“All I want to do is help you,” I said.
“That’s all?” she asked.
“Well,” I said, “maybe not all, but I do want to protect you.”
The neighborhood was quiet the way wealthy neighborhoods are, the bay calm, the faint slice of moonlight streaking across its still surface, the green channel markers stretching across its length, flashing like a small airport runway in the middle of the night.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to help Harry,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I think it’s best if he gets someone else.”
“It’s not Harry I’m concerned about,” I said. “Why am I the last person to help you?”
She reached for the door handle. “I’ve got to go.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
She opened the door, the light coming on to reveal our dirty and disheveled conditions, and got out. “I just can’t,” she said, eased the door shut, ran down the sidewalk, up her driveway, and back into her prison.
Chapter 32
By the time I reached the empty warehouse in St. Andrews, Ray and Clip were already working on the guy who had grabbed Lauren.
The dusty old building was dark except for the single floodlight illuminating their work area and empty except for a few wooden crates and some trash scattered throughout. Standing there in the darkness, only the occasional burst of sound echoing through the vast space felt more like being on a Hollywood sound stage than a vacant warehouse in the Florida Panhandle.
Not wanting to break their flow, I hung back and studied the little man from the cover of darkness the way he had Lauren earlier in the evening. He was a small man with pale skin and the beginnings of a potbelly.
He sat in a straight-back wooden chair, his hands tied behind him, his body slumping forward against the rope around his chest.
His face was red and puffy, his right eye swollen shut, and a steady trickle of blood dripped from his left nostril. It was obvious they had already put him through his paces, and I wondered how much more he could take.
When Ray spotted me, he walked over to where I stood, as Clip continued to punch the man with his glove-covered fists, all the while whispering in his ear.
“How’d Clip find you?” I asked.
I had called Ray from the school when I went back to get my car, but hadn’t gotten an answer.
“He didn’t,” he said. “I found him. After we got Lewis home, I drove around downtown looking for you or Mrs. Lewis and found Clipper.”
Clip started slapping the man hard across the face with his open hand and he let out a little yelp the way puppies do when an older dog finally gets tired of their playfulness and nips at them.
“This guy’s just about ready to go,” Ray said.
Overhead the exposed rusty beams supporting the roof were caked with dust and wrapped with cobwebs.
The man began to cry, sobbing between his pleas.
Clip turned to us and said, “Carl here has something he wish to say.”
We walked over to them.
“That didn’t take long,” Ray said.
I stood directly in front of Carl and looked down at him intently. “Let’s hear it.”
“Tonight was the first night I followed that lady,” he said. “I swear to God.”
“We already know that,” Clip said. “You been there before we’d’ve caught your ass sooner.”
Carl looked at me, his eyes searching mine. “So you believe me?”
“Why were you following her tonight?”
“I was hired to,” he said. “I swear it.”
“By whom?”
“Her husband.”
“What exactly did her husband hire you to do?” I said.
“Watch her,” he said. “Follow her around. Said somebody was harassing her. If anybody messed with her, stop them.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“So why’d you pull her into the bushes?”
“I was trying to protect her,” he said. “I saw you guys and I thought she was in real danger. I pulled her in and tried to explain what I was doing, but she fought me. When she pulled a little pistol out of her purse, I ran.”
Ray pulled the small leather sap out of his pocket, and the little man’s eyes grew wide.
“Come on, fellas,” he said. “I’m talkin’.”
“Yeah, but you’re not telling us the truth,” I said.
He started to say something, but before he could, Ray began to work on him with the sap. He was good with it, and it wasn’t long before Carl was crying again—and swearing to tell the truth this time.
“I was hired to scare her and give her a message,” he said. “I swear. I can’t take no more. I swear I’m telling the truth this time.”
“Who hired you?” I asked.
“A guy named James Riley,” he said.
Ray and Clip looked at me.
“I look dumb enough to hire him?”
They both nodded.
I looked back at Carl. “Jimmy Riley, huh? Did I hire you?”
He looked confused. “What?”
“My name’s Jimmy Riley,” I said.
His eyes widened. “I’m not lying,” he said. “I swear. The guy said his name was James Riley. I swear that’s the truth.”
I was inclined to believe him.
“What’d he look like?”
“He was a big guy,” he said. “Not fat, but big with muscles. I only saw him once, and that’s all I remember. I swear it.”
“What was the message?” I asked.
He looked confused for a moment.
“For the girl,” I said. “What was the message?”
“Make sure her husband drops out of the campaign or everyone will know.”
“Know what?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s all he told me. Stay out of the election or everyone will know.”
Chapter 33
By the time I reached Beach Drive the next morning, a taxi, with Lauren in it, was backing out of her driveway. I was thankful I was in Clip’s car, which I had rented for this occasion, because when I passed the cab Lauren was looking out the back window right at me.
