by Gary Parker
“You got nothing else?” Webber asked.
Rick stared at the officer, his dark hair and eyebrows, thick nose and lips. “A cop shot me,” he said. “You might want to investigate that.”
“The line of duty,” Webber said. “We’re talking to him, though, that satisfy you?”
“I’m touched.”
“Where is Miss Bridge?” Roche pressed. “We need to talk to her again.”
“I assumed you’d know.”
Roche and Webber looked at each other, then Roche advised him to put any travel plans on hold until they decided their next step. Rick quickly agreed to the suggestion and the cops headed out. A few minutes later Pops stepped into the room and took a seat by the bed. A servant showed up a second later, and Pops ordered a couple of sandwiches, then lit a cigar while Rick watched with wary eyes.
“Where’s Luisa?” Rick asked as the attendant left.
“Taking a few days off. Not feeling well lately, told me she thought she caught something, flu bug maybe.”
“I need to call her.”
“Soon as you’re up to it.”
“And Mom, how is she?”
“The same. It’s such a tragedy. Wish I could fix her, that somebody could. But medicine can’t cure everything, not when it comes to the psyche.”
“What happened to her, Pops? Really?”
“Is this the time to talk about that, Rick?”
“As good as any.”
Pops sighed. “Who can say, Son? Your mom snapped. Chemical imbalances, poor parenting by her mom and me? Problems adjusting to middle age, a son who no longer needed her? You did the research—psychotic breaks don’t yield to easy diagnosis. I hired the best doctors in the world, but they couldn’t do a thing.”
“I’ve neglected her.”
“You’ve lived your life like any young man should, no fault in that.”
Silence fell for several moments as Rick weighed his lifestyle, how it had separated him from his roots—his parents, his childhood friends, most of what had once grounded him. How easily he’d fallen into the patterns, up all night, sleep most of the day. Heavy drinking, a series of female partners, each seemingly more vacuous than the last. Gambling, traveling, living the life of the iconic playboy. All fun and games— no responsibilities, no worries. But no sense of purpose either, no reason to climb out of bed every day—a canvas painted with bright colors but no depth.
Pops broke the quiet. “You’ve had quite an adventure,” he started, puffing on the cigar. “Exhilarating, I expect. You kept the police pretty busy there for a few days, me too for that matter. Then got shot. It’s quite a story. We’ve got media all over the place, hordes of them.”
Rick shifted slightly, grimaced with pain. “Sorry it took me so long to reach you, but I didn’t know what to do, where to turn. And when I tried to call—
“Don’t give it a second thought,” Pops said. “You did your best, just glad you’re home now. I have your phone, by the way.” He moved to a desk, pulled the phone out of a drawer, and handed it to Rick. “Cops checked it out, then gave it back to me.”
Rick flipped open the phone with his good hand; saw a long list of missed calls, then another group of text messages and emails. “Lot of people looking for me.”
“You have some catching up to do.”
“Not sure I care to do it though. Peculiar, isn’t it?”
“Not really. You’ve endured a lot, need time to heal, get a grip. Perhaps you should do a press conference, answer everybody’s questions all at once, tell your story, and satisfy the curiosity of the masses.”
“You think that’s a wise move?”
“Why not? You’re a celebrity, Rick—you realize that better than me. And this is all huge news, bigger than anything People magazine puts on the cover this week. You’ll receive book offers, a movie, an interview with Oprah.”
“I don’t want any of that.”
“Sure you do, least you have in the past. You love the attention, feed on it. Take a few days, you’ll get your groove back.”
“My groove?”
Pops chuckled. “I’m up on the lingo, Rick, don’t you think?”
Rick laid the phone on the bed, his humor not lightened. “Police told me to stay close,” he said.
“Don’t worry about the police, they have no evidence against you except the fact you were there when Steve died. Without a motive, they’re dead in the water. And I’ll push them to keep investigating, look for the man from Rolling Hills. But I expect the lack of evidence will make it tough to prosecute anybody even if they find him.”
