3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  “Molly’s grown up. She’s got her own friends now.”

  Candy pulled a mock face. “D’you think she’d ever stop loving her uncle Jack? Shame on you. That’s not how this family works.”

  Jack felt as if he were dying inside. Here was a picture of his own family life … if only so many things had happened differently. “The pie’s delicious.” He smacked his lips. “Is Egon upstairs? I’d like a minute of his time.”

  “Unfortunately, no,” she said. “He called to say he was staying extra late at the morgue, some kind of hush-hush government case. But you should go on over there. He’ll be happy for the company. And you know Egon, he can lend an ear with the best of them.”

  Candy flattened down the front of her dress. “I wish you and Sharon would patch things up.”

  Jack stared down at the remains of crust. “Well, you know how it is.”

  “No, I don’t,” Candy said rather firmly. “You love each other. It’s obvious even to a nonromantic like my Egon.”

  Jack sighed. “I don’t know about love, but Sharon doesn’t like me very much right now. Maybe she never will again.”

  “That’s just defeatist talk, my dear.” Candy put away the pie and washed the whipped cream bowl. “Everything changes. All marriages survive if both of you want it to.” She dried her hands on a green-and-white-striped dish towel. “You’ve got to work at it.”

  Jack looked up. “Do you and Egon work at it?”

  “Goodness, yes.” Candy came over, leaned on the pass-through. “We’ve had our ups and downs just like everyone else, I daresay. But the essential thing is that we both want the same thing—to be together.” She looked at him with her wise eyes. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, to be with her?”

  Jack nodded mutely.

  Candy pushed the plate aside and began to shoo him out of the family room. Taffy barked unhappily. “Go on now.” She kissed him warmly. “Go see my man, and I hope he makes you feel better.”

  “Thanks, Candy.”

  She stood at the door. “You can thank me by showing up on my doorstep more often.”

  Quiet as a morgue, Jack thought as he entered the ME’s office. In times past, that little joke would have put a smile on his face, but not tonight. He walked down the deserted corridors, hearing only the soft draw of the massive air conditioners. There was a mug half-filled with coffee on Schiltz’s desk, but no sign of the man himself. The mug was inscribed with the phrase WORLD’S BEST DAD, a years-ago present from Molly. Jack put his finger into the coffee, found it still warm. His friend was here somewhere.

  The autopsy room was similarly still. All the coldly gleaming chrome and stainless steel made it look like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. All that was needed were a couple of bolts of lightning. A dim glow came from the cold room. Jack stood on the threshold, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He remembered the time he’d taken Emma here. She was writing a paper on forensic medicine during the year the vocation had fired her interest. He’d been here many times, but he found it enlightening to see it through her eager, young eyes. Egon had met them, taken them around, explained everything, answered Emma’s seemingly endless questions. But when she said, “Why does God allow people to be murdered?” Egon shook his head and said, “If I knew that, kiddo, I’d know everything.”

  Jack saw that one of the cold slabs had been drawn out of the wall. No doubt holding part of the hush-hush work that chained Egon to the office so late at night. Jack stepped forward, was on the point of calling out Egon’s name when he heard the noises. It sounded as if the entire cold room had come alive and was breathing heavily. Then he saw Egon.

  He was on the cold slab, lying facedown on top of Ami, his assistant. He was naked and so was she. Their rhythmic movements acid-etched the true nature of Egon’s hush-hush work onto Jack’s brain.

  Jack, his mind in a fog, stood rooted for a moment. He struggled to make sense of what he was seeing, but it was like trying to digest a ten-pound steak. It just wasn’t going to happen.

  On stiff legs, he backed out of the cold room, turned, and went back down the corridor to Egon’s office. Plunking himself into Egon’s chair, he stared at the coffee. Well, that wasn’t going to do it. He pawed through the desk drawers until he found Egon’s pint of singlebarrel bourbon, poured three fingers’ worth into the coffee. He put the mug to his lips and drank the brew down without even wincing. Then he sat back.

  For Egon Schiltz—family man, churchgoing, God-fearing fundamentalist—to be schtupping a cookie on the side was unthinkable. What would God say, for God’s sake? Another of Jack’s little jokes that tonight failed to bring a smile to his face. Or joy to his heart, which now seemed to be a dead cinder lying at the bottom of some forgotten dust heap.

  He thought about leaving before Egon came back and saw that his “hush-hush work” was now an open secret, but he couldn’t get his body to move. He took another slug of the single-barrel, reasoning that it might help, but it only served to root him more firmly in the chair.

  And then it was too late. He heard the familiar footsteps coming down the corridor, and then Egon appeared. He stopped short the moment he saw Jack, and unconsciously ran a hand through his tousled hair.

  “Jack, this is a surprise!”

  I’ll bet it is, Jack thought. “Guess where I just came from, Egon?”

  Schiltz spread his hands, shook his head.

  “How about a clue, then? I was just treated to the best cherry pie on God’s green earth.” Was that a tremor at the left side of Schiltz’s head? “And speaking of God …”

  “You know.”

