MICHAEL LISTER'S FIRST THREE SERIES NOVELS: POWER IN THE BLOOD, THE BIG GOODBYE, THUNDER BEACH

by Michael Lister

  “Jimmy turned me into a reader when we were together—well, actually I really didn’t start until after we were over, but—”

  “Well,” Ann said, her voice calm, but very cool, “the decision is yours, of course, but I feel like we have made very good progress. You’ve come a long way in a short time.”

  “I’ve been talking to a priest,” Lauren said, “and it seems to be helping.”

  “I see,” she said. “Why a priest?”

  “No one else can help me now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Don’t you know?” Lauren asked.

  “No, that’s why I asked,” Ann said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell you what,” Ann said. “Just to make sure this isn’t a rash decision, let’s schedule two more sessions. Then if you still wish to discontinue therapy I’ll support you.”

  “Okay.”

  They said a few more things I couldn’t make out, then there was a pause.

  “So,” Ann said. “See you next Thursday.”

  “Oh, no I can’t. Next Thursday I have a doctor’s appointment.”

  “Is it with Dr. Rainer?” she asked. “Did you make it during our time because you intended to discontinue our sessions? How long have you been planning this?”

  “It was the only time he could take me,” she said. “And it can’t wait.”

  “I hope it’s nothing serious,” Ann said, fishing.

  Lauren didn’t respond.

  “I guess I thought, given enough time, my desire for Jimmy would wane, my resolve to stay away from him strengthen, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “It hasn’t turned out that way. In fact, just the opposite. My desire has intensified and my resolve has waned.”

  “I see.”

  “Sometimes I want to forget about everything else—God and all the rest—and just be with Jimmy. What does that mean? Am I really supposed to be with him? Have I made a horrible mistake?”

  “What do you think it means?”

  Lauren laughed at that, but it was ironic and humorless. “You’ve got the easiest job in the world. Just sit and listen, and when asked a question just turn it around on the person and ask them the same thing.”

  “It’s not really me you’re angry with, is it?” Ann asked.

  “No.”

  “So,” she said again, “what do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know,” Lauren said. “I wish I did. I’m just confused and I feel bad. Why does all this have to be so hard?”

  I thought about how often I had taken the path of least resistance, never even pausing to consider other roads. Lauren’s struggle showed her depth, her growth—just how wrong I had been about her.

  “What’s really bothering you, Lauren?” Ann asked.

  “What a stupid question,” she said. “Talk about—”

  “What did you find out at the doctor?”

  Lauren burst into tears.

  I listened for a long time after that, but there was nothing else on the recording.

  “You set me up,” Lauren said.

  “What?”

  “You sent me to Rainer,” she said. “You’re in it with him.”

  “In what?” Ann asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know,” Lauren said. “He’s blackmailing me.”

  “Dr. Rainer?” Ann asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “For what?”

  Lauren didn’t say anything.

  “What does he have on you, Lauren?”

  Lauren still didn’t respond.

  “Lauren,” Ann said. “Tell me what Dr. Rainer has on you.”

  As Ann continued to press Lauren, I realized she was in on it. She was trying to get Lauren to say what it was so she would have a recording of it.

  “Lauren, don’t leave,” Ann was saying. “Let me help you. You need my help.”

  The last recording was from this morning. It was the session I had interrupted.

  “I’ve come to beg you,” Lauren said. “Not for me, but for Harry. Being mayor is all he’s ever wanted, and he’ll make a great one. Please, for him, for this town. Please stop what you’re doing. I’ll pay you anything you like.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ann said. “There’s nothing I can do. I wish there was, but there’s just not.”

  “How can you be so . . . cold?” Lauren asked. “People’s lives are at stake.”

  “Don’t take it so personal,” Ann said. “It’s not, you know? Personal, I mean. It’s just politics.”

  “It is personal,” Lauren said. “You’re killing me, you’re robbing Harry of the only thing that matters to him, and you’re robbing this great town of a leader worthy of her.”

  “You seem very calm about all this,” Ann said.

  “I’m not calm,” Lauren said. “I’m very angry. I just don’t feel good. I’m having chest pains and I don’t have any strength.”

  “Lauren, listen to me,” Ann said. “One way or another Harry’s hopes of being mayor are over. Just accept that and go get treatment while there’s still time.”

  Ann’s receptionist interrupted then, said it was an emergency. Ann took the call, and Lauren left.

  Chapter 40

  The next morning, with no sleep, no shave, barely a shower, I was parked across the street from Ann Everett’s office on Grace Avenue. I had arrived early, and she was running late. I was hoping that she would walk into her office, see that the recordings were missing, panic, and lead me to Rainer.

  Lauren had still not come home. Nor had she shown up at the sanatorium—which Clip was watching while Ray caught a couple hours sleep and a shower.

