Acting Dead (Michael Quinn Thriller)

by John Moralee

  “Joely,” Sarah said, “I didn’t invite you here to take on Van Morgan for me. He’s dangerous.”

  “I want to help, is all.”

  “You can help by staying out of it.”

  “Yeah, right. Whatever. Hey – I can shoot the camcorder stuff for you! Michael can tell me how to direct!”

  “Joely,” Betsy said, “would you like another cookie?”

  “You trying to make me shut up?”

  “Would I do that, honey?” Betsy said.

  “Hand over the cookies.”

  I listened to Sarah’s plans. Environmental groups would apply pressure to Van Morgan by parading outside his offices and his home twenty-four hours a day. Sarah knew what they were doing, as she was a veteran of environment campaigns. Sarah was confident they could apply pressure to Van Morgan. She had set up a meeting with an environmental lobby. Her university friends would help out. Joely wanted to involve herself, but Sarah was reluctant to draw her into the problem. Joely didn’t like that. She was already picturing herself as the new David Lynch. While they were arguing, Betsy asked me to show her the kitchen – she wanted to put the spare cookies away, she said. But when we were alone, after she’d done it, she said, “My sister Sarah wasn’t always this possessed, Michael. I worry about her. She used to be different, more relaxed.”

  “Oh?”

  “Something happened to Sarah at university.”

  I had a hunch that Betsy suspected Sarah had been raped, but Sarah didn’t know Betsy suspected. Betsy would wait for Sarah to bring it up first because the topic was so painful.

  “What do you think happened?”

  “She won’t tell me, but I can make guesses ... She used to have a social life, at home. It wasn’t all just work, work, work. When we were kids we would go to barn dances on Sundays – and Sarah loved it. She won competitions. She was crowned Little Miss Iowa, Barn Dance Princess and dozens of other titles. You should have seen her in a fabulous pink ball gown, wearing her Little Miss Iowa crown –adorable is not the word. Ballroom, line-dancing, disco – she did them all like she was born to dance. She loved dancing, but she stopped enjoying herself after she went away to college. It was as if she shut down part of herself to focus on her career. She’s immersed herself in work – in environmental causes – like that is all there is worth living for. She hardly smiles any more – though she does when she talks about you. You could be good for her, as long as you don’t hurt her.”

  “I won’t, Betsy.”

  “Sarah’s my best friend, as well as a great sister, so I want to see her happy. You could do that if you earn her trust, if you’re patient and don’t rush things, if you know what I’m saying?”

  “I think I have a good idea.”

  “Good,” she said. “If you could get her to dance again, well, I’m sure she’d allow herself to go easier on herself, honey. The old fun-loving Sarah is there waiting to be let free again.”

  “Hey!” went a call from the living room. It was Joely. “Bring some of those cookies back, sis! I’ve ran out!”

  Betsy sighed. “She eats like a horse but doesn’t put on an ounce. I wish I could eat like that. Oh, well, thanks for listening to what I had to say.”

  It was soon time for them to leave in a rented van. The campaign against Van Morgan was escalating, which was a good thing as much as a bad thing. Anything that put pressure on Van Morgan would make him more likely to make a mistake.

  But it was also more likely to push him over the edge.

  As well as becoming addicted to low-quality TV, I rummaged through the contents of the box I’d filled with Ted Genero’s research. With plenty of time to indulge in studying everything, I grew more and more impressed by the depth of Ted’s obsession. His working diagram of suspects was really a work of art, including minute details of the events leading up to the car crash. Unfortunately, there were no conclusions – his so-called accident had prevented that. But he had spoken to several of Billy and Hanna’s friends in order to fill in some of the blanks. It all seemed to start – in Ted’s opinion – when Hanna Devereaux let Billy know that she was interested in him. Her flirting came out of the blue. I knew this already because I remembered an astonished Billy telling me how Hanna had flirted with him in a boring history class. Until then he had not known she even knew his name. She’d agreed to a date when he found her hanging out around his locker. Dating Hanna had gained Billy a lot of attention – good and bad. Her rich girlfriends had thought her crazy. Billy’s friends slapped his back. Hanna’s parents had disapproved wholeheartedly. Nate Devereaux had brought up the subject of banning dating among students at a PTA meeting – his suggestion was overruled as impractical. Tiffany had told Ted that Billy was making a mistake dating Hanna, as she was known to be a snob, who was probably dating him just to make her parents angry. It worked. Ted had listed Nate Devereaux as a major suspect. The man had no alibi for the night because he’d been at home while his wife Lillian was out with her female friends.

