by Nathan Field
“Mr Carney?” the detective said.
“Sorry, I was thinking. No. Nobody springs to mind.”
“Are you sure? Take your time. You don’t owe money to anyone? Or made an enemy at work? I know reporters can rub people the wrong way.”
I waited a few seconds before shaking my head. “Sorry.”
“What about relationships? You haven’t been screwing a girl with a jealous boyfriend? Or a jealous ex?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
The male detective ran a slow hand across his jaw. “Okay, let me put it to you this way. Why do you think you were run down tonight?”
“I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You think it was a random attack?”
“Yeah. He was probably looking to knock me down so he could steal my wallet. But things got messy, and then that guy showed up, so he was forced to abort.”
The two detectives exchanged a dubious look.
“Hey, you ask me,” I said. “I want to catch this asshole as much as you do.”
“Then start telling us the truth,” the female detective said sharply. “Muggers don’t run people down in their BMWs.”
“We’re not interested in your past sins,” the male detective added. “We just want the guy who did this to you. So why don’t you help us out?”
“I’m trying,” I groaned, making a show of touching the top of my head. “But could we do this later? I’m exhausted, and my head’s really starting to hurt.”
“We’ve on a tight schedule,” the female detective said, no longer attempting to hide her disdain. “And the longer we wait, the less chance we have of catching the perp.”
“My colleague is right,” the male detective said. “If you can’t help us now, there’s no point us coming back. It’s now or never, Mr Carney. Can you give us anything to work with?”
I shook my head, wincing for effect. The female detective rolled her eyes, and the male detective gave a resigned sigh. They got up to leave. The male detective handed me his card, and told me to call him when I was ready to talk. The female detective had already left the room.
And suddenly, I was utterly exhausted. I sat in silence, staring at the wall. After a while, the angry-looking nurse returned and wheeled me back to the main ward. Men’s snores rose out of the dark. An orderly helped me into bed. I heard the nurse whisper something about delayed shock. She no longer looked angry. She told me the doctor would see me in the morning, and I should get some sleep. Then they drew the curtain around me.
I closed my eyes. Sleep slowly overcame me, but not before images of Lucy’s final moments played over in my head. I could see the look on her face when Sterling walked in the door, and she realized I’d failed her again. The hatred that would’ve burned in her eyes. She would’ve taken that feeling to the grave.
19. “Did you get what you came for?”
Having picked up the killer’s scent at Margaret Piper’s house, I drove straight back to the Park Royal and extended my stay for two nights. I still had unfinished business in Sacramento. The meeting with Abby might’ve been cut short, but it had revealed a number of disturbing facts about the Piper family.
Sterling’s kids hadn’t had things easy growing up. Particularly the two youngest – forced to live with a mentally disturbed mother, and then losing their father, their sole protector, in such a gruesome manner. Obviously it had been too much for the youngest, Evan. You didn’t need a psychology degree to work out that Evan’s troubled childhood had played a part in his suicide.
And the killer had wanted me to know. The call from the Ellis Street office to Margaret Piper’s house was deliberately placed – he’d expected me to follow up and learn the devastating impact Sterling’s death had had on his children.
For the first time since the original late-night phone call, I had a prime suspect. The killer had to be one of the Piper children. Probably the surviving son, since the voice on the phone had unquestionably been male.
It made sense: the knowledge of the nickname Johnny, the links to Sacramento, the references to crimes of the past. It might’ve taken eight years, but somehow he’d managed to track down the man who’d cuckolded his father. The man he blamed for his father’s death. And now, tipped over the edge by his brother’s suicide, he was hell bent on exacting revenge.
I was confident I was on the right track. However, one gigantic piece of the puzzle remained. Ralph Emerson. Abby had not only recognized the name, she’d implied that anyone with a passing interest in the Piper case would know where he fitted in. There had to be an obvious link I wasn’t seeing. And now I was back in Sacramento, I knew exactly who to call.
According to her Linkedin profile, Wendy Carmichael had left the Tribune six years ago to pursue her life-long dream of attending cooking school in Provence. Thankfully, she’d since returned to Sacramento, and for the past three years she’d been managing an art café in midtown called The Pumpkin Patch.
After checking the cafe was still open at 10pm, I made the twenty minute walk into midtown, hoping to knock off a late breakfast at the same time. The Pumpkin Patch turned out to be every bit as new age and Mother Earthy as its name implied. I appreciated the cavernous, candle-lit space, allowing me to slip my shades into my jacket pocket, but the cloying incense smoke and indie folk soundtrack was not to my taste. Neither was the café’s collection of oil paintings and wobbly life drawings, which had obviously been sourced from the local craft fair. I just hoped the food was more palatable than the art.
When I asked for a single seating, a stout waitress with braided hair showed me to a long communal table. I ignored the seat she gestured to, and sat down at the end, a safe distance from the nearest diner. I held the menu up to the candlelight and searched for something edible amid the jumbled, cutely named items that looked like they’d been written in crayon. While I was tossing up between the Mexican Tummy Tickler (three bean chili) and the Green Eyed Monster (spaghetti in green peppercorn and lentil sauce), I noticed the braided waitress was still lurking at my side. I felt her eyes running over my face, making my cheeks burn.
