by Mike Stewart
“You still asleep?”
“Natalie?”
“Who'd you think it was? You must've been dead to the world.”
“What do you mean?”
She laughed. “The phone rang about fifteen times before you picked it up.” She stopped, then her voice changed. “Are you all right, Scott? Has something happened?”
Scott thought of the caller asking for Natalie—asking for her with something like familiarity in her voice. His eyes searched the carpet at his feet. “I need to know where Kate went when she left the hospital.”
“We talked about that, Scott. No one seems to know.”
He tried to slow his thoughts. “What about her last paycheck? Maybe reports on her 401-k? Continuation of insurance coverage? Somebody's gotta be sending her something. You don't just walk away from a professional job at the beginning of the twenty-first century and not have paperwork following you around.”
“You're right. Let me think.” Most of minute passed, and he heard Natalie speaking with someone away from the phone. Finally, she came back on the line. “I'm going to have to use a favor.”
Scott began, “Who are you talking to? I—”
She cut him off. “Can't say right now.”
“Oh. Okay. If the favor isn't too much to ask . . .”
“No, no. I don't mind a bit. It's just . . . Well, I don't know how many favors I've got left around here.”
Scott cussed. “I'm sorry. I got a phone call that freaked me out a little. How did your meeting with Reynolds go?”
“Nice of you to ask.” She laughed. “A reprimand is going in my file, and I've got a two-week suspension with pay. But that's it.”
“With pay, huh?”
“Yeah. How about that? If I'd known it'd get me a paid vacation, I'd have yanked down some guy's pants at the office a year ago.”
Scott smiled.
“Now,” Natalie said, “about Kate Billings . . .”
“Some woman called, allegedly with a message from Kate. Said Kate wants to meet me tonight.”
“Holy shit. Do you think the call was for real?”
“I don't know. But you need to know that the caller asked for you. She knows your name.” Natalie didn't respond, and he went on. “But if Kate is looking for me—if she knows about you, too—I'd rather find her before she finds us.”
“Right. Look, I'm waiting around here for Reynolds's secretary to finish typing my reprimand so I can have indignity of reading and signing it.” She paused. “Don't worry. I'll get what you want. Will you be there when I get home?”
“With dinner on the table.”
She laughed again. “Aren't you sweet.”
“Hell,” Scott said, “I can order takeout with the best of them.” He tried hard to sound less anxious than he felt.
The call came just after three that afternoon. Kate Billings would meet Scott on the street, just outside the entrance to the hospital parking lot, at ten P.M. Again, Scott thought he recognized the woman's voice on the phone. And again, she denied ever meeting him. But as she denied it, Scott placed the voice: the girl hitchhiker who had helped carjack his Land Cruiser.
Natalie breezed into her apartment less than an hour later. “Where's dinner?”
Scott smiled. “Cute. It's not even four o'clock yet.”
“You said dinner on the table. I'm looking at the table and . . .” She shrugged.
“That woman called again. I think it was the girl who stole my car the night all this started. Anyway”—he shook his head—“she said Kate wants to meet me tonight at ten, outside the hospital parking lot.”
Natalie's smile faded. “So, basically you're supposed to hang around the street at night waiting for someone to drive by and shoot at you.”
Scott nodded. “Basically.”
“Or this Kate Billings is actually going to show up and explain everything.”
Scott just looked at her.
“I found out that Kate's final paycheck was mailed to a Boston address.”
Scott glanced up. “At least she's in the city.”
“Well, maybe. It went to the architectural firm of Hunter & Petring. Patricia Hunter's husband is the Hunter.” Her eyes searched Scott's face. “Do you want to know what I think?”
“Of course.”
“I think Kate Billings is long gone from Boston. Think about it. If she had an address here, she wouldn't need her checks to go through Hunter's office. I think she's out of town but still tied into this Hunter guy somehow, and she's having her mail routed through his business address so no one will know where she is.”
“You think Charles Hunter had something to do with his wife's death? Is that what you're getting at?”
