They had been through this dozens of times. What they could safely take. What must be abandoned. What could be traced back here. They had scrutinized everything they owned. Their marriage license, birth certificates, engraved wedding bands, the calligraphed family tree Martha had painstakingly drawn and framed, and boxes of family keepsakes. Any photo that showed their home, cars, neighbors, family, Steven’s friends, teammates, or school, had to be abandoned. As did Steven’s Little League uniform. Each of these could undo everything if seen by a curious eye.
Tim had always won these what-to-take-what-to-leave arguments, but now, with the end so close, he knew he could no longer resist her.
“It’s okay,” he said.
“Thirty-six hours.” She eased from his embrace and looked up at him, swiped the back of her hand across her nose. “I can’t believe it’s here.”
“We can back out. Stay and risk it.”
She shook her head. “No. We can’t. Not with him around.”
“He might’ve just been blowing off steam.”
“You don’t believe that.”
No, he didn’t. He knew better.
“Besides, that’s just part of it. We can’t let that animal…” She screwed her face down tightly, suppressing another sob.
Tim touched her cheek, catching a stray tear with his thumb. “It’ll be okay. Keep the pictures.” He stood, walked to Steven’s desk, lifted the uniform from the back of the chair and tossed it onto the bed. “The uniform, too.”
“His uniform?” A sob escaped her throat. “He was so proud of it.” She swallowed, looked up toward him and dabbed her eyes with her shirtsleeve. Her voice broke when she said, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“But nothing else. Nothing that leads back here. This life is over. Finished. Tomorrow night Tim and Martha Foster no longer exist. But Robert Beckwith and Cindy Strunk will get a chance to live again.”
She shook her head, uncertainty lingering in her eyes. “What if they find out Robert and Cindy have been dead for a couple of decades?”
“Not likely.”
“Still…”
“It’ll work. We’re not the first to rummage through old obituaries and cemeteries. Lots of people have done it before us.”
“Most get caught.”
“Only the ones you hear about. Most just move on. Become someone else.”
“Let’s hope.”
He brushed a wayward strand of hair from her face and lifted her chin with a finger. “You’ll make a perfect Cindy.”
She smiled, weak and tentative, her face tear streaked, her nose reddened, but it was still a smile. There hadn’t been many of those lately.
“It’s not like we have another option,” Tim said. “We can’t simply move. We have to disappear. Become completely untraceable. Be reborn.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It will be like dying.”
“Except that we’ll have another chance. A new life.” He looked down at her. “And Steven will live on in our memories.”
“It’s not fair.” She hugged the sweatshirt again.
“Can you live with this? What we’re doing?”
She sat silently for a moment as if considering his question. The question that had plagued them for the past six months. Even as they pressed ahead with the planning, with getting the documents in order, with building their new life, their new identities, the question hung out there on the horizon. A horizon whose sharp edge dropped into an abyss. A horizon that rapidly approached. Could they do this? Could they really leave everything and everyone behind?
She sighed. “I’ll have to.”
“We’ll both have to.”
She swallowed against another burst of tears. “What now?”
He retrieved his to-do list from his shirt pocket and unfolded it. “You have the new passports and the North Carolina driver’s licenses. Right?”
“In my purse.”
“The money from the house sale and our accounts is in the bank in Boone.”
They’d luckily found a buyer willing to pay cash for the house. At a big discount. He bought the story about them needing to sell quickly and head west to Arizona. Ailing mother. That was lucky but also easy. The hard part was closing down all their accounts, selling the bonds and emptying his pension plan without raising too much suspicion. You can’t simply take a couple of hundred thousand in cash from a bank without triggering scrutiny. Shutting down a pension plan is even more difficult. Tim had managed to move the money around to several banks and investment houses, each time bleeding off a chunk of cash.
“The rental house there is ready,” Tim said. “Tomorrow we’ll empty the last bank account.”
She stood. “I’ll finish packing and then we can take all this over to the new car.”
* * *
Tim turned the SUV into the mall’s parking deck and wound up to the roof of the structure. At 11:00 p.m. only a handful of cars remained on that level. He pulled into the space next to a blue sedan. The one owned by the newly minted Robert Beckwith.
While Martha rechecked the boxes in the back of the SUV, making sure each was securely closed and taped, Tim stepped into the lazy night air where thousands of stars peppered the clear sky. A perfect Alabama spring night. May was a good month here. The damp chill of winter gone and the heat and humidity of summer still a couple of months away. He would miss this. He’d never lived anywhere else. Neither had Martha. This was home. For another day anyway.
Tim popped the SUV’s rear hatch. He and Martha loaded the four suitcases into the sedan’s trunk and then wedged the three cardboard banker’s boxes into the backseat. Amazing that an entire life could fit into one car. But when cutting loose everything that came before, that’s the way it was.
* * *
Tim and Martha held hands while they waited for Anne Marie Bridges to finish helping another customer. When she waved a goodbye to the elderly lady and turned her smile toward them, they walked up to the teller’s window.
“How’re you two doing today?” Anne Marie asked.
