Your Son Is Alive

by James Scott Bell

  “You’ve got to believe me,” Dylan said. “I did not do this.”

  “I do believe you,” Wyant said. “Now we start getting other people to believe you.”

  46

  The crazy guy was still screaming into the phone. Erin looked at her cell. It was eighteen minutes since she’d been instructed to come here.

  She stood at the door, looking directly at him. He gestured wildly and she could hear his voice, the F-words flying.

  Erin didn’t want to get within ten feet of that phone now, even with him off it. She wondered what incurable disease the guy’s saliva was spreading all over the mouthpiece.

  Which gave her an idea.

  She went to the aisle with the care products and picked out a blue travel pack of Handi Wipes. When she got back to Julietta’s check stand—the only one open—an old woman was loading a ton of groceries on the belt, at the same time fighting a handful of coupons and complaining to Julietta about the lack of cereal choices.

  Just then the wild man walked past the doors on the outside, away from the phone.

  “I’ll pay for these in a sec,” Erin said to Julietta, who gave her a smile and a thumbs-up.

  Ripping a couple of wipes from the pack, Erin stepped outside, looking left to see where the crazy guy was. No sign. Maybe he was in the donut shop. She’d better light a candle for that donut shop, she mused.

  The phone rang.

  Erin picked up with her left hand, with a fresh wipe in her palm, and gave the handset a rub down with a wipe in her right. Still, when she spoke, she held the phone as if it were a radioactive carbon rod.

  “You’re late,” the voice said.

  “Couldn’t be helped,” Erin said.

  “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “I told you—”

  “You don’t tell me anything. I tell you.”

  “Then tell me,” Erin said.

  “There is a lot to tell,” the voice said.

  “Just come out with it, then,” Erin said.

  “I am going to give you more instructions.”

  “I don’t like this game.”

  “I told you before I’m very good at games, Erin. I know how you play.”

  Whatever that meant.

  “Are you still there?” said the voice.

  “Yes, I’m—”

  A scream ripped through her ears. Erin’s heart slammed against her chest. She jumped back, hit her head on the edge of the pay phone bay.

  It was wild man. And he looked as deadly as a rabid dog, like he wanted to bite her arm and chew flesh.

  Operating on pure adrenaline, Erin used the handset as a weapon and cracked him as hard as she could across the nose.

  Blood spurted from his nostrils.

  He put his hands to his face. Then looked at his blood-stained palms and howled. Erin saw a couple coming toward the store, a young man and woman, maybe mid-twenties, looking, pausing, keeping their distance.

  “Call the police!” Erin shouted.

  Wild Man’s head snapped up at the word. His red-rimmed eyes narrowed at her.

  Hunter and prey.

  The young man took out his phone.

  Erin held the tethered handset like a club. It felt small and ridiculous.

  Wild Man jumped at her.

  His hands were clawed, glistening red.

  Erin crossed her arms, expecting contact.

  Instead, something exploded.

  It happened a microsecond before Wild Man’s hands would have clutched at her face or arms or blouse. And in the next microsecond Erin realized to her horror and strange relief that the something that had exploded was Wild Man’s head.

  47

  Back in the holding cell, Dylan’s head throbbed with the beat of merciless and unresolved thoughts. He kept going over and over the events, but they wouldn’t mesh or coalesce. They bled into each other in the muddy battlefield of his mind.

  At least he had the best criminal lawyer in the city on his side. For a hefty fee, of course. But that didn’t matter in the slightest. He would gladly give up everything he had to get out of this, as long as that included finding out if Kyle was really alive.

  That was the thought that he knew would drive him crazy.

  So he turned his thoughts to Erin. The last couple of times he’d been with her, even with all this going on, he’d felt some of the old feelings. They were ragged, of course, because of the tearing that had happened between them. That rip could perhaps be mended, but never completely covered up. The lines would show.

  But what marriage of any length didn’t have lines?

  While he told himself the decision to divorce had been mutual, the result of a shared inevitability based upon a pain that would not relent, he knew it was more his fault than Erin’s. That thought had always been there, but he’d managed to ignore it over the years. Professional activity and playing in a couple of men’s leagues—softball and basketball—kept the guilt at bay.

  But it was different in a four-by-six cell when all you have to look at are concrete-block walls and a stainless steel toilet.

  He was filled with a longing to see Erin, talk to her. To explain all things before the media mangled the truth.

  48

  First there had been a patrol car and two officers, both men. The older one was named Rodriguez. His partner was Kerr.

  Shaking, Erin thanked God for Julietta, who helped her wash off the dead man’s blood from her face and arms, and wrapped a beach towel around her spattered blouse. She also brought her hot tea from the coffee bar and sat on the small retaining wall outside with her arm around Erin as the cops asked their questions.

