Shares

by A. W. Gray

  “So we’re supposed to believe,” Turner said, “that this gorgeous woman was trying to force some pussy on you and you were resisting, right?”

  Frank looked up and watched the ceiling fans turn, trying to calm down. He couldn’t keep the anger from his tone as he said, “You can believe whatever you want to. Tell you the truth, I don’t care what you believe “

  Turner’s lips relaxed in a shit-eating grin. “Temper, temper, Torrance.”

  Frank fought for control, realizing that he’d given just the reaction that Turner had been wanting, and mentally kicking himself. Finally, Frank said, “Yeah, I was out of line. Sorry. The end of the story is that Darla s sentence was over about a year before mine, and other than me getting out I couldn’t think of another inmate I was gladder to see go. After the day she walked out of prison I never laid eyes on her again, until last week.’’

  “So, other than the fact that she toured the school,” Tate said, “you don’t have anything really positive you can put your finger on, that might give us probable cause to haul the lady in.”

  Frank pretended to think while he made up his mind if he should tell about meeting Darla at the bar. He decided that would be just asking for trouble. “Nothing I can think of,” he said, and then thought, As I see it…Jesus, somebody he knew used to say that all the time.

  Tate fiddled with her ballpoint. “Anything else you want to ask, Dave? It’s really your show, the FBI’s show, and I’m just here to advise. Besides, I just love your quaint expressions.” She smiled sweetly.

  Turner shrugged and shook his head, his expression saying that he didn’t like Tate’s being here, and that if the U.S. Attorney’s office hadn’t horned in, Frank might be in for a session with the rubber hose.

  “So you’ll know, Frank,” Tate said, “and since you’re an ex-policeman I don’t guess there’s any point in beating around the bush. If we could hold you we would, but we have no probable cause. Ditto with the lady, though we’re having a talk with her this morning.”

  “So you’ll know,” Frank said, “Meg is the most important person in my life right now. I wouldn’t hurt her for all the money in the world, and if somebody else does, they’re going to answer to me.”

  Tate gave a brief chuckle. “Well said. Well said, but that doesn’t get you off the suspect list. We’re going to be following you day and night till this is over. Oh yes. Up front, we’re putting a tap on your phone. For that I do have probable cause. If you use the pay phone, someone’s liable to be listening to that as well. No one but you knows the Carpenters have called us in on this, and if the bad people find out there’s only one person who could have told them.”

  “What about Darla? You said you were talking to her.”

  “That’s right, we are,” Tate said. “Which makes two people we’ll have to keep an eye on. Mind if I tell you how I see this?”

  “See what?” Frank said.

  “This whole matter. I think you’re in on it. I think, just maybe, Darla Bern is in on it, too. If she is, she’s working with you. That’s my intestinal reaction.”

  Frank sat up. “Well, you’re wrong.”

  “I’ve been wrong before. But that doesn’t keep me from speculating. We can’t hold you, Frank, so until I think up some reason we can, you can go. You have a nice day. I’m not going to tell you not to worry, because I hope you do. If you worry enough you might make a mistake. If you do foul up, then we’re going to get you. You’ll think that last sentence you did was just staying after school by the time it’s over, sweetie.”

  The two blue suits were waiting in the entry hall, talking to Mr. Shotgun. As Frank came out of the meeting with Agent Turner close on his heels, the blue suits moved aside to permit access to the front door. Instead of going in that direction, Frank did a sudden column-left and headed for the back of the house.

  Turner quickened his pace. “What the hell you doing?” Frank paused near the foot of the staircase and turned. “You invited me here. What, I don’t get the tour?” He took off again, passing the banister and taking long, determined strides through a first-floor sitting room with a fireplace. Turner gave the blue suits a helpless look, then hustled in pursuit.

  Frank found Morgan Carpenter in a kitchen with an island stove and wraparound overhead cabinets, drinking coffee with his wife. Meg had inherited the nose and dimples from her father, but her mannerisms came from the other side of the family. Same steady gaze, same inquisitive tilt to the chin. Mrs. Carpenter sat across from her husband at a tile-topped table. Her features had been flawless in the entry-hall photos, but seeing her in person Frank noted some lines around her eyes, and that the cords in her neck were beginning to sag. She wore a navy blue jogging suit with red stripes, identical to her husband’s, and she drank what looked to be orange juice with a raw egg whipped in. On the counter sat a blender with more of the orangy liquid in the bottom, and citrus pulp clinging to the sides. Morgan Carpenter sat with his back to the entry. As Frank stormed in, Mrs. Carpenter looked up and said, “Yeah, well.”

