. Steph is a bit overweight herself and these types of shared euphemisms are the secret passwords for entry into the overweight women’s glee club. “I can use the exercise and Richmond can use the support,” I tell her. “Besides, I feel obligated to help him try. If he doesn’t do something, he’ll be dead soon.”
“Ah,” Steph says with a knowing smile. “You’re channeling your inner nurse. Well, I’m sure it will prove interesting. I hope your CPR skills are up to par.”
“Have you seen Hurley today?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “Nope, and I don’t expect to. He requested some time off for a medical leave. He’s going to be out the rest of the week. Convenient, wouldn’t you say?” At first I don’t understand what she’s getting at, but then she adds, “Given that it’s Thanksgiving week.”
“You think it’s a ruse?”
“Who knows?” She looks over her shoulder and then leans forward conspiratorially. “Nobody here knows much about Hurley. He’s rather tight-lipped. A bit of a mystery man, you know?”
Boy, do I.
“But I guess that if the chief approved it, Hurley must have had some kind of supportive information for this supposed emergency, or a helluva convincing story. I wish I knew. I wouldn’t mind having the whole week off, too.”
I thank Steph for risking her job for me and head for the hospital to check on David. I’m told he’s still in ICU and I make my way up to the third floor where it’s located. When I step into the elevator—I see no reason to start the exercise abuse early by taking the stairs—I’m joined by Nancy Molinaro. She’s wearing a black skirt suit with thick, flesh-colored hose and a pair of serious orthopedic shoes. I can see dark hairs matted beneath the hose and consider suggesting that she cut some of it and try to transplant it to her head, where her scalp is shining through in spots. But I don’t. I’m afraid that if I piss Molinaro off, she’ll come knocking at my door carrying a fish wrapped in newspaper.
“Mattie,” she says, giving me a nod of acknowledgment. “Are you here on personal or official business today?”
“Personal,” I tell her. “I’m here to check on David.”
“Yes, I heard about the fire. Any idea yet how it started?”
“Not yet,” I lie.
“Well, I hope David is back on his feet soon. We need our best surgeon.”
That’s Molinaro for you, all about the bottom line.
“I must say, it does seem as if tragedy is following you around these days,” she says, looking faintly amused by the concept. “Ever since you left here and took that job at the ME’s office. Although come to think of it, you did get called in during your on-call time more than any of the other OR nurses. And I seem to recall your cohorts in the ER saying you were quite the shit magnet. I guess some people just attract trouble. I mean look at what happened with you and that nipple incident thing. Who would of thought that—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I say quickly, hoping to cut her off. But she has a point. I did receive the Black Cloud Award four years running when I worked in the ER. Fortunately the elevator arrives on the third floor and I am able to make my escape.
When I enter the ICU, the nurse on duty recognizes me and waves me into Room Two. I tiptoe in, thinking David might be sleeping, but he’s sitting up in bed wide-awake, eating his lunch, though dissecting it might be a better term.
“Hi, David.”
“Mattie! Good to see you. You’re just in time to run out and get me some real food to eat.”
“It doesn’t look that bad,” I tell him, eyeing the food on his plate. “Better stick with what the doctor ordered.”
“Are you kidding me?” He pries the top slice of bread off his sandwich with his fork. “I mean, what is this stuff? The nurse said it’s chicken salad but I swear there’s stuff in here I removed from people in the OR. And then there’s this crap.” He moves his fork over and stabs it into a green square of gelatin on a side dish. When he lets go, the fork remains upright. “You know, we tried to nuke this stuff once and it wouldn’t melt. That’s not a good thing.”
“Other than the food, how are you doing?”
He pushes the tray away in disgust. “I’m fine. They tell me I have you to thank for making it out alive.”
“No big deal.”
“That’s not the way I heard it. So thank you.” He smiles at me and there’s a hint of the old David I once knew and loved in the glimmer I see in his eye. “I’ve always known you still care for me.”
The way he says this makes me wince. “I would have done the same for anyone,” I counter.
“They said the house is a total loss,” he says, ignoring my comment. “I can’t believe how much we’ve lost. And now I have nowhere to stay.” He stares at me long and hard, clearly waiting for me to offer up a suggestion.
“One of the hotels in town should do for now.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of staying with you.”
