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“Sorry.” Willy shifted from foot to foot like a child squirming not to pee. “You got what you wanted. Your boy’s out of the way. But my guys want to know why I’m not transferring him to county. That old holding cell hasn’t been used in ten years.”
Ash poked Willy in the chest, stabbing hard with his forefinger. “Well, you figure something out, and make sure you keep him there until the building inspector orders a wrecking crew to demolish the Cummings’ house. You had better pray he didn’t get too much work done on that eyesore.”
Beneath Willy’s belt and holster, his stomach rolled causing all of his cop apparatus to jerk. He belched and a smell like over fermented vinegar spilled from his mouth.
Ash recoiled in disgust. “Can’t you control yourself?”
Willy covered his mouth with his fist and hiccupped more gas. “This is a real mess. I’m holding the guy with trumped up charges. I’m breaking more laws than I can count. My pension is going to fly right out the window. What if he’s not just some drifter? He says he’s—”
“Who? Eric Laine? He’s yanking your chain. Cheryl’s ridiculous rumor must have gotten back to him thanks to that old busybody he’s been living with.”
“But…” Willy was still wriggling and belching, while Ash’s face tightened into a hard collection of distended muscles and bones.
“But nothing. How many movie stars do home repair as a sideline? Maybe Hollywood producers aren’t paying enough these days. Brad Pitt probably has a part time job flipping burgers.” Ash leaned close enough to make the police chief shrink in stature. “You locked him up, didn’t you get a good look at him?”
“Only after the Simpsons worked him over. He’s got two black eyes, but I have to tell you he held his own. In one of Eric Laine’s movies he gets into a fight with these three guys and…”
Ash rolled his eyes. “You and that wife of yours spend too much time at the Multiplex. Do you honestly think the real Eric Laine ever got into a fight in his life? He’s an actor. He can probably ballet dance better than he can box. As for your boy in the cell…he just got lucky.”
Ash opened the door, and with a jut of his chin dismissed Willy. “I want you to find the Simpsons and make sure they don’t come anywhere near the town line until your prisoner is long gone. And he doesn’t get out until Ina’s hovel is kindling. Do you think you can manage that, Will?”
Police chief Willy Parks answered with a nervous nod and another hiccup.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jenna brushed her fingers across her sleeping daughter’s face and adjusted the covers. It was the fourth or fifth time she had checked on Janie since she went to bed. The child had been given a tremendous amount of information to absorb. She was frightened by the idea of the terrible man who thought he was her father, and resistant to accepting the idea of the man who was. Jenna smoothed the blankets and ran her hand across Janie’s shoulders. She looked over at the dresser and the time on the cable box. It was after nine, and she realized the day had passed with no word from Eric.
“I need you,” she whispered as she stared at the LED numbers. “Why haven’t you called?”
****
Randi returned Monday and made herself useful by waiting on the intermittent flow of customers at the store. Jenna’s wan complexion and red-rimmed eyes told her friend all she needed to know.
“Say it, Randi. Go ahead, just say I told you so.”
She stammered. “Jen, I…I…”
Pounding on the register key made the machine whirr the total of the day’s receipts. Jenna tore at the tape that spilled from the slot and shoved it along with the money into the bank deposit envelope.
“Do you want me to count that for you?” Randi offered.
Jenna handed the envelope to her friend and slowly sank onto the stool behind the counter. “You were right. He was just playing some sort of game with me. Ina Cummings said he never even went back to her house.”
“Maybe something happened to him…an accident or….”
Jenna shook her head. “If Eric Laine was in an accident, it would be all over the news. He left. There’s no other explanation.”
Scribbling figures on a pad, Randi straightened the bills in the envelope. She gave an efficient tug on the zipper and clicked the lock. “You’re tired and upset. You aren’t thinking straight. It makes no sense for him to come here, spend almost a month trying to make up with you, and then disappear the day after you sleep together. It just makes no sense. Something must have come up…an emergency. I’m sure he’ll call.”
****
Three days after Eric went missing, Cromline’s building inspector raided Ina’s home. He scribbled furiously in his pad as he picked at crumbling mortar, shaking his head and scratching at the pad for every speck of dust that fell to the floor. He came equipped with vials of chemicals to test for lead, radon, asbestos, and whatever elements the EPA decided that, at seventy-eight years of age, she should no longer be exposed to.
Looking down his narrow nose, he clucked his tongue at cracks in walls long overdue for a skim-coat of plaster and paint. As he made his way to another room the floorboards creaked under his weight and again he turned to Ina, a pucker of displeasure crimping his mouth.
She faced away to let her eyes rove around the room as if to commit each bit of trim, every doorknob, and each pane of wavy glass to memory. The image of a bulldozer driving over her house and reducing it to a mound of splintered wood spun with dizzying force through her mind. She could see the boards caving in upon themselves, hear the crack as they snapped in half. Every memory she kept cherished in her heart would be gone. Trees that were old friends and the precious herbs and perennials she had lovingly cultivated for more than half a century would be trampled by golf carts. Vines of pumpkins and berries, her livelihood, were going to be obliterated from her life to make way for Ash Baldwin’s pro shop.
She watched the inspector more as he squinted, scraping away at chipped paint. She bit down on her lip to stanch her tears. The fate of her home shouldn’t be left up to a man whose sole intent was to find the flaws. Why didn’t the dour man see what Eric had seen—a brick hearth with a hand-carved mantel, spindles lolling crookedly on the staircase that were solid oak and salvageable. Antique brass doorknobs, blackened with age, could easily be cleaned. Eric had assured her everything was worth saving and would be restored.
