“But are they good ones?”
“Probably not, but hey, my life sucks anyway. What’s a little more grief before another dreary Christmas?”
“Do you plan to keep the baby?”
“No.”
“Your reason?”
“One dead end life dragging another one down the same trail? I don’t think so.” She climbed out of the SUV and blew him a kiss. “You’re a lovely man, Mr. Battle. I look forward to knowing you better.”
“Amber,” he asked, “Why didn’t you tell your friends you were pregnant until now?”
“I’m not all that close to them anymore, I guess. See how they made fun of me? That’s not what a real friend does.”
“Find new ones.”
“I’m sure there are lines around the block of people waiting to befriend a pregnant orphan with an attitude,” she remarked. “Maybe after I give my baby away.”
“Goodnight, Amber.”
“Goodnight, teacher man.”
He bent over the steering wheel and watched her until she was safely inside, then drove himself back to Loomis House. Tears streamed from his eyes and a new pain pounded in his chest. It wasn’t from the cancer. It was his heart breaking.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When John Battle woke up the next morning, he found his face in a sticky, half-dried pool of blood. He examined the blood on the sheet, rubbing it between two fingers. It was thicker than any blood he had ever seen. His mouth and nose were still bleeding, too. He could taste a coagulating, rotting death in his mouth.
“Not yet,” he said. “I’m not ready yet.” He tried to stand but his legs were numb. He sat up in bed, massaging the circulation back into his legs. He used tissues at the side of the bed to clean off his mouth to the best of his ability but he felt so, so tired. Across the room, he studied the man in the mirror. At first he didn’t recognize himself.
“How quickly a life can end,” he realized sadly. Unable to walk, he reached under the bed and pulled out a journal. He began to write. Words flowed from his mind to the pen.
“The biggest fear a parent must have when they lose a son or daughter is that everyone is going to forget about him or her. This is not my fear. My fear is that my child will forget about me…”
“John,” Mrs. Powell knocked on the door. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine, Mrs. Powell,” he called out. “I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes.”
“Lunch will be ready,” she said.
He listened to her footsteps leading downstairs, finished writing in his journal and tucked it back under the bed. He tried standing again. His legs were back. Like a seasick passenger on a ship, he made his way to the bathroom.
When he appeared in the kitchen half an hour later, Mrs. Powell noticed the grief etched in his face immediately.
“You had a little accident?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “I’m sorry about the sheets. There’s blood on them.”
“Still up to driving?” she asked.
“Only a few more days, I feel.” He wearily fell into a chair. “I’m running out of time, Mrs. Powell.”
“I can see that.”
“I need to make a slight adjustment to my plans,” he told her.
“Oh?”
“Remember you said that perhaps if I shared some of my scheme with you, that perhaps I could find a better solution to my problem?”
“Yes.”
“I’m soliciting your help, Mrs. Powell. Please, don’t commit to me until you have heard my whole story. After that, you decide to help or not.”
“That seems fair. But I’ll only listen after you’ve eaten.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Powell.”
It was all he could do to hold down small bites of lunch. After that, Mrs. Powell gave him a heavy dose of medicine and helped him to the study. He sat on a sofa and began to open up.
“Fifteen years ago, I had a terrible auto accident,” he admitted. “I was driving. Drunk. I was always drunk back then. A hotshot lawyer with all the best cases. I was mad about myself. Bullet proof. I was driving home late after a stupendous New Year’s celebration. Everyone adored me and did his or her best to fill me up with the best free liquor money could buy.”
“My wife was with me… Her name is Katherine. It was nearly three in the morning by the time the party wound down, but I insisted I pick the kids up from the sitter right away. It could have waited until morning, but I wanted to sleep in the next day.”
“Katherine was terrified. She tried to take the keys from me after we picked our three children up from the teenage sitter, but I wouldn’t have any part of it. I wrestled the keys back from her and away we went.”
“I didn’t even give her a chance to buckle the kids up in back. Three beautiful kids; a boy and two girls; five, two and a newborn of six months.”
“It was snowing out. Black ice on the road. I rolled on to the freeway doing about seventy with bad visibility. We made it past downtown…”
“Where did you live, John?”
“Denver… there were cars on the side of the highway, spin-outs and accidents, but I was invincible. Katherine asked me to slow down, to stop I can’t remember how many times. And you know what I did, Mrs. Powell?”
“What did you do, John?”
“I laughed at her… The kids were crying in the back seat. My boy cried, ‘daddy stop, daddy stop.’ But I didn’t. I had to get home, you see. I wanted to have a last toast of champagne with my wife after we put the kids to bed.”
“There was a slow-moving snowplow ahead, on the left side of the highway, churning snow to the side of the road. The snowplow driver later said I was doing at least eighty when I hit the embankment. The car rolled four times. I was thrown from the vehicle, barely had a scratch on me. A fireman said two of my children died instantly. My oldest son and daughter. Katherine died waiting for the Jaws of Life to cut her free.”
“And your third child? The baby?”
“She is why I’m here, Mrs. Powell.”
