Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries)

by Ryan, Annelise

  “We should go and call him right away,” I say, and when Vonda turns and heads deeper into the house, I follow.

  The house is a sprawling ranch with a central section that contains the kitchen, dining, and living areas, and two wings that branch off at angles on either side. She leads me into the right wing of the house and straight ahead I can see an open door and what appears to be a sitting area that I’m guessing is part of her bedroom. We stop at two open doors, one of which leads to what appears to be a guest room, complete with its own bathroom. The other is a much smaller room that is being used as a home office. While it may not be as big as the bedroom, it’s large enough to house a massive and scarred old oak desk that I’m sure Vonda has recycled, two big bookcases, some ancient-looking metal cabinets replete with dents and dings, and a mini forest of green plants that includes two rubber trees and a small lemon tree that is actually bearing fruit.

  It’s an ugly mess of used and recycled stuff and yet I find I’m a little envious given that my work space at the medical examiner’s office is the library, which is hardly private and doesn’t even have a desk. Given Vonda’s propensity for recycling and reusing items, I’m curious to see if there is a home office on the other side of the house that Bernie uses, and if so, what it looks like given his taste for the somewhat ostentatious.

  Vonda walks over behind her desk, opens a drawer, takes out a small address book, and flips through the pages until she finds what she wants. She picks up a phone on the desk and punches in a number. I walk over as casually as I can and glance down at the address book to see the name and the number of the lawyer she’s calling. My hope is that her lawyer is also Bernie’s lawyer, and that this person will lead us to the documents we seek, including Bernie’s will if he has one, and the partnership agreement for the Twilight Home. Maybe we can find out the identity of the silent secret partner in the business.

  I try to commit what I see in the book to memory, but there are two phone numbers and I feel like I should get them both since I don’t know which one is the home, and likely unlisted, number. Not wanting to trust my memory, I take out my cell phone and proceed to punch the numbers into it, saving each one as a contact under Malcolm, the lawyer’s first name. I can’t quite make out the last name, but I can see that Vonda is in the W section of her address book. She seems oblivious to what I’m doing. Malcolm has apparently answered the phone and she is ranting to him about Hurley’s activities and the search warrant. But she does reach down and casually close the book just as I’m punching in the last number. I’m bummed that I don’t have the lawyer’s full last name, but figure I have enough information to make a contact. I back out of the office and head for the main portion of the house, where I find Hurley and the other officers calmly searching through the kitchen cabinets.

  I pull Hurley off to one side and tell him about my conversation with Vonda, and the information I just obtained. I bring up the numbers in my phone and he writes them down in his little notebook along with the first name of the lawyer.

  “Good job, Winston,” he says. “You do have a knack for digging up dirt.”

  I smile, but a part of me winces inside as I recall the dirt I dug up from next to his bed.

  We continue our search until Vonda reappears from her office. She looks very unhappy. Her arms are folded tightly across her chest, her lips thinly set, and her jaw muscles twitching irritably. But she says nothing, leading us to believe that her lawyer told her there was little she could do about the search warrant except stay out of our way.

  Over the next two and a half hours, we painstakingly search through the half of the house that belonged to Bernie, the common shared area, and then Vonda’s wing, including all the bathrooms, her office, her massive bedroom, and a small studio that extends off the southeast corner of her bedroom. Several of her pieces are on display in the studio, propped on easels positioned close to the windows. I have to walk around the easels to see them, and at first glance I take them to be abstract acrylic paintings filled with violent, spiked splashes of blood red, bile green, and cyanotic blue. Up close, it all appears chaotic and random, and yet I sense an underlying order. I back up to give myself a different perspective, and when I do I see it. Each of the pictures takes on the shape of a human form: one reclining, one standing and reaching as if for a book on a high shelf, and another sitting pensively as if deep in thought. They are quite clever and engaging, and it’s easy for me to see how Vonda has achieved such success with her works.

