The door closed. Nobody said anything. Gage made his way to the table, standing behind the empty spot. Jeanie watched him, her eyes as flat and unblinking as the eyes of the porcelain angel figurines that decorated the room. Gage nodded at the empty plate.
"I don't think he's going to make it," he said.
"Habit," she said.
"Mind if I sit here?"
Arne snorted. "Oh, come on—"
"Don't worry," Gage said. "I've already eaten. I just want to tell you a little story about what happened to your son and his friend, and my knee's killing me. It won't take too long. In fact, since one of you already knows this story, it shouldn't take long at all. Isn't that right, Jeanie?"
She blinked a few times but didn't answer. A mask of confusion fell over Arne's face. Gage took advantage of their hesitation to pull out the chair and settle into it.
"It's something you said when I came before that made me finally put it together," he said. "That and the Bible you sent Berry Fleicher. You remember what you said to me, Jeanie? I asked you why you liked angels. Do you remember what you told me?"
There were tears threatening to spill from her eyes now. "That they reminded me to walk God's path."
"And what else?"
She stared at him.
"You told me that if more people would just read the Bible and stay true to it, the world would be a better place. You said we can all be redeemed. And when I asked you about Jeremiah, if he could be redeemed, too, you said there's hope for all of us. You said you had to believe that or there would be no reason to go on living. I thought you were talking about Jeremiah, but I realize now that you weren't talking about him at all. You were talking about you."
This, finally, roused Arne from his comatose state.
"What?" he said. "What are you talking about?"
"Somehow you found out about them," Gage said, focusing on Jeanie. "About your son and Connor. Did you overhear something?"
Jeanie hesitated, and when she spoke, it was in a monotone. "It was a letter," she said.
"Connor wrote Jeremiah a letter?"
She nodded.
"What did it say?"
"It was very ... dirty. It was all … all about how much he loved him. All the—the ways he wanted to touch him. He said he wanted him all to himself, that they were—oh God—"
"Go on," Gage said.
"It's—I can't —"
"Tell me!" Arne shouted.
It was as if he'd shot her in the back, the way she jerked upright, the terror blooming on her face.
"He said—he said they were soul mates," Jeanie said. "He said they could only be soul mates if Jeremiah, if Jeremiah … oh … it's terrible. If he stopped being with other men. He said he had proof. Proof that Jeremiah, video proof, that he was with other men and he would show other people if Jeremiah didn't stop … It was so awful. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't … couldn't …"
"And what did you do?" Gage said.
She bowed her head. Arne, hulking over her like an elephant, put a hand on the back of her chair.
"Jeanie?" he pressed.
"I don't know how it went bad," she said. "At first, I thought I was just going to talk to him. To—to Connor. Get him to see, to see how important it was to stay away from Jeremiah. He was a wicked boy and he was ruining my son. Turning him to the devil."
"But you took your husband's revolver?" Gage said.
"Yes. He was asleep."
"Drunk from his night out with Paul Weld?"
She nodded.
"What were you going to do?"
She shrugged. "Just to … maybe threaten him a little. That's all. I was just going to threaten him. I'm a Christian! I never meant … never … But then, when he didn't hear me knock, I tried the door and it was unlocked. I went inside. And he was sitting there at the computer with his music loud, watching those awful things on the computer! My son and that—that man!"
"MacDonald?" Gage asked.
"Yes," Jeanie said. "Yes, him. Connor was watching it and he had the music loud and he didn't hear me. I couldn't stand it! I couldn't stand it! So I … I …"
"I don't believe it," Arne said.
She looked up at her husband, her face like crumpled tissue. "I don't even remember doing it. I don't! It was like, like I was someone else. And then, then there was all the blood. I didn't know what to do. I just—I left. I thought maybe somebody would hear me, but they didn't. Nobody came out of their rooms. I left … left him with the music on and went home. I passed a security man, that man from the paper—"
"Patrick Jantz." Gage remembered that Jantz had claimed to be at Tsunami's that night, which had obviously been a lie.
