Veteran Avenue: The gripping thriller with great plot twists

by Mark Pepper

  ‘You watch, you’ll wind up as bear shit. They can smell city folk a mile off.’

  Gilchrist laughed. ‘You ought to consider somewhere like Wyoming. Not that I want you as a neighbor, but it might be a good place to hide out. I really think DeCecco means to kill you.’

  ‘He can get in line,’ Larry said quietly.

  Gilchrist shook his head, went to the urinal and relieved himself, which Larry took as a non-verbal comment on the situation. Gilchrist zipped up, washed his hands and headed for the door.

  ‘Sir?’

  Gilchrist stopped and turned, surprised by the respectful address. ‘What?’

  ‘When DeCecco’s done with his wife, could you bring him in here, please?’

  ‘You want to die in a shithouse?’

  ‘If you could take his sidearm from him, I’d be grateful.’

  ‘You think he needs a gun to kill you?’

  Larry lost his temper. ‘Will you fucking do it or won’t you?’

  Gilchrist stared hard at him, then smirked. ‘Oh, it’ll be my pleasure.’

  No one spoke. John felt he was the one person who couldn’t break the silence. Although he had made their meeting possible, he had the least stake in it all. Speaking prematurely might seem insensitive, belittling. He glanced furtively around the room but caught nobody’s eye. The other three appeared temporarily traumatized, their focus down at the carpet, a blank convergence, as though they could see something he couldn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry your husband died saving my life,’ Dodge said, not looking up. ‘I didn’t know how guilty I felt until now. I told John that it didn’t bother me, that it went with the territory and I’d have done the same for Harry, which is all true. But that’s the logic by which I’ve kept a deeper truth buried for over forty years. I did feel guilty. I have done ever since. When I returned to the States after my first tour, I hoped seeing my baby boy might make me want to stay. But it just made things worse. It brought home to me how I had what Harry never got a chance to see. A life he’d created, his own flesh and blood. So I extended. And even when Ginny here was born eight months into my second tour, I knew I’d still go back again for a third, and a fourth. I had to prove to myself that I was willing to make the same sacrifice Harry had made. Maybe if I died so someone else could live to see their kids grow up, I’d have repaid the debt.’

  ‘It was a noble intention,’ Marie said.

  ‘Was it? When it hurt my family? All I achieved was an extra burden of guilt; how I wasn’t there for them and didn’t care if I never was. Maybe Donnie would be alive today if I’d just ...’

  He tailed off, more angry than tearful, which John considered a bad sign, the sluice gate opening on yet more self-recrimination. Virginia went and knelt beside her father and held his hands. John smiled at Marie because she was looking at him, but she did not respond in kind. Her eyes were pinched small with puzzlement, as though she had only just noticed his presence in the room and didn’t wholly approve. John tried another unreciprocated smile, then turned his attention to Virginia. He assumed Marie was trying to figure his part in the affair, beyond the obvious; someone else sifting through a collection of whacko theories on his behalf. As he listened to Virginia try and comfort Dodge, John was constantly aware of Marie’s unnerving scrutiny.

  ‘Dad, I never felt we lacked love, not once. I can’t even really remember that you were away. We were both too young.’

  ‘But Donnie joined the Army because of me.’

  ‘Yes, because he loved you, he was proud of you, wanted to be like you. You don’t follow in a person’s footsteps unless you think they’re something special.’

  John was studying Dodge and could tell her words weren’t helping. Still aware of Marie’s probing stare, he snapped his eyes towards her, this time using a hard frown rather than a smile to dislodge her gaze. It didn’t work, but Marie’s expression had also changed. For a woman with terminal cancer she now looked strangely content, as though she had decided exactly which whacko theory made the most sense.

  ‘Ginny, that’s my point,’ Dodge countered his daughter. ‘Your brother died because of the example I set for him. I could have been out of Vietnam in a year, but I went back. Same with Donnie, except Desert Storm was over so he had to find some other conflict. He needed to carry on fighting, even when it wasn’t his war. Just like his dad.’

  ‘But he didn’t know what happened to you in Vietnam, how long you were there, or why.’