“Fine,” Martha said. “You?”
“Other than my arthritic knee acting up, I suspect okay.”
“Time to close the last account,” Tim said.
“Is it May already?”
“Afraid so.”
“We’re so sorry to be losing you as customers,” Anne Marie said. “How long has it been? Ten years?”
“At least,” Tim said. “We’ll miss you and everyone else here.”
“You’re moving out West? California?”
“Arizona,” Martha said. “Phoenix.”
“I hear it’s hot there.”
Martha smiled. “They have air-conditioning.”
“And ice cream,” Tim added.
Anne Marie laughed. “Your balance is seven thousand six hundred thirty-two dollars and forty-four cents. You want a cashier’s check?”
“Cash,” Tim said. “Need some traveling money.”
“That’s a lot to carry around.”
“We’ll be okay.”
“I don’t have that much in my drawer. I’ll have to run to the vault. It’ll take a few minutes. Why don’t you have some coffee?” Anne Marie pointed toward the corner table that held a large coffeepot and a stack of foam cups.
Tim nodded and they moved that way. He poured two cups, handed one to Martha, added a pack of creamer to his and stirred it to a caramel brown. He took a sip. Not bad.
“Mr. and Mrs. Foster.”
Tim turned. “Detective.”
Detective Bruce McGill, today dressed in jeans and an open-collar blue shirt beneath a gray sport coat, had been the lead investigator into th
e evils of Walter Allen Whitiker. The animal that had taken Steven. He’d helped lock the bastard up. Not nearly long enough, but as long as the corrupt judge would allow.
“I understand you’re moving away,” McGill said. A statement, not a question.
“We have to,” Martha said. “We can’t stay in a community with that…that…”
McGill shoved his hands into his pockets, the butt of the gun strapped to his belt now visible. “Because he threatened you?”
“That’s part of it,” Tim said.
“You don’t think we can protect you?”
Tim shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. It’s the not that’s the problem.”
“It’s mostly talk,” McGill said. “Just messing with your head. Doubt he’ll actually do anything.”
“He killed our son,” Martha said. “And got away with it. Why wouldn’t he try to kill us?”
“He hasn’t been exactly repentant,” Tim added.
McGill rattled what sounded like keys inside one pocket and rocked back on his heels a little. “When you heading out?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I take it that’s because he’s being released in the morning?”
“We don’t want to breathe the same air he does,” Martha said.
“Can’t say I blame you.” Again the keys rattled. “Where you going?”
“Phoenix,” Tim said.
“Been there once. Nice place.” When Tim didn’t respond he went on. “Anything I can do for you, just give me call.”
* * *
Tim and Martha spent the remainder of the day making final preparations. Loading what they would need into the SUV. Repeatedly going back over everything. Playing the “what-if” game. They decided that they’d done all they could. Planned for all the contingencies. Now with a little luck everything would work out.
They ordered pizza and ate at the kitchen counter. Both quiet now, knowing this was their last night in the only house they had ever lived in together. There was the apartment when they first married, but this was their home.
Tim remembered the day they had moved in. Eleven years ago. Martha had been three months into her pregnancy, barely showing. He’d carried her across the threshold. They’d laughed and made love on the new carpet in the furniture-free living room.
The lump in his throat made swallowing the pizza difficult.
After they finished, Tim cleaned the counter and folded the empty pizza box into the trash compactor. He then found Martha, standing at the door to Steven’s room. Not an unusual position for her. Over the past three years she’d often stood there. Silently staring. As if waiting for Steven to materialize. Their towheaded son in his baggy pajamas, sitting at his desk doing homework, or sprawled on his bed in exhausted, innocent sleep.
Tonight was different. She was no doubt soaking in memories, knowing that in a few hours they would walk out of here forever. It was as if she wanted to burn the room’s image into her mind. The lump in his throat grew.
He went out back and walked around the yard, making a couple of laps. Smelling the flowers and touching the thick shrubbery that they had planted together. He could still see her dirt-smudged face, glistening with sweat. Could still hear six-month-old Steven squealing in his nearby playpen.
He migrated to the swing set. Steven’s fifth birthday present. He’d put it together with his own hands. Took twice as long as it should have, but he managed. He sat on one of the swings and began a slow to-and-fro motion. The rusty chain creaked in protest. He could almost hear Steven begging to go higher and higher as he pushed him from behind. Tears blurred his vision.
Martha came out. He stood and they hugged tightly. Her tears fell against his neck. God, he hated this feeling. His life ripped apart again. As it had been three years ago. A wound that would never heal.
* * *
“You look hot,” Tim said.
Martha turned from the mirror. “You like it?” Her shoulder-length blond hair was now clipped short and dyed a deep black. The transition from Martha to Cindy. She laughed. “Look at you. I love the military cut.”
He ran a hand over his nearly shaved head. “It’ll take a bit of getting used to.”
She handed him a plastic trash bag, filled with empty dye bottles and wads of her hair. “Put this by the gym bags. Don’t want to forget and leave it here.” She began scrubbing her hair with a towel.