  Carpenter turned with his cup to his lips, spit coffee back into the cup and started to rise. As he did, Agent Turner gently collided with Frank from behind. Turner stepped quickly in between Frank and Meg’s father. “I apologize, sir,” Turner said. “This guy just started wandering around.”

  Frank moved around the FBI man and faced Carpenter. “I wasn’t wandering,” Frank said. “I was looking for you.”

  Morgan Carpenter had a square forehead with deep creases. His complexion was light, like his daughter’s, and now was slightly reddened from the sun. “I got ways to deal with you these guys don’t have,” he said to Frank while gesturing toward the FBI agent. “You don’t believe it, go by the docks and check some of my guys out.”

  Turner stiffened. “I’m going to play like I didn’t hear that, Mr. Carpenter.”

  Carpenter blinked. “Hear what? I didn’t say I was going to do anything to the guy. I just said I’ve got ways.”

  Mrs. Carpenter watched Frank with a curious tilt to her mouth. If Meg aged as well as her mother, Frank thought, that would be nice.

  “What I’ve got to say,” Frank said, “is that, yeah, I’ve been seeing your daughter. A lot. Every chance I get. But I don’t—”

  “Seeing a jailbird,” Carpenter said, hands now on hips. “About what I’d—”

  “You’re hurting my ears, Morgan,” Mrs. Carpenter said. “Not to mention making an ass of yourself. You’re not helping things, so why don’t you put a sock in it.” She looked at Frank. “Sis Carpenter, Mr. White. I’ve heard so much.”

  “What I was going to say is,” Frank said, “is that I don’t care what these guys have told you. I’m as worried about Meg as you are. Probably more.”

  “You can tell all that to the undertaker,” Carpenter said. His eyes narrowed. “Now, you people want money, the money’s there. That’s all there is, money. You hurt my little girl, there’s no place you can hide. The world’s not big enough, you understand?”

  “To the undertaker? God save us, I’ve married Wyatt Earp.” Sis Carpenter got up and poured herself more juice-and-egg. “Sit down, Mr. White. If my husband continues to be an asshole I’ll brain him for you.” She had a drawl like Ann Richards’s.

  Turner shifted his gaze back and forth in confusion between Frank and the lady of the house. Morgan Carpenter had the look of a boxer whose manager had just thrown in the towel. Sis Carpenter made a beckoning gesture. “Come on, sit,” she said.

  Frank sat on the unoccupied straw-seated wooden chair beside Morgan Carpenter’s coffee cup. Carpenter picked up the cup, went around the table, turned a chair around, and straddled it. He eyed Frank. “I’ve got people, bud,” he said.

  “What are you gonna do, Morgan?” Sis Carpenter said, sitting down. “Have him stuffed in the rear of a bobtail?” She smiled at Frank. “Give a man a few trucks and he thinks he
’s Al Capone. You’re not exactly the man of the hour around here, Mr. White, but I tend to take my daughter’s judgment as the gospel. If you were as bad as all these FBI people say, Meg wouldn’t have fallen for you to begin with. I’ll bet my boots on that.”

  Agent Turner retreated to stand by the counter, near the blender. Morgan Carpenter continued to scowl.

  “Meg’s a hardhead,” Sis Carpenter said. “Always has been. She’s got this off-the-wall idea that people are supposed to make it on their own. Gets the idea from her father, who’s a pretty good dad when he’s not snorting around at everybody.”

  “She could have anything she wants,” Morgan Carpenter said, “and she takes up with a convict.”

  Sis Carpenter showed Frank a between-us wink. “Little girls tend to discuss their love life with their mamas, so I know more about you than Meg’s daddy does. S’pect we would have had you as a dinner guest before long if all this hadn’t happened. Don’t think Meg knew you’d been in prison, though. That right, young man? ” Her expression became serious.

