She Talks to Angels

by James D F Hannah

  “I hope you burn in hell, Robert,” Brooklyn said. “I hope you find yourself a misery just like the ones you drag everyone else through. Me, your children, the people you call your friends. Because all we are, are methods. We’re part of your plan to make yourself seem big and important. And you’re not, Robert. You’re nothing but a little man with little dreams who thinks he’s something. When you die, there’ll be nothing with your name on it. That’ll be your ultimate reward: to be forgotten, to be shamed and shunned in the only place that ever cared you were ever alive. They’ll race to wipe the Charles name from Parker County. Only thing you’ll have with your name will be a tombstone—just like the rest of us.”

  She moved around Charles to the bar and poured herself a drink.

  To Woody, I said, “Wasn’t this like a movie?”

  “Yeah, but I doubt you’ve seen it.”

  “Still, we’re missing popcorn.”

  “Who doesn’t love to watch a marriage disintegrate? It’s like NASCAR but without four hours of left turns.”

  A throat cleared. We all turned to see Dagny at the door. Behind her, Gillespie stood with Milo and Otis behind him.

  “Uncle Mitch is here,” Dagny said.

  Charles waved his hand in the air. “Hell, I guess the party can get started now.”

  45

  Mitchell Gillespie came into the room like a king surveying his land, and he wasn’t pleased with his peasants. Milo and Otis stood at each shoulder like stone-faced bookends.

  Charles staggered his way to a chair and slumped into it, arms over the side, his glass pitched at an angle with his scotch threatening to run out. Brooklyn stared at Gillespie over the top of her whiskey glass with eyes that would have scandalized a Sunday morning. Woody was at the far end of the room, holding the briefcase with the stolen paperwork. He was as still and ready as a jungle cat in a tree.

  “Your need for the bottle has always been one of your failings, Robert,” Gillespie said. “Alcohol. Gambling. I suppose it’s why God put us in one another’s paths, so you would have a friend to help you out.” Gillespie walked toward Charles. His pace was steady and owned. “You appreciate nothing, Robert. The good Lord gave you so much, and you’re thankful for none of it. He gave you a wife, and when she was gone, another fine woman. He’s given you children. All of these are things he never saw fit to offer me.”

  Charles struggled to sit upright. The scotch glass slipped from his hand and dropped to the floor, the contents pooling across the carpet. He mounted his hands onto the chair arms and pushed himself up onto unsteady feet. “Your God took my wife, Mitchell, and then he took my daughter. And why the hell should God give you a family anyway, since you’ve always had mine to play with? You’ve toyed with us with money, with power. Why bother with a family of your own when you could just use mine and move on when you were done?”

  Charles was close enough, the reek was pervasive. Gillespie recoiled in disgust. “You’re pathetic, Robert. I hope someday you find it to will the Lord into your heart.” He gave that tired sigh men give when they’ve had enough and looked at me. “You have my property. I’ll take it now.”

  I glanced at Woody. He had the briefcase in one hand and his free hand at his side.

  Gillespie stared at me, his mustache twitching like a graying caterpillar having a fit. “Don’t make me wait, son. I’m not in the mood for games.”

  Charles moved in closer to Gillespie. “It’s all a game, Mitchell. One big game, and we’re the pieces, and you’re the one pushing around the board. God I can’t wait for the government to get their hands on your ass.”

  Gillespie spun to face Charles. “What did you say?”

  Charles’s eyes were hooded and half-open, his stance lopsided, as though he were getting pulled down on one side. “They’ll rain holy hell down on you. And I don’t know that I care that it’ll cost me everything I’ve got just to see you suffer.”

  Charles reached underneath his shirt and brought out a revolver and aimed it straight into Gillespie’s face. “Or maybe I’ll just blow your head off now.”

  Brooklyn gasped. Milo and Otis brought out guns of their own and took aim at Charles. Woody let the briefcase fall, the latch opening and papers flying out, and he produced a pistol from underneath his jacket and aimed at Milo. Or Otis. I wasn’t sure which. Dagny watched it with calm, cautious eyes.