"Yes. Him. I passed him on the way out and I thought—I thought when they found the boy, all that blood, he'd remember me … the police would come for me. But they never did. I even left the gun there. I didn't even remember until I got home that I'd dropped the gun. But they never came. They never did. I kept waiting … but they never did …"
Her voice trailed off into silence. A curtain swept across Arne's face. Something had closed that was never going to open again.
"My son picked up that gun," he said, his voice quiet but holding a barely contained rage, like a lid on a boiling teakettle. "He found Connor and he picked it up. He didn't kill him. He was just … going to kill himself. He was so upset, he was going to kill himself. My son is innocent. He's innocent, and you let him go to jail for you?"
"Jantz, that security guy you passed, erased whatever was on the computer," Gage said. "Connor must have secretly taped them with his iPhone and Jantz took that too. Jantz couldn't make it look like a suicide because you'd shot him from behind, but he probably wiped your prints off the revolver. He didn't count on Jeremiah going berserk and attempting to shoot himself, but at the time it probably seemed like a stroke of good luck. Now Jeremiah's prints were on the gun!"
"I was going to turn myself in," Jeanie said. "I was going to do it. I was just waiting for the right—the right time."
"He knew it was you," Gage said. "That's why he decided to confess. He was protecting you. That's what I didn't understand until I had a conversation with Berry Fleicher. It made me realize how much mothers love their sons—and vice versa. I thought maybe he was just afraid of whoever was really behind the killing, that they might do something to you, but it was more direct than that. He knew it was you. If it had been Arne, I don't know if he would have confessed, but he knew it was you, somehow. Did you tell him?"
"He saw me," Jeanie said. "I was sitting in the parking lot. I was … trembling all over. It was so cold. I didn't know what to do. Then he tapped on my window. He was confused. He said he was coming back from the library and he saw me. He asked what I was doing. I just—all I could say was I was sorry. I told him I was sorry and I left."
Arne's hand, gripping the back of the chair, had turned white. Gage leaned back from the table. So that was it then. Weld was definitely a murderer, but he didn't kill Connor Fleicher. He'd killed to cover his tracks, to keep his dark secrets from getting brought into the sunlight during Connor's murder investigation. It had spiraled out of control. Even Connor's hands weren't entirely clean. Jealous when he'd found out about Jeremiah's secret sexual life, he'd tried to force Jeremiah to leave it behind by taping him in the act with MacDonald.
"My son is innocent," Arne whispered.
"Nobody's really innocent in all this," Gage said. "But of all the people involved in this, ironically he was probably the most innocent."
"And he's the one sitting in jail," Arne said.
"It doesn't have to be that way," Gage said.
"No. No, it doesn't."
They both looked at Jeanie, and she looked back, blinking heavily, a rabbit trapped in a cage. Her makeup, so perfect before, showed signs of stress—the mascara around her eyes dark and shiny, the powdery foundation on her cheeks cracking in small fissures. On the mantel, the angel inside the glass clock whirred in its revolutions, but other
wise the room was quiet. Arne pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and placed it on the table in front of his wife.
"Make the call," he said, his voice cracking.
"I don't want to go to jail," she said.
"I don't want you to either. But it has to be done."
"You'd choose him over me?"
Arne winced, like a linebacker who'd taken an elbow to the gut, and closed his eyes. He stood like that for a few seconds, immobile, a mountain of a man, and all the bravado and macho mannerisms slipped away. For a few seconds, Gage thought he saw the real Arne Cooper underneath, a pudgy boy who used his bulk to protect some sensitive and painful core, who talked a tough game but was probably more like his son than he cared to admit. It was all there in his face, a map to his heart unveiled, before he opened his eyes and glared down at his wife with cold and unfeeling eyes.
