Past Tense

by Stephen Greenleaf

  I shuddered at the image of the pit bull on crack. “Do you remember what we talked about before, Julian?”

  “The man who killed my father. Rain something.”

  “Sleet. His name is Charley Sleet. And there’s no question he’s the one who shot your father.”

  Her eyes glazed as she lapsed into rote behavior. “To silence me. To reclaim the forum. To debunk my memories and repel my—”

  I shook my head. “No. That’s what I came here to tell you, Julian—it didn’t have anything to do with you or your father. Charley wasn’t an assassin, Julian; he wasn’t trying to keep you from speaking out about what happened when you were young. It was all a big mistake.”

  Her irises spread like wine stains on a linen tablecloth. “A mistake? What kind of mistake?”

  “Mr. Sleet shot the wrong man. He wasn’t aiming at you; he wasn’t even aiming at your father. He killed the wrong person, Julian. That’s all there was to it.”

  “But he was—”

  “A cop. I know. They’re supposed to know how to shoot straight. Only this cop is sick and his sickness made him miss.”

  “Sick how?”

  “Brain tumor. He’s not moving very well anymore. He shakes too much to hit what he aims at. And he’s dying,” I added, mostly to voice a fear of my own.

  She thought about what I’d said, perhaps comparing the dysfunction within Charley’s head to what was happening inside her own. “But I don’t … what if you’re lying to me?”

  “I’m not.”

  “How do I know?”

  “Danielle will tell you.”

  She frowned with uncertainty. “She already did, I guess.”

  “Good. You should pay attention to her.”

  “I do when I can,” she said. “But what if she’s an assassin, too? The CMI has women, too, you know. There are traitors even in—”

  “I think you know better than that,” I interrupted. “Danielle’s on your side. And she always will be.”

  As I said it, I realized it was true—therapists have become like lawyers, advocates and adversaries, stubbornly defending their clients regardless of truth or consequence. I don’t think it’s a good sign. E pluribus unum.

  When I got home, the only message on my machine was to call Marjie Finnerty at home no matter how late I got in.

  “Tanner,” I said when she came on the line.

  “What’s happening?” she asked. “You sounded so … distressed.”

  “I imagine you know more about it than I do by now.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “You mean you haven’t seen him?”

  Her throat tightened and the words were squeaks. “No. Have you?”

  “This afternoon.”

  “Where?”

  “Colma.”

  “What’s in … oh. The cemetery.”

  “Right.”

  She sighed dispiritedly, as if Charley’s continued devotion to Flora was a cross she had borne for a long time. “How is he?”

  “Not good.”

  “The shakes?”

  “And a limp. And partial paralysis. And some tremors.”

  “God.”

  “You really haven’t seen him?”

  “No. He obviously wants to protect me from what it’s done to him. Apparently he’s a monster in every sense of the word now.” She choked back a sob, then apologized. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean it that way. It’s just …”

  “I know.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “One thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “How much do you know about your boss?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The judge. Are you close to him?”

  “As close as I care to be. Why?”

  “He’s Armenian, right?”

  “Very much so. He revels in it.”

  “Are his parents alive?”

  “Yes. They live on Diamond Heights.”

  “Retired?”

  “Yes.”

  “From what?”

  “You mean what did they do for a living?”

  “Yes.”

  “They had a bar. A tavern.”

  “Down on Post Street?”

  “Somewhere like that. Why?”

  “What time does the judge come to work?”

  “Eight-fifteen.”

  “On the dot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you on duty already?”

  “Usually.”

  “Can I get in to see him then?”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “If I leave word at the north entrance, you can.”

  “Will you?”

  She paused. “Not till I know why.”

  “The why is that Charley wasn’t shooting at Leonard Wints; Charley was shooting at Judge Meltonian.”

  Her gasp was as sharp as a broken seashell. She had presumed a catastrophe but had gotten something more.

  “You must be joking,” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  “But why? Because of me? Because he was jealous or something? My God. I shudder every time the man puts a hand on me.”

  “Charley?”

  “The judge. I’d never in a million years let him—”

  “It wasn’t jealousy,” I interrupted. “It was revenge.”

  It took her a while to absorb the concept. “Revenge for what?”

  “Something bad enough to make Flora and Charley abstain from sex for the last thirty years of their marriage.”

  “My God. So that’s why he was so …”

  “What?”

  “Grateful,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  32

  IT TOOK ME A WHILE, BUT I FINALLY GOT THROUGH TO MINDY Cartson. “One question,” I said when she came on the line.

  “What?”

  “Julian said you told her the deck was stacked against her lawsuit.”

  “So?”

  “What did you mean by that?”

  “That’s a privileged communication.”

  “No, it’s not. That’s not legal advice, it’s legal whining. What did it mean?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Don’t you mean Meltonian was predisposed against you? Based on his ruling in other cases?”

  “I … yes. That’s it exactly. Why is it of interest to you?”

  “Just business,” I said.

