“I hear ya,” Pilate said.
“And don’t forget that today may well be the last, best day of your life,” Taters said, his voice low. “Live, man. Live.”
“That’s the plan,” Pilate said.
The pair said muddled goodbyes.
“He really grows on you,” Simon said.
Yes. Yes, he does.
The call from Taters put Pilate in the mind to talk to another widower friend, Trevathan. The man who started out as Pilate’s grumpy boss had grown into a confidante and friend, though in a more formal way than his relationship with Taters. Trevathan was older, of a different generation. They wouldn’t always agree on everything - in fact they didn’t agree on much - but there was mutual respect and a bond born of crisis and survival.
“What are you doing here on a Saturday?” Trevathan said, not looking up from his paperwork.
Pilate leaned against the doorjamb. “One might ask the same of you,” he said.
“Well, I WAS, note carefully my use of the past tense, enjoying the silence,” he coughed gently into his fist. “Which you’re spoiling.”
“Well, I figured that since you’re no longer interim president you’d find fewer reasons to work nights and weekends,” Pilate slumped into the chair in front of Trevathan’s desk.
“I’m still dean of the largest college in this institution, you know,” he looked up at Pilate, his false eye not quite keeping up with the real one. “Such as it is.”
“You look tired.”
“You look like shit,” Trevathan riposted, a smirk crossing his lined face. “Where you been? Why aren’t you with your bride and that little sweetheart Kara?”
“Had to make a road trip,” Pilate shrugged. “Saw your truck so I thought I’d drop by.”
“Road trip?” Trevathan leaned back in his creaky chair. “Where to?”
“Lincoln,” Pilate said.
“Huh. What were you doing? Have a Runza craving or something?”
“Nope. Stopped by Lincoln Correctional.”
“Oh, seeing Grif? Without Kate?” He looked puzzled. “How is he?”
Pilate shook his head. “Nope. Saw Scovill.”
Trevathan’s face flushed. “What the hell are you doing talking to that criminal?”
“Last time I looked, Grif is a criminal, too. So what’s the difference?”
“He’s your family.” Trevathan barked, then coughed again.
“Okay, okay,” Pilate said. “I get it. But Scovill has information I need.”
“Such as?” Trevathan wiped his mouth and eyes with a handkerchief.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Continue.”
“I wanted to know who he thought would be filling the void,” Pilate said.
“Void? What void?”
“The one left by the death of the Olafsons. I wanted to know who might be handling the drug and petty theft fencing biz now.”
“Why?” Trevathan’s question wasn’t spoken much like a question - more a resigned, disappointed response.
“Because I think they’re the ones who took a shot at me,” Pilate said.
Trevathan rolled his eye and stood up. “Damn it, John, stop. You’re not so special in the eyes of the world that everyone has a need to see you dead. You gol-dang self-centered little shit,” he raised his voice and poked a bony finger at Pilate.
“I know you think that,” Pilate said. “But trust me. Scovill thinks I was probably shot at.”
“Oh, well, let’s take the word of a known criminal, a man who broke his oath, a man who has no other means to entertain himself other than to watch you twist in the wind.”
“For what it’s worth,” Pilate stood. “He doesn’t think the Thurmans would do any warning shots.”
“Thurmans?”
“Ollie’s cousins from Minnesota,” Pilate said. “The Minnesota Mafia.”
“Do you have any idea how stupid you sound?” Trevathan’s voice was low, his face weary. “John - I’m saying this as a friend. You have a wife, a child, and a new baby on the way. Stop borrowing trouble. If these Thurmans are truly coming around, then you best stay out of their business.”
“Like I said, Scovill thinks it might not be the Thurman people.”
“Of course. Hell, they’d probably shake your hand and thank you for getting rid of Ollie, saved ‘em the trouble. So who then? Who would take a shot at you - and miss - when you’re hobbling down the trail running a damn marathon? Huh?”
Pilate looked at the desktop. “Hmm. Good question. Let me think.”
“Oh for Pete’s sake!”
“Now wait, let’s work through this…” said Pilate, extending a hand as if he were a traffic cop holding Trevathan back.
“No, John. You wait. Jack Lindstrom is dead. That is a fact. You were not shot at by anyone, at least not intentionally. You just like stirring shit up. Just like Key West. You stirred things up and stuck your nose into shit and nearly got yourself killed,” his breath came in ragged gasps. “I think that psychiatrist of yours would call it a death wish.”
“You’re not making sense,” Pilate said. “Of course I want to survive. The only…” he took a second to settle down. “The only way I can do that is to find out who’s making these threatening calls and taking shots at me.”
Trevathan picked up the telephone and thrust the receiver at Pilate. “Here. Call the sheriff. Call the state police. Call the FBI. Do the rational thing and tell them. That’s their job. If there truly is somebody meaning you harm, they are the ones to handle it. Not you.”
“Like they were there last winter? When the Olafsons, Jack Lindstrom, Derek Krall and the gang were all conspiring to kill me, you, Kate and Kara?”
Trevathan dropped the phone on the desk. “God dammit, John. Talk sense. I’m not always gonna be here to cover your back,” he said.
