by L V Gaudet
“Why do you want to know about this Detective Michael Underwood?”
“You transferred him to my department,” Jim repeats. “Turns out he wasn’t such a good fit.”
“Personality issue?”
“He’s not a cop.”
Sergeant Reagers raises his eyebrows in surprise. He smiles.
“You are pulling my leg. Who put you up to this? Murphy?”
Jim shakes his head.
“I’m investigating Michael Underwood for kidnapping, murder, fraud, providing false identification, and impersonating an officer. The list goes on.”
Sergeant Reagers looks stunned. He takes a moment to absorb it.
“This detective is from our precinct? I don’t remember the name.”
“You signed the transfer. It came from the fax machine in this building.”
Sergeant Reagers gets up, shaking his head.
“If I did, I’ll have a copy in his personnel file.”
He goes to the filing cabinets, opens a drawer, and starts thumbing through the files. He frowns.
“Underwood?” he asks.
Jim spells it.
Sergeant Reagers shakes his head again and turns to him.
“I have no file on an Underwood, Michael or any other Underwood.”
“That’s because he’s a fraud,” Jim says. “It’s not his real name. Michael Underwood does not exist and yet somehow a transfer with your signature for a Michael Underwood was faxed from this building to mine.”
“How do you know? If I signed the transfer paper, then he must be real.” Sergeant Reagers says.
“I talked to people who would have been in the same class. Not a single one recognized the name or his face. His badge number doesn’t exist either. It starts with the right number for the class the year he claimed to graduate, but it’s past the sequence used. He’s two numbers higher than the number of recruits in the class.”
“Do you have a copy of the transfer?” Sergeant Reagers asks.
Jim pulls pages out from his leather bag and hands them to him.
Sergeant Reagers takes them and studies them.
“The transfer paper looks legitimate. That’s my signature.” He mulls it over. “I remember that class. We had one drop out last minute. Another was kicked out and one failed. So, that would make this the next sequential number, adding one to the class.”
Jim nods.
Sergeant Reagers flips to the next page, a printout with Michael Underwood’s police I.D. photo and his particulars. His photo looks like the kind of mug shot of a suspect that would be used in a briefing, like all the officers’ I.D. photos. He studies the face.
“I’ve never seen the man,” he says, shaking his head.
“That’s what I thought,” Jim says.
“Let’s show this around the building,” Sergeant Reagers says, indicating the photo sheet. “See if anyone else recognizes him.”
When Jim leaves the building later, it is with the sickening feeling of being right. The photo will be shown later to the other officers who were not in the building right now and passed around the other shifts, but he knows it will be the same.
Not a single person will recognize the face.
Michael Underwood never existed before the day he walked into Jim McNelly’s office and his life.
Thanks to Beth’s clever research, he knows Michael’s rental references didn’t check out. His bank accounts hold no prior history. Even his insurance and driving records seem to have just suddenly appeared.
“Who the hell are you?” Jim mutters angrily as he drives away.
11Secret Rendezvous
“Where are you going?” Kathy asks. She is nervous whenever Michael leaves her alone.
“I told you, I don’t know yet. I’ll be stopping in different towns to see what’s there” Michael says, shoving a few changes of clothing into a bag.”
“Do you have to be gone so long? Why can’t I come with you?”
“You just can’t.” Michael turns to her. “I’m looking for a new place for us and a job. I’ll only be gone for a few days.”
Kathy is unsure. What if he never comes back? What if he just abandons me here? Who was he talking to on the phone before he started packing? He arranged a meeting with someone. I know it, but he won’t admit it. I know I should trust him, but I’m afraid to let him go.
“If you are going looking for a new house, then why can’t I come with you?” she asks.
Michael hates the begging tone in her voice. She is weak, helpless, and needs to be protected. It makes him feel bad for leaving her. He wishes she was stronger, less dependent on him. Sometimes her weakness grates on his nerves.
I have enough to deal with without having to always be her anchor.
“It’s going to be boring,” Michael says. “I’ll just be driving around, checking areas out, see what’s around, and sleeping in the truck. I’ll have to drop into places and see if they’re hiring. If I find a job, then we’ll get a place in the area.
We’ll stay there as long as we need, then move on. I want to get further away. We need to keep moving for now.”
“You aren’t meeting someone?”
“No,” Michael lies. “I have got to go.”
He grabs his bag and moves towards her. Pulling her close, he wraps his arms around her, leans down, and kisses her.
“Don’t worry. I’ll always keep you safe.”
He releases her and she is torn. She wishes he hadn’t let her go and yet does not want him touching her right now.
With that Michael is gone, heading out the door.
Kathy goes to the front window, watching him get into his truck and drive away. His absence leaves a cold chill of dread inside her.
“Who are you meeting Michael?” she asks the departing truck. “I know he’s lying. I heard him on the phone. He’s meeting someone. He’s been acting secretive all week. He’s hiding something.”
The loneliness begins to set in before the truck is out of sight.
