Running on Empty

by Sandra Balzo

  AnnaLise let the pillow case drop. 'OK. This option is kaput.'

  Daisy picked up the pillow they'd stripped the case from. 'Why don't you rest your elbow on this. At least it'll cushion the weight from your shoulder.'

  Daisy put the pillow on the arm of AnnaLise's chair and gently placed her daughter's elbow on it. Then she dragged over the ottoman for AnnaLise's feet.

  'Thank you, Mommy,' AnnaLise said. It was nearly three a.m.

  'Your whole childhood, you never called me mommy, except when you were hurt.' Daisy was sitting on the couch across from her. 'Or trying to get away with something.'

  'Untrue,' AnnaLise said, letting her eyes drift closed.

  'So,' she heard Daisy say, 'when we lifted the garage door off you, your car wasn't inside.'

  AnnaLise kept her eyes closed. 'Left it at the inn,' she mumbled. 'I was... drinking.'

  'So... ?'

  'Hmm?'

  'Then why were you going into the garage, at all?'

  AnnaLise's eyes sprang open.

  Two hours later, they'd given up on sleep.

  'Should I make some coffee?' Daisy asked.

  'Please.' AnnaLise took the plastic bag of partially melted ice cubes off her shoulder. 'Can you take this, too?'

  'I'll put it in the freezer.' Daisy said. 'You have to use it again in forty-five minutes, anyway.'

  'Then drape it over a loaf of bread, so it'll be formed more to my shoulder than the freezer shelf.' AnnaLise didn't suggest swapping out the cubes for new ones because Daisy's old refrigerator didn't have an icemaker. Her freezer, like everything else in Sutherton, worked at its own pace.

  'Gotcha.' Daisy let the freezer compartment door slap shut before removing a bag of ground coffee from the refrigerator and closing that, as well.

  'You really shouldn't store ground coffee in the fridge,' AnnaLise said.

  'OK,' said Daisy, measuring out the grounds and then returning the bag to the refrigerator anyway. She flipped on the ancient Mr. Coffee machine and came back to sit down. 'Are you going to tell Chuck?'

  'That you ignore me or that you keep ground coffee in the refrigerator?'

  'AnnaLise Marie Griggs, you know perfectly well I'm talking about the attack on you.'

  Hearing the words laid out there like that made AnnaLise uneasy. 'I didn't imagine anything, right? The light couldn't have gone out on its own?'

  'And then slammed the garage door down on you?' Daisy asked. 'I think you give that light way too much credit. After all, I bought the thing from the dollar store.'

  'Which is just my point. Maybe the battery died. Or there was a loose connection or something.'

  'And when you tried again, it worked? Anything's possible, of course, but did you push the light once or twice?'

  'Once, I think. Why?'

  'Well, if the thing went out on its own, wouldn't you have had to push twice? Once to turn it off and once again for on?'

  AnnaLise, even dog-tired, had to admire her mother's reasoning. 'I guess so, but I honestly don't know what's inside the gadget. I just know that when you push, the light should go on. Or off.'

  'And when you raise the garage door, it should stay up, too.'

  'Unless you don't push all the way up. Then the wooden bastard can come slamming down.'

  'Please, AnnaLise, no profanity. But, as you said two hours ago,' Daisy continued, suddenly sounding weary, 'that should have happened right away. Not after you stepped in and turned on the light.'

  'But that's just the point, the light went on. If somebody was inside, why didn't I see them?'

  'AnnaLise, this is your story, not mine.'

  'It's not a story,' she said stubbornly. AnnaLise tried to cross her arms, but that hurt enough that she settled for just jutting out her bottom lip. 'Everything I told you — and Mrs. Peebly and the doc — actually happened.'

  'I believe you,' Daisy said. 'Though I'm not sure... you do.'

  AnnaLise settled back miserably in her chair. 'I just don't want to start an uproar and then have it turn out I was wrong, especially stupid wrong. How in the world do people take the witness stand and testify under oath to something that happened in the past? I can barely remember what I did an hour ago.'

  'Wait 'til you're my age,' Daisy said.

  Mother and daughter looked at each other, hanging in the air between them the thought that whatever was happening to the older woman would also befall the younger.

  AnnaLise struggled to say something — anything — to lighten the mood.

  Daisy held up her hand. 'This isn't hereditary, AnnaLise. My grandmother was "sharp as a tack", as my mother used to say. And she was the same. It's... it's just... me.'

