by AR Simmons
Paranoid, he thought. If she wanted to deceive me, then why not fabricate names to fill the spots rather than simply delete them? And if there were deletions, why do you think Rafferty did it? Why not Wilson’s overprotective nurse? Besides, the guy was working twelve and fourteen-hour days. Maybe he scheduled himself some down time. Or maybe he had sessions with a shrink, or hospital staff meetings.
A staff conference could take two hours, especially if run by paper shufflers instead of doctors. Administrators were fond of two things: paperwork and meetings. An officious bean counter might like nothing better than cracking the whip over a bunch of highly-paid physicians.
He noticed that one of the pages with a gap had text not quite square to the edge. Momentarily excited, he checked to see if that were true of all such pages. It wasn’t, but faint images on the upper left corner told the story.
Staple holes.
He double-checked and found none on the pages with appointment gaps.
You went to a lot of trouble, Rafferty. Why? You suspect Wilson and Lyla had an affair. Okay, but how does passion become a once-a-month clockwork thing?
•••
November 11
A pink slip was waiting for him when Richard got to work. He wasn’t sure why, and the boss would only say that he didn’t need him anymore. Dreading having to tell Jill about yet another failure, he drove aimlessly, wasting gas they couldn’t afford just to delay going home. Jill wouldn’t be there until four, but home just didn’t seem like a good place to be at the moment. He considered visiting Adams to suggest that Rafferty might be concealing evidence, but he didn’t feel up to the man’s wit after getting canned again.
Finding himself in the area, and ticked off at Rafferty’s duplicity, he decided to drive through Foxwood Pointe where “Lyla-slash-Honeybunch-slash-Charity” rented a house with her estranged husband’s money. At a convenience store, he borrowed a phone book to look up her address. He found the subdivision, drove the loop at the end of a cul-de-sac, and parked to study the house in his sideview mirror. The neighborhood was not nearly as posh as it pretended, but with his oil-stained hands, grungy coveralls, and beat-up pickup, he was conspicuously out of place. He expected a security patrol to arrive at any moment.
The truck idled roughly, shuddered, and coughed to a stop. A quick look at the gage assured him that he still had gas. As he reached for the ignition, deciding to head home, he heard someone trying to start another vehicle to no avail. The sound didn’t belong in the neighborhood. Then he spotted it: an old Grand Prix on the street near Lyla’s drive. Intent on the house, he’d gone by without noticing its oxidized paint, peeling Landau roof, and the diminutive driver. The door creaked open and a small, dark teenager got out. Her carriage and posture bespoke trepidation as she cut across the lawn to Lyla’s house.
“Don’t expect sympathy there, kid,” he said softly as he watched her ring the bell.
After a moment, the door jerked open and the girl recoiled. He couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was strident, incredulous, annoyed, and undoubtedly Lyla Peele. The girl gestured toward her car, but held her ground instead of retreating as Richard expected.
The door slammed, which didn’t surprise him. But the girl (she appeared Hispanic) didn’t leave as he expected. Then the garage door slid up, and Lyla stalked out and flung something at the girl’s chest. She failed to catch it, and quickly stooped to pick up. By the time she arose Lyla was in her face. All he heard was, “Got that!”
The girl nodded quickly and averted her eyes. Lyla stamped back into the garage, and the girl followed. A moment later, the BMW backed slowly out, brake lights blinking as it moved jerkily down the drive. Shortcutting the turn, it hopped the curb and made a short but deep rut in the newly-lain sod.
“You’ll catch hell for that too,” said Richard as he watched the girl swivel her head, trying to maneuver the unfamiliar car.
She drove around the loop and went past without glancing his way. When she neared the corner, he started the truck and followed her to a nearby mall where she parked at the edge of the lot, perhaps to avoid having to park the car in close quarters. He parked between her and the building, waited until she passed, and then followed her inside. When he saw what she purchased, he thought he understood both her relationship with Lyla and what the monthly two-hour blocks in Wilson’s appointment log were all about. Doctors apparently still made house calls to the rich and famous. Rennie Peele bought personal pediatric care for his only offspring.
He could understand Rafferty’s doctoring the appointment log before turning it over. She was looking into a possible Wilson-Lyla affair, and didn’t want him tipping Lyla to it. Simply telling him the truth would have accomplished that, but of course, Rafferty didn’t know that. He decided that he might as well go home and shred Wilson’s logs.
•••
“Why did he have to let you go?” asked Jill.
Phrasing the question to absolve him irritated Richard. It shouldn’t have. Jill was just being Jill, loyal and understanding. That was the problem. She was always understanding because he always gave her something to have to be understanding about.
“He didn’t say,” he said listlessly. “Last hired and the first fired. That’s the name of the tune.”
She gave him a pained smile. “You’ll find another job. Maybe things will be better for us in the spring.”
“Spring? What’s happening in the spring?”
“I thought maybe you could apply for that military college program again. You can—”
“I’m not interested in college,” he interrupted.