  I threw my hands in the air. I didn’t have a gun. I felt left out.

  “Charles, put the goddamn gun down,” I said.

  “Fuck you, Malone,” Charles said. His voice was a guttural whisper. “I’m done. There’s nothing left. Hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. That’s what they say, right?”

  “They also say gunfights in rec rooms fuck up your house’s resale value.”

  “I’m done anyway. The Feds take apart Mitchell’s business deals, they’ll take me down, too. Except Mitchell, he won’t go down. He’ll fight it because he’s got nothing but money and time. Me, I don’t have that. All I’ve got is whatever this fucker has let me have. Whatever little bit he’s let run through his fingers. My name, it’ll be done. The bank, I’ll lose that. What am I going to have?”

  Gillespie’s eyes went from the gun to me. “What is this fool talking about? The government?” Then there was a flash of realization, and Gillespie smiled. “You’ve sold me out, Robert. Maybe you had some sack after all.” He shook his head. “You’re right, though. Everything goes back to you. That was a crucial step in building this house of cards, that I always made sure you were always attached to the base. Your name is all over every stinking, putrid inch of it.”

  Charles’s arm stiffened, and he bit his bottom lip, and he screwed on a look of determination. The gun trembled in his hand. Gillespie’s expression never changed. He stared down Charles. Waiting.

  Milo and Otis kept their guns trained on Charles. Brooklyn had collapsed against the wall, watching the proceedings with her mouth open as though she’d been trained for this kind of thing by the afternoon movie.

  “Bobby, don’t do this,” I said.

  “He won’t,” Gillespie said. “Robert has always been weak. It’s why he’s always needed people to recognize him. He’s never had the fortitude to do what it takes to get things done without someone handing him a trophy for it. He never understood that it’s not him but the people behind the people like him. It’s why he can’t pull the trigger. He kills me, there are no parades, no awards. The Chamber of Commerce won’t engrave his name in a plaque. What he’ll face will be much worse than what he faces now. Any moment now, he’ll drop the gun.” Gillespie turned his back to Charles. Gun or no gun, Charles meant nothing anymore. “You’ll give me my paperwork. I’ll walk out of here. And life will move on.”

  Charles swallowed hard, and he kept the gun aimed at the back of Gillespie’s head. Gillespie did a half turn and put his hand on the barrel of the pistol. Charles shook even more. A tear ran down his cheek.

  “I’m tired of this, Robert,” Gillespie said. “I’m done.” He pushed the gun out of his face. Charles offered no resistance. He let the weapon drop to his side. Gillespie held a hand up to Milo and Otis. They lowered their weapons.

  Charles heaved a large breath. His shoulders dropped to his waist. Dagny rushed to his side and threw her arms around her father. He pressed his face into the crook of her neck and cried. Brooklyn cackled out a laugh like a witch.

  Gillespie took a step toward me. “I’d like to have back what’s mine, if you please.”

  Without thought, my hand clenched into a fist. His tone was what you expected from a guy who hadn’t had to ask in a long time, but instead stated what he wanted and got it. And I guess I’d reached my point of not wanting to be told what to do anymore.

  I thought about the video. I thought about what to say. I wanted Gillespie to know. I wanted him to know we still had cards to play.

  Dagny said, “Uncle Mitch?”

  Mitchell Gillespie spun and looked at her with a sneer twisting into
place on his pivot. “What?”

  Dagny put the pistol in Gillespie’s face and pulled the trigger.

  The back of Mitchell Gillespie’s head split open like a watermelon left in the field. Something wet and stinging sprayed across my face. It took me a moment to realize it was blood and bits of skull and other things I didn’t want to think about. Too late for it to matter, I pursed my lips together tight, building the barn well after that horse had been stolen.

  Milo and Otis lifted their pistols. Woody had them in his sights before they knew what was happening. Four shots, one into each of their shoulders. They screamed, and the guns hit the floor.

  Adrenaline surged through me, and I ran and picked up the pistols. Milo and Otis had fallen back against the wall, plopped onto their asses, clutching their wounds. They looked a lot less tough bleeding.