  I spent the rest of the evening watching the only VCR movie I own—The Fabulous Baker Boys. I’ve seen it ten times but it still does the job.

  The first thing Monday morning I was on the steps of the temporary courthouse. Five minutes later, Marjie Finnerty opened the door and let me into the building. She was carrying keys and wearing a blue pants suit. She looked scared and abashed and impatient. I was a little scared and abashed myself.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  Her eyes were querulous and unfriendly. “What’s this all about? What does Judge Meltonian have to do with Charley’s rampage?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. The judge can tell you or Charley can tell you, but I don’t think I can.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not about you, it’s about them.”

  She crossed her arms and looked at me with a mix of irritation and skepticism. “Are you sure you’re right about this? I don’t think Charley even knew the judge.”

  “I’m not sure he did.”

  “Then what—?”

  “History,” I said. “Past imperfect. Memory ascendant.” When I didn’t say anything more pertinent, she shook her head and shrugged her shoulders and we rode the elevator up to her office.

  “I’ll see if he can see you,” she said when we got there, then ducked inside Meltonian’s chambers. She reappeared a moment later. “He can give you five minutes.” She sat down at her desk and turned on her computer. She wasn’t happy but she didn’t know what to do about it. I wa
sn’t happy either, but I was doing all I could.

  The chambers were dark and dusky, lined with heavy drapes and musty law books that created a hushed and forbidding antechamber, as though interrogations and inquisitions were conducted in there outside the normal purview of justice. The judge was in shirt sleeves, sipping creamy coffee from a Starbucks mug, flipping idly through a deposition transcript. He was svelte and handsome and magisterial, the Prince Charming of the civil courts. What I was about to say wouldn’t faze him, at least not outwardly.

  He knew I was there but he made me wait. “What can I do for you, Mr. Tanner?” he asked after he figured I knew my place, genially enough, but without notable interest in the answer.

  “You can pay attention while I tell you what happened in your courtroom last Tuesday.”

  He raised a brow. “You mean when Detective Sleet shot Mr. Wints?”

  “That’s part of the story but not the whole story.”

  “You’re telling me you know why he did it?”

  “I am.”

  He put down the transcript and leaned back in his chair. “Please proceed.”

  He didn’t ask me to sit down but I did anyway. When he didn’t offer me coffee, it pissed me off. I opened fire with both barrels.

  “The main thing you need to know is that Charley wasn’t shooting at Leonard Wints that morning, Charley was shooting at you.”

  That brought him up straight. “At me?”

  “At you.”

  He looked toward the door and then back, as if trying to recall who I was. “What on earth for? Some ruling I made? I didn’t even know the man. And I never compromised Ms. Finnerty, no matter what she may—”

  “It didn’t have to do with sex,” I interrupted, “and it didn’t have to do with jurisprudence. And not all that much to do with you, actually.”

  “Then what—?”

  “Are you close to your parents, Judge?”

  He blinked at the shift in focus. “I … yes, I am. Quite.”

  “They must be proud of your accomplishments.”

  “Of course they are. Not that I’ve done all that much compared to some, but still. I don’t understand what an eighty-year-old Armenian couple has to do with what happened in my court Tuesday morning, however.”

  I decided to stay slippery. “Your parents used to own a bar on Post Street, am I right?”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “They had a big fire in the bar back in the sixties.”

  “Did they? I don’t know anything about it.”

  “You never heard them talk about the fire that destroyed their bar overnight?”

  “No. I don’t think they ever mentioned it. They must have thought it would be upsetting to me. They said little about the tavern business in general. I think they were embarrassed by their trade.”

  “How old were you back then?”

  “In 1960, I was four years old.”

  “Do you have any burn scars?”

  “No. I told you I know nothing about any fire. But even if there was one, I wouldn’t have been injured. We didn’t live over the bar, we lived in Parkside out near the zoo. If it happened at night, it’s doubtful my parents even knew about it until after the fire was put out.”

  The judge wanted to dismiss me but couldn’t bring himself to do so without knowing the rest of the story.

  “Back in the sixties, Charley Sleet and his wife, Flora, lived over your parents’ bar,” I said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  I shook my head. “The fire was caused by faulty wiring. Your parents paid a bribe so they wouldn’t have to fix it. Charley’s son was devoured in the flames. Flora never got over it. I’m not sure Charley did either.”

  Meltonian’s eyes watered and his hand trembled. He glanced at the law books beyond him, as if taking refuge in their prohibitions and their principles. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. That’s very tragic.”

  “The tragedy hasn’t ended yet. Charley’s been a great cop for more than thirty years but now he’s got a tumor at the base of his brain. It seems to have made him a vigilante. He’s killed at least three people in the process of righting old wrongs.”

  Meltonian squirmed, then coughed nervously, then frowned. “Are you saying he wanted to punish my parents by murdering me? For a fire that happened thirty years ago?”

  “That seems to be it. That and your tendency to let off child molesters.”

