The Poisoned Rose

by Daniel Judson

  “No, I’ll talk to him,” I said. “I’ll go see him this morning.”

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “I’ll call in if I have to.”

  “Can you afford that?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Look, I’ll compensate you, if you want. Put you on the payroll for a few days. Can’t have you starving.”

  “Let’s just keep this simple, Frank. I do the job as a favor to you and we’re even. I cover my own expenses, everything. I do this job and I never hear from you again. We’re clear on this?”

  He nodded. “Very.”

  “So what is it exactly you want me to do?”

  “I need you to find a woman named Marie Welles. Last her family knew of her she was living in Flanders with a guy named Tim Carter. Two weeks ago she disappeared, and no one has heard a word from her since.”

  “What do they think happened?”

  “Her trail ends very neatly. Very deliberately, in fact. As if she wanted to disappear, planned it out carefully, then went underground. There’s not one loose end leading to her.”

  “Except for this Carter guy.”

  Frank nodded. “It turns out he’s something of a petty crook. He has a record. Possession with intent to sell, that kind of thing. He was fired from his most recent job for stealing from the register. From what I know of him, he strikes me as one of those people who can’t decide whether they’re a crook or straight, so they kind of muddle along in between, doing a generally half-assed job in either world. But he has no record of violent crime. And there is no evidence that anything happened to the girl. She’s just gone.”

  “There’s a difference between missing and gone, Frank.”

  “Maybe. Carter is still in the cottage in Flanders they shared. I need you to go there tonight and find out from him where she is.”

  I knew what he meant by that.

  “Why hasn’t her family gone to the police?” I said.

  “They want this handled privately. They had their own people working on this, but when they came up with nothing, the family called me.”

  I looked out over the ocean and thought about all this. Several waves came in and tumbled over before either of us spoke again. I didn’t like any of what I was hearing from Frank.

  “How old is this Welles woman?”

  “Your age.”

  “Old enough to know what she wants, don’t you think?”

  “She has a history of mental illness. That’s why her family kept such close tabs on her when she moved out.”

  He took a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to me.

  “Carter’s address,” he said.

  I didn’t take the paper at first, just looked at it. Finally, I reached out for it. The paper was damp with Frank’s sweat. I slipped it into the pocket of my T-shirt without looking at it.

  “Any questions?” Frank asked.

  “What if I he doesn’t want to tell me what I want to know?”

  “I’m sure you’ll come up with something persuasive. You’re not without your skills, right? I’ll call you tonight when it’s time to go. Meet me back here tomorrow morning at eight and tell me what you’ve got.”

  “And if I don’t have anything?”

  “Just find where the girl went, Mac. That’s all you’ve got to do. Find the girl.”

  I’d heard these very same words from him once before.

  I drove to Southampton Hospital and caught up with Augie as he was coming out of his morning physical therapy. He had already traded in his crutches for a cane, though by the way he walked I couldn’t help but wonder if it he had done so prematurely. Of course I knew that was just the way he did things. The beating had done enough brain damage that he had to relearn pretty much everything. Some things didn’t come as easily as others. Walking was one of them.

  We headed down a long hallway to a large plate-glass window that overlooked Old Towne Pond. We stood there, shoulder to shoulder, and looked out over the lawn below and the patients who roamed it. They were wearing hospital bathrobes and slippers. Augie had on shorts and a T-shirt and running shoes. He refused to dress like an invalid, in gowns or even pajamas. The doctors had given up fighting with him a long time ago. These were the same doctors who had told Augie that the chances he would walk again were slim.

  Augie and I chatted for a while about his recovery, his impending release, about the idiot doctors and how they don’t even dare to stick their heads into his room anymore. He said that Gale was around here somewhere, that I should find her on my way out and say hello. But I had other things on my mind.

  “So what is it?” Augie said finally. “Something’s obviously bothering you. More dire news from our trusted medical experts?”

  I shook my head. “No, nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “They picked up a man in Jersey,” I said. “He had a cop’s badge and gun. Both belonged to the cop that got killed last November. The man’s a known leg breaker and suspected killer-for-hire. He’s being brought here so he can be charged.”

  Augie looked out the window and nodded. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Frank told me.”

  “When did you see him?”

  “This morning. He called and asked me to meet him.”

  “That was going to happen, sooner or later. We knew that. I take it he didn’t call just to tell you about our friend.”

  “No.”

  “What did he want?”

  I didn’t know where to start.

  Augie was looking at me now.

  “What’s going on, Mac?” he said. “You’ve got that look on your face. What did Frank want?”

  “He told me something. It’s something I should have seen coming.”

  “What?”

  “He said that Tina’s been telling her friends around town things about us. Things that aren’t true.”

  “What exactly has she been saying?” His voice was even.

  I shrugged. “That we’re…boyfriend and girlfriend.” I didn’t know how else to say it.

  Augie nodded and looked out the window again. “That was bound to happen. I mean, you saved her from a horrible thing, Mac. Two horrible things. A crush was bound to happen.”

  “Maybe. But Frank says people are talking, and things with the Chief being what they are…”

  “Yeah, that’s the last thing you need right now.”