  Dagny looked at Gillespie’s body. She turned and saw Brooklyn, still in the chair, but now her face was filled with the terror random violence evokes. Dagny brought the pistol up and leveled it at Brooklyn’s head.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Whatever you think about her, she doesn’t deserve this.”

  “She gave Deacon the heroin,” she said. “She’s the reason Deacon OD’d.”

  Dagny lowered the pistol slightly and shot Brooklyn in the stomach.

  46

  The ambulance had already come and gone with Brooklyn by the time Jackie Hall showed up. Another ambulance arrived and hauled Milo and Otis out. The medics strained to get them lifted into the back, crowding in a few state troopers. Dagny sat in the back of a trooper patrol car. Woody and I were on the front steps watching the pretty lights.

  Jackie came out of his car and saw us and told the troopers who watched us they could go on. Then Jackie sat down next to me.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” he said.

  “Evening, Jackie,” I said. “How you doing?”

  “I’m swell. Can’t you tell I’m swell? And seriously, if you make a fat joke, I’ll pistol-whip you right here.”

  I held up a finger in protest. “Before you go off, let me tell you how many ways this could have been worse.”

  “For this to have been worse than it already is, you’d have to provide an exploding volcano.” He counted items off on his fingers. “There’s one dead rich guy, three people shot, a lady cuffed in a cruiser, and someone described as ‘like he got struck with a case of the stupids.’ Robert Charles ain’t talking, which means I’ve got to depend on you to tell me how this shit-show played out, Henry. Let me say this doesn’t fill my heart with positivity.”

  “Are you saying you don’t trust me?”

  “I’m saying no anecdote you share of late ends well. But I’m always open to the experience.”

  So I told Jackie what had happened, right up to the moment I had called 911. He nodded where it seemed appropriate to do so. I finished, and he smacked me upside the head.

  Woody chuckled. I shot him a glare.

  “I don’t see him hitting you,” I said.

  “He’s got more respect for his sense of self than to do something like that,” Woody said.

  Jackie fixed a hard gaze on me. “What’s that all over you? You look like a jar of raspberry jam exploded in your face.”

  “It’s Mitchell Gillespie,” I said.

  Jackie stared down at his hand and rubbed it furiously along the side of his slacks. “What the hell, Henry? You didn’t think to wipe pieces of a dead guy off of your face?”

  “I did. Most of him. No real time for the thorough ‘Silkwood shower’ I’m sure I need for this. I’m walking forensics as is.”

  “Old man ain’t going to get more dead than what he is, and I feel there’s little that swabbing your face will add to the investigation.” He made a face of utter disgust. “Under normal conditions you’re a danger to health and community standards, but you’re an actual biological hazard right now.”

  Jackie looked to the cruiser where Dagny sat, her head slumped against the window, eyes closed. She was the only person who seemed serene or at ease with the circumstances at hand. Hooray for her. I still had dead guy on my face.

  “So it was Brooklyn Charles who gave the heroin to Deacon,” Jackie said.

  “Dagny said Deacon came out of it today, told her everything,” I said. “Confessed to killing Meadow. That’s why he spiraled so hard the past few years, was the guilt. Bobby, he’s worked double-time hiding it from everyone. The more I poked into things, though, the more Charles worried about the truth coming out about Deacon. One night he gets drunk, and he and Brooklyn get into a fight, and he tells her about Deacon killing Meadow. Brooklyn then used her considerable charms to track down a doctored shot of heroin. She caught Deacon in his room, told him she knew everything, and said she was going to the police with it. Then she set the dope and a syringe down and left the room.”

  “Bitch has ice water in her veins.”

  “None of these people utilize conventional coping mechanisms. Their lives are nothing but grudges and ways to extract new levels of pain out of one another. Oh, and there’s the video, too.”

  “What video?”

  “The video from Meadow’s cell phone.”

  “Jesus Christ. Please tell me it wasn’t her and Mitchell Gillespie.”

  “That’s what you would expect. Would make sense that that would be a reason for Gillespie to kill April Bevins, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s worse, isn’t it?”