Over my dead body. Then I remember Molinaro’s shit magnet comment in the elevator and take it back, thinking I might be tempting the gods a bit too much. “The cottage isn’t big enough for two people,” I argue. “Hell, it’s barely big enough for me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “There’s plenty of room.”
“There’s only one bedro
om,” I say pointedly. I give him a look that dares him to suggest we share not just an abode, but a bed.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he counters. “And it’s only a temporary arrangement, until I can get the house rebuilt. It’s the perfect opportunity for us, Mattie. It will give us the chance we need to work on our marriage.”
I roll my eyes at him and sigh heavily. “David, how many times do I have to tell you that I’m not interested in working on our marriage? You and I are done. Finished. I’m moving on.”
He throws himself back against his pillow and pouts like a child. “You are such an unforgiving bitch,” he hisses. “This is about that cop Hurley, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s about you and your inability to keep your pecker in your pants. And speaking of Hurley, what the hell gives you the right to ask him to back off?”
“Ha!” He shoots forward and points a finger at me. “See? If it wasn’t about him, he wouldn’t need to back off, would he?”
“There is nothing going on between me and Hurley,” I seethe. “And even if there was, it’s none of your damned business anymore, David. You lost the right to have a say in my life when you decided to bed someone else.”
His expression turns smug and he folds his arms over his chest, leaning back again. “Say what you want, but I’m not giving up, Mattie. I love you and I want you back. I want us back.”
“You should have thought of that before you went humping around like a dog in heat,” I say, borrowing a page from Hoover’s playbook.
“Object all you want but I know better. And I’m not going to sign any divorce papers. Sooner or later you’ll come to your senses.”
I figure two can play this game of hardball, so I cross my arms over my chest and fire back. “Well, if I recall correctly, David, that house that burned down is in both of our names. So until you come to your senses, I won’t be signing off on any insurance checks.”
His eyes grow wide with disbelief. “You’d really be that cruel?” he says.
“Damn right.”
“You are a bitch.”
“With a capital B.”
The nurse pops into the room, effectively shutting both of us up. “Is everything okay in here?” she asks. “His heart rate and blood pressure are through the roof right now.”
“He’ll be fine,” I tell the nurse. “Besides, he’s too stubborn to die.” I turn and glare at David. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. See ya around.”
I turn and storm from his room, fuming over his insistent denial. But he manages to get the last word in.
“Yes, you will,” he yells after me. “I’ll see you at your mother’s for Thanksgiving dinner.”
Chapter 26
I drive by the cottage to drop Hoover off and to change into some sweats and a T-shirt. At this point I’m glad I let Richmond talk me into going to the gym with him. After dealing with David, I have a ton of pent-up energy to let loose.
I dig the charger Hurley gave me for the throwaway phone out of my purse, plug it in, and put the phone on it. Then, since I have about fifteen minutes to spare, I hobble out to the woods to look for my other phone. The stink of burned everything is still hanging in the air and the smell gives me an instant throbbing headache. As I get closer to the site, I can see just how devastating the fire actually was. The entire front of the house is burned down to the foundation. At the rear, the kitchen—or what’s left of it—is fully exposed, though a good portion of the back wall is still standing. Most of the stairs I climbed last night are gone. Only the top four remain, hanging in midair, a giant pile of burned rubble beneath them. Everything is covered in water, ash, and soot—a soggy, blackened mess.
I thought I’d made my peace with the loss of the house when I moved out, and I truly didn’t think the fire would make that loss any worse. Now I’m not so sure.
A ruined, blackened hull is all that is left of what I’ve come to think of as the years BC—Before Cheating. I’ve been trying to think of the years AD—After David—as a new beginning, but seeing the total destruction of the house this way makes everything seem so utterly, irrevocably final.
I feel wetness on my cheek and for a second I think it has started to rain. Then I realize I’m crying. I swipe at the tears, turn my back on the house, and try to focus on the task at hand. After several minutes of scouring the grounds beneath the trees, I finally find my cell phone. Remarkably it is still intact, though it’s as dead as the throwaway phone. Praying that the battery is the reason, I carry it back to the house and put it on its charger. The tiny yellow light that comes on cheers me to a surprising degree. Maybe there is some hope left after all.
