The Best Revenge

by Stephen White

  Tom and Kelda scored a table at Mateo, a Mediterranean restaurant just off the east end of the Mall. She never told him that she was cravingpad Thai .

  As they sat down she said, “Don’t worry. I’m paying.”

  He said, “Thank you, I’m not working yet. But I got a job. I start Tuesday.” He told her about the job in the Kaiser pharmacy.

  “That sounds good, Tom. Congratulations. It’s hard for me to tell, though—are you pleased with it?”

  He was studying the menu. “I’m still having trouble getting used to the prices of everything,” he said. “Hey, I have a question for you.”

  “Yes?” She was wondering why he’d ignored her question.

  “Is this a date, Kelda?”

  She let his words hang in the air. “I’ll let you know when I take you back home, Tom. How’s that?” She offered him a smile.

  “I’ll take that. You know, when you smile at me, I can feel it all the way into my bones.” He smiled back at her.

  She looked away.

  “But why?” he asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why me? You could have any guy you wanted, Kelda. Why are you sitting here with me tonight? Some guy who just got out of prison?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t think what you said is true. I’ll turn it around on you—why did you say yes when I asked?”

  “That’s easy. Because you’re gorgeous. Because you’ve been wonderful to me.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “And because you’re hot.”

  “Hot?” She exaggerated the query in her inflection as she tried not to choke on the word.

  “What? Are you playing with me? Have you looked in a mirror lately? You’re as hot as they come.”

  She blushed. “I think maybe you’ve been in prison too long.”

  “Kelda, I’ve definitely been in prison too long. One day was too long. But you . . . you . . . you make me want to dance.”

  A chill traveled the length of her spine and she felt goose bumps cause the tiny hairs on her arms to become erect. She smiled again. “I’ve never heard that before,” she said. “No one has ever told me that.”

  “Well, then, they’re crazy. As great as it is to be out of prison, the most alive I’ve felt since I got out has been the little bit of time I’ve spent with you.”

  “You’re sweet, Tom. But I think you probably just have a thing for women who are constantly drawing their handguns.”

  He looked around. She wondered if her response had made him nervous.

  “Have you seen our waitress?” he asked.

  “This is Boulder. She’s probably still at home getting dressed for work. Or is still up in the canyon stowing her climbing gear into her SUV. Don’t worry, someone will come by before we starve.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “And nobody really says ‘waitress’ much anymore. It’s ‘waiter’ or ‘server,’ regardless of gender.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, frowning. “I bet that I make a lot of mistakes like that. The last few days I’ve felt like Rip van Winkle. People use words I’ve never heard, talk about things I don’t know anything about. And TV? My God, what’s on—”

  “Where’s your anger?” she asked abruptly.

  He tucked his chin. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve lost a lot of years, Tom. They’re just gone. You’ll never get them back. Where’s your anger? You just seem like this mild-mannered guy, not like someone who’s just been let out of prison for a murder that he didn’t commit.”

  He shrugged. “What can I do? I’ll try to get even in court. Tony Loving’s optimistic. But whatever happens, I’ll try to live my life well. As they say, that’ll be the best revenge.”

  Again she tried not to react visibly to his words. She said, “I read the trial record, you know. You didn’t even say anything when the verdict was read against you.”

  “What good would it have done?”

  “You’re always that rational?”

  “I have a high boiling point. People used to tell me they thought I’d be great in the ER because I stay calm under pressure.”

  “You can put up with a lot?”

  “In most circumstances, yes. It’s served me well, I think. Impulsiveness doesn’t go over well when you’re inside.” He checked behind him. Kelda thought he was looking for the waiter again.

  She asked, “What does it take to get you angry?”

  “I don’t know. It happens. I certainly got angry a few times when I was in the penitentiary.”

  “You want to tell me?”

  He thought about it for a moment before he said, “No.”

  “What about fear? What frightens you?”

  “That’s easy. Going back to prison. Being locked up. What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You. Anger. On our ride home. Did you really mean what you said to Prehost that day?”

  “He was pushing me around. I told you I don’t like to be intimidated. So I pushed back. That’s who I am.”

  “Did you mean what you said to him, though? About shooting someone? Did you really do that?”

  Before she could figure out how to respond, Tom went on. “You told him that you knew you wouldn’t miss from that distance. He asked you how many times you’d fired from that distance. You said you’d done it before. Is that true? Have you?”

  “Yes, I have.” She touched the daisy that was in a small white vase on the table, wondering if it was real. It was. “When you were . . . in the penitentiary, did you ever hear about a little girl named Rosa Alija?”

  He shook his head. “For some reason I had constant trouble with the delivery of the newspaper. I complained and complained, but it was never on the porch where it was supposed to be.”

  She smiled.

  “Who was she? The girl?” Tom asked.

