Nick of Time (A Bug Man Novel)

by Tim Downs

  Donovan brought his right leg up and kicked at the water pipe, but it showed no sign of giving way; he finally gave up and slumped forward with his head resting against the wall. “I’ll tell you something, Nick, I’m glad you won’t be marrying Alena— she deserves better. I said it before and I’ll say it again: You don’t really want to get married—you don’t know what you want. You’re about to die and you never figured out what you want in life. I can’t think of anything sadder than that.”

  Nick just stared at the floor . . . He knew Donovan was right—for Nick, life had always been about the next case, and he didn’t really understand why. What was he really doing here, anyway? Why was this case so important—why were any of them important? Sure, Pete Boudreau had been a friend, and yes, Pete Boudreau was dead—but why did Nick have to be the one to figure things out? And why now—why two days before his wedding? Was this case really that time-sensitive? Couldn’t it wait? Couldn’t he wait? Or was he just like a pit bull with a pork chop anytime a puzzle happened to present itself, no matter how big or small?

  Nick wondered if Donovan was right about something else: Maybe he wasn’t really ready to get married. That’s what Donovan was thinking—that he left town a week before the wedding just to run, and it didn’t really matter where. But that explanation didn’t satisfy Nick, because he knew in his own mind that he wasn’t just running away. He was running toward something too—that was the thing he didn’t quite understand. He was always running toward something . . . He was always running.

  “It’s not true,” Donovan said.

  Nick looked at him. “What?”

  “They say when you’re about to die your life passes before your eyes—it’s not true. I can’t even remember the past right now; all I can think about is what I’m going to miss out on in the future. A good filet from Ray’s The Steaks; the cherry blossoms around the tidal basin in April; making love with Macy on Sunday afternoon; my daughter’s wedding—ouch— that one hurts. You know what’s funny, Nick? Out of all the things I think I’ll miss most, there isn’t one job-related thing on the list.”

  Nick considered his friend’s words—and soon he found himself compiling his own mental list: What will I miss most? What do I really care about? What really matters to me? What do I regret leaving undone? To Nick’s utter astonishment, there was nothing work-related on his list either—no field of research he should have completed, no forensic subspecialty he should have mastered, no government or department or agency he wished he had worked for. In the last moments of his life he could only seem to think of one thing . . .

  Alena.

  He remembered the way her hair smelled after she took a shower; he remembered the way her emerald eyes peeked out from behind her curtain of ebony hair; he remembered the way her fingers moved like wheat in the wind when she was commanding her army of dogs; and he remembered the hollow, empty sound of her voice when she asked him, “Why do you have to go now?”

  “I can think of something sadder,” Nick said.

  Donovan lifted his head. “Huh?”

  “You said, ‘I can’t think of anything sadder than a man who never figured out what he wants.’ I can: a man who figures out what he wants when it’s too late.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know what I want,” Nick said. “I finally figured it out.”

  “What?”

  “I want to marry Alena.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s the only thing I regret not doing; it’s the only thing I’ve left undone. Nobody else on this entire planet will miss me. Not my colleagues at NC State—they’ll just fight over who gets my office. Not my students—they’ll probably throw a party. I should have married Alena—I should have done it right away, right after I asked her. And I wanted to, I really did—but no, I had to let her go ahead and plan this stupid wedding that she’s been fixated on since she was twelve years old. I’ve hated every single minute of it—never in my entire life have I made so many decisions about so many things that I care so little about. You know what, Donovan? I was running. That’s why I left town—I know that now. But I wasn’t running from a marriage—I was running from a wedding.”

  Donovan looked at him. “You just figured all that out now?”

  “There’s something about dying,” Nick said. “It has a way of clearing the mind.”

  The door opened again and the two men reentered the cabin. Yanuzzi was first, followed by his hooded companion; this time, instead of a shotgun, the man was carrying a plastic cooler. He carried it to the kitchen and opened the lid.

  “Are we having a party?” Nick asked.

  “I am,” Yanuzzi replied. “My life’s about to get a whole lot simpler.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Donovan said. “They only want you for racketeering and embezzlement—why add a murder charge? You just need time to get away, right? So leave us here— we’re not going anywhere.”

  “Save it,” Yanuzzi said. “I don’t like loose ends.” He pulled back the slide on his Glock and checked the chamber. “I’d love to do this myself,” he said, “but my friend here wants the honors. That’s okay by me—I’d just as soon watch. Face the wall, both of you.”

  They turned their faces to the wall.

  Nick felt Yanuzzi touch him on the shoulder. “This one first,” he said. “I want his FBI friend to see this.”

  Nick heard the hooded man’s footsteps approach from behind.

  “I’m sorry I got you into this,” Nick whispered. “And I’m really sorry about Macy.”

  “I’m sorry for Alena,” Donovan said. “She missed out on a good guy.”

  Nick felt something cold and metallic press against the base of his skull.

  “This is for you,” a muffled voice said.

  Nick closed his eyes.

