False Impressions

by Terri Thayer

  “How can I help you?” the pharmacist asked. Her lab coat strained across her middle. She was in danger of popping a button or two.

  “Do you know J.B. Hunsinger?” April asked.

  Dr. Adama’s eyes changed. She suddenly looked wary. Maybe she was involved with the meth making. Perhaps J.B. had burned her, too. Used her like he’d used his sister.

  “Is he a customer of yours?” April asked.

  Dr. Adama shook her head quickly, but April didn’t believe her.

  To the right of her, a small bent-over woman was quizzing the clerk about her medication. She was very deaf so the conversation was getting louder by the second. “I need my water pills.”

  Dr. Adama glanced their way. April was going to lose her if they didn’t move along their conversation.

  “Is there some place we can talk?” April asked. “A little more private.”

  Dr. Adama took a step away from the window. She glanced behind her. A large Brillo-haired woman stared at April from behind the glass.

  “Why don’t you state your business? I’m at work, as you can see.”

  State her business. April didn’t know exactly what she’d hoped to find out. Why J.B. had given her the card, of course. It was obvious that the doctor was lying, but without accusing, she couldn’t make her talk.

  The Brillo woman was moving as if to come around and rescue her friend. Time was running short.

  “I’m a friend of Mary Lou Rosen’s. J.B. was her brother,” April began.

  The pharmacist’s eyes widened. Her skin paled quickly, suddenly looking like the skin of an uncooked chicken. She gripped the counter tightly, her knuckles going as white as her face. Her coworker frowned in April’s direction.

  “Please don’t tell his sister he’s here. Alive,” Dr. Adama whispered desperately. “He’s started over. He’s doing fine. Jimmy is a changed man. If you’ve come here to drag him back into that life, I won’t let you. We’ve made a new life for ourselves.”

  Her friend caught the frantic quality in Dr. Adama’s voice and spoke firmly. “Tina,” she said. “You need to sit down.”

  They both looked down at her belly. The pharmacist rubbed her stomach. At first, April thought she had indigestion, but the way Tina Adama stroked the contours of her lab coat, April realized there was a definite bump under there.

  Dr. Adama was pregnant. April felt a stab in her own belly. She had to tell this pregnant woman, who obviously knew and cared about J.B., that he was dead. She rolled around sentences in her head trying to find the right words.

  It wasn’t going to be pretty.

  April looked at the friend by her side. She tried to convey to this women that she had bad news. “Can we go somewhere to sit down and talk?” she said, her voice softening.

  The Brillo-haired woman took stock of April, looking her up and down. April kept her expression serious, hoping she understood that this was for Dr. Adama’s sake. The woman seemed to get it.

  “Why don’t you go into the break room, Tina?” she said. “Get off your feet for a few minutes.”

  “I don’t know,” Tina said, looking back at the office she’d left. “I’ve got a lot to do.” Dr. Adama continued, her eyes going unfocused. “He’s a new man,” she said, the lines around her mouth softening. “I barely remember J.B. Jimmy is a sweet, caring, gentle soul.”

  April realized she was talking to a woman in love. A woman in love with a guy she didn’t know was gone. She put a hand on her cold fingers, willing the woman to finally stop talking and look at her. Dr. Adama raised eyes to April. April gulped. This was up to her.

  “There was an accident,” April began. Dr. Adama waited for more information. April could see her making calculations. Which hospital? Where to go see him? Probably she was getting ready to call doctors she knew to tend to him.

  April swallowed hard. There was no way to make this easier.

  “J.B.—What did you call him? Jimmy—is dead.”

  The doctor gasped. She tottered and swayed like a sky-scraper in a windstorm. Her coworker grabbed her. April’s stomach sickened. She grabbed Dr. Adama’s hands over the counter, trying to keep her in an upright position.

  “Follow me,” Brillo said. April avoided the eyes of Tina’s friend, sure she wouldn’t like what she saw there. She was ready to kill the messenger.

