The Best Revenge

by Stephen White

  “Mortgage?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that’s the GE part. But we bought the place when the market was soft, so we’re doing okay. I consider the place my retirement plan or Grace’s college fund, whichever comes first.”

  “Doing better than okay with it, I bet,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, better than okay.”

  “I never told you, but Sherry and I own the shop where she sells her flowers. It’s a retail/condo-type thing. We have a mortgage, too, but over the years, we’ve made more money on the real estate than she’s made selling flowers.”

  “Sometimes,” I said, “being lucky is much more lucrative than being smart.”

  I watched him as he reached into his shirt pocket and held up a flimsy piece of paper with a few rows of Powerball picks on them. He said, “Amen to that,” and laughed. After he stuffed the lottery ticket back into his pocket, he raised his chin and yanked at the knot in his tie. Then he spent an inordinate amount of time undoing the top button of his shirt. I thought the difficulty could have had something to do with the fact that he appeared to be wearing a size-sixteen shirt on his size-seventeen-and-a-half neck.

  My sense of self-preservation caused me to withhold comment on my observation.

  “Here’s the thing—if Clone walked up that sidewalk over there and climbed the stairs to your office door right this minute, I’d just want to talk to him. But the truth is that if he didn’t answer some of my questions just right, I’m not too far away from arresting him. I’m trying to be honest with you here.”

  “For his grandfather’s assault?”

  Sam sighed. “I’m afraid so.”

  I felt sweat on my temple and started the engine so that the air conditioner would kick on. “Close your door,” I said.

  “We going somewhere?” Sam asked.

  I said, “No, I’m not anyway. I just want to get the AC running. You think he did it?”

  “What’s ‘it’? That murder in Park County? Or the assault on the grandfather?”

  I’d already heard Sam’s thoughts on Ivy Campbell’s murder. “I’m talking about his grandfather.”

  “I think there are things he’s not explaining adequately. Time-frame things, mostly.”

  “What happened to his alibi? When you called me the other night, you said he has an alibi.”

  “His alibi held up okay—actually pretty good—but it turns out that there’re some outstanding questions about the time of the actual assault. It may have happened before his alibi kicks in. We’re not sure.”

  I moved my hands to my face and rubbed my eyes. I suddenly felt tired. “I can’t tell you where he works. I wish I could. I know you’ll find out eventually anyway and I’d love to save you the hassle.”

  “Who else might know where he works?”

  “His grandfather?”

  “The old guy is still gorked.”

  Gork: God only really knows.Sam was using the hospital staff acronym to tell me that Tom Clone’s grandfather was in no neurological position to reveal his grandson’s employer. I felt even more tired than I had.

  “I don’t know who else might know. What about a parole officer?”

  “Clone’s not on parole, Alan. He’s a free man.”

  Of course he was. I knew that.

  Sam reached for the door handle. “For the record,” he said, “I’m worried about him.”

  “Huh? You’re worried about him? Why?”

  “I don’t like it when people go missing.”

  “Are you worried about what he’s up to? Or are you worried that he may be in danger? Which is it?”

  “Maybe both. Certainly the latter. I have to consider the possibility that it wasn’t a stranger who assaulted the grandfather and that the grandfather wasn’t the intended victim.” He cracked open the door.

  “Wait,” I said. I forced a deep breath and asked, “Sam, is anyone else in danger in this situation? From Tom Clone? Are you keeping anything from me? Has he threatened anyone?”

  Sam chuckled. “Of course I’m keeping things from you. But no, Clone hasn’t threatened anyone that we know of.” He opened his mouth to say something more but only said, “Oh,” and winced before he closed it again. Finally, he added, “Danger? Yeah, maybe. Maybe someone else is in danger.”

  “Imminent danger?”

  “Yeah, imminent danger. That’s possible.”

  “But no specific threat that you’re aware of?”

  “No, no threat.”

