by Rob Cornell
I gave her a moment alone at the stone railing, then walked up next to her. All the bitching we’d done before, mostly about the High Note, seemed pointless while we stood silent and gazed through the smoke.
Sheila cried.
I cried.
When I regained some control of my voice, I cleared my throat and turned to Sheila.
“I think I know who did it.”
Sheila closed her eyes and pressed her lips together.
“I went to see someone about… about Autumn’s situation. Someone I thought might be involved.”
She took a deep breath as if steeling herself against my words. I had the feeling she knew the general direction I was headed, but I had to tell her the details, get it out.
“I might have pushed too hard to get the answers I wanted. This person threatened my life.”
Sheila plucked her earrings off, tucked them into the pocket on her blouse. With trembling fingers she reached behind her head and unfastened the bun in her hair, letting the silver locks drop around her shoulders. She shook her hair out, combed it with her fingers.
“Are you trying to take the blame for this?”
A breeze dried the tears on my face. I rubbed at a cheek with a knuckle and looked down at the High Note.
“I’m just telling you—”
“When did this altercation happen?”
“This morning.”
“And you think this person set this up so quickly?”
“The timing’s off, I’ll admit. But this person, his name is Sam, is a criminal, has done time. I’m betting he had some friends he could have called to help out.”
“Are you sure?”
Sam was probably still at work. It would be hard to pin this on him, especially if he did have someone else do it.
“I’m not sure of anything.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Could have been an angry customer. Like those guys you served… you know.”
She wiped a tear off her cheek. “Yes, I know.”
My chest tightened when I realized what it sounded like I was implying. “Not that you… not that this was your fault in any way.”
“If you can think it was your fault, I have every right to believe it was mine.” She turned to me, straightened the collar of my windbreaker. “I’m leaving.”
“We’ll go back to the car. I can drive you home.”
“That’s not what I meant.” More tears pushed from her eyes. “I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about the stipulations in your parents’ will. Maybe, in some harsh way, what happened today happened for a reason. I’m not really one to think that way, but let’s pretend I am.”
“Sheila, we don’t have to do this now.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do. There’s so much you don’t know. About your parents. About me. Life went on while you were gone.”
“I never said it didn’t, I—”
“Just listen,” she said. “Your parents death, I wasn’t ready for it. A long time ago they saved my life in a way. They were there for me when I didn’t deserve them. Now they’ve left me with a responsibility, and again I feel like I don’t deserve them, never did.”
She touched her lips with the tips of her fingers.
I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. I’d grown up knowing this woman, but that was forever I go. I realized I didn’t really know her at all.
“My feelings are too biased,” she said. “I can’t be the one to say whether you’re handling the High Note properly or not. Especially not while I’ve slipped off the wagon.”
“None of that matters right now.”
“The insurance,” she continued, “will be enough for you to repair the place and sell it. I won’t stand in your way.”
“You really think that’s what I want?”
She smiled sadly. Her hand took mine. “Be honest with yourself. Don’t let guilt run your life.”
I tried to imagine my life back the way it was, without the High Note, without kicking up the past like dust on a baseball diamond every time I took a step in Hawthorne. I could see it, and I wanted it, and I hated myself for wanting it.
“I never was much of a son.”
“No one is a perfect son or daughter. No such thing.”
“Some are better than others.”
“And what good does regret do you now?”
I looked down at the remains of the High Note. The pavement was dark and wet from the fire hose. Debris littered the lot. I realized I couldn’t find Tom’s body. Had they moved it already? Or had it burned up to such a degree that it was no longer discernible from the rest of the wreckage?
I turned away.
“What about the clause?”
“Forget it,” she said. “I won’t be around to enforce it anyway.”
“That’s what you meant by leaving.”
“I have a flight to Florida booked for tomorrow afternoon. Seemed as good a place as any for an old bag like myself. There are too many ghosts for me in Hawthorne.”
“I might have been gone for a while, but I’ve got plenty of those here, too.”
“That’s why I wouldn’t dream of forcing you to stay. Do you understand, Ridley? You’re free to go back to California. Sell the house. Sell the cars. Pick up and get out. It’ll be easier that way, right?”
My throat closed and I couldn’t speak. I swallowed, got my voice back. “You decided this before the fire.”
“I decided this last night. I had such a wonderful time running the bar, the excitement, the music—some bad, some good. It reminded me of old times.”
“And you want to leave that?”
“Yes,” she said, looking at the High Note as if addressing the bar instead of me. “Because it wasn’t old times. Old times are long gone, and I’ve no business trying to cling to them.”
Chapter 16
After Sheila dropped me off at home, I took the first full tour of the house since I inherited it. I walked every hall, strolled through each bedroom, crept down into the wine cellar and inhaled the sweet must thickening the air. I flicked on lights and shucked aside curtains. I opened windows and left doors wide.
Every square foot seemed to hold a memory, and I let them hit me in the chest until I couldn’t tell the difference between the pang of a new memory and the beating of my heart.