“You’re interested in criminology. I know you are,” she insisted. “You could study it and we could have some income too.”
“What’s the point, Jill? I can’t work in law enforcement, not with a felony charge hanging over me.”
“You received a pardon.”
“No one could take me on, Jill—not with the load I’m carrying. Taking government money to study criminology would be … Well, it wouldn’t be right.”
“That’s ridiculous!” she said irritably. “You deserve it. You earned it. My God, how you earned it! Besides, you can’t tell me that you’re not interested anymore. I know better.”
“I’m not,” he said sharply.
“Then what’s all this with Molly about?” she asked, her tone matching his.
“I’m just trying to help her because … she just laid that on me.”
“It’s not just obligation. I’ve watched you, Richard. You don’t care about your jobs. You do them, but you don’t really care. Even now. Getting fired upsets you only because you have to explain it to me.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is! All you really care about—all you think about is the case you’re working on.”
“I don’t have a case, Jill. I have a missing kid I’m trying to find out about.”
“I’m not going to argue semantics with you, Richard. This is what you care about. It’s what you want to do. You haven’t given it up, so why pretend?”
He turned his back.
She was right about how he felt, but wrong about what he should do. Before Mic Boyd walked back into his life with all that nightmare craziness, Richard had dreams of degrees in criminology and accounting, followed by application to the FBI. Felony homicide, pardoned but not resolved, had barred that door forever.
“It’s just this one time, Jill,” he said without turning around to face her. “I’m going to do what I can for Molly, and then it’s through forever. I swear it is.”
Her silence said she wasn’t buying it.
“I’ve got a plan,” he ad-libbed, trying to sound convincing. “Tomorrow I’m going to see about starting my own business.”
“Doing what?”
“I’ve got the truck … some tools. I like carpentry—handyman stuff. I’ll have to work in the county though. You need a license to do most stuff in the city.”
She nodded
thoughtfully.
“It’ll probably be pretty slow at first,” he said. “I’ll put an ad in the paper tomorrow.”
“We’ll have to set up a special business voice mail,” she observed. “I’ll take care of that for you.”
And so the issue was resolved with both trying to show more enthusiasm for the venture than they possessed. Richard did like carpentry work, and had some facility at it, but had no enthusiasm at all for the financial side of the business, making estimates, negotiating deals—least of all collections. For her part, Jill knew that the business would most likely fail if not be stillborn. If it did, however, it would not be because she failed to support her husband’s efforts.
•••
Jill awoke in the dark, felt gingerly toward Richard’s side of the bed, and found it both empty and cool. She rolled to her side and raised her head to look at the closed door. A faint line at the bottom told her that the computer was on in the living room. She got up, pulled on her robe, and went to see what he was doing.
Over his shoulder, she saw Mancie Allsop smiling sweetly from the monitor.
I hate this, she thought wearily.
Although not prone to raging against fate, she felt unjustly treated by the obsession afflicting him. Real investigators were like doctors, counselors, and family service workers. They developed objectivity as armor against the misery that was often their work. And they left their problems at the office. Richard would never be able to do that, which was why she had been secretly glad that his law enforcement career had come to an end with the pardon.
She stood in the dark wondering what he was thinking as he stared at the dead child. Surely, after all this time the baby was dead—dead to everyone but to her mother and to Richard. Then a terrible realization struck her. She could either have Richard like he was now, or have him the way she had found him when she came home from the funeral. There was no thought of not having him. He was her life now.
No matter how much it rends your heart and makes you miserable, you need this. She thought. I don’t know why, and I don’t understand it, but you do.
“I’m sorry if I woke you up,” he said softly without turning. “I tried to be quiet.”
“What are you doing, Richard?”
He realized that her question referred to more than his present insomnia.
“Family is the most important thing in the world, Jill. That’s what Alberto told me when I saw all the people at his and Marta’s wedding. He said that it might be the only important thing.”
She thought of her Aunt Mirabelle, the only family she’d ever had until Richard.
“That is true,” she said.
“Then you know why I have to do this.”
“I understand. I just wish you could sleep.”
“So do I,” he said, punching off the computer without shutting it down properly. “I suppose godsends are supposed to get by without it.”
“Come lay with me anyway,” she said.
•••
November 12
On his way to the newspaper office the next morning, Richard passed The Honeycomb and noticed a computerized sign at the entrance. Figuring it advertised an act, he wondered if Lyla was making a comeback. Then he saw that it was a high tech realtor’s sign. Worrying that McComb might sell and leave town before he had a chance to talk to him again, he stopped at the corner and went back.
An aproned man at the bar flicked him a glance as he entered, but quickly returned his attention to the diminutive blonde behind the bar with her back to the door. Despite standing a head taller, the man’s body language was all subservience. Lyla spoke in low tones. He mutely returned quick periodic nods. Richard scanned the bar for Bobby McComb, but didn’t see him. Lyla Peele turned, dismissed Richard with a glance, snatched her purse from the bar, and walked briskly past.
He waited until the door shut behind her, and then took a seat at the bar.
