“You made me look like a damned idiot,” I practically shouted, stepping out of my car.
She immediately went on the defensive, as I had expected. “You know, you could maybe explain yourself a little bit before you start hurling accusations.”
“Yeah, and you could have told me about your record. I just came from a long talk with the police. And they had quite a lot to say about you.”
She gasped. “The police told you about my arrests? Damn them! They had no business doing that! It’s completely immaterial.”
“No,” I said. “They didn’t tell me about your arrests. They told me about your arrests and convictions. And while that may have been a breach of your privacy, that same information is a matter of public record. I could have looked it up myself in the Franklin County database. It seems that I made a mistake by not investigating you myself before I went to the police with your story.”
She began to tremble. “I already told you that I went through some rough patches. I never said that I was some kind of a saint, did I? But I’m doing much better now.”
“Good,” I told her. “Congratulations. I’m glad that you’re making an effort to turn your life around. It seems that you still have what appears to be a pretty serious drinking problem. But that’s none of my business.”
“Why are you treating me like this?” she asked. “Why?”
“Because nothing that you’ve said to me so far has held up to any kind of scrutiny. You told me that Shawn Myers was questioned for raping you in 1997. But the Columbus Police Department doesn’t have any record of questioning Shawn Myers for rape in that year—or any other year. For that matter, they don’t even have a record of the rape case you told me about.”
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t tell me that you believe them. You’ve got to believe me, Craig. That was a cover-up. Kurt Myers has more than enough money and influence to make an obscure rape case disappear from a police database.”
“I don’t know what to believe right now,” I said. What else do you say to a woman with obvious substance abuse issues, who tells you stories about long-ago crimes that aren’t corroborated by police records?
“This is so unfair!” Tina Shields shouted. “You’re judging me by my past mistakes. And all I’m trying to do is tell you what Shawn Myers and his father are capable of.”
I was going to ask her if the nefarious and far-reaching hand of Kurt Myers and TP Automotive had also played a role in the dismissed stalking charges that Chief Bruner had told me about. However, there was nothing to be gained from baiting her. Tina Shields was unreliable. I had to discard her testimony and move on. I would do what I could to protect Alyssa and Donna Chalmers from Shawn—whom I believed to be legitimately capable of groping a teenaged girl against her will. That was despicable enough, of course. But I couldn’t accept this woman’s story about Shawn raping her, beating her up, and leaving her in an alley fifteen years ago. And I had absolutely no basis for believing that Shawn was in any way connected to the murders described in the newspaper clipping.
And as things turned out, I was dead wrong.
Chapter 55
The UP&S holiday party was held that weekend. I didn’t want to attend, of course. It has been my experience over the years that no one actually likes to attend company holiday parties, with the possible exception of senior managers who extol the team-building significance of the yearly gathering. And I have had my doubts about many of them.
Nevertheless, this was a chore that I accepted as a part of the job. I was posing as a new employee at UP&S—one eager to demonstrate his commitment to fitting in. It would therefore figure that Craig Parker would present himself at this event, even though it was held on a Saturday, in an inconvenient location west of New Hastings, even farther out in the country.
I parked the Camry in the gravel lot of the New Hastings Elk Lodge around seven p.m. It was what you might expect—a large, drafty-looking structure with an exterior of rough-hewn logs. The sign in the parking lot bore the obligatory silhouette of North America’s largest land mammal.
I had decided that it would be all right for me to attend stag. Per the fictional backstories associated with our aliases, Claire and I were not supposed to be acquainted. And any other date options would have posed a security risk.
The foyer of the Elk Lodge was dimly lit and chilled by the outside air. A woman from the holiday party planning committee took my ticket just inside the door. “Have a good time,” she said encouragingly. Yeah, right, I thought.
I drifted into the main room of the Elk Lodge: more rough-hewn timbers and poor lighting. Wrought-iron chandeliers were suspended at regular intervals from the high ceiling.
