Working Stiff mwm-1

by Annelise Ryan

  The tone of finality in her voice tells me it is now or never. I retch once more, transforming it into a primal scream. Summoning up all the strength I can, I push off and lunge at her. As soon as Gina sees me coming at her, she raises the gun and pulls the trigger, but my foot snags in the edge of the folded rug and I fall flat on my face inches from her feet, probably saving my life. Had I continued my headlong run toward her, the bullet most likely would have slammed into my head. Instead, it sails by harmlessly above me and hits Sid’s desk instead.

  In desperation, I reach forward and wrap my arms around Gina’s feet, pulling as hard as I can. She falls backward with a loud whoomph and I hear the gun clatter as it skitters across the floor and hits the wall. I quickly climb up her body and put all my weight on her legs, pinning her to the floor.

  Shrieking like some crazed harridan, she reaches down and grabs handfuls of my hair, yanking as hard as she can. I yelp and try to pry her hands loose as her feet squirm beneath me, trying to wriggle free. Unable to loosen her grip on my hair, I reach up and grope around until I feel some skin. Then I pinch it up and twist as hard as I can.

  Gina screeches and lets go of my hair. I roll to one side, closer to the gun, but that gives Gina enough leverage to squirm loose. The gun is mere inches away when she grabs my shirt and yanks as hard as she can, trying to pull me back. I feel my collar tighten around my neck, her pull so strong it bends me backward off the floor. Then the pressure eases suddenly with a loud ripping sound. A second later, I realize I am bare-chested.

  The site of my bare bosom stuns me for a moment, allowing Gina to reach for the gun. But before she can pick it up, I lunge forward again, crashing into her arm and throwing all my weight on top of it.

  “Get off me, damn you,” Gina mutters, writhing beneath me. There is a tremendous crash behind us and I feel Gina grow still, then stiffen. “What the hell is that?” she screeches.

  I roll slightly to the side and glance up. There, standing in the doorway, is a huge monolith of flesh encased in red spandex, replete with boots, gloves, and a long red cape. On the chest is a huge yellow letter H. The face of this mind-boggling apparition is partially hidden behind a red, Lone Ranger-type mask, but I know who it is.

  “Joey, help me!” I shout. But he just stands there, his gaze transfixed on my bare chest.

  “Damn it, Joey. She’s got a gun!”

  Joey shakes off his reverie and springs to action, leaping toward us and falling on top of me, squishing all the air from my lungs. I hear a snap from somewhere beneath me and Gina screams out, “My arm! You broke my fucking arm, you bitch!”

  I want to tell Joey to move, but I can’t suck in enough breath with his weight on top of me. So I reach up and hit him on his shoulder instead, hoping I can communicate my need to him some other way.

  “What the hell is this?” says a different voice.

  Hurley? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I crane my head around to peer over Joey’s shoulder and sure enough, Hurley is standing in the doorway.

  Joey finally rolls off of me, reaches over, and picks up the gun.

  “Hey!” Hurley yells, pulling his own weapon and aiming it right at Joey. “Drop it!”

  “It’s okay, Hurley,” I say quickly, grateful I can finally breathe. “He’s one of the good guys. This one’s the one you want,” I tell him, gesturing toward Gina. Gina moans and I roll off of her, sitting up and exposing my naked torso to the world. “She’s the one who killed Karen and Mike. It wasn’t Sid, it was Gina.”

  Joey carefully sets the gun he is holding on the desk. Then he gawks at my chest again, his eyes huge.

  Hurley sheathes his own gun, then unbuttons his shirt and takes it off, tossing it to me on the floor. “For heaven’s sake,” he mutters. “Cover yourself up.”

  Just as I pick up the shirt, Alison Miller appears in the doorway, her ubiquitous camera hanging from her neck. She looks at Hurley and his bare chest, then at me and mine. For a fleeting second, she allows herself to pout. Then the reporter in her takes over and in one swift motion, she raises the camera, aims it at me, and snaps a picture. “Does this have something to do with this nipple incident thing I heard about?” she asks, snapping a second shot. She moves deeper into the room and aims once more. “Ooh,” she says as the camera clicks. “I wonder if the paper will print these.”