  April and Brillo led Dr. Adama to a swinging door and into an employee lounge. A metal table sat in the middle of the room. A yellow laminate counter held a microwave and coffeemaker. Posters about employees’ rights covered the empty wall. The water cooler gurgled, and Tina’s coworker got them both cold drinks. The clang of the coins falling into the machine’s chute made April jump.

  “Thank you, Gloria,” Tina said. “I’ll be okay. Go on back to work.” She grasped the soda can and regained some composure, although tears streaked her face.

  “Who are you?” Tina asked when her friend had closed the door.

  “My name is April Buchert, and I live in Aldenville.”

  From the stricken look on her face, she knew about Aldenville. “Was that where he was?”

  April nodded.

  “I was afraid when he didn’t come home last night.”

  “Home? So you lived together?”

  Tina rubbed her stomach again. “How did he die?” Tina asked quietly.

  “His car went off the road.”

  Tina seemed to break apart. Her face caved in, and she slumped forward, cradling her head in her hands, leaning heavily on the table. She was silent for so long, April wondered if she should leave her alone and get her coworker back here.

  When Tina did speak, her voice was thick with tears. Her chin quivered. “Oh God. I thought you were going to tell me he’d been murdered. Jimmy was afraid to go back to Aldenville.”

  “Why?” April asked. “He had family there. Family that loved him.”

  She shrugged. She was spent, the sadness making lines down the side of her mouth. “He said there were people there that wanted to kill him.”

  Tina sat back in her chair. She tried to cross her legs but gave up when her belly got in the way.

  “How far along are you?” April asked.

  “Five months. And yes, it’s Jimmy’s.”

  April ignored the sarcasm. She wasn’t here to judge this woman’s choices. She just wanted to know if J.B. had been happy. That was something she could go tell Mary Lou. “How did you two meet?” April asked.

  Tina shifted. “About eighteen months ago, Jimmy came in here to buy cold meds. I scanned his ID. It came up as no-sale. He’d bought the same drugs at a CVS fifteen miles away earlier in the day. I was scared. I’d never had to refuse to sell to anyone before. I expected him to go ballistic. Instead, he smiled at me.”

  She smiled now, remembering. “He told me later he was so blinded by my beauty, he handed me the wrong fake ID.” She laughed. “Beautiful was not something I’m usually called.”

  April could see he wasn’t the only one smitten that day.

  Tina continued. “He kept coming back. Never again to buy drugs. Just to see me. Once a week at first, then twice. He brought me coffee and a jade plant. He courted me. An old-fashioned word, I know, but that’s what it was.”

  This woman didn’t look like someone desperate enough to get involved with someone making meth. She wasn’t model pretty, but she was smart and educated. J.B. must have been something special. April felt a pang at never getting to know this guy. He was special to Kit, to Mary Lou and now to Tina.

  Tina went on. “I looked forward to his visits but didn’t let it go any further. I knew what he was, after all. I couldn’t kid myself into thinking he wasn’t trouble. Still, he was a nice guy. You know how hard nice guys are to find?”

  April nodded. God, how she knew. The relief of having Mitch in her life flooded her like a warm bath. Everyone had to find love in their own way. Tina and J.B. had found each other in the opposite of a meet-cute, but it seemed to work for them.

  Tina le
aned back, closed her eyes and crossed her arms over her stomach protectively. “He wasn’t the picture of a meth maker. I got the feeling he was working off a debt of some kind. He said he never cooked the stuff, just bought the cold meds. He never used, and he said he’d stopped drinking the day he met me.

  “Then, in a moment, everything changed. One night he showed up here, out back in the parking lot. He was waiting for me when I got off work.” Tears spilled out of Tina’s eyes. The realization that he would never be waiting for her again seemed to sink in even more. She caught a sob in her throat.

  April touched her arm.

  “He was a mess. The meth house had blown up. He’d been on his way back there, using one of the cars that they’d kept at the property. He saw the place go up, knew there were people inside and knew he was going to be wanted by the police.”

