Читать книгу Running Out of Time - Suzanne Trauth - Страница 13

6

By the time we’d negotiated Seventh Avenue traffic, found a parking lot, and walked a block, I knew exactly where we were going: Rondelay, in the heart of Greenwich Village, one of the most romantic eating establishments in the city. I’d offhandedly mentioned that it was my favorite New York restaurant. I guess Bill had been listening.

As he took my coat, Bill’s eyes slid up and down my suit. “Nice outfit. Attractive,” he murmured.

OMG. Had he really called me “attractive”? This evening was going to be special. I eyed his pinstriped black suit, the tapered waist accentuating his broad shoulders. He’d managed to stay in great shape even after a career in the NFL. “Thanks. Not so bad yourself.”

Bill was a bit of a wine connoisseur, especially reds, and I had confidence in his judgment. We sipped a California cabernet at a candlelit table by floor-to-ceiling windows, the fireplace emitting a cozy warmth complemented by the rustic feel of the brick walls. The light from the chandeliers was reflected in the windows that overlooked snow-covered shrubs in a private garden. In a corner, a tuxedo-clad man played a baby grand piano. The ambience was intimate and inviting.

“Guess I hit one out of the ballpark with this place,” he said, sipping his wine. “I see why you like it. A nice place to have a belated Valentine’s Day dinner.”

I lifted my glass. “To Valentine’s Day.”

“I’m sorry about that. Duty called and—”

I raised a hand to stop him. “No need to explain. I understand.”

Bill cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I’m surprised you felt you could take tonight off.”

“I’m delegating to Suki more.”

Really? “Any leads on Sally’s whereabouts?” I asked cautiously. I still hadn’t heard back from her.

His eyes narrowed. “Dodie, let’s have a nice dinner and forget about shop talk, okay?”

We had decided on the three-course prix fixe menu and the waiter brought our appetizers—oyster chowder for me, crispy octopus for him. I inhaled the fragrant steam off my bowl. “This smells amazing.” We dove in.

“You know the other reason I brought you here?” he asked.

“Besides it being my favorite restaurant?”

“Yeah. And romantic,” he said matter-of-factly.

My spoon halfway to my mouth, I paused. “Why?”

“Its history.” Bill cut into a piece of octopus.

I knew it had been a carriage house in the 1700s. “Early American, right?”

“Built before the American Revolution. So…this restaurant, the ELT production…” He waited for me to respond.

“Both colonial America,” I said and took another spoonful of the chowder.

Bill laughed. “Yeah. You and everyone else in Etonville have their heads buried in the eighteenth century lately.”

“It’s a big undertaking for the theater. Large cast, powdered wigs, a grumpy turntable…”

He nodded. “I receive updates from Edna daily. Hard to keep her mind on dispatch.”

“Well, she’s saying what a lot of folks are thinking. I guess Walter just got a vision that he had to run with. There’s a stubborn streak there,” I said.

“Stubbornness. Must be the drinking water in Etonville,” he said wryly. “Anyway, things have been pretty quiet around town until yesterday. The only crises were the Banger sisters forgetting to pay their bill at Coffee Heaven and Mrs. Parker’s cat caught up a tree. But now…”

Coffee Heaven was an old-fashioned breakfast diner with a few modern coffee items on the menu. Caramel macchiato was my obsession.

“Right.” I had a sudden brainstorm. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you yesterday and I know you don’t want to talk shop, but Sunday night I had just come out of the Windjammer and it was already dark but across the street Barbie’s Craft Shoppe was—”

“What?”

Our entrées appeared—beef Wellington with root vegetables and beets in a cabernet reduction for me, and a rack of lamb with parsnip potato gratin and onion rings for Bill.

“I guess you know Ralph picked up the dead man on Main Street Sunday night?”

Bill stopped pouring wine.

“I knew it was him because the jacket and hat were the same,” I said.

“You’re telling me the victim was on the streets of Etonville days before he was found murdered?” Bill asked.

“Some coincidence, right?” No need to mention that Sally was with me. Yet.

Bill exhaled heavily. “The Craft Shoppe called in a complaint about a vagrant and Ralph responded. He told me the guy seemed nice, wandering down the street, and he paused to look in the shop window.”

That’s not all he paused to do.

“Ralph brought him in to the station?”