  Frank looked at his lap. “I told her this past weekend. I should have a long time ago.”

  Sis Carpenter’s look was steady. “Yeah, you should. You kidnap my daughter, son?”

  Frank raised his chin. “Before today, I didn’t know Meg’s family had a dime.”

  “S’pect that’s the truth,” Sis Carpenter said. “It’s a rule Meg’s always had with her men, and I’ve got to admit I gave her the idea. Romancin’ for dollars never works out, in my experience. Love’s a thing. If the thing’s not there a pile o’ money dudn change that. Me and old warhorse here”—she thumbed at her husband—” had Meg when we lived in a trailer home and he was drivin’ long haul twenty-Five days a month. That’s love. Money ain’t love.”

  Morgan Carpenter squeezed Sis’s hand and sniffled, as if he had a cold.

  “I’m actin’ pretty brave here,” Sis Carpenter said. “Truth is, if anything happens to my little girl I’ll likely die myself. Can I call you Frank?”

  Frank watched her, the perfect posture and regal bearing.

  “Truth also is, Frank,” she said, “that right now you look like the most likely candidate to do somethin’ bad, if we believe what these FBI people are sayin’. I believe in lookin’ at things head-on, and I’m preparin’ myself that I may lose my daughter. If I do, I don’t want to remember her as havin’ faulty judgment. So you prove all these folks wrong, Frank, you hear me?”

  Frank swallowed a lump.

  Morgan Carpenter moved in close to his wife and put his arm around her. “And if they turn out to be right,” he said, “there’s no place you can hide. I’d be remembering that, too, if I was you.”

  15

  The men in the FBI windbreakers had just finished their search of Frank’s apartment and were trooping down the stairs into the parking lot as Turner pulled up with Mr. Shotgun alongside him and Frank hunched down in back. Last night’s rain puddles had dried, leaving one rectangle of standing water the size of a hopscotch court. As the Taurus neared the foot of the steps, sunlight glinted from the water’s surface. Turner managed to stop so that the puddle was directly outside the rear passenger door. Frank had to leap to dry pavement, using the Taurus’s rocker panel as a launching pad. He stumbled and righted himself, then reached out to push the Taurus’s door to. The driver’s window hummed down and Turner grinned at him. “You keep Mr. Carpenter in mind, Frank,” Turner said. “We don’t want any tags winding up on your big toe, you hear?” He waved at the two denim-jacketed guys, raised the window, and drove away.

  As Frank passed the two agents on his way to the steps, he said casually, “Find anything?”

  The nearer of the two, a balding man with shaggy eyebrows, nodded but didn’t answer. He and his partner got into still another Taurus, this one dark green, backed out of their parking space, drove into the shade of a tree near the lot’s exit, and stopped.

  Frank climbed halfway up the stairs and looked around. The green Taurus hadn’t moved. He went all the way up to the landing and looked again. Now the agents had their windows down, watching him. The balding guy dangled his car keys out the window. Visible through the windshield, the agent in the passenger seat raised a hand to ear level and waved. Frank sighed in disgust and went on inside. For just a crazy instant there he’d had an impulse to shoot the two guys the finger. As he entered his apartment, he wished that he had.

  The agents were still in the parking lot an hour and a half later, having pulled the car forward enough to remain in the shade as the sun moved across the sky. They were drinking soda pop; as Frank watched through his window, the balding guy tilted a red-and-white can to his lips and swigged. Frank let go of the drape, which fell back in place with a ripple of cheesecloth. He went to the kitchen and squirted Palmolive lime on the scorched coffee in the bottom of the pot, then turned on the faucet and held his hand under the stream, waiting for the water to warm.

  His bedroom had been a wreck—shirts, ties, socks, and underwear yanked from the drawers and scattered on the floor, the bed stripped, sheets, pillowcases, and bedspread piled in the corner. The clothes closet had been ransacked, shirts and pants twisted on hangers, pockets pulled inside out. Even the waste-basket had been turned upside down, with candy wrappers and used-up disposable ballpoints dumped on the floor along with wadded tissues. The two changes of clothes that Meg had left hung in his closet—a shirt-and-jeans combo and a pair of blue walking shorts with a white Dallas Cowboys T—were missing. Frank withdrew his fingers from the stream, half-filled the pot with hot, soapy water, and sloshed the pot around in a circular pattern. Suds rose inside the pot and the clear water became instantly murky gray. Frank glanced at the kitchen wall phone and curled his upper lip.

