Dead Ends (Main Street Mysteries Book 2)

by Sandra Balzo

  ‘I'm not sure,’ AnnaLise mumbled miserably. ‘Maybe, umm, maybe she blames me for them coming up here at all.’

  ‘I don't think it's Sutherton she has the problem with,’ Mama said, looking toward the back of the restaurant. ‘She seems to be getting along just fine with parts of it.’

  AnnaLise followed her glance to the table where Josh and Suzanne were locked in a kiss. A long kiss. ‘I guess this explains why Suzanne was so adamant about coming here.’

  ‘Your pocketbook is vibrating,’ Mama said, passing the bag from the bench next to her.

  AnnaLise pulled out her cell phone, which showed a text from Chuck, who she'd been trying to get hold of all morning. It read: Here, if you want to come by.

  ‘I have to run,’ she said. ‘I'll catch you later.’

  ‘Do you need my car?’ Daisy called after her.

  ‘Not for this, but thanks,’ AnnaLise said, hesitating at the door and coming back to give her mom a kiss on the cheek. ‘I'm sorry I almost killed you.’

  Daisy flushed with pleasure. She and AnnaLise weren't given to shows of affection.

  ‘Now don't you be saying that,’ Mama said, waving the younger woman off. ‘Your mother already likes to make herself the center of attention.’

  Which, of course, was where Mama thought her own rightful place was. AnnaLise gave her a cheek-kiss, as well. ‘Well, she certainly has a right, what with her side of the car hanging off over the cliff last night.’

  ‘It was?’ Mrs Peebly asked, eyes rounding. ‘What . . . ?’

  AnnaLise let herself out the door as Daisy recounted the story, accompanied, no doubt, by the Greek chorus pantomime of Mama's eyes rolling.

  ***

  AnnaLise was sitting in one of the two guest chairs in front of Chuck's desk.

  The last time she had been here, the other seat was taken by their friend Mayor Bobby Bradenham and the two of them – AnnaLise and the mayor – had engaged in a shouting match.

  Now Bobby, who'd had a rough past week, had taken off for a few days. AnnaLise missed him. Not only had she and Bobby been friends since kindergarten and first grade respectively, but he was the only one she'd confided in about Ben.

  Granted, the revelation had been inadvertent and accompanied by an epic and uncharacteristic torrent of tears – hers, not his – but it felt good, nonetheless, to tell someone.

  Not that she planned to tell anyone else, especially Chuck, given the circumstances.

  ‘Your car is totaled?’ he asked, lacing his hands behind his head and leaning back in the chair to stretch. Chuck's green eyes always looked a little dreamy – Mama insisted on calling them ‘bedroom’ eyes – but now the chief looked downright tired, the result of a long night which, according to Chuck, had culminated in the positive identification of Tanja Rosewood as the driver of the Porsche.

  ‘And how. The mechanic who answered the phone at the garage said: ”Well, ma'am, we can fix it, but this is the one time the whole will not be greater than the sum of its parts. In fact, I'm not sure we can even find all the parts.”’

  ‘That would have been Earl.’ The chief took a swig of his Diet Coke. ‘The man does have a silver tongue to go along with his eagle eyes.’

  ‘He's the one who spotted the car yesterday.’ Her own Diet Coke, untouched, was sitting on the desk.

  ‘Yup. And good thing. There were no signs at the spot the car went off the road and it wasn't the first.’

  ‘There's more than one car down there?’ AnnaLise was feeling very lucky all of a sudden.

  ‘At least two, though the one's slipped deeper into the gorge, so we'll need some time and equipment to recover it. Could be just a stolen car someone was trying to get rid of, or maybe the poor folks did go over like Mrs Rosewood. If Earl Lawling hadn't spotted the yellow of that car before the leaves and eventual snow covered it and the spring thaw sent water into that gorge, God knows when we'd have found it.’

  ‘I assume Mrs Rosewood died on impact?’ From the horror AnnaLise had experienced just being close to the edge, she couldn't even fathom what it would feel like to be hurtling over it.

  ‘It's a long way down and, despite the law, Mrs Rosewood wasn't wearing a seat belt.’

  ‘They wrinkled her clothes,’ AnnaLise said reflexively.

  Too late, she saw Chuck's sleepy eyes sharpen, like they'd just hopped out of bed and strapped on a six-shooter. ‘And just how would you know that?’

