by Jeff Shelby
Thread of Hope
( Joe Tyler - 1 )
Jeff Shelby
Jeff Shelby
Thread of Hope
ONE
Bruises blossomed on Chuck Winslow’s cheeks, explosions of red and black and purple staining his skin. A tube snaked into his mouth, held in place with small strips of clear tape. His eyelids were closed, fluttering every few seconds. An IV line ran into a thick vein in his left arm. Both of his wrists were encased in splints and wrapped with flesh colored bandages. The machines around the bed beeped and hissed, Chuck’s wide chest rising and falling with the rhythm of the noise.
“Fractured skull,” the doctor said from the other side of Chuck’s hospital bed. “Six broken ribs. Both wrists are fractured.” He flipped the pages on the chart in his hands. “Hasn’t been conscious since he was found. There’s some swelling around the brain. We’ll wait to see if it subsides before we do anything else.” He let the pages fall back into place, his demeanor measured and distant, as if he’d had the same conversation a thousand times. “Anything else I can answer?”
I shook my head.
The doctor hung the chart on the foot of the bed and hustled out of the room, nodding at me as he exited.
Chuck Winslow was still big. Six-foot-four packed with muscle. While many men let that muscle soften when they entered their forties, Chuck appeared to have added another layer since I’d last seen him. His forearms were thick, his shoulders wide. There were fine wrinkles around his eyes, deeper lines across his wide forehead. His thick brown hair was cut short, peppered with gray, and a jagged red gash splayed across his left temple, out of place and ugly.
“I didn’t know who else to call,” Lauren Tyler said.
She was sitting in the far corner of the room, next to the long rectangular window that peered out over Glorietta Bay, the small inlet between downtown San Diego and Coronado Island. Her legs were crossed, her right hand tugging gently at a strand of her auburn hair.
“How’d you find out?” I asked.
“Jane Wiley called me.” She let go of the hair. “She’s representing him. Her card was in his wallet when he was brought in, so the hospital contacted her. She found my number in his cell, the last one he called.”
I glanced out the window. More buildings had been added to the downtown skyline since I’d last been home and they glimmered in the late day sunlight. “You talked to him before all this happened?”
She nodded, the small silver hoops in her earlobes bobbing forward. “I think it was the day before he was arrested.”
“Why was Chuck calling you?”
She stared at me for a moment, then smiled the same smile I saw a lot before she divorced me. The one that was sad and frustrated and a lot of other things. “He checks up on me, Joe. Just to make sure I’m okay. Nothing more.”
The tone of her voice combined with that smile snapped me back eight years in time to when her voice and smile were much different. We weren’t standing in a hospital room. We were walking on the beach on the other side of the island, a couple of blocks from our home. Our lives were normal. She was a lawyer, I was a cop. We were married, had a family. We were happy. Things were good.
“Are you still looking for her?” Lauren asked, as if she could sense that I had mentally left the room for a moment.
I shrugged, not having an uncomplicated answer to give her.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. She paused. “He looks, too, you know.”
“Chuck does?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
She looked at me like she’d never known me. “For you, Joe. For me, too, I guess, but mostly for you. He misses you.”
It was strange to hear that I’d been missed. I’d been in my own vacuum for awhile, not thinking about how my absence might affect others.
“He hasn’t seen or heard from you in three years,” Lauren said. “Nobody around here has. He knew that finding her would be the only thing that might bring you back.”
I couldn’t tell whether she was angry about that or just stating a fact.
I gestured at my friend in the bed. “Not the only thing.”
Lauren stood, ran her hands down the front of her jeans. “To be honest, I doubt Chuck would’ve believed you would’ve come even for this. I didn’t think you would.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m still surprised to see you here.”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t try. “How did it happen?”
She glanced at Chuck. “I’m not sure. When Jane called me, she just said that he’d been found on the beach. I’d imagine she knows more.”
“Why was he arrested?” I asked.
Lauren wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “I don’t know that, either. I didn’t even know he’d been arrested or that he was out on bail until Jane gave me a quick rundown. She just said he was arrested two days ago. She didn’t say why.”
Chuck and I hadn’t spoken in half a decade. I didn’t pretend to still know him, but finding him in a hospital bed was a shock to my system. I wasn’t sure how he thought of me, but I still thought of him as the best friend I’d ever had. It hurt to see him lying there, motionless, beaten to the point where he might not wake up.
“Jane was going to try and find you herself,” Lauren said.
“Me? Why?”
“Chuck asked her to.” She forced another smile onto her lips. “When Jane called me, she asked if I knew how to get ahold of you.” The smile tightened. “I wasn’t sure how to answer that. But I told her I’d call you. Told her it would be awhile before you responded and that I didn't know where you were, but that I was pretty sure you'd get back to me.”
“Sorry,” I said, averting her eyes and shuffling my feet. “I should’ve…”
“It’s okay,” she interrupted. “Really. I think it’s better that I don’t know where you are, what you’re doing. It’s easier for me.”
She was staring at me and I could see the question in her eyes. She could say that she thought it was easier for her, but there was still a tiny fragment of her that wanted to know.