  “I saw.”

  Schiltz hid his face in his hands.

  “How long?”

  “Six months.”

  Jack stood up. “I just … what the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “I was … tempted.”

  “Tempted?” Jack echoed hotly. “Doesn’t the Bible tell us again and again, ad nauseam, how God deals with the tempted? Doesn’t the Bible teach you to be strong morally, to resist temptation?”

  “Those … people didn’t have Ami working next to them every day.”

  “Wait a minute, if that’s your excuse, you’re nothing but a hypocrite.”

  Schiltz was visibly shaken. “I’m not a hypocrite, Jack. You know me better than that.” He sank into a visitor’s chair. “I’m a man, with a man’s foibles.” He glanced up, and for a moment a certain fire burned in his eyes. “I make mistakes just like everyone else, Jack. But my belief in God, in the morals he gave us, hasn’t changed.”

  Jack spread his arms wide. “Then how do you explain this?”

  “I can’t.” Schiltz hung his head.

  Jack shook his head. “You want to cheat on Candy, go right ahead, I’m the last person to stop you. Except I know from personal experience how affairs fuck up marriages, how they poison the love one person has for another, how there’s no hope of going back to the love.”

  Schiltz, elbows on knees, looked up at him bleakly. “Don’t say that,” he whispered.

  “Another truth you don’t want to hear.” Jack came around the desk. “If you want to risk a broken marriage, who the hell am I to stop you, Egon? That’s not why I’m pissed off. I’m pissed off because you go to church every Sunday with your family, you’re pious and righteous—you denounce so-called sexual degenerates, ridicule politicians—especially Democrats—who’ve had affairs exposed. It’s been easy for you to identify sinners from your high pedestal. But I wonder how easy it’ll be now. You’re not one of God’s chosen, Egon. By your actions—by your own admission—you’re just one of us sinners.”

  Egon sighed. “You’re right, of course. I deserve every epithet you hurl at me. But, my God, I love Candy, you have to know that. I’d rather cut off my right arm than hurt her.”

  “I feel the same way, so don’t worry. I’m not going to tell her.”

  “Well, I’m grateful for that. Thank you, Jack.”

  An awkward si
lence fell over them.

  “Weren’t you ever tempted, Jack?”

  “What does it matter? This is about you, Egon. You and Candy, when you get right down to it. You can’t have her and Ami, too, because if you do, you’ll never be able to hold your head up in church again. I doubt even God would forgive that sin.”

  “Feet of clay.” Schiltz nodded. “I’ve been laid low.”

  There was a rustling in the corridor and a moment later Ami entered, a clipboard in one hand, a pen in the other. She froze when she saw Jack. “Oh, I didn’t know you were here, Mr. McClure.”

  “You must have been away from your desk.” Jack saw her eyes flicker.

  She was about to hand her boss the clipboard when she saw his stricken face. “Is everything all right, Dr. Schiltz?”

  “Egon,” Jack said. “You should call him Egon.”

  Ami took one look at Jack, then at Schiltz’s face, and fled the room.

  “Go on, make jokes at my expense, Jack.” Schiltz shook his head ruefully. “God will forgive me.”

  “Is this the same God that was supposed to look after Candy, or Emma?”

  “I remember,” Schiltz said. “I remember when everything was different, simpler.”

  “Now you sound like an old man,” Jack said.

  “Tonight I feel old.” Schiltz sipped his bourbon and made a face. It wasn’t single-barrel or anything close.

  They were sitting in a late-night bar off Braddock Avenue, not far from the office. It was attached to a motel. While the interior was not quite so seedy as the motel itself, the clientele was a whole lot seedier. A low ceiling with plastic beams, sixty-watt bulbs further dimmed by dusty green-glass shades, torn vinyl-covered banquettes, a jukebox ringing out Muddy Waters and B. B. King tended to attract a fringe element right at home with the bleak dislocation of midnight with nowhere to go, no one to be with.

  “Think of your daughter, then.”

  Schiltz shook his head. “I can’t think of Molly without thinking of Emma.”

  “Actually, it’s Emma I came to see you about,” Jack said.

  Schiltz’s face brightened considerably.

  “It’s something … well, something I can’t explain.”

  Schiltz leaned forward. “Tell me.”

  Jack took a deep breath. “I’m seeing Emma.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “I heard her talk to me from the backseat of my car.”

  “Jack—”

  “She said, ‘Dad.’ I heard her as clearly as I’m hearing you.”

  “Listen to me now, Jack. I’ve heard of these manifestations before. Actually, they’re not uncommon. You think you’re seeing Emma because your guilt is too much to bear. You feel you’re complicit in the tragedy, that if you’d been able to pay more attention—” Schiltz held up a hand. “But we’ve been over all that too many times already. I’m genuinely sorry that nothing’s changed for you, Jack.”

  “So you don’t believe me, either.”