At company events, senior managers—even the unpopular ones—tend to form little gravitational islands of people. There is always someone who will jump at a chance to cozy up to the boss. The first manager I noticed happened to be Shawn. He was standing in a little circle of people, holding a bottle of beer in one hand. Shawn was engaged in a conversation with a woman who worked in the factory. He was leaning close to her—far closer than was appropriate for the situation. The woman’s husband or boyfriend—a blue-collar type with a beard—scowled silently as Shawn’s eyes wandered all over the woman’s breasts. Her male escort seemed intent on controlling himself. I would have gladly given the guy two hundred dollars had he shoved Shawn away—four hundred if he had decked him. But I knew that Shawn would get by with the visual groping. The couple needed the woman’s job at UP&S.
Turning away from Shawn, I noticed Kurt Myers seated at a table with Bernie, Beth, and a handsome, sharply dressed man who appeared to be Beth’s date. Beth had never mentioned a husband or boyfriend to me; she usually conveyed the impression that she was married to the company. However, I have no doubt that a sensible, status-conscious marriage was on Beth’s to-do list, if she hadn’t already tied the knot. This would be followed by the statistically requisite 2.3 children, who would be relentlessly driven to excel at everything from piano and ballet to their SAT scores.
Kurt was speaking, and the other three people at the table were hanging on his every word. I was attempting to eavesdrop when I heard:
“Craig?”
I turned and saw Lucy Browning seated alone at a nearby table. I was surprised to see Lucy in attendance. I certainly hadn’t pegged her as the company party type.
“Lucy,” I said. “I’m kind of surprised to see you here.”
“I’m kind of surprised to see you here.”
“Hey, I’m the new guy. I have to make a good impression. Mind if I sit down?”
“No, I really enjoy sitting by myself at social events, so I can stand out like a sore thumb. Of course you can sit down.”
As I sat down, I noticed that there were two empty wine glasses on Lucy’s table. She was nursing a third.
“You like wine?” I asked.
“Very funny.” She lifted her chin at me and took another sip. “I almost never drink, you know. I guess it’s just that I’ve been a little more depressed than usual lately—you know, what with Alan and all.”
“Are you normally depressed?”
“You don’t know the half of it, Craig.”
I decided not to follow this particular line of inquiry any farther. Of course she was glum about the fact that her only real friend at UP&S had recently been discharged. I wondered if Alan had observed the contractual clause about refraining from contact with his former coworkers. I asked her if she had heard from him.
“Not a peep,” she said, finishing off wine glass number three. “I have Alan’s email address and personal cell phone number. I’ve sent him some emails and left some voicemails—about a dozen in all. But he hasn’t responded to even one of them.”
“Maybe he’s still processing all of this,” I offered. “Probably wants to be by himself until he’s sorted everything out. That’s the way guys are sometimes, you know.”
“Yes, you men,” she said. “I hope Alan doesn’t do
anything drastic, though—you know what I’m talking about?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I don’t see Alan as the suicidal type. Homicidal—maybe. Suicidal, no. Definitely not.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said. Lucy signaled a passing waitress, one hired by the Elk Lodge for events like this. “Could I have another glass of this sangria?” she asked.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” I asked gently.
“I’ll stop after this one,” she said. “Yes. Just one more.”
But Lucy didn’t stop. Over the course of the next two hours, she downed three more glasses of wine. This would have been enough alcohol to impair me—and I had endured plenty of marathon drinking bouts during my college days.
I therefore made a point to walk out with Lucy when she finally decided that she had had enough of the UP&S holiday cheer. I followed her to her car. She stumbled once in the parking lot. Having reached her vehicle—a silver Honda Accord—she laid her hand on the door handle of the driver’s side. She leaned against the Accord, attempting to steady herself.
“Is it just me—or is the parking lot spinning?” she asked.