“What’ll it be?” asked the bartender.
Richard ordered a beer.
“Where’s Bobby?” he asked as the young man, perhaps a college student, wiped down a bottle from the cooler.
“Who?” asked the bartender.
“Mr. McComb, the guy that owns the place.”
The young man looked confused. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know the guy. Charity—I mean, Mrs. Peele hired me. I don’t know any McCollum or whatever.”
Whether general or only situational, the young man’s ignorance seemed genuine. Richard sipped in silence. Perhaps the bartender was a good listener, but he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Casting about for someone who might know where McComb was, Richard recognized one of the barmaids. He went over.
“Hi,” he said. “Know where I could find Bobby?”
“Hasn’t been here for almost a week,” she said. “I think he’s like sick or something.”
“Sick?”
“Yeah. One day I come to work, and the place is locked up. Then Mrs. Peele shows up and says she’s gonna run things until it’s sold.”
“Did she say where Bobby was?”
“No.”
In her place, he would have been curious. “Didn’t you ask her?”
She snorted. “You don’t ask Mrs. Peele anything unless it’s what she wants you to do.”
“She comes in every day then?”
“Yeah,” she said, glancing at the door nervously.
“You know what Mr. McComb was asking for the place.”
“You have to ask Mrs. Peele or the real estate guy,” she said. “Look, I got work to do. I don’t know anything about the business.”
The placing of his ad forgotten, Richard looked up an address in the phone book, and then drove over to find McComb. His vinyl-sided, assembly line house was fronted by a postage stamp of immaculate sod with a “for sale” sign planted in the middle. There was no garage, and there was neither a car in the drive nor one on the street. Richard rang the bell anyway, receiving no answer just as he anticipated. Before leaving, he jotted down the realtor’s name on the back of an envelope from the glove box. He stopped at a convenience store and borrowed their phone book to look up the address.
•••
Kirsten Lance looked just like her billboard near the 65 exit. Enthusiasm flared and then died in her eyes when she realized Richard only wanted information, not property.
“Did Mr. McComb tell you why he wanted to sell both his house and his business?” he asked.
“We don’t discuss things like that,” she said. “Our clients personal affairs are …” she paused, perhaps searching for a synonym. “… their own affairs,” she finished with an unsatisfied frown. “Basically we only discuss the features of the property—and the price of course. Anything else is confidential. We respect our clients, both sellers and buyers.”
“Sure. That’s the way it ought to be,” he agreed. “I just need to see him. Is he ill or something?”
“He seemed fine when he and Mrs. Peele came in to list his home and her business.”
“Her business? I thought it was his.”
“She owns it now.”
“I was sure that he owned it.”
“I think they had some sort of informal arrangement. He transferred his share to her last week. Good thing. It would have complicated a sale.”
He mulled that over. “But he came in with her to list the property?”
“They came in to list his home last week,” she corrected him. “Mrs. Peele came in to list the business earlier this week.”
“So she bought him out. Do you know—”
“Look,” she said, cutting him off. “All I know is that she has clear title and is asking a reasonable price for an establishment with an excellent location and good business. You aren’t interested in buying it by any chance?”
“I doubt that I could get together the financing,” he said as he tried to imagine a reason for Bobby McComb to make the sudden, and seemingly drastic, move.
“I might be able to put
you in touch with someone who could help with that,” she said eagerly. “The banks are always interested in facilitating people wishing to make wise investments.”
“I’d need more than facilitating I’m afraid,” said Richard absently. “You said that Mr. McComb came in to list his home last week?”
She sighed irritably. Going to a desk, she punched a keyboard a few times before looking up. “The week before last actually,” she said. “Wednesday.”
•••
Nine-thirty was too late to get an ad in the day’s paper, but Richard bought two weeks’ worth of a small general listing that included a hastily concocted business name and his phone number. He should get a few jobs from people calling while he was working on other jobs if they didn’t do as he usually did, and simply hang up when they couldn’t speak directly to a person.
The task done, and with nothing to do until Jill came home, he decided to take a trip to Eureka Springs for his other “job,” the nonpaying one he was doing for Molly Randolph. Luck was with him, and although it was early afternoon when he arrived, he found Doris Chandler at the music show. She had no idea where her brother-in-law might be, but told him where he could find her husband. Rafferty was of the opinion that Jerry Chandler talked too much. Richard thought that not a bad characteristic in someone from whom you were trying to get information.
•••
Bobby McComb’s brother was sitting on the upper level of a touristy café at a table where he and two men of his generation could overlook the street below while they solved the world’s problems. His face lit as he recognized Richard.
“Mr. Carter,” he said, full of good cheer. “Have a seat, and let me introduce you to a couple of old friends. This guy trying to stem the jailbreak of his remaining hair is Tom Vincent, and this is Howard Greonfeld. They’re two of the best Bluegrass men you’ll find this far from Nashville. Banjo, mandolin, guitar, dobro, you name it. If it’s got strings, they can make it sing.”