Rick almost mentioned the motorcycle tracks but remembered Shannon’s warnings and kept quiet.
“Tell me about this woman,” Pops suggested, blowing smoke from his nostrils. “Ms. Bridge. How did she end up in the panic room, for heaven’s sake? And where is she?”
The servant brought in a tray and Pops pulled a glass of juice and a sandwich from it, handed them to Rick, then took a sandwich for himself.
“I met Ms. Bridge in Montana,” Rick said, nibbling at his sandwich. “Liked her, you know. Then, when all this happened, I needed somebody to talk to but didn’t know who to call, who I could trust. I didn’t want to put any of my usual crowd in jeopardy so I called her. She wanted to help, flew to Atlanta to meet me.”
“You always had a way with the ladies.” Pops put down his cigar and took a bite from his sandwich.
“I sent her to the panic room,” Rick said, deciding to take the initiative. “Dad left the code with Luisa, told her to give it to me if anything happened to him. When I ran, Luisa gave the code to Shannon, who then brought it to me. I asked her to examine the room, see what, if anything, she could find.”
“What do you think your dad wanted found?”
Rick took another bite of sandwich, his emotions churning. “Hard to say, nothing in there but a video recording.”
Pops straightened slightly and Rick noted it but couldn’t measure the level of significance he should give it.
“What was on the video? Anything related to your dad’s death, any clues to assist the police?” Pops asked.
Rick finished his sandwich, his eyes never leaving Pops. “A weird documentary,” he said. “About Constantine—a Roman emperor in the fourth century.”
“Steve wanted you to see a video from the History Channel?” No emotion sounded in Pops’ tone.
“Peculiar, huh?”
“Must be something in there that Ms. Bridge overlooked,” Pops said. “Perhaps you should examine the room yourself.”
“Maybe I will,” Rick said. “After I rest, heal a while.”
Pops finished his sandwich and picked up his cigar again, puffed its dying embers back to life. “The man at Rolling Hills,” he began. “You believe he killed Steve.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“And his motive?”
“That’s a puzzler. You know any reason for somebody to want Dad dead?”
“Your father possessed great wealth. Many people envied him, resented him.”
“His money came through you and Mom, everybody knew that. No reason for anybody to resent him. And he never made a show of it.”
“You have a better theory?”
Pops rolled his cigar in his fingers, studying the fire at the end, but Rick sensed a certain tension in his seeming nonchalance. His stomach tightened. He didn’t want to betray Shannon, put her in any danger. At the same time, though, he needed to test his grandfather, measure his reaction to the truth. Besides, if Shannon had told him the real story, his grandfather surely already knew about her, or soon would. And if Shannon was wrong, then Pops was harmless.
“Shannon Bridge does,” he finally said.
The cigar stopped moving and Pops leaned forward. “Do tell,” he said.
Rick took a sip of juice, weighed what to say, whether to take the chance. He sensed that no matter what he did, change waited just around the corner, a life-altering shift in the gr
ound under his feet. If he said nothing, he’d never know what happened to his father. But if he revealed Shannon’s accusations, he might destroy his relationship with Pops, maybe forever.
“Shannon believes you ordered Dad’s death,” he said.
“And why would I do that?” Pops remained as cool as the underside of a pillow.
“She says Dad found out something about you, discovered that you’re the leader of a movement that seeks to eradicate Christian faith. She believes you hired the assassin to keep Dad from revealing what he’d discovered.”
Pops chuckled and puffed from his cigar again. “Young people,” he exclaimed. “Such imaginations. Where did she get such a fantastic idea?”
“Dad left the letters CONS on his computer; could stand for conspiracy. Then Shannon found the video. She says the Conspiracy started in Constantine’s reign, a group of men who vowed to overthrow what he initiated—the practice of Christian faith as the central religion of Western culture.”
“CONS could stand for Constantine too, as well as a whole lot of other words. But let’s assume she’s correct for a moment. How would Ms. Bridge know of this so-called conspiracy?”
