A Stranger Lies There

by Stephen Santogrossi

  I thanked him and turned toward the stairs. When I got there, the rent-a-cop asked if I was expecting somebody.

  “Not unless you’ve seen the guys I just asked him about,” I said, gesturing to the desk clerk.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “No. Did you see them?”

  “I don’t know what to think, you come in here looking like that.”

  I told the guard to forget it and brushed past him up the steps. When I rounded the first landing, he was staring up at me. With my aching abdominal muscles, I took the rest of the stairs slowly, shaking my head over the uncanny parallels this thing kept following; not one week ago in Indio, a motel manager had handed out a spare room key under similar circumstances.

  I stood quietly in the hallway on the second floor, peered down the dimly lit corridor to my room three doors down. Everything seemed normal—no doors hanging open or busted inward, the window at the far end closed and all the wall sconces illuminated. I checked the carpet and couldn’t see any wet footprints leading to my room. Looked back down the stairs, where my own watery shoe-prints, but no others, had followed me. I went cautiously down the hall to 2C, and after a final look around, slid the key into the old lock. It turned without resistance, like it was unlocked. I pushed open the door and stepped back out of sight around the threshold, holding my breath for the gunshots I half expected to ring out.

  Nothing happened. A quick peek around the doorway gave me a flash of the bed, which I hadn’t used. It was undone and disheveled. I thought I’d left the bedside lamp on, but it was now dark. Other than that the room looked safe and empty. Stepping inside, I noticed the nightstands and their open drawers, then my overnight bag on the chair by the window, unzipped but intact. It was clear they had searched the place without being messy or destructive about it.

  I closed the door and switched on the light. In the warm glow from the lamp the room looked homey and lived-in, not at all violated, more like someone had just gotten a good night’s sleep snuggled under the covers. Thinking that, it hit me again how wiped out I was, though I wondered if I could sleep with so much on my mind. I checked my bag and saw there was nothing missing or damaged. The room key they’d left on the chair next to it. Considerate. After peeling off my soaked clothing, I fell on the bed and closed my eyes. Thought about how it had gone in that dank warehouse, whether it dictated what my next move should be.

  I now had two people to consider as the victim on my lawn: the band manager wannabe and his friend. Of course they could both still be alive and well. But that seemed unlikely, given what had just happened to me. Those men were interested in all this for a reason, and had taken a considerable risk to find out what I knew. Which brought up another point. How had they known where to find me? My earlier suspicion that the bartender had alerted them now seemed off the mark. I wondered if somebody watched me get on the plane in Palm Springs, and one or more of them picked me up at JFK. Wouldn’t have been hard to follow me in all the crowds. Maybe that’s what I’d felt on the walk over here after the subway. Not just a huge rendering of a clothing model, but someone actually tailing me.

  Should I stick around and try to find out who the two friends were? If I could track down the band again, there was a chance one of them would remember a name. But the men who assaulted me probably already had a name, and they seemed as clueless as I was. So I couldn’t see wasting the time. And contacting the police here about what happened was completely out of the question if I didn’t want to spend hours explaining everything and possibly end up in the can again.

  There was something more important anyway. I needed to get back to California to bury my wife.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I woke the next morning with sunlight streaming through the window, and was afraid I’d slept most of the day away. It was still early, though, plenty of time to catch a morning flight home. I showered and dressed as quickly as I could given my injuries. Deposited the clothes I had worn last night, moist and smelly, in the trash.

  At the airport, I was able to get a departure before noon, and settled down in the waiting area with a cup of coffee and a Danish. The morning newspaper was on the chair next to me. I riffled through it, skimming over an article about the drug task force being assigned to Washington Square Park. Beyond the coincidence of last night, nothing stood out for me. Negotiations to avert a trash strike were ongoing, and there was an article on the closeness of the fight for a state senate nomination. Soon, my fatigue overtook me and I dozed lightly until the PA announced my flight. I dropped off again once I buckled in.