She was gazing out seemingly lost in thought, and if she recognized me she didn’t give any indication, so I pulled in the next side road, turned around, and pulled back into traffic behind them.
A low fog hovering just above the surface of the bay spilled onto the road in small patches that looked like clouds seen from a plane and seemed to soak up the beams of the headlights shining into them. Though there was plenty of light, the sun had yet to rise above the trees on the horizon and burn off the chill in the early morning air.
Ray was camped out at Rainer’s sanatorium, waiting for his return. We had stopped by last night after leaving the warehouse and searched the place, but he hadn’t been there. We both felt like he had the information we needed, the secrets Harry and Lauren were hiding from us, and we looked forward to the opportunity of making him sing—in fact, there was only one place I wanted to be more than in a small room with Rainer, and that was close to Lauren.
The first place the taxi took Lauren surprised me. I had never known her to be a religious person. We had left God out of our relationship entirely. The guilt she felt over our affair aside, she didn’t strike me as a very moral person either. It wasn’t that I thought she was immoral. I didn’t. Just a typically amoral member of the ruling class. But here she was—attending early Mass at St. Dominic’s, the small Catholic church on Harrison Avenue.
She looked out of place in her black sheath dress and silk stockings among the simply attired elderly women she joined—and they noticed, many of them making no attempt to conceal their scrutiny.
When I walked into the back of the sanctuary after the service had started, I received enlightenment. It didn’t take a trained investigator to see that the most likely explanation of her newfound religiosity was the priest
standing behind the alter.
I had seen him before, though he wasn’t wearing his Roman collar at the time. He had been wearing the casual clothes appropriate for a clandestine meeting at the Wakulla Springs Lodge.
I eased out of the church quietly and waited inside Clip’s car. I had never liked churches. They always felt more like prisons than anything else to me—even at weddings, but particularly at funerals. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God or find some aspects of religion interesting and amusing, but whatever notion I had of whoever is beyond all this had nothing to do with what went on inside the small wooden churches that littered the landscape of Panama City.
I picked up the paper off the seat beside me and flipped through it. Italy had declared war on Germany. Canadian forces had taken Campobasso. US, British, and Soviet foreign ministers were meeting in Moscow. And after winning the mayoral debate against incumbent, Frank Howell, candidate Harry Lewis shocked everyone by announcing that he was seriously considering dropping out of the race.
In the fog-diffused morning light, St. Dominic’s seemed to glow as if what I were looking at was an old faded photograph instead of an actual building.
After the service, Lauren and the priest lingered near the door as the old ladies crept to their cars and eased out of the lot. Eventually, he walked her out to her waiting cab. Even from this distance, their body language conveyed intimacy and an easiness with each other that only comes from a lot of time together. Once he had her in the cab, he bent down and kissed her on the cheek, his lips lingering a little too long on her flushed face.
Pulling out of St. Dominic’s, the cab edged back into traffic on Harrison, driving slowly, seemingly in no hurry.
Unbidden, thoughts of my relationship with Lauren came and stayed. Before the jealousy, before the breakup, before the obsession, before it all, there had been bliss.
I was overcome with a deep sadness. All at once, I realized just how much I had lost—Lauren, our future, my arm, my career, my future. Everything. All of it. All at once. And I couldn’t breathe.
Before I met Lauren, I was only vaguely aware of my discontent and disconnectedness. I had longed for more than my banal existence, but wasn’t sure what that would be. Now, having had so much I was finding it difficult to go quietly back into the night of meaninglessness and mediocrity—I had been awakened and did not want to go back to sleep.
Even in the midst of my bitterness and regret, I couldn’t deny what we had experienced. Not even my cynicism could protect me from reality, and no matter how suspicious I was of Lauren now, I still knew she had felt it too, knew she had genuinely loved me. Regardless of how many men came before or how many followed, I knew she had never had with them what we had.
When the cab pulled onto Grace Avenue, I realized I hadn’t been back to see Ann Everett like I promised her I would. I needed to schedule an appointment—and actually keep it. But my hollow heart sank when Lauren’s cab parked in front of her office and she went inside.
Is she seeing us both? How could she? That would be … . The things she must know about us, I thought. Seeing us both—she’s the only person in the whole world who knows the whole story.
I grew angry as I realized that she knew more than I did. She knew why Lauren had left me. She knew Lauren’s hidden self, the secret depths I had yet to dive.
She also knew many of my secrets. She knew how seeing Lauren again had affected me. She knew I was following her. She knew—what if she were telling Lauren?
How could she not think we’d eventually bump into each other as we came and went from her office or find ourselves seated across from each other in the singular silence of a shrink’s waiting room?
I thought about what to do.
I got out of my car and walked to the service station on the corner and used the payphone to call Everett.
“I’ve got to speak to Ann,” I said in a panicked, breathless voice when the receptionist answered the phone. “Right now.”