  Without looking at him once, Kelda told him about being a rookie FBI agent and accidentally finding a little kidnapped girl in an industrial building in Denver’s Golden Triangle and about rolling along a dirty floor and coming up firing and clustering three slugs in the center of a child molester’s chest while he was trying to blow her to shreds with a gigantic .45.

  “Wow. You weren’t kidding.”

  “No, I wasn’t kidding.”

  “What’s an UNSUB?” he asked.

  “It stands for ‘unknown subject.’ It’s FBI lingo for a suspect.”

  “And you shot him?”

  “I did.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Why unfortunately? It sounds like he deserved it.”

  She flattened her palms on the table. “Because he deserved worse. He was dead in seconds. That’s why it was unfortunate.”

  “Gotcha,” he said.

  She thought his eyes said something else entirely. She said, “Can we change the subject?”

  He reached across the table and with the tips of his fingers he touched her hand. “Okay, how about this? Back last fall, how come you were so sure that the knife you found was really the one used to kill Ivy Campbell?”

  She had trouble keeping her surprise from showing. “What?”

  “When the guy called you that day with directions on how to find the knife, why were you sure it was really the one? After all those years, why would somebody suddenly call the FBI about the murder weapon in a case that was all settled?”

  She stammered, “I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure about anything until the laboratory results came back.”

  He closed his hand over hers and lowered his voice. Given his sultry tone, the words he spoke seemed bizarre. “Until that moment—until the lab results came back—did you think I did it? That I killed Ivy?”

  “Yes, Tom. I did. There was a lot of evidence that said you did. And I didn’t know you then.”

  He sat back a little, but kept his hand on hers. “Thanks. For being honest about that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She watched
him take a few deeper breaths before he asked, “Are you a hundred percent sure right now—right this minute—that I didn’t do it? That I didn’t kill her?”

  “If this is a first date, Tom, I swear it’s the strangest conversation I’ve ever had on one.”

  “Please. I need to know. It’s important that I know that at least one person believes that I’m innocent.”

  “What about your grandfather?”

  “He’d like to believe it. Maybe he’ll get there. Maybe he won’t. He loves me. Right now that’s all I can ask of him, I think. Please answer me.”

  He surprised her with his insight. She said, “The answer to your question is yes, Tom, I’m a hundred percent sure you didn’t kill Ivy Campbell. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes, there is.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is this . . . a first date?”

  She held her breath and nodded once.

  His face broke into a wide grin. “Well, hallelujah. Since this is a first date, you said you were going to tell me how you came to be named Kelda.”

  She looked down at his hand touching hers. “Okay,” she said. “Have you ever heard of theBook of Kells ?”

  “Something else I missed when I was inside? Like you saving that kid?”

  “No, hardly. It’s an old book, an old Irish book. It’s a beautiful hand-drawn manuscript of the four gospels that was written around 800A.D. The book is in Ireland, in the library at Trinity College in Dublin. My grandparents are from there and my grandfather was an amateur scholar who was always interested in the manuscript. The name was their idea. Kelda—it’s in honor of theBook of Kells .”

  “That’s certainly more interesting than ‘Tom.’”

  She closed her eyes and imagined jumping off a cliff. At the same moment, she turned her hand over so that her fingertips touched his.

  “I guess,” she said.

  “A hundred percent sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “And I make you want to dance?”

  “Yeah, and I’m not talking a waltz, either.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Sam Purdy called my home a few minutes after nine. I knew immediately that he was on his cell phone and that he was attempting the call from one of the canyons of crappy reception that dot Boulder.

  “Hey, Alan,” he said after I answered. “It’s Sam.”

  Sam was from northern Minnesota, a little town in the Iron Range called Hibbing. His accent had emigrated to Colorado along with him. Anytime he called, once I’d heard his voice on the phone, I had no need for further identification. “I know who it is,” I said. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m working.” He said something else but all I heard was some crackling and the word “goofy.”

  “You’re breaking up.”

  “What?”

  “You’re breaking up.”

  In a few seconds he said, “Is that better?”

  “Yeah, a little bit. I didn’t hear a thing you said before other than the word ‘goofy.’”

  “I’m with Lucy. We’re finishing up working a home intrusion and assault in an old house on High Street. You know High Street? It’s a little bit east of Casey Park. Nice street. I don’t think I’ve ever answered a call up here before. Anyway, an old man was beat up. It’s ugly.”

  Lucy was Sam’s partner. I wasn’t sure what to say about the news of the home intrusion and assault. I tried, “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not asking for your sympathy. I’m calling to tell you that the victim is the grandfather of Tom Clone. I thought that, given the interest you showed when I was at your house the other night, you might be curious about it. Turns out that Clone is living here with his grandfather, but something tells me you already knew that.”

  “Huh,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. What’s goofy about it?”

  “Goofy? What? I don’t even remember what I was saying before. You have any thoughts that might make my evening any shorter? I’d like to get home before Simon graduates from high school.”

  Simon was, maybe, in the third grade. “You mean . . . thoughts about the assault?”