  Ted had drawn a line on his diagram to a question mark. He’d written his speculations down in a bubble:

  Intriguing rumours of jealous ex-boyfriend? Who? Older man?

  Got to question Hanna’s girlfriends.

  Find out identity.

  But Ted had never found the identity of Hanna’s ex – if there was such a person. I looked for information that would tell me where he’d heard the rumour – it had come from Hanna’s best friend, Patricia Girard. I would have to speak to her, but she wasn’t listed in the directory. Instead, I called Tiffany. I asked her about Patricia. Tiffany didn’t really know her, but she would talk to someone who did and get back to me with the number. Patricia probably wouldn’t talk to me – she was one of the people who blamed Billy for Hanna’s death. Tiffany called back later to tell me there was a problem. Patricia Girard was now Mrs Patricia Girard-St. Christien, the second wife of Antoine St. Christien, the famous French fashion designer. He was her third husband. Patricia had become very wealthy from her divorces, each time marrying someone richer than the previous man. Antoine St. Christien had fashion shows in Milan, Paris, New York and London. He owned a billion-dollar company. At the moment Patricia and her husband were having a long honeymoon in Europe without the intrusion of the media. Tiffany would see if she could contact her in person, though she was not hopeful. Patricia was unlikely to return to Cape Mistral for weeks, perhaps months.

  Meanwhile, I had time to think about Billy’s death.

  The murderer was out there. Free.

  Hoping to learn something, perhaps jog my memory, I opened the door to Billy’s room. I stepped into my childhood as I looked at the catcher’s mitt on the bookshelf above the bed, the row of yellow-with-age paperbacks, and the high school yearbooks. I lifted down the last yearbook and flicked through the pages. I recognised Billy’s friends by their faces, not their names, so I wrote down the names. There was Ted Genero, dead now. There was Hanna. I looked at my own yearbooks. There was me, Scott, Wayne. We looked so young, so new. Those strangers could have achieved anything. It filled me with sadness. Tucked in one corner of a page, as though the school had been ashamed to print his picture, I found a photograph of a slim, effeminate Douglas Clark. His interests were listed as poetry, classical music and creative writing. No wonder the jocks had bullied him. At least he had made something of himself. I flicked through the pages and stopped at the page containing Abby and Fiona’s pictures. On each page, I wrote down names connected to my brother, like Ted Genero had done. I started doing my own chart. I repeated the process for his girlfriend Hanna Devereaux, though I only knew some of her friends. I carried the yearbook out of the room, shutting the door behind me. I looked up the names in the phone directory. Only a handful still lived in Cape Mistral. I noted their addresses.

  I resolved to see everyone on the list once I was fit.

  Occasionally, I would look out my bedroom window and see a police car parked discreetly behind the trees up the road, a deputy sheriff
sitting at the wheel. Maybe the sheriff had sent him to protect me? Maybe he was there to watch me? I didn’t know, but I didn’t like either situation. It reminded me that someone was walking around who would like to stick a knife into my chest. The car wasn’t present every time I looked, though. I guessed that if a crime was reported that took priority.

