by John Hart
She leaned back, a twist of smile on her face. “Why nine thirty?”
“I need to make some calls.”
She turned for the door. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Nurse,” I said. “If Detective Alexander comes, I’ll speak with her.”
I looked at the clock. Five forty-eight. I called Robin at home. She was awake. “Did you mean what you said about choice?”
“I think I was pretty plain.”
“Words are easy, Robin; life is hard. I need to know if you really mean it? All of it. The good and the bad. The consequences.”
“This is the last time I’m going to say it, Adam, so don’t ask me again. I made my choice. You’re the one holding back. If you want to talk about choice, then we need to talk about you. It can’t be a one-way street. What’s the point?”
I gave myself a second, and then I committed, for better or worse. “I need you to do something for me. It means putting what matters to me over what matters to the cops.”
“Are you testing me?” She sounded angry.
“No.”
“It sounds serious.”
“Like you would not believe.”
“What do you need?” No hesitation.
“I need you to bring me something.”
She was in the room an hour later, the postcard from my glove compartment in her hand. “You okay?” she asked.
“Angry. Messed up. Mostly angry.”
She kissed me, and when she straightened, she left the card on the bed. I looked at the blue water, the white sand. “Where did you get that?” she asked.
“Faith’s motel.”
She sat, slid the chair close. “It’s postmarked after Danny died. Whoever mailed that is complicit in his murder, at least after the fact.”
“I know.”
“Will I get it back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you serious?”
I looked at the clock. “We should know in a few hours.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“Tell me about Grace,” I said.
“You’re not making this easy.”
“I can’t talk about what I’m going to do. I just need to do it. It’s not about you. It’s about me. Can you understand that?”
“Okay, Adam. I understand.”
“You were going to tell me about Grace.”
“It was close. A few more minutes and she’d have died. Probably a good thing you didn’t wait for me.”
“How did it happen?”
“She came back from the funeral and went inside. Half an hour later, somebody knocked on the door. She opened it and Miriam shot her. Never said a word. Just pulled the trigger and watched as Grace dragged herself back inside.”
“Where’d she get the gun?” I asked.
“Registered to Danny Faith. A little peashooter. He probably kept it in his glove compartment.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Charlotte P.D. found his truck in long-term parking at Douglas Airport. I saw the inventory yesterday. He had a box of .25 caliber shells in the glove compartment, but no gun.”
“Miriam killed him,” I said. “She used Dolf’s gun to do it, then put it back in the gun cabinet. She must have found the .25 when she ditched the truck.”
I saw the wheels turn, small lines at the corners of her eyes.
“There are a lot of gaps in that theory, Adam. It’s a big jump. How do you figure?”
I relayed the things that Miriam had said about her and Danny. I paused, then told her the rest of it: Grace, my mother. I kept my face neutral, even when I spoke of my father’s long deception.
Robin kept her own mask up and nodded only as I finished. “That lines up with your father’s statement.”
“He told you? All of it?”
“He told Grantham. It wasn’t easy for him, but he wanted Grantham to understand why Miriam snapped. Even though she was dead, he wanted the blame for it.” She leaned forward. “It’s killing him, Adam. He’s eaten up over this, like it’s all his fault.”
“It is his fault.”
“I don’t know. Miriam’s father ran out on her when she was very young. That’s a tough thing for a little girl. When your father stepped in, she put him on a pretty high pedestal. A long way to fall.”
I wasn’t ready to go there. “Killing Danny is only part of it,” I said. “She’s the one that attacked Grace. She beat her bloody because Danny loved her.” I looked away. “And because she’s my father’s daughter.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I suspect it. I plan to prove it.”
I felt her eyes on my face, could not imagine what she must be thinking. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“It’s true, what Miriam said.” I paused. “My father always did love Grace best.”
“You’re missing the one piece of good in all this.”
“Which is?”
“You have a sister.”
Something fragile spread in the void of my chest. I looked out the window, watched hard blue fill up the morning sky. “Miriam killed Gray Wilson,” I finally said.
“What?” Robin was stunned.
“She was infatuated with him.”
I told her about finding Miriam at Gray Wilson’s grave. How she went there every month with fresh-cut flowers, how she claimed that they were going to be married. The same thing she’d said about Danny. It could not be coincidence.
“He was handsome and popular, everything she was not. She probably spent months working up the courage to tell him how she felt, fantasizing about his response. Playing it out in her mind. Then the party happened.” I shrugged. “I think she tried to seduce him and failed. He said something belittling. Laughed, maybe. I think she bashed his head in with a rock when he tried to walk away.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It’s what happened to Danny, more or less.”
“I’d like something more.”
“Ask me again in three hours.”
“Are you serious?”
“Right now, it’s just theory.”
She looked at the postcard. It was material evidence in what could easily be a capital case. She could be fired, prosecuted. She picked it up. “If this has prints, it could set Dolf free. Have you considered that?”