  “Possible’s not good enough.” I took another deliberate breath. At some level of my awareness, I knew I was pausing to give Sam a chance to catch up with me. “But you think he might be in danger, Sam? Clone? Say he didn’t assault his grandfather, but someone else did. Tom Clone might still be in danger from the same person who broke into the house and beat up his grandfather?”

  Sam was beginning to get a feel for the melody of the tune I was humming, and finally started tapping his foot to the music.

  “Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “No doubt about it. Until we get this thing solved, you have to figure that anyone else who lived in that house with the grandfather is in danger. If Clone didn’t do the assault, he could even be somewhere injured right now—hell, maybe that’s why we can’t find him. We’re talking definite imminent danger.” He paused. “Definite.”

  I wasn’t looking at Sam. Yes, I was concerned for Tom Clone’s safety, but I knew I’d been dangling clues that invited Sam to conspire with me to rationalize an indiscretion I absolutely shouldn’t commit. Sam was a quick study and he’d read his lines just right. I said, “Kaiser pharmacy over on Thirteenth. You know it?”

  Sam said, “It’s where the clinic is? By Casey School?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We take Simon there,” he said. He opened the door and stepped out of the car. Slamming the door, he leaned down and looked across at me. “You’ll take me for a ride in that funny little car of yours, right? Once your arm’s okay?”

  “Maybe, if you promise not to sneeze.”

  He said, “Thanks, Alan.”

  I said nothing. I watched Sam walk away, not feeling good about what I’d done. And I knew I wouldn’t have felt good if I had done nothing. I also knew that a year before, I wouldn’t have revealed what I’d just revealed.

  So why did I do it? Here was my rationalization: I did it because the cost of my silence the last time a cop asked me to talk still weighed on me like wet shoes. I had stayed silent that time and one of my patients had ended up dying less than a hundred feet away from me.

  Was what I just did with Sam ethical? Probably not.

  Hell, definitely not.

  Was it right?

  I’d once thought that the question was one of blacks and whites, occasionally charcoal grays and off-whites. Now? Sometimes I couldn’t tell at all any longer.

  Was I growing more experienced? Or just more jaded?

  I didn’t know. That was the nature of the funk I was in those days.

  CHAPTER 28

  Grace was squirming on the changing table in front of me. The little changing-table dance was something she often did just as I released the second taped tab from the diaper that was destined for the bin. Keeping her on the table while I fumbled to keep the contents of the old diaper inside the diaper was a significant challenge to my dexterity when I had two unbroken arms. With one arm encased in fiberglass, the task had become a bad vaudeville routine. That’s why I didn’t turn my head when I heard Lauren enter the room behind me and say, “Sam’s on the phone.”

  I thought—okay, I hoped—that my wife would offer to take over the diapering operation, but a whiff of what awaited her had apparently made it across the room before she had a chance to be so magnanimous.

  She tucked the cordless phone between my shoulder and my ear and whispered, “That looks like a two-hander you got there. Say hi to Sammy for me.”

  “What does she mean, ‘a two-hander’?” Sam asked.

  “I’m in the middle of chan
ging Grace’s diaper. That kind of two-hander.”

  “Oh, bad memories, I can call back.”

  “No, just give me a minute or two to finish up here.” I set the phone down and gave Grace’s hygiene a hundred percent of my attention until she smelled as fresh as a baby can smell. After I snapped her into a fresh pair of jammies, I handed her off to Lauren and returned to the phone.

  “What’s up, Sam?” I was afraid, of course, that he was about to remind me of my newly earned confidentiality-slut status and demand some fresh Tom Clone information from me.

  His agenda, it turned out, was more generous than that. “I thought you deserved an update about what we discussed earlier. Well, here’s the latest scoop from inside the halls of the Boulder Public Safety Building: Mr. Clone is officially still missing. A crack detective learned from unidentified sources that today was supposed to be his first day of work at Kaiser, but he didn’t show up for his new job and he didn’t call in. They don’t know where he is and, by the way, they don’t really care, because he no longer has a job.”

