Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

quarter.”
    On the way home, Chris grumbled mightily. “Some friend, right? They just happened to set me up because— what?— I was handy? Well, isn’t that just great— no enemy.”
    “You always said you didn’t have one.”
    “Now I wish I did.”
    There’s no pleasing some people. As for me, I thought I got a great reading. It had definitely made a believer out of me, especially that funny thing Moonblood said, once I figured it out. Julio and I had joked about moving to some midpoint between our two towns. Half Moon Bay would be just about right.

Chapter Fifteen
    Rob was in my office when I arrived the next morning. “I've been doing a little spadework.”
    “Want some coffee?”
    “Yeah. Now listen—”
    “Caffeine first, okay?”
    Kruzick loved nothing better than serving coffee to clients. It was all we could do to keep him from wearing a little French maid’s uniform with biscuit hat for the task. And half the time, despite our best efforts, he affected a falsetto accent while pouring anyway. All very amusing, une petite role reversal, tris charmante . Except that he made inhumanly egregious coffee. We’d tried everything, including watching him through each step, and he got no better. We went through about ten kinds of coffee-makers till we finally found one that, for some reason, seemed to click with him. Now his coffee was close to drinkable. He insisted on pouring it into a china pot and serving it in thin cups with saucers.
    This morning, in answer to my request, he arrived tray in hand, carefully lined with a starched white napkin, and he wore an embroidered apron. “ Cafi pour m’sieu et mam’selle? Madeleine? ” He had a plate of cookies on the tray.
    “Alan, I appreciate the service, but the bunny dip really isn’t necessary.”
    “ Oh, pas probleme, mam’selle. Nous aimons a plaisir. ”
    See what I have to put up with? Why can’t Mickey go out with a nice doctor?
    When the drug had started to work (about the third sip), Rob blurted his news: “I found out Adrienne’s mother committed suicide about six months ago.”
    “That poor girl must have been through hell. No wonder she’s so depressed.” I paused and thought about it. “What do we know about the suicide? Had she been ill?”
    “I can’t find out anything. Adrienne’s dad clams up on the subject. I talked to him this morning.” He stopped and sipped for a minute. “Well, I might as well tell you the whole thing. I found out about the mom from the famous Danno— you know the ex-boyfriend she keeps talking about? She’d called him a few times, and he finally called her back. But he got nervous because he couldn’t reach her either at Jason’s or her dad’s, so he called the Chronicle and finally the call got to me. Anyway, he let it slip about the mom, but he didn’t know the details; so I went over to the hospital and found Mr. Dunson there— what’s his name?— Fred, I think. He wouldn’t talk to me.”
    “What do you mean wouldn’t talk to you? He said ‘no comment’ or flipped you off, or what?”
    “I mean, he just sat in a corner with his head down and wouldn’t acknowledge I was there. Finally, I got worried, thinking, what with his wife dying and now his daughter in intensive care, maybe he’d gone off the deep end or something. So I started saying was he okay, and he really had to buck up— don’t throw up now….”
    “No, I think that’s nice.”
    “…and he went ballistic on me. Started yelling it was none of my business and to butt out of his life. As you can imagine, all hell broke loose in the hospital. White-coated people came from miles around, and he got this look, like a cornered fox— I don’t blame him, it must have been terrifying. Maybe he thought they were going to lock him up or something, I don’t know, but it was abundantly obvious he felt the time had come to leave, and he wasn’t sure they were going to let him. So he knocked me down to clear a path.”
    “Knocked you down?” My voice was a little weird, but I thought I was going to be all right.
    “Yeah, he just came out and hit me…. Hey, what’s wrong?”
    Rob had been so engrossed in his story, which I think he more or less perceived as funny, that he hadn’t noticed the lower half of my face trembling or my funny voice. By now I’d teared up, and great, embarrassing trails of saltwater were making their way down my face.
    “Look, I’m okay— it didn’t hurt a bit, honest.” He paused,