Sheila was leaving, and she said I could leave too.
I didn’t feel as free as I thought I should.
I had returned to Hawthorne and taken over the High Note all before I knew anything about the clause in the will that took it all away if I didn’t live up to expectations. Fifteen years was a long time not to speak with your parents. Out in LA I’d almost called home dozens of times, but always put it off. When I got the call from Sheila telling me what happened to Mom and Dad, my mind raced back to those aborted attempts to contact them. Then I got mad. They could have called me, too.
I stood at the window of my parents’ bedroom, staring out at the back yard and the dying garden that I hadn’t even noticed was dying because I never looked back there. I leaned my head against the glass. The room was warm and musty from being shut up for so long, but the windowpane felt cool against my forehead.
I came here on my own.
Sheila said not to let guilt run my life. I hated to think guilt alone had brought me back.
Now nothing kept me from leaving.
I returned to my own room, picked out a change of clothes, showered, replaced the bandages on my face, and generally made myself feel as close to human again as possible.
I went downstairs to the kitchen, brewed a cup of coffee, and used the coffee to refocus my mind.
With Tom dead, I had no way to corroborate Sam’s story. My mind didn’t like the idea of Tom as a murder suspect anymore, either. I wasn’t sure if that was because he’d been killed, letting my own guilt deny his. It didn’t matter. Without Tom, there was only one other person I knew of besides Sam that could confirm Autumn�
��s actions during that time.
From a metal lockbox under my bed I retrieved my second gun, a Smith & Wesson 686 revolver. I tucked the gun in my belt loop at the small of my back, threw on my windbreaker, and headed out to my Civic.
Lincoln’s estate—you couldn’t just call it a house—was located only a few miles from my parents’, and while a number of Hawthorne’s residents were wealthy, only Lincoln Rice’s property had a manned gate at the driveway. Back when dating Autumn in high school, I had to scale the fence on the far side of the property if I wanted to make an unplanned visit. It felt so Romeo and Juliet sneaking in like that. Man, I thought I was cool.
On this visit, I took my chances at the gate, although the look on the guy’s face when my beat up Civic pulled to his little kiosk told me climbing the fence might have been easier.
The man wore a dark suit with a tie, had a fashionable amount of stubble on his head, and an equal amount on his face to give him a hard edged look. The sunglasses with the round lenses were a nice touch. The guy resembled a hit man more than he did a gate guard.
I rolled down my window, gave him a big grin.
His head jerked back like I scared him.
I glanced at my reflection in the rearview mirror and realized the grin with all the cuts and bruises on my face made for a gruesome sight. I tried to recover by offering a friendly wave.
“Here to see Mr. Rice,” I said as chipper as I could manage. It’s hard to be chipper when your face hurts.
The man yawned into a fist. “He know you?”
I pointed to my face. “He tried to add to my collection of bruises the other day. I think that makes us bosom buddies.”
His brow crinkled. He yawned again. “Oh, you’re real funny.”
“Just trying to liven up your day. Must get awful boring in that little box.”
“Not at all,” he said even as he yawned a third time.
“Can you please tell Mr. Rice, Ridley Brone is here to see him.”
He shrugged, lifted a phone to his ear, and muttered something into the receiver. He waited about thirty seconds as if his message was being relayed to Lincoln inside the house, then nodded at an apparent reply. He hung up his phone, stepped out of his kiosk, and leaned down to look through my open window with one of his hands braced against the car.
“Mr. Rice asks that you remove yourself from his property before he has you removed.” He spoke with a glee that suggested he would get to do the removing.
I expected some resistance, and I had a rebuttal.
“Tell him it concerns his daughter.”
The guard sighed, removed his sunglasses, and shook his head. “He asked you to leave. Either you back out, or I put you in the trunk, put your car in neutral, and roll you out myself.”
“Really? You’d do all that? Mr. Rice must pay you very well.”
“That’s it.” He tried to yank the door open, but I had it locked. He reached in through the open window, attempting to unlock the door, and I slammed by elbow onto his wrist.
He staggered back, cradling his hand, but once the initial shock wore off, he charged the car.
I snapped open the lock and shoved the door open just as he reached the car. The door crashed into his knees and sent him to the ground. I got out of the car and walked around him toward the kiosk.
He made a grab for my ankles, so I put a foot on his throat and applied a little pressure.
“What the hell kind of gate guard are you? The man will want to see me, and you are going be very embarrassed when he asks me inside.”
He clawed at my foot, trying to push it off, but had no leverage.
“Stay,” I said and lifted my foot off his throat. He lay gasping while I stepped into the kiosk and picked up the phone.
The phone automatically dialed the house and a nervous woman’s voice answered halfway through the first ring.
“Yes, Charles. What is it now?”
“Actually, Charles has a touch of laryngitis. Would you do me a favor and tell Mr. Rice that Ridley Brone is here to talk about his daughter.”
The clunk I heard was probably her setting the phone down. I glanced out at Charles while I waited. He sat up, rubbing his neck, glaring at me.