“He’ll walk, regardless.”
“Are you willing to gamble on that?”
“I know reasonable doubt when I see it. You do, too. Miriam shot two people in a fit of jealousy over Danny. She used the gun taken from his abandoned truck, gave him thirty thousand dollars, thought he was going to marry her.” I shook my head. “The case will never go to trial.”
“Will you at least tell me what you’re planning?”
“You made a choice. I made a choice. It’s time for my father to do the same thing.”
“Is this about forgiveness?”
“Forgiveness?” I said. “I don’t even know what that word means.”
Robin stood and I reached for her hand. “I can’t stay here,” I said. “Not after this. Not knowing what I do. When the dust settles, I’m going back to New York. I want you to come with me this time.”
She bent and kissed me. She left two fingers on my jaw as she straightened. “Whatever you’re doing,” she said. “Don’t screw it up.”
Her eyes were wide and dark, but that was no kind of answer, and we both knew it.
CHAPTER 33
I called George Tallman at home. The phone rang nine times and he dropped the receiver when he tried to answer. “George?” I asked.
“Adam?” His voice was thick. “Hang on.” He put the phone down. I heard it strike wood. Most of a minute passed before he picked it up again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not dealing with this very well.”
“You want to talk about it?”
He knew most of what had happened, and sounded like a man in full-blown shock. He kept using the present tense when he spoke of Miriam, then
he’d apologize, embarrassed. It took a few minutes for me to realize that he was drunk. Drunk and confused. He did not want to say anything that would hurt Miriam’s memory. Saying that made him cry.
Her memory.
“Do you know how long I’d been in love with her?” he finally asked.
“No.”
He told me, in fits and starts. Years. All the way back to high school, but she’d never wanted anything to do with him. “That’s what made it so special,” he explained. “I waited. I knew it was right. I stayed true. Eventually, she knew it, too. Like it was meant to be.”
I waited for a dozen heartbeats. “May I ask a question?”
“Okay.” He sniffed loudly.
“When Miriam and Janice flew back from Colorado, they spent the night in Charlotte and stayed there the next day.”
“To shop.”
“But Miriam wasn’t feeling well.” It was a guess. I wanted corroboration.
“She was . . . how did you know that?”
“You took Janice shopping and left Miriam at the hotel.”
Suspicion crept into his voice. “Why are you asking about this?”
“Just one more question, George.”
“What?” Still doubtful.
“What hotel did they use?”
“Tell me why you want to know?” He was sobering up, suspicion growing, so I did what I had to do. I lied.
“It’s a harmless question, George.”
A minute later, I hung up, and for two more, I did nothing, just closed my eyes and let everything wash over me. The pain climbed to the next level as the drugs wore thin. I thought about the morphine pump, but kept my hand on the bed. When I felt able, I called the hotel in Charlotte. “Concierge desk, please.”
“One moment.” The phone clicked twice, then another man’s voice. “Concierge.”
“Yes. Do you have cars available for your guests?”
“We have a private limousine service.”
“Do you loan cars to your guests? Or rent them?”
“No, sir.”
“What car rental company is nearest to your hotel?” He told me. It was one of the big ones.
“We can take you there in a shuttle,” he said.
“Can you give me their phone number?”
The woman who answered at the rental desk was standard corporate issue. Monotone. Unflappable. Unhelpful when I asked my question. “We cannot give out that information, sir.”
I tried to stay calm, but it was difficult. I asked three times. “It’s very important,” I said.
“I’m sorry, sir. We cannot give out that information.”
I hung up the phone, caught Robin on her cell. She was at the station house. “What is it, Adam? Are you okay?”
“I need some information. I can’t get it. They’d talk to the police, I think.”
“What kind of information?”
I told her what I wanted and gave her the number of the car rental company. “They’ll have records. Credit card confirmations. Something. If she jerks you around, you can always try the corporate office.”
“I know how to do this, Adam.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. I’ll let you know. Stay by the phone.”
I almost smiled. “Was that a joke?”
“Cheer up, Adam. The worst part is over.”
But I was thinking of my father. “No,” I said. “It’s not.”
“I’ll call you.”
I sank into the pillow and watched the big clock on the wall. It took eight minutes, and I knew in the first second that she’d gotten what I wanted. Her voice had that keen edge. “You were right. Miriam rented a green Taurus, license plate ZXF-839. Miriam’s credit card. Visa, to be precise. Rented that morning, returned that afternoon. One hundred and seventeen miles on the odometer.”
“That’s round-trip to the farm and back.”
“Almost to the mile. I checked.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Thanks,” I said.
She paused. “Good luck, Adam. I’ll come see you this afternoon.”
The next call had to wait until business hours. I called at nine. The woman who answered the phone was dangerously happy. “Good morning,” she said. “Worldwide Travels. How may I be of service?”