  “Depends on how you calibrate worse.”

  “It wasn’t something with Deacon, was it? Because I’m ready for V. C. Andrews to take over this.”

  “It was Deacon and Mitchell Gillespie.”

  Jackie’s jaw dropped open. “The fuck you say.”

  “The fuck I do say indeed. It’s blurry, which might be for the best considering the content, but it is most definitely Deacon and Gillespie in Deacon’s bedroom, doing . . . things. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “How the hell did that girl manage to video that?”

  “Who knows? There’s noise in the background, so it’s likely that it was during a party. The time stamp shows the Fourth of July, the summer before Meadow’s murder, which lines up with when she and April took off to Charleston.”

  “Does the act seem consensual?”

  “Yes and no. Deacon’s obviously stoned, which means he couldn’t conventionally offer consent, and I’d guess that was how Gillespie managed it, was bribing him with heroin.”

  “Takes a lot of balls to fuck your friend’s son in the middle of a Fourth of July party.”

  “Gillespie owned this family, Jackie. For him, it was an extension of the power. Meadow happened across it. It might explain why she was so protective of Deacon, since she understood what he was trying to numb.”

  “April Bevins must have remembered Meadow’s phone after she talked to Henry,” Jackie said. “When she saw the video, she figured she had herself a golden ticket, and she tried to blackmail him.”

  “There was no way Gillespie could let that video get loose,” I said. “He has her killed, takes the phone—”

  “Never expecting you two assholes to go and steal it back. Goddamn but if he wasn’t fucking everyone in that family, literally and metaphorically.”

  “Everyone except Dagny.”

  Jackie came to his feet. “Can’t say I blame her one iota for what she did.”

  “Lots to put on a person,” I said. “You find out the guy you call ‘Uncle Mitch’ has been pulling the strings on your family for decades, you’re likely to produce an outsized reaction.”

  “‘Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,’” Woody said.

  “Yeats,” Jackie said as he headed into the house.

  Woody and I went back to staring at the flashing lights.

  “Show-off,” I said.

  “Everyone needs poetry in their lives.”

  “Do limericks count?”

  A black Ford Explorer came up the driveway and slid between the cruisers. A
state trooper approached Miller and Hall as they got out. They produced ID, and the trooper motioned them through.

  Miller wore a white T-shirt and jeans and a sly smile like he’d crop-dusted someone in a grocery store aisle. Hall wore a dark gray suit and a narrow black tie. I bet his pajamas even had ties. His expression belied the sense that he hadn’t passed a decent shit in decades.

  “Man, Henry, but good things don’t follow you around, do they?” Miller said.

  “People are fickle animals, what can I say?” I said.

  Hall shoved his beet-red face toward me. “What the fuck happened, Malone? You promised us Gillespie.”

  I planted my hand on Hall’s face and pushed him away. “Personal space, asshole. And besides, you can have him. What’s left of him, at least.” I ran my fingers across my face and pulled off a chunk of something. “Find me an emptied salsa jar, I’ll put that in there for you.”

  Miller laughed as Hall retched.

  I said, “You boys found out about this fast.”

  Miller said, “We know people.”

  I glanced over at Woody. “Where have I heard that before?”

  Miller looked closer at Woody. “You look familiar. We met somewhere?”

  “Doubtful,” Woody said.

  “I think I did. You spent much time in the Middle East?”

  “Been some places. Don’t always remember where.”

  Miller nodded. “Almost positive I saw you over there a few years ago. A thing with some hostages.”

  “Maybe. Though I’ve got one of those faces, always looks like someone you know.”

  “That’s damn unlikely.”

  I said, “I hate to disturb you two reminiscing about things that were surely violations of international law, but there’s still the matter at hand. The precious paperwork is here, but in the moments before Gillespie was splattered across the room, we got the sense any trail you follow is going to do nothing but lead you back to Robert Charles. He wasn’t the goddamn point of this fiasco.”

  “There’s still a network of people connected to this,” Hall said. “We’ve got the best forensic accountants in the world. They’ll trace the deals back, and we’ll make the arrests.”