“There’s nothing new, Lauren,” I said. “I would’ve called you in a second if there was. You know that.”
Something flickered in her eyes, something I couldn’t read. She unfolded her arms. “I’m gonna go.” Her fingers brushed my arm as she passed. “It’s good to see you. I’m glad you’re okay.”
It was good to see her, too, but I didn’t say that. Just like when our marriage was in its final crumbling months, I couldn’t get the right words out of my mouth.
“Did she say why, Lauren?” I asked. “Did Jane say why Chuck wanted to find me?” I looked at Chuck, then Lauren. “I mean, if it was about his arrest, I don’t see how I could help. I’m not a cop anymore. And it’s not like anyone around here would be glad to see me.”
She stood in the doorway, her hand on the door, her eyes moving from Chuck to me. “All I know is that he told her you would know what to do.”
TWO
“Never thought I’d see you again, Joe Tyler,” Jane Wiley said, looking me up and down. “This can’t be much fun for you. How are you?”
We were in the public area down on the main floor of the hospital. Jane had gone to high school with Chuck and me and, like most people we went to school with, she hadn’t left Coronado, unable to pull herself away from the idyllic setting. I had left, but not because I'd really wanted to.
“I’m fine. How are you, Jane?”
“Be better if my client hadn’t gotten the shit beat out of him.”
“Why exactly is he your client?”
She pointed at the two chairs next to us and we sat.
She shifted into lawyer mode,
her expression growing serious. “Physical assault on an eighteen year old female. She's a high school senior.”
“That’s not funny, Jane.”
“I’m serious.”
I paused. “Then it’s garbage.”
“Victim’s father filed the complaint,” she explained. “The girl backed it up with a statement. And with her appearance. She’s pretty banged up. There was more than enough to charge him.”
I hadn’t been around him for years but I knew that Chuck wouldn’t have beaten up a teenage girl. Couldn't have.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“Said he didn’t do it,” she said, frustration showing in her bunched up eyebrows. “Then he shut down and asked me to find you.” She studied me. “Which, by the way, wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever tried to do. If I hadn’t run across Lauren’s number in his phone, I’d still be looking. Where the hell have you been?”
“You think the charge is solid?” I asked.
Annoyance flashed through her eyes. But it passed quickly. “As solid as you’d expect. He knew the girl. There was some corroboration by some of the girl’s friends that they were spending time together. Alone.”
“She said, he said,” I said.
“Pretty much. The bruises tend to back it up,” she said.
“He didn’t do it.”
“Gonna need more than that, Joe.”
“So you can deal it down?” I asked. “Cut its legs off and turn it into a misdemeanor?”
Her cheeks flushed and irritation rippled through her small, compact body. “Fuck you. I’ve already done ten times more for him than some P.D. would’ve done by trying to dig up your sorry ass. Because Chuck’s a friend. You wanna work on your bad lawyer cliches, I’ve got plenty of other clients who want my time. I couldn’t care less.” Her eyes narrowed. “And you’re the last person I’d expect to be throwing around bullshit accusations.”
She was right, but I didn’t apologize. “What happened to him?”
She eyed me carefully before she spoke. “They’re calling it a random attack. Maybe a robbery gone bad. Seems he was running on the beach and got jumped. No wits, of course, because that would be too easy. He’s been unconscious since he was found.”
It would’ve taken more than one guy to bring down Chuck. “Is he gonna be alright? Doctor just gave me the basics.”
“It’s the skull fracture that’s the issue,” she said. “There’s some swelling and bleeding in and around the brain. Assuming the swelling and bleeding subside, he should be okay. But he won’t be alert until that happens.”
Like the doctor, she didn’t state the obvious, that the swelling and bleeding might not subside.
“You’re an investigator now?” Jane asked. “That’s what Lauren said.”
“Not officially. I’m not licensed or anything.”
“But it’s what you do, right? Mostly cases involving kids?”
I glanced past her toward the front doors. A man and a very pregnant woman walked in, glancing at each other, nervous smiles on their faces. She whispered something to him and they giggled. The man kissed her on the cheek as they walked past us toward the information desk.
I shifted on the sofa. “Lauren tell you that, too?”
She shrugged. “You know how it is. I hear things every so often. I would’ve found you. Crossing paths with Lauren just sped up the process. But I did find other bits and pieces. Seems like you’ve been able to help some people.”
The first few years after I left Coronado and San Diego, I had trouble looking people in the eye when they said something similar. I didn’t know how to take the compliment. But I’d finally gotten past it. I met Jane’s gaze. “I do alright.”
An uncomfortable look settled on her face and I knew what was coming. “I’m sorry, Joe. For everything you went through. Both you and Lauren. I’m sorry.”
I’d heard it so many times that I was numb to reacting. I responded automatically. “Thank you.”
She opened the satchel on the ground next to her feet, pulled out a file and leveled her eyes with mine. “But I have to say, I’m not sure having you attached to this is going to help Chuck. Your name comes with a lot of baggage.”