“Not necessarily. Could just be that Kate has insinuated herself into his life somehow, which would mean . . .”
“That he's in trouble, too.”
Natalie walked to the refrigerator and opened the door. “What did you eat today?”
“Yogurt.”
“Sorry. Not much of a cook.” She shut the door and turned back to Scott. “All I know is that Kate Billings is tied to Charles Hunter, and—more important at the moment—she is not currently living in Boston. What you have to decide is whether she's planning a return trip to meet you so she can straighten out your life. Considering that she didn't place the call herself, that she hasn't bothered to write or call before now, and that she allegedly wants to rekindle your relationship on a dark street in the middle of the night . . .”
“Ten o'clock is not the middle of the night.”
“You get my point, though.”
Scott ran his hand through his hair and pushed at his glasses. “Got a phone book?”
“Sure.” Natalie opened a drawer and pulled out a Bell Atlantic book for Greater Boston. She tossed the monster directory onto Scott's lap.
He flipped pages, then reached for the phone next to the sofa.
Natalie asked, “What are you doing?”
He held up a palm. “Yes. Could I speak to Mr. Hunter's assistant, please?” He paused. “Sure. I'd be glad to hold.” He put a palm over the mouthpiece. “Who's the benefits manager at the hospital?”
“Bridget Palmer.”
Scott stared at her. “I think my voice is too low.”
“Oh.” She blushed. “Say you're Tim O'Rourke. He's a flunky in personnel. Does a little bit of everything.”
Seconds passed. “Yes. This is Tim O'Rourke in employee benefits at Boston Hospital. Our records show that a former employee, Kate Billings, had her last paycheck sent to your address. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Right. Listen, I need to speak with Ms. Billings regarding a 401-k election. I could write, but if she wants the full tax benefit, I really need to speak with her in the next day or two. So, I was wondering . . . Uh-huh, uh-huh.” Scott wiggled his fingers at Natalie, and she handed him a pen from her purse. “Okay, go ahead. Got it. Thank you very much. Good-bye.”
Natalie grinned at him. “Sneaky, aren't we?”
Scott didn't repond.
“What's the matter?”
“The number has a two-five-two area code.” He flipped to the front of the Bell Atlantic phone book and ran his finger over a map of the country. “That's North Carolina.”
“So?”
“Nothing.” He punched in the number. On the fifth ring, a child answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Yes. May I speak to Kate please?”
“Okay.” The sound of the receiver being dropped rang in his ears, then he heard the child's voice again—this time distant and muffled. “Kate? Kate! Telephone. It's for you.”
Seconds passed before he heard the next voice. “Hello?”
Scott pressed the OFF button on the phone and tossed the receiver onto the sofa. “She's in North Carolina.”
Natalie shook her head. “Don't guess she's gonna be waiting outside the parking deck tonight.”
“No.”
Her eyes roamed over his face. “You're not still going, are you?”
“Yeah,” he almost whispered. “I think I have to.”
CHAPTER 36
Roseland Drive was short. Maybe a couple of miles was all. On the phone that morning, Cannonball had asked when Mr. Pongeraytor would be home, not wanting to show up in the middle of the day when just the wife would be there. The old man wasn't assuming prejudice—not just because of his color. But Cannonball Walker knew what he looked like. Living fifty years every night in a bar—every night breathing smoke and washing down bar food with bourbon, eating whatever the kitchen served up—the life took its toll. Walker was a hard man. He looked it. And it scared people sometimes.
The Pongeraytor place was a white clapboard house sandwiched between two small brick Tudors. The front grass looked like a putting green, the shrubs like they had been grown inside perfect, rectangular forms. He mounted the steps and rang the doorbell.
Some time passed before the door swung open and a white-haired man stepped out. “Yes?”
“I'm Canon Walker. I spoke to your wife earlier today on the telephone.”