  34

  In the instant that followed, Nick’s mind prepared itself for death. His thoughts seemed to race everywhere at once— to the past, present, and future—but instead of confusion he was experiencing a level of cognitive clarity he had never imagined possible. He understood what was happening to him physiologically—he was familiar with the theories that attempted to account for near-death phenomena. Perhaps his brain was hyperoxygenating, causing a kind of manic thinking that approached euphoria; adrenaline was flooding his system, boosting glucose and norepinephrine to the brain, increasing his blood pressure and heart rate; it was even possible that his pineal gland had released a massive dose of dimethyltryptamine, producing an almost psychedelic experience. But there was another possible explanation for his heightened sensations—one he had never seriously entertained before: Maybe there was really something out there. Maybe near-death experiences were more than the brain’s last grasp at life—maybe they were life’s first step toward something else. For the first time, Nick realized that he had spent so much time staring at this world’s tiniest inhabitants that he had never bothered to consider whether there might be a larger world beyond this one—and when that thought crossed his mind, he realized that he was dying with another regret.

  All these thoughts, and ten times more, crossed Nick’s mind in less than a second.

  And then he heard that same voice behind him again: “I said, ‘This is for you.’ ”

  Nick opened one eye; he could still feel the cold metal pressing against the base of his skull. “Get it over with,” Nick said. “What are you waiting for?”

  “I’m waiting for you,” the muffled voice said. “If you don’t want it, just say so—I’ll drink it myself.”

  Nick twisted around and looked; the hooded man was holding an amber bottle of Iron City beer with a sweating metal bottle cap. Nick watched as the man reached up and slowly pulled the pillowcase from his head . . .

  “Hi, Nick,” he said. “Welcome to your bachelor party.” It was Pete Boudreau.

  All three men exploded in laughter while Nick stared up in uncomprehending silence. Maybe his brain was beginning to shut down
; maybe he had reached some last desperate mental state where everything he saw and heard became absurd; or maybe he had already taken that first step into another world where he could see the dear departed.

  “Am I dead?” Nick mumbled.

  The three men laughed again.

  “Not until after the wedding,” Yanuzzi said, unlocking Nick’s handcuffs. “You’ve still got a few hours of life left, so let’s party.” He took the bottle of beer from Pete Boudreau and shoved it into Nick’s hand.

  Nick remained kneeling on the floor, staring up at Pete in disbelief. “But—you’re dead.”

  “Is that your scientific opinion, Dr. Polchak? I’m disappointed—as a famous forensic entomologist, I thought you’d be better at distinguishing the living from the dead.”

  “But your house in Philadelphia . . . the blowflies on your window . . .”

  “Which are attracted to any large decomposing carcass, including a pig—you taught me that, Nick. I told the butcher I was having a pig roast; I may never get the smell out of my living room.”

  “But the detective . . .”

  “Danny Misco? An old student of mine from Penn State. He says to tell you congratulations on the wedding, by the way, and good luck to any woman dumb enough to marry you—his words, not mine.”

  Nick felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned to Donovan.

  “Misco wouldn’t let you in the house, remember? He wouldn’t let you see the body because there was no body to see. When you came back that night the pig carcass had already been removed.”

  “How do you know?”

  Donovan grinned. “Because I helped Pete haul the stinkin’ thing out.”

  “But you weren’t in Philadelphia—”

  “Until you called me to get you out of jail? I was in Philadelphia the whole day before, getting things ready for you.”

  “For me? You planned all this?”

  Donovan looked at the others. “Nick’s slow, but he catches on eventually.”

  Nick finally got up off his knees and stood there, looking at each of the men in turn. First he turned to Pete Boudreau: “So the invitation to come up to Philadelphia—to meet you at Vidocq—that was all a setup?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t pass up a chance to consult on a case.”

  He turned to Donovan. “Misco told me to stay away from Pete’s house. How did you know I’d come back?”

  Donovan let out a belly laugh. “Because he told you to stay away. You’re so predictable, Nick—I can always count on you to do the opposite of what you’re told to do.”

  “But how did you know I’d take those phone records?”

  “I didn’t—that was pretty clever. But I left you plenty of other clues; I figured you’d make the connection to Ed soon enough.”

  Nick looked at Yanuzzi. “You were in on this too?”

  “From the beginning. It was fun playing a bad guy for a change—personally I think I have a real knack for it.”

  “I knew Ed from back in New York,” Donovan said. “We both worked out of 26 Fed. I gave him a call and he said he’d be glad to help out.”

  “But what about your deputy, Marty Keller? You couldn’t have just made him up—the guy made a presentation at Vidocq.”

  “I made the presentation at Vidocq,” Yanuzzi said. “I just used his name.”

  “Then you never had a deputy?”

  “Sure I did—poor Marty died in a hunting accident, just like I told you. Marty wasn’t married, though—we made that part up.”

  “But his widow—Michelle—the woman I met with here in this cabin . . .”

  “You mean Janelle? Janelle’s an old friend from the Bureau too—she works undercover. She said you were kind of attractive in a weird, repulsive way—my words, not hers.”