Clearly, Lucy was in no condition to drive. And I had no intention of allowing her to try. Facilitating Lucy’s departure from UP&S was one thing. Standing by while she proceeded to drive off the road and wrap her car around a telephone pole was another.
I placed my hand on her wrist, firmly but gently.
“I can’t let you drive like this, Lucy.” And I meant it. I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Lucy’s breath was about eighty proof.
Lucy shrugged. “I’d thought about calling a cab. But the Columbus cabbies don’t drive this far out in the country. At least not this late on a Saturday night on short notice.”
“Forget about the cab,” I said. “I’ll drive you home.”
“You’re serious?”
“No, Lucy. I’m pulling your leg. Come on, now. My car is parked over there.”
“Well, okay then,” she said. “If you’re sure it’s no trouble.”
“It’s no trouble.”
She allowed me to lead her in the direction of my rented Camry. Halfway there, she suddenly teetered on her feet, and I caught her as she was about to fall. It was Tina Shields all over again, I thought.
I also reflected that if Lucy had indeed attempted to drive home, the outcome would have been disastrous—possibly tragic. My presence here this evening might have saved her life. Did this realization assuage the guilt that I was feeling about what awaited Lucy? Sure it did—a little. I liked Lucy—as I had basically liked Alan.
But that didn’t change the fact that I had a job to do. Nor did it change the fact that I was possibly doing Lucy a favor within the big scheme of things.
I’ve always believed that a firing isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a person. Sometimes it prevents an individual who is stuck in a dead-end job from spending the next ten or twenty years in a situation that is counterproductive for everyone involved. When a person is fired, a third party makes the decision that the fired person should have made for himself.
“Where do you live?” I asked, once I had her strapped into the passenger seat beside me.
She have me her address in an apartment and condo complex on the west side of Columbus near I-70. I keyed the address into my GPS and the device generated a set of directions that would take me there in about thirty minutes. I noticed that Lucy was leaning against the passenger side window. I wondered if this was going to turn out like my episode with Tina Shields: I had played designated driver for Tina, as well; and she had passed out almost the moment I had helped her into her hotel room.
“All okay over there?” I asked gently.
“Yup,” Lucy said, no longer trying to mask her intoxication. “I’m feeling great.”
We spent the ride in silence. Let her sleep, I thought. A nap would help to sober her up—and maybe keep her from vomiting in my car.
At the apartment complex, Lucy accepted my help up the stairs to her second-floor apartment. With her leaning on my shoulder, we stumbled through the doorway as if we were both drunk. Once inside, I fumbled around on the wall for a light switch.
“Welcome to my humble abode.” she said, as I eased her into the chair closest to the door, a well-worn recliner.
Lucy’s apartment was a textbook example of thirtysomething spinster interior decorating: There were macramé wall hangings and embroidered pictures of pastoral scenes, flowers, and cats. She had made many of them herself, I suspected. Lucy was a good housekeeper: despite the almost cloying quaintness of her place, there was little in the way of random clutter.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she announced. “Maybe I should take an Alka-Seltzer. I need to get out of this coat, too.”
“Yes, why don’t you do that?”
I didn’t want to leave without making sure that Lucy was okay, so I took a seat on the living room sofa while Lucy hung up her coat and went into the adjacent kitchen. I heard her draw a glass of water from the tap and drop an Alka-Seltzer tablet into it with a plunk and a fizz.
While I was waiting, I noticed an unusual paperweight sitting on Lucy's coffee table. It was shaped like a dollar sign.
I lifted the brass object as Lucy was walking back into the living room.
“This looks like a paperweight that Ayn Rand would have loved,” I said, referring to the author of Atlas Shrugged. The dollar sign had been a recurring symbol throughout Rand’s 1958 novel, a paean to free-market capitalism and individualism.