The old woman held his trembling hands. “And she is one of your students?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Powell lowered her head and listened some more. The sad story continued. He talked of the trial and life in prison in great detail, described how his daughter disappeared from him into the entrails of the legal guardian system. He described to the old woman how he worked from inside the prison to find his daughter … and then the cancer arrived before he was free…
“I ran out of time, Mrs. Powell. I needed time to win my daughter back.”
“And you think that if you tell her the truth of who you are she will hate you?” Mrs. Powell asked.
“Wouldn’t you?” he said.
“It is a ghastly story,” she admitted. She looked at a grandfather clock in the corner. “Time for school,” the old woman said.
“What should I do, Mrs. Powell?”
“We both know getting older doesn’t necessarily make us wiser,” she said. “Go to school and continue teaching. The way to win her over will reveal itself.”
“I don’t have the time.”
“Maybe the answer isn’t on your clock.”
“What else can I do?”
“Pray to God for an answer.”
“I prayed for forgiveness for fifteen years. Never got an answer.”
“You’re here, aren’t you? That adds up to something. And John? This isn’t just about your daughter anymore. You have five kids to think about now.”
“I know,” he realized, rubbing at his temples. A twister of a migraine headache was blowing in full force.
“What else is there?” Mrs. Powell asked.
“Amber is pregnant.”
“Oh, my.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“So, you still need to get your hands on more cash?” Big Bill Hogan asked.
“If I can,” said Battle.
“Why?” Hogan sipped whisky from a glass.
“
It’s my hope chest.”
“You want to leave something behind!” Hogan realized.
“Okay… I made some calls and I think I have a whopper of a moneymaking opportunity for you. I’m thinking accidental death - after all, you’re gonna die soon anyway - but it would have to be a real good accident.” He said it like it was no big deal. “Shall I continue?”
John leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and concentrated. “I’m listening.”
“Take your time,” Hogan said. “I’m not telling you to kill yourself, but maybe there’s a way to cash in at the end if the timing is right. It’s a big decision.”
Battle opened his eyes. “I can manage that.”
Big Bill smiled and rubbed his chin, thinking aloud. “I'd have to backdate a policy sixteen, seventeen years. Make it look like a lost premium before you were incarcerated.”
“Whatever works.”
Hogan returned to his desk and sat. He pulled out an amortization schedule and a calculator. “Let’s see. Your old occupation before you went to the pen? Lawyer, right?”
“Yes.”
Hogan grinned. “Made pretty good dough, I’ll bet.”
“Yes.”
“Incorporated?”
“Yes.”
“Perfect… I’m thinking either an executive or dead janitor life insurance policy.”
“They’re still around?”
“Yep. Still a big money game.”
“I tried a couple of those cases,” Battle said. “Let me see if I remember how they worked…” His eyes narrowed as he tried to remember once familiar legalese. “An executive policy is when a company loses a top manager’s expertise, knowledge and contacts. Sometimes, it causes ruin.”
“Correctomundo.”
“A dead janitor policy, also known as a dead peasant policy, is when a company takes out life insurance on an employee, usually unbeknownst to the family of the deceased and cashes in when he dies.”
“It could be worth a stack of moola.”
“Tax free?” Battle added.
“Every penny.”
Hogan crunched numbers. “Let’s see… Okay… How does this fairy tale sound? You or your company bought a twentyyear policy back in the day. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He winked at him. “I had to dig a little dirt up on you when I was faking those ID’s. Didn’t your grandmother die and will her estate to you?”
“Yes. But I spent all of it in my defense trial.”
“That’s not true. Not anymore.” Hogan winked. “You didn’t spend all of it.” He talked into a coffee mug on his desk. “Hello? Hello? FBI? Can you hear me now?” He smiled at John. “Just kidding. Okay. Back to the fabrication. First you paid down your life insurance policy in full to save on the interest. That was a month before your world as you knew it ended. Are we on the same page, John?”
“I’m slowly getting your drift.”
Hogan pulled out a thick folder from his desk and thumbed through a variety of old insurance policies.
“How's this? National Family, now defunct, sold your policy to American Stability, now bankrupt, which gave the paper to Warsaw Family which sold...”
“Whatever works, Big Bill. But my company was dissolved.”
“Then I’ll get your name on the board of trustees with another company. It’s no big deal.”
Battle dropped a wad of hundred dollar bills in front of the unscrupulous insurance man. “How much life insurance are we buying?”
Hogan smiled at the pile of money, then punched the keys on his calculator. “Pay out is about three hundred thousand if you have an accident in the next six months. Live past that, the policy expires and you lose it all.”
“I won't,” Battle reminded him
Hogan found an old insurance form and kissed it. “Bingo. I got one!” He snagged a pen from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table with the policy. “Never, never ever, throw away old policies! You'll want to use your real name this time. List your beneficiaries on the bottom left and sign on the bottom right. I'll fake the date and all the rest later.”
“How does this work after I’m gone?”
Hogan smiled. “I have a law firm arranged to handle the estate. They have a black bag guy. Takes a flat ten- percent. Fair?”