“She’s in a session right now,” she said. “Can I take a—”
“It’s an emergency,” I said. “I’ve got to talk to her right now.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but—”
“It’s a matter of life and death,” I said, and gave her my name.
That did it.
“Hold on just a moment.”
In less than fifteen seconds, Ann Everett was on the line. Lauren must have been in the room with her because she didn’t say my name and she had a dry, pinched quality to her voice I had never heard before.
“I need to see you,” I said.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll have Midge set up something soon.”
“Right now,” I said. “I’ve got to see you. Can’t wait.”
“I can’t right now,” she said. “I’m with a client and I’ve got—”
“I’m coming. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“What?” she asked in shock. “No, now’s not good. Really, you shouldn’t. Wait. Let’s schedule you for—”
“I have to,” I said and hung up.
Lauren came out a few minutes later, got into her cab, and rode away. I smiled to myself as I pulled out onto the road and followed her.
When the cab dropped her at her home, I suddenly had time to see Ann Everett, which I did.
“Where have you been?” Ann Everett asked. “You said it was an emergency. I cleared my schedule. What took you so long to get here?”
“I didn’t have any intention of coming,” I said. “I was following Lauren. When I learned that you were seeing both of us …”
“Oh,” she said, obviously taken aback.
“I unexpectedly got a moment and decided to see what you had to say for yourself.”
She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry.”
“All the answers I’ve been searching for, all the reasons, all the explanations—everything I was stumbling around trying to find—you knew all the time. You knew more than anyone. You were the only person on the planet who had both sides of the story. You knew everything and you didn’t even let on that you knew her.”
“I couldn’t,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t.”
Her blonde hair was still flipped out, her black-rimmed glasses in place, and though she still looked like a co-star, her now veiled eyes and guarded face would prevent her from playing the girl next door or the virtuous, worshipful wife.
“You could’ve said something,” I said. “Told one of us you couldn’t see us or—”
“There was no conflict for me,” she said. “I—”
“Enjoyed our little Saturday matinee melodrama,” I said. “It gave you a sense of power over us, of control.”
“I realize you’re upset,” she said. “And I understand, but don’t let that cloud your thinking. I’ve provided good counseling to you both. I’ve not done anything unethical or—”
“We’ll see what the ethics review board says about that,” I said.
“What?”
“I plan to report the situation,” I said.
Fear flashed in her eyes and her voice grew tight and pinched like her face. “Jimmy, you’re overreacting. I’m sorry you feel betrayed, but the truth is you haven’t been. I haven’t done anything—”
“What did Lauren tell you?” I asked.
“What? About what?”
“I want to know what she told you—in her sessions.”
“I can’t reveal that,” she said. “You know that.”
“Just give me a summary.”
She shook her head. “I won’t. I would never—”
“Even to save your license?”
“You’re threatening me?”
“Actually, it’s blackmail,” I said.
“I think you need to leave,” she said. “I would never do anything that violated the trust of a client.”
“You mean beside see their ex-lovers without them knowing it?”
When I left Ann’s office, I decided to check in at ours and
try to figure out my next move.
My heart started pounding and I grew lightheaded when I rounded the corner at the Tennessee House and saw all the squad cars in front of our building. I parked, jumped out, and ran up to the police line. Ray was just beyond the line talking with Pete.
Pete motioned me in and the patrol cop stepped aside and let me pass.
Ray looked as if he had just stepped off a small boat in a turbulent sea, his pale, expressionless face tinged with green.
“What is it?” I asked.
“They found a body inside,” Ray said. “They think it might be July.”
Chapter 34
Walking past the uniform stationed at the door, Pete, Ray, and I ducked beneath the crime scene tape and entered our building.
I could tell immediately that the scene was being processed the way it should be. There were enough, but not too many cops around, each doing a specific task. Everything was quiet and orderly—a modicum of respect usually missing. The presence of Henry Folsom, the most senior detective of PCPD, personally ensured that the perp would be apprehended and prosecuted successfully. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Get your goddamn hands in your pockets,” he yelled at a plainclothes detective. “I don’t want you touchin’ anything.”
Henry Folsom was a large man. Everything about him was thick. He was tall and middle-aged, but muscular—only some of which was beginning to turn to fat. As usual, he was wearing his trench coat and fedora inside.
He was standing at the top of the stairs watching as the initial pictures were being taken.
“Jimmy,” he said. “How you been?”
He had been my boss at one time. He was a decent man, a tough and honest cop.
“Not bad—unless it’s … How am I about to be?”
“Not good,” he said, shaking his head and frowning, then spoke to Ray.
Ray nodded, but didn’t say anything.
Distance. Numbness. Shock. Everything around me receded—further and further until a great distance away—and I could feel nearly nothing. Neither Ray nor I could say much of anything or show any emotion in front of Henry and his men—which wouldn’t be a problem for me. I was having a hard enough time just breathing.
Michael Lister - Soldier 01 - The Big Goodbye Page 12