I said hello and got straight to the point. “If I wanted to fly from Charlotte to Denver,” I asked. “Could you route me through Florida?”
“Where in Florida?”
I thought about it.
“Anywhere.”
I watched the clock while she tapped keys. The answer came in seventy-three seconds.
I closed my eyes again, shaky, strangely out of breath. The pain in my leg climbed like it might never stop: sharp spikes that radiated outward in waves. I buzzed the nurse. She took her time.
“How bad is this going to get?” I asked.
I was pale and sweaty. She knew what I meant, and there was no pity in her face. She pointed with a well-scrubbed finger. “That morphine pump is there for a reason. Push the button when the pain gets too bad. It won’t let you overdose.” She started to turn. “You don’t need me holding your hand.”
“I don’t want any morphine.”
She turned back, one eyebrow up, voice dismissive. “Then it’s gonna get a lot worse.” She pursed her lips and left the room on wide, slow-moving hips.
I pushed into the pillows, dug my fingers into the sheets as the pain bared its teeth. I wanted the morphine, wanted it badly, but I needed to stay sharp. I fingered the postcard.
SOMETIMES IT’S JUST RIGHT.
And sometimes it’s wrong.
My father arrived at ten.
He looked horrible: drained eyes, broken posture. He looked like a damned soul waiting for the floor to drop.
“How are you?” he asked, and shuffled into the room.
Words failed me. I looked for the hate and couldn’t find it. I saw the early years, and how the three of us had been. Golden. The feeling rose in me and I almost cracked.
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
He said nothing.
“Mom knew about Sarah and the baby. That’s why she killed herself. Because of what that did to her. That betrayal.”
He closed his eyes and bowed his head. He didn’t have to say it.
“How did she find out?” I asked.
“I told her,” he said. “She deserved that much.”
I looked away from him. Some part of me had been hoping that this was all a mistake. That I could still come home. “You told her and she killed herself.”
“I thought it was the right thing to do.”
“A little late to worry about that.”
“I never stopped loving your mother—”
I cut him off. Did not want to hear it. “How did Miriam find out? I’m pretty sure you never told her.”
He turned his palms up. “She was always so quiet. She lingered around corners. She must have heard Dolf and me talking about it. We did from time to time, usually late at night. She probably figured it out years ago. It’s been at least a decade since I spoke of it out loud.”
“A decade.” I could barely get my head around the way Miriam must have suffered with that knowledge, what she must have felt when she saw the old man’s face light up every time Grace walked into the room. “You hurt so many people. And for what?”
“I’d like a chance to explain,” he said, and like that, the glass in my mind started tumbling.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to hear you justify what you did. I would either throw up or come out of this bed and beat you where you stand. There is nothing you can say. I was wrong to even ask. My mother was weak, worn down by poor health and disappointment, already on the edge. She found out you had a daughter and it pushed her over. She killed herself because of you.” I paused under the weight of what I was about to say. “Not because of me.”
An invisible force seemed to crush him. “I’ve had to live with it
, too,” he said.
Suddenly, I could not stand it. “Get out of here,” I said. He started to turn, and the ice flowed back into me. “Wait. It’s not going to be that easy. Tell me what happened. I want to hear it from you.”
“Sarah and I—”
“Not that part. The rest of it. How Grace came to live with Dolf. How you lied to both of us for almost twenty years.”
He sat without asking, dropped from the knees. “Grace was an accident. It was all an accident.”
“Damn it . . .”
He tried to straighten. “Sarah thought she wanted the child. Thought it was fate, meant to be. She took her to California to start a new life. Two years later she came back, crippled, disillusioned. She didn’t much care for being a parent. She wanted me to take the child.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘the child’ when you mean Grace?”
He tilted his head. “Grace is not her real name. I gave her that name.”
“Her real name . . .?”
“Sky.”
“Jesus.”
“She wanted me to take the child, but I had a new family.” He paused. “I’d already lost one wife. I didn’t want to lose another. But she was my daughter. . . .”
“So you bribed Dolf to raise her. You gave him two hundred acres to help hide your secret.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Don’t—”
“The land was for Grace to inherit! She deserved it. None of this was her fault. As for Dolf, he was lonely. He wanted the job.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. His wife left him years ago. He never sees his own daughter. Grace has done great things for him.”
“Even though it’s all a lie.”
“He was in a dark place, son. We all were after your mother died. That child was like the sun rising.”
“Does Grace know?”
“Not yet.”
“Where’s Janice?” I asked.
“She already knows, son. I told her. There’s no need to drag her into this.”
“I want to see her.”
“You want to hurt me. I understand.”
“This is not about you. We’re done with that. This is something else entirely.”
“What do you mean?”
“Get Janice,” I said. “Then we’ll talk.”
New pain flooded his face. “I killed her daughter last night. She’s sedated, and even if she weren’t, I doubt that she is ready to speak with either one of us. She’s not doing well at all.”