When I arrive at the health club, which is called Slim’s Gym, I see a guy behind the door who looks like a giant muscle on steroids. There is a look of horror on his face and at first I think it’s because of how out of shape I am. But that makes no sense because I remember seeing Richmond’s car in the lot and surely I can’t be viewed as any more of a challenge than he is. Can I? Or have I been totally deluding myself?
The reason behind Muscle Guy’s horrified look becomes clear as soon as I walk through the door. “Do you work at a funeral home or something?” he asks, efficiently bypassing any normal greeting. I notice he’s staring over my shoulder toward the parking lot.
“No,” I sigh. “That’s my personal vehicle.”
“Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack,” I say, smiling. He doesn’t smile back.
“Do you think you could park it around back? Having a hearse in our lot doesn’t give the type of first impression I’d like.”
“Fine,” I say in a way that lets him know how put out I am. I do an about-face, get back in the hearse, and drive it around to the back of the building, pulling onto a tiny, concrete pad that borders on a big cornfield. The space I have to park in is barely big enough for two cars.
When I head back inside, Muscle Guy is waiting for me. “Sorry about that,” he says. “But we do have an image to uphold here.”
Whatever.
“My name is Slim, as in Slim’s Gym. Get it?”
He says it like I’m five years old, and I’m tempted to fire back with a comment about how just because I’m overweight, it doesn’t mean I’m stupid. But instead I smile and say, “Cute.”
“Well, welcome. You’re new here, yes?”
“Obviously,” I say, figuring my physique should make that clear, given that a glance at the other patrons reveals people who are frighteningly fit and slender. I don’t see Richmond, however, and I wonder if they’ve managed to kill him already. Maybe that’s why they wanted me to park in the rear, so they could load Richmond’s body into my car without anyone seeing.
“Bob Richmond invited me as his guest,” I tell him.
“Oh, okay,” Muscle Guy says, nodding knowingly, as if this somehow explains everything. “Come into the office and we’ll get you started. First we’ll go over a questionnaire about your health and exercise habits, and then we’ll discuss your goals. Once that’s done, we’ll put together a routine of circuit training designed to help you meet those goals and then orient you on how to use the equipment. We assign everyone a personal trainer for the first week or so, until we think you’ve got the routines down pat. After that it will depend on your motivation. Your trainer will be Helga. She’s very good.”
I follow Slim into a cubicle where he hands me a piece of paper with about a hundred questions and check boxes on it. It takes me a few minutes to fill out the first side, and by the time I’m done I’m feeling pretty good given that I don’t have any major illnesses, don’t smoke or drink regularly, and don’t have to answer a question about weekly ice cream consumption. I do mention the broken toes, however. Then I flip it over. On the back side are places to fill in my weight, height, and a variety of body measurements, and below that there’s a drawn body that looks like a chalk outline at a murder scene. I hope it’s not a sign of things to come.
“Don’t fill in th
e weight and height section,” Slim says. “We’ll measure you in just a bit.”
Gulp.
“For now just circle the areas on the body outline that you want to focus on improving.”
I draw one big circle around the entire body and hand him the form.
He smiles and says, “Okay, come with me.”
I follow him out into the main part of the gym, which smells like old blood and sweaty socks. He leads me past several rows of machines that look like torture devices from a dungeon, to a closed room near the far end of the facility. When we enter the room, I finally see Richmond. He’s standing in front of a tall, slender woman who has a measuring tape wrapped around his ample girth.
Richmond glances over at me and smiles, but he looks terrified. The woman with the tape lets it go and then writes something on a piece of paper. “Okay, Bob,” she says. “That’s all we need for now. If you’ll go with Slim here, he’ll take you out and introduce you to the exercise machines.”
Slim hands my papers over to the woman and says, “This is Helga. Helga, this is Mattie.”
Helga, who is dressed in tight-fitting shorts and a sports bra, looks like a blond goddess. Judging from the six-pack on her abdomen and the size of her deltoid and trapezius muscles, I’m guessing she’s a body builder. We eye one another and acknowledge the introductions with a polite nod, but I’m not fooled. There is a distinct air of disdain in the arch of her left eyebrow and the pinched line of her lips.
Slim beckons Richmond to follow him out to the main floor area and Richmond does so, looking like he’s headed for his execution. He’s already sweating profusely and I can’t help but worry that he might flood the place once he’s actually done something.
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