by Alan Russell
“I’ll be right in,” he said.
The two women regarded each other. Anna’s glance asked, Are you the reason my husband’s been so upset? What she read in Elizabeth’s face didn’t reassure her. Anna turned on the porch light before closing the door behind her.
“Are you—” started Elizabeth.
Caleb interrupted her. “Don’t ask me any questions,” he said. “Not here. Not now.”
“Where and when, then?”
“I walk the dog after dinner. You can meet me down the street.”
It was getting darker by the minute. There were rural spots in the neighborhood, canyons good for dog walking, but places Elizabeth didn’t want to be with this man. There would be nothing to stop him from taking the leash off the dog and turning it on her. She had seen firsthand what his father could do with a pair of panty hose.
Elizabeth suppressed her shudder. “Alternate plan,” she said. “Let’s meet at a coffee house.”
“I remember now,” he said, finally looking at her.
“Remember what?”
“People looking at me like that—that look.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your scared look. But at least you’re better than some people.”
“Which people?”
“The ones with the freak show stare. The kind who looked at me like something at the zoo.”
Elizabeth stood silently until he said, “Heavenly Café. It’s a few miles west of here on the beach. There will be enough people around for you to feel safe. I’ll be there in half an hour or so.”
Her second cup of coffee was long cold, and the crowd at Heavenly Café had thinned. The help was putting away umbrellas and tidying the patio, unmistakable signs that the welcome mat was being pulled. It was after nine o’clock, a time when most people weren’t looking for a caffeine fix. Only one other outdoor table was still occupied, and the couple sitting there looked ready to depart. Two hours had passed since Caleb Parker had promised to meet her in “half an hour or so.”
I probably shouldn’t have confronted him, Elizabeth thought. Maybe I spooked him, sent him running. Or maybe he decided to talk with a lawyer instead of me. She hoped that she hadn’t jeopardized the investigation. As she waited, Elizabeth wondered if Caleb knew how much he resembled his father. Seeing him had shocked her, had been like seeing a ghost. She also wondered if the resemblance was only skin deep.
That lingering thought made her look around. She tried to make her head movements appear casual and unconcerned, but she took notice of every dark corner. Gray Parker had often scouted out his victims, had sometimes watched them for days before attacking them. He had described his spying as a form of “intimacy.” She was relieved when her surveillance revealed no lurking figures.
Next door to the café was a Mexican restaurant with enough people still dining to make Elizabeth feel as if she wasn’t alone. Their laughter kept reaching out to her. She watched as diners happily sipped colorful margaritas. Her vantage point offered her a good spot to take in the Southern California ambience. The Pacific Ocean was close enough to be seen and heard, and the night was balmy, with a gentle ocean breeze.
A voice interrupted her reverie, startled her: “Last chance for java.”
The last call for caffeine was made by what she guessed was a full-time surfer and part-time help. The young man’s long, brown hair had sun-streaked strands of gold running through it. The way he walked and talked and breathed was an endorsement of insouciance. Probably his only worry in the world was whether the waves would be breaking in the morning.
“I’ll pass.”
The young man appeared happy with her choice, and Elizabeth relinquished her cup to him. She reached for her purse and pulled out her car keys. Out of habit, she positioned her longest key between her index and middle finger and made a fist. She stood up, and then her reactions took over. Shame was there. She’d had too many nightmares not to react to him, too many evenings of waking in a soaked nightgown thinking about him. Her hand shot up toward his face, the key brandished like a knife.
“Don’t,” he said.
Don’t scream, she remembered.
Elizabeth was slow to lower her arm. To let go of her memories. “You’re late,” she said.
He nodded.
No explanation, she noticed. She wondered if he had purposely waited for the café to close before showing up.
“If you still want to talk,” he said, “there’s a bar nearby.”
Probably a dark bar, she thought. And people who were drinking would be unreliable witnesses.
“I don’t like bars,” she said. “And I’d prefer talking where it’s well lit and there’s lots of foot traffic.”
Caleb didn’t answer immediately. It wasn’t clear whether he was unhappy with her alternative or just trying to think of the right spot. “D. G.’s,” he finally said, his hand pointing the direction. “It’s a doughnut shop just down the street.”
She nodded, her eyes never leaving him. “Wait here,” she said, “until I get in my car.”
Elizabeth walked past him, went down the steps, then paused at the street. She looked both ways, then looked behind her to make sure Caleb was still standing there, before hurrying across the street to her car.
She drove over to a small strip mall and slowly circled the parking lot. The doughnut shop met her requirements. It had ample lighting and a glassed expanse that allowed good visibility for looking both in and out. On one side of the doughnut shop was a restaurant and on the other side a bar. Across the street was an upscale pool hall. She watched young bodies bending over the tables and lining up their shots.
The aroma coming out of D. G.’s reminded Elizabeth how hungry she was. The array of sweets displayed behind the counter didn’t do anything to abate her hunger. A young woman, vivacious even with a hairnet, smock, and smudge of flour on one of her red cheeks, helped Elizabeth decide between a buttermilk bar and a raised glaze with chocolate frosting.