  While Bernie Chase’s house is a fascinating example of how two completely different people and lifestyles can merge into one, it is useless in providing us with any clues or help in understanding exactly how Bernie died and who might’ve killed him. Hurley had hoped to find paperwork somewhere that would reveal the will and the partnership contract, but that didn’t turn up, either.

  Junior Feller calls during our search and informs Hurley that he has verified Vonda’s alibi at the grocery store on Saturday morning, but she left there somewhere between nine-thirty and ten, giving her plenty of time to have done in her husband. Without any other evidence, we have nothing on her. At the moment, we have nothing on anybody, and I can tell Hurley is frustrated.

  It’s almost seven o’clock by the time we’re done and Hurley and I are hungry. Since we haven’t heard from Desi and the kids yet, I suggest we grab a bite to eat somewhere and go over our findings so far, though I have another agenda in mind. After a bit of discussion, we decide to eat at Pesto Change-o, our favorite combination restaurant and magic show in town.

  No sooner have we settled in at our table when my phone rings. It’s Bob Richmond calling. “Hey, Mattie, I was wondering if you’re still going to meet me here at the gym tonight?”

  “Geez, Bob, I’m sorry. I forgot and anyway, I can’t. Hurley and I are just now sitting down to eat and it’s been a very long day. Maybe tomorrow?”

  “No problem. Want to go first thing in the morning?”

  “I can barely go to the bathroom first thing in the morning, much less a gym,” I tell him, making Hurley chuckle. “Evening is a better time for me.”

  “Evening it is then. How many calories does Gunther have you burning each session?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say anything about calories, just about building muscle.”

  “I’m up to a thousand calories burned each session now. It’s amazing how much better I feel.”

  “That’s great.”

  “How’s the case going? Have you and Hurley made any progress?”

  “So far all we have are a lot of potential suspects and dead ends.”

  “I’m sure it will come together at some point. Some cases just take longer than others. Tell Hurley to let me know if there’s anything else he needs me to do. I’ll see you tomorrow evening, if not sooner.”

  We say our good-byes and I pass his message along to Hurley. Then we place our orders: a totally forbidden big-assed plate of alfredo pasta for me, and a small pizza for Hurley. While I enjoy a few minutes of feeling virtuous while we eat our salads, I know that after the stuffed mushroom appetizer, the garlic bread, and the main meal, Gunther will be lecturing me sternly tomorrow. And that’s assuming that I don’t go for dessert. At the moment, everything tastes and smells much too good for me to care.

  I wait until our entrees are nearly finished and the proprietor, Giorgio, has been to our table to perform some magic tricks before I broach the subject of Kate’s letter.

  “Hurley, I have something to tell you and it isn’t going to be easy. I want you to understand that I thought long and hard about how and when to do this. I even thought about not doing it, but I know that would be wrong and I’ve already done something wrong enough that I don’t want to make it worse.”

  He chews on a bite of pizza and smiles quizzically at me. “What have you done now, Winston?”

  “This morning after our little rendezvous in your bedroom, it took me a while to find my bra. I remembered you tossing it to
one side and seeing it briefly hit your bedside table. I eventually found it on the floor between the table and the bed, and with it I also found this.” I take the folded letter from my pocket and set it on the table, sliding it toward him, but I leave my hand on top of it so I can explain myself further. “It’s a letter from Kate.”

  Hurley puts down the slice of pizza he is holding and swallows hard, his expression curious and confused.

  “It was inside an unsealed envelope with your name on it and even though I knew I shouldn’t, I took the letter out, intending to read it. I thought it was a love letter of some sort and I was feeling jealous and insecure. Just as I was about to unfold it and read it, you startled me when you came up the stairs and hollered to me to come down for breakfast. I crumpled the note in an effort to hide it, feeling guilty that I’d even removed it from the envelope. I didn’t feel like I could just put it back where I found it because it had obviously been tampered with. So I stuck it in my pocket, thinking I would read it later. I finally got around to doing that this morning and maybe I should’ve shown it to you then, but I didn’t want to distract you from the case and I don’t think the timing will make a significant difference.”