  * * *

  The time difference between coasts gave me a few hours. It was not yet afternoon when we landed. In the terminal I took a pay phone and called Tidwell’s number at the police station. Someone else picked up.

  “Detective Rickman,” came a gruff voice.

  “Detective Tidwell, please.”

  “He’s out. Can I help you?”

  “Is Branson there?” I asked, hoping for a progress report on the case.

  “You mean Detective Branson?”

  “Ahh, yeah.”

  “No, he’s not. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Where are they?” I blurted out anxiously.

  “Sir. They’re out. But I’m sure I can take care of whatever it is you need.”

  I told him who I was and asked about Deirdre.

  “Oh. Yeah, I think they’re done with her.” He gave me a name and number in the coroner’s office to call to arrange picking up her body. I fumed at his callous attitude.

  “Thanks for your sensitivity,” I said when he was done. “Detective.”

  I hung up before he could reply. Closed my eyes and squeezed the bridge of my nose, wondering how to get through this. Then I picked up the phone again and dialed the funeral home from their ad in the Yellow Pages. They gave me an afternoon appointment and told me to bring the clothing and jewelry I wanted Deirdre to be buried in. They’d arrange to pick up the body from the medical examiner’s office.

  I drove home on autopilot, dreading the prospect of going through Deirdre’s things so soon.

  I forced myself to do it though. Picked out her favorite green dress, and added her jade bracelet, a gold necklace and the emerald earrings I’d given her on our last anniversary. I turned the earrings over in my hand, watching them capture the light and hold it inside as if they were alive.

  The freeway into Beaumont was clear, and I was there in twenty minutes. Desert Cemetery was a place Deirdre and I had seen many times before, driving by on the freeway. We liked the simplicity and openheartedness of their slogan, “Serving All Faiths,” and the way the green grass rolled away from the highway.

  They showed me around and I picked out a gravesite, a marker and a coffin, then finalized everything in the office. The service would be on Saturday.

  By the time I got back on the freeway for home, I was completely numb. All the little details seemed to trivialize Deirdre’s death. I drove like a zombie until the dinosaurs at Cabazon caught my eye. The exit took me to the Wheel Inn, a truckstop-style café that had been here long before the Indian casino and the collection of gas stations and chain restaurants had sprouted up around it.

  I ate slowly. The cars on the highway sped by and the giant concrete dinosaurs in the parking lot stared down at me through the window. Years ago, Deirdre and I had visited this place. Climbed up into one of those huge animals and looked through its porthole eye at the cars driving by. I wondered how many of them passed here every day without ever stopping. I watched the windfarm windmills in the area slowly rotate. They sprang from the hills like mushrooms, their shiny propeller blades catching the light as they spun.

  At home, I called Allie from the spare bedroom.

  “Where have you been?” she said anxiously when she came on.

  “I couldn’t stay here. Why?”

  “So you haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what? I just got back.”

  “T
hey know who the dead youth was.”

  I sat down, my mind stuck in neutral. “Tell me.”

  “His name was John Clayton.” Where did I just hear that name? “His father’s running for state senate in New York.”

  The newspaper at the airport. “When did this happen?”

  “It was just on TV. They broke in with it.”

  I picked up the remote and flipped through the channels, not seeing anything. “Go on.”

  “The father reported him missing, I guess. Had no idea he was out here.”

  “Is there a suspect?”

  “If there is, the police aren’t saying.”

  “My God,” I said, trying to think. I wondered why that cop I’d spoken to earlier hadn’t said anything. Suddenly, everything was moving too fast.

  “The name doesn’t help at all, does it?” Allie said suddenly. “They’re not going to find who did it.”

  “Don’t say that, Allie.”

  “It’s just that—” Her voice hitched in her throat. “Goddamnit, I hate this. I haven’t been to work since Deirdre. If this can happen to her … I almost scored the other day, Tim. I mean, what’s the point?”

  “What stopped you?”

  “My ATM card.” I heard a wet laugh, then a sniffle. “The fuckin’ picture on it. Deirdre always liked it. I was all set to get the cash.”

