Nine Years Gone

by Chris Culver

  “Tess didn’t stop his execution because Dominique deserved what happened to him. He hurt her.”

  Katherine blinked once and then twice before the muscles of her jaw relaxed and the sharp, angry expression left her eyes. “What are you saying?”

  “I’ll tell you at home.”

  “What did he do?”

  “It’s bad, probably worse than you think.”

  Katherine paused and blinked as if she were thinking. “You’ve never lied to me before.”

  “And I’m not lying now. This is Tess Girard. I swear.”

  She stared at me for at least a minute, making up her mind, but then her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and all at once, it was like the light dimmed from her eyes. “In college, I heard rumors about Tess’s stepfather, but I didn’t know if they were true.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “Just that he had hit on girls in our sorority. He even offered to buy books for a girl if she spent an evening with him.”

  That sounded like Dominique.

  “He can’t hurt anyone again.”

  “No,” said Katherine. “He certainly can’t.” She paused. “How long have you known that Tess was alive?”

  “That’s one of those questions I wanted to answer at home.”

  She lowered her chin. “A long time, then.”

  I nodded.

  “Jesus, honey,” she said, closing her eyes. She took a couple of steadying breaths and rested her hands flat against the exam table. “I need you to be honest. Do you still love her?”

  “No.”

  “Do you love me?”

  “With all my heart.”

  She leaned against the exam table. “I feel a little dizzy.”

  I stepped around the table and put my arm around her shoulder. She reached across my back and grabbed a fistful of my shirt to steady herself.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She nodded, her eyes closed and her face drawn. “Just give me a minute.”

  I waited while she regained her composure.

  “This isn’t some kind of mean joke, is it?” she asked. “That’s really Tess?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  She ran a hand through her hair. “I’m going to take the rest of the afternoon off.”

  I looked at the door. “You want me to go?”

  She hesitated, but then nodded. “I need some time alone to process this.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked. “We’ll talk tonight. I’ve still got a lot of questions.”

  “I’ll answer them.”

  “Please take those pictures with you. I can’t look at them.”

  I gathered the photos into a neat pile but didn’t put them back into the envelope. “We’ll talk tonight. I’ll tell you everything.”

  She nodded. I left her there and walked out of the hospital with my head held low. The people in the waiting room gave me a wide berth, probably believing I had just received some bad news about a loved one.

  I could only think of two possibilities for what had just happened: Tess had hired the photographer, or someone really was after her—and that someone, for some absurd reason, decided to break up my marriage. As much as I wanted to believe my former girlfriend’s hands were clean, that didn’t make any sense. I’d deal with her when I could. First, though, I needed to find the photographer and make sure he destroyed those pictures before they sent me to jail.

  With every step I took, I found my anger building. Tess had intentionally hurt my wife. Despite our history, I had a hard time forgiving that.

  12

  I took I-64—the locals still cling to its previous name and call it US 40—west toward Clayton, the inner-ring suburb which TopFlite Courier Services called home, not really sure what I was about to do. The old adage don’t shoot the messenger, popped into my mind, but I dismissed it just as quickly. Someone at TopFlite had to know who sent the pictures to Katherine. I didn’t know how I was going to get them to give me a name, but they were going to talk to me one way or another.

  Clayton, like Webster Groves, is an affluent suburb west of St. Louis and populated by mostly pale residents. Where Webster has towering trees and one-acre lawns, though, Clayton features steel high-rises and a dense business district. I parallel parked on the street near TopFlite’s front office and got out of my car. The smells of yeast and flour wafted from a bakery up the street, but at midafternoon, most of the city’s residents were at work, leaving few shoppers on the sidewalk.

  I considered going inside and screaming to see a manager, but she wouldn’t give up a customer’s name without a court order. A driver or other low-level employee might help me out, but he wouldn’t risk his job out of the goodness of his heart. Carrots and sticks . . . They, not love, make the world go round. I needed to give someone a reason to talk.

  I walked to the nearest ATM and withdrew three hundred dollars, the most I could withdraw in a single transaction without receiving a phone call from a bank rep to ask if someone was coercing me, and when I got back to my car, I waited with the engine off for about half an hour before a young man pulled up in a hybrid vehicle with TopFlite’s logo painted on the side. I doubted the manager would leave in the middle of the day to run an errand, so I thought I had my mark.

  The courier parked in a lot beside TopFlite’s office and stayed in his car, filling out some paperwork, before going inside. I watched until he emerged from the front door a few minutes later. As he walked by my car, I opened my window and squinted at him.

  “Hey, do you work at TopFlite?”

  He stopped and looked at me, his brow furrowed as if he were trying to recognize me. “Yeah, why?”

  “I need a favor, and I’m willing to pay for it.”

  He looked back at the office. “If you need something delivered, you need to see my manager. She’s inside.”

  “I’m interested in a delivery, but I don’t want to send anything,” I said. “You free to talk for a few minutes?”

  He looked at my car and then to me and then back to his office. “What do you want?”

  “Somebody sent my wife a package. I want to find out who.”

  He looked over his shoulder at his place of employment and then put his hand on my car to lean into the window. “Five hundred bucks.”