  For the second time since AnnaLise's arrival, Daisy looked like she was going to cry. In this case, though, the speaker wasn't a young Lorraine drifting up from the past. This was AnnaLise's mother, Daisy. Present tense, but also present and understandably tense.

  'It's going to be all right, Daisy,' AnnaLise said, climbing out of her chair in a seven-count movement to sit on the arm of the other's chair. 'I swear.'

  'I won't have you cussing, young lady.' Daisy blinked back her tears with an embarrassed smile. 'I'm sure things will work themselves out.'

  AnnaLise leaned over to give her mother a one-armed hug. 'I know.'

  'Only...'

  AnnaLise pulled back to look at her mother. 'Yes?'

  Daisy's eyes were closed, her head bowed. 'Only... I don't want to forget.'

  'Of course, you don't.' AnnaLise squeezed her hand.

  'There are people who want nothing but to forget. People who have had such pain in their lives, that remembering is unbearable. But for me... even the day your father died, I treasure.'

  'The day Daddy...?'

  'Do you know why?' The blue eyes opened.

  AnnaLise's own eyes were welling, primed by the Labor Day waterworks. That was the problem with tears. You let them out once and...

  She shook her head. 'Why?'

  'Because you, practically still a baby, stood in the center of that waiting room, your little fists clenched, and said just what you said today.'

  'What did I say?'

  'You said, "It's going to be all right, Daisy".' AnnaLise's mother cocked her head and smiled. 'And you know what?'

  'What?' The tears were rolling down AnnaLise's cheeks. It wasn't the way she recalled that awful day, but Daisy's memories, however fragile or suspect, were what mattered now.

  'You were right.' Daisy picked up the discarded pillow case and dabbed AnnaLise's tears. 'Just five years old and damned if you weren't right.'

  AnnaLise Marie Griggs laughed — just a different form of release — and caught her mother's hand. 'Hey, no cussing!'

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mama's opened at 6:30 a.m., so AnnaLise and Daisy stepped onto their sidewalk at 6:29. A minute to lock the door and round the corner and they'd arrive just as Mama unlocked hers. Assuming she was on time. Mama could be... well, 'capricious' might be putting it mildly.

  'Wait,' AnnaLise said. 'Let's check the garage.'

  'We'll be late,' Daisy protested. 'And Wednesday is Coffee Time.'

  'Every morning is coffee time as far as I'm concerned,' AnnaLise said, turning right toward the garage instead of left toward Main Street. 'I want to see if that light really is working.'

  'And if the door stays up, too?'

  'Exactly.'

  AnnaLise gave the door a tug with her good arm and the thing rolled to the roof perfectly. And stayed there, too. 'Huh.'

  'Try the light,' Daisy urged. 'That cake goes fast. Sometimes people even buy a whole one, which I think is a lot of nerve. They should order ahead.'

  'Cake?' AnnaLise said. 'What cake?'

  An exasperated look. 'Coffee Time, of course. I told you.' A refocusing. 'Now, try the damn light.'

  'Patience, Mother Griggs. That must be some cake, if it induces cussing.' But AnnaLise pushed the light. On.

  And the thing stayed on. She pul
led the plastic dome off the nail and shook it. 'Not even a flicker.'

  Daisy nodded. 'I was right. You were viciously attacked. Now let's get some cake before the thundering herd eats it all.'

  'You are a very odd woman,' AnnaLise said, replacing the light and turning it off before lowering the door. 'Has anyone ever mentioned that to you?'

  'Daily, though mostly you, when you lived at home here.' Daisy was leading the way around the corner and down the block to Mama's. 'See? I told you. Look at all the cars.'

  AnnaLise looked. An old Chevy Suburban and an SUV towing a trailered waverunner. The SUV had angled in and then nosed back out, so the whole thing took up three parking spaces and resembled a vehicular boomerang.

  'Two. I think your cake is safe.'

  'Three,' Daisy said pointing.

  'That one's yours.'

  'Oh. Well, hurry anyway. Phyllis is turning over the sign.'

  AnnaLise checked her watch. 6:37 and, better late than never, Mama was indeed flipping 'Closed' to 'Open'.

  A man of about forty hopped out of the SUV and pulled at her door impatiently. When it didn't open, he pounded on the plate glass with the side of his fist and gestured for Mama to turn the deadbolt.

