by John Moralee
“Maybe he did it himself? If I were going to kill someone, I’d do it myself. I wouldn’t rely on a group of ex-cons.”
“Perhaps that’s it,” I said.
“Of course that’s it. He’s guilty of everything else. His greed got him into this situation. He must have killed Scott.”
“I guess,” I said. I frowned, unconvinced. I liked to have certainty.
“Smile,” she said. “Today we should celebrate.”
I really wanted to agree, but the darkness of doubt was there.
“How are they coping?” I asked.
“They’re too young to understand,” Grace said. We were watching Amanda and Elizabeth playing on the swings, apparently having fun, though the girls were not laughing or smiling. They were just swinging and swinging. There was no joy in it for them. They were swinging with anger, trying to go as high as possible. Grace and I stood behind them in case they went too fast. My father was in the house making Grace and the girls some cool drinks – fresh fruit juice smoothies using his special recipe. Grace and I had talked about the arrest of Van Morgan. The girls quickly grew bored with the swings and went to throw their Barbies around the lawn. “This is mommy,” Amanda said. “Mommy play.” Grace and I sat down on a bench. Now she started leafing through the books on bereavement I had brought. I hoped they would help. I looked at the kids and saw them as orphans lost in a violent adult world. Their play seemed like a refuge from it. Grace sighed. “They want to know when mommy and daddy are coming home. It’s hard for them to accept that it will be never.”
“What did the child psychologist say?”
“For the time being, it is better to let them come to an understanding when they were ready. They go into fits whenever the truth is explained.”
I had never seen such misery on children’s faces. It made me more determined than ever to prove beyond doubt that Van Morgan had killed Scott.
Until that happened, it wasn’t over.
Van Morgan had ordered someone to kill Scott, hadn’t he?
But why?
It didn’t make sense.
He would have won his lawsuit as long as Freeman was working for him.
Van Morgan had no need to kill Scott.
In my mind I played the Freeman and Van Morgan conversation over and over, listening to Van Morgan’s denial about killing Scott.
Freeman obviously believed his boss had killed him, but Van Morgan had said he had not done it.
Freeman’s evidence, recovered at the scene of his murder, had contained sixteen mini-cassettes of conversations between Freeman and Van Morgan and Freeman and Zeke Morrow. There were also documents that proved fraud, tax evasion and bribery going back years – never mind the drugs that Morrow sold and supplied for Van Morgan. There was enough damaging evidence to convict Van Morgan for a very long time. Of everything but Scott’s murder.
None of it linked him to the murder of Scott.
Van Morgan was bound to lie about having anything to do with killing Scott if he had ordered it.
But - here was the damnedest thing - I believed him.
I didn’t think he had killed Scott.
When my father returned with the smoothies, I apologised for having to go suddenly. I had something important to check out, a thought that had just come to me when thinking about the girls. Earlier, the kids had been playing on the floor of Scott’s den surrounded by Scott’s things when I’d noticed some old love letters on the desk that Fiona must have taken out at some time, perhaps to read them again, thinking of Scott. Nobody had replaced them after she’d died. I’d picked them up and looked at them. Scott had written some love poetry to Fiona. Scott wrote the letters in his neatest writing. His neatest writing was drastically unlike his usual scribble. It struck a chord of recognition. It was like the writing on the envelope containing the picture of the car crash.
Back at my father’s house, I examined the envelope again. I looked at the handwriting of the address. I had to be sure, though. I decided to show Vernon the letter. He had known Scott better than anyone else alive. Vernon was living in Dick Shannow’s house after the charges against him had been dismissed. When I visited, he was sitting on the back porch reading a Jean-Paul Sartre paperback in the original French. It was sunny and Vernon looked comfortable in a bright-blue Nike tracksuit. Over the last few days, he had started to look better. His weight loss had been diagnosed as the result of having TB. Luckily, it was a treatable form and he was now on a course of antibiotics that had already noticeably improved his coughing. Now that he was on a proper diet, drug free, alcohol free, with a roof over his head, he had regained some of his younger self. He wasn’t as forgetful, for one thing. He had also shaved his beard down to chin-level. And I saw that he had been reading the glossy literature Sarah had left him about her university.
