by Linda Hall
Another laugh, then the laugh quieted. “Oh yeah, wait a minute. Somebody was saying that he was bragging about some girl he met online on one of them dating services. Forget her name though.”
“Lorena.” Alec frowned. Bryan had said that he met Lorena at church.
“Yeah. I think that’s the name I heard. But if you ask me, I don’t think he’s ever even laid eyes on her in real life.”
Alec shut his eyes briefly and prayed for wisdom. He sincerely hoped that Bryan was still seeing the counselor he was assigned to. He said, “Listen, man, I’m his brother. And we’re concerned about him out here…”
“Brother! Oh hey. Sorry for saying the things I did. Didn’t know a guy like that even would have a family.”
“Everyone has a family.”
There was mumbling on the other end of the line.
Alec said, “I wonder if you could give me the name and number of your apartment superintendent.”
Alec wrote the information down on a piece of paper. Maybe he needed to finally visit his little brother. Had it been four years since he’d made the trip out there? Maybe he needed to go again, and maybe it should be sooner rather than later. He even wondered about today. He could leave this case in the capable hands of Stu and Steve.
He thanked the man who’d answered the pay phone and hung up.
Alec looked through the address list on his phone and realized he didn’t have a phone number for Bryan’s pastor. He couldn’t even remember what church Bryan went to. Would his mother know? He didn’t want to phone her about this. He didn’t want to worry her.
Instead, he dialed the number for Bryan’s apartment superintendent.
“Yeah?”
Alec introduced himself and asked about Bryan Black.
“You’re the cop brother?”
“That’s right. Listen, I’m worried about him.”
“You should be. He’s about ready to be evicted. Hasn’t paid rent in two months.”
Alec sighed. This was worse than he thought. “Tell me how much he owes and I’ll send you a check. Better yet, when I come out I’ll pay you in full. But there is something I’d like you to do. I assume you have master keys to all the apartments? I’d like you to go into his apartment and then let me know if there’s anything that strikes you as wrong. I’ll wait.”
“Hey, man, it’s supper time here, you want me to do that now?”
“His family is worried about him. I’ll wait.”
“Okay then.” He heard retreating footsteps. Twelve minutes later the super came back on the line. “Can’t get into his apartment.”
“What do you mean you can’t get into his room? I thought you had a master key to all the rooms.”
“I don’t know, man. It’s like he’s got some sort of dead bolt lock on the inside. Our tenants aren’t allowed to do that, but a lot of them do it anyway.”
Alec breathed out a long breath. Tenants with something to hide. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to see if you can get into his room by any means possible. I’ll be flying out there tomorrow. As soon as I can get a flight.”
“Okay, man.”
After the phone call he went online and looked at airline ticket prices. The soonest he could get out was the day after tomorrow. February 14, Valentine’s Day. He was leaving to see his brother on what would be his twentieth wedding anniversary, which was the day the weatherman said a storm was coming. He could fly out of Boston. The storm was mostly tracking north. He needed to get out there. What was happening to Bryan weighed heavily on his mind.
When they were boys, Alec and Bryan had been the best of friends, but there was a dark side to Bryan’s childhood. The times that Bryan bullied the neighbor’s pet, Alec took the blame. When Bryan played with fire and matches, Alec hid the matches, hid the evidence. Why had he done that? It all had to do with his mother. Even as a child, he sensed her emotional fragility, and so Alec continually covered up to protect his mother. He had lied on the stand not to protect Bryan, but to protect his mother. She wanted two happy, healthy sons. He would hear her crying at night. He would see her worried frown. He knew she suffered headaches brought on by the challenges of Bryan.
He remembered his parents taking Bryan from psychologist to psychologist when Bryan was younger. Alec knew his mother would never admit it, but that she felt a kind of relief when her youngest son was put behind bars.
Even though it was late, Alec picked up his phone again and called Steve.
“Do you feel like listening to the blatherings of a good friend?” he asked.
“Why not? You’ve certainly listened to my blatherings over the years.”
When Steve had arrived in Whisper Lake Crossing, he was a beaten down, ex-military Special Forces operative going through a rather bitter divorce. It was Alec who had prayed with Steve and brought him around to God. Now it was Alec with the problem. He had told Steve already about his wedding and Megan’s grandmother, but now, maybe it was time to share the whole story with his friend. Even the lie.
“Talk to me,” Steve said quietly.
Alec did. When he finished his story, Steve said, “You need to tell Megan this. You need to tell Megan everything you just told me.”
“But what do I do about Bryan? Do I go and see what’s happening out there?”
“I can’t make that decision for you. I think you need to pray about it. I think you need to pray that God will help you come to the right decision.”
“I already bought my ticket.”
“Tickets can be canceled.”
“I haven’t been out to visit him in four years. He needs my help. I think he’s on a downward slope. He’ll end up on the street if I don’t intervene.”
“And what about Megan?”
“As you can see, Steve, my life is pretty much in the toilet.”
“Only you can decide whether you want to go out to New Mexico now, but I will say that I think you need to tell Megan about the perjury.”
