The Last Innocent Hour

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  Charlie shrugged and walked out of the unit. His plans from now on were no one's business but his own. He reached the parking lot and stopped, looking around for anyone resembling Metzger, but then his gaze was pulled beyond the rows of cars confined on neatly striped concrete, to the tree-lined horizon. So much land. Space. Quiet. He was alone.

  Awareness of his freedom spread through him, a slow radiant wave that rose from a place inside him so deep he hadn't known it existed. The sky was gray, the weather damp and chilly, but Charlie was glad for the cold and the mist-saturated air. Glad for weather he could feel. He closed his eyes, lifted his face, offered a prayer of thanks. To what or who, he couldn't say. He thought of Dixie, that he’d be pleased, that he’d say it was an act of faith.

  Charlie watched a car approach, a black BMW, and when it got close enough, he recognized Bert Jessup. The warden was wrong; Bert Jessup wasn’t shit to him.

  He lowered the passenger window. “Hop in,” he said. “I'll give you a lift wherever you want to go.”

  Charlie looked over the hood of the car. Bert showing up here at the precise time he was getting sprung was no accident. He must want something, but so did Charlie, and what choice did he have? It wasn’t like anybody was sending a limo to pick him up.

  “C'mon. I don’t see anybody else offering.” Bert echoed Charlie’s thought. He popped the passenger door.

  Charlie slid into the cushy leather seat. It was just a ride, right?

  Bert headed down the drive, and he was waved through both checkpoints. “Where to?” He glanced at Charlie.

  “Houston. Bus station.”

  “You leaving town?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What about your family? Your wife and little girl? Were they ever found?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?” Charlie wasn’t giving this bastard a thing. He stared out at the passing countryside with a hungry gaze. Fall colors this far south were mostly held to nondescript shades of brown relieved occasionally by the yellow splash of sweet gum or the red daub of a rare dogwood, but even beneath a sky the color of hammered silver, the scenery appeared postcard perfect to him.

  Bert broke the silence. “I want you to know, I'm really sick about what happened to you.”

  Charlie gave a derisive snort.

  “I know you blame me. What can I do to make it up?”

  “Sounds like you’re worried.”

  “About what? I did the best I could with your defense. It's not my fault you ended up doing a little time.”

  “A little time? Is that what you call it?” Charlie pushed his face at Bert. “Look at me! I nearly died in there, asshole!”

  Bert patted the air between them. “So, tell me what I can do, okay? Do you need money? A job? What?”

  “I need a car.” Charlie said. “And I need to know where Jason Tinker is.”

  “How about a car and a couple hundred cash?” Bert hitched up in the seat, shooting Charlie a hectic glance. “I've got a brother in the business. He can fix you up. Probably nothing fancy; it'll have to be used.”

  “What about Tinker? He still at the farm?”

  “Uh, I don’t think so. I heard he moved into some hotel. I don’t think he’s doing too good.”

  “What hotel?”

  “I don’t--”

  Charlie lunged across the seat, flattening his foot over Bert’s, pushing down on the accelerator. He wrenched the steering wheel from Bert’s grip. The BMW veered wildly, heading for some trees.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Bert yelled. “Are you crazy?”

  “That about sums it up, asshole. Now tell me what hotel, or I’ll run this motherfucking car off the bridge up there.”

  “Greenspoint Residence Inn,” Bert shouted.

  Charlie let go of the steering wheel and settled back in the passenger seat, repeating the name softly a few times so he’d remember.

  Bert got the car under control, but it took him a while longer to stop shaking. He darted fevered glances at Charlie, heaved his breath, fiddled with the a/c vent. Finally he gave a laugh. “Wouldn't hurt my feelings any if something was to happen to him. Tinker, I mean.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Charlie said. “So we’ll talk about what else you can do for me, right?”

  At the car lot, he waited in the BMW while Bert went to speak to his brother. A few minutes later, they beckoned Charlie inside, handed him five hundred in cash and the title to an old-model, green Ford Explorer.

  Bert walked him toward the car. “You see I gave you a little extra, right?”

  Charlie didn’t answer.