“Right, right.” He stepped aside. “She told me about it. Come on in.” They walked past a Victorian living room and through a long kitchen with pine cabinets and vinyl flooring. “Such a nice day. Thought we could talk out here on the patio.” Mr. Pongeraytor opened a rear door and led Cannonball down three steps onto a brick patio. “Please.” He motioned at a white wrought-iron chair. “Have a seat.”
Cannonball nodded and sat. “Appreciate you seeing me. A stranger calling like that.”
“Right.” He hesitated as if not sure what to say next. “I don't think I told you my name. I'm John Pongeraytor.” He hesitated again. “You said something about representing the Thomas boy?”
“That's right. I flew in a couple of days ago. Scott Thomas asked me . . .”
The back door squeaked on its hinges, and a sixtyish woman with light red hair brought a tray of iced tea out onto the patio. John smiled. “Thank you, honey. This is the man who called today.” He glanced at Cannonball. “Canon Walker, right?”
He nodded.
“This is my wife, Alice.”
She held out her hand. “Reverend.”
Cannonball smiled. He knew Southerners were friendly, but the quick invitation and the tray of tea had seemed suspect. These nice people thought that Scott Thomas's minister had come to call on family business. The old bluesman had his mouth open to correct their mistake when he thought better of it. Instead, he simply said, “Nice to meet you, Alice. I hope you're going to join us.”
Deep crow's feet formed at the corners of blue eyes when she smiled. “Of course. Truth be known, I'm curious about what the older Thomas boy is up to after all these years.”
Cannonball smiled back. “He's done well for himself. In school at Harvard, working on his doctorate.”
Alice lowered her tiny backside into a metal chair. A hand went to her chest. “My goodness. That is nice.”
“But something has come up that . . . Well, something very disturbing for Scott has happened recently. Two things, really.” Cannonball took a glass of tea from Alice's outstretched hand, took a sip, and smiled appreciatively before going on. “First of all, someone at the Birmingham Police Department has reopened the investigation into the fire that killed his family.”
The Pongeraytors shared a look, then John asked, “What's the second problem?”
“Strange as it may sound, a young man—uh, someone whose face looks shiny like it was burned—has shown up in Boston. He's following Scott. Showing up in the strangest situations.” He stopped to think, to decide how much to tell, and John interrupted.
“Bobby” was all he said. His wife nodded her tinted hair.
Cannonball was genuinely shocked. “That's what Scott thought. You do mean Scott's brother? You think this young man is Bobby Thomas. Is that what you're saying?”
“Makes sense. Had to happen sooner or later. Bobby got out of the hospital about a year ago.”
Cannonball tried to think. “A year ago?”
“Well.” Alice spoke up. “John's putting a nice face on it. It's true that Bobby was hospitalized for months and months following the fire, but . . .” She looked off into the distance and straightened her dress. “This is so . . . unpleasant.”
“I need to know, if you can tell me.”
She sighed. “I guess it's common knowledge. You see, Bobby was burned so badly in the fire that he just never looked like a normal boy. And, well, you know how cruel children can be.”
“Oh, good Lord,” John Pongeraytor interrupted. “The kid's a thug. He started out beating up other kids and moved on to teachers and coaches. They kicked him out over there at the high school, and the next thing we heard he'd killed a guy over a six-pack of beer.”
“When did this happen?”
“Oh”—John looked at his wife—“about seven, eight years ago. I guess he was about fourteen at the time.”
“Young enough to get youthful offender status,” Alice said.
“And he just got out?”
Alice sipped her tea. “Like we said, about a year ago.”
Cannonball started to ask something, and John held up his hand to stop him. “Let's back up a minute. There's something wrong about the first problem you mentioned, too. You know, what you said about the Birmingham police reopening the fire investigation.” Cannonball could see a fine intelligence working in the man's eyes. John said, “Let me explain something about Birmingham. It's gotten to be a pretty big place. Lots of people in what they call the Metro Area. But what we all call Birmingham is really a collection of mostly small towns. Course, Birmingham itself is big, but the suburbs—Homewood, Vestavia, Mountain Brook, Hoover—they're all independent, incorporated cities.”