  With a sweeping motion of her right hand, she indicated the man should step back. He did. One step.

  Another sweep. And another step.

  Framed in the door, Mama put her hands on her hips and cocked her head toward his improperly parked vehicle, which would earn Mr. Impatience at least one ticket if Mama decided to call the police.

  He took two more paces back.

  Skirting the man, Daisy put her hand on the door handle. Mama snapped the lock so the door would open. AnnaLise caught it with her uninjured arm as Daisy entered.

  'I wouldn't pound on the glass again if I were you,' she told the man. 'Mama really doesn't like it.' She threw a look over her shoulder at the trailer arrangement. 'Or personal watercraft.'

  He bristled. 'Well then, your Mama can just kiss my―'

  The scent of fresh-baked coffee cake wafted through the open door.

  Ahh, yes. Coffee Time. The aroma of cinnamon, bananas, cream cheese and vanilla evoked the memory the cake's name hadn't. And a very tasty memory, it was.

  The illegal parker got one sniff and made a verbal U-turn. 'Cook. Mama should kiss the cook.' He followed AnnaLise and sucked in a lungful. 'What is that?'

  'Coffee cake.'

  'And don't even think about ordering a whole one,' Daisy interjected. Then to Mama: 'AnnaLise hurt herself, so four pieces, please, Phyllis. We'll eat two here.'

  Hoping that meant one apiece, AnnaLise took a booth.

  'What happened to you?' Mama asked, lovingly laying a piece of cake in front of her while steadfastly ignoring Mr. Impatience.

  The poor sucker, properly chastised, stood quietly at the cash register.

  'She was attacked in my garage,' Daisy said, sliding onto the bench across from AnnaLise.

  The head of the guy at the register jerked around and Mama gave him a mind-your-own-business look. He did.

  The interplay reminded AnnaLise of James Duende, Sheree's 'boarder'. Who really was the man living over the dining room? The first time AnnaLise had laid eyes on him had been here at Mama's and now, according to Sheree, Jim was gone.

  Could his disappearance have anything to do with the recent attacks? And if so, was he perpetrator or... another victim?

  'Some lunatic sent the door slamming down on AnnaLise's head,' Daisy was saying. 'She barely escaped.'

  'Good thing our girl is quick,' Mama said, sitting down next to her lifelong friend. 'Bet the fellow wasn't counting on that.'

  'I don't know if it was a fellow,' AnnaLise said, forking a piece of cake into her mouth. Still warm and topped with cinnamon and sugar pecans. Heaven. 'I didn't see him. Or her.'

  'You didn't?' Phyllis asked. 'Pretty small garage.'

  'That seemed strange to me, too,' Daisy said to Mama. 'Do you think she might have amnesia?'

  'Amnesia of the shoulder?' AnnaLise raised her elbow and was rewarded by a twinge from the higher joint. After meeting Tucker at ten, she had to remember to run by his father's office for that X-ray.

  'We don't know,' Daisy said. 'Maybe you hit your head when you fell.'

  Phyllis added, 'Or the trauma just scared the memory out of you.'

  'Important thing is you'll recover,' Daisy said.

  'And finger the guy,' from Phyllis.

  Daisy and Mama were starting to sound like an old married couple, finishing each other's thoughts in spoken sentences.

  AnnaLise had a thought or two of her own: 'I wondered, too, why I didn't see whoever,' — whomever? — 'was in the garage. But he or she must have been in the corner, up against the wall.'

  'And pulled the door down with the rope,' Daisy said, hand over mouth.

  'Whyever did you put that rope there?' Phyllis demanded.

  'Because I'm too short to reach otherwise,' Daisy said. 'I pull to get it going and step out of the garage before the door comes roaring down.'

  'Just like it did on AnnieLeez.'

  'Exactly.'

  The two mother figures nodded at each other solemnly.

  The chime on the door sounded and the three women turned to see Kathleen Smoaks enter, looking like she hadn't slept. Which put her in the same category as AnnaLise herself and her mother. Daughter swiped at a crusted mustard stain on the leg of the navy sweats she'd pulled on when Daisy had dangled the idea of breakfast at Mama's.

  'Kathleen, you poor thing,' Phyllis said, getting up. 'What can I get you?'

  The guy at the cash register raised his hand. 'A coffee, to go?'

  'Do you mind?' Mama demanded. 'This woman's husband was buried yesterday.'

  He shut his mouth, turned on his heel, and just exited.