Rick sipped juice, considered how much to say, then offered enough to explain the situation without giving away everything. “She’s a Christian—they see conspiracies everywhere, right? She must have read something on the internet somewhere.”
Pops chuckled. “What proof did she offer to support her delusion?”
“Add it up: the assassin knew the codes to disable the alarms at Solitude. He gained entry to Rolling Hills, also tipped off the cops about Shannon’s presence in the panic room. How do you explain all that? Looks like an inside job to me.”
“And you believe I’m the insider? That I’m monstrous enough to murder my own son-in-law? Where have you seen that kind of savagery in me? Tell me when and where I’ve ever acted in any way to make you believe such a terrible thing about me and I will repent here and now!”
Rick leaned back, stunned by the passion in Pops’ voice, but also moved by it. “No, Pops,” he said. “You’ve never shown me anything like that. That’s why I told you what Shannon said. You deserve to hear the accusation, to have the opportunity to defend yourself against it.”
Pops exhaled, brushed a hand through his hair. “Your dad and I, we never saw eye to eye on much of anything, I confess that. Perhaps I acted unfairly toward him, didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. But he . . . I don’t know . . . lacked a certain quality that I had hoped your mother would find in a husband. He showed little drive to achieve anything, seemed content to . . . I hate to say it this way, but he wasted most of his life.”
“He spent most of his time with Mom and me.”
“Great, fine, but I put him in charge of two different companies. He cared nothing for them, basically punched in a time card, eight to five, no more, no less, not my idea of a man of ambition.”
“He preferred other pursuits, hunting, fishing, a little golf now and again. Plus his travel—always enjoyed seeing things, experiencing different places. Liked to take long walks with Mom, sketched some, landscapes mostly.”
“Exactly, a real slacker if you ask me. So I made it tough on him. But to suggest that I wanted him dead, for whatever reason your Ms. Bridge might imagine . . . well, that causes me great grief.”
Rick dropped his head, sorry he had raised the issue. But still, somebody had murdered his father. “What’s your theory, Pops?”
“Assuming no suicide?”
“You know he didn’t commit suicide.”
Pops shrugged but didn’t argue the point. “I wonder why Ms. Bridge pointed the finger at me.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s an old tactic. To throw off suspicion from yourself, you point to someone else. Perhaps Ms. Bridge knows more about Steve’s death than she cares for you to discover.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The knife, Rick.”
Rick tensed. “How do you know about the knife?”
“Come on, Rick. Money buys knowledge, right? I’m aware of everything the police have on this. The knife had ruby crosses on the handle?”
“So?” Rick relaxed a bit.
“Well, Ms. Bridge is a Christian. Those people love their crosses—here, there, everywhere. Doesn’t a cross in a knife handle point to a Christian doing the killing—a calling card, so to speak? Some weird message that we can’t understand?”
Rick considered the idea and found some logic in it. “But how would she know the security codes?” he asked.
“She lives close to Solitude. The people who built the place also put in the alarm systems. They live in Helena. Those who monitor the systems also live there. Perhaps she cultivated those folks, learned the codes, and gained entry that way. A woman of her charms—and she does possess charm, doesn’t she?—that kind of woman bends men to her will, all kinds of men.”
“That’s possible, I guess. But why?”
“Maybe your dad threatened her, the beliefs she held, somebody she cared about. I read last month of a priest in Vermont who murdered a boy he had molested to keep him quiet about the abuse. Who knows how your dad offended her—it’s just a theory, but if Steve did discover some kind of conspiracy, it might involve her as easily as me. She, or her friends, murdered him to shut him up about it.”
“And she befriended me to see what I knew, if I found anything that pointed back to her. The panic room, she wanted to go there, see what Dad left behind, any clues to her involvement.”
“Makes as much sense as suggesting I did it. I mean, really, Rick, how much do you truly know about Ms. Bridge?”
Rick cleared his throat, not sure what to say.