  As each man explained his part, Nick kept shaking his head in confusion. Somehow in a matter of minutes he had managed to go from a mental state of perfect enlightenment to a condition of complete bewilderment. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why would you guys go to all this trouble? Why would you bother to make all this up? What was the point?”

  “I told you,” Donovan said. “I’m your best man and I get to throw your bachelor party.”

  “This is my bachelor party? What kind of bachelor party from hell is this?”

  “Exactly the kind you needed,” Donovan said. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you ever since you proposed to Alena. That proposal of yours was pretty spontaneous—like everything else you do—and I knew you’d be having second thoughts about marriage. I figured you might need a little help making up your mind. That’s why I put this whole thing together, to help you figure out what it is you really want—and I think you figured that out tonight, didn’t you?”

  “Did you have to make me think I was about to die?”

  “You can be pretty thickheaded. I kept asking you all along the way, ‘What are you doing here, Nick? Why aren’t you back home with Alena?’ I was hoping you’d stop and ask yourself, ‘What am I doing here?’ and then maybe you’d turn the car around and go home—but you never did. Each of us asked you that same question, remember? Me, Ed—even Janelle.”

  “Janelle—what was she for?”

  “Janelle was my idea,” Yanuzzi said. “She was the siren.”

  “The what?”

  “Donovan told me you weren’t so sure about marriage. I said maybe you weren’t so sure about your fiancée—so we decided to let you find out.”

  “That’s why she was flirting with me?”

  “She said you passed the test with flying colors. She said to tell you your fiancée is a lucky woman.”

  “But what if I had failed the test? What if I—you know— put the moves on her?”

  “Nick—do you have any ‘moves’?”

  “I was speaking theoretically.”

  “If you had ‘put the moves on her,’ she probably would have punched you in the nose. More important, you’d have realized that you’re not ready to settle down yet.”

  Nick looked at them. “You guys were serious.”

  “I’ve been a Marine and I’ve been an FBI agent,” Donovan said. “I’ve seen a lot of marriages go down the drain, and believe me, it isn’t pretty. I should know—I went through it once with Macy. A guy has to be willing to hang in there when things get tough—so I figured you’d better make up your mind about what you want going in.”

  The door suddenly opened and Blake Brenton poked his head into the cabin. “Am I late? Did I miss anything?”

  The three men laughed again and welcomed their colleague to the party.

  Nick looked at the new arrival. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”

  “But I’ve seen you,” Brenton said, twisting the cap off a bottle and taking a drink. “I saw you through the scope on my Remington.”

  “You’re the guy who took a shot at me?”

  “I took a shot at a wood post—if I took a shot at you, you wouldn’t be here.”

  Donovan slapped Brenton on the back. “Nick, I want you to meet Blake Brenton—Blake’s with the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team down in Quantico. Blake used to be with the Fifth Marine Scout Snipers—I asked him to come up for a little target practice.”

  “I don’t get it,” Nick said. “If you guys went to all the trouble to get me up here, why was Brenton trying to run me off?”

  “He was egging you on,” Donovan said. “I knew if somebody took a shot at you, you’d figure you must be getting close to something.”

  “Which reminds me,” Yanuzzi said. “Thanks a lot for announcing my fictional ‘affair’ in front of the whole diner—my wife got half a dozen phone calls before the end of the day. Now I have to take her to see Riverdance.”

  “But what about that cold case?” Nick asked. “The lake house, the old man who died in the bedroom—what was that all about?”

  “That was just a red herring,” Yanuzzi said. “We just needed something to get you up here—and something to occupy you while you
were here. That old case was as good as any.”

  “You made the whole thing up?”

  “Nah, it was a real case. The old guy died, his nurse was accused of negligence, but there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges. Not much of a case, really—so we gave it a conspiracy angle to make it look bigger than it was.”

  “And the whole thing went off without a hitch,” Donovan said. “Nick, if I live to be a hundred, I will never forget the look on your face when Pete stuck that beer bottle in the back of your head and said, ‘This is for you.’ It took everything I had not to bust out laughing.”

  “I thought that was very clever,” Pete said. “It was a wonderful double entendre if I do say so myself. I think we all did very well, considering the amount of improvisation required of us.”

  “Pete’s right,” Donovan said. “This is no time for critical reviews—we should all be celebrating. Gentlemen, I propose a toast to our guest of honor, Dr. Nick Polchak—a man who finally knows what he wants. That’s no small accomplishment, Nick—here’s to you.” The four men raised their bottles in salute.

  Nick just stared off into space.

  “And thanks for holding still,” Brenton added. “Things could have gotten very messy and I would have had a lot of explaining to do.”

  They all laughed—except for Nick.

  “Here’s to us,” Donovan said, “and to the Bureau’s most elaborate sting operation since Robert Hanssen. I think we made history tonight, gentlemen—this has got to be the most ingenious bachelor party ever conceived by the mind of man.

  I want to congratulate each of you on a stellar performance; please leave your contact information with the stage manager and we’ll be in touch.” Their bottles clinked again.

  “Director!” Pete shouted. “Let’s not forget you, Mr. Nathan Donovan. We were all merely players, but you were the genius behind this production. Without your vision and inspired guidance—”