  Dodge shifted his eyes back to the carpet.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Maybe it’s not the kind of story you tell a daughter. Not if you want her to keep on being Daddy’s Girl.’

  The newsflash broke their hand contact.

  John had seen Virginia’s expression before: up in Oregon, when he told her who had authored the letter he had just read out: the shock of an unwilling belief.

  ‘You’re saying Donnie knew your history?’ she asked.

  ‘Just that I went back,’ Dodge said. ‘But he didn’t know why. And I couldn’t tell him.’

  ‘But he knew what you were? That you were Special Forces? A Ranger? He knew where you went? What kind of assignments you carried out? You could tell him all that but you couldn’t tell me?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dodge whispered. ‘I didn’t know how you’d feel about me if I told you. I knew Donnie would understand.’

  Virginia shook her head at her father. It seems he did, she thought. Far too well.

  The way DeCecco came through the washroom door, Larry knew he had made a big mistake thinking there might be some meaningful dialog between them. He suspected Gilchrist, on the other hand, had not made a mistake, but had wilfully neglected to disarm his subordinate. DeCecco had the heel of his palm on the butt of his pistol, with the hammer restraint unsnapped. His eyes were as cold and hard as the steel in his holster. He shouldered a pay-and-weigh machine in front of the door, then stood in front of it.

  ‘Now, Joey ...’

  ‘Make a move, Larry.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your wounds have to look right.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For the medical examiner. Come for me, arms out like you mean to grab my throat. They can tell a lot by entry and exit wounds, trajectory, how the body falls, all that shit. You have to come for me, Larry. Help me out. Make it look like self-defense.’

  ‘I’m not armed,’ Larry said feebly. ‘I wasn’t when I talked to your wife; she must have told you. Jesus, I brought her here, didn’t I? Doesn’t that mean something?’

  ‘Yeah, that you’re a fucking moron. I warned you to stay away from her. Didn’t I say that? Didn’t I tell you to stay the fuck away from my wife?’

  Larry nodded, and noticed the steel in DeCecco’s eyes turn molten.

  ‘Then my conscience is clear,’ DeCecco said, and pulled his weapon.

  ‘You can’t,’ Larry said quickly. ‘You want your son growing up with his father behind bars? You can’t get away with it. It’s murder. I’m defenseless.’

  ‘With a Jennings twenty-two in your hand?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Okay, actually it’s in my ankle holster at the moment, but it’ll be in your hand five seconds after I put a forty caliber slug in your brain.’

  ‘Joey, I fucked up, but I was trying to put things right, I swear. Come on, your wife’s okay, isn’t she? If I’d wanted to hurt her she’d be on a slab by now.’

  DeCecco looked like he’d tasted something bad and needed to spit it out.

  ‘The mood I’m in, Larry, you really don’t want to put an image like that in my mind. And I don’t regard my wife being cut open or my son’s heart rate going crazy as okay. Anyway, it was my wife who got the jump on you; you’re lucky to be alive, you fucking amateur. But that’s easily rectified. Get on your knees.’

  Someone in the corridor pushed the door once, twice, then gave up. As Larry lowered himself he nearly called for help, but realized it would be futile. A bullet could cross the w
ashroom quicker than DeCecco could be overpowered, especially with the door so heavily blocked. He wanted to say something profound about the love he had for his own wife, but doubted she would believe it even if DeCecco passed it on.

  Instead, he asked, ‘Where’s Gilchrist?’

  ‘Waiting in his car.’

  While he still had a brain to think, Larry pondered on the extent of Gilchrist’s complicity. Was the bastard really turning a blind eye to murder? Was the LAPD just going to execute him in cold blood? He could feel the Tactical One-Hander against his ankle bone. It wouldn’t help. DeCecco was keeping his distance; he knew the score. A muzzle pressed to the forehead was fine for the movies, all very menacing, but it was utter folly to get that close in real life. It was too easy to be disarmed and shot by your own weapon. Even with hand-to-hand combat skills, which DeCecco no doubt possessed in abundance, he was still not willing to take the risk.