He reached down and opened the cell phone, holding it up to her.
"I didn't choose," he said. "You did."
Chapter 25
Stepping into the cool night air and closing the door behind him, Gage saw Karen waiting in her tan Corolla at the curb. The car, cast in shadow, was parked far from the nearest streetlight, but the bluish glow of the cell phone by her ear was enough for him to see her face. She held the phone away from her ear, her expression questioning, and he shook his head and gave her the thumbs-up sign. He didn't waste time getting into the car, tossing his cane into the backseat.
"You timed that close," she said. "One more minute and I was going to make the call."
"No need," Gage said.
"She did it on her own, just like you thought she would?"
"She needed a little encouragement from her husband, but the end result was the same. Let's go. They'll be here any minute, and I don't really feel like dealing with the police on Thanksgiving. Go out this back way here, around the block and by the theater."
Sure enough, he heard sirens in the distance. She put the car in gear and followed his instructions until they emerged on Highway 101. Two police cruisers blared past, lights blinking. When they were gone, she turned onto the highway, heading in the direction of his house. He glanced at her, marveling at her wonderful cheekbones, the trim fit of her blue blouse, the tight cut of her charcoal black pants. He only looked for a second, because if he let his gaze linger, she always self-consciously touched her scar.
"Thanks for the ride," he said.
"No problem. But the meter's running, mister."
"The van should be ready by next week. Then I won't need people to chauffeur me around any more."
"Can't believe you're getting that old thing fixed. It must have cost a fortune. You could have probably bought a whole new van for the same money."
"Try two. Parts for that old Volkswagen don't come cheap. But I can't give up on it yet."
"Will you ever give up on it?"
"Probably not. Just like I hope people never give up on me."
She laughed at this. He liked hearing her laugh, a real laugh, not the guarded one that she'd used when she first showed up in town. He'd been getting more chances to hear the genuine thing lately. When she got out of the hospital, he'd been afraid that she'd retreat even further into her shell of remorse and regret, but something had changed after the crash. He didn't know what, and he was afraid to ask for fear that he might push it away like so much smoke if he even tried to talk to her about it, but he was immensely relieved.
They reached his gravel driveway a minute later, parking in front of the house. It loomed large and lonely, the faint light in the kitchen window the only thing beating back the darkness. He thought he caught a bit of longing in the way Karen gazed at it, and it gave him enough hope to try again.
"You know, you can move in with me anytime," he said.
She looked at him, smiling but with sad eyes. She'd been staying at the Turret House while she recuperated, turning down several offers on his part to room with him instead. More than several, really. He'd been asking every day. She'd made a couple of late-night visits that ended with tangled sheets and tangled bodies, but she'd never stayed the night.
"Part of me would like that," she said.
"You should give in to that part."
She looked at him a long time, really studying his face, and he got the sense that something was being measured, weighed. He thought that perhaps she was really thinking about his offer, that she was on the verge, which was why when she finally spoke, what she said was so devastating.
"I'm leaving tomorrow, Garrison."
He knew what she was saying, and all the implications of it, but he wanted to pretend otherwise. "Leaving on a little trip?"
"No. Just leaving."
"Oh."
"You didn't do anything wrong."
"It sure feels that way."
"No. You were wonderful. You gave me exactly what I needed."
"I'm so glad I could be of help," he said, and he hated the bitterness in his own voice and the look on her face that his bitterness elicited. He gamely tried to recover. "Are you going back to the FBI?"
"No. I can't go back there."
"Then what?"
She hesitated. "Well, I need to visit my sister in Atlanta. She's been reaching out to me, and I've done nothing but give her the cold shoulder. When we were eating our Thanksgiving dinner, all I could think about was what a bad sister I've been. I want to make up for that. It's time. And her daughters. My nieces. I think, I think I'm ready to see them too. They deserve a better aunt. After that … well, I thought I'd try my hand at being a private investigator."
"I see. Wow."
