by Robert Lane
“Yet,” I said, taking tentative bird steps with my words—I’d been taken to school on how important those instruments were—“when we departed from the Red Lion, you wished his assassin to live in a conscious inferno.”
“I might have been hedging myself a bit there, and, well, you see, I have…mixed opinions of you. Besides, you were getting too close. I wanted to push you away. You were so… inquisitive with your battery of impatient questions. The diary—I suppose it could be used to show Giovanni’s intent, but I doubt that absolves someone of murder. I don’t know what to make of it—if I should go to the police.”
“Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Gone to the police?”
“No.” She leaned in just a tad and held my eyes. “What do you think?”
“About?” I feigned not following her logic.
“Someone being misled to kill a man being absolved of such an act.”
“Small chance.”
The Queen’s Bench wouldn’t give a Jolly Roger that I thought I was killing someone else. If I were the director of public prosecutions, I’d go after me on two charges—the man I killed and the man I conspired to kill.
Wanting to drop that subject, I said, “Did he consider his words to Elizabeth to be his greatest sin?”
She hesitated, her eyes bolted on mine as if to acknowledge the theme shift, then said, “His sin?”
“If a man was to have one sin, hypothetically, would that have been his?”
“He considered his inability to break away from early doctrine, and consequently the suicide of Elizabeth Lambert, to be a great flaw, one he took his life over. But I don’t believe he saw it as a sin—it wasn’t in that arena—it was more of a malignant regret.”
“Regrets and sins? Aren’t they differences without distinction?”
“I assure you they are not in the same family.”
“Mr. Hoover, as I mentioned in my e-mail, is dead.”
“You do jump tracks quickly, don’t you? Yes, so I read in your e-mail.”
“You don’t seem too—”
“He was a greatly disturbed man.” It came out fast. We held eye contact until she shuddered and broke away. She could never divulge her secret. The damage would cause irreparable harm to the late cardinal; it would have been a career buster in the early years, no reason to do so now. His reputation had already suffered massive body blows as his unsolved death spurred dark, unsubstantiated rumors of a double life.
And my secret? There would be ice caps in the Gulf of Mexico before I incriminated myself. Yet I felt an obligation to the man’s outstretched arm, his supplicating eyes. I didn’t wish to hurt her or pour salt on the wound, but I’d been searching for answers ever since Garrett proclaimed that I’d clipped the wrong bird. Besides, her secret, unlike mine, wasn’t a felony.
I said, “When you were young…”
She sprang up as if my words had catapulted her out of her chair. She darted over to the side of Impulse, her back toward me, her face against the port side of my boat, her world shrinking. I went to her. I skipped to the end.
“Your son arranged for his father to die.”
Her body quivered, and I felt like total shit. Why not let her go in peace? But I wasn’t about to let myself feel too bad. She wanted this—saw it coming from the moment I met her. If not, I’d blame Antinori. If he thought he could allow someone to kill him without affecting others in his life, then he was indeed a stupid bird.
“My son.”
“Mr. Hoover. Alexander Paretsky. The man whom, when we met, you did a credible job of claiming not to know, even acted surprised when I showed you his picture.”
She spun, blew out her breath, and then pursed her lips. “Yes, I know.” She perked up as if it wasn’t a big deal, no more than being told that a restaurant had run out of the daily special. A flag bearer, if there ever was one, for her nation.
“At first I did deny, didn’t I? But you said he ‘posed’—your word, Mr. Travis, for you are not the only one with gifted ears—a threat to Renée, and then you added, ‘perhaps even fatal.’ Well, I scrambled then—decided to come clean, at least in my knowledge of him. I was on pins and needles that whole conversation, gauging what to say and what to hold back. I wanted to protect Giovanni’s reputation and Renée’s life. An impossible balancing act. And you? I should have guessed you’d already be there. Tell me, though, how did you connect the dots?”
“I synthesized. Your sabbatical to France. Alexander Paretsky’s strange appearance in Antinori’s life. Similar facial features. Right age. A photograph when you were in your early twenties, your eyes steady on Antinori when everyone else played to the camera.”
And a picture of you in Antinori’s dead hand—no need for synthesizing that. But those words stayed safely locked inside my head.
She cocked her head. “A photograph?”
“Taken at the high—”
“Yes, yes, I know the picture. You made your assumption from those items?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It’s that you don’t seem that…sensitive to me.”
“I occasionally malfunction.”
She stiffened. “I seriously doubt that. Let’s be done with it, shall we? Mr. Hoo—Alexander—was a bad man, despite his unrestricted gifts. Yes, Giovanni and I…loved each other since the day I walked in as his twenty-year-old secretary and placed a cup of tea on his desk, and his hand found the cup before I withdrew mine. I gave birth in France and put my baby up for adoption. A child, that child, was the last thing I, or he, needed. Alexander tracked me down and then showered the church with money. After a fund-raising dinner one night, the three of us found ourselves in the vestibule. As Giovanni draped a checkered scarf around Mr. Hoo—Alexander’s neck, Alexander said, ‘Thank you, Father.’ A passing guest corrected him, reminding him that Giovanni was a cardinal. Alexander smiled, and his eyes rotated back and forth between Giovanni and myself. There was no denying the men had similar features. The three of us just froze there… oh, such a weight fell on us, or was lifted. I still can’t decide.