  “A big part of her is still with you,” I told her, hating how hollow it sounded.

  “I know.” She got herself together. “So why did you call?”

  I told her about the funeral, asked if she could let everyone else at the clinic know. “There’s a couple of her clients I was going to call myself. You find Terry’s number?”

  “Yeah. She wants to give the eulogy. I said okay.”

  “God, I hadn’t even thought about that.”

  “Get some rest, Tim. You sound on your last legs.”

  “What was the picture, Allie? On your card.”

  A pause. “One of those nature shots. A dolphin leaping out of the water.”

  We said goodbye shortly after that. As soon as I hung up, the phone rang again.

  “You never told us where you were the other day,” Tidwell said when I answered.

  “Must’ve slipped my mind. I’m here now.”

  “I guess you’ve heard?”

  “You mean about the boy?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Just now.”

  “Name doesn’t ring a bell, does it?”

  “Only—” I started, then stopped myself, not sure how much they’d said about him on TV. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Only what I got from the TV report.”

  “I assume Deirdre never mentioned the father before? Being from New York?”

  “It’s a big city, detective.”

  “Yeah, okay. But you’ll let us know if you think of anything, right?”

  “I want to find her killer as much as you do.” Still nothing on the TV, except for talk shows, court TV programs and a soap opera.

  “You called here earlier, right?” Tidwell asked.

  “That’s right. The guy I talked to didn’t mention all this.”

  “He wouldn’t have volunteered it without consulting me or Detective Branson.”

  I wanted to ask more about the victim and his father, but I didn’t. I was sick of spinning my wheels with questions they wouldn’t answer. My trip to New York was on the tip of my tongue, but I kept my mouth shut on that too. I needed time to think.

  Tidwell interrupted my thoughts. “That’s it for now. We have your wife’s client files to see if anything jumps out at us. We’ll let you know if we need you.”

  I called Patrick Reed next, and left the information about the funeral on his girlfriend’s voice mail, glad I didn’t have to speak with anybody in person. There was too much on my mind. I wasn’t so lucky with Michael D’Angelo, the man I’d gone out to see in Banning. He wanted to talk, but I brushed him off, saying we’d talk tomorrow evening.

  The last of the phone calls done, I unplugged the phone and collapsed on the living room couch. What I’d learned today shed no light on who could have killed Deirdre, or who those men in New York were. The news had just started, and I waited for the story. It didn’t take long. Clayton was answering questions in front of reporters, looking pretty shell-shocked. His son had taken a spring break road trip, and hadn’t checked in or answered his cell phone. Clayton thought he’d been with a friend, but couldn’t say who it was or where exactly they’d been going. He had no idea why his son could have been killed. I scanned the people around him, a few men in suits, but didn’t see anyone resembling the pair who’d taken me from that club. The whole thing was baffling, raising more questions than it answered. None of the other stations had anything substantially different to report.

  I turned off the TV, drained, and lay back on the cushions. Unable to shut down, I eventually stopped trying. The night in New York kept coming back. I had to make a decision about what, if anything, to tell the police. The men who beat me up were obviously on the wrong side of the law. But that meant less to me than the fact that they were obviously after the same thing I was. And I had to figure that if they were involved in either crime, I wouldn’t have made it back here alive. I didn’t give a damn what they were into if it couldn’t tell me the identity of the killer. Even if I found out how they were linked to the first victim, that didn’t guarantee an answer to the most important question. No, whichever way I looked at it, there was only one conclusion: to leave them alone right now. And by extension, not tell the cops anything yet either; I couldn’t do much from jail.

  Painful as it was, my interrogation by those men in that dockside warehouse had actually helped. Their apparent dismissal of a possible drug connection, along with their obvious interest in Turret, had pointed me straight back here. If they were interested in Turret, then so was I. And I wanted to find him before they did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I slept on and off until late the following day, then had to hurry to get ready in time for the funeral. The drive to the cemetery was one of the longest of my life. I was wearing the suit I’d got married in, maybe for the last time. The late afternoon sun was directly ahead, blinding my eyes the whole way. Halfway there, the wind kicked up, bowing the trees at the roadside rest stop, where a line of eighteen-wheelers had pulled over to avoid being capsized. My car struggled through it for each mile like a swimmer going against a riptide.