  Everett’s first appointment arrived, a short lady with an enormous bottom and some sort of animal on the end of a leash. She parked right in front, whether to show off her importance or to save herself some effort in transporting her backside from the car to the office, I wasn’t sure. Probably a combination of both. She got out with whatever was on the leash, shuffled up to the door, and pulled on it. When it didn’t give, her hand slipped as she was coming back and she hit the small cement platform with the largest part of her. After she got up, which took a while, she waited for a few moments then huffed away, dragging the creature on the leash along behind her.

  I waited as three other clients arrived, found the door locked, looked around, then left, and was about to give up, when Everett’s receptionist pulled up, hopped out of her car, tacked a note to the front door, and took off again.

  After reading the note, which said that Dr. Everett was ill and would be out for a few days, I was tailing the receptionist, hoping she would lead me to Everett.

  She led me out to Watson Bayou to the new housing complex known as Cove Gardens, which probably meant her husband was an officer stationed at Tyndall Field.

  Cove Gardens, a thirty-acre complex located on the old Van Horn homestead, provided one hundred units for non-commissioned officers with the rank of sergeant or above and fifty units for civilian families. Nestled beneath live oaks, surrounded by paved streets and sidewalks, and fronting the waters of Watson Bayou, Cove Gardens offered some of the nicest housing in the area.

  Each unit faced the park, so Everett’s receptionist parked on the curb and walked into the back of the unit. She didn’t knock. In fact, she got in so quickly that I doubted the door had even been locked.

  I parked down the street in front of another unit, got out, and walked toward the unit she had gone into, the morning sun dappling the ground beneath my feet, the cool breeze waving the Spanish moss hanging on the oak limbs above.

  Standing on the porch next to the 50-gallon fuel tank, I looked around, then tried the door. It was unlocked.

  I opened it and went inside.

  The units were every bit as nice as I had heard. The kitchen had an electric refrigerator, a bottled-gas range, and a sink and tray combination for washing clothe
s as well as dishes, which was what I found the receptionist doing.

  “Mr. Riley?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

  She twisted toward me, her hands still submerged in the soapy water.

  “Don’t waste any time, do you?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Come right in and get to work.”

  “I was doing the washing when Dr. Everett called and asked me to run an errand for her. What are you doing here?”

  “I need to see Dr. Everett,” I said.

  “She doesn’t live here,” she said. “This house belongs to me and Richie—my husband. How did you know where I lived? How’d you get in?”

  “I followed you from Everett’s office,” I said. “The door was unlocked, so I came on in.”

  “Why didn’t you knock?”

  “I didn’t want to interrupt your washing,” I said.

  “That was—how’d you know I was washing?”

  “I’ve got to see Ann,” I said.

  She withdrew her hands from the soapy water and began to dry them with a dishtowel that was draped across the back of one of the straight-back wooden chairs around the kitchen table.

  “Dr. Everett is taking a few days off for personal reasons,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “It’s Midge.”

  “Midge, you seem like a nice person, so you’re probably not aware of what your boss has been up to—”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s mixed up with some very dangerous men in a blackmail scheme.”

  “Not Dr. Everett,” she said. “She couldn’t be. She’s a healer. She helps—”

  “She is,” I said. “She’s blackmailing one of her clients, Lauren Lewis, to get her husband to drop out of the mayor’s race.”

  Her eyes widened. She knew Lauren was a client, and she had obviously heard about Harry’s announcement after the debate.

  “Surely there’s some mistake,” she said. “She would never—”

  “She’s been recording our sessions without us knowing it,” I said.

  “I thought you knew,” she said. “I thought you had signed a waiver.”

  “I did,” I said. “For just the first few sessions. She told me she was doing research for a project about wounded servicemen. I doubt there’s any such project, but even if there were, that was supposed to have ended over six months ago.”

  She was beginning to entertain the possibility. I could tell.

  “It’s just all so hard for me to believe,” she said.

  “That’s because you’re a good person,” I said. “You can’t really understand people like Everett and Rainer.”

  “Dr. Rainer is in on it, too?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Midge,” I said, “Lauren is very sick and she’s missing. I’ve got to find her and get her some help. Now either Everett and Rainer have her or they know where she is. I’ve got to find them.”

  “I believe you. I’d tell you if I knew,” she said. “I just don’t have any idea. I don’t even know where she lives.”

  “Call her,” I said. “Try to get her to let you come by her house or meet you somewhere.”

  “I couldn’t,” she said.

  “You have to.”

  “She’d know I was lying,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

  The front door opened and I turned to see an air force uniform full of muscle walk thought it.

  “What the hell’s this?” he asked.

  “It’s not what you think, honey,” Midge said. “I swear it ain’t.”

  “I just need your wife to make a quick phone call for me,” I said. “It’s extremely important. Then I’ll be gone.”

  “Or you could go now,” he said.

  “I’ll go once your wife makes the call,” I said. “I’m not leaving until she does.”

  “Or maybe you are,” he said.

  He moved so quickly, there was nothing I could do. In two steps he was right in front of me and in two quick movements, he was smashing a large, heavy ceramic canister into the side of my head.

  I was trying to say something, trying to raise my arm to protect myself. I was thinking I could make him understand or catch him off guard, then I was just trying to react, to counter what he was doing, then . . . nothing.