  Erin kept her back to the pay phone and the bloody corpse. Two other black-and-whites had arrived, and an officer was putting up crime-scene tape while another directed a small crowd to back away.

  Just as Erin was finishing up with Officer Rodriguez, a Channel 7 news van pulled into the strip mall.

  Great.

  “Can you keep the news away from me?” Erin asked Officer Rodriguez.

  “You don’t have to talk to them,” Rodriguez said. “But they have the right to set up here. You can wait for the detectives inside the store if you like.”

  “We have an office in the back,” Julietta said.

  She kept her arm around Erin as she led her to the small manager’s office. It smelled like yesterday’s coffee. But it was private and away from the swirl outside. It had a desk—moderately messy—a bulletin board, and a squat file cabinet with a Mr. Coffee machine on top.

  Erin sat on one of the chairs, her body sending a request to shut down. It was a familiar query, just like at the six-mile mark of a marathon. That’s when her body would request a break. Erin’s brain chimed in “Do it! There’s twenty freaking more miles to go!”

  Erin had learned early on that you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and close off the voices of retreat.

  Erin took a couple of deep breaths and made herself sit up straight. The digital clock next to the coffee machine read 12:32.

  She took out her phone and called Yumiko.

  “I’m going to be late,” Erin said.

  “What’s up?” Yumiko said.

  “I can’t really talk right now.”

  “Where are—”

  “Cover for me?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Just keep the place running until I can get—” She stopped at the sight of two LAPD detectives at the office door. “Until I can get out of here.”

  The lead detective was in his late forties, tall and angular. Murray was his name. His partner, a woman named Stills, was in workout shape. After Murray introduced her, she gave Erin a nod and left the office.

  Murray closed the office door.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Terrible,” Erin said.

  “I understand. Can you talk a little?”


  “I suppose I have to.”

  “It would help us out.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Murray pulled the other chair from the side of the desk and sat opposite Erin. He had soft brown eyes that gave the impression of having recording devices behind them.

  “This is a terrible thing, I know,” Murray said. “A man shot right next to you. A lot of blood.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know this man?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then let’s start with how you happened to be here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why were you here at the store?”

  “I come here often. Mainly at lunch time.”

  “A little early today then, right?”

  Was he trying to trap her? He’d keep up this line of questioning until she told him about the excited-voiced man on the phone? But she’d been warned about involving the cops.

  “I sometimes take an early lunch,” Erin said.

  “You took off from work?” Murray asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Which is where?”

  “DeForest.”

  “Over here on Vineland?”

  Erin nodded.

  “So you did not know this man who was shot. You told one of the officers that he was about to attack you, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know why he would do that?”

  “He’s obviously crazy,” Erin said.

  “You didn’t do anything to set him off?”

  “No! I was just …”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I was standing at the pay phone,” Erin said.

  “And why was that?”

  “To make a call.”

  “You don’t have a cell phone?”

  Stupid! They don’t have to trap you. You walk right into the net, with bells on. Weren’t you taught never to lie? That lies only end up in disaster.

  “I was actually waiting for someone to call me,” Erin said.

  “Why at a pay phone?”

  “Because those were my instructions.”

  Detective Murray leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Whose instructions?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell you any more than that.”

  “Why are you following someone’s instructions?”

  Erin took a long, labored breath. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Part of the instructions.”

  Detective Murray sat back a little, considered her, then rested his elbows on his knees once again. His body language was unmistakable. Closing in.

  “Mrs. Reeve, this is serious. A man is dead. Murdered. It may have something to do with you and that pay phone and those instructions.”

  “No, that poor man, it was just a coincidence that he was there.”

  “And that he was shot?”

  “I don’t know what to think about that.”

  “Do you think you might have been the target?”

  “I … don’t think so.”

  “You’re going to have to tell us more, Ms. Reeve.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You don’t have a choice. You’re a material witness to a murder, and you are now withholding evidence.”

  “I don’t want to do that.”

  “Then talk to me.”

  Erin hesitated, heart throbbing.

  “We can hold you if need be,” Detective Murray said.

  “I honestly don’t know! I don’t know who has called me. I don’t know why this man was shot.”

  “You can’t even guess as to a connection?”

  She shook her head.

  The other detective appeared at the office door and asked Murray to join her.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Detective Murray said.

  “I need to get back to work,” Erin said.

  “Not yet.” He got up and went to the door. The two detectives spoke in low voices.

  Erin looked at the walls of the office. It was the size of a jail cell. The detective said they could hold her. Where? In a real jail cell?

  And then she noticed something on the other corner of the desk. A paperclip. Unattached. Sitting there as if waiting for someone to use it. Or was it recently discarded? How long had it been there? Was it unnoticed? Was it … lonely?

  That thought brought a flood of emotion crashing inside her. Kyle, at four, had started ascribing feelings to inanimate objects.