“Hey!” He smiled, and invited me to sit.
I sat down and got out the envelope. “Can I show you something?”
“Of course.”
“Who wrote this?”
“That’s easy – it’s Scott’s.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The long lines of the ts. I’ve seen them in everything he wrote. Scott wrote this.”
I’d seen the ts when Scott wrote the cheque in the restaurant.
And in the poetry.
He’d written the address.
He’d sent the photograph.
But why?
What was so important about a photograph of a car crash that happened decades ago? Why mail it to me instead of giving it personally?
Because he’d posted it to me before seeing the killer, as insurance against something happening to him. I’d assumed the photograph had been sent as a threat, not as something from a friend.
And then I knew it for sure. Scott had been killed by Ted Genero’s killer. He had been killed for looking into my brother’s murder.
“What is it?” Vernon asked.
“Nothing. But thanks. That helps a lot. I just don’t know how yet.”
Vernon was looking at me with amusement. “Well, I’m glad I could help. Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“I would but I’m busy.” I thanked him again, taking the envelope with me.
I returned to Ted Genero’s research and the list of names of people who’d known Billy and Hanna. It was quite extensive. I wished I’d called them all earlier, but with everything happening I had not had time to focus on Van Morgan and the murder of my brother. Some people were unhelpful, barely remembering my brother and Hanna. They could not tell me more than in the newspaper reports. I also got a few answering machines, so I left my name and number and asked them to please call back without stating the purpose of my call. Hanna’s best friend Patricia was the best bet, but Tiffany had not got back to me with any help since she informed me Patricia was in Europe.
I met Tiffany at the tennis club between games. I asked her if she had had any luck with contacting Patricia.
“Patricia who?” Tiffany flushed and apologised. “Oh, gosh, I feel so stupid. Michael, I’m afraid I completely forgot all about it. I was going to do something and then … I forgot. I swear, swear, swear I’ll see what I can do.”
I left Tiffany to visit another forgetful person – ex-sheriff Keith Malloy. His mouldy birthday cake was still festering in his room – I did him the favour of dumping it in the trash. I wanted to find out how Scott had got the police photograph. Talking to the senile sheriff was like extracting my own teeth. Keith Malloy sort of remembered a man visiting him, asking for a photograph. It could have been Ted Genero until he described the John Lennon glasses. It confirmed my theory. Scott had been investigating Billy’s death, just like Ted Genero. And just like Ted Genero, he had been killed for it.
That evening Sarah had dinner with me at Chardez’s, just the two of us, a private celebration of our victory over Van Morgan. The food was good, but Sarah said Betsy would freak out if she saw the way they had prepared the salad. “Betsy takes twent
y minutes to arrange everything on the plates just so. Her salads look like paintings. I should introduce her to the chef.” She looked up from her plate, laughing at something she’d just thought of.“I have a confession – something I did today.”
“Oh?”
“Joely insisted I watch The Electric Web.”
“Well, what’d you think?”
“What did I think?” she grinned, keeping me in suspense.
“Yeah – what did you think? You hated it, right?”
“Yeah. No - I liked it. You were good at being bad. Dark and menacing. Edgy. And Joely was right – it was good foreplay.”
“Well, it should’ve been – it cost sixty million dollars.”
“Bargain.” She paused, licking her lips of olive oil. “Something else. I enjoyed the dancing the other night. How’d you know I liked it?”
“Betsy may have mentioned something. Like a certain marine biologist winning the Little Miss Iowa crown.”
“God! I was young, I didn’t know what I was doing. I am so embarrassed you know that.”
“Your sisters have told me all sorts of things about you.”
“Is that so?”
“It is. I could blackmail you.”