  “Yes, I mean about the assault.” Sam’s patience, never exemplary, was fading with the cell signal.

  “No, Sam. I don’t know a thing that would help you. Why would I? Are you suspecting Tom Clone?”

  “Now, why would you think that?”

  “Don’t be cute. You guys always suspect the family in domestic assaults. How is the grandfather?”

  “He’s unconscious. They took him by ambulance to Community. Tom Clone called this in himself, by the way. Believe it or not, he says that an FBI agent—a woman—was with him when he got here.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, she’s his alibi. He says they were on a date or something. Clone and this Fed. Go figure. Guy gets a free pass off death row and a week later he’s dating a Fed.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what he says. Haven’t talked to her yet—he says she drove away before he went inside and found his grandfather—but I’ll track her down.” He paused as though he was expecting me to say something. When I didn’t, he said, “Listen, you’ve been terribly helpful and all, but I think maybe I should get back to work.”

  Trying hard not to sound sarcastic in reply, I said, “Thanks for calling, Sam. I appreciate the heads-up. I do.”

  “Whatever. Tell Lauren I said not to get mixed up in this one. I’m already dodging microphones and cameras, and the media leeches don’t even know who the victim is yet. Once they know it was Clone’s grandfather, this one’s going to be a real circus. But . . .” He paused. “Hey, since circuses are now illegal in Boulder, I’ll have to think of another metaphor, won’t I?”

  Sam had been exceedingly amused when the Boulder City Council voted to ban circuses with animals from performing in the city. He told me he’d had a lifelong ambition to collar an elephant sometime in his career and it looked like he was finally going to get his chance.

  Lauren was a prosecutor for Boulder County. As far as I knew, she wasn’t carrying the beeper to catch cases that night for the district attorney’s office, so odds were that she wouldn’t end up prosecuting the assault on Tom Clone’s grandfather.

  That was the only good news I could glean from the events. Still, I told Sam I would pass along his advice.

  After I hung up the phone, I checked to see what the local news channels had to say about the crime. The nine o’clock news programs had crews at the scene already, but the reporters didn’t know much; in fact, as Sam had said, they weren’t yet reporting Tom Clone’s involvement in the incident. I clicked off the TV set and ambled into the nursery to kiss Grace’s sleeping face.

  The phone rang once more a few minutes before eleven. I’d just crawled into bed. Figuring it was Sam again, I answered by saying, simply, “Yeah.”

  After I listened to the greeting on the other end of the line, I replied, “Hold on. I need to change phones.”

  Lauren rolled my way and said, “What is it?”

  “It’s a patient. I’ll get it in the other room. Go back to sleep.”

  “Okay,” she murmured and rolled over the other way.

  I picked up the portable in the kitchen and carried it into the living room. The sky was surprisingly black, with few stars, but below me the Boulder Valley was carpeted with twinkling lights. I was wondering how one of my patients had gotten my home phone number. In an emergency, patients were instructed to call a number that activated my beeper. My home phone was unlisted.

  “Yes, Tom,” I said after taking a few seconds to capture my composure.

  “My grandfather was assaulted tonight. Somebody broke into his house and beat him up.”

  As his words registered, the circumstance I found myself in perplexed me. I tried to decide whether I should pretend that I didn’t already know about the assault. If I revealed to Tom that I’d received an early heads-up about his grandfather from
a police detective, he would be suspicious about why I’d been called and might question whether I’d been indiscreet with Sam about his confidentiality. Impulsively, I chose to try to adopt a middle ground. But I knew my path was paved with banana peels. “How is he?” I asked.

  “Not good. I’m calling you from the hospital. He’s in the ICU. They hit the poor guy in the head. There’s blood all over the hallway. It looks like he was trying to get down the hall to his room or the bathroom or something when they caught up with him and hit him. He doesn’t move very fast.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  The sound I was hearing suddenly changed. I thought he might have covered the phone with his cupped palm. “I think the police think I did it.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  Tom went into great detail about his interview with Sam Purdy. It did sound as though Sam thought that Tom might have done it. But with Sam you never knew; his whole posture could be a ruse. I’d once been on the receiving end of his interrogation skills. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

  “Did you call your lawyer?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure. What? You think I’d call you first? Of course I called my lawyer. As soon as I started getting a weird vibe from that detective, I called him, got one of the other lawyers in his office. She talked to the detective on the phone and asked if I was under arrest. When the detective said no, I got back on the phone and this lawyer told me to shut up. Then she told me to tell the cops to get out of my house and to get a search warrant.”

  “Tom, what can I do for you tonight?”

  “I don’t know. I’m upset. I feel vulnerable, you know. I don’t know why someone was in the house. Why they would beat up an old man like that, whether they might have been gunning for me. I’m afraid that the police are looking for an excuse to put me back in jail. I’m vulnerable. I feel like a fish in a barrel.”