  “It’s no one’s business, but …”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Mac. You’ve been a good friend, better than any friend I’ve had in a long time. I’ve put you out long enough. I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry about it. I’ll set it straight.”

  “I don’t want to bail on you.”

  “You’re not bailing, Mac. Anyway, I’m out of here Monday, remember? And with the cop killer in custody, I don’t need you to watch over her anymore. She can stay with Lizzie’s family. Their house is on North Main, so she’ll just be a few blocks from you, just in case. I can live with that.”

  “Fuck it, Augie. Let her stay, if only just to spite them.”

  “No. We both want our lives back. I’m sure if you could have gotten get me out of this place sooner, you would have. If I can get your life back to you sooner, even if it’s only a few days sooner, I’m happy to do it.”

  I looked at him. His face had healed but it wasn’t unchanged. His features were uneven, and just a little unfamiliar.

  “I don’t think I’ve said this before, Mac. I should have said it a long time ago.” He looked at me. “Thanks for my life. Thanks for the life of my daughter. I love her more than anything, but I know how she can be. It was easier for me in here knowing that she was with you. I knew you’d stop at nothing to keep her safe. And I knew you’d put up with everything she threw at you.” He paused. “How bad was it?”

  “Not bad,” I lied. “She’s a good kid.” That wasn’t a lie.

  “Anyway,” he said, “I owe you.
I owe you big time.”

  “I’m not keeping track, Aug.”

  “When Tina comes by today I’ll talk to her. Don’t worry about anything. We’ll get everything straightened out.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We should have a party when I get out of here. I’ll throw myself one. A cookout. There’s probably a veggie burger of yours still in our freezer.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “We’ll get tanked and toast to your sobriety.”

  “I’m there.”

  “Good. Everything’s going to be fine, you know. I’m going to kick this cane. I’m going to be one hundred percent again, everything’s going to get back to normal. Just wait and see.”

  I waited a moment, then I said, “I should get going, Aug.” I realized that if I went back to work after lunch, I’d be short only twenty dollars come payday, not forty.

  And I wanted to get out of there before Augie thought to ask me if Frank had wanted to see me for any other reason.

  Augie extended his hand and I took it. We shook, then I left him in the cool hallway and went outside, into air so hot it brushed my skin like a flame.

  I went into work after lunch, made four deliveries, and got back home a little before five. My back was shot and I was dead from the heat. I turned on each of the three table top fans I had and lay down on my couch to rest. When I woke up, twilight outside my windows. My apartment was dim, a single, dull light burning in my bedroom. I sat up. My clothes clung to my back and legs. I saw Tina tiptoe past the open bedroom door. On the bed just inside the bedroom door was an oversized canvas shoulder bag. As Tina passed the bed she tossed a folded shirt into the bag, then disappeared from my sight again. When she reappeared she tossed something else into the bag, then disappeared from my sight once more.

  My skin was radiating heat, my forearms hot to the touch. I had napped too deeply and for too long. Coming to was more like sobering up than waking.

  Over the humming of my fans I could hear voices coming up from Elm street below. I checked my watch. It was just after eight. People were coming to the Hansom House early. I realized then that it was Friday, that there would be a reggae band. I thought about Tina being gone, of being free to come and go again as I pleased. It was a nice thought. When I felt that I was awake enough to deal with her, I got up off the couch and walked to the bedroom door and stood in it.

  Tina looked up from her packing and clutched at her heart suddenly with one hand. Her mouth dropped open. I had come up on her by surprise without meaning to.

  “Shit, Mac. Don’t do that. You scared me.”

  I tried not to laugh. “Sorry.”

  The small reading lamp beside my bed was the only light on in the entire apartment. Last week Tina had covered the lampshade with a handkerchief to hold back the heat it gave off. It held back a great deal of the light, too.

  Behind me the fans sounded like airplane engines when heard from a distance. Air moved around me like a commotion.

  “You were asleep when I came in,” she said. She had gone back to her packing. She didn’t look at me, was giving much more attention than necessary to the task. I knew by this that Augie had talked her.

  “What time did you get back?” I asked.

  “A little while ago.”

  “You haven’t been over to Lizzie’s in months. It’ll be fun.”

  She managed then to look at me. “Augie signed himself out of the hospital this afternoon,” she said.

  “What?”

  “He signed himself out today. I rode home with him. Your friend Eddie drove us in his cab.”

  “They released him?”

  “No. He insisted on leaving and made a stink about it. They didn’t put up much of a fight, to be honest. I think they were just glad to get him out of there.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s home.”

  “He’s alone?”

  “He insisted I come back here and get all my stuff. Eddie will be back in a little bit to pick me up.”

  I wasn’t pleased by this. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. “He can’t just check out like that.”

  Tina shrugged. “He did. He says he wants to be home, that he’s been away from his life for too long now.”

  “Shit.”

  “We’re going to have a welcome home cookout tomorrow afternoon. Augie wants you to come over. We don’t have much in the house, though. I was thinking maybe you and I could go shopping tomorrow morning. You could pick me up and we could get some things.”