I have no friends, no one but Michael to talk to. I have nowhere to go. He doesn’t even want me leaving the house. I’m so lonely. I want desperately to call my mother.
She looks at the phone longingly.
“No, I promised Michael I wouldn’t. He warned me that if I call my mother or anyone else from my past life, the call will be traced. The police will be on us before we can run and he will be locked away.
Maybe if I go someplace else? Find a pay phone? I don’t even know where to look. I can’t remember the last place I’ve seen a pay phone. Everyone has cell phones now. Except us. Michael says they would use it to find us.
No. I can’t even use a pay phone. They’ll still trace the call to this town and find us.”
Kathy goes to the sofa and sits down to wait.
“I feel bad for lying to Kathy,” Michael says, staring at the road before him. “She deserves better. I have to bring her fully into who and what I am. It’s the only way. But, I have to do it slowly. You can’t be married and keep a big secret like this.”
The long drive gives him too much time to think.
When he was a child he had vague memories of his real father, but even those mostly faded over the years. Then he blocked it all out, pushing his past and all the unpleasant memories behind a curtain of fog.
Now he has only the memory of having the memory. Memories he can’t tap into.
Thinking about his childhood makes the memories stir, ugly memories. He doesn’t want to remember.
“No,” Michael says. “Think about something else.”
He forces himself to think about the future.
“We will have to move a few more times, changing jobs, homes, towns. We need money. It costs a lot of money to not be found. I need to go back to work.
I need a job for a cover. Just like the McAllister Farm was for generations of the McAllisters, a cover to keep the neighbours from getting too nosy.
Papa, Jason, told me how little his fa
mily worked the farm when they lived there when he was a boy. It was little more than a front for what his father really did.”
Michael swallows the sour ball in his stomach that feels like it’s rising in his throat.
“As much as I despise it, I was raised a McAllister and I can never run away from that no matter how hard I try. Damn you Jason McAllister.” He pounds the steering wheel with one hand. He tries denying it to himself, but when it comes to needing money, it will always be there waiting for him.
So will the McAllister Farm.
The drive wears on endlessly, his mind eventually numbing into a void without thought.
Finally, he pulls into a little roadside restaurant on the edge of nowhere.
Michael parks on the edge of the parking lot, out of sight from anyone looking out the front windows of the restaurant, and sits there.
His heart is racing and he is sweating. I have to get myself under control. I have to be completely calm when I walk in that door.
No fear.
Michael studies the place, the cars, and the people coming and going. He concentrates on breathing slowly, trying to slow his racing heart.
When he finally feels like he can go in without panicking, Michael gets out of the truck and starts walking towards the restaurant. He concentrates on his feet, keeping from stumbling and his pace steady. His legs are chunks of wood. They have no feeling.
He enters the restaurant and pauses, waiting for his eyes to adjust. It is dark inside compared to the bright sunlight outside.
There are a few scattered tables with people at them.
Michael looks around, spots a man sitting in a back booth, and approaches the table hesitantly.
The man sits there ignoring him and idly stirring his already stirred coffee as if that will somehow make it taste better. He is middle-aged with thinning hair cut in a business style. He is wearing a cheap suit jacket, trousers, and dress shirt with the top two buttons undone and no tie.
He is as average and nondescript as they come.
Any witnesses wouldn’t even remember this man was here. He’s the sort they never seem to notice in the crowd, Michael thinks.
“Anderson?” Michael asks. He has never met him before.
“Sit,” the man says without looking up.
Michael slides in across from him.
Anderson finally stops stirring his coffee and sets his spoon down on the table.
Seeing Michael, the waitress prowling the restaurant is on him in seconds with a half-full coffee pot in one hand and a tired smile on her lips.
She reaches across Michael without asking, turning over the second cup that sits upside down on a small plate in front of him, and pours him coffee.
“Anything I can get you?” she asks, eying him appreciatively. “The Danish here is divine.”
“No, thank you,” Michael manages, feeling awkward.
“The pie here is pretty good too,” Anderson says with a nod to the waitress. “We’re good here, thanks.”
Deflated with the knowledge that no meal means a much smaller tip, the waitress turns and walks away to stalk the restaurant, always ready to leap into action the moment a customer might need something. She works hard to earn her tips, unable to live on the meagre hourly wage they pay her.
Michael is nervous. What if he isn’t Anderson? What if it’s a setup? He pushes the thought away. It’s impossible. They are too well organized for that.
He consciously stops himself from looking at the man sitting across from him as he pours sugar in his coffee.
“Cream?” Anderson asks, indicating the little bowl of sealed creamers.
“No thanks, just sugar,” Michael says, stirring the sugar into his black coffee.
Michael sets the spoon down and looks pointedly at the man sitting across from him.
The man meets his gaze.
“Mr. Anderson?” Michael asks again. He needs to be sure.
“Yes,” Anderson says with a slight nod.
“I’m-,’ Michael starts and is cut off.
“Nobody,” Anderson interrupts him.
Michael nods sheepishly.
