Dead Wood - By Dani Amore Page 0,28

my sister said.

“Good. Your tact typically leaves quite a bit to be desired.”

“Quit stalling,” Ellen said. “Go on, take it like the man you aren’t.”

I got out, slammed the door shut as a response, and walked around the house to the back door. In my mind, I ran through a series of explanations, deciding that I’d already lied to my sister, lying to my wife would be even worse. No way was I going to lie. I might sanitize the truth a tad, but no more outright lies. Besides, I’d tried a fib or two to Anna before – no, I hadn’t eaten the last two chocolate chip cookies, etc. – and I’d always gotten busted. The woman was a walking polygraph machine.

I unlocked the back door, which opens into the kitchen, and Anna was at the kitchen table, helping Isabel with her homework. She looked at me, then did a double take.

“Everyone’s favorite man is home!” I sang out, my voice as merry as an elf on Christmas Eve.

My wife took one look at me and I knew it was game over. “Isabel, go upstairs,” Anna said. “Finish your math sheet in your room.”

After my daughter left, without a hug for her Dad I might add, Anna folded her arms and looked at me.

I began describing what happened, editing out the worst moments. I was only about halfway through the story when Anna started crying, and I immediately started feeing guilty. The girls ran down from upstairs upon hearing the sound of a grown-up crying.

“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Isabel said, her lower lip immediately starting to tremble.

Anna was trying to get herself under control, but failing miserably. I idly wondered when I would get my framed certificate proving once and for all that I was in fact, the world’s biggest jackass.

I decided to divide and conquer. Leaving Anna in the kitchen, I took the girls upstairs, immediately distracting them with a game of tackle and tickle, then we read some books and I tucked them in for the night.

I went back downstairs and found Anna drinking. Turning to booze was always a bad sign. But a small glass of Amaretto wasn’t a bad thing. I splashed a cocktail glass half full.

“Finish the story,” she said as I sat down on the couch next to her.

I told the rest of it to Anna, glossing over the part where I’d almost been blown to a million pieces of man gnocchi and minimizing how close I’d come to drowning. I told her exactly what the doctors had said, embellishing only on the soundness of my overall health. Still, she was pissed. Whenever she got upset, she cried first, then got pissed right after that. Super pissed, in fact.

“Why didn’t you take your sister with you?” she said. You have to understand, she was mad, but she wasn’t mad at the guy who tried to kill me. She was mad at me.

“She’s a cop, honey,” I said. “She can’t just take off with her brother when he’s got a case. Besides, I had no idea this was going to happen. I thought it would be a routine interview. As boring as those Barbara Walters specials. Do you remember the one with Bo Derek? God that was—”

“What about Nate? Why didn’t you take him?”

“Nate?” I said. “Well, he’s best in culinary emergencies — you know, when you can’t decide whether to have the roast duck or the broiled flounder.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I know.” It wasn’t. The part about Nate was a little bit funny, but no, the rest was definitely not.

“So what are you going to do?” she said.

“I’m going to keep working,” I said. She nodded. Anna now knew the details of the case, was caught up in it nearly as much as I was, and she probably didn’t want me to stop.

“I just want you to be more careful. Call Ellen if you think you’re going to be in any kind of danger, all right?”

“All right.”

“Because you know, you’re not a tough guy. You’re no Russell Crowe.”

I took that one in stride. “Very true. Very true.”

All in all, I thought it had gone pretty well. Anna didn’t seem too unhappy. I was safe. I would be more careful. I would get to the bottom of all this and it would be a good case to solve.

Things were going to be okay.

Seventeen

Muddy’s Saloon is a blues bar just a stone’s throw from the Detroit River. All of the greats have played there, leaving behind them