  I didn’t say anything to that at first. I thought about people seeing she and I together in the market. Finally, though, I nodded and said, “Yeah, okay.”

  Tina was standing beside the unmade bed. She was dressed in cut-off shorts and a pink T-shirt that kept few secrets. Her arms and legs were long branches extending from a short trunk. She was awkward, not yet a woman but no longer a child. And though she wasn’t by most standards a beautiful girl—her face was raw, her features unfinished—she was by no means ugly.

  I never once felt a moment of attraction for her, never once said or did anything that would give her the impression that we were anything more than, well, family. But she wanted me, that was clear, and had for the past two months. It wasn’t long after she had moved in that she began spending as much time as she could with me, talking to me, sometimes at me. She hadn’t spoken Spanish since leaving Colombia, and when she found out it was one of the languages I was fluent in, she used “brushing up on it” as an excuse to repeat everything she’d already told me about herself. Frankly, I preferred the chatter, because when we weren’t talking, when she’d finally run out of things to say and we were just sitting silently at night, she would stare at me in a way that was more than a little alarming.

  She was staring at me in that way now. There was no avoiding that she was offering herself to me, wanting me to see her as a grown woman, which of course she wasn’t, not by any stretch of the imagination. Standing there, not moving, as if on display—this was her way of letting me know her feelings for me. But I did what I always did whenever she acted this way. I pretended not to notice. Since she was about to leave, there was no point in taking a stand now.

  My long duty as protector and keeper was almost over. It wasn’t till this moment that I realized that having Tina living here was like having some wild animal in my house, something I couldn’t predict and would never completely understand.

  “Do you have everything?” I said.

  She nodded. It was the only movement she made. She was frozen, waiting for me to catch on, willing me into taking action.

  “You should get going, then,” I said.

  “I could stay for a little while,” she suggested.

  “No, you need to go, Tina. It’s time.”

  She was hurt, more so than usual, probably because she saw this as her last chance. But I couldn’t care about that. She finished her packing just as Eddie pulled up and beeped his horn. I was thankful for my luck. She moved toward me, and I stepped aside to let her pass through the bedroom door. But instead of moving through it she stopped suddenly and faced me.

  She looked at me but said nothing. Then, suddenly, she rose up onto her toes to kiss me. Her breasts brushed against my stomach, and she took the crook of my right elbow with her left hand. I turned my head and her lips grazed my unshaved cheek. It was an inexperienced kiss, rushed. She withdrew slowly, though, lowering her heels to the floor and looking at me. Her hand dropped from my elbow.

  I didn’t move, didn’t offer any response. But that didn’t seem to faze her. She smiled and said in a voice that was still a girl’s, “Call me tomorrow, Mac.”

  Then she crossed my living room and left my apartment without looking back. I listened to her go down the two flights of stairs, then stepped to the window and watched to make sure that she got into Eddie’s cab.

  After the cab had driven out of my sight, I turned and looked around my place.

  I was alone in
it for the first time in a season.

  I tried to go to back to sleep but the heat was too much. My fans were running on high, but they did nothing but stir around hot air. My bed felt strange after having slept on the couch for so long. But there was nothing I could do about that. After a while I slipped into a shallow sleep. I dreamed of the woman who had come to me last November, the woman I didn’t know. I’d been, of course, with no one since. I dreamed of us running from room to room in some great house. I think we were children, or at least were for part of the dream. It was night, and we listened to the sound of winter thunder, saw from some high window snow falling on an ocean the color of ball bearings.

  Then I was awakened by the clanging of my telephone. I knew even before I answered it who would be on the other end.

  “It’s me,” Frank said. He was on a pay phone, as usual. I heard the hissing of cars passing in the background. The line crackled sharply several times. I thought at one point that the connection had been severed and I had lost him. But I wasn’t that lucky.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “You’re on.”

  In my mind the snow was still falling.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said.

  “Just find the girl, Mac. Just find the girl.”

  He hung up.

  Chapter Six

  The street name on the slip of paper Frank had given me was a right-hand turn off Flanders Road, which ran from Hampton Bays into Riverhead. I found the side street easy enough and started down it. It was narrow, poorly lit, the homes small working-class cottages. The road came to a dead end on the shore of Flanders Bay, a few hundred yards from the main road.

  A mailbox on a post was at the end of a long dirt driveway that lead up a slight grade to a cottage set on a bank overlooking the bay. The numbers on the mailbox matched the numbers on the slip of paper in my hand. I could see that the windows of the cottage were dark, and that there were no cars in the dirt driveway. I killed the motor and headlights and sat there behind the wheel and looked the place over.

  After a while I opened my glove compartment and took out my flashlight and Spyderco knife. I clipped the knife inside my hip pocket as I got out of my car. I looked back up the street, toward Flanders Road. There was nothing to see but darkness. I listened carefully and heard only the lapping of waves on the shore of the bay behind me. I turned on the light to test it. The beam was weak, but it would have to do. I switched the light off again and started up toward the cottage. I walked on the grass, not wanting to leave the imprint of my sneakers in the dirt.