"You had a lot to do with it," she said. "You—you showed me what was possible, Garrison. Another kind of life."
"Where will you go?"
"Haven't figured that part out yet. After Atlanta, I'm just going to drive for a bit until I find someplace where it makes sense."
"Ah."
They sat like that for a moment, a veil of sadness dropping deeper over them, and Gage already felt the yawning hole that was going to be left when she was gone. He didn't want that to happen.
"You know," he said, "you don't have to drive anywhere. You could be a private investigator right here in Barnacle Bluffs. I've been thinking, you know, that I kind of like having a partner. You seem more than qualified."
She left him hanging in the balance a second, then her eyes turned shiny and bright. She leaned forward and cupped his cheeks, kissing him passionately on the lips. It was the best kiss they'd shared so far, but when she pulled away, he could already see the answer in her eyes.
"Thank you for that," she said. "It means a lot."
"But the answer's no?"
"But the answer is not right now. I need to find my own way for a bit."
"I see."
"Do you?"
And actually, he did. It didn't mean her answer hurt any less, but if anyone understood the need to find your own way, it was Gage. He'd been trying to find his own way his whole life, sometimes thinking he was getting somewhere, often finding he was just more lost than ever. With a last gentle touch to her cheek, he stepped out of the car onto the gravel driveway and, with a faint smile of good-bye, shut the door.
The night, as cool as it was, welcomed him like an old friend. She put the car in gear. As she passed, he thought he caught a glimpse of her face as she doubled back on the circular driveway, thought he saw tears there, but then she was gone, the red taillights disappearing around the bend. His empty house, with its half-filled crossword puzzles and bottles of bourbon, waited patiently behind him. Still, he stood there, listening. He listened to the crunch of her tires on the gravel until this sound was gone too. He listened to the hum of the traffic on the highway, the whisper of the wind in the fir trees, and even imagined he could hear the murmur of the ocean. He stood like that, listening, waiting for something, some signal that this moment was gone and it was time to get on with things, until finally the world gave it to him.
He felt the first g
entle touch on his cheek, in the same spot where her hand had been only moments ago.
It was raining.
Acknowledgments
Every book I write always gets a bit of an assist from others. Although it's impossible to personally thank everyone who's had a hand in bringing The Lovely Wicked Rain into the world, I'd like to mention a few who have been instrumental.
To my good friend and fellow writer Michael J. Totten: Thanks for the early read and thoughtful suggestions. If you want someone in the writing trenches with you, Mike is your guy.
To Nathan E. Meyer, friend and frequent lunch companion: Thanks for your enthusiasm for the book and your sharp-eyed observations.
To Elissa Englund, my intrepid copy editor: A big thank you for catching all the little typos and other missteps. Any errors that remain are entirely my own.
To Garrison Gage fans: I can guarantee you that if you hadn't responded as you did to the first two books, there never would have been a third. Thank you. If you're interested in why I dropped the Jack Nolte pen name, see the Garrison Gage section on my website. It's an interesting story, but not one that every reader cares about, so I will refrain from repeating it here.
And last but never least, to my first reader and love of my life, Heidi: Thanks for needling me to write the next Gage book, more as a fan than as my wife. And for everything else, of course. I could fill a whole book and more with all my appreciation for you and it still wouldn't be enough.
About the Author
SCOTT WILLIAM CARTER's first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, was hailed by Publishers Weekly as a "touching and impressive debut" and won the prestigious Oregon Book Award. Since then, he has published ten novels and over fifty short stories, his fiction spanning a wide variety of genres and styles. His most recent book for younger readers, Wooden Bones, chronicles the untold story of Pinocchio and was singled out for praise by the Junior Library Guild. He lives in Oregon with his wife and children. Visit him online at www.ScottWilliamCarter.com.
The Lovely Wicked Rain: An Oregon Coast Mystery (Garrison Gage Series) Page 25