  “Two. I just want a name.”

  He shook his head and straightened. “I gave you the price. If you don’t pay, you don’t get a name.”

  “How about three? That’s all I can give you because that’s all I’ve got.”

  He took a step back from the car and looked up the street. “Been nice talking to you.”

  So much for the carrot.

  “Hey,” I shouted, opening my door and stepping out while he walked away. “How about three hundred for the name, or I come back in a few hours with a buddy of mine from the police department?”

  The kid turned around and shrugged. “If you get a warrant, you don’t need to talk to me.”

  “That’s not how we’re going to play this,” I said. “You either deal with me and give me the information I want in exchange for three hundred bucks, or your boss will come under the impression that you’re dealing drugs along your route. How’s the job market for out-of-work delivery drivers?”

  “Are you serious?” he asked, lowering his chin.

  “You’re surprised?” I asked, mimicking the voice of a tough detective who used to be on “Law & Order” before it was cancelled. I didn’t know how I’d react if he called my bluff, but I’ve always believed that if I’m going to lie, I might as well do it at the top of my lungs. “You’re willing to sell out your employer for money. You shouldn’t be shocked if somebody jams you up over it.”

  His mouth flopped open and his lips moved but no sound came out. Eventually he composed himself and narrowed his eyes. “I’ll need the package so I can look up the bar code.”

  “You just need the envelope, right?” I asked. He nodde
d, so I handed him the money and the envelope sans the pictures. He took one look at the flap on the outside and handed it back.

  “You’re looking for Tony Marcelo.”

  “I thought you needed to look up the bar code.”

  “Normally I would, but I recognized the delivery address. Tony’s firm takes pictures of cheating husbands, so we made fun of you this morning. Have a nice day, asshole.”

  As the driver walked away, I sat inside my car to think. Vince could probably help me out with the private investigator, but in the meantime, I had someone else to deal with. I took out my phone and called the number Tess had called me from earlier. When that went to voicemail, I called the Ritz-Carlton. The receptionist answered and introduced herself as Jessica.

  “My name is Steve Hale, and I’m hoping you can patch me through to one of your guests. Holly Olson.”

  “Just one moment while I transfer you, please,” said Jessica. She typed something, but then she inhaled sharply. “It seems Ms. Olson has checked out.”

  I winced. “I was under the impression that she planned to stay for a while. Did she leave a forwarding address?”

  Jessica hesitated before speaking again. “Do you know Ms. Olson?”

  “Yes. I know her well.”

  “My computer says she was involved in some sort of incident in our lobby this morning. Can I transfer you to someone who might know a little more?”

  “What kind of incident?”

  “I’m not sure, but since you knew her, I will transfer you to someone who might know more. Give me a minute.”

  She had me on hold before I could ask if this incident had involved the police. My mind raced ahead of the facts, and I started counting backward from a thousand by sevens—something a counselor had taught Ashley to do at night when she couldn’t sleep—to calm myself. I don’t know if counting helped, but it passed the time so that I was in the mid-500s when Jessica got back on the phone.

  “Okay, Mr. Hale. Bradley from our valet station will be on the line shortly. Good luck.”

  She clicked off, and I waited for another five or ten seconds for the other end of the line to come alive. I heard street noises before I heard a voice. “Mr. Hale? Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m Steve Hale. Jessica at the front desk said you might know something about an incident involving one of your guests.”

  “Right,” he said. “The fight with Ms. Olson.”

  “She was in a fight?” I asked.

  “Not a fist fight, but she had an argument in our lobby with a gentleman I didn’t recognize.”

  “Was she okay?”

  “She was fine, but she and the man she was with were quite loud. I asked them if they’d like to go into one of our conference rooms for some privacy, but then the man shoved me. My boss and I escorted him out.”

  “And you never found out the guy’s name?” I asked.

  “No, sorry.”

  “What’d he look like, at least?”

  Bradley breathed in deeply. “Stocky, about five-ten, maybe thirty years old. He had curly black hair.”

  It sounded like Isaac. “Did he swear a lot?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  That sounded a lot like Isaac. Beyond just the description, though, Isaac was, as far as I knew, one of the few men who knew where Tess was staying.

  “Ms. Olson checked out after the fight?” I asked.

  “I don’t know anything about that—you’d have to ask the front desk. Ms. Olson gave me a hundred bucks for my help.”

  “All right,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem.”

  I swore aloud after hanging up the phone, knowing my buddy had just made my bad day a whole lot worse. I called Vince and waited for him to pick up the phone.

  “Vince, it’s Steve. You free this afternoon?”

  “Not really. I’m trying to track down a guy who may be able to provide an alibi for one of my boss’s clients. I think the little shit’s stood me up.”

  “Where are you?” I asked, peering around the neighborhood as if that would help.

  “Outside an apartment complex a couple of blocks from Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Why?”

  Barnes-Jewish was almost straight east of my location, maybe five miles down Forrest Park Parkway. With traffic, I’d say he was ten minutes away. That could work. I filled him in on the situation, and he agreed to meet me at my house in twenty minutes. Tony Marcelo and Isaac were going to give us some answers one way or another.