“I don't understand what that has to do—”
“The fire was here in Homewood.” He pointed to a brick Tudor next door. “That house right there. Birmingham police got nothing to say about what happens in Homewood.”
“Oh.”
“Now, like I said, most people just say Birmingham to talk about the whole area, and maybe that's what somebody meant when they said the Birmingham police were reopening the investigation, but . . .” He paused. “It seems fishy, anyhow.”
Cannonball noticed the glass in his hand and placed it on a glass table. “What do you mean, fishy?”
Alice spoke up. “What did you say your relationship with Scott was?”
Cannonball could actually feel his face blush. They couldn't see it, but he could feel it just the same. These were not people he wanted to mislead. “I'm his friend.”
“His minister?”
“No. I'm his friend. I guess I'm more of an advisor than anything else.”
John said, “Canon Walker? I hope you won't be insulted if I ask for proof that you're here to represent the Thomas boy's interests.”
“No, sir. Not insulted at all.” Cannonball reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a copy of the power of attorney executed by Scott. He unfolded the document and handed it to John.
John smiled and handed the document in turn to his wife. “Alice was a legal assistant at the biggest firm in the state for thirty years.”
Now Alice blushed. She said, “Just a secretary, really.” But she consumed the document with extraordinary speed and focus before looking up to nod at her husband. “I think we can quit worrying about Canon Walker's intentions.” She turned to smile at Cannonball. “He's here for Scott.” Her voice sounded soft now, almost appreciative.
The old bluesman's eyes moved from Alice's face to John's. Both looked hard into his eyes. Both looked a little bruised by what had to be said. John broke the silence, first by speaking to his wife. “The boy doesn't know.”
She shook her head.
John turned to Cannonball. “Nobody's going to reopen that investigation. Heck, it wasn't much of an investigation to begin with. Everybody knew what happened.” He took a deep breath. “Scott's father, Robert, got in som
e trouble at the bank. Nobody knew it until after the fire, but apparently he'd been embezzling funds. He worked in the trust department, you know.”
Cannonball just shook his head.
“Well, anyway, poor Robert burned down his house for the insurance money.” He paused, searching for something to add. “It's just that simple. There was never . . . never any question about what happened.” John picked up his tea and killed a third of it. “And something else. Scott's family didn't die in that fire.”
The bluesman sat bolt upright in his chair. “You talkin' about Bobby?”
“I mean Robert Thomas managed to mess up the fire just like he'd messed up his job at the bank. We were living next door even back then.”
Cannonball nodded. “Scott told me. That's why he asked me to look you up.”
“Right. I knew Scott. Not as anything but a little tow-headed boy on a bike, but I knew him. His parents, Robert and Nancy, had us over for cookouts a few times. We returned the favor.”
“I understand what you're tellin' me ain't gossip, Mr. Pongeraytor. You knew these folks.”
“Right.” He drank more tea. “Anyway, Robert was an A-1 fuck-up.”
Alice shamed John by the way she said his name.
“I'm sorry, Reverend. But it's true. Man just couldn't get his act together. I never understood how he got Nancy. Woman was sharp as a tack. Good-looking, too. In any event, the investigator from the fire department stopped by about a week after the fire and came over here to use our phone. This guy tells me that Robert used an accelerant to start the fire—probably gasoline he kept around for his lawnmower. Said it wasn't a secret. That it'd be in the papers. And it was. But he also told me that Robert's body was burned—”
Alice rose out of her seat, said “Excuse me, please,” and hurried into the house.
Cannonball grimaced. “Sorry to make y'all talk about this.”
John nodded. “It's all right. Alice was close to Nancy.”
His words began to fall into place inside Cannonball's head. “Are you tellin' me that Robert Thomas was the only one killed in the fire?”
John let out a breath and his shoulders visibly relaxed. “That's what I'm telling you. Robert died. Bobby and his mother were badly burned. Neither of 'em ever been the same. Scott got out.”