“When in doubt,” she said, “get both!”
A young man was also working behind the counter. “Brandy knows from experience,” he said, “that one doughnut just isn’t enough.”
“Guilty as charged,” Brandy said with a laugh.
“And here I always heard that people who worked with sweets got sick of eating them,” Elizabeth said.
“I wish,” said Brandy, laughing.
Caleb entered the shop as Elizabeth was paying. He walked by her and chose to sit at the table farthest from the counter. It wouldn’t have been Elizabeth’s choice, but it still appeared safe enough. She joined him at the table, offered him one of her doughnuts, but he declined. Elizabeth looked at him, saw the image of his father, and had to turn away. She looked at him a second time but couldn’t hold her glance. Caleb reacted to her chagrin, kept having to confront his own embarrassment about who he was, and found himself looking away as well.
With an averted glance he said, “I almost didn’t come tonight.”
Elizabeth stared at the bridge of his nose, an old trick that made it seem as if she was maintaining eye contact. “I’m glad you did.”
Head lowered, Caleb massaged his temples with his thumbs. “How’d you find me?”
Elizabeth carefully considered what to tell him. “I was going through the Sanderses’ receipts and saw your name.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Have the police connected me with—him—yet?”
Why did he act as if he was more concerned about the police linking him with his father, than with the murder of Teresa Sanders? Elizabeth wasn’t sure how to answer his question. An honest response had its potential dangers, but to lie might stop him from talking.
“No.”
“You haven’t told them?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I wasn’t sure until I saw you.”
“But you plan to tell them?”
>
“Yes.”
He shook his head and moved his hands. Several times he opened his mouth to speak and each time bit back words until he finally said, “I didn’t do it.”
“What?”
“Murder Mrs. Sanders. I mean, my doing that wouldn’t make any sense, would it?”
“How do you mean it wouldn’t make any sense?”
He again struggled for words before giving up and saying, “I’m not comfortable talking about any of this.”
“It’s not something you can remain silent about.”
“I suppose you have a recorder going.”
“No.”
“But you’re making mental notes for another book, aren’t you?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“I’m just supposed to trust you, is that it? What I say remains between you and me and a million of your readers.”
“You’re presuming much,” she said.
“And so are you. Because of my father, you’ve condemned me.”
“No. That’s not so. But I certainly have questions.”
“You’ve come to the wrong person, then.” “What do you mean?”
“I’ve never had any answers.”
“Tell me about Mrs. Sanders.”
“I wouldn’t have murdered her, especially not that way. I run from trouble. That’s why I don’t want to talk to you or anyone about my father. I’ve spent my life trying to forget my past.”
Especially not that way. The words echoed in Elizabeth’s head. With her left hand she raised one of the doughnuts to her mouth, while her hidden right hand delved into her designer purse. Her handbag was special not because it had some French name on it but because it had a secret compartment for a gun. She pulled out her Lady Smith & Wesson but kept it out of sight under the table.
“I hope forgetting your past doesn’t include forgetting yesterday morning,” she said.
“No. But I wish it did.”
Elizabeth’s eyes were centered on him. So was her gun, even though he didn’t know it. Especially not that way. How did he know about the Shame MO?
“Tell me about it.”
“I got this call a little after eight. A man identified himself as Mr. Sanders. He said his wife was suffering terribly, that an acacia tree was wreaking havoc on her allergies. He was very persuasive about getting me to come over to cut down that tree and reminded me that I’d done work at their house two months before. I promised to make it out there within the hour. He told me Mrs. Sanders would be waiting for me, waiting, he said, with bated breath.
“Cisco and Bart—that’s my crew—weren’t expecting me that morning anyway. I was supposed to be doing bids on half a dozen jobs. I figured I could cut down the acacia tree quickly, then get to the bids. I arrived at the Sanderses’ house at about nine fifteen. When I walked up to the front door, I noticed it was slightly open. I rang the doorbell, but no one answered. Then I walked around to the back. I assumed Mrs. Sanders might be there. When I didn’t see her, I went back to the front door and rang the bell again. Then I knocked at the door, which pushed it open some. I went inside to yell that I was there, and that’s when I saw her.”
Elizabeth continued to stare at Caleb. She kept trying to read something in his expression. Anything.
“Will Mr. Sanders be able to confirm that he called you yesterday morning?”
Caleb shook his head. “No.”
“I thought you said...”
His hand made a cutting motion, a movement that caused Elizabeth’s trigger finger to involuntarily tighten. “I heard Mr. Sanders interviewed last night on the eleven o’clock news,” Caleb said. “He definitely wasn’t the man who called me.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’m good with voices. Once I hear a voice, it stays in my head.”
“You think the murderer called you up?”
“I don’t know what else to think.”
Another SODDI defense, Elizabeth thought. Some Other Dude Did It. The Bogeyman again. “Do you have any enemies?” she asked.