Anderson casually sips his coffee, watching Michael over the rim, weighing and judging the younger man sitting across from him. He counts down all the things he knows about him.
I don’t know the man, but I know enough about him. He is a McAllister, if not by blood then by association. David McAllister, Michael Underwood, and currently Michael Ritchot.
I know Michael’s past. I know all the aliases he used over the years. Jason McAllister had no kids, and yet raised two children. Michael ran away from Jason McAllister and spent his teen years running and hiding, living on the streets by whatever means were necessary. Before that, Jason groomed and trained the boy he called David as a McAllister.
I know who is responsible for the discovery of the graveyard that had been kept hidden in the McAllister family history for generations. Michael nearly murdered his own sister as a child when he had his first taste of blood, and that he is now crazed with the obsession of finding and protecting her. He has been for a very long time.
These things alone should have sealed Michael’s fate long before it came to this point, long before he came to sit across from me in a diner in the middle of nowhere.
Michael should have been put down long ago. Why are they giving this jerk a chance? It’s beyond me. If it were up to me, I would follow him out right now and make him disappear.
The McAllister farm hides secrets that Michael might know.
Michael is a loose cannon, just like Jason McAllister was when he was younger, and in some ways still is.
Damn, I’d like to just get rid of this bastard now. I can’t. Why’d they put me on this, instead of someone else? My job is to determine just how much of a threat Michael is, and whether he has to be dealt with. My job is to be unbiased, but I am biased.
His name is not really Anderson, of course. Anderson is the title given to the disposal experts’ handlers. But he isn’t that either. He is the Andersons’ Anderson, the handlers’ handler. He is here to assess Michael before deciding whether to kill him or hand him off to a handler. It’s as good a name as any for Michael. Michael does not need to know the truth.
Anderson nods finally.
“I have a job for you,” Anderson says. “I’ll give you the general area and a time and place to get the details. The rest is up to you.”
“Will I be working with you?”
Anderson shakes his head. “I’m temporary until we know where you will be working from and can set you up with a permanent handler.”
Once assigned a handler, it is a relationship for life. A truly till death do they part arrangement. The handler and his charges must have absolute trust in each other, and you don’t get that by switching handlers.
Michael nods. He understands what that means. He doesn’t trust me yet. They don’t trust me yet.
“You can count on me,” Michael says.
“I hope so.”
Anderson stands up, pulls out his wallet, and leaves money on the table, enough to cover his bill and an average tip. Waitresses don’t remember the guy who leaves an average tip, but they always remember the cheapskates and the generous ones.
He nods goodbye to Michael and leaves.
Michael sits alone sipping his coffee. After waiting the required time, he puts his own money on the table with enough for an average tip, pauses, remembering the sad tired eyes of the waitress and is tempted to leave an extra tip, and changes his mind.
Michael slips out, leaving the waitress to clear the table and sulkily pocket her small tip.
“You never get tipped good just for coffee,” she sniffs unhappily.
Michael checks his surroundings as he approaches his truck, making sure nobody is following or paying undue attention to him. He looks around before getting in.
Where would he have put it? He wonders.
For a moment Michael is on the edge of panic.
If I don’t find it . . ..
He opens the truck door, looking inside before sitting, and finally gets in.
He hears the crinkle of paper.
Michael feels around beneath him even though the seat was empty, and behind him. Finally he jams his fingers into the crack between the seat and its back. He feels the paper.
Struggling to grip it between the tips of his fingers, he pulls it out.
He turns it over. It has a single word on it.
Michael nods understanding.
“I have a house and a job to find,” he says as he puts the key in the ignition and turns it, the engine roaring to life.
Michael pulls out of the lot and turns onto the highway going further away from home. He drives for some time before stopping to find a phone.
Kathy has not slept. She is still sitting on the couch waiting for Michael even though she knows he will be gone a few days. She just can’t bring herself to go through the pretence of putting on pyjamas and crawling into bed knowing she won’t sleep anyway.
The house is dark, just the light from the bathroom filtering from the open door and the moonlight coming in the windows to light the room.
The ringing of the phone startles her. Her heart races and she jumps. She stares at the phone as it rings again, afraid to approach it and pick it up.
Its insistent jangle shakes her nerves again.
Kathy blinks at it, trying to convince herself to move, that it’s okay.
The next ring brings her to her feet and rushing across the floor to scoop the receiver off its hook.
“Hello,” she breathes timidly into the phone.
“Kathy, you are still up,” a male voice says, sounding tinny and far away. “You should be sleeping.”
“Michael,” Kathy says, relieved. “Are you on your way back?”
“No, babe. I’m going to be a little longer than I thought.”
Kathy’s heart sinks and she looks down at the floor that swims before her. Tears burn at the edges of her eyes.
“I won’t be too long,” Michael says. “I have a line on a place for us and a job. I’ll just be a few more days.”
“Okay,” Kathy says quietly.
“Goodnight,” Michael says. The dial tone moans in her ear.