  She vividly recalled the first time it happened. She had told Kyle he needed to clean up his room, put his toys away in the wooden chest.

  She went back to the kitchen to check on the pork shoulder she was cooking in the Crock Pot. A few minutes later Kyle came out holding an empty box. It had held a softball Kyle got as a present from his grandma, Erin’s mother.

  “Do boxes have feelings?” he said.

  Erin put the lid back on the Crock Pot. “What?”

  “Do boxes have feelings?”

  “Feelings?”

  “If I throw it away, will it feel bad?”

  His heart. She always knew it was tender, a good heart, something God granted him. It would, she knew, be a heart easily hurt. It had compassion, even for a box!

  Erin had both tears and laughter at that moment, dropping to her knees, pulling Kyle to her.

  And then she said to him, “No, sweetheart, no. Boxes don’t have feelings, but people do. And sometimes people have feelings about their things. That’s what’s this is. You can throw that box away. But you know what? If it did have feelings, it would be very happy that you got a ball out of it. It would be very happy to go now and maybe get made into something else someday.”

  Kyle smiled then, widely, and handed the box to his mother.

  Erin reached over and picked the paperclip off the desk.

  And kissed it.

  Murray came back and resumed his seat. He was holding a plastic bag, the kind police put evidence in.

  He said, “Mrs. Reeve, a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “And if I do mind?” Erin said.

  “I need to ask.” He didn’t say it offensively.

  She nodded.

  “Your husband is named Dylan Reeve?”

  “Ex-husband.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to him?”

  “Why are you asking me this?”

  “Please, Mrs. Reeve.”

  “A couple of days ago.”

  “Then you don’t know where he is now?”

  “I assume he’s at his office.”

  Detective Murray shook his head. “He’s in jail, Mrs. Reeve. He’s being held on suspicion of murder.”

  “That … can’t be!”

  “Did you know he was seeing a woman?”

  Erin nodded.

  “The woman he was seeing is the victim,” Detective Murray said.

  Erin fought for voice. “There’s no way.”

  “That’s not my concern at the moment, Mrs. Reeve. But you say you did not know the man outside who was shot.”

  “Right.”

  “I wonder if you might be able to explain something strange.”

  Stranger than this?

  She waited.

  Detective Murray said, “We found this on the victim, in his back pocket.”

  He held up the plastic bag so she could see what was inside.

  It was Dylan’s business card.

  49

  Petrie said, “Change of plans.”

  Jimmy said, “Where’s my money?”

  “You’ll get your chance.”

  “Not what I asked.”

  Jimmy took a pull on the long-neck Bud. His third. Petrie was still nursing his double Jim Beam. Easy and sweet.

  The bar was dark and not a lot of people yet. A few spics, which is how Petrie liked it. Among the wetbacks he could enjoy his supremacy. And nobody was going to hassle him, not with Jimmy right there.

  “Guy’s in jail now,” Petrie said
. “Murdered some tail he was into.”

  “No way,” Jimmy said.

  “Funny how life works out, isn’t it?”

  “What about this kid?” Jimmy said.

  “What do you know about that?”

  “Enough that I’m asking where he is.”

  “You just leave that to me,” Petrie said.

  “Where is he?” Jimmy said, eyes like blue ice.

  “He’s nowhere,” Petrie said.

  Jimmy squinted at him. Took another swig. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “You don’t ask that,” Petrie said. “I’m paying you, you don’t have to know anything but what I tell you to do.”

  “You ain’t paid me yet.” Jimmy slapped the bar top. The droopy-eyed barman looked at him. Jimmy pointed at his beer bottle.

  The bartender pulled out another Bud and popped the top, set the beer in front of Jimmy.

  “I don’t like the way you don’t tell me things,” Jimmy said.

  “Haven’t I always been good on my word?” Petrie said.

  Jimmy frowned.

  “You got the job,” Petrie said.

  “I was supposed to get five grand,” Jimmy said. “Up front.”

  “Why I’m here,” Petrie said. “I got good faith money for you. How’s about five yards?”

  Petrie took out his wallet and pulled out five crisp one-hundred dollar bills. He set them on the bar.

  “That’s it?” Jimmy said.

  “On account,” Petrie said.

  “How long I gotta wait?”

  “I don’t know,” Petrie said. “I want to let things hang in the wind for a while.”

  “You really enjoy that kind of stuff, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Making people suffer,” Jimmy said.

  “It’s called payback, Jimmy. It’s not the same thing. The bigger the payback, the bigger you want ’em to hang. Remember that.”

  Jimmy took another drink, put the bottle down. He picked up the five bills and tapped them on the bar top, putting them neatly in a row. He folded them once and put them in his shirt pocket.

  50

  “And you have no idea why your ex-husband’s business card would be in the possession of this man?” Detective Murray asked.