  Just past Cabazon the wind began to subside, and by the time I reached Beaumont the air was calm. From the freeway, I could see the cemetery lot starting to fill up.

  In the back of the chapel, I greeted Deirdre’s friend Terry, one of the late arrivals. She looked like she’d been crying. Her husband’s name went right past me.

  “Terry was always talking about Deirdre. Feel like I knew her pretty good. Don’t know why we never met,” he said. Terry looked away, embarrassed, and her husband stared at his shoes awkwardly. Funerals were a killer.

  “I guess we all get busy sometimes,” I said, trying to think of the last time I’d seen Terry. It had been a good while.

  “I wish I’d kept in touch better,” she said softly, a tear rolling down her cheek. She wiped it away roughly.

  “Stop it, Terry. You were her best friend.”

  “I meant to call last week,” she said, her eyes searching mine. “After … after the first one.”

  “That’s okay,” I said with a smile I didn’t feel. “You probably wouldn’t have gotten through all the reporters anyway.”

  She squeezed my hand gratefully and followed her husband to a pew. Patrick came in with his girlfriend, who looked radiant in her pregnancy despite the solemn occasion. He pulled me aside after introducing us and finding a seat for her.

  “I wasn’t sure if I should bring this up here,” he began hesitantly.

  “What?”

  “About what you asked me the other day
?”

  I nodded, waving my hand impatiently.

  “It’s nothing really. I talked to a few of my buddies—people I used to hang out with—”

  “You mean drug buddies,” I said, shaking my head. “Deirdre would have killed me.”

  “It’s okay, man. I’m cool. They just told me they haven’t heard jack. Nothing about any drug violence going down lately. As far as this thing goes.”

  That jibed with the feeling I’d gotten in New York. “All right. I appreciate it. But don’t worry about what I need anymore, okay? You have your own things to deal with.”

  “I just … I had to do something. I owe it to Deirdre.”

  Not like I do.

  The service started a few minutes later, a quiet and simple one. Terry gave the eulogy. She talked about her stay at Triumph Outreach, the work camp near Yucca Valley, drying out with Deirdre. The hotter it got up there, the more determined Deirdre became not to let anything beat her, ever again. I was proud to see so many of Deirdre’s clients in the congregation nodding at the memory. Afterwards I sat in the empty chapel long after the others filed out, hardly aware of their kind words as they left. Eventually the funeral director put a hand on my shoulder and led me out into the oncoming dusk.

  I trudged through the well-tended lawn to the large oak tree overhanging the gravesite. The hole was a perfectly proportioned rectangle, the mound next to it covered by a grass-green tarp. I took my place in front, acknowledging a few people I recognized. A white hearse with blacked-out windows slowly pulled away from the back of the chapel. Nobody spoke as it approached, engine idling softly, gravel popping under the tires. Leaves rustled in the tree above our heads. A solitary acorn dropped to the ground a few feet away with a soft thunk. I looked away as the attendants wrestled with the coffin.

  The sun was setting behind a low rim of distant purple hills. Sprinklers snipped softly in a far corner of the property, throwing lazy arcs of water into the air, the breeze bearing random sprays of mist. Phantom rainbows shimmered in the dying sunlight.

  I thought back a few years, to my father’s funeral. Standing next to his coffin in an ill-fitting suit, wondering whether Mom would show up. They’d put makeup on Dad’s face and groomed his hair perfectly. Hands folded peacefully on his chest. A rosary intertwined in the fingers, which were neatly manicured. He still wore the gold wedding band, hopeful to the end, and I’d fixated on that through most of the service. Then the tap on my shoulder telling me it was time to leave. I remembered being glad that my father’s eyes were closed, so I wouldn’t have to see the disappointment in them one last time.