“Fair,” Battle agreed, pen poised. “This insurance fraud. It’s a bit of a stretch. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe,” Big Bill dismissed, “But, it’s worth a shot.”
“What assurance do I have that you won’t reassign the policy to someone else or just keep my money for yourself?”
Hogan’s eyes dimmed. “You think I’m a liar and a crook, John?”
Battle set the pen down. “I know you’re not the most honest man in town.”
Big Bill Hogan laughed defensively. “I’m not going to mess with a dying man’s wishes. It’s bad medicine.”
He gave Battle the name of a dishonest banker downtown. Someone named Petrie.
“Open an account under your real name. When you pass on, I’ll make sure the insurance money gets paid in. Petrie will see that your beneficiaries are paid off.”
“You trust this Petrie guy?”
“No. He’s my brother-in-law.”
Battle smiled and laughed as he picked up the pen.
“I know this deal sounds shaky.” Bill swallowed his drink. “All you got is blind faith going in and coming out.”
“Ever since the cancer, faith is all I have anymore.”
“Now all you have left to do is to figure out how to kill yourself.”
“I’m not going to kill myself. I’m going to have an accident, remember?”
“Don’t wait too long,” Big Bill cautioned. “Your time here isn’t on a calendar, it’s on a stopwatch!”
Battle signed the policy and slid it across the desk to the big man. “This is for a good cause,” he reasoned.
“Sure, John. Whatever you say.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
White chalk smudged on the right sleeve of his frayed camouflage jacket, Matt was busy at the blackboard. He was early for class.
“So, you say that integers consist of the positive natural numbers one, two, three, etceteras and their negatives minus one, minus two, minus three etceteras, and of course zero is in there?” Matt circled the zero.
Mr. Battle was dead tired. With the combination of shriveling away and the heavy amount of medicine he had taken right before school, he was in a constant mental fog and physically numb. Maybe that’s what was supposed to happen. The more he ingested, the less he felt, until one day he wouldn’t feel anything at all and then he’d just be… just be dead, he guessed. Matt’s question finally registered with him.
“Did I say that? “Yes, Mr. Battle. You did.” There was annoyance in Matt’s tone.
“Sorry,” the teacher said. “I, I guess I was distracted.” Julio stomped into the classroom. He was in a sour mood.
He plopped down on a chair, his back to them. He bent over, dropping his head on his arms at the table.
“You okay, Julio?” Mr. Battle asked.
Julio lifted his head and turned around. He was sporting a black eye.
Battle pointed for Matt to return to his math problem and sat next to Julio.
“Want to talk about it?”
“My old man can't let go of my mom.”
“It doesn't give him the right to hit you.”
“I can't hit him back. I don’t want to hit him back. He's my old man, you know?”
“Violence is a lousy solution between family, Julio.”
“Maybe I should just move on. Quit this school thing and get a job. Move out.”
“Maybe your dad hits you because it’s the only way he knows how to communicate.”
“Some coping skills.”
“And if my memory serves me, don’t you have a slight reputation as a bully?”
“Like father like son?” Julio said.
“Doesn’t have to b
e,” Battle said.
“Dang, Mr. Battle. Nothing's simple is it?”
“No.”
Julio slammed an angry fist on the table. “I just don’t know what to do about it. I got no place else to go but jail if I screw up.”
“Want me to talk to him?”
“No. He’ll rip your head off. My old man’s a mean SOB, teach. And he’s got fifty pounds on you.”
“There are better ways to resolve this,” Battle decided. “It begins and ends in conversation.”
Toby arrived for class with the girls dangling from either arm.
“I found these two speaking in baby talk down the block so I snagged them and dragged them to school!” Toby smiled.
Mr. Battle nodded towards Julio and left the room for a minute so they could discuss the fight with his dad. It was frustrating for him that the boy’s father hit him. Would he be crossing the line going to see Julio’s dad? Should he avoid the man altogether and call the police for domestic violence? What would that accomplish? The dad might go to jail, lose his job, and fall behind in the house payments. Then when he got out of jail with new problems, he'd resent his son even more. And then what? A gun or a knife for conflict resolution? He returned to the classroom and circled the students together.
“Listen,” Mr. Battle told them all. “I have a great idea! Anybody up for a class during the day tomorrow? We can skip the evening. What do you say?”
“I’ll have to check my busy schedule,” Amber said.
“I was thinking of maybe looking for a job,” Toby said.
“Come on, guys! One time only! It’s supposed to be a record-breaking warm December day, too. I’ll tell you what – so it isn’t too much trouble… We can all go hang out at that old tree you talk about. What do you say? I’ll even bring food and sodas.”
“We practically live under that tree,” Matt said. “It will be boring.”
“Not for me. I’ll make it a history or science class or we can talk about religion or politics. What do you say?”
The kids reluctantly agreed to meet him at their hangout the next afternoon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When he arrived at Shooks Run Park the next day, Mr. Battle stopped in the small gravel parking lot next to the baseball diamond as the Tadpoles had instructed. Just like his students had assumed, the parking lot was empty. No children playing on the swing sets, no owners tossing sticks to their dogs, no retirees feeding pigeons.
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