  The Glock came up horizontal and Larry stared into the black hole that could issue his death warrant. All he could do now was try not to look so scared, a last gesture of defiance to appease his dwindling machismo.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, but I do. I can’t take any more risks with you. I gave you a chance and you blew it. I don’t trust you. It’s that simple.’

  ‘Please,’ Larry whimpered, failing dismally in the butch department. ‘I’ll go away ... Wyoming, anywhere.’

  ‘Sssshhhh. You are going away, Larry. Right now.’

  Larry watched DeCecco’s trigger finger as it curled tighter. If DeCecco was bluffing, he was playing a dangerous game. Larry could see the pressure being exerted and knew the trigger had little resistance left to offer. At least he wouldn’t hear the fatal shot. Before the sound reached his ears, the round would be in his head, his brain a mush, his hearing deactivated.

  A millimeter more and the bullet would fly.

  It happened. The finger snapped back as the trigger gave. It was the last thing Larry saw.

  There was a final piece to the puzzle. It was not directly relevant to Dodge, but if today was a time for exposing skeletons, there was another closet still to empty. Marie seemed to accept this, because instead of showing them the door, she went to the kitchen to make some tea.

  It was her turn to talk.

  When she called, John carried the tray through for her. He resisted the temptation to ask why she’d been ogling him; it would doubtless not elicit what he considered a sane response.

  After pouring the tea, Marie picked up her old letter again and made a troubled face as she mentally read the address on the envelope.

  ‘I hurt Chuck very badly with this, didn’t I.’ she said.

  No one answered what was obviously a rhetorical question.

  ‘I can still remember sitting at the kitchen table writing it. I didn’t want to. They weren’t even my words. They were dictated to me. I still missed Harry, still loved him, but he’d been dead eight years and I was tired of being alone. I’d brought up Hayley on my own, trying to keep her father’s memory alive, telling her everything I could about him. I made him as real as I could, so she’d have more than a few photographs, she’d have some memories, even if they weren’t hers. Maybe that sounds stupid. We went to his grave together to lay flowers. We kept in touch with Chuck, another source of memories for Hayley. When we could, we visited, or he came to us. On those occasions it almost felt like we were a family. It wasn’t the same, though. I was in the prime of my life, but I was a widow. But it wasn’t too late for me to find someone else, and I thought I deserved some happiness. Harry and I had hardly been married more than five minutes when he went to Vietnam. He was my first love, my first boyfriend, but eight years is a long time to be on your own. Provided I could find a good man, someone to love us and take care of us, I believed Harry would have understood. He wouldn’t have wanted me to be alone the rest of my days.’

  She took a sip of tea, chased it down with a swallow of morphine, then a sip more tea.

  ‘I was working in a local store at the time. The manager liked me. Terence. He’d asked me out several times. One day I surprised him and said yes. He took me to a restaurant in Westwood on our first date. I felt a bit funny knowing Harry was buried only a couple of blocks away, but Terence didn’t know and I didn’t mention it, not then. The date went well. Terence was the perfect gentleman.’

  It sounded like the sort of reminiscence that should make a person smile, but her face was stony.

  ‘We started seeing each other on a regular basis. If I went out in the evening, my neighbor looked after Hayley. Pretty soon I thought it would be okay for her to meet the new man in my life. He came for dinner and we all got along fine. I was reluctant to let him stay over in case it affected Hayley. I didn’t want her getting used to a father figure if it might not work out. But the weeks passed and it all seemed very cosy. He started staying nights, and after a couple of months we decided he should move in here as his apartment was only rented. A month later we got married. Finally, we were a family. A happy family.’

  The words were still at odds with her expression. John guessed perhaps Terence had begun beating her, or cheating on her.

