by Harlan Coben
“What do you mean, smears?”
“Look, I’m an ME. I don’t interpret crime scenes. But the place was a mess. Overturned furniture and bookshelves, drawers emptied out, and blood everywhere. On the walls. And on the floor. Like he’d been dragged like a rag doll.”
“Maybe he was dragging himself around. After he was shot in the leg and back.”
“Could be, I guess. Of course it’s hard to drag yourself across walls unless you’re Spider-Man.”
Myron’s blood chilled a few degrees. He tried to sort and sift and process. How did all this fit? The killer was on a rampage to find the cash. Okay, that makes sense. But why drag around the body? Why smear the walls with blood?
“We’re not finished,” Sally said.
Myron blinked as though coming out of a trance.
“I also ran a full tox screen on the deceased. Know what I found?”
“Heroin?”
She shook her head. “El Zippo.”
“What?”
“Nada, nothing, the big zero.”
“Clu was clean?”
“Not even a Tums.”
Myron made a face. “But that could have been temporary, right? I mean, the drugs might have just been out of his system.”
“Nope.”
“What do you mean, nope?”
“Let’s keep the science simple here, shall we? If a guy abuses drugs or alcohol, it shows up somewhere. Enlarged heart, liver damage, lung modules, whatever. And it did. There was no question that Clu Haid had liked some pretty potent chemicals. Had, Myron. Had. There are other tests—hair tests, for example—that give you a more recent snapshot. And those were clean. Which means he’d been off the stuff for a while.”
“But he failed a drug test two weeks ago.”
She shrugged.
“Are you telling me that test was fixed?”
Sally held up both hands. “Not me. I’m telling you that my data disputes that data. I never said anything about a fix. It could have been an innocent error. There are such things as false positives.”
Myron’s head swam. Clu had been clean. His body had been dragged around after being shot four times. Why? None of this made any sense.
They chatted a few more minutes, mostly about the past, and headed for the exit ten minutes later. Myron started back to his car. Time to see Dad. He tried the new cellular—count on Win to have “extras” lying about his apartment—and called Win.
“Articulate,” Win answered.
“Clu was right. The drug test was fixed.”
Win said, “My, my.”
“Sawyer Wells witnessed the drug test.”
“More my, my.”
“What time is he doing the motivational talk at Reston?”
“Two o’clock,” Win said.
“In the mood to get motivated?”
“You have no idea.”
CHAPTER 28
The Club.
Brooklake Country Club, to be more exact, though there was no brook, no lake, and they were not in the country. It was, however, most definitely a club. As Myron’s car made its way up the steep drive, the clubhouse’s white Greco-Roman pillars rising through the clouds, childhood memories popped up in fluorescent flashes. It was how he always saw the place. In flashes. Not always pleasant ones.
The Club was the epitome of nouveau-riche, Myron’s wealthy brethren proving that they could be just as tacky and exclusive as their goyish counterparts. Older women with perpetual tans on large, freckled chests sat by the pool, their hair shellacked into place by fake French hairdressers to the point where the strands resembled frozen fiber optics, never allowing it, God forbid, to touch the water, sleeping, he imagined, without putting their heads down lest they shatter the dos like so much Venetian glass; there were nose jobs and liposuction and face-lifts so extreme that the ears almost touched in the back, the overall effect bizarrely sexy in the same way you might find Yvonne De Carlo on The Munsters sexy; women fighting off old age and on the surface winning, but Myron wondered if they doth protest too much, their fear just a little too bare in the scar-revealing, harsh overhead lights of the dining room.