  “You know I did everything I could for you. You don't blame me? Tinker's the one who set you up. Tinker and Jimmy Lee. State’s Attorney comes after me, that's my story.”

  Ah. That’s what this was about then, Charlie thought. The investigation. Metzger had said something about it. Charlie got into the Explorer and shut the door. He lowered the driver's side window and glanced around the interior. “It’s got a little wear on it, but it’s not too bad, considering.”

  “I can count on you, can't I? I help you, you help me? I got my reputation on the line here. My job, hell, my whole career.” Bert was begging.

  Charlie crammed the car title into the glove box. He grinned at Bert. “Sounds like you could use a good lawyer,” he said, starting the engine.

  Bert was still talking and gesturing when Charlie drove off the lot.

  o0o

  It was raining by the time he met his contact later that afternoon inside the Houston bus station. Before he’d left prison, Charlie had been told to wait beside the newsstand and to look for a youngish guy wearing an Astros cap backward. He spotted the kid right away when he came in off the street.

  When he was near enough, Charlie said, “Looking forward to the season?”

  The kid turned the bill of his cap forward and said, “Yeah, I'm a real fan.”

  They shook hands. The kid walked off. Charlie pocketed the key he'd been palmed and went into the men's room, and after what he thought was a reasonable time, he found the locker where a Colt .45 pistol and a couple boxes of ammunition was stowed. Dixie was right. It was pretty amazing what a few packs of smokes could buy you in the joint.

  Back in the Explorer, he headed south on the I-45 interstate toward the Greenspoint Residence Inn.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Beth hefted her suitcase and cast a final glance around the small apartment where a woman named “Jane” had spent her short unreal life. For a fleeting second, she thought how much easier it would be to pick up the threads of Jane’s life than to resume her own. But Jane’s life lacked Chrissy. Beth stepped over the threshold, closed the door behind her, stowed the front door key under the welcome mat as her landlord had requested and started down the steps. But when she heard the phone ring, she stopped. Charlie?! His name streaked through her mind. Wild, improbable.

  She knew better, but it very well could be Freida. Something could have happened to Chrissy. Beth dropped the suitcase, fumbled the key from under the mat and unlocking the door, raced into the kitchen to grab the phone. Her hello came on a huff of air.

  Breathing. She heard breathing and started to hang up when all at once it hit her like a knuckled fist in her gut: this was no crank calling. “Jason?” she said.

  “That's right, bitch.”

  Beth flattened her hand on the countertop, steadying herself. “What do you want?”

  “I thought you’d like to know I'm planning a little visit to the Pearson family.”

  “No! Jason! No! Leave her alone. Please, please leave Chrissy alone. I’ll meet you. We can talk--” She broke off.

  Realized he’d hung up, that she was shouting into dead air. “Oh God.” She dropped the receiver, clutched her head in her hands. What to do? Call Tim? No. He'd make her go to the police. There wasn’t time for that.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Freida Pearson's number. It rang once, twice. She put her fingertips to her temple.
“Please, please pick up,” she whispered. “Please don't be gone.” Three rings. Four. “Answer, please....”

  No one did. She dropped the receiver again, mindlessly, and raced out of the apartment, not bothering with the key. Hefting her suitcase into the Thunderbird, she was on her way within moments. She'd gone cold inside. Cold enough that if she tried to analyze it, she might be frightened of herself, for herself. But instead, she was thinking how she was through running and hiding. Through with feeling shamed. She wouldn’t live one more minute under Jason’s thumb. She was thinking about the loaded .38 Hollis kept under the counter at the nursery.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Charlie was headed across the parking lot of the Greenspoint Residence Inn toward the lobby when the silver Mercedes barreled around the corner of the building. He turned toward it, and his eyes locked on Tinker’s face. And for a brief matter of seconds that stretched like eternity, Charlie stood in the oncoming path of Tinker’s car. Maybe he wished for it to take him out. Maybe he imagined he could stop it with his bare hands. Stop it and take Tinker out with his bare hands. But whatever it was that held Charlie in place, it was a force so compelling, he nearly waited too long to jump out of the way.