“She’ll never forgive me that.”
“How do you know that? She may surprise you.”
“You don’t understand. I chose my family—my brother—over the woman who was carrying my child. I let her go. I lied for my brother on the stand. I’m an officer of the law, of the courts. And I lied.”
“You weren’t a police officer, then.”
“She won’t forgive me.”
“Still, you need to tell her. I can’t advise you on whether to stay here or go to your brother but I can advise you on this—you can’t keep holding on to this lie. It’ll kill you, man.”
“It already is.”
Later, he checked his e-mail. His plane ticket had been delivered to his e-mail address. He printed it off. God, what do I do?
Could he live with his secret any longer?
But by booking and printing off the plane ticket, he knew he had already made his choice. It was his family again. It was always his family.
God, what should I do?
Should he follow Steve’s advice and tell Megan about his lie? But what if she didn’t forgive him?
TWELVE
Sitting in her pajamas by the fire sounded good to Megan. There was so much on her mind. Because a storm was coming in another day, Steve had made sure that all the cabins had firewood. They were stacks of split logs plus great piles of kindling.
She pulled on some boots and opened the back door to her cabin, and put the kindling basket under her arm. She gasped silently and shrank back into her kitchen. There was some sort of little black animal sitting on the top of her garbage can lid and moving around.
“Ugh!” she said out loud. What she didn’t need now was an encounter with a skunk. In the safety of her kitchen, she looked through her window at the animal. It was still there. But something about it looked curious. It looked as if it was bobbing its head forward and back and forward and back. What kind of an animal did that?
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement. Brad was over be
hind his own cabin, piling firewood in the cloth carrier bags provided in the cabins. He held his belly with both hands as he gathered wood.
She might think he was a little weird, but she was also quite confident that she had put her foot down about the whole sugar thing. Maybe he could help her scare away the skunk.
She opened her door a crack. “Brad!” she called. He looked over. “Are you busy?” she asked. “There’s an animal on my garbage can. I think it’s a skunk.” She pointed.
“An animal? I don’t see anything.”
“It’s still there. It won’t move.”
She pointed to her garbage can. It was still there moving around the lid of garbage can. But why wasn’t it running away? Most animals would be scurrying away by now. Brad came toward it tentatively, a rather large piece of wood held over his head.
“Don’t kill it,” she said. “Just chase it away.”
“I don’t see anything. It’s on your garbage can, you say?”
“Well, of course you can’t see anything. It’s dark out here. I don’t see how you can see anything with sunglasses on at night.”
He stopped, looking up at her. “I have an eye problem. Doctor’s orders.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I see it now. A little black thing.”
“Right. Is it a skunk?”
He walked slowly, step-by-step, toward it. “Be careful,” she said. “If it’s a skunk you don’t want to be sprayed!”
“It couldn’t be a skunk. I think they hibernate in winter.”
“Well, something’s there.”
He moved slowly toward it, his boots squeaking on the snow. The animal just kept bopping. With the end of his piece of wood he poked at the animal.
“Ew,” Megan gasped, covering her mouth with both hands.
He started laughing. He held the stick toward her. On the end of the stick was a piece of black fur. She backed away from it.
“It’s not an animal,” he said. “It’s just a piece of fur or something. Look.”
She walked down the steps. He moved the piece of wood in her direction. Cautiously she came toward the thing. It fell into her hands. She pulled away and the thing fell onto the porch. It was a wig. A black wig.
Megan’s eyes were wide, and she could hardly breathe.
“It looks like a wig. Is it yours?” Brad asked.
“No!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” She regained her composure. She didn’t feel like telling Brad what was going on with her. “It just scared me, that’s all,” she said.
“It’s not yours?”
“No. It’s not mine.”
He stopped, put a finger to his chin. “I think it’s Vicky’s. I’m fairly sure this is hers.”
“Why would she have a wig like this?” Megan took it from Brad and examined it more closely. It was an adult wig of short, spiky, thick black hair. She placed the wig back down on the garbage can lid and noticed the head for the first time. A hairless doll’s head with a creepy smile was bobbing up and down. Brad picked it up. “It’s a bobblehead,” he said. He looked at her. “Is this yours?”
She shook her head rapidly. “It’s not mine.”
Brad picked up the wig and the head. He looked at her. “You look so scared.”
“Well, wouldn’t you be? A black wig on top of a doll’s head?”
“I admit it’s weird.”
“It’s more than weird. It’s like being in horror movie!”
He grinned. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”
She asked, “What are you going to do with them?”
“I’ll give the wig to Vicky the next time I see her. Maybe the head is hers, too. You know how Vicky is. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she set these up on your can. Maybe she thought it was artful or something.”
Suddenly, Megan wanted to be in her little cabin with her doors locked and her windows shut and her curtains drawn more than just about anything in the world. “I’ve got to go in,” she said.
She picked up her basket of kindling and was about to say goodbye when she was conscious of Brad standing close behind her. “Allow me,” he said, opening her door for her. “Your hands are full.”