Men and women were separated at the Club, the women animatedly playing mah-jongg, the men silently chewing on cigars over a hand of cards; women still had special tee times so as not to interfere with the breadwinners’—i.e., their husbands’—precious leisure moments; there was tennis too, but that was more for fashion than exercise, giving everyone an excuse to wear sweatsuits that rarely encountered sweat, couples sometimes sporting matching ones; a men’s grill, a women’s lounge, the oak boards memorializing golf champions in gold leaf, the same man winning seven years in a row, now dead, the large locker rooms with masseur’s tables, the bathrooms with combs sitting in blue alcohol, the pickle-and-cole-slaw bar, cleat marks on the rug, the Founders Board with his grandparents’ names still on it, immigrant dining room help, all referred to by their first names, always smiling too hard and at the ready.
What shocked Myron now was that people his age were members. The same young girls who had sneered at their mothers’ idleness now abandoned their own foundering careers to “raise” the kids—read: hire nannies—came here to lunch and bore each other silly with a continuous game of one-upmanship. The men Myron’s age had manicures and long hair and were well fed and too well dressed, kicking back with their cellular phones and casually swearing to a colleague. Their kids were there too, dark-eyed youngsters walking through the clubhouse with hand-held video games and Walkmans and too regal a bearing.
All conversations were inane and depressed the hell out of Myron. The grandpas in Myron’s day had the good sense not to talk much to one another, just discarding and picking up what was dealt, occasionally grumbling about a local sports team; the grandmothers interrogated one another, measuring their own children and grandchildren against the competition, seeking an opponent’s weakness and any conversational opening to jab forward with tales of offspring heroics, no one really listening, just preparing for the next frontal assault, familial pride getting confused with self-worth and desperation.
The main clubhouse dining room was as expected: waaaay too overstated. The green carpeting, the curtains that resembled corduroy leisure suits, the gold tablecloths on huge round mahogany, the floral centerpieces piled too high and with no sense of proportion, not unlike the plates traipsing down the buffet line. Myron remembered attending a sports-themed bar mitzvah here as a child: juke-boxes, posters, pennants, a Wiffle ball batting cage, a basket for foul shots, an artist wanna-be stuck sketching sports-related caricatures of thirteen-year-old boys—thirteen-year-old boys being God’s most obnoxious creation short of television lawyers—and a wedding band complete with an overweight lead singer who handed the kids silver dollars shrouded in leather pouches that were emblazoned with the band’s phone number.
But this view—these flashes—were too quick and thus simplistic. Myron knew that. His remembrances were all screwed up about this place—the derision blending with the nostalgia—but he also remembered coming here as a child for family dinners, his clip-on tie slightly askew, sent by Mom into the inner sanctum of the men’s card room to find his grandfather, the undisputed family patriarch, the room reeking of cigar smoke, his pop-pop greeting him with a ferocious embrace, his gruff compatriots who wore golf shirts that were too loud and too tight, barely acknowledging the interloper because their own grandkids would do the same soon, the card game trickling down, participant by participant.
These same people he so easily picked apart were the first generation fully out of Russia or Poland or Ukraine or some other shtetl-laced combat zone. They’d hit the New World running—running away from the past, the poverty, the fear—and they just ran a bit too far. But under the hair and the jewelry and the gold lamé, no mother bear would ever be so quick to kill for her cubs, the women’s hard eyes still seeking out the pogrom in the distance, suspicious, always expecting the worst, bracing themselves to take the blow fo
r their children.
Myron’s dad sat in a yellow, pseudo-leather swivel chair in the brunch room, fitting in with this crowd about as well as a camel-riding mufti. Dad did not belong here. Never had. He didn’t play golf or tennis or cards. He didn’t swim and he didn’t brag and he didn’t brunch and he didn’t talk stock tips. He wore his work clothes of all things: charcoal gray slacks, loafers, and a white dress shirt over a sleeveless white undershirt. His eyes were dark, his skin pale olive, his nose jutting forward like a hand waiting to be shook.
Interestingly enough, Dad was not a member of Brooklake. Dad’s parents, on the other hand, had been founding members, or in the case of Pop-pop, a ninety-two-year-old quasi vegetable whose rich life had been dissolved into useless fragments by Alzheimer’s, still was. Dad hated the place, but he kept up the membership for the sake of his father. That meant showing up every once in a while. Dad looked at it as a small price to pay.