  April imagined how frightened J.B. must have been, to abandon his sister and his pregnant niece.

  “I told him he could stay at my house until he got back on his feet. But I fell in love with him instead. We decided he could start over.”

  She looked April square in the face, as if daring her to deny that they’d made a good attempt at a new life. “He lived here as Jimmy Johnston, one of the fake identities he had used to buy meds. He got a job at the local lumberyard and went to AA every day. Eventually, he told me his real name and about his family.”

  She stopped; her words seemed to have run out. She’d wrung her paper cup into an unrecognizable sculpture.

  “It’s not true that his family loved him,” Tina said. “His sister hated him. Even before the house blew up, she’d told him she never wanted to see him again. He was already dead to her.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “She’d cut J.B. out of her life, away from her precious daughter. He sat here and cried that he couldn’t see Kit.”

  “But he was in touch with her.”

  Tina’s head snapped up. Her eyes, rimmed with tears, flashed. “He was not!”

  April nodded. She was sorry she’d said anything. There was only so much this poor woman could take. “He came to her house last night.“

  “To his sister’s?” Tina asked. “He told me Kit lived at home.” Her hand cradled her stomach, the touchstone. She was going to need all the strength she could muster to care for her baby now.

  “No, to the new place. They’re fixing it up to move into.”

  Tina’s eyes became unfocused as she tried to take in what she was hearing. “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.” April decided she’d said enough and told Tina good-bye. She gave her her phone number and left the woman sitting at the table, feet propped up on another chair, lost in thought.

  Tina said her name. April looked back as she got to the doorway. Tina had one last request.

  “Let me know when the funeral services are. I want to be there.”

  April drove home, her mind spinning with what she’d learned. J.B. had been living as Jimmy Johnston with Tina Adama. He’d fathered a child with her. He’d fashioned a good life with her. A life of sobriety, a life where he was contributing to society. Perhaps for the first time in his life.

  Too bad he picked the wrong time to return home.

  Coming off Route 309 back into the valley, April realized she was close to one of the houses on the list of Mary Lou’s foreclosures. She grabbed the sheet that was still lying on the seat next to her, along with the key to the lockbox. April saw the turn for the road up ahead and glanced at the clock. Not quite noon. Deana wasn’t expecting her yet. She’d drive by and see what it was like.

  Five minutes later, she was on a road that boasted a minicommunity. She couldn’t see why it had sprung up in the particular spot on the road. Some developer’s idea of an idyllic homestead, perhaps. More likely, cheap land.

  The houses were all the same Cape Cod design, with two dormer windows. The one that Mary Lou owned was painted a royal blue. April walked up the front path, which was bare. Someone—Logan—had kept the snow and ice at bay. Salt crystals were underfoot.

  She opened the front door and was pleasantly surprised to find the house smelled like air freshener. She’d expected it to be stale and musty. It was empty, and the windows couldn’t have been opened in months.

  She walked quickly, taking in the fake wood paneling and faux brick around the fireplace. The living room and dining room were in the front, and a kitchen stretched across the back end of the house. It had a nice breakfast nook with built-in shelves with a scalloped edge. She opened a cupboard and was surprised to find a mismatched set of plastic dinnerware. She opened more doors. There were pots and pans. The pantry held a box of coffee filters and garbage bags.

  Upstairs, there were two bedrooms. The second one she looked in had a pile of clothing in the corner, as if someone had been planning to take unwanted items to the Salvation Army but had never quite made it. She’d have to tell Logan about it. It looked tacky.

  This was an okay house, but nothing that really spoke to her.

  Back in the car, she looked over the list of foreclosures again. There was one more on her way back. She made several turns, taking her to a part of town she hadn’t been to in a long time.

  She slowed, trying to find the next house that matched the picture. She wasn’t sure if the tiny house dwarfed by the twenty-foot yews next to the front door was the one. She pulled into the first driveway that was cleared of snow.