  I was too cynical to be surprised. I did feel a flush of unease over Tom Clone’s well-being. Almost immediately, I started blathering. “There seem to be only a few possible explanations, Sam. One is that for some reason he doesn’t want to be found. Two—”

  “Wait,” Sam interrupted. “If he doesn’t want to be found, I say it’s because he’s guilty of something. For argument’s sake, something like beating the shit out of his grandfather. That’s just my nature. But go on.”

  “Two is that something has happened to him—you know, like an accident—and he’s incapacitated in some way and that’s why he can’t be found.”

  Sam grunted. The grunt did not indicate his assent to my speculation.

  I pressed on. “Three, it turns out that he has been in jeopardy all along and somebody has . . . hurt him.”

  “Because I like you, I’m not even going to comment on the odds of number two. He’s been hurt and he can’t get to a telephone? Come on. And I’ll trade you my winning Powerball ticket if you can help me come up with a motive for number three. Why would somebody want to hurt Clone?”

  “Sorry, Sam. That would require speculation based on privileged information, and this slut is going into recovery. I’ve changed my evil ways.”

  He laughed. “Figured as much. You have a minute for a little story?”

  “Like a parable? From you?” I sat down on the upholstered chair in the nursery. Instantly I could smell the aromas of my baby—the good smells—and my wife. I felt my blood pressure drop.

  “Last week a neighbor knocked on my door late, maybe nine o’clock. Simon was in bed already. I know this guy to see him, but I don’t know him personally at all—we’re not even on a wave-to-each-other-when-you’re-driving-by-and-the-other-guy’s-mowing-the-lawn

  kind of basis. He’s a stockbroker.”

  Sam said “He’s a stockbroker” as though the man’s choice of professions should have been an adequate explanation for why Sam and the neighbor weren’t more friendly. I knew better. Sam was characterologically cranky and generally mistrustful of civilians. That was the reason he kept his neighbors—probably every last one of them—at arm’s length. His wife, on the other hand, could probably quote chapter and verse of the first couple of branches of each of her neighbors’ family trees.

  “Guy is kind of nervous, says he doesn’t want to bother me but he’s had this client for years, some sweet old man who lives over in Martin Acres. The guy—the old guy—has a small portfolio of bonds and uses the income to supplement his Social Security.

  “‘Small,’ by the way, turns out to be two hundred and eleven thousand dollars. Was I away when two hundred and eleven thousand dollars stopped being considered real money? Anyway, over the last couple of months, the old guy has started to sell off some of his bonds, one by one. Tell me something, is it ‘sell’ or ‘redeem’? I know from bad guys and I know from bratwurst; I don’t know from bonds.”

  I said, “I’m not sure.”

  “Figures. Where was I? Oh yeah, this old guy who never does anything without his broker’s advice apparently won’t tell the broker why he’s suddenly so interested in divesting himself of double-A sewer-improvement notes for the City of Thornton, even though it’s jeopardizing his retirement income.

  “And this neighbor of mine—did I mentionwhom I hardly know —wondered if I’d check it out.”

  “Check what out?”

  “Exactly. That’s what I asked. Last time I looked, it was still legal for people to sell their bonds and not tell their broker why they’re doing it. I say that and the guy stuffs his hands in the pockets of his Bermuda shorts and sighs and backpedals on my little front porch until he finally—finally—tells me that the old guy’s daughter moved back in with him a few months back and he—the broker—thinks that she might be mistreating him, maybe even shaking him down for the money. The one time the broker saw the old guy recently, he had bruises up and down one arm and seemed very uncomfortable talking about his daughter.”

  “Abuse of the elderly,” I said.

  “Yeah, bingo. Well, from a public safety point of view, that’s a rib with some significant meat on it—that’s something I can check out. So the next day I get a few minutes free and I drive out to Martin Acres. I hang my shield on my coat pocket and puff up my chest, and I knock on the guy’s front door.”

  I savored the image.