“No,” Caleb said, a twinge of regret in his voice. “No one’s ever had strong enough feelings about me to hate me.”
“Who knows your history?”
“No one.”
“Your wife—”
He interrupted: “She doesn’t know.”
“Old friends?”
“I don’t have any.”
“What about relatives?”
“They stopped knowing me when my father was arrested. They don’t even know I’m alive.”
“And you’ve never stumbled upon someone from your past?”
“No. I buried my past.”
“You didn’t change your name.”
“I thought I did. I lost my first name, his first name, and went by my middle name.” He met her eyes for a moment, suddenly angry. “Besides, to the world my father was never Gray Parker. He was, and is, Shame. You and others like you gave him that name. It was like he was a rock star or something. No one remembers what he was called before.”
Elizabeth didn’t respond to his bitterness. “If, as you say, you have no enemies, and no one knows about your past, how do you explain someone setting you up for Teresa Sanders’s murder?”
She made a point of not mentioning Lita Jennings.
“I keep hoping it’s an incredible coincidence,” Caleb said, “keep hoping that it will just go away.”
“The longer you indulge in your wishful thinking the more guilty you look.”
He nodded. Caleb knew what she said was true, but that didn’t make him any more ready to act on it.
“You know what it’s like to have a terrible secret?” he asked. “A secret you’re not even comfortable thinking about? A secret that’s as bad as a cancer?”
Yes, she did. She knew exactly. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. “Maybe it’s that bad because you’ve kept it secret.”
“There’s a simple reason for that,” he said. “Living a lie is far preferable to living the truth.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You need to think about clearing your name.”
“Clearing my name? My real name is Gray Parker, Ms. Line.”
“You should get a lawyer. I can recommend several excellent ones.”
“Tomorrow,” he said.
Elizabeth nodded. She had the feeling Caleb had overused that word his entire life. Now tomorrow was finally about to come.
8
AS ELIZABETH STOOD to leave, Caleb didn’t raise his head to meet her eyes but instead spoke to the table. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay put for a few minutes.”
She didn’t, Caleb noticed, tell him that wasn’t necessary.
During the hour they had sat together, Caleb had repeatedly told the writer that most of his early life was “just a blank.” That was a lie, and he was sure Elizabeth knew it, but she hadn’t called him on it. Only once did he almost open up to her. She had forced him to make eye contact, had stared at him intently and asked if he remembered the night they had met. Caleb told her he didn’t, but he did. They had been introduced in a holding cell at Florida State Prison just a few hours before his father was to be executed. He had been coming, and she’d been going, and his goddamn father had been holding court. His father had been transferred to the Starke prison the week before when the governor had signed his death watch. That’s where the electric chair was. The chair was antique, a three-legged oak model built by inmates in 1923. It waited for him.
The lights in D. G.’s flickered. The coastal breeze had picked up. Two of the fluorescent lights faded out and then began the laborious process of coming back to life, making sounds like insects being fried by bug lights. The flickering lights took Caleb back to his last meeting with his father. There were so many things to hate his father for, but in the end, he had tainted even that pleasure. Damn you for that, Caleb thought. Damn you for everything.
“Your father wants
to see you,” his mother told him. She was already packing his bags.
“I don’t want to see him.”
“Shut your mouth. This might be the last time you’ll ever talk with him.”
“Good.”
His mama slapped him across the face. Then she started crying. That made Caleb feel worse than the slap.
The bus trip from Texas to Florida seemed to go on forever. His mama was used to it by then. She’d been to Florida for both of the trials, had left Caleb to look after himself for up to a week at a time. None of their kin was willing to take him in. He’d never told her how their own home had become a prison to him, how packs of boys had come around yelling taunts and throwing things. He hadn’t told her lots of things.
It had been almost two years since he’d last seen his father. They brought Caleb to a holding room where a man stood up that he didn’t even know.
“Hello, Son,” he said.
His father looked so different. He’d always been so handsome and cool, but now his head was shaved and his eyes were wide and agitated. He kept looking up at the fluorescent lights, kept flinching whenever they flickered and cracked. He stared at them as if he was following the flow of electricity. Then, he finally remembered his son was in the room with him waiting. They were both waiting.
“They’re juicing up Old Sparky again,” his father announced. “They’ve been playing with Sparky all week. Getting him ready for the big show. If you listen real close you can even hear him humming.”
Caleb hadn’t known what he was supposed to be listening for, but he tried his best to hear something. He tilted his head to the right, and then to the left, but he couldn’t make out any humming.
“Hear it?” his father asked. “Hear it?”
To please him, Caleb nodded.
Caleb kept sneaking glances at this stranger, at his father. What struck Caleb most was the lack of barriers between them. Even before his father’s imprisonment there had always been a distance between them that seemed unbreachable. But not now. In the holding room there wasn’t anything separating them. Their being so close scared Caleb, even though his father was shackled in manacles and chains, and there were two guards in the room. It wasn’t that Caleb was afraid physically but more that he wasn’t comfortable with their unexpected intimacy.