“Will do. Then we need to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”
* * *
The 4:00 a.m. alarm startled Tim. He rolled toward Martha. She wasn’t there. Then he heard the shower running. He joined her.
Thirty minutes later they were on the road. Out of the city, into the wooded hills south of town, off on a rarely used gravel road. Tim pulled the SUV into the trees, no longer visible from the road. He parked near the clearing he had found months earlier.
He set up the tent. Not exactly set it up since it was one of those self-contained jobs. Floor, walls, ceiling, support cables all in one. He simply removed it from its flat storage sleeve and dropped it on the ground. The cables unwound and a tent appeared.
He crawled inside and, using his Swiss Army knife, cut two dinner-plate-size holes in one end. About eighteen inches from the bottom. He then piled three pillows near each hole.
It was 5:00 a.m. Two hours to wait. Then they could get this done, stuff the tent and everything else into plastic trash bags and drop them into the industrial Dumpster over by the packing plant where they would ultimately disappear into a landfill. Then back to the mall parking deck, pick up the new car and finally curb the SUV on the east side. Keys inside of course. Easy for the crack dealers to snatch and chop. After that, goodbye. The transformation of Tim and Martha Foster into Robert Beckwith and Cindy Strunk would be complete. He smiled. He actually looked forward to Robert and Cindy getting married. She would make a great North Carolina blushing bride.
He looked at her. She lay on her back, eyes blank, staring at the tent’s roof. “You okay?” he asked.
“Nervous.”
“Me, too.”
“Look.” She held up a trembling hand.
“You’ll do fine. You have to. We both have to.” He rolled onto his side and looked into her face. “For Steven.”
* * *
Tabitha Martin stood near the prison entrance, a rolling chain-link gate behind her, and a hundred feet beyond that the metal double doors that led to the facility’s interior. Inside you could find the worst of the worst. Rapists, murderers, child molesters, you name it. And, of course, Walter Allen Whitiker.
A big day for Tabitha. Her first real hard news story. Not her usual new cub at the zoo, tornado uprooted tree, or Labor Day Parade fluff piece. An honest-to-God story about the city’s most controversial trial.
She stood, facing the Channel 16 News camera, and waited for the signal. The cameraman gave her a countdown, finger after finger folding from sight, until only his fist remained.
“This is Tabitha Martin reporting live from Stone Gate Prison. We are just minutes from the release of Walter Allen Whitiker. Three years ago he was arrested for the murder of eight-year-old Steven Foster, whose body was found six months after he went missing in a wooded area just five miles from where I now stand. Murder charges were brought based on DNA evidence obtained from what were believed to be tearstains in the back of Whitiker’s van.
“The murder charges were dropped when Judge Ben Kleinman disallowed this evidence on a technicality. Walter Allen Whitiker was then tried and convicted for obstructing a police investigation and perjury. He received a three-year sentence, and now, nineteen months later, he is being released for good behavior.”
She turned and looked back toward the prison, where several guards had gathered near the metal doors.
“I see some activity, so Whitiker m
ight come through that door very soon.” She turned back to the camera. “As we have reported here in the past, Whitiker remained in the public eye for making what many believe were not so subtle threats toward Martha Foster, young Steven’s mother. Whitiker has repeatedly stated that she lied about seeing him cruising their neighborhood on the day Steven disappeared. Many feel that these threats should preclude Whitiker’s early parole, but the parole board ruled that he was safe for release and Judge Kleinman agreed.”
* * *
The scope was a Bushnell 30x50. It pulled the image of Tabitha Martin into full view. As if she were standing right in front of him. Tim could clearly see the Channel 16 pin she wore on her sweater. She was looking directly at the cameraman who aimed his shoulder-balanced camera at her.
Tim and Martha lay prone on the plastic floor of the tent. Tim had snapped off a few branches of the brush, allowing a clear view down the gentle slope and across the road, to where Tabitha and a small group of curiosity seekers had gathered. He could almost hear what she was saying. How Whitiker had been charged with murder and wiggled free by the machinations of his slick lawyer and a corrupt judge. How he had been a model prisoner. How his threats to Martha weren’t real, just the imagination of distraught parents and a homicide investigator who felt that the judge had trashed his reputation. Which is exactly what that nut-job Kleinman had done. Whitiker a model prisoner? Maybe him saying he would “get even with that lying bitch” and “even the score with those that falsely accused him” weren’t really threats. Get real.
He wiped his damp palms with a towel. “You ready?”
“I think so.”
Tim worked the bolt action of his 30.06, settling the bullet into the firing chamber. Martha did the same. They each rested their weapons on the stacked pillows. Martha pressed her eye against the scope on her rifle.
“Just do it exactly like you did with all those practice shots. Calm, relaxed, exhale slowly, squeeze.”
“What if I miss and hit someone else?”
“You won’t.”
She glanced over at him. “What if the tent doesn’t dampen the noise enough? I have a vision of everyone turning and pointing at us.”
At Risk Page 23