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Authors: Blair Bancroft
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long-sleeved cotton nightgown over my head. Embroidered with pink flowers, it came straight out of the Smithsonian catalog’s elegant imitation nineteenth century nightwear. So I’m a wuss. After all, there was no one to see my Mother Hubbard but me.
I pulled up the covers and sank into sleep like a rock plunging into the depths of a pond.
At some point my dreams got a bit scary—Martin Kellerman dripping blood instead of water as his remains were hoisted onto the diving platform. And there was a noise that wouldn’t go away. The dream faded and I surfaced to my cellphone ringing so insistently I swear I could hearing it flopping across my bedtable. The glowing numbers on my digital alarm read 2:45.
Phone. 2:45. Oh, God!
“Hallo,” I mumbled, still not quite awake.
“Laura Wallace?”
“Yes.” I hadn’t been Laura Wallace for a very long time. Even my mother had adjusted, but . . .
“This is Deputy Morrison of the Sheriff’s Department. “We picked up your brother Scott for DUI.” Thank you, Lord ! Yes, it was awful, but I’d been afraid of so much worse. I heard noise in the background. “He wants to talk to you,” the deputy said.
“Laurie, you can’t tell mom. Promise me you won’t tell mom!” Drunk enough to call me Laurie for the first time in more than a decade, but not too drunk to be beg me to keep his latest transgression to myself.
“Of course I won’t tell mom.”
“I’m so sorry, really sorry,”Scott babbled, sounding as if he were about to cry. “Just don’t tell mom.”
“That’s enough.” The deputy retrieved his phone. “His car’s in the bank parking lot on the corner of Alligator Drive and the Trail. You can pick him up in the morning at eight at the country jail.” He gave me the address.
“Sarasota?” I inquired weakly.
“Right.”
“Thank you,” I managed, and hung up.
Chapter 6
I sat for a long time on the edge of my bed, not moving a muscle. My baby brother was in the drunk tank at the county jail. Our darling Scott who would have been a star in the age of knighthood.
My protective instincts kicked in. No wonder he’d drunk himself into a DUI. Finding Martin Kellerman was a ghastly experience by anybody’s standards.
So what. Lots of people had bad experiences, and they didn’t drink themselves into jail. Well . . . probably some of them did.
Scott, Scott, Scott, what are we going to do with you?
I finally reset the alarm, then tossed and turned until it rousted me out at 6:30 a.m.
Over the years I’d driven the forty-five mile round trip to Sarasota to visit the Ringling Museum, Mote Marine Laboratory, Selby Botanical Gardens, Jungle Gardens, and an occasional ballet, opera, or pre-season major league baseball game. I’d never been to the jail.
The deserted Tamiami Trail was almost unrecognizable at this hour on a Sunday morning. I reached downtown Sarasota with twenty minutes to spare, so I pulled into the McDonalds at the junction of the Trail and U. S. 301, a few blocks south of the jail, and ordered two black coffees. I hesitated over the bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffin, unsure if Scott’s stomach would be up for it, but decided it was better to have it on hand just in case. I eased out of the Drive-thru and turned my Malibu north on 301. This was it. I was going to jail.
The Sarasota County jail is new and modern, its narrow slitted windows too small for even Jack Sprat to slip through. I parked in the multi-level garage a block up the street, gloom descending around me with every step I took toward and towering cement structure on my right. As I stood on the sidewalk, studying what I thought was the entrance, a uniformed cop shot past me, pulled open a tilting drawer set into the side of the building and dropped his gun inside, before striding through the door to the lobby.
Evidently, I was in the right place. One thing I’d picked up during my disaster in New York—no one was allowed to carry a gun into a jail.
Forget
I pulled up the covers and sank into sleep like a rock plunging into the depths of a pond.
At some point my dreams got a bit scary—Martin Kellerman dripping blood instead of water as his remains were hoisted onto the diving platform. And there was a noise that wouldn’t go away. The dream faded and I surfaced to my cellphone ringing so insistently I swear I could hearing it flopping across my bedtable. The glowing numbers on my digital alarm read 2:45.
Phone. 2:45. Oh, God!
“Hallo,” I mumbled, still not quite awake.
“Laura Wallace?”
“Yes.” I hadn’t been Laura Wallace for a very long time. Even my mother had adjusted, but . . .
“This is Deputy Morrison of the Sheriff’s Department. “We picked up your brother Scott for DUI.” Thank you, Lord ! Yes, it was awful, but I’d been afraid of so much worse. I heard noise in the background. “He wants to talk to you,” the deputy said.
“Laurie, you can’t tell mom. Promise me you won’t tell mom!” Drunk enough to call me Laurie for the first time in more than a decade, but not too drunk to be beg me to keep his latest transgression to myself.
“Of course I won’t tell mom.”
“I’m so sorry, really sorry,”Scott babbled, sounding as if he were about to cry. “Just don’t tell mom.”
“That’s enough.” The deputy retrieved his phone. “His car’s in the bank parking lot on the corner of Alligator Drive and the Trail. You can pick him up in the morning at eight at the country jail.” He gave me the address.
“Sarasota?” I inquired weakly.
“Right.”
“Thank you,” I managed, and hung up.
Chapter 6
I sat for a long time on the edge of my bed, not moving a muscle. My baby brother was in the drunk tank at the county jail. Our darling Scott who would have been a star in the age of knighthood.
My protective instincts kicked in. No wonder he’d drunk himself into a DUI. Finding Martin Kellerman was a ghastly experience by anybody’s standards.
So what. Lots of people had bad experiences, and they didn’t drink themselves into jail. Well . . . probably some of them did.
Scott, Scott, Scott, what are we going to do with you?
I finally reset the alarm, then tossed and turned until it rousted me out at 6:30 a.m.
Over the years I’d driven the forty-five mile round trip to Sarasota to visit the Ringling Museum, Mote Marine Laboratory, Selby Botanical Gardens, Jungle Gardens, and an occasional ballet, opera, or pre-season major league baseball game. I’d never been to the jail.
The deserted Tamiami Trail was almost unrecognizable at this hour on a Sunday morning. I reached downtown Sarasota with twenty minutes to spare, so I pulled into the McDonalds at the junction of the Trail and U. S. 301, a few blocks south of the jail, and ordered two black coffees. I hesitated over the bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffin, unsure if Scott’s stomach would be up for it, but decided it was better to have it on hand just in case. I eased out of the Drive-thru and turned my Malibu north on 301. This was it. I was going to jail.
The Sarasota County jail is new and modern, its narrow slitted windows too small for even Jack Sprat to slip through. I parked in the multi-level garage a block up the street, gloom descending around me with every step I took toward and towering cement structure on my right. As I stood on the sidewalk, studying what I thought was the entrance, a uniformed cop shot past me, pulled open a tilting drawer set into the side of the building and dropped his gun inside, before striding through the door to the lobby.
Evidently, I was in the right place. One thing I’d picked up during my disaster in New York—no one was allowed to carry a gun into a jail.
Forget
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