“Out of everyone I know, I thought you’d believe me,” Pilate said. “I thought after what we went through you would trust me.”
“Of course I trust you, John. I just want you to get on with your life. Take care of your family,” Trevathan murmured.
Pilate turned away and strode out the door. He took a step back in the office and looked at Trevathan. “That is what I’m trying to do. With or without you.” Pilate walked out, slamming the office suite door.
Trevathan sighed heavily and picked up the phone, dialing.
Pilate stopped at the Cross Township Mercantile to pick up a loaf of bread. A few months earlier, the tiny store was one of the first places Pilate interacted with a genuine citizen of Cross Township.
“Remember how the clerk knew your name, even though you had never met her and you paid cash?” Simon said.
Yes. Creepy. Shades of “The Prisoner.”
Pilate limped past a man using a price gun to affix price tags to a case of Wheaties. No UPC scanning system here.
“Hello Mr. Mostek,” Pilate said.
The owner of the store looked up at Pilate over the tops of his reading glasses. “Afternoon,” he said, his tone not unfriendly but not welcoming, either.
“That guy has never liked you,” Simon said. “He was an old friend of the late Mr. Mayor Murderer.”
The man I shot. Yes. I know. Not unusual in Cross to run into an old friend of that crook.
Pilate took the loaf of bread to the cash register. A young lady smiled perfunctorily and rang up the bread.
“Oh, and a small bottle of Smirnoff,” Pilate pointed behind her to a shelf full of bottles of alcohol.
The girl bagged the vodka and bread. “Seven eighty-nine,” she said, her eyes on Mostek, who continued to price cereal boxes.
Pilate gave her the money. “Here’s eight.”
She wordlessly gave him his change.
Pilate smiled, grabbed the bag and hobbled out the door.
“Well, nobody knew who you were this trip,” Simon offered. “Or maybe they didn’t want to know you.”
Shut up, Simon.
“I wa
s getting worried,” Kate called from the kitchen when he walked in the front door.
“Mr. Pilate…er…um,” Kara hugged him as he knelt down, but she had a problem calling him Dad, Daddy, Pop or anything but “Mr. Pilate.”
“Hi, sweet girl,” Pilate said, slowly getting down to one knee. He put the bag on the floor, hugged Kara and winked at Kate, who looked in from the kitchen.
“Momma said you had to work today,” Kara said, wriggling on his knee in pajamas.
“Yep,” he said. “All done now. How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good. Much better after I slept and had some chicken noodle soup.”
Pilate checked her forehead. “Yep…you don’t have a fever anymore. Good.”
“I’m going to go watch TV,” she said, taking her leave.
“Bye,” Pilate said.
“How did it go?” Kate said, her eyes betraying a concern her smile failed to conceal.
“Good. I think.”
“Come in the kitchen and tell me.”
“If you hadn’t knocked me up I’d have a drink right about now,” Kate said, rubbing her neck as they sat at the kitchen table.
“Yeah, me too.”
“You’re not pregnant. Have a drink. Have one for both of us,” she said.
“Thanks,” he stood and took the bottle of vodka out of the bag. He poured a shot in a rocks glass with several pieces of ice and sat down again, taking a sip, and filled her in on all that Scovill had told him.
“So Scovill thinks the Thurmans are moving in. Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that, but it makes sense. I knew Donny Thurman back in school. He was sweet, but everyone knew his daddy was no good. I wonder what became of him.”
“It’s pretty unlikely that the Thurmans would stir up trouble by shooting a guy who’s been featured in Newsweek,” Pilate offered. “They’re probably happy I got Ollie and Craig out of the way.”
Kate bit her upper lip.
“Cramp?”
“No. I’m thinking,” she threw a dishrag at him, smiling. “You make a good point about Thurman. Makes no sense whatsoever for him to threaten you or take shots at you.”
Pilate sipped his drink and watched her think.
God, she is beautiful.
“That brings us back to the question of who is making the calls and who, if anybody, shot at you.”
“No idea, hon,” he said. “Listen, I think we need to think about making a move.”
Kate looked at his vodka glass as if she were going to grab it and finish it off. “I know, but we can’t just yet.”
“Why not? What’s holding us back?”
“Grif is getting out of jail in a couple more months. I want Kara here for him at least for a while. Besides, we’re never going to sell this house. It’s falling apart and there’s not exactly a line of people looking to relocate here.”
“There are always new instructors coming here,” Pilate said. “We could rent it to them if they didn’t want to buy.”
“Assuming that, and say we agree to leave after the baby is born…”
“That’s months away,” Pilate said.
“John, we can’t leave any sooner. I’m teaching summer session, which you should be, too, by the way, and Kara is getting ready to go to camp.”
He nodded.
“And you go on your book tour in August,” she said. “You won’t be off the road for six weeks.”
“Crazy. I’ll cancel the tour,” he said.
“And your book will die in two weeks.”
“Damn your logic, Spock!” Pilate grinned. “I need another vodka.”
“Need?”
“Want,” he said, pouring another shot. “So, that leaves us here until at least Christmas. And of course, it doesn’t answer the question of where we would move.”