  Hurley leans forward, his expression serious. I reach across the table and lay my other hand over one of his arms in an affectionate gesture before launching into the speech I’ve been rehearsing inside my head all day long.

  “Kate isn’t calling you or answering her cell because she never intended to. The story she told you about her brother was a lie. She made the whole thing up. He’s dead, and she’s dying, Hurley. She has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a very bad and advanced type, and the doctors have given her only a few months to live. That’s why she came here with Emily when she did. She has no family left to take care of Emily, so she brought her here to make sure you could do it. Once she felt certain you two would be okay, she left. She’s checking into a hospice program and giving them strict instructions not to tell anyone she’s there. She doesn’t want Emily to watch her die.”

  In the minute or two that it has taken me to say all of this, I’ve watched a bevy of emotions race across Hurley’s face: disbelief, suspicion, anger, pain, and acceptance. At one point, he looks as if he thinks I’m trying to punk him. Then he simply looks dumbfounded. I take one hand off the note, take the other hand off his arm, and sit back. He looks at me, his face a mosaic of emotion, and then his eyes settle on the note. After a few seconds, he picks it up and starts to read.

  I watch the emotions play over his face as he reads through the letter. It’s relatively straightforward and unemotional, yet the overall message is such a devastating one that it can’t help but have a hard-hitting effect.

  When he’s done reading, Hurley looks at me and says, “How could I have not seen this?”

  “I’ve asked myself that same question,” I admitted. “The signs were there, I saw it, but I didn’t put it all together. As a nurse, I should have. But I was too wrapped up in my own emotions and my own life to see what was right in front of my face.”

  They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, and in this case that certainly is true. Now that I know the truth, when I look back at my thoughts about Kate’s pale, mousy appearance, I realize that I should’ve known something was wrong. She had dark circles under her eyes, her energy level seemed low, and her appetite was off.

  “Emily knows nothing about this yet?” Hurley says.

  I’m not sure if he’s making a statement or asking me a question. “She knows her mother was sick. She told me her mother’s illness was the reason she lost her job and her medical insurance. The medical bills were the reason they lost their home. But when I asked Emily if her mother was okay now, she said she thought she was because she wasn’t seeing any doctors anymore.”

  “Damn,” Hurley mutters. He flicks a finger at the letter. “Kate says in here that she sent Emily a letter of her own. I don’t know when she mailed it, but it could arrive as soon as tomorrow. I’m going to have to tell her either tonight or tomorrow. And then I’m going to try to find Kate.”

  “She made it pretty clear in her letter that she doesn’t want to be found,” I say.

  “I don’t give a damn what she wants,” Hurley says, raking a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe she did this. It’s not fair to Emily, it’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to anybody. The last thing I need right now is full-time responsibility for a kid. If I’d wanted to be a father, I would’ve had kids of my own.” He drops the letter on the table as if it just burned his fingers. He leans back in his chair, wipes both hands down the side of his face, and sighs heavily. “This is so typical of Kate,” he says, clearly ticked. “She’s always been so self-centered, thinking only of herself.”

  “I think you’re being a little harsh on her,” I say. “She’s dying, Hurley. Her primary concern seems to be for Emily, not for herself. Whatever relationship the two of them have built over the years is what she seems determined to have Emily remember her by, rather than some deathbed scenario.”

  Hurley lunges forward so fast it makes me lurch back. He stabs a finger on the letter lying on the table. “Where did you say you found this?”

  “It was underneath my bra on the floor between your bedside table and the bed. I’m pretty sure Kate must’ve left it on your bedside table, thinking you’d see it when you got home last night and went to bed.”

  “Except I never went to bed. I slept on the couch all night.”