  AnnaLise felt her face get warm. ‘I'm sorry, I thought you knew. Ben is the district attorney for the county I work in.’

  ‘“Ben” being Mr Rosewood?’

  There she went, digging herself in deeper. The less said the better. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, Mr Rosewood certainly made it clear he's a DA there in Wisconsin, but he didn't mention you two were acquaintances. You know the family quite well then?’

  Maybe Chuck should have been a district attorney, though interrogational skills certainly came in handy in police work, too, as witnessed by . . . well, right now.

  ‘The family? No,’ AnnaLise said, following her own mental advice to keep it short, stupid. ‘We were introduced just yesterday at Mama's.’

  ‘Which is when Mrs Rosewood volunteered the information that she hated seat belts?’

  What was Chuck doing? Auditioning for a position with the prosecution? ‘No,’ AnnaLise screwed up her face, like she was thinking. Which she was, fast and furious. ‘I'm not sure how . . . oh, I know, it must have been my friend, Katie, who mentioned it. She works in the DA's office and, well,’ a smile, ‘you know how girls talk.’

  Katie, AnnaLise's own mother and every woman who supported the equal rights amendment would shoot her. Should shoot her.

  ‘Huh,’ was all Chuck said.

  ‘Anyway, that's pretty much all I know.’ AnnaLise shrugged. ‘Besides the fact that Suzanne Rosewood just started at U-Mo and . . . oh, you do know that Tanja had a spa appointment up at what used to be Tail Too, right?’

  ‘The Sutherton Spa? Yes.’

  A rise by any other name. ‘Fine, Sutherton Spa. Did she keep that appointment?’

  ‘She did, though she arrived a few minutes late for her three-thirty, according to Joy.’

  ‘Joy?’ AnnaLise sensed an opportunity to turn the conversation from what she might know about the Rosewoods to something more mundane. ‘I heard just last night she owns the place, but is she actually working up there now?’

  Chuck seemed to accept the deflection. ‘Honestly, Lise, it's tough to know just what Joy is doing. Or intends to do. I never knew her when she was married to your daddy, but – ’ He eyed her.

  ‘Don't mess with me, Chuck,’ she warned. ‘I know where all your skeletons are buried, too.’

  ‘My only skeleton was being gay and that one was stuck in the closet, not buried.’

  ‘Not anymore,’ AnnaLise said, happy that her friend was content, but a little sad for herself. Why did the best-looking, nicest guys have to be gay? Though it did make her feel a mite better about the wheel-spinning in their relationship. At the time, she'd thought it was her and her desire to leave Sutherton, see the world, all that rot.

  Now, she realized, the wavering was on both sides.

  ‘But you're right about Joy being full of ideas,’ AnnaLise went on. ‘I would think, though, that it's a graveyard up there before ski season.'

  ‘Hence her interest in a second location in Hart's Landing.’

  It made sense, AnnaLise guessed. Life in their part of the High Country revolved around the lake in summer and the mountain in the winter. Joy could allocate staff seasonally between the two, depending on demand.

  But back to directing the subject at hand: ‘So, Joy saw Mrs Rosewood when she arrive at the spa?’

  ‘Unfortunately.’

  AnnaLise cocked her head. ‘Why unfortunately? At least you know Tanja was driving down the mountain – instead of up – when the accident happened. Though I suppose that's most often the case. People gaining speed an
d taking the curves too fast.’

  ‘True. Though very occasionally you'll come across your over-achiever who tempts disaster on the way up as well.’

  ‘Meaning me, I suppose.’

  ‘If the lead foot fits, Lise.’

  AnnaLise didn't bother going into the role her mother's shortcut played in the fiasco. God knows AnnaLise's panic had an equally important part.

  ‘. . . liability for Joy and the spa,’ Chuck was saying.

  ‘I'm sorry?’

  The chief shook his head. ‘You know, if you're going to come all the way to my office to pump me for information, the least you can do is pay attention.’

  Chuck knew her too well, AnnaLise thought ruefully. ‘It was only a short walk. You were saying?’

  He leaned forward. ‘I was saying that while Mrs Rosewood may have been speeding, that's likely the secondary cause of the accident. Preliminary reports show her blood-alcohol levels were over the legal limit.’