I thought about giving him another grin, but figured Charles had had enough of my sarcasm. I wasn’t trying to start a fight. Honest.
I heard the other line pick up, and Lincoln bellowed in my ear, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Where’s my guy out there?”
“Charles? He’s taking a break.”
Charles got to his feet. While staring me in the eye, he kicked the side of my car. If he put a dent in it, I couldn’t tell. Must have blended in with all the others.
“What’s this about Autumn?”
“I need to talk to you, Lincoln. You need to answer some questions I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“You think you can bait me with my daughter to get me to answer some questions?”
“I know where she is.”
Silence.
Charles stood midway between my car and the kiosk, listening now. I think he saw where this was going and realized he could have avoided getting his windpipe pinched by my foot if he’d just told Lincoln what I’d asked him to.
“You there?” I said into the phone.
“So you want to trade my daughter for some questions, is that it?”
He made it sound so harsh. Maybe it was harsh. I didn’t much care.
“Think you can spare some of your time?”
“You better not be screwing around.”
I didn’t say anything, letting him stew.
“Fine,” he said. “Put Charles back on the phone.”
I held the phone out to Charles and grinned. I couldn’t help it. “It’s for you, Chuck.”
Charles smoothed his suit and took the phone. “Yes, sir,” he said into the phone, face reddening. He almost handed the phone back to me before he realized what he was doing.
I stepped out of the kiosk and let him in. I noticed his sunglasses on the ground and picked them up. A second later the gate swung open. I handed Charles back his sunglasses and thanked him.
“Anytime,” he said, almost growling.
I got back in my car and drove up to the house.
I think I’d seen the place up close in the daylight only once, the last time I tried to get to Autumn before leaving Hawthorne. I had made my usual entrance up the back fence and pounded on the door. First a servant answered, then Lincoln when I asked for Autumn.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” he’d said. “I think it’s in your best interests you left her alone.”
And that had been that.
As I approached the house, I tried not to lose my jaw under the brake pedal. Granted, I’d been raised among the wealthy, but there was wealthy, and there was filthy fucking rich.
The guy had marble statues flanking his front door. Giant white pillars supported an overhang that shaded a front porch large enough to park a Cessna. The whole building had a presidential feel, and I felt like I was visiting the White House instead of the father of an old girlfriend.
I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think an extension or two had been made on either wing of the house; the place looked a lot bigger than I remembered. I didn’t know what Lincoln did with all the space, especially since he lived there alone. I guess he needed room for all his servants. Then I remembered the separate servants quarters behind the house that I used to sneak by during my nightly visits.
It also occurred to me that I never knew what Lincoln did to earn all that money.
I no sooner came to a stop when a Hispanic man in a navy blue uniform opened the door for me with a smile. I climbed out of the car, he climbed in, and away he went, taking my car off to who knew where.
My parents used to have a maid, a butler, a gardener, and a cook. We never had valet parking.
A woman dressed in a gray pantsuit stood in the open doorway, watching me while I watched my
car circle the driveway and cruise off along a paved path in the direction of the eastern wing. Probably headed toward a massive garage with thirty neatly polished foreign sports cars parked inside. My battered Civic would fit right in.
I approached the door and the woman offered her hand.
“I’m Candice Granthum, Mr. Rice’s personal assistant. Please follow me.”
I placed her in her mid-forties, though her body looked like a lean thirty. She sort of reminded me of younger version of Sheila without the flair. Sheila would never wear gray.
Ms. Granthum led me through a foyer I was sure doubled as an air hanger on weekends. We climbed a curving staircase, traveled down a hall hung with paintings I had no doubt were expensive and rare. I thought I spotted a Jackson Pollock among them. Finally, we arrived at a closed door through which I heard strains of “Whole Lot of Love” by Led Zeppelin, and underneath that another sound that could have been gunfire. I assumed he was watching TV while listening to Zep, a musical crime if ever there was one. If you’re going to listen to Zeppelin, then listen to Zeppelin. Don’t muck it up with some crappy action flick.
Ms. Granthum rapped on the door and the gunfire stopped abruptly while Zeppelin played on. A second later, the door opened and Lincoln stood there in a pair of Bermuda shorts and a pink polo shirt with the collar turned up. The hemp necklace still hugged his throat. His hair hung loose over his shoulders, and a gray stubble peppered his cheeks and chin, except for a small bald spot by one corner of his mouth.
Behind him I could see the ton and a half of electronic entertainment delights filling the room. A widescreen television sat in the center of the far wall flanked by a pair of speakers that, put together, equaled the size of the TV. Kitty corner to the television stood a long desk with a computer and a cadre of peripheral equipment including a digital video camera, scanner, and printer.
On the massive television screen I discovered the source of the gunfire I’d heard. He had some sort of videogame system hooked up to the TV. The image on screen showed a frighteningly realistic pair of hands, each gripping an Uzi shown from a first-person perspective. Between frozen muzzle flashes blinked the word PAUSED.