When Dad spotted Myron, he rose, more slowly than usual, and suddenly the obvious hit Myron: The cycle was beginning anew. Dad was the age Pop-pop had been back then, the age of the people they’d made fun of, his ink-black hair wispy, static gray now. The thought was far from comforting.
“Over here!” Dad called, though Myron had seen him. Myron threaded his way through the brunchers, mostly overkept women who constantly pendulumed between chewing and chatting, bits of coleslaw caught in the corners of their glossy mouths, water glasses stained with pink lipstick. They eyed Myron as he walked by for three reasons: under forty, male, no marriage band. Measuring his son-in-law potential. Always on the lookout, though not necessarily for their own daughters, the yenta from the shtetl never too far away.
Myron hugged his father and as always kissed his cheek. The cheek still felt wonderfully rough, but the skin was loosening. The scent of Old Spice wafted gently in the air, as comforting as any hot chocolate on the coldest of days. Dad hugged him back, released, then hugged him again. No one noticed the display of affection. Such acts were not uncommon here.
The two men sat. The paper place mats had an overhead diagram of the golf course’s eighteen holes and an ornate letter B in the middle. The club’s logo. Dad picked up a stubby green pencil, a golf pencil, to scribble down their order. That was how it worked. The menu had not changed in thirty years. As a kid Myron always ordered either the Monte Cristo or Reuben sandwich. Today he asked for a bagel with lox and cream cheese. Dad wrote it down.
“So,” Dad began. “Getting acclimated to being back?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Hell of a thing with Esperanza.”
“She didn’t do it.”
Dad nodded. “Your mother tells me that you’ve been subpoenaed.”
“Yep. But I don’t know anything.”
“You listen to your aunt Clara. She’s a smart lady. Always has been. Even in school, Clara was the smartest girl in the class.”
“I will.”
The waitress came by. Dad handed her the order. He turned back to Myron and shrugged. “It’s getting near the end of the month,” Dad said. “I have to use your pop-pop’s minimum before the thirtieth. I didn’t want the money to go to waste.”
“This place is fine.”
Dad made a face signaling disagreement. He grabbed some bread, buttered it, then pushed it away. He shifted in his chair. Myron watched him. Dad was working up to something.
“So you and Jessica broke up?”
In all the years Myron had been dating Jessica, Dad had never inquired about their relationship past the polite questions. It just wasn’t his way. He’d ask how Jessica was, what she was up to, when her next book was coming out. He was polite and friendly and greeted her warmly, but he’d never given a true indication of how he really felt about her. Mom had made her own feelings on the subject crystal clear: Jessica was not good enough for her son, but then again, who was? Dad was like a great newscaster, the kind of guy who asks questions without giving the viewer any hint of how he was really leaning on the issue.
“I think it’s over,” Myron said.
“Because”—Dad stopped, looked away, looked back—“of Brenda?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I’m not big on giving advice. You know that. Maybe I should have been. I read those life instruction books fathers write for their children. You ever see those?”
“Yes.”
“All kinds of wisdom in there. Like: Watch a sunrise once a year. Why? Suppose you want to sleep in? Another one: Overtip a breakfast waitress. But suppose she’s grumpy? Suppose she’s really bad? Maybe that’s why I never dealt with it. I always see the other side.”
Myron smiled.
“So I was never big on advice. But I have learned one thing for sure. One thing. So listen to me because this is important.”
“Okay.”
“The most important decision you’ll ever make is who you marry,” Dad said. “You can take every other decision you’ll ever make, add them together, and it still won’t be as important as that one. Suppose you choose the wrong job, for example. With the right wife, that’s not a problem. She’ll encourage you to make a change, cheer you on no matter what. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Remember that, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You have to love her more than anything in the world. But she has to love you just as much. Your priority should be her happiness, and her priority should be yours. That’s a funny thing—caring about someone more than yourself. It’s not easy. So don’t look at her as just a sexual object or as just a friend to talk to. Picture every day with the person. Picture paying bills with that person, raising children with that person, being stuck in a hot room with no air-conditioning and a screaming baby with that person. Am I making sense?”