“Not with what I know: Joely tells me you did a nude scene. She’s seen it. Tell me more.”
“I did a partial nude scene, which involved a skin-coloured pouch over my equipment. My butt was on screen for about a millisecond. Joely’s seen my butt?”
“Yes. Your butt is public domain. It’s even on a website, Joely says. Now who’s embarrassed?”
“You got me. To think your sister has seen my butt.” I shook my head. “I feel cheap.”
We both laughed.
“Um. Michael?”
“Uh-huh?”
“My sisters have gone back to my house ...”
“Yeah?”
“I was thinking …”
“Yeah?”
“I’d like to stay the night. With you.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“I’m not saying I’m ready to … you know. But I want to sleep in the same bed as you.”
After dinner, we went to the house. The house was pretty crowded: Grace and my father were watching TV. Everyone was in too good a mood after Van Morgan’s downfall to break it with bad news. Van Morgan was locked up. Heaven and Earth Enterprises would never pour concrete on anything ever again. Emerald Point would be saved. I did not have the heart to tell them what I’d learned about my brother’s death.
Sarah and I stayed up late before retiring to bed after everyone else in the house had long gone to sleep.
“Now we can go upstairs,” she said.
I could not remember being more nervous than at that moment. I wanted more than anything to make love to her, but I also knew Sarah was terrified. We went upstairs into my bedroom. I closed the door and turned on the lamps and we looked at each other. I stepped towards her, kissing her very, very slowly.
“Wait,” she said, breathless.
She crossed her arms and pulled off her blouse. She removed her skirt. She stood there in only her white silk boxer shorts, like an erotic prize-fighter – a svelter weight. She slowly slid down her boxers and stepped out of them. She was shivering, but she held my gaze.
“Now kiss me,” she said.
I blinked. I was sure I was going to wake up any second. This could not be happening. Sarah was looking at me, her eyes smiling, her body seeming to give off a golden aura in the light of the bedroom lamps.
“Kiss me,” she said.
And I did.
Sarah shared my bed that night. We did not make love, but we shared a level of intimacy that was just as good. We lay in the day holding each other, our bodies touching, sharing heat. I liked watching her sleep, hearing the gentle sighs of her breathing, feeling her warm body resting against mine. Her sleep was unhampered by nightmares, perhaps for the first time.
Mine was not that good.
I dreamt of Billy ...
It was dark. I was in a car down the street from Cape Mistral High. Nobody could see me, but I could see several seniors coming out of the exit. They jumped in cars and drove off. The parking lot was quiet. I waited. I could hear Unchained Melody drifting in the air. Now Billy was coming out of Cape Mistral High with Hanna. They were giggling and kissing. They looked like the perfect couple. Billy and Hanna walked to his car. Billy started the engine. Hanna kissed him. I watched them drive off. And I followed.
To kill them.
Jerking awake, I listened to the house and the rain on the roof. The nightmare faded. The house was quiet. Too quiet. It was after dawn and I should have been able to hear my dad downstairs. But I couldn’t hear him. He never slept late. I slid out of bed as quietly as I could, trying not to wake Sarah. I didn’t bother dressing in a shirt, just my jeans. I picked up the Beretta 9mm and clicked off the safety. I moved to the door and opened it, careful to make no noise. I stepped out onto the landing. The blue light of dawn permeated the house. I looked in Abby’s room as I passed it. Abby was sleeping beneath twisted sheets. I checked my father’s room. He was gone. At the top of the stairway I heard a sound below - a whisper - but it wasn’t my dad’s voice.
It was the voice I’d heard in the parking lot.
It came from the living room. Creeping down the stairs, I trained the gun on the doorway. I could hear feet shuffling.
“Son of a bitch,” someone said.
It was my dad.
I reached the door. The blue light filled the room. My dad was standing in the semi-darkness at the centre of the room.
Zeke Morrow was behind him, one arm around his throat, the other holding a flick-knife.
The blade reflected the sunlight creeping into the room through the closed curtains.