  Ben had mentioned his wife's love of the grape over pillow talk one night. A riff on the prototypical cheating husband's ‘she doesn't understand me,’ no doubt. Still, it could well be true – not that AnnaLise had any intention of sharing this tidbit with Chuck after the seat belt comment sparked such interest.

  The police chief could – and certainly would – interrogate Ben on the subject of his wife's drinking.

  ‘But what does that have to do with Joy and the spa?’ AnnaLise asked.

  Another overhead stretch from Chuck. ‘Seems that when Mrs Rosewood arrived late for her appointment, Joy offered her a glass of wine while she waited for the next opening.’

  ‘That's not unusual in a spa or upscale salon,’ AnnaLise said. ‘Besides, a single glass shouldn't have made her drunk. Presumably, Tanja had eaten lunch at Mama's before she left for her appointment.’

  Chuck shrugged. ‘People were coming and going and the bottles were opened and left in the waiting area, so we can't be sure how much Mrs Rosewood ultimately drank there. We do know, though, that an open bottle of wine was recovered from her car.’

  ‘Doesn't mean it came from the spa,' AnnaLise protested. 'And even if Tanja Rosewood did pilfer a bottle when she was up there, it certainly wouldn't be Joy's fault. It's not the spa's responsibility to protect people from their own . . .’

  AnnaLise realized she had been about to echo Mama's earlier statement about fencing off the mountain and the lake to protect people from their own stupidity.

  ‘You might believe that,’ Chuck said, going to pick up his phone. ‘But I've got an inkling from what your friend “Ben” said, that he's not in total agreement.’

  Ten

  AnnaLise tried Joy Tamarack's cell phone on the walk back home, but the call went immediately to voicemail, a sure sign that the cell tower coverage was spotty wherever Joy was – not unusual in the mountains.

  Turning off Main onto 2nd street, AnnaLise unlocked the door to her childhood home. Half of the two-story concrete block building's first floor was allotted to the retail space now rented to Tucker Stanton for Torch, so the front door of the unconventional living space opened directly into the kitchen. A tiny parlor completed the lower level, with a staircase leading up to the second. The upper level had twice the square footage of the lower, since it ran above not only the kitchen and parlor, but also all of Torch.

  ‘Daisy?’ AnnaLise called, not expecting an answer. When her mother wasn't down the block, helping Mama with the restaurant, she was at Torch, doing ditto for Tucker. In fact, Tucker had become the son Daisy never had and AnnaLise was grateful to have his back-up when she wasn't around.

  Getting no response, AnnaLise dug the phone book out of the bottom of a desk drawer to look up the Sutherton Spa at the Hotel Lux. Finding no listing, she searched the pages for Tail Too's old number.

  Bingo.

  Suspicious, AnnaLise checked the date on the phone book. As she suspected, the thing dated back to the last time she'd been home, five years ago.

  The sound of keys in the door and her mother entered. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for a phone number.’ AnnaLise showed her the date on the book. ‘Where's the new one?’

  ‘Heaven's, who uses phone books anymore? If I need a number, I just go online. Wherever did you find that old directory?’

  ‘In the desk drawer under the mailing supplies.’

  ‘Well, that explains why I didn't see it,’ she said, taking the book and dumping it in the wastebasket under the sink. ‘I never go in that drawer.’

  ‘You don't send things?’

  ‘Of course I do, but not snail-mail. I even pay my bills online.’ Daisy pulled a small roll out of the drawer in question. ‘You know what these are?’

  ‘Stamps?’ AnnaLise tried, anticipating one of her mother's trick question.

  ‘Not just stamps,’ Daisy said, ‘but “Forever” stamps. The US Post Office doesn't issue the first-class ones with denominations anymore. You know why that's good?’

  ‘Because these stamps can be used forever?’

  ‘Correct! Which is how long a single roll lasts these days.’ Daisy tossed the stamps back into the drawer.

  AnnaLise wanted to cry for the poor feckless stamps, as well as their unloved brethren: stationery and envelopes. And don't even get her started on cursive writing.

  ‘The post office is going bankrupt because of you,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Hey, evolve or go the way of the dinosaurs.’

  ‘I'm not sure dinosaurs died out because they didn't evolve,’ AnnaLise said, defending her kind. ‘Scientists think maybe a meteor or – ’

  ‘Meteor, shmeteor,’ Daisy said, punching something into AnnaLise's computer. ‘You know what I mean, AnnaLise, so why do you insist on correcting me?’