I looked up and glared. “I’ll need a minute.”
Her mouth was twisted to the side, caught between concentration and a halting smile. “Peter Carney?”
I strained to read her features in the muted light. She wore no make-up, and her skin was rough and sun-damaged. Then I recognized her wide-set brown eyes. I stood up. “Wendy! Sorry, the braids threw me.”
“Yeah, and the scars threw me,” she said, pulling me into a strong, motherly hug. She was only five years older than me, but I always felt like a misbehaving teenager in her presence.
“It’s good to see you,” I said.
“And it’s fantastic to see you, hot-shot. What the hell are you doing in my café?”
“I stumbled across your name on Linkedin, and I saw you’d ditched journalism to become a restauranteur. Obviously I had to check it out for myself.”
Wendy hooted with laughter. “Restauranteur. You always had a way with words.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. “My God, Peter Carney! Give me a minute and I’ll join you for dinner.”
“That’d be great,” I said, holding up the menu. “You can translate.”
“It’s all good, baby,” she grinned. “Don’t let the crayon fool you.”
Wendy disappeared for a few minutes, presumably to organize some back-up, before she returned and sat down opposite me. I insisted on hearing her news first. She didn’t hold back, giving me a full account of the past eight years, including her battles with management at the Tribune, the spiritual awakening she’d experienced in Provence, and her recent marriage to a music teacher named Ivan. I was happy to lend half an ear to her story as I sipped free-trade coffee and ate the house special pumpkin lasagna.
“Sounds like you’ve landed on your feet,” I said when she finally paused for breath.
“It’s been an interesting journey,” Wendy said. “But
enough about me, what about you? Boy did you set tongues a-wagging when you disappeared.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be so mysterious.”
“Was it about a girl? I remember Izzy saying you had relationship issues.”
“Yeah, a lot of things had been building up, and the girl was the final straw. I guess I needed a clean break.”
“It was clean, alright. You vanished off the face of the earth. Izzy went into a serious panic. He thought you’d jumped off the Foresthill Bridge or something.”
I grimaced. “I should probably call him.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s over it by now.” Wendy leaned forward, eyes twinkling with curiosity. “Well c’mon hot-shot, I’m waiting. What have you been doing for the past eight years?”
“Not as much as you’d think,” I laughed. I was wary of saying too much to my ex-colleague, for her protection as well as my own. In the version of my life I told to Wendy, I was still a freelance script editor and gag merchant living in San Francisco, busying myself with work and generally keeping my nose clean. But I chose not to reveal my real reasons for leaving Sacramento, or my extreme aversion to light, or the fact I was being stalked by the vengeful son of Sterling Piper.
Wendy listened keenly, but I could tell she was disappointed by the lack of real spice to the story. “What about your scars?” she asked.
I decided to give her a small bone to chew on. “I was hit by a car. Hit and run, actually.”
Wendy whistled theatrically. “Jesus. Did they catch the guy?”
“No. But it knocked my confidence for a while. I still find it hard to talk about.”
Wendy chewed her bottom lip. “Shit, that sucks, Peter. I’m really sorry. But you’re face – it doesn’t look that bad. Kind of sexy, in a way.”
“Was I too pretty for you before?”
“You were never that pretty.”
We laughed and shot the breeze for a while longer, talking about the old days at the Tribune, and passing judgment on ex-colleagues. When Wendy mentioned a sub-editor who’d recently died, I saw an opportunity to raise the subject I’d been waiting patiently to discuss.
“That’s a real shame,” I said. “He was one of the good guys. Actually, speaking of tragedies, another name from the past popped up the other day. Ralph Emerson, do you remember him?”
She looked at me quizzically. “Yeah, of course. From the Piper shootings. You gave me the lead, remember?”
“That’s why I mentioned it,” I said, hearing my voice tighten. “Anyway, he was murdered last week.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Murdered?”
“In his swimming pool, with a golf club. No one’s been arrested yet.”
“Jesus,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s terrible. Now I feel bad for all the awful things I said about him.” She blew out a breath. “Still, I guess it goes to show – what goes around comes around.”
The suspense was killing me. I had to know. “What did he do that was so bad?”
Wendy looked at me curiously again. “Don’t you remember? He was fucking Lucy Piper for two years, and he didn’t even try to hide it. He drove Sterling insane with jealousy, to the point he might as well have put the gun in the old man’s hand. Then, after the killings, he skips town to avoid any heat, basically absolving himself of all responsibility. Quite a guy, right?”
The room suddenly grew cold around me. Wendy’s voice sounded distant, like she was talking behind glass.
“Yeah, lucky he had alibis for the night of the shootings, because in every other respect, he behaved like a guilty man. I know the children had a hard time believing he wasn’t responsible, even when the forensics confirmed it was a murder-suicide.”
He was fucking Lucy Piper for two years. I couldn’t speak. Wendy leaned across the table, frowning. “Hey, hot-shot. You don’t look so hot.”