“Morning,” Morrow said. “Good you could join us.”
He had the flick-knife pressed to my father’s eye socket. It had drawn a spot of blood from his bottom eyelid. Morrow looked at the gun and appeared unimpressed.
“Drop the gun or I stick this into his eye.”
I knew that if I did drop the gun we were both as good as dead. Only heroes in movies drop their guns. It was all I had to negotiate with. Instead of dropping my gun, I aimed at him. “What do you want?”
“I want off this island,” he snarled. “You, me, and the old man are taking that boat of yours for a ride. You can steer. You get me to the mainland, I’ll let you go.”
And money grows on trees, I thought. But I pretended I was considering it. “You’ll let us go?”
“No point in killing you once I’m safe.”
“Don’t listen to him,” my father said.
“SHUT UP!” Morrow tensed his arm, drawing another spot of blood like a red teardrop that trickled down my father’s cheek. “YOU!” (He meant me.) “Drop the gun NOW!”
I could not do that. I could see some of his head and shoulders, but none of his body. My father was in the way. I tried to communicate with eye movements a plan – looking at my dad, then down at the ground. I wanted him to drop to his knees, exposing Morrow. But my father looked puzzled. I repeated it. My dad got it. He knew.
Now we just had to pick the moment.
“Hey,” Morrow said, “what’re you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Maybe you don’t think I’ll do it?”
“No, I believe you. Just don’t hurt us, okay?”
“I’m losing patience real fast. You got five seconds to drop the gun or I’ll pop his eye – then I’ll do the other one.”
“I’m lowering it,” I said.
“I heard a noise –” Abby said, dully. She was coming down the stairs.
Just for a second Morrow had his eyes on her and not on my father or the gun. Suddenly my father dropped and shouted: “Shoot him!”
I shot him. I shot him too low. I intended to hit him in the temple, but the bullet tore through his teeth and gums and came out his cheek near his ear,
which it mangled before thudding into the wall. Morrow fell backwards, screaming, clutching his cheek as he scrambled behind the furniture towards the kitchen doorway. I was astounded he survived the wound. I fired again – missing. Morrow dashed out of the room. He left a trail of blood and teeth. I chased after him. The kitchen door was wide open, rain pelting onto the floor. I ran through the opening. The garden was cold and gloomy. In the blue light, I couldn’t see where Morrow was.
(Not enough time to escape, surely?)
Air swishing.
He was behind me, bringing the knife down at my neck.
I twisted and the blade missed my neck but powered into my shoulder and snapped off inside. Morrow slammed into me. I could see his bloodied, gore-speckled face grinning. I wanted to hold onto the gun and bring it around to shoot, but my shoulder was going numb and my arm felt as if it were on fire. I lost it. The gun aquaglided across the lawn like a hockey puck.
Morrow brought me down with his football tackle, going for my eyes with his thumbs. His face was a hideous mess from the nose down. Somehow I could see shattered teeth glued to the raw meat hanging from his jaw. He spat blood and saliva. He was yelling something so ravaged with pain and murderous rage that he didn’t sound human. He didn’t feel the short kicks to the groin I gave with my knees. With my good arm, I blocked him. His weight was on me, though, and he was determined. His blood was hot on my face. It was hard to see what was going on. He sought out my eyes while I shook my head side to side. His fingers dug into my flesh, gouging, getting closer to my eye sockets.
But then my father pulled him off and threw him aside. Morrow struggled to stand while my father offered his hand to me. I took it and got up just as Morrow started running for the gun.
It was about ten feet away.
I leapt at him, dragging him down. His elbow struck my face, but I held on. He still had strength in him to drag himself closer to the gun.
It was almost within reach. He kicked backwards, freeing himself. Grunting, he half-staggered, half-crawled towards the gun.
Then he got hold of it and shouted in triumph.
He would have made it, too, if my father had not at that moment brought the garden rake down on his head with such force the prongs buried into his skull with a crack like thunder knocking over a tree.