  Chapter 35

  It’s seven o’clock on Friday evening and Izzy, Dom, and I are sitting in the Peking House looking over our menus. Actually I am looking over my menu, since Izzy and Dom knew what they were going to order before we ever got here. I can’t keep my eyes on the menu for long though. I keep watching the door instead.

  “Are you sure this is where he said they were coming?” I ask Izzy.

  “I’m just as sure now as I was when you asked me five minutes ago. And five minutes before that. Can we please order before I die of starvation?”

  “Sorry.” I force myself to focus and choose a beef and broccoli dish, fried dumplings, and pork fried rice. When the waitress comes over to take our order, my eyes once again stray toward the door.

  “Would you just relax?” Izzy says as soon as the waitress is gone. “They’ll either show or they won’t. Not much you can do about it now.”

  “But you’re sure this is where he said—”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” Izzy sighs.

  “Okay, I’m sorry.” I pry my eyes away from the door and look at Izzy. “You’re right. I’m being stupid. Talk to me about something. Distract me.”

  “Okay, you asked for it.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I got a call about the DNA results this afternoon right after you left.”

  “Which ones?”

  “All of them.”

  “Oh.” I feel panicky all of a sudden. My worst fears are about to be either confirmed or laid to rest and I’m not sure which outcome I want. “Tell me about the test on Karen and Mike first.”

  “Okay. Karen Owenby, or should I say Sharon Carver, and Mike Halverson were definitely brother and sister, just as we suspected.”

  “Not a big surprise given what we know,” I say.

  “Why the different names?” Dom asks.

  “Sharon Carver was once Sharon Halverson,” I explain. “Arnie uncovered a Kentucky marriage license issued to a Sharon Halverson and a Nathaniel Carver. Apparently they divorced less than a year later but Sharon kept the name.”

  Dom nods. “And do you know for sure that the woman you knew as Karen Owenby was Sharon Carver?”

  “We do,” says Izzy. “We finally tracked down a dentist in Kentucky who treated Sharon Carver and got some dental films for comparison. It’s definitely the same woman.”

  There is a moment of silence, during which I stare at the tablecloth, afraid to meet Izzy’s gaze. Finally he says, “Do you want to know about the DNA test regarding the baby or would you rather I keep that one to myself?”

  I take in a deep breath and brace myself. “Tell me.”

  “David was the father.”

  I don’t know what to say. I expect to feel something—anger, disappointment, righteous indignation…something. But I don’t. Izzy watches me with a wary expression on his face. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “What’s to say? It happened. It’s done. It’s time to move on.”

  “You make it sound awfully simple.”

  “It is,” I tell him with a shrug. “It took me a while to get past the emotional aspects of David’s betrayal. I’m still not completely over it, but at least I’m to the point where I can look at everything with a bit of objectivity. And I realize that by sleeping with someone else, David showed a total disregard not only for our marriage, but for my health, hell, for my life. I can’t forgive him for that. Nor can I ever trust him again.”

  Izzy leans close and drops his voice to just above a whisper. “I do have one other bit of news for you,” he says. “But you can’t let it go beyond this table because I violated some rules to get it.�
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  “Okay.”

  “You already know that the HIV test we ran on Karen came back negative,” he says, and I nod. “But I had Arnie run one on the blood sample from David, as well. It was also negative, so you don’t need to worry.”

  I squeeze my eyes closed with relief. “Thank you, Izzy. I definitely owe you for this one.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  Dom says, “What a mess this has been.”

  “You’ve got that right,” I agree. “Though there is at least one person who benefited from it all. Alison Miller.”

  Because Sid and Gina were both prominent figures and the sordid details of their secretive lives made for sensational coverage, reporters from all over the country have descended on Sorenson in the past week, hounding anyone and everyone they think might be able to give them any information. Izzy and I have kept our lips zipped, refusing to give a statement. But Alison Miller has been basking in her newfound celebrity, doling out tidbits as she sees fit, wielding her power with utter joy. Rumor has it she’s been negotiating with several sources for the rights to the pictures she snapped of me, so I called Lucien and had him threaten both Alison and the paper with a major lawsuit should the pictures appear in any form, anywhere.