  “When you and I were in the bedroom earlier today, you tossed my bra over your shoulder and it hit the table. It must have also hit the letter and they fell to the floor.”

  “It’s a pretty crappy way to handle this,” Hurley says, his anger clearly not abating. “Why couldn’t she have just sat down and talked to me face-to-face? Why couldn’t she have sat down with Emily and done the same thing?” He grabs the letter up in his hand, scrunching it beneath his fingers and shaking it. “This is how she says good-bye? I hope to hell she does a better job in her letter to Emily.” He opens his hand and lets the letter drop back to the table. “Dammit!”

  Clearly there will be no dessert tonight, at least not here. Hurley pays the check for our meal, stuffs the letter in his pocket, and drives me back to the police station.

  “Let’s call it a night,” he says as he parks. “I need to do some paperwork and I think I’ll just stay here until I hear from Desi and can pick up Emily.”

  “Do you want me to help you talk to Emily about her mother?”

  Hurley thinks about this for a moment and then says, “No, I think it will be easier for her coming from me alone. Since I’ve basically been hoodwinked and duped into fatherhood, I might as well figure out how to do it. I’ll probably screw it up, but at least Emily is old enough that most of her psyche is already formed. If she turns out to be a mess, I can always blame it on Kate.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do fine with her.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I just don’t think I’m cut out to be a father, Winston. Between the crazy hours I keep with my job and the number of years I’ve been on my own, I don’t have the time or the patience to be a father. Or the desire for that matter.”

  “You said Emily was a great kid.”

  “She is. She’s smart, funny, polite, down-to-earth, all the things you want to see in a teenager . . . someone else’s teenager.”

  He looks genuinely upset and it tears me up to see the hurt and worry on his face. I lean over and give him a kiss on the cheek. “I have faith in you, Steven Hurley. I know you can do this.”

  He turns and gives me a wan smile. “I guess I’ll have to. The kid doesn’t have anyone else so I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

  “Let me know if I can help in any way.”

  “I will.”

  “Do you have anything planned for tomorrow work-wise? Or should I just plan on spending the day in the office?”

  “Our case is going nowhere so you might as well hang in the
office until we hear something back from Madison and have a better idea of exactly what poison was used on Chase. I’m probably going to take a personal day tomorrow since I’ll have to tell Emily about her mother and I don’t know how she’s going to take it.”

  “Call me after you’ve told her and let me know how it goes. I bonded with Emily a little and I might be able to help. If I can’t, I bet Hoover can.”

  “Are you suggesting a little pet therapy?”

  “It can’t hurt.”

  He leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Winston. I’ll keep you posted.”

  We get out of his car and head our separate ways, him into the police station, me to my hearse parked under the ME’s office. Driving home, I’m struck by a terrible sadness and an odd sense of loneliness. When I get home, I’m glad Hoover is there to greet me because I can use a little pet therapy of my own.

  Chapter 29

  Sunday, March 2 (still)

  Dear Diary,

  What a day this has been, filled with confusing thoughts, events, and emotions. Our current murder case is nothing but one frustration after another. We have tons of suspects with a variety of motives, but no hard evidence. We don’t even know yet what killed the victim. Trying to solve this case is like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.

  My commitment to keeping my relationship with Hurley on a strictly platonic, business level has been a miserable failure. Well, not totally miserable. The man can make me feel better than anyone else ever has, but guilt and a renewed sense of determination always follow. He seems to think we can have a sexual relationship and keep it under wraps so no one else knows. I have my doubts. The man makes me glow on the inside and I imagine that someone, sooner or later, will see that glow on the outside. It will probably be Izzy or Dom, and then I’ll need to have an explanation for it. I need a lover double, like the actors and actresses who have body doubles. In my case, it needs to be someone who will pretend to be my lover so that I can have a plausible excuse for my after sex glow. I’ll have to think about who I know that might fit the bill. It will have to be someone believable, someone people can imagine me sleeping with, and someone who won’t be hurt by the rumors.