“It became clear that Alexander Paretsky had no ill intentions whatsoever toward Giovanni or me. Giovanni kept him from me, told me that Alexander was a deeply disturbed and troubled man, that our union was not to blame for such a man. As bad as that sounds, I got the distinct impression that Giovanni was holding back, that Alexander was far worse than I could imagine. Do me a favor?”
“Perhaps.” I recalled her using the exact phrase in London when she wanted to be kept apprised of Renée Lambert. As if her questions were queued up long before she met me.
“Oh, no. That entirely won’t do. I need far more. I deserve more.”
“What may I do for you?”
“Alexander? I don’t want to know. Whatever you may know. Is that bad? Innocent ignorance?”
“No. Not at all.”
“I mean, I had nothing to do with his up—”
“You can stop right there.”
“Thank you.”
I said, “When Paretsky showed up with Renée Lambert at the carnival on a Sunday afternoon, she searched for you but told me she couldn’t locate you.”
“I couldn’t face her. Imagine, Alexander dating Elizabeth’s daughter—what a vile web. I saw them arrive, and I left with haste. Giovanni told me that Renée approached him and harshly criticized him for his words to her mother. It was, as they say, the final nail.”
I admired the irony; Elizabeth’s daughter gave her mother’s tormentor the final nudge to end his life. I wondered if Antinori told Cynthia that he told Renée to run away from Paretsky. I’d decided that Antinori, as Cynthia suspected, attempted to shield Cynthia from the hard truth about Alexander Paretsky’s career choice. Per her wish, I wasn’t about to enlighten her with more than she already suspected.
“One more,” I said.
“Yes?”
“The day I met Father McKenzie—why did you track me down and demand t
o meet?”
“What do you think?”
“Although you didn’t know me, you knew I was coming. You flipped down the edge of my business card on your desk to accentuate the moment and then hopscotched after me when I was finished with McKenzie. You pined for this day.”
“This day.” She exhaled. “I’m so terribly drained from self-examination, but I suppose you’re spot-on. I was more action that day, at least initially, than thought. And now, Mr. Travis, perhaps, on this day, we can engage in a little quid pro quo.”
“Such as?”
“I too need closure and possess my own assumptions. I don’t claim to match your zip, and perhaps I don’t share your accuracy, and I certainly don’t want to be presumptuous here, but, as you just suggested, I knew you were coming and—hear me out—this is what really spurred me to change my tune regarding my recognition of Mr. Hoover. You let slip—you mentioned when we met that you were in London when Giovanni was—accidentally, of course, as he was not the intended victim—but mur…killed.”
“Me and ten million other lost souls.”
“But only one of those is with me now and—”
“It’s an uncaring world.”
“—dropping pieces, one after another, neatly and deftly into the puzzle.” Her teary eyes pleaded with me. “I would like to know, that’s all, if he said anything. Expressed any feelings.”
I said nothing.
“He wouldn’t tell me. The night before? He was withdrawn, and then on the way out the door, he kissed me. He kissed me like—when they say the heart never grows old… you just can’t imagine.” She took a step toward me. “It wasn’t over, don’t you see? You’re too young to know, but mark my words; passion has no end, nor does it dim.
“He thought of renouncing his vows. Oh, the talks we had. Move to a country cottage where our biggest concern would be dry firewood. A parallel life that we all dream about. I wouldn’t have it. He needed his career, his center, but he wanted me. Sometimes I think it would have been better for him if we’d never met. He got so very angry when I said that, but our feelings—oh, look at your face—it is stone. Don’t you see? Can’t you feel?”
“You need to leave.”
“Was it quick? Last words? Give me something. What we had wasn’t a youthful fling. A day has not passed without either of us thinking of the other. The second doubts, career considerations, my ruined marriage. You have no idea. Listen to me babble. Surely you can malfunction for just—”
“Go.”
“I’m not accusing you. If it wasn’t you, perhaps you know who—”
“Good night.”
“Please, oh, please.”
Closer now. I thought of the colonel sticking his face in mine while we were on the dock. Why the dock? Perhaps because, on a dock, directions and choices are severely limited; there’s only one route, and that is the only time in this impaired world where truth stands a chance.
Her batting eyes were no match for her tears. “I’m begging you. This is the day. I will not have another.”
I remained silent but felt the civil war within.
She shuddered so deep my pilings sympathized. She wiped her eyes with her right hand and gave me a final pleading and disappointed look. A dismissive shake of the head. A step back. I was all she had, and I was no good. No good at all.
Kensington Gardens. His eyes. I was the last thing he saw in the world. I received his final message. I’d become convinced that Giovanni Antinori desired more from me than just to end his life. He’d given me a duty, a charge. This man, whom I did not know. This man, who used me. Haunted me. Who made me his Judas.
“I don’t think”—my emotions grabbed the reins while my intellect stood idly by, pretending not to notice—“his greatest sin, or regret, was his harsh words. They may have led him to his depression and death, but I believe there were sadder, more tragic things in his life.”