  Lucien informed me this morning that Alison has since withdrawn the pictures from the market, but I am only partially relieved. The knowledge that Lucien insisted on copies of the pictures, purportedly for his case file, makes me shudder.

  “And speaking of Alison Miller,” Izzy says, “guess who just came through the door?”

  I start to turn and look but stop myself. “I don’t want them to think I knew they were coming,” I say. “Or that I care at all that they’re together. So you have to tell me what’s going on.”

  “Well, they’re hanging up their coats now and—”

  “Did Hurley help her take off her coat?” I ask.

  “He did,” Izzy says, giving me an apologetic look.

  “Damn.”

  “Now they’re talking to the hostess and…here they come, heading for a table.”

  “Does he have his arm around her?”

  “Nope, no physical contact of any kind.”

  “Good,” I say with a wicked smile. “Are they coming by us?”

  “Yes, they are.” I expect Izzy to divert his gaze but instead he perks up and waves. “Hello there,” he says loudly.

  I sense Hurley’s presence behind me before I turn to look at him. There he is, in all his long-legged, blue-eyed glory. And standing right beside him is Alison, looking much better than I like in a snug-fitting slacks-and-sweater outfit. Not surprisingly, her choice of jewelry includes a camera, which is hanging around her neck.

  “Good evening, folks,” Hurley says, nodding at Izzy and Dom before turning those baby blues on me. “Fancy meeting you here.” There is a twinkle in his eye and I know he suspects our presence here isn’t mere coincidence. Particularly since Izzy, at my behest, pumped him for information earlier in the week about where he was taking Alison on their date.

  “Hello,” I say, giving the two of them my best smile and noting that Alison looks infuriatingly smug.

  “Would you care to join us?” Izzy offers. “There’s plenty of room.”

  “No, thank you,” Alison says quickly.

  “We’d love to,” says Hurley at the same time.

  I want to grab Izzy’s face and give him a huge kiss.

  “I meant to call you today anyway, Izzy,” Hurley says. “To clear up some final details on the Owenby and Halverson cases.”

  “Well, if Alison won’t mind us talking business over dinner,” Izzy says. “I’ll try not to touch on anything too unappetizing.”

  I arch my brows at Alison but keep my smile in place. I can tell she is warring with herself over her desire to keep Hurley away from me and her desire to hear what Hurley and Izzy are going to discuss, knowing they might provide a few juicy new details that can further augment her position as the quintessential news source in town.

  “Okay,” Alison says finally, the professional side of her ego winning out. “We’ll be happy to join you. And I’m sure I can take whatever you two fellas want to dish out.”

  We are seated at a corner booth with me on one end and Dom on the other, Izzy positioned between us. Alison quickly sizes up the situation and slides in next to me, no doubt to keep Hurley from sitting there. That leaves the spot next to Dom for Hurley, putting him across the table from me and Alison.

  “I got the results back on the DNA test for Owenby and Halverson,” Izzy says. And with that, my joy at having Hurley at the table is replaced by a fear that the other DNA test will be discussed in Alison’s presence. “They were definitely related,” Izzy tells him. “Brother and sister.”

  “So that’s confirmed?” Alison asks. “I can print that?”

  “Yes, you can print it,” Izzy says.

  Alison looks mightily pleased. This latest tidbit is just what she needs to support the speculations she’s already written up for the paper regarding Karen Owenby’s fake identity. As a result, the hospital is facing a PR nightmare, trying to explain how one of their surgical nurses not only lied about who she was, but also about being a nurse. I am pretty certain Alison’s name has to be at the top of Molinaro’s Fecal Roster right about now. In fact, they are running a pool down at the bakery as to how long it will be before Alison disappears. It can’t be soon enough for me.