  ‘Very quickly after we were married, Hayley started having trouble at school. Her behavior went downhill, her work suffered. At home she became withdrawn, moody, prone to tears. She couldn’t stand any physical contact. I thought perhaps she was being bullied, but she didn’t have any bruises that I could see. It carried on for weeks. I wondered whether it might not be a delayed reaction to having Terence around. She’d been so used to it just being the two of us, I thought she might be starting to resent having to share me with someone. I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t very understanding. One night when Terence was working at the store, we had a big argument. She became hysterical. I said it was too late her reacting this way now we were married. If she’d wanted to object she should have done so sooner. I called her selfish and told her to get used to it – Terence was a good man, a good husband to me, and could be a good father to her if she’d only let him get close. Well, that did it. She screamed at me. She said, “He does get close”.’

  Marie took a drink, and John noticed her hand was shaking. The years had barely dulled the emotional hurt.

  ‘Maybe if I hadn’t phrased it exactly so, she might not have been able to say it. I asked her to explain herself and she went very quiet. To be honest, I already knew what she meant. That’s not to say I had reason to suspect it was the truth. In fact, I thought she was lying. I didn’t know where she’d got the idea from – talk at school perhaps – but I didn’t believe it. I thought she was just being nasty, trying anything to make me turn against him. I didn’t help matters; I didn’t try to coax it out of her, I yelled at her. But it didn’t work, she’d clammed up. So I spoke more softly and tried again. And I kept trying until eventually she came out with the inevitable. In a whisper, she said that Terence was touching her, coming into her room whenever I wasn’t there, or sometimes in the middle of the night. I didn’t attempt to qualify her accusation, ask her exactly what she meant by … touching. A wall had come up. I didn’t want to hear another word. Suddenly, she wasn’t my daughter any more; the daughter I knew would never speak such filthy lies. I told her I had the right to a life of my own and she wasn’t going to wreck that now because she was selfish and wanted me all to herself. Terence was a good man and he was staying and that was the end of it.’

  Marie paused, practically out of breath.

  ‘But it wasn’t the end of it. Of course it wasn’t.’

  ‘Did you confront Terence?’ Dodge asked.

  ‘Not when Hayley first said it, no. In the weeks following, her attitude altered, but it didn’t improve. Instead of open anger, she had a distant air about her, like she’d gone inside herself to find a place she could hide, and all I was seeing was a shell. It was the sort of look I’d expected Harry would return with from Vietnam. Whenever I asked Terence what he thought might be
wrong with her, he always managed to put my mind at ease. He’d say I shouldn’t worry, it was probably just a phase, a reaction to his being in the house. It sounded plausible because I was telling myself the same thing. And how could I believe Hayley was telling the truth? How? My God, that would mean I’d married a paedophile.’

  ‘Had you?’ John asked straight, earning a frown from Virginia.

  Marie looked at him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘I had a dream.’

  John very nearly groaned.

  ‘I dreamed I was with Hayley on Venice Beach. She was walking in the surf, but with her head down, not having any fun like she used to. No one else was on the sand. Suddenly I knew someone was behind me. I turned and there was Harry in his jungle uniform. I burst into tears and hugged him like I’ve never hugged anyone; I was so happy. Then I remembered I’d remarried, and I felt I’d betrayed Harry in not waiting longer for him to come back. My heart broke all over again. But Harry calmed me down and kissed my forehead and told me it was okay, he understood. He pointed to Hayley, and I told him she was the daughter he’d never seen. He said he knew, he knew everything. So I asked him how I could make her smile again, and he said one simple thing: “Believe her.”

  ‘When I woke up I didn’t mention the dream, but I did tell Terence what Hayley had said weeks before. It didn’t faze him at all. As usual, he applied some amateur psychology and dismissed it; said Hayley naturally resented him and was trying to get rid of him. She’d come round sooner or later. To my eternal shame, I took the coward’s way out and tried to forget what Harry had said.’

  John felt the need to speak. ‘But, Marie ... it was just a dream. Surely that wasn’t the first time you’d dreamt about Harry.’

  ‘No, I dreamed about Harry a lot. I still do. But it was so vivid. It had a quality I’d never known before. Or since, come to that. I can’t explain it.’

  John was grateful for small mercies, but Virginia had something she wanted to show Marie. From the case she took the calendar of Beautiful Oregon - 1977, flipped it to April and handed it over. Marie studied the circled date and the writing beside it: DR scribbled out, and, underneath, the word VISION.