  I’d thought the knife attack had just hurt my body, but sometimes a memory would leap out of nowhere, making me sweat and my hands shake. Sometimes, there would be vivid flashbacks to that night. I seemed particularly susceptible to the flashbacks when I was sleepy or if a sudden noise, like the clatter of knives and forks in the kitchen, shattered the quiet. I had no control over the flashbacks, and I resented their sneakiness. I didn’t feel safe in the house. I felt as if there was someone watching over my shoulder like a ghost. Thinking about the bugging equipment, which Sarah and I had got off Van Morgan’s men, I wondered if it was more than paranoia. Maybe he’d put bugs in this house.

  One day, I went as far as unscrewing the back of the telephone and examining the circuitry for bugs. I was glad to see nothing unusual, though I then checked the line all of the way up to the telephone pole at the end of the street just to be absolutely sure. Nothing. Of course there was nothing. But the feeling remained.

  Being cooped up inside for so many days, I had time to watch the lawn grow to an annoying length, a length that forced me into going outside against the advice of my doctor. I had to cut the damn grass before it grew as long and spiky as porcupine quills. My dad had one of those mowers you could sit in and drive, so I drove it out of the barn and attacked the grass in long circles, going around and around the house. The lawnmower churned up and spat grass back out like Linda Blair vomiting pea-green soup.

  I was mowing the lawn at the rear when I saw someone watching through the trees. The white flash of binoculars alerted me, but whoever it was saw me noticing them and left in a hurry. I thought about giving chase on the mower, but even a tortoise could have outrun it.

  Later, when I looked around the area, I found a squashed cigarette and an empty matchbook. The matchbook had a little sailing boat on one side.

  They gave them away at the Cape Mistral Yacht Club.

  My dad kept a handgun in his bedroom in case of intruders. It was a 9mm Beretta that held sixteen bullets in a convenient easy-loading magazine. He’d brought it back from Vietnam. It was a gift from his captain for saving the platoon during a fire-fight. The semi-automatic was in the top drawer next to a big box of spare ammo. I took out the gun and the ammo, checked the gun was loaded, then stuck it in the top of my jeans, covering it with my shirt. I packed my pockets with extra magazines. For the rest of the day, I felt like a Rambo impersonator, but I got used to the feeling. It was like a security blanket. The gun was just in case somebody turned up uninvited. Killers. Psychos. Tax collectors. My dad didn’t say a word about it later, though he had to know, for he kept his blood pressure pills in the same drawer. He understood. I wasn’t going to climb a clock tower for some population control; it was self-defence.

  I had to get fit again. Lounging around was fine when you felt sick, but now I was restless. Slowly, I attempted some exercises recommended by the doctors, nothing too strenuous, nothing that would involve further injuries to my chest, just a plain, simple workout.

  I was in the middle of a leg muscle stretching routine when there was a light knock on the screen door. My dad was out working at the bar, so I had to walk stiffly to downstairs, mopping sweat off my forehead from the pathetic stretching I’d done so far. I opened the inner door and saw Wayne Leary on the porch, shuffling his feet. He was wearing his sunglasses and a loose and baggy Hawaiian shirt over a pair of chinos. His sandy hair was slicked back and combed through. He looked down at the ground and rubbed the tattoos on his arm. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said back.

  “About Scott …”

  I waited. He gathered his thoughts like a net trawling through deep water.

  “Understand I’m still mad at you, okay? But I’m Scott’s buddy. If something’s happened …” He cleared his throat. “Look. I’ll look into it for you, seeing as you can’t even take care of yourself. You just tell me who to look for, I’ll find them. For Scott.”

  “He’d appreciate that, but I don’t want you getting in trouble.”

  “I’ll do it real quiet-like,” he said. “I promise no breaking heads. Like a reconnaissance mission. Collect info and report to base. No direct action.”

  “No breaking the law, Wayne.”

  “Hey! I won’t.” He removed his sunglasses and squinted in the sunlight. “My wild days are long over. I’m just a boat operator for tourists these days. I don’t fight people if I don’t have to. I just want to help Scott ...”

  “Okay,” I said, “but what makes you think you can?”