  “The old guy came to the door himself. I introduce myself right through the screen. He stares at my shield for maybe ten seconds, then he says, ‘Are you here to arrest Dorothy?’”

  “Wow,” I said. “Just like that, Sam? You’re good. God, you’re good. I ever tell you that?”

  “Yeah, your sarcasm aside, I know I’m good. But to get back to my story, just like that the old guy says, ‘Are you here to arrest Dorothy?’ When I don’t reply to the man’s question right away, he starts to cry. I figure it’s tears of relief, you know, so I’m standing there feeling pretty good about myself and my neighbor the stockbroker.”

  “Did you arrest Dorothy?”

  “Yeah. Dorothy and I sat down and chatted at her daddy’s kitchen table and she spilled the beans and I arrested her right then and there. I did.”

  Sam stopped talking. I waited for something else. It didn’t come.

  “I give up, Sam. I’m missing the parable. It just sounds like another sad story to me.”

  “Were you always this concrete? I used to think that you had a more abstract side to your personality. Isn’t that like a requirement for people in your profession?”

  “You going to tell me the point?”

  “My neighbor, the broker? He had no right to tell me what he told me about this guy selling his bonds.”

  “Ah,” I said. “So your neighbor is yet another confidentiality slut. But because of his indiscretion, an old man is safe. That’s the message that’s supposed to help me sleep better tonight? Thank you, Aesop.”

  “Close but not quite, Doc. This is where the parable gets even more heuristic.”

  It was at moments when Sam used words like “heuristic” that I was reminded about his master’s degree in literature.

  “See, the truth is the old man’s life has turned to shit. He’d already sold off over half the bonds that he needed to supplement his Social Security income”—Sam’s pronunciation of the words made them sound like “so-so security”—“and he’ll never get that money back. None of it. What’s worse, as far as I can tell, it all went up Dorothy’s nose. If you can believe it, the old man even sold off two more bonds to pay for a lawyer for the bitch daughter after I arrested her.

  “And that’s not the worst. The worst is that now what’s left of his family is fractured so badly that it will never recover. The man lost his money and his family turned to crap.”

  I said, “It would have been worse if Dorothy had been permitted to continue to abuse him, Sam.”

  “You never know that, though, d
o you? She managed to ruin things for him no matter what we did to try to help. That’s the parable. In court the day she was arraigned, he told me that he wished she had just gone ahead and killed him. You just never know about these things.”

  I tried to be palliative. “You did what you thought was best.”

  “Did I? I go back to that day that I’m standing at his door, and I’m no longer sure that the tears I saw on his cheek were from relief. I think the guy realized that whatever good cards he’d been holding in his hand up until that point in his life, fate had just figured out how to trump him. He’d gone from king of the old retired guys at the Senior Center to being some beat-up old chump who knows bitterness like he knows the gap in his mouth where the tooth is missing.”

  I inhaled deeply, trying to recapture the aroma of my family. “This Tom Clone thing you’re looking into isn’t going to have a pretty ending either, is it, Sam?”

  “Nope. Not a prayer.”

  “Good night, Sam. Thanks for the update.”

  “Yeah. Hey, one more thing.”

  I wasn’t surprised there was one more thing.

  “You know anything you can tell me about this female FBI agent? The one who alibied him that night? You never even commented on the fact that they were together. The other night, I told you that Clone’s alibi was a female FBI agent and you didn’t even say a single word about it. Not even a flinch from you. The detective part of me finds that just the slightest bit goofy.”

  I know a lot about the FBI agent,I thought.Or I may only know a little; I’m not quite sure which. But whichever it was, I couldn’t tell Sam a thing about Kelda James and anything she might have to do with Tom Clone.

  I don’t like being trapped. With both his parable and his question, Sam had me trapped. I scrambled for a way out of the snare. Injecting my tone full of mock indignation for his benefit, I said, “What do you think I am?”

  It was his turn to laugh. “We’ve already established that, haven’t we?”

  I didn’t want to wake Sam’s wife and son, so I used his pager number when I tried to reach him much later that night.