  He dove for safety at the very last moment, then awkwardly righted himself in time to see the Mercedes fishtail onto the feeder road. Tires squealed. Horns blew. Charlie hobbled quickly back to the Explorer. Pulling into traffic, he half-expected to see Jason wreck himself. But no. He was turning left, heading south on the interstate. Charlie barely made it through the light, and once he got on the freeway, he had to whip in and out of traffic to keep up. They passed the sign for the racetrack, and Charlie remembered how he'd been pulled in by it on the night of the storm. What would have happened if he'd never seen it? Chances were slim he'd be here, he thought, chasing a maniac down a freeway....

  Tinker took an off-ramp south of downtown. Charlie hung back now, maintaining Tinker’s more sedate speed, negotiating his same path. They entered a subdivision, a neighborhood of modest ranch-style homes set on well-maintained, manicured yards. Charlie had the sense Tinker didn’t know where he was going, that he was hunting an address. Tinker passed through a four-way stop, but Charlie lingered there, watching, and he was glad he did when Tinker pulled to the curb halfway down the block. He thought Tinker might look his way when he got out of the Mercedes, but he didn’t. He didn’t walk up to the front door of the house he’d parked in front of either, but crossed the side yard, bent low, like he didn’t want to be seen. Charlie idled down the block as soon as Tinker disappeared. What was he doing?

  Moments passed. Charlie waited some distance from the Mercedes. He felt his heart whisking lightly against his ribs, felt the tap of his blood at his temples. Now Jason reappeared, carrying something—no someone. Someone small, child-sized. What the hell? Charlie flipped on the wipers clearing the windshield of the mist that fogged the glass. And his heart almost exploded. It was Chrissy! Holy Jesus Christ! It was his own sweet girl who bounced in that madman's arms. She had Lamby by the tail, but her eyes were round in surprise, or fright, or who knew? But in the second before Jason tossed her into the front seat, her eyes locked with Charlie’s, and he could have sworn he saw her lips form his name, “Daddy.” She said, “Daddy....”

  Charlie’s breath went down hard; impulse had him gripping the door handle, had him thinking he’d get her now, but something stayed his hand. Some blind instinct warned confronting Tinker at this point would be the exact wrong thing to do. He made himself sit back, made himself breathe. Groping in the passenger seat, he pulled the loaded .45 out of the sack and held it on his lap. And when Jason pulled away from the curb, Charlie waited before he pulled into the street behind him.

  He was a car length or two away from the house when he heard a woman shouting. He glanced into the rearview and saw her running after his car down the middle of the street, then suddenly, she stopped, wheeled, and ran back into her house.

  Good, lady, he thought. Call nine-one-one. Get the cops. “And the coroner, too, while you’re at it,” he muttered out loud.

  o0o

  Beth knew something was wrong when Freida came outside without Chrissy.

  “He took her,” she said and tented her fingers to her mouth.

  “Which way did he go?” Beth asked. And she was amazed at the normal sound of herself. Even inside, she felt nothing in particular. She had an errand to do, that was all.

  “That way.” Freida gestured. “Toward the park; it wasn't two minutes ago. I called the police,” she shouted as Beth drove away.

  She spotted the Mercedes immediately just beyond the small park’s entrance. It wasn’t pulled into a proper space, but sat in the center of the small parking lot. An old Ford Explorer sat behind it with the driver’s side door hanging open. Beth couldn’t make sense of that. She looked around; the rest of the lot was deserted. Nobody would come to the park on a wet day like this. Pulling into a space, she dug Hollis’s .38 out of her purse, and hefting its weight carefully, she left the car. Mist thickened in her hair, clotted her eyelashes; it trickled into the collar of her shirt, but she was grateful for it, for the way it muffled her footsteps. A sidewalk followed the curve of the drive, and she paused there to listen. At first she didn't hear a sound. She might have been alone in the world, but then voices reached her. Beth skirted a thick clump of yaupons.

  “Put her down!”

  Beth’s breath caught. Was that Charlie’s voice? Carefully, she parted a tangle of heavily-berried yaupon branches and saw him. Yes, it was him. She knew it, even though he was turned slightly from her, and his posture was twisted in an unfamiliar way; she recognized him. She saw the gun in his hand, too, and Chrissy in Jason’s arms. And still she felt nerveless inside and as cold as hoarfrost. The .38 trembled in her fingers, but she didn’t make a sound.