I blinked hard, willing myself back into the moment. The past would have its way with me, soon enough. “Sorry. Someone must’ve walked over my grave.”
“No kidding. Was it something I said?”
I shook my head. “I just froze for a minute. Sorry.”
Wendy’s head drew back, regarding me suspiciously. “You never did tell me who tipped you off that night.”
“He was just a local cop.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you had a contact in the police. Do you guys still keep in touch?”
“I left town, remember.”
“Yeah, of course. Not long after the shootings.”
I shrugged, my eyes darting away from Wendy’s intense gaze. I made a show of checking my watch. “Oh, shit. I didn’t realize the time.”
“Late for something?”
“I’ve got an early start tomorrow,” I said, reaching around for my jacket. “I’ll be a mess if I don’t get my eight hours sleep. Sorry to run off like this.”
“Hey, no problem. I understand.”
We both got to our feet. I pulled out my wallet, but Wendy said dinner was on the house, and my money was no good. As we walked to the door, I could tell she hadn’t finished with me. Sure enough, after we hugged goodbye, she held my shoulders and said, “Did you get what you came for?”
I frowned. “How do you mean?”
“Spare me the bewildered act, Pete. I know you didn’t stop by to catch up on old times, or to eat vegetarian food. And I know Ralph Emerson’s name didn’t come up by accident.”
“I’m not sure I follow you….”
“–It’s coming back to me now. When I first learned that Lucy Piper was having an affair, I immediately thought of you. You sounded weird on the phone, like you were barely holding it together, and I thought you must’ve been involved somehow. Even when the mystery man turned out to be Ralph Emerson, I didn’t stop wondering. But the story didn’t need another angle, and I thought if you were tangled up with the Pipers, you’d probably want the whole thing put to bed.” Her face melted with pity. “But you never did put it to bed, did you. That’s why you left town so suddenly. You were in love with her.”
I looked at her for a long moment. Then I shrugged off her hands and turned for the exit. “I have to go.”
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Wendy said, tugging the back of my jacket. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t, but I really have to go.”
I burst out of the door and walked briskly down the street, eager to get as far from the café as possible. Midtown was deserted, like the aftermath of a tragedy, yet a terrible sound roared in my ears.
The night, my old friend, was laughing at me.
20. “I need you to open your eyes”
The doctors told me I was lucky. My retromandibular vein had been severed by a glass shard, but the tip had stopped a millimeter short of slicing the external carotid artery, which likely would’ve killed me. Still, it wasn’t the kind of luck that made me want to rush out and buy a lottery ticket. Especially when they told me I had eighty-four stitches in my face. The painkillers and the bandages masked the extent of the damage, but when the doctors mumbled things like soft tissue loss and cheek reconstruction, I knew that my face would never look the same again.
Adding to my stress, I was certain the cops would soon identify me as Johnny, the mystery boyfriend from Lucy’s letter. Although we’d been as careful as illicit lovers could be, all it took was one nosy motel clerk or gas station attendant to put us together. And if the cops determined that Sterling had been the victim of a violent attack shortly before the shootings, the third party angle might be seriously considered.
My fingerprints were on the letter. My DNA was smeared all over Sterling’s bloodied face. A distraught family and a pressured police force might conspire to find a scapegoat. Someone above ground to charge with assault, or blackmail, or even murder.
I was allowing my imagination to run wild, but I felt hopelessly vulnerable in my hospital bed, at the mercy of events beyond my control. I didn’t dare contact Wendy for fear of rousing her suspicion. I
didn’t even tell Izzy my whereabouts. I was reduced to refreshing the Tribune’s website twenty times a day, searching for an update.
On my third day in hospital, I found what I was looking for. A brief update from Wendy appeared in the local news section. The first sentence told me everything I needed to know: “Sacramento police have formally declared the Piper shootings a murder-suicide after third party involvement was ruled out.”
I felt a small amount of relief. Either the forensics were unequivocal, or Lucy’s insistence on discretion had paid off. Maybe the cops hadn’t even found the letter, and the third party angle was just idle gossip. In any case, as long as I kept my mouth shut, I was off the hook. I could concentrating on getting better, and trying to forget.
On the day I was due to be discharged, the duty nurse came and drew the curtain around my bed. I wasn’t even nervous as she peeled the bandages off. I’d already prepared myself for a shock.
“The redness will fade,” the nurse said as I studied myself in the mirror. “And the stitches will dissolve soon. It won’t be like this forever.”
“Sure,” I said, inspecting my profile. From my right side, I was virtually unrecognizable. The tear-like wounds were grotesque, and my cheek looked like two separate pieces of flesh stitched together. I was going to turn heads, all right.
“Do you want to speak to someone,” the nurse said tentatively.
“No,” I said, handing back the mirror. “I’m fine.” And strangely, I was. Not about what had happened, or what the future held. But about my face. It was nothing less than I deserved.
After changing into the clothes I’d come in with, I pulled back the curtain, preparing to leave. But instead, I sat back down on the bed, breathing heavily. Something wasn’t right. My head felt hot and runny. When I looked up, the glare of the hospital ward – shiny floors, white ceilings, steel-framed beds – made me wince with pain.