Bill shook his head. “He dropped him off at the library parking lot. The guy said he was meeting someone there.”

The library?

We ate and drank, and I could feel myself melting—relaxed and satisfied—even though Bill now seemed a little preoccupied. “Well, this makes up for last Saturday night,” I said.

He blinked. “You’re still holding a grudge?”

I laughed. “Of course not.”

I was too full for dessert, but a third course came with our dinners so we settled on crème brûlée and chocolate mousse. It had been a perfect night so far. Now, if Bill invited me back to his place for a nightcap—

“Do you?” he asked.

I had gotten lost in my fantasy. “Sorry?”

“Want to find someplace for an after-dinner drink?” He placed his credit card on the check.

“Sure.”

We put on our coats, Bill held the door, and I slipped out into the night. It felt like the temperature had dropped a few degrees and I shivered involuntarily.

Bill took my arm. “Let’s walk to the corner. There’s got to be a spot down Seventh Avenue.”

He shifted places with me, moving to the outside of the sidewalk as a couple bounced down the walk, laughing and nudging each other. They were probably high on something besides love. We shuffled aside to let them pass and Bill stepped off the curb. When he attempted to get back on the sidewalk, his foot caught the edge of a wrought iron tree guard throwing him off balance. He grasped a branch as his other foot hit a patch of black ice, whisking his legs out from under him, sending him onto the pavement with a thud and smashing his right foot into the tree guard.

I lunged for his arm, but the whole thing happened so quickly that he was on the ground before I could help. “Bill!” I stooped down.

The couple disappeared around a corner. Totally oblivious.

“Are you all right?” I asked, suddenly in disaster-mode. I knew it would be impossible for me to try to lift him.

He brushed me off. “I’m fine. Just bruised my backside a little.”

And his ego.

Bill moved into a kneeling position, then he struggled to stand, putting weight on his right leg. “Ow,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Did you bruise your foot too?” I asked.

“I think I might have sprained my ankle.”

I helped get him to an upright position.

“Sorry about the drink,” he said.

“I’ll take a raincheck,” I said as we hobbled down the street. I wanted to take a taxi to the parking lot, but Bill, being stoic, insisted he could walk. I didn’t argue, but by the time we got to the lot, he was flinching badly with every step.

“I don’t think I can drive,” he said apologetically.

I sobered up immediately. “I can handle your car.” Normally I would have been thrilled to test drive his BMW. I inspected the instrument panel: It was like facing an airplane cockpit.

I drove slowly, so as not to send Bill into vehicular panic, and crawled up Eighth Avenue, through the Lincoln Tunnel, and onto Route 3. At the turnoff to Etonville, I broached the subject carefully. “Maybe we should go to St. Anthony’s.” It was the area hospital in Creston and I was intimately familiar with the emergency room having spent the wee hours of a morning there last fall. I’d been conked on the noggin while doing investigative surveillance. But that’s another story.

“I’ll wrap it up when I get home. I had a handful of ankle sprains when I was in the NFL. I’ll be fine.” He adjusted his position and cringed. I wasn’t so sure.

“Bill, I think I need to make an executive decision here. Remember when you forced me to go to the hospital to get checked out last fall?”

“That was different. You might have had a concussion.”

“And you might have more than a sprain,” I said gently.

He put a face on. Before he could protest further, I exited Route 3, cut through the north end of Etonville, and hopped on State Route 53. By the time we pulled up to the emergency entrance of St. Anthony’s Hospital, his face was contorted with pain.

I parked the car and settled myself in the waiting room. The television was turned to late-night entertainment: Stephen Colbert interviewing an actress I’d never seen before. Was it after eleven thirty already? The night had been perfect—the food, the wine, the almost-after-dinner-drink that could have led to who-knows-what… I checked texts. A reminder from Henry to order shrimp for the weekend, a shout-out from Pauli to see how I liked the website updates, and three SOSs from Lola wondering what she was going to do about the show. I texted Henry that I might be late opening up in the morning.

Only five minutes had passed since I’d sat down in the waiting room. I closed my eyes.

A door opened. Bill appeared in a wheelchair, his right foot and ankle in a cast, accompanied by a male nurse in wrinkled scrubs who seemed even more worn out than me.