  After he’d straightened his bedroom and closet as best he could, he’d had no trouble in finding the bugs. The agents hadn’t really attempted to hide the tiny transmitters; Frank had found them both just by unscrewing the phones’ mouthpieces. S.O.R in illegal phone taps—which, Frank knew, the FBI conducted a lot more often than the court-ordered kind—was a wire splice in the outside juncture box, and the agents’ motive for leaving the bugs in the mouthpieces was pretty simple. They wanted Frank to blow his cool and remove the transmitters, then hire himself a lawyer and charge to the courthouse. Then the judge would give the FBI a verbal slap on the wrist, tell them to cut the bullshit, and within twenty-four hours Ms. Marjorie Rapp would have Frank’s parole revoked and he would be in jail. Frank put on a padded rubber glove and scoured the bottom of the coffeepot with a Brillo pad, cussing the agents under his breath for going off and leaving the burner on. The mistake had been intentional, of course. The guvs in the Taurus were probably still laughing about it.

  With the scorched mess softened, Frank put the pot in the top basket inside the dishwasher. He’d already loaded the washer with the cups, saucers, plates, and glasses the agents had pulled from the cabinets and left on the counter. He filled the holder with Top Crest lemon powdered detergent, closed and secured the gate, and turned the handle. The dishwasher hummed and chugged. Frank took a Bud longneck from the refrigerator, retreated to the living room and sat on the couch. He had a sip and rolled the frosty bottle across his forehead.

  I don’t know how I’m going to help you, Frank thought. But I am. He leaned his head back against the cushions, crossed his ankles on the coffee table, and closed his eyes.

  As I see it. Someone he’d known had used that expression a lot. Who in hell was it? Frank would think about it. Eventually the answer would come to him.

  16

  Earlier that morning Agent Turner had filled out Interagency Form 71, Request for Interview, directing that someone go talk to Darla Bern, and had sent the form via messenger to downtown FBI headquarters. He identified the suspect in the kidnapping as “White, Frank P.,” and stated that the purpose of the interview was “to determine the extent of subject B
ern’s involvement if any, in the abduction of Margaret Ann Carpenter from Riverbend School sometime between I0 p.m. April II and 6 a.m. April 12.” Justice Department files had coughed up mug shots of both Frank and Darla, taken on their respective releases from Pleasanton, and a GS-5 clerk had dutifully stapled wallet-sized prints of the photos to opposite corners of the form. Darla’s name appeared in two fill-in-the-blanks, once as the subject of the interview, and again under the heading, “Additional Suspects.” Turner designated the goal in talking to Darla as twofold: “To determine whether there is reason to believe that Darla Bern aka Victoria Lee assisted in the abduction,” and “To determine whether the interviewee can provide the main suspect in the investigation with an alibi.” Under, “Is Interviewee to be considered dangerous?” Agent Turner checked “No.” Turner also provided information in the “Comments” blank, stating his belief that subject White, Frank P., had committed the kidnapping either alone or in consort with others, and further stating that Mrs. Helen Dunn, the headmistress at Riverbend School, had furnished authorities Darla’s name. Turner closed his brief dissertation by noting that Darla could be reached through Mr. Howard Molly, the director of the Dallas Theater Center.

  A two-man team consisting of Agents Chad Wilson and Orville Sing drew the assignment, and were by no means grateful for same. Wilson was twenty-eight, Sing thirty-four. Wilson, a brown-haired, husky former football star at Chattanooga State University in Tennessee, was in his third year of service, having spent his first twenty-four months after graduation as a collector/repo man for Ford Motor Credit. He’d only recently transferred to the Dallas FBI office from Muskogee, Oklahoma, where his main duties had consisted of background checks on prospective federal employees, and the questioning of army deserters’ lying relatives. As the new man on board, Wilson considered his forced teaming with Agent Sing as a form of rookie hazing.