  He reddened and recovered his old self. “I haven’t let off any child molesters.”

  “That’s not how I hear it, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Charley would like you to die.”

  “My God. Are you sure about this?”

  “Reasonably.”

  “What do the police say?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked with them.”

  “You mean they haven’t captured him yet?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “My God.” He stood up and began to pace. “I should take precautions.”

  “I think so. Your parents should, too.”

  He grabbed his suit coat and put it on. “This is unbelievable. Like something out of the Old Testament. My parents are almost eighty years old. This could … What’s your role in all this, Mr. Tanner?”

  “I’m Charley’s friend. I’m doing a little damage control”

  His lip curled meanly. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

  I smiled. “I said control, not prevention.”

  He closed his eyes and groaned audibly. When he opened them, the fear had been laced with calculation. “Does Marjie know about this? She was romantically involved with the man, I believe.”

  I shook my head. “I thought you or Charley should be the one to tell her.”

  “How do you think she’ll take it?”

  “I think she’ll be relieved to know he wasn’t entirely deranged.”

  I waved good-bye to the judge and his clerk, then went back to the office to wait for a call. I didn’t get it for another eight hours. It was the longest eight hours I ever spent.

  When the phone finally rang, my heart hopped like a bullfrog. “Marsh?”

  “Charley?”

  “Free tonight?”

  “I can be.”

  “Good. Know where Twentieth Street crosses Illinois?”

  “Sure do.” It was two blocks from where the cops had broken my finger.

  “There’s a bar there called the Main Mast. Be there at midnight. I’ll be in a gray Ford pickup. You’ll want to bring your Walther.”

  I laughed because it was sounding so absurd. “Where’d you get the truck?”

  “I found it about an hour ago.”

  “Glad your days in grand theft auto aren’t going to waste. What’s going down on Illinois Street, Charley?”

  “A little crime prevention activity.”

  “Isn’t that a job for the cops?”

  “I am a cop.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yeah. Well, let’s consider ourselves deputized. We’ll call it a citizens’ militia. No use letting those right-wing thugs have all the fun. If you’re still willing to help me, that is.”

  “I’m willing to help you, Charley. I’m just not sure this is the way to do it. You want me there, you have to promise to do the right thing once we’ve done whatever we have to do.”

  “What’s the right thing?”

  “Turn yourself in and let Jake defend you.”

  His laugh was harsh. “By morning, you can do whatever the hell you want with me.” He broke the connection before I could get more details or make his pledge to be sensible more binding.

  The more I thought about it, the worse it sounded. Charley needed help in the form of a gun. Charley had sacrificed everything he stood for and believed in to bring justice to an unjust world, which meant he would cheerfully sacrifice me to that very same goal. Of course I had the option of not showing up on Illinois Street or of alerting the authorities to the rendez
vous or both. But I wouldn’t do any of those things because it was Charley who was asking and because Charley had never in his life failed to come when I called. I got out the Walther and oiled it.

  Midnight. Six hours from now. The more I thought about it, the more I sensed there were things I needed to do.

  Usually I call ahead, but for some reason I didn’t this time. I guess I wanted to measure the welcome I’d receive if I wasn’t announced and prepped for, if I appeared out of nowhere to press my subversive claim to my child, if I acted more overtly like Dad.

  “Marsh!” Millicent Colbert exclaimed when she saw me. “How wonderful. What happened to your finger?”

  “I broke it.”

  “How?”

  “I got it caught in something.”

  “How awful.”

  She was wearing robin’s egg Levi’s and a white broad-cloth shirt beneath a mildly harried look. Only her face showed wear and tear, but it was the kind of wear and tear that’s a by-product of high energy and intense pleasure.

  “Sorry I didn’t call,” I said, “but I was in the neighborhood, so …”

  “You don’t have to call. Not ever. Not if you don’t mind a mess.”

  “Hey. I can do mess. My roommate is a mess.”

  “I didn’t know you had … oh.” She blushed. “You’re talking about yourself.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Come on in. She just finished dinner. We’re going on a stroll in the neighborhood in a little while. You’re welcome to come with us, but maybe you’d rather see her here, where she’d be more … focused.”

  “Let’s see how it goes.”

  We went back to the nursery. Eleanor was in her playpen, wearing a pink jumper and tiny white Nikes and playing with a big rag doll. I was glad to see they still made rag dolls, though this one probably cried and wet and pledged her allegiance and came with a computer chip and a condom.

  “Eleanor, look who’s here. It’s Mr. … I mean it’s our good friend Marsh.”

  “Hi, Eleanor.”

  She looked at me but didn’t smile. On the other hand, she didn’t cry or throw anything either. I opted to be flattered.

  “Let’s come out and play, why don’t we.” Millicent reached into the playpen for our child. As Eleanor came out of her cage, she seemed to reach out for me. I took her in my arms, cradling her awkwardly above my injured digit, and lumbered to a love seat and sat down to play with her.