“Ayn Rand?” she asked. Then she looked at the paperweight and understood the significance of my remark. I gave her points for that. Some people loved Ayn Rand’s works, others hated them. But only a reasonably educated and literate person would be able to connect a dollar sign to the late Russian-American author. “Oh, no. That’s got nothing to do with Ayn Rand. I’ve had that since college. I worked part-time in a bank back then. It was my one-year service gift.”
“Hmm,” I examined the paperweight in my hand. It had a pleasing heft.
“Why don’t you take it, if it strikes your fancy? Really, Craig. I want you to have it.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, I’m serious,” she said. “Go ahead and take it. You’ll be doing me a favor, in fact. I’ve never really liked this paperweight. If you take it, then I’ll have an excuse to go out and buy something nicer to replace it. And you’ll be doing me a favor in another way, as well: If you take the paperweight, then I won’t feel as badly about your going out of your way to take me home tonight.”
“Fair enough,” I said, pocketing the spur-of-the-moment gift. I understood exactly what Lucy was saying. If I refused her offer, then it would make her feel worse about accepting mine.
“Do you need me to give you a ride back to the Elk Lodge to pick up your car tomorrow morning?” I asked. “It wouldn’t be any trouble.” I swept my arm around the room. “And maybe I would come out of the deal with a picture of a tulip or a cat.”
“No, no. That won’t be necessary. My downstairs neighbor, Jenny will take me. She owes me, anyway.”
“Good enough,” I said. “But feel free to give me a call if Jenny’s busy tomorrow, visiting her parents or taking her kids to soccer practice, or whatever.”
Lucy paused, obviously contemplating my last comment. I saw her lips begin to tremble. Then she burst into tears.
“What?” I asked. Nonplussed at Lucy’s outburst, I simply stood there in the middle of Lucy’s living room. I have never been very good with tears. I figured that she would tell me what was wrong—if she wanted me to know.
“I feel so alone!” she finally said through her sobs.
I walked over to where she was sitting and took a seat beside her. I leaned over and put my arm around her shoulder. “Easy, there, Lucy. What’s wrong?”
“Oh,” she said, still sobbing, her face in her hands. “It’s what you just said about Jenny visiting her
parents or taking her kids to soccer practice. I can’t do either, you see.”
I let her cry for about a minute longer. Then she finally finished crying and wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Craig, dumping all this on you.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Alcohol makes most people emotional.” I smiled. “That’s one reason why I don’t drink much anymore.”
“No, it’s more than just the wine,” she said. “Do you want me to explain?”
“I’ll leave that up to you. I don't want to make you feel even worse. Is this about not being married? Not having children? Don’t worry, Lucy, you’ve got plenty of time for that yet.”
“I’m thirty-four,” she said. “My biological clock is ticking. And I haven’t had a date in three years. Do you know how hard it is for a woman over thirty who has a weight problem to find a decent man?”
“No,” I said. I didn’t, really—though I could imagine.
“It’s difficult,” she said. “All men want are the young thin ones. Like that new one at work, Claire.”
“I think Claire’s about your age,” I said.
Lucy gave me a don’t-be-ridiculous frown. I didn’t press the point. True, Lucy and Claire were more or less the same age. But Claire was fit and stunning, whereas Lucy was, well—average and ordinary-looking. And her often timid, self-conscious personality probably didn’t help matters when she ventured out into the singles marketplace.
“I sense myself becoming more and more isolated each year,” she said. “No husband, no kids, no family. My parents are dead. They started late. I was born when they were in their forties; and they were already old by the time I was in college.”
“You don’t have any other family?” I asked.
“I have a sister. Her name is Emily. But I seldom talk to her and almost never see her.”
“And why’s that?”
“She’s different.”
“How do you mean, ‘different’?”
“What I mean,” Lucy said. “Is that she’s tall and pretty, and she has a tall and handsome husband who loves her.” She sniffed and gave me a forced smile. “You might say that Emily landed on the favored side of the family gene pool. And Emily lives in San Francisco—two thousand miles away. ”
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