  The house was set far off the road. Spotting the river beyond, she understood. This was an old-time summer recreation spot, developed after World War II. Up the road a mile or so was a swimming hole her parents had used as kids. Before the lure of the Jersey Shore, Disney World and the Outer Banks, residents of Lynwood and Aldenville would spend their summers in cottages like this one.

  As she got closer, the front of the house came into full view. It was cute, with gingerbread-scalloped eaves and clamshell shingles. Most likely about eight hundred square feet. Enough for one person.

  April parked near the carport. She walked past the house into the backyard as far as the shoveled walkway led. The property ended at the riverbank. Summer was a long way away, but still she could picture a couple of Adirondack chairs facing the swiftly moving water. That view would provide her and Mitch a lot of entertainment.

  April went back to the front door and let herself in. The house was one story, with a large sitting room, an eat-in kitchen and two bedrooms. Most of the appliances were old, but the wooden floors had been sanded and the rooms were a generous size. Ceilings were high. The house needed some loving attention, a fresh coat of paint and some grout cleaning, but the bare bones were good.

  The back of the house contained its best feature—a sun-porch with windows overlooking the sloping back lawn. A weeping willow, now bare, would fill the view in the spring.

  April could picture herself working there. Her drafting desk, which she missed desperately, would fit right under the windowsill.

  The view out the icy windows held her captive. The landscape was stark and unforgiving. The unbroken snow in the backyard had been furrowed by the wind into something resembling the pictures taken by the Mars Rover. It was impossible to tell how deep it was, but she could imagine falling into snow up to her waist if she walked on it. The river was churning with icy chunks.

  Her mind drifted. She’d gone to Mountain Top to get answers for Kit and Mary Lou. She’d come back with information she didn’t know what to do with. J.B. had been living quite comfortably just twenty or so miles away. He had a girlfriend. A new life. He was going to be a father.

  How would Mary Lou take this?

  She must have been more lost in thought than she realized, because suddenly she heard heavy footsteps on the wooden front porch. Her heart rate zoomed. She hadn’t heard a car pull up. Her back was to the kitchen. She turned. The door opened.

  She was frozen, all too aware of the isolated location. The lack of neighbors suddenly felt scary, not desirable. She saw a long black boo
t first.

  “Miss Buchert,” the voice said. “I recognized your car. Do you need some help?”

  Officer Yost.

  “I was doing just fine until you scared the bejesus out of me,” she said angrily, coming through to the living room. Yost’s boots were leaving puddles on the hardwood floor.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you. I keep an eye on Mrs. Rosen’s properties for her. There’s a real danger of squatters, you know. It’s cold outside, and not everyone has a nice big place to live in like you.”

  “Knock next time,” she said. He always knew more about her life than she wanted him to. How did he find her all the way out here?

  He looked around the house. “You thinking about moving?” he said.

  April was noncommittal. “I’m looking for a friend.”

  “Well, if your ‘friend’ wants a nicer place, Mrs. Rosen has a great one out on South Road.” His air quotes were accompanied by a big grin.

  “Thanks, I’ll tell her.”

  April moved past him and went out the door. He followed, and she locked the lockbox.

  “See you around,” he said, getting back into his car.

  “Hope not,” April said under her breath.

  Her cell phone rang as she was getting in her car. It was Charlotte. Yost waved as he backed down the drive. April didn’t bother to return the gesture. She answered her phone, careful not to drive away and violate the hands-free law.

  “I’m sorry, April, dear, but I wondered if you’d be home soon.” Charlotte’s voice was soft and wispy.

  April tried to gauge Charlotte’s tone. She didn’t sound desperate, just tentative. “I wasn’t planning on it. I have to go into the funeral home and help Deana soon.”

  “Oh.”

  April knew that phrase. It meant something like “Oh shit,” but Charlotte never cursed. She must need something. She never liked to bother April, holding April’s workday sacrosanct.

  “Do you want me to go to the store?” April prompted. “Are you out of milk?”