  13

  Since we were eventually going by Isaac’s workplace, I figured one of us might as well drive the Jeep he’d left at my house the night before. Vince was still a couple of minutes out, so I knelt beside the front wheel on the right side and ran my hand across the rusted interior of the wheel well, feeling for a small metal box I knew Isaac kept there. As soon as my hands brushed across the exterior, I used my thumbnail to pry it open and extricate the key. Once I had that, I sat down in the front seat and used a free minute to look up Frank Marcelo and Associates, the firm I presumed Tony Marcelo worked out of.

  According to my Google search, the office was in a strip mall in Des Peres, about half a mile from the West County Mall. Once Vince arrived, we drove over, and I parked near the side of the building while Vince found a spot out front. The interior of Marcelo and Associates was sparsely decorated, but comfortable. Thin gray carpet covered the floors, muffling footsteps and voices, while the walls were painted a light bluish-gray. Gray panels partitioned the space along the walls into four cubicles, giving each office worker a bit of privacy. Elevator music played over loudspeakers hidden in the ceiling, leading me to wonder if they played the music to soothe the tempers of irate husbands who had been caught cheating on their wives. My guess was no.

  Vince may not have known these detectives, but he knew their world, so I hung back near the door to let him do the talking.

  A young man stuck his head out of the nearest cubicle. He wore a hands-free headset and a light blue button-down shirt and navy tie. Before either Vince or I could say anything, he held up a finger and mouthed that he’d be one minute, before sticking his head back in his cubicle.

  Vince continued to stand, but I sat down on a beige couch near the front door to wait. In addition to the young guy with the headset, there were at least two other men in the office talking to each other. One of them swore as often as my mother when she got drunk, while the other guy laughed a lot. Eventually, the young guy stepped out of his cubicle, smiling and walking towards us, his hand extended as if he wanted to shake. He slowed about fifteen feet away and then stopped a few feet beyond that and dropped his hand.

  “Mr. Hale,” he said, looking at me.

  “Are you Tony Marcelo?” asked Vince.

  He pointed toward the exit. “This is private property, and I’m going to have to ask you gentlemen to leave.”

  “We didn’t come to shit in your sandbox,” said Vince. “I’m looking for Frank. Is he around?”

  Tony blinked, his posture softening. “He’s busy at the moment. How do you know him?”

  “Former colleague,” said Vince, taking a seat on the couch beside me. “When you get the chance, tell him Detective Vince Pasquale is here to see him. He’ll know who I am.”

  “You guys are cops?” Two additional men stepped out of a cubicle. The one who spoke was a little older than me and had jowls like ham hocks on the sides of his face and a boxer’s crooked nose. The other man was probably in his early sixties and had a lean figure and olive-colored skin. He looked at me with the cold, deadpan gaze of a man who had stared into darkness and found himself right at home.

  “I used to be a cop,” said Vince. He nodded to me. “And I think you guys know who Mr. Hale is.”

  “Yeah,” said Hamhock. “I know who Mr. Hale is. What do you want?”

  “I wanted to talk to Frank,” said Vince, shrugging. “Catch up and reminisce about old times. Steve came along.”

  “Frank’s not here
,” said the guy with the deadpan stare.

  Vince stared right back. “We’re willing to wait for him.”

  “Tony asked you politely to leave,” said Deadpan, lowering his chin and raising an eyebrow. “He even said please. Bruce and I aren’t that nice. Get out.”

  Vince held up his hands. “We’re just here to talk. You took pictures of Mr. Hale meeting a woman in Arnold. That woman is in very serious trouble. If she dies, it will come back here. You got liability insurance for that?”

  “And you guys are what,” asked Hamhock, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Her guardian angels?”

  “We’re her friends,” said Vince. “And we’re trying to keep her from getting dead. We do that, might be able to help you out, too. If she dies because of something you guys did, her family’s going to come after you and they’re going to be pissed. I guarantee that if that happens, you’ll wish you had cooperated with us.”

  Hamhock looked at Deadpan and then back to Vince. “And how are you guys going to save her?”

  “We’d like to start by finding out who hired you to take pictures of her.”

  Hamhock looked at Deadpan again. “Your call.”

  Deadpan focused on Tony. “Did the client even give us his name?”

  His name. So Tess didn’t hire the photographer. That should have made me feel relieved, but it merely begat new questions.

  Tony shook his head. “Prepaid for five days’ work in cash but only gave us the one assignment.”

  “And you didn’t think that was suspect?” I asked, standing. Vince glanced over his shoulder at me and shook his head.

  “Somebody offers me five grand to take pictures of two people kissing in a parking lot,” said Tony. “I’m going to take the money and the job. Figured it was a divorce case.”

  “Nobody’s blaming you for doing your job,” said Vince. He looked at me. “Are they?”

  “No,” I said, taking a step back. “Sorry.”

  Vince returned his gaze to Hamhock and Deadpan. “What can you tell me about the man who hired you?”

  Deadpan nodded to Tony. “If your dad asks, tell him it was my decision to talk. We’ll call it professional courtesy for Morgan Rosenthal.”