“I’d like to see the video,” Pops said, changing the subject. “You have a copy, I suppose.”
“No.”
“You have no copy?”
“No.”
“That’s surprising. Did you ever see it?”
“No, come to think of it.”
“So you’re taking Ms. Bridge’s word about its contents.” Rick shrugged, the point having escaped him until this moment.
Pops chuckled. “Ms. Bridge makes a weak case, seems to me. My theory—and I confess it’s without basis—seems as plausible as hers.”
Rick balanced all the possibilities, but none of them pleased him. After all he’d endured, he felt no closer to finding the truth about his dad’s killer than when he started.
“I tell you what, Rick,” Pops said. “I have to go to New York for a couple of days, some pressing business. You stay here, keep a low profile. When you feel like it, look around all you want. Search my house, offices, rooms, computers, anywhere you want. You find something you don’t understand, you ask me, I’ll explain it, nothing hidden. I want you to trust me— you’re all I have, you and your mom, so sad about her.”
He moved to Rick and stood by the bed. “Get some rest, Son,” he said. “You must be bone weary. Take a few days to sleep. Then test me for as long and as thoroughly as you want, I’d welcome that.”
Rick’s eyes filled and he felt so tired. He did need rest, days and days of sleep, time to heal. His dad’s death seemed so far away. Nothing that had happened since then made sense, all of it a blur, one unreal moment heaped on top of another. He wanted to cry, he realized, close his eyes and curl up in the center of his bed and cry; cry for his mom whom he’d neglected for too many years, cry for his dad whom he’d never see again, and cry for himself for all his failures.
He thought of Shannon and hoped she was wrong about Pops. Although he’d not mentioned the Order, if Pops did lead a murderous conspiracy, then she was in terrible danger. A man who’d murder his son-in-law wouldn’t hesitate to kill a woman who dared to name him as the murderer.
Rick’s eyes watered and Pops patted his hand as he let the tears loose. If Shannon was right, then Pops was a killer and he was alone, and together that made his tears inevitable—a painful
but required release to protect him from a shattered heart.
28
A monitor beeped by a hospital bed in the intensive care unit in the Helena Medical Center, and Gerald Grimes opened his eyes for the first time since being shot. Tubes ran into both his arms and his throat felt like someone had dragged glass shards through it. The smell of cleaning solution hung in the air, and he cautiously lifted an arm and scratched his nose, then shifted his gaze to the window to his right and saw what looked like midday light shining through outside. He tried to rise but couldn’t manage it, so he relaxed back into his pillow and closed his eyes again. A few seconds later he heard movement and looked up to see the door open and his mom walk in. He lifted a hand to greet her and she shrieked and ran to him.
“You’re awake!” she howled. “Awake!” She planted a big kiss on his cheek. “I knew you’d make it,” she celebrated. “No matter what the doctor said, I believed in you, Gerald.”
He smiled weakly as his mom picked up a cup of water and held it to his lips. He sipped for a couple of seconds but swallowing hurt too much, so he waved away the cup and his mom took half a step back.
“Oh,” she said suddenly. “Your dad, I have to call him.” She jerked a cell from her purse and punched a number.
Gerald licked his lips, felt them cracked and dry. He tried to speak but no words formed. His mom sobbed her good news to his dad, then hung up and faced him again as she wiped away tears.
“He’s on the way! Here in fifteen minutes.”
He nodded lightly, closed his eyes. “What happened to me, Mom?” he asked, his voice scratchy, barely audible. “I don’t remember a thing.”
“Somebody shot you, police are still searching for the shooter.”
“I was shot?”
“Yes, almost killed. Another minute for the EMTs to reach you and you were a goner. But you’re good now, awake, going to do fine.”
Gerald tried to remember the minutes before the shooting. “I went to lunch,” he said, vaguely recalling the day.
“In the park,” his mom said. “By the bench you like so much.”
He knew the spot. “I probably ate tuna,” he said. “Like almost every day.”