“I know.”
“And more than a few people here still think…”
“I’m here to help Chuck,” I said. “And I could give a shit what anyone here thinks of me.”
She kept her eyes on me, pursing her lips, like she was trying to make some sort of decision. Finally she shrugged and handed me the file folder. “That’s what I’ve got. It’s not much, at least for coming up with a defense. Nothing much will happen until he’s in better shape. It buys us some time. Keep me in the loop and I’ll do the same.” Jane stood and hesitated for a moment, her eyes looking past me. “People already know, Joe.”
“Know what?”
She pulled the satchel over her shoulder and refocused her eyes on me. “I grabbed a sandwich over at Ike’s before I came over to meet you. And goddamn if half the restaurant didn’t already know. No idea how that shit happens, but it does. This place is worse than a girl's bathroom in a middle school.”
I stood, the folder in my hand, uneasiness filling my chest. “Know what, Jane?”
She raised an eyebrow. “They already know you’re back.”
THREE
I walked out of the hospital. Palm trees waved in the breeze, the smell of the ocean riding the air as if to remind me I was in a place that used to be home. Massive aircraft carriers hulked beneath the arching blue bridge on the other side of the bay, anchored to the south end of downtown. I sat down on a stone bench just off the main doors and opened the file Jane gave me.
The complaint had been filed on behalf of eighteen-year-old Meredith Jordan. It said the contact between her and Chuck had come as a result of their relationship at Coronado High School. And it said Chuck beat the crap out of Meredith Jordan.
I stopped reading. Two questions immediately popped into my head. What was Chuck doing on a school campus? And more specifically, what was he doing at our alma mater? He wasn’t a teacher or administrator last I knew and I was willing to bet that hadn’t changed.
As unlikely as it was to find him on any school campus, Coronado High School’s would’ve been the last one on the list. We spent four years there and while I hadn’t minded high school, Chuck thought it contained all the charm of a toxic dump. He had clashed with teachers, coaches and our classmates and barely managed to graduate. He’d skipped the graduation ceremony and as far as I knew he hadn’t had anything to do with the school since he walked off the campus more than two decades prior.
He’d spent most of his adult life working construction. He started out as an employee for a homebuilder, but didn’t care much for taking orders and building tract homes. He’d gotten his general contractor’s license and built a small but thriving business of his own when I’d left Coronado. He was happy doing it.
I flipped quickly through the papers in the file until I found what I was looking for. Five photos were clipped to the back flap of the folder. Meredith Jordan was a pretty girl beneath the bruises. Long brown hair. Two perfectly brown oval eyes above a slender nose. Cheekbones that looked magazine cover worthy. At least, before someone had used her as a sparring partner.
There was a wide cut across the bridge of her nose. Deep purplish rings encircled the pretty eyes. Small yellow bruises dotted her cheeks. Red lines that resembled fingerprints snaked around the middle of her neck. Another cut at the right corner of her mouth gave her the macabre appearance of smiling when she was doing anything but.
The damage on her face wasn’t from a fall or a car accident or any other benign occurrence. Someone had teed her up and swung away. Choked her for an encore.
I clipped the photos together again and paged through the rest of the file. Dates, descriptions, times. Nothing damning one way or another. The photos were enough.
I turned the pages again, looking for the girl’s a
ddress, seeing if I might recognize it. I was surprised to find two. One in Coronado and one up in Rancho Santa Fe. I wondered if the girl’s parents were divorced or if they had bought their way in to one of the best public high schools in the country. I closed the file and laid it down next to me.
A light fog was rolling in from the south, a thin layer of moisture clinging to the air. Lauren and I used to sit on our back deck with a bottle of wine, watching the fog drift in from the other side of the island across San Diego Harbor. We'd talk about dinner plans and friends and vacations and work and family and other things you talked about when you were drunk on a cheap bottle of Merlot. Things that held promise, provided excitement.
I picked up the file and stood. I took a deep breath, let the salty air filter into my nose and lungs. Returning to Coronado was going to bring back memories. I knew that before I'd hopped on the plane. If I was going to help Chuck, I’d be fighting those memories the whole way and I wasn’t sure I had it in me.
As I gazed at the now gray-looking buildings across the bay, murky behind the fog, I felt no promise. No excitement. No hope.
FOUR
The Jordan address in Coronado was clearly a buy-in.
On a seven-and-a-half-square-mile island, inhabited by just 26,000 people, there was only one high school. The classes were small, the teachers rarely left, and the wealthy parents on Coronado were very involved. It was a good high school, perhaps the best public one in the state of California. As such, people wanted their kids to attend Coronado High School as much for the education as for the status.
But you had to live on the island to be eligible to enroll. With a limited amount of real estate and a median home price that edged closer to a million bucks every year, most folks just stared across the bay with envy.
Most folks.
The Jordan address on Coronado was a small bungalow south of the park on B Avenue. Maybe twelve-hundred square feet with a flat roof, windows without curtains, an uninspired lawn and an empty driveway. I knew it was vacant and didn’t even bother getting out of my car.