  ‘I . . .’ she paused to reflect. ‘Well, I'm not sure, honestly. It's just what I do.’

  ‘It's the reporter in you, I suppose,’ Daisy said, in the same tone one might blame a black sheep on the other side of the family. ‘Here.’ She stepped aside.

  ‘Sutherland Spa at the Hotel Lux,’ AnnaLise read on the screen. ‘Nice website.’

  ‘Joy Tamarack put it up,’ Daisy said. ‘That's why Sheree Pepper talked her into helping with the Sutherton Visitor site.’

  ‘I imagine Joy didn't take much convincing,’ AnnaLise said, writing down the phone number. ‘Both of them are businesswomen and have a stake in Sutherton's future.’

  ‘And they embrace it, something you might try sometimes.’

  ‘Embracing Sutherton's future?’ AnnaLise asked with trepidation. No matter how long she needed to stay in Sutherton for Daisy, she clung to the belief that she'd be back at her job in Wisconsin, sooner rather than later.

  ‘No, not Sutherton's future, just the future. You know, modern times. Honestly, sometimes I think you're the mother.’

  AnnaLise wouldn't say it, but sometimes she felt the same, and had since she was five and Timothy Griggs had died.

  ‘OK,’ said AnnaLise, taking the sticky note she'd written the phone number on. ‘I'm going to call to see if Joy is at the spa. If she is, can I use your car?’

  ‘Sure,’ the real mother said, starting up the stairs. ‘I'm just amazed you want to drive up there so soon after our accident.’ She made the turn at the landing where Timothy Griggs' gun cabinet still stood, and disappeared.

  ‘Wanting and having are two different things,’ her daughter called after her.

  ***

  As it happened, no drive up the mountain was necessary, because Joy had ‘gone home,’ according to the young man who answered the Spa phone.

  With Joy still not answering her cell phone, AnnaLise was left with one option: tracking her friend down at home. The only problem was that for the time being, Joy was living at the Sutherton Inn – the very same place the man AnnaLise planned to warn her against also was staying.

  District Attorney Ben Rosewood did not believe in accidents. If something happened – a person killed or hurt – the
n someone must be responsible and made to pay. It was the way the man ran his office. And his life. Only now his wife was the decedent and AnnaLise feared it would be Joy who paid.

  Pulling on a light jacket against the fall weather, AnnaLise called up to Daisy that she was leaving and stepped outside.

  The inn was only a few blocks down Main Street and on a beautiful day, with the leaves changing, it should have been a nice walk.

  But instead, AnnaLise was thinking about a stormy morning in Wisconsin this past spring, when a sixteen-year-old girl's car slid on wet pavement and jumped a curb, killing her best friend who she was going to offer a lift.

  To Ben, it was a crime – vehicular homicide, to be exact. To AnnaLise, it was a heartbreaking accident that had already taken one young life and now threatened to ruin another's. The issue wasn't the only thing the two disagreed on, but it was one that made AnnaLise begin to re-examine their relationship.

  Climbing the steps to the front porch of the Sutherton Inn, AnnaLise said a little prayer of gratitude for Sheree Pepper, who'd saved the graceful structure from the wrecking ball and converted it into a money-making venture that made the most of the building's charm. The California bungalow was built on the east shore of Lake Sutherton in 1916 by a wealthy cotton broker so he and his family could escape the heat of Charlotte's summer. Other wealthy moguls followed, but though ‘McMansions’ like Bradenham and Preston Place still lined the west shore of the lake, most of the truly original palatial homes that graced the east had been long-since razed.

  Not that this sad fact stopped tour-boat operators from taking unsuspecting visitors out for ‘historical’ cruises of the elegant lakeside estates only to be subjected to two hours of, ‘See that stump? That's the spot where the legendary (fill in the blank)'s home stood . . .’

  AnnaLise tapped on the stained-glass panel of the inn's door, and then tried the knob, which turned. Stepping into the lobby, she gave a shout: ‘Anybody home?’

  Check-out at the inn was 11 a.m. and check-in not until 4 p.m., so Sheree often took advantage of the five hours in between to run errands.

  AnnaLise checked her watch: noon.