  “Fact is, I know this town better you, Mike. You’ve been away so long you’ve lost touch with the way things work here. When you go somewhere people notice the big celebrity, but, me, I’m like invisible. You, you stand out like a sore thumb. Or in your case, a sore anything.”

  “Ha. Ha. I concede the point.”

  “Good. So don’t be a jerk. Fill me in with what you think.”

  I invited him in for a beer, but he said no. He wanted to be stone sober for what he was going to do. So we sat on the porch and I told him what I knew while out on the ocean a ferry slowly crossed to Port Island, which was a dark line on the horizon. I told him about the two guys who’d been watching Sarah Beck and how they were highly likely to have been in on the attack in the parking lot. I told him about Ecker provoking Vernon, then Vernon’s disappearance. I gave him the IDs I’d got off Ecker and Gruemann. The IDs would allow him to sneak inside Heaven and Earth’s offices on Main Street. Wayne also pocketed Ecker’s security badge, nodding appreciatively. Wayne could make himself look like the man in the photo, he said. I told him about Van Morgan and my suspicions.

  “You have evidence he ordered it?”

  “I wish.”

  “So why’d he do it - if he did do it?”

  “He stands to lose millions if Sarah Beck beats him. His entire business will fall apart. I can’t think of a better motive. Heaven and Earth Enterprises stands to lose a lot of money because of a lawsuit that Scott was representing.”

  “I’ll look for these guys Ecker and Grueman, see if they lead me anywhere. Should be easy to spot a dude with guitar marks on his face. And I’ll look for a loser with a broken arm.”

  “There’s also a man who looks like Frankenstein. Check him out.”

  “Frankenstein. Got it. You concentrate on getting well, okay?”

  We shook hands. Wayne jumped in his truck and left a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes. I went back inside and continued with my exercises, thinking of the friendship we had known and lost, wondering if we could come to some new friendship again.

  I liked to think we could.

  Chapter 27

  The kitchen door slammed when my father returned. He was carrying two brown paper bags filed with fresh groceries. He put the bags on the table and tossed an apple into my hands. I crunched down, tasting the bitter juice. It was delicious.

  “I saw Abby Shannow – I mean Abby Boone - in the fruit market,” he said.

  I mumbled something with a mouthful of apple.

  “What?” he said.

  “What did she say?”

  “She asked about you.”

  “Really?”

  “She’d read about the attack. She was worried. I told her you were coming on strong. She looked like the news made her day.”

  “Did she say anything else?” Like her husband was abusing her, I thought.

  “No – we were heading different directions. But I can tell you that girl’s still smitten with you. I think she regrets marrying Boone, if you ask me.”

  That’s an understatement, I thought. Just a mention of Abby stirred an empty feeling in my stomach, a longing for her as deep and painful as
watching a loved one die. Depression and guilt followed it. Guilt for leaving Cape Mistral. Guilt for not saving her from marrying Boone. I wanted to stop Boone hurting her, but what could I do? He was the sheriff. He was respectable. He was influential. Besides which, I was involved with Sarah now; I had no business involving myself in Abby’s private life. But I didn’t believe that. Boone was a problem that wouldn’t go away.

  Alas, in my present condition, I could no more hurt him than a mouse could hurt a tiger.

  The next day, my muscles aching as much as my bruises, I walked as far as the jetty where my father was gutting a butterfish. I eased myself down beside him and looked out over the blue-green water. Sailboats bobbed on the horizon like diamonds.

  “Dad, you ever finishing that boat?”

  He stiffened. “I’m taking my time.”

  “The pyramids were quicker.”

  “Maybe, but thousands of slaves worked on them.”

  “Actually they were volunteers. Like me.”

  “You want to work on my boat?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “You never wanted to before.” An accusation.

  “Because you wouldn’t hear of it. I reckon it’s time you quit procrastinating and completed the damn thing. I’ve seen how good it looks, if you could just put it together. You see those boats out there, Dad?”

  “I see them.”

  “One could be yours. You could be out there enjoying yourself. I think it’s time you finished. There’s no time like the present.”