“You think this?” It came out in a child’s voice, with bewilderment and awe and begging for more, as if the last spark of hope had ignited a small and promising flame.
I fondled the picture in my pocket. Should I give it to her? Make up some story that I found it in a London gutter? Sure. Why not? Forget it: sentimentality is acceptable, stupidity is not. Not with murder.
With my hand firmly on the picture, I said, “From what I’ve read in the papers—you understand—he loved a young woman, a woman who took thirty years to change her hair color. A woman he returned to, yet he never left. A woman who, despite your allegation that he was a weak man, he nearly gave up every belief he possessed in order to walk with. A woman whose love drove him to the wilderness for six months of contemplation. A woman he had a son with. A son she gave up for adoption and sacrificed for his career. When Giovanni came down from the Swiss Alps, he chose God over his heart. His unexamined beliefs caused him to harm another person so severely that he became disillusioned with his life, his choice, and saw no sense in moving forward. The forgotten son turned out to—to have issues, yet he appeared, as in a Greek tragedy, at the end to orchestrate his father’s assisted suicide. But Giovanni couldn’t tell you, the love of his life—the night before the deed—he kept it to himself. The greatest sin from that lot? All bets are off. The man had a bundle. For my buck?
“I think he failed to follow his heart, and no greater sin, or betrayal to himself, can a man have. That was his sin. His singular regret. His final words before he went quickly and painlessly to his god. This, mind you, is from what I’ve read in the papers.”
I was winded. That was a verbal marathon for me.
As I spoke, Cynthia’s graduation photograph, like a battery, charged and added conviction to my words. Could I be positive what the man’s greatest sin was? It didn’t matter. I’d made up my mind. It would bother me no more. I had other things to do with my life. Heck, I had furniture being delivered tomorrow. Definitely wasn’t going to miss that.
Her eyes softened. “Did he say any—”
“We’re finished.”
“I won’t—”
I stretched out my hand. “Enjoy your time in the Sunshine State, Ms. Richardson.”
She gave a slow, understanding nod, shook my hand, limply at first but then warmly, and strolled down the dock. Halfway to my house, she came back around.
“Thank you.” She didn’t wait for my acknowledgment. It was an absurd two-word combination to the man who, in an attempt to kill her son, had murdered the love of her heart.
I took her graduation picture out of my pocket and, without looking, let it slip into the bay. The tide was going out.
Was that quadruple horseshit I’d just laid down? Disloyalty to one’s heart being a man’s greatest sin? Does that trump damaging words, committing sins of the flesh in the eyes of your father’s god, a bastard, evil son, and all that other gobbledygook? Maybe not, but that’s what I got out of the whole mess that started when I killed a man in London who did not die.
And if the other seven billion nut cases in the world don’t agree with me?
I like my odds.
Always have.
For an excerpt of Robert Lane’s, The Gail Force, coming soon from Mason Alley Publishing, please turn the page.
THE GAIL
FORCE
ROBERT LANE
It do seem to me that the life of man is merely a pattern scrawled on Time, with little Thought, little care, and no sense of design.
Only for a little we live, and feel ourselves truly alive, with truth, and the Angel flaming sword comes to slash us out. Beauty and music there is.
Richard Llewellyn
How Green Was My Valley
CHAPTER 1
The Fat Man
Karl Anderson knew he’d made a mistake when he got a sex change and neglected to inform his wife.
“What the—?”
“It’s me babe.”
“What the—?”
“Hey, you know we talked about it and—”
“Carl, you dumbass. Wh
at—?”
“It’s Colette.”
“What?”
“Colette. You know, French. Thought we’d make a cute couple. Whatdaya think?”
“Oh, babe.” Riley Anderson put down her grocery bag of fresh produce, fish wrapped in white paper—that she suspected was not as fresh as the fish it wrapped—and a loaf of French bread. She strode over to her husband and combed her hand through his hair, tenderly tucking a few loose strands behind his left ear. “You’re a blonde, babe. We talked about it? Remember? You’d look so much better as a brunette. Besides, a blonde French—they even make them?”
“Don’t know why not.”
“Name one.”
“One what?”
“Blonde French. Come on, Karl. They don’t exist. It’s like a happy Eskimo or—”
“Catherine Deneuve.”
“Cather—OK, so you got one, but dead or alive, right? And look at your shoes, you got to start thinking differently.”
“I’ll be fine. Pretty sure she’s still alive. Born in ’43.”
“You didn’t, you know,” Riley said with a coy smile, “touch the private equipment, right?”
They stood in a seaside bungalow, the late afternoon sun filtering through the slats of the venetian blinds, and casting shadowed lines upon the wall. A spiritual sea breeze swept through two sets of opened patio doors, ushering in air that hung heavy with the gummy scent of salt water. The front doors faced the Caribbean and the side doors the courtyard and pool, one floor beneath them. “Some island south of Florida,” the government man in the buttoned dark suit had retorted to Riley’s earnest question. That was three nights ago when they’d been dropped off at two a.m., in the middle of a weed-infected runway.