“What about your hometown? Back by your family?”
“Oh man,” Pilate said, sipping the icy vodka. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Why not?”
“It just feels like going backwards,” he said. He looked around the kitchen. The stove was cold; no food was out. “No dinner tonight?”
“Make a sandwich. I can’t bear the smell of cooking anything today,” Kate said, pulling a string off her shirt. “Even the chicken soup I fixed Kara made me want to puke.”
“Okay.”
“You were saying?”
“I just don’t think that’s where I want to be right now,” he said. “Maybe after the book stuff dies down and our little bundle of joy is here I’ll feel differently.”
“You will,” she said. “It was the worst heartbreak of my life, short of losing Rick, that we had Kara and my folks weren’t around to see her.” She looked at the table.
“I know babe,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Just be glad your folks are around, and make sure you see them when you can.”
He nodded. “You’re right. But visiting often and living there are two different things.”
“So where is it we’re going?” Kate said, her eyes lighting up again.
“Key West?”
“NNNNNN. Try again,” she said. “Nice place to visit, but we’re not living there.”
Crestfallen, Pilate shrugged. “I dunno then.”
“That was it? That’s where you want to live?” she said, exasperated.
“Well, I like the idea of someplace sunny,” he said.
“Arizona?”
“Um, no. It’s not natural to live in a desert,” Pilate said.
“You’ll change your mind when we get old,” she said.
“No, I’ll want to live by the water when I get old, that I know.”
Kate stood up, her hands on the small of her back. “Okay, well, we obviously have time to figure this out. But for now, we’re here until next spring.”
“Another year in Cross. You lucky dog,” Simon said.
“Great.”
She put her hand on his shoulder and kissed his temple. “Don’t look so bummed. You get to live here with me.”
He smiled, taking her hand and standing. He hugged her close. “That makes all the difference.”
“Mommy,” Kara called from the other room. “Can I have a snack?”
“Just a minute, Kara,” she said.
“I want a girl,” he said.
“Really?”
“I like girls.”
“No doubt about that,” Kate said. “I wouldn’t mind a boy.”
“Complete the set, eh?” he said.
She broke the embrace and walked to the cabinet, looking for a snack for Kara. Over her shoulder she said, “I really don’t care, as long as he or she has your eyes. That’s what did it for me from day one.”
“Eyes? Really? I thought it was my physique.”
“You were a little skinny and sallow then,” she said, removing a box of Cheese Nips from the shelf. “And you smelled like smoke.”
“Well, I haven’t touched ‘em in months,” he said.
“Yes, and you’re filling out,” she smiled.
“Oh, great, I quit smoking and now you think I’m fat?”
“Vanity, thy name is John Pilate,” she said, pouring the Cheese Nips into a bowl and shoving a couple in her mouth.
“You didn’t answer the question,” he said.
“Keep running those races,” she said, chewing and taking the snack to Kara.
“You are getting a little chunky, John,” Simon said.
Pilate swallowed the rest of his drink, ignoring his doppelganger.
CHAPTER SIX
“John, there’s been nothing we can pin this to,” Detective Petersen said over the phone. Petersen was a state police officer Pilate had met after everything went to hell and back last winter in Cross. “After getting ahold of your records we see that you’ve received calls, but they’re all either from pay phones or pay-as-you-go cell phones.”
“So what do you think?”
“Well, you’re in the media quite a bit. Sometimes nu
t jobs see that and decide to screw with your head.”
“That just seems…too convenient,” Pilate said.
“I don’t follow you,” Petersen said.
“Well, I just think it has to be somebody real. They were in Florida - I know that because the area codes they called from were Florida. Now that I’m back here, they’re from this area. That’s a scary thing. Like I’m being followed.”
“Or it could be a coincidence.”
“Well, yeah but…”
“John, did they sound the same?”
“Not exactly.”
“Did they say the same things - I mean between here and Florida?”
“Not exactly.”
“Stranger things have happened - two nut jobs acting independently of each other. I mean, if you only knew how many individual weirdoes write similar letters to the governor.”
“I get it,” Pilate said.
“Besides, who else could it be,” he snickered. “Not to be funny about it but either you killed your enemies or they killed themselves.”
“Nothing at all funny about that,” Simon offered.
“Yeah. Meanwhile I have a stepdaughter and pregnant wife to think of, and I’m getting ready to be on the road for nearly six weeks.”
“Sorry man. It’s kind of a dead end,” Petersen said.
“What did you say?”
“A dead end,” Petersen said, then clicked his tongue. “Sorry, John. That’s one of the things the nuts said, isn’t it?”
“It’s okay,” he said.
“Well, you have my number if anything develops. And listen, John, just keep your eyes open.”
“I will.”
“And take it from me, it’s the ones who don’t call who you should worry about most,” Petersen offered helpfully.
“Is that something you cops say to everybody?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Thanks.”
Pilate decided to head over to the school’s indoor pool to swim laps. Easier than running with my calf so sore.
A swim class was breaking up as he slipped into the water. There was a 45-minute free-swim period, and so far, he was on his own. He started laps.
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