Wrong Man Running by Alan Hruska

Author:Alan Hruska [Alan Hruska]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd
Published: 2011-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

Diane – ‘Call me Di, rhymes with princess’ – gave me a bedroom on the top floor. Spare, dark wood floor, and starkly colonial: rag rugs, single chest, wooden rocking chair, four- poster bed – infinitely better than a flophouse. By the time I awoke, she was gone. A note in the kitchen said, ‘Gym. Be back soon. Help yourself to breakfast.’ With almost everybody else in the country wanting to tear me apart, this simple note damn near undid me. I stood there in her kitchen in my bare feet and rumpled clothes, feeling her kindness pierce my resentment. Only lasted a moment – but I resolved some day, somehow, to repay this young woman I scarcely knew.

I ate some of her bran flakes, peering at her view of the Hudson from the bay window in the kitchen at the back of her house. Still fall, but the river looked wintry. Ink-black currents. The world was chilly again. At least mine.

I had calls to make. Joe Stein, Betsy. Ali, to whom I really wanted to talk. I wondered whether they’d tapped her phone. And, if they had, would that mean they’d be able to trace my call? Not knowing this rankled, since it was the sort of detail I’d had the opportunity to learn. In any event, after taking a shower and leaving a note for Diane, I wandered out on to the streets of Hoboken, watching out for cops and hunting for a pay phone.

I found one about ten blocks away, at the edge of town near a bus stop. Must have caught Ali as she’d arrived for work.

‘Will you accept a collect call from . . .’ My voice interjected, ‘Blessed Studwell?’

In happier days, such a pseudonym might have gotten a laugh. Ali just accepted the charges.

‘Are you all right?’ she shot out.

‘Yes, darling. I’m OK. I’m doing what I believe I have to do.’

‘What’s going on, baby?’ She was crying.

‘I’m not entirely sure, but it’s obvious someone who knows me is trying to frame me. And doing a good job of it. But I have some leads. I don’t expect this to take forever.’

‘This? What are you doing? You’re trying to catch the guy on your own?’

‘I’m the only one looking for the bastard, darling. Everyone else is looking for me.’

‘A policeman came to see me.’

‘Chacon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t trust him,’ I said.

‘I won’t. But he did say there were aspects of the case that troubled him deeply. That they were keeping their minds open.’

‘I’d love to believe it.’

‘But you don’t.’

‘Not a word. How are the kids?’

Big breath. ‘OK,’ she said.

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘What aren’t you telling me?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing to worry about. Molly fainted again, but she’s fine. I took her to the doctor. He says not to get alarmed, it may never happen again, and he’ll keep an eye. Sam is fine. At that age they don’t really understand what you’ve been accused of. I told them some nasty snitch had blamed you for doing something you didn’t do and you’d straighten it out soon.

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