  Chapter 41

  When I woke up, I was face down on Midge’s kitchen floor with a headache and dried blood on my face. Actually, I just thought I had a headache. When I pushed myself up, the real pain began.

  “Have a nice nap?”

  I looked around to see Butch smiling down at me.

  Pete stepped forward, extended his hand, and helped me up. “You okay there buddy?”

  I didn’t say anything. It was a stupid question. Of course I wasn’t okay. I had been whacked on the head with a ceramic canister.

  “We got you for breaking and entering,” Butch said. “Wanna tell us what the hell you think you’re doing?”

  I thought about whether I should tell them. It would give them plenty of ammunition to implicate Lauren in all the deaths surrounding the case, but I didn’t have a choice. They could help me track down Ann Everett, and that’s what I needed to do.

  I told them the truth—maybe not the whole truth, but certainly most of it.

  Butch turned to Midge, who had been hovering in the background with Richie in the livingroom.

  “And you don’t know where this Everett woman lives?” Butch asked.

  Richie had his arm around the little woman, holding her against his red-blooded, all-American fly-boy body protectively. They looked like an ad for the good life the war effort was protecting.

  “No, sir,” she said. “I just worked for her. We’ve never talked about anything personal.”

  “But you have her number, right?” I asked, adding to Pete, “She’s got her number.”

  “Are you sure about all this, Jimmy?” Pete asked. “You seem like you’re—”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “We’ve got to find her. And we’ve got to hurry.”

  “There’s a lot of things I don’t like about PIs,” Butch said. “A lot. But the thing I don’t like the most is how you fellas always make a mess, then we have to clean it up.”

  “Seems I recall a couple of us cleaning up your mess before you were able to make it recently,” I said.

  He hesitated, took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Okay,” he said, “so I went out of my head for a moment, and you guys helped me. I owe you one. Just don’t press it.”

  I nodded. “I won’t,” I said. “Just help me find Everett.”

  Butch looked at Jimmy, who shrugged, then to Midge. “Let’s have the number,” he said.

  She gave it to him. He then borrowed Midge’s phone, and called the station while we waited.

  “I’m sorry about your head, Mr. Riley,” Midge was saying. “I know you didn’t mean no harm. My Richie is very protective of me.”

  “I’m sorry I barged in,” I said. “I thought you might be involved in this thing with Everett. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “I understand,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  Butch replaced the receiver on the cradle and said, “I’ve got an address. Let’s go see if we can’t clean up this mess so you and me can be even.”

  It wasn’t me, but Ray he needed to worry about being even with, but I didn’t mention it.

  The small block home on Cherry Street in Callaway had obviously been neglected. The yard was mostly dirt with a few tall weeds. Peeling paint flaked off the block and collected in the dirt and weeds on the ground below. Newspaper had been taped over missing window panes and trash spilled out of a tin can in the front corner of the yard.

  I had followed Pete and Butch here in my car. I parked behind them on the shoulder of the street and got out.

  “You sure this is the right place?” I asked.

  “Will you listen to this?” Butch said. “I’v
e got a peeper second guessing me. And not just any peeper, but the one who got us into all this.”

  “Doesn’t look like the lady’s home,” Pete said, nodding toward the collection of Herald Tribunes on the front porch.

  “Only one way to find out for sure,” I said.

  I started to walk toward the house.

  “You wait here,” Butch said.

  “But—”

  “I can still arrest you for B and E,” he said. “I’s you I wouldn’t push me.”

  I knew Midge wouldn’t press charges, she wasn’t the type, but I held up my hand in a placating manner. “Just hurry.”

  Moving around Butch, Pete walked much faster to the porch and knocked on the front door. When, after a few moments, there was no response, he knocked again—louder and longer this time. Still nothing. His final knock was not a knock at all but an incessant banging.

  “Police. Open up,” he yelled.

  When there was still no answer, Pete walked around to the back of the house. Butch walked back toward me.

  “She ain’t here,” he said. “We’ll come back later.”

  “But what if—”

  “We’ll come back later,” he said. “Let us run down the rest of your story. Who knows? If we get enough evidence maybe we get a warrant and when we come back it don’t matter if nobody’s home.”

  I couldn’t figure Butch. He seemed genuine in his attempt to be helpful. Maybe it was his way of repaying me or perhaps he was trying to lull me to sleep in order to set me up somehow, but it seemed like good police work.

  “Thanks, Butch,” I said.

  He grunted.

  Pete walked back around and joined us.

  “No car,” he said. “No sign of life.”

  “Couldn’t we just—”

  “You got two choices,” Butch said. “Either way we’re all leaving this empty house. You can go get your head seen about, get some sleep, clean up—who knows?—maybe even shave, or you can go with us to a nice cozy jail cell. It’s up to you.”

  “Jimmy, we’re gonna keep looking for this Everett dame and Rainer, okay?” Pete said. “I’ll put out an APB. We’ll find them. I promise. Just go get yourself together and let us do our jobs. It’s exactly what you would’ve said back when you was a cop.”