  She studied Jason. If Charlie for all his alterations was familiar to her still, her stepfather was not. He looked wild, like a man on the run. His hair had grown out and stood off his head in ragged white spikes. He was unshaven. His skin was gray and slick with sweat. His flat, pale eyes glowed, the color of spent ash. He held Chrissy hard against him, too hard. She was whimpering and so frightened. Beth bit down on her lower lip. He could so easily squeeze the life from Chrissy, so easily stop her breath. The way he stopped Mama's breath....

  “Get away, or I'll hurt her.” Jason’s voice was a querulous whine, a child’s whine.

  Chrissy hung on to her Lamby. Her eyes were wide and fixed on her daddy’s face. Scared silent, Beth thought.

  “You don't want to hurt her,” Charlie said, and Beth was weak with relief at how reasonable he sounded. Reasonable and calm. “Remember how you saved her from being trampled by Black Knight? You don't want to hurt her now.” Charlie took a half-step toward Jason.

  “Stay back,” he warned.

  “She could be your daughter, man. You think of that? She might be the child you and Beth lost.”

  Beth’s eyes widened. Had he said--? He knew? But how?

  Charlie went on talking, his voice as soothing as a lullaby.

  Beneath the thready pulse of her fear, Beth prayed Jason would listen to reason.

  “Put her down,” Charlie said again.

  And this time Jason did; all at once, he set Chrissy on her feet.

  She headed straight for her daddy.

  But he waved her off, shouting, “Run, Stinkerbelle! Run to the swings!”

  She stopped in confusion. Beth's gaze riveted to their daughter, as if it might compel Chrissy's obedience. The moment seemed suspended in time before she finally did as she’d been told, and Beth’s heart ached to see her running along the sidewalk to the nearby swings. “Can’t catch me, Daddy!” she called as if they played a game.

  Distracted, Jason turned to look at her, and Charlie lunged, grabbing him around his knees, bringing him down. Beth saw Jason get his arm free, saw him go for Charlie's wrist, Charlie’s gun. She pushed through the yaupons
that screened her from view, and raising the .38, she aimed it at the men, but it wobbled badly, dangling and shaking from the end of her arm like a thing she had no control over. She wiped her mouth on her jacket sleeve. The weapon in her hand was all she could see. The rest of the world had gone white ... so white. Oh God....

  Jason sat astride Charlie and banged his arm repeatedly against the concrete, finally loosening Charlie's grip. The gun skittered away. Jason dove to recover it. Charlie regained his feet, and although he was facing Beth now, she could tell he wasn’t seeing her. Blood flowed over his bottom lip. Tinker lay between them half-reclined with the weapon trained on Charlie's face.

  Beth stared. Behind the fixed intensity of her eyes, her mind was alive with orders: Move! Do something! If you don’t do something, Jason’s going to kill him! Come on! But she could do nothing, and it sickened her, that she would stand here, and let this happen, let Jason win, the way she always did. . . .

  Charlie put up his hands as if in surrender when Jason stood up. “You know, I don’t care what you do to me. I’ve already lost everything that ever mattered. But you won’t ever touch my daughter again.”

  “Bet me,” Jason said, and it was Jason speaking now and not the deranged boy.

  Charlie went on, conversationally. “My one regret? I didn't get a chance to tell Beth how sorry I am I ever shook your hand.”

  Beth could swear that Charlie was moving as he spoke, that he was inching almost imperceptibly toward her. Then suddenly, he ducked his chin and tackled Jason. Beth heard a scream. Her own? A gun blast ripped the air. Charlie staggered and dropped to his knees.

  Beth’s mind cleared. Time slowed. She stepped fully into view, separating herself completely from the protective screen of yaupons. Jason's mouth gaped in astonishment. Charlie whispered her name. But the fullness of her concentration was centered on Hollis's gun held confidently in her right hand. In one smooth movement, she took aim and fired, one shot that caught Jason dead-on between the eyes. He reared back and lay still, and almost immediately, dark red blood welled up in the hole the bullet had made.