“Yes.” Myron smiled and folded his hands on the table. “Is that how it is with you and Mom? Is she all those things to you?”
“All those things,” Dad agreed, “plus a pain in the tuchus.”
Myron laughed.
“If you promise not to tell your mother, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
“What?”
He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “When your mother walks in the room—even now, even after all these years, if she were to, say, stroll by us right now—my heart still does a little two-step. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so, yeah. That used to happen with Jess.”
Dad spread his hands. “Enough then.”
“Are you saying Jessica is that person?”
“Not my place to say one way or the other.”
“Do you think I’m making a mistake?”
Dad shrugged. “You’ll figure that out, Myron. I have tremendous confidence in you. Maybe that’s why I never gave you much advice. Maybe I always thought you were smart enough without me.”
“Bull.”
“Or maybe it was easier parenting, I don’t know.”
“Or maybe you led by example,” Myron said. “Maybe you led gently. Maybe you showed rather than told.”
“Yeah, well, whatever.”
They fell into silence. The women around them chatted up their white noise.
Dad said, “I turn sixty-eight this year.”
“I know.”
“Not a young man anymore.”
Myron shook his head. “Not old either.”
“True enough.”
More silence.
“I’m selling the business,” Dad said.
Myron froze. He saw the warehouse in Newark, the place Dad had worked for as long as Myron could remember. The schmata business—in Dad’s case, undergarments. He could picture Dad with his ink-black hair in his glass-walled warehouse office, barking out orders, sleeves rolled up, Eloise, his long-time secretary, fetching him whatever he needed before he knew he needed it.
“I’m too old for it now,” Dad went on. “So I’m getting out. I spoke to Artie Bernstein. You remember Artie?”
/> Myron managed a nod.
“The man’s a rat bastard, but he’s been dying to buy me out for years. Right now his offer is garbage, but I still might take it.”
Myron blinked. “You’re selling?”
“Yes. And your mother is going to cut back at the law firm.”
“I don’t understand.”
Dad put a hand on Myron’s arm. “We’re tired, Myron.”
Myron felt two giant hands press down on his chest.
“We’re also buying a place in Florida.”
“Florida?”
“Yes.”
“You’re moving to Florida?” Myron’s Theory on East Coast Jewish Life: You grow up, you get married, you have kids, you go to Florida, you die.
“No, maybe part of the year, I don’t know. Your mother and I are going to start traveling a little more.” Dad paused. “So we’ll probably sell the house.”
They’d owned that house Myron’s entire life. Myron looked down at the table. He grabbed a wrapped Saltine cracker from the bread basket and tore open the cellophane.
“Are you okay?” Dad asked.
“I’m fine,” he said. But he wasn’t fine. And he couldn’t articulate why, even to himself.
The waitress served them. Dad was having a salad with cottage cheese. Dad hated cottage cheese. They ate in silence. Myron kept feeling tears sting his eyes. Silly.
“There’s one other thing,” Dad said.
Myron looked up. “What?”
“It’s not a big deal really. I didn’t even want to tell you, but your mother thought I should. And you know how it is with your mother. When she has something in her mind, God himself—”
“What is it, Dad?”
Dad fixed his eyes on Myron’s. “I want you to know this has nothing to do with you or your going to the Caribbean.”
“Dad, what?”
“While you were gone”—Dad shrugged and started blinking; he put down his fork, and there was the faintest quiver in his lower lip—“I had some chest pains.”
Myron felt his own heart sputter. He saw Dad with the ink-black hair at Yankee Stadium. He saw Dad’s face turning red when he told him about the bearded man. He saw Dad rise and storm off to avenge his sons.