“Okay, Mr. Thompson. Don’t forget your prescriptions.” The young man set the brakes on the chair. “Are you alone?”

Bill looked to be beside himself. He stuffed the prescriptions in a pocket, flipped up a footrest, and stood up, nearly losing his balance. “No.”

“Whoa there. Take it easy.” He resettled Bill in the chair.

I got up.

The nurse shifted his attention to me. “Are you Mr. Thompson’s wife?”

“No,” Bill and I said simultaneously.

The nurse squinted at us. “He needs to take it easy the next few days.”

I ran to get the car and drove up to the emergency entrance again.

“Stay off that foot,” the young man said as we pulled away.

Bill was so still I assumed he’d fallen asleep.

“You were right. Fractured talus. A clean break but I’m going to have this thing on…” he tapped his cast, “…four to five weeks.”

“Any pain?” I asked softly.

“Just in my neck,” he said. Then snorted.

It was the beginning of a laugh. “Sense of humor still intact, I see.”

“How about that nightcap at my place?” he asked.

“Terrific.” Of course, it would not be as interesting as I had envisioned…

With the aid of crutches, he managed to get to the guest bedroom on the first floor of his center hall colonial. He texted Suki, alerting her to the situation. Good thing he was delegating. I removed the shoe off his good foot, and he shrugged out of his suit jacket and shirt and insisted he could take it from there. He was in the middle of thanking me and apologizing at the same time—forget the nightcap—when his eyes closed and he passed out. Turns out the pain meds were a little bit more potent than Bill had counted on.

It was two a.m. I scrounged up a blanket and pillow out of his linen closet and collapsed on his sofa. It was a disappointing end to a wonderful evening for both of us. Of course, I was the only one conscious enough to realize that. Soft snoring drifted out of the guest room since I’d left the door open in case he needed something. I probably wouldn’t have any trouble falling asleep…

My cell binged at eight a.m. from my purse where I’d left it last night, or rather this morning. It was a text from Lola, wondering if I was awake. I rose and tiptoed to the door of the guest room. Bill had shifted positions in the night but was still dozing. I tapped Lola’s number and listened to the phone ring several times before she picked up.

“Dodie! Finally. I expected you to call me when you got home last night. I was up ‘til all hours. Worrying, of course. Did I wake you?”

I mumbled, “Not really.”

“Why are you whispering? Did you lose your voice? Carol’s herb tea—”

“I didn’t lose my voice. I don’t want to wake Bill.”

I could hear her smile. “Aha… So that’s why I didn’t get a call back.”

“It’s not what you think. He broke a bone in his ankle last night, and we didn’t get out of the emergency room until almost two and then he passed out from the pain meds and I ended up on the sofa—”

“He broke his ankle? How?”

“Dodie?” Bill stood in the doorway of the guest room, his trousers rumpled, his brush cut tousled, and pale blond stubble shadowing his face.

“Gotta go, Lola.”

“Call later!” she begged as I clicked off.

After a civil but heated discussion, I helped Bill up the staircase, clunking step after step with the crutches, to the second floor where he insisted he could bathe and dress himself. He maintained, again, that he’d played through worse injuries on the gridiron. I reminded him, again, that he was supposed to stay off the leg.

I sat at his kitchen counter with a cup of coffee and waited for him to reappear, mentally ticking off my errands this morning.

“Got any more of that?” Bill hobbled his way to the counter.

He’d been right…he was able to clean up pretty well, shave off yesterday’s stubble and get himself into a clean uniform. Despite the hour of the day, his freshly scrubbed look and muscular torso were able to raise my heart rate. But work? “You’re not intending to report for duty, are you? I don’t think that’s what they had in mind when they said ‘take it easy.’”

Bill dismissed my point with a wave of his hand and sipped from the mug I filled. “I have a murder to solve.” He strapped on a shoulder holster.

“Okay. Let’s go. I’ll leave your car—”

“No need. Ralph will be here soon to pick me up and he’ll drop you off.” Bill set his mug down. “Thanks for last night. I mean it. I really appreciate your help.”

He sounded so touched I could feel some heat creeping up my neck. “It was no big deal. You’d have done the same for me, right?”

He adjusted his crutches and clomped over to pick up his jacket.

“Right?” I asked again.

He turned to me, his eyes twinkling. “You even have to ask?”

My heart was aflutter.