  Molinaro does get one break, however. The blood tests on Sidney Carrigan failed to reveal any sign of the HIV virus. He did, however, have colon cancer. It was discovered during the autopsy and it was so widespread that Sid’s life expectancy couldn’t have been much more than a year. While we can only guess at the truth, it seems to make sense that Sid took his overall loss of health—the muscle wasting, loss of appetite, and all the other physical symptoms brought on by the cancer—as a sign that he had developed AIDS. Given his lifestyle, Mike Halverson’s status, and the degree of intimacy the two men shared, it’s easy to see how Sid came to that conclusion. He had probably shared his suspicions with Mike, who then passed them on to his sister, giving her the ammunition she needed for her blackmail scheme.

  Sid’s misfortune is serendipitous luck for the hospital. One minute they were facing the ordeal of trying to explain to hundreds of patients how they might have been contaminated with the HIV virus by their surgeon, a prospect that had lawyers from thousands of miles away sniffing around every Sorenson resident who had been operated on during the past five years. Now the hospital is in the clear in that regard, though it will probably be years before they can breathe easy over the whole mess, if ever.

  “Well, it’s nice to know we had a few of the facts right,” Hurley says. “I swear, I’ve never seen such a jumbled-up mess of evidence.”

  “Is it true that you actually suspected Mattie at one point?” Alison asks. She follows the question with a little laugh, no doubt intending to make it appear as if her interest is purely conversational.

  “Not really,” Hurley says, smiling at me and winking. “I was pretty certain that the shock she expressed at the scene of the Owenby murder, when she first realized who the victim was, was genuine. Someone with a real acting talent might have been able to fool me, but the more I got to know Mattie, the more certain I became that acting isn’t one of her fortes.”

  I scowl at that, but let it go. I am too pleased with the fact that Hurley winked at me in Alison’s presence to let such a petty criticism get me down.

  “There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Alison says. “How did this Joey Dewhurst guy happen to get involved?”

  Izzy jumps in to answer that one. “He was following Mattie around. According to Arnie, the guy’s got a huge crush on her.”

  “Had,” I corrected.

  “You’re right,” Izzy says. “Your little matchmaking scheme worked like a charm. Arnie said Joey and Cinder have had lunch together twice already and have plans this weekend for dinn
er and a movie.”

  “This Dewhurst guy was stalking you?” Alison says, looking over at me.

  “Not stalking, exactly,” I explain. “He’s basically harmless, just a bit eccentric. He’s got the mentality of a twelve-year-old and has this superhero fantasy. So he would drive around in his van wearing his superhero outfit, pretending to save me from all sorts of imagined perils, until he finally saved me from a real one.”

  I shift my attention to Hurley. “I thought that burgundy-and-gray van I kept seeing was someone you had tailing me. It never occurred to me that it might be Joey.”

  “I probably should have had someone tailing you,” Hurley says, making Alison frown. “As it was, you’re lucky Joey was there.”

  “Damn right,” Izzy says. He looks at Alison and continues his story. “So Joey was driving by Mattie’s house that night when he saw her pull out of her driveway. He followed her, and when she pulled in at the Carrigans’, he drove by, parked a ways down the road, and walked back. He saw Mattie and Brian go into the house and then he saw Gina show up. He heard a shot and moved in closer, saw that the front door was open, and saw Brian bleeding and unconscious in the hallway.”

  “How is Brian?” I ask.

  “He’s okay,” Hurley says. “The bullet didn’t hit any major organs. It will be a while before he’s back to work, but he’s damned lucky to be alive.”

  Alison scowls again and looks at Hurley. “So how did you end up at the Carrigan house?” she asks, her voice tinged with suspicion.

  “Well, after following Mattie home, I came here and ordered some stuff to go. I was worried that Mattie hadn’t eaten anything.” Alison’s scowl deepens and I can’t resist a smile. “But by the time I got back to Mattie’s place, she was gone. Then Brian called me on his cell phone to tell me that Mattie was out at the Carrigans’, so I headed out there to see what kind of trouble she was getting into.”

  “I was just doing my job,” I say defensively.

  “Almost getting yourself killed in the process,” Hurley grumbles. “Going back out there was a stupid thing to do. We would have found that gun cache soon enough.”