Marcia Talley - Sing It to Her Bones

A few minutes later Connie joined me. “C’mon, Hannah.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic squeeze. “Let’s go find a telephone.”

I climbed wearily into the car, and as Connie backed around My Mink and headed toward the parking lot, I slumped in my seat, repeating, “I don’t believe it.”

She shifted into drive and the car lurched forward. “ You can’t believe it! How about me? I’ve been working with Hal for years. If what we suspect is true, he’s been dealing drugs for at least eight of those years, with no one the wiser.”

Connie nosed into one of three parking spaces directly in front of the Ships Store, a neat wooden structure painted gray with white trim to match its neighbors. A sign in the window was flipped from Open to Closed. I was almost relieved.

“Never mind,” Connie told me. “The phones are outside anyway, around back, on the side facing the river.”

I was inclined to wait in the car, but Connie insisted I come with her. We circled the store to the spot where a wooden pier began, extended across the length of the building, and stretched off in the direction of the gas dock about one hundred feet away. Dock D, where Sea Song floated quietly in her slip, was just beyond.

Bell Atlantic had installed the public telephone on a wall directly between the rest rooms, one labeled “Buoys” and the other “Gulls.” I thought Connie was perfectly capable of handling the call on her own, so I headed for the “Gulls.”

Minutes later, in the privacy of the bathroom, I sat on a wooden bench in a shower stall, closed my eyes, and rested my head against the cool tiles. I hated to admit it, but it looked as if Bill were right. Hal must be dealing drugs. Is that what Liz and Frank Chase were so intent on covering up? Maybe there was something other than a pregnancy recorded in all that mumbo jumbo on Katie’s chart, something about her habit. I cursed my bad luck. Unless Dr. Chase still had Katie’s chart or was willing to talk about it, we’d never know for sure. I concentrated, trying to recall what else Dr. Chase’s father had written down about Katie, wishing I had one of those photographic memories, but it was no good. The important thing, I decided, was to pass on what I did remember to Dennis before I ended up having another inconvenient accident.

I rotated my shoulders, trying to relieve myself of the stiffness along my spine, then spider-walked my arm up the tiles until I felt the familiar tug of damaged muscles still recovering from surgery. I chastised myself for forgetting to do my daily exercises, yet in spite of my neglect, I was pleased to note that progress had been made: I could almost raise my arm overhead. Perhaps taking headers over lifelines and swimming out of ponds counted as physical therapy these days. For a few minutes I stood in front of the mirror and massaged my temples, which had begun to throb. Gawd, I needed a bath, my usual therapy, but figured I would have to settle for running a damp paper towel over my face and neck. I combed through my wig with my fingers but succeeded only in tipping it sideways over one ear.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I found Connie rummaging through her purse. “Dennis isn’t at the station. They say he’s gone home.”

A quarter fell out of her wallet, and I caught up with it before it rolled away between the wooden planks and dropped into the water below. “Here.” I handed it to her. “What do we do now?”

“Call him at home, I guess.” She picked up the receiver. “Damn! It’s thirty-five cents. Do you have a dime?”

I patted my empty pockets and shrugged. Connie let the receiver dangle from its short cord while she rooted through her purse, found a dime, and slotted it into the telephone after the quarter. She punched in a number without looking it up. Abruptly she passed the receiver to me. “Ask for Dennis.”

I frowned and listened to the phone ring three times. I was going to get even with Connie for this . On the fourth ring a female voice chirped, “Rutherford’s.”

“Ms. Rutherford?” Coward , I mouthed in Connie’s direction. She began pacing up and down the dock. “Ms. Rutherford, this is Hannah Ives. I wonder if your father is at home?”

“Sorry, he’s not, Mrs. Ives. He went off duty at six. He may have dropped in at the nursing home to visit my grandfather, though. He often does that in the evening.”

“Thanks. I’ll try to catch him there. If he comes home in the next few minutes, please tell him I called. It’s important. Let me give you the number.”

“Oh, I know the number, Mrs. Ives.” She hung up without saying good-bye, adding fuel to the fire of my suspicion that something intriguing was going on between Connie and Dennis.

I held the receiver to my ear until the dial tone kicked in, then handed it over to Connie. “Do you think she’ll deliver the message?”

“I don’t know,” Connie said. “Fifty-fifty.” In the light from the overhead lightbulb, her face looked flushed.

“She said he might be at the nursing home. Let’s go. We can catch up with him there.”

Connie didn’t move. She was staring out into the Truxton, where the sky had gathered up the blues and grays from the water and lights were just beginning to twinkle on in the waterfront homes on the other side of the river. “I feel numb,” she said. “I would have trusted Hal with my life.”

I thought about Frank Chase and Liz Dunbar, an odd couple if there ever was one, and wondered what dark secrets they shared. I thought about the glances that passed between Connie and Dennis when they thought I wasn’t looking. “I’m finding that nothing in Pearson’s Corner is what it seems,” I told her.

We headed back to the car, not speaking. Connie had already climbed into the driver’s seat and I had a hand on the door handle on the passenger side when I noticed a familiar car in the parking lot, Liz’s black Lexus. I wrenched open my door and leaned in. “Connie! Liz Dunbar is here. I didn’t know she sailed.”

“She doesn’t.” Connie turned her head and peered through the rear window.

“What’s she doing here then?”

“I don’t know.” Connie slid out of her seat and joined me. She leaned back against the trunk of her car and surveyed the parking lot. “And Frank’s here, too.”

I had missed it. Frank Chase’s blue Ford was parked farther away, next to the icehouse adjacent to the marina office. “This could not be a coincidence,” I said. “If Hal is running drugs, as we suspect, do you suppose those two are involved in the business, too?” Pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place. Katie’s habit. Liz’s source of money for college. The volatile relationship between Liz and Frank. But I still couldn’t figure out what Katie’s pregnancy had to do with any of it.

My attention turned from Frank’s car to the marina office. From where we stood, it looked deserted. The side facing us was a blank wall of board and batten siding, painted gray like the store. The only opening, a single door, was closed and dark. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s home.”

“You can’t tell from here,” Connie said. “The main entrance is on the water side.”

I had an idea. “Connie, you’re a boat owner. We have legitimate business here. Hal doesn’t know about…” I jerked my head in the direction of the shed where a Pegasus lighter than manufacturer’s specifications lay. “Let’s pay them a call. You can say you’re looking for…” I cast around in my mind for the name of some nautical part, some little marine gizmo that would probably cost five cents at Ace Hardware or $10.95 if you bought it at the Ships Store. “Say you’re desperate for a cotter pin and the store is closed.”