“Thank you.”
But once inside, he didn’t leave. He just stood there looking down at her.
He said, “I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be worried about me.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe you need someone.”
“Someone?”
“Megan,” he said, his voice breaking. “I was wondering something. I hope you can humor an old man. You and me.” He pointed at her and then at himself. “We…uh…we seem to have a connection. I don’t know if you’ve felt it or not. I certainly have. And I was going to ask you, if we could, if you would like to go out to dinner with me sometime. Maybe we can see each other. It would make me so very happy.”
“Brad, I…” She hesitated, backing away. “I’m seeing someone right now.” He thought they had a connection? They barely knew each other. “I thought you and Vicky were seeing each other,” she blurted out.
“Ah, poor Vicky. She has her problems, and I’ve come to understand that she and I don’t have very much in common,” he said.
“But you spend so much time together.”
“She’ll tell you that I talk about you most of the time when I’m with her.”
Megan was shocked to her core.
He continued, “Did you get all the text messages I sent to you today?”
Megan nodded, swallowing. How was she going to get rid of him?
“Brad, I…I’m sorry. But I just don’t think…If I gave you the wrong impression, I’m sorry.”
He folded his big hands over his big belly, cast his sunglass-covered eyes downward and said, “Forgive me, Megan. I get a little carried away sometimes. And you said you were seeing someone. I should have known, a pretty young woman like yourself. Tell me, is it the sheriff?”
Megan wanted to tell him that it was none of his business. She didn’t say anything.
He continued, “I’m sorry if I offended you.” He paused. “I hope you are very happy together and I hope you’ll still consent to design my Web site. I live and work alone. Sometimes I don’t relate to people really well. I relate more to my camera.”
“It’s okay.”
“Do you think you can still work on my Web site?”
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“But you promised.” His voice had taken on an intensity that for a moment startled her. It called up something in her memory, she couldn’t define it, but it filled her with a kind of horror.
Then in an instant it was gone and Brad was just Brad, a gray-haired pathetic old man who merely wanted a new Web site.
“I didn’t promise,” she said.
“You did. I remember.” He sank down heavily into one of her kitchen chairs. Oh great. Now he would stay and stay. How was she going to get rid of him without seeming to be unkind? She remained on her feet, her arms crossed across her chest.
Eventually he got up. “I suppose I should get going,” he said wearily.
She nodded. “It’s late. And thanks for your help with the skunk.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said as he shuffled out. She watched the back of him as he padded across the snow to his cabin. She put a hand to her mouth. There was something about him which was so familiar and yet it wasn’t.
In the morning, Megan called Alec. After the first ring it went to his voice mail. She left an urgent message for him to call her just as soon as possible. After ten minutes passed and he still had not returned her call, she tried again. It went again immediately to voice mail.
She paced the little cabin. Alec needed to know about the wig. Brad had taken both the wig and the bobblehead with him. She knew because she had looked out in the morning and the bobblehead was not on the trash can. What was Vicky’s involvement
in all this? Who was she? Those were the questions she had asked herself all night as she tossed and turned in bed.
She also really needed to talk with Alec about his brother’s girlfriend. She tried calling him once more, but the call went to his voice mail. She packed up her computer, zipped up her jacket, put on her boots and grabbed her car keys. She wasn’t sure she even knew where Alec lived, but she needed to see him.
She headed straight for the Schooner Café. Maybe Marlene knew where Alec lived. And if Marlene wasn’t there, then someone else would tell her Alec’s address, she was sure.
The waitress, whose name tag proclaimed that she was Cindy, shook her head. She was new in town and didn’t know too many people. She didn’t know Alec. Megan looked around helplessly.
Two wizened old men approached her. One introduced himself as Pete and the other as Peach. The one whose name was Pete was only her height and had fine, thin, white hair and blue eyes.
“We couldn’t help but overhear you. You want to know where Alec lives? We can show you, Peach and I can.”
The man whose name was Peach said, “He lives right on this street. Two doors away from here on the left.”
“Yep.” Their heads nodded. They gave her directions and she soon found Alec’s house. It was an old row house with the snow neatly shoveled away on the walk. The small front porch was just feet from the road. There were lights on inside and she walked up to the house and pressed the doorbell.
Alec opened the door, a cell phone pressed into his ear. When he saw it was her, his eyes lit up and he motioned her inside. She entered and followed him down a short hall into a sitting room where they sat on mismatched chairs. Everything in his small house was like him, organized and clean and neat.
When he closed his phone, he said, “Meggie. I was just thinking about you. I need to talk to you about something….”
“Well, that makes two of us because I need to talk to you.” She went on without stopping. “There was a wig on top of my garbage can last night. It was on top of one of those bobbleheaded dolls—like the kind Denise has in her house…” She told him that Brad said it belonged to Vicky and that Brad took the wig and bobblehead over to Vicky’s cabin. “Alec, could this be the person we’re looking for? She sort of fits the physical description. If you tucked her long hair under that wig, she could be my stalker! But why? I don’t even know her. I don’t understand.”