  Daisy rolled her eyes. 'Cretin.'

  Kathleen laughed. 'You both are too much. AnnaLise, you're lucky to have such joyful people in your life.'

  Joyful was one thing. Totally whacked was another. Still, AnnaLise had to agree with the overall sentiment. She was lucky. 'Join us, Kathleen?'

  'Well, maybe for just a moment,' she said, taking Mama's vacated spot next to Daisy. 'I'd planned to pick something up and take it on to the office, but...'

  Kathleen worked at Sutherton Real Estate, which handled lakeside properties. She headed the rental division.

  'That realty can't spare you for a while?' Mama asked, approaching the table with a coffee pot. 'They should be ashamed of themselves.'

  Kathleen turned over the heavy white mug in front of her, so Mama could pour. 'Oh, you can't blame them. It's me. I need to be around... people.'

  Daisy touched her hand. 'How are you sleeping, dear? You look awful.'

  Just what every woman wants to hear, but the observation was right on the mark.

  'Pretty well, honestly. Until last night.' She gave Daisy's hand a squeeze and then picked up her coffee. 'I know y'all are aware that Rance was not an easy person.'

  'Rance Smoaks was an asshole.'

  AnnaLise looked at her mother.

  Daisy shrugged. 'Well, he was.'

  Phyllis cocked her head. 'She's right, you know.'

  Of course, Daisy was right, both about Kathleen looking awful and Rance being an asshole. Everybody knew Daisy was right.

  But was Daisy... 'right'? Such candor wasn't her usual way.

  Kathleen didn't seem bothered. She pointed at AnnaLise, who was massaging her shoulder. 'What's wrong? Sleep funny?'

  'A garage door fell―' AnnaLise started.

  'She was attacked,' Daisy said. It seemed to be her new favorite word. 'Right there on my property.'

  'Oh, dear,' Kathleen said, visibly upset. 'Whatever is going on here in Sutherton?'

  Kathleen had always struck AnnaLise as someone who had her head screwed on right. Except for a blind spot, and it was a monumental one: Rance Smoaks.

  May he rest. In pieces.

  'It is odd, isn
't it? All of these — AnnaLise made finger quotes — "accidents", I mean.'

  Kathleen, if anything, looked more upset. Almost like she was going to cry.

  AnnaLise hastened to clarify. 'Though Rance's death, of course, was truly an accident.'

  The other woman burst into tears.

  'What in the world did you say to her?' Mama asked, scurrying over with a big square of cake, her answer to any unhappy situation. She eased the plate in front of Kathleen and Daisy placed a fork in the widow's hand.

  'Eat,' they implored in unison.

  Kathleen looked at AnnaLise.

  'They're not going to quit until you do, and besides, the cake is great.'

  Kathleen sniffled. 'Is it, is it... Coffee Time?' she managed.

  'Yes, ma'am,' from Daisy and Mama.

  Kathleen dug into the sinfully moist cake topped with cinnamon. And she didn't sit back until the square was gone. 'Thanks, that helped. Really.'

  'Always does,' said Phyllis, sweeping the empty plate away with a long-suffering attitude that screamed, 'Why would anyone doubt me?'

  'I'm sorry,' AnnaLise said to Kathleen. 'I didn't mean to imply that there was anything suspicious about Rance's death.' She leaned forward. 'In fact, it's the one "purely" accidental death in these last few days.'

  'If you don't count Daisy de-blooding Ema Bradenham,' Mama said from behind the cash register.

  'But that didn't result in a death,' Daisy protested.

  'Neither did Dickens Hart's getting himself shot, Daisy, but...'

  AnnaLise tapped Kathleen on the arm and they leaned forward across the table so they could hear each other over — or in this case, under — the older women's discussion.

  'Anyway,' AnnaLise said. 'I'm sorry.'

  'Don't be,' Kathleen said, an unexpected touch of venom entering her voice. 'Turns out, you're right.'

  'Right?' AnnaLise whispered.

  'It wasn't an' — matching exaggerated finger quotes — '"accident".'

  AnnaLise sat back as though she'd been slapped across her face. 'You're kidding.'

  'Believe me,' Kathleen said, following suit, 'I didn't stay up all night enjoying the joke.'

  'What joke?' Daisy asked.

  'Somebody has a joke?' from Phyllis. 'I heard a good one the other day. Now just let me think on it.' She tapped a finger to her temple.