  “I didn’t say that. I fervently believe that you saw Emma, that she spoke to you, but it was all in your head.” Schiltz took a breath. “We die, we go to heaven … or to hell. There are no ghosts, no wandering spirits.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “I know the Bible, Jack. I know the word of God. Spiritualism is a game for charlatans. They play on the guilt and the desperate desire of the grieving to speak to their loved ones who’ve passed on.”

  “It isn’t just life and death, Egon. There’s something more, something we can’t see or feel. Something unknown.”

  “Yes, there is,” Schiltz said softly. “His name is God.”

  Jack shook his head. “This is beyond God, or the Bible, or even his laws.”

  “You can’t believe that.”

  “How can you not even accept the possibility that there’s something out there—something unknowable—that isn’t God-based?”

  “Because everything is God-based, Jack. You, me, the world, the universe.”

  “Except that Emma’s appearance doesn’t fit into your God-based universe.”

  “Of course it does, Jack.” Schiltz drained his glass. “As I said, she’s a manifestation of your insupportable grief.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  Schiltz presented him with an indulgent smile. “I’m not.”

  “See, that’s what I think gets you religious guys in trouble. You’re so damn sure of yourselves about all these issues that can’t be proved.”

  “That’s faith, Jack.” Egon ordered them another round. “There’s no more powerful belief system in the world.”

  Jack waited while the bourbons were set in front of them, the empty glasses taken away.

  “It’s comforting to have faith, to know there’s a plan.”

  Schiltz nodded. “Indeed it is.”

  “So if something bad happens—like, for instance, your nineteen-year-old daughter running her car into a tree and dying—you don’t have to think. You can just say, well, that’s part of the plan. I don’t know what that plan is, I can’t ever know, but, heck, it’s there, all right. My daughter’s death had meaning because it was part of the plan.”

  Schiltz cleared his throat. “That’s putting it a bit baldly, but, yes, that’s essentially correct.”

  Jack set aside the raw-tasting bourbon. He’d had more than enough liquor for one night.

  “Let me ask you something, Egon. Who in their right mind wants a fucked-up plan like that?”

  Schiltz clucked his tongue. “Now you sound like one of those missionary secularists.”

  “I’m disappointed but hardly surprised to hear you say that.” Jack made interlocking rings on the table with the bottom of his glass. “Because I’m certainly not a missionary secularist.”

  “Okay. Right now because of Emma’s death you’re cut off from God.”

  “Oh, I was cut off from that branch of thinking a long time ago,” Jack said. “Now I’m beginning to think there’s another way, a third alternative.”

  “Either you believe in God or you don’t,” Schiltz said. “There’s no middle ground.”

  Jack looked at his friend. They’d spent so many years dancing around this topic, holding it at bay for the sake of their friendship. But a line had been crossed tonight, he felt, from which there was no turning back. “No room for debate, no movement from beliefs written in stone.”

  “The Ten Commandments were written in stone,” Schiltz pointed out, “and for a very good reason.”

  “Didn’t Moses break the tablets?”

  “Stop it, Jack.” Schiltz called for the check. “This is leading us nowhere.”

  Which, Jack thought, was precisely the problem. “So what happens now?” he said.

  “Frankly, I don’t know.”

  Schiltz stared into the middle distance, where a couple of dateless women who had given up for the night were dancing with each other while Elvis crooned “Don’t Be Cruel.”

  His eyes slowly drew into themselves and he focused on Jack. “The truth is, I’m afraid to go home. I’m afraid of what Candy would do if she found out, afraid of the disgrace I’d come under in my church. I can tell you there are friends of mine who’d never talk to me again.”

  Jack waited a moment to gather his thoughts. He was mildly surprised to learn that whatever anger he’d felt toward Egon had burned itself out with the bourbon they’d thrown down their throats. The truth was, he felt sad.

  “I wish I could help you with all that,” Jack said.

  Schiltz put up a hand. “My sin, my burden.”

  “What I can offer is another perspective. What’s happened tonight is a living, breathing test of your iron-bound faith. You live within certain religious and moral lines, Egon. They allow for no deviation or justification. But you can’t fall back on any religious fiction. God didn’t tell you to have an affair with Ami, and neither did the devil. It was you, Egon. You made the conscious choice, you crossed a line you’re forbidden to cros
s.”

  Schiltz shook his head wearily. “Would Candy forgive me? I just don’t know.”

  “When I saw her earlier tonight, she told me in no uncertain terms just how strong your love is for each other. You’ve been through bad patches before, Egon, and you’ve managed to work through them.”

  “This is so big, though.”

  “Candy’s got a big heart.”

  Schiltz peered at Jack through the low light, the beery haze. “Have you forgiven Sharon?”

  “Yes,” Jack said, “I have.” And that was the moment he realized that he was telling the truth, the moment he understood why her unreasoning outburst had cut him so deeply.

  Jack cocked his head. “So who are you now, Egon? You see, I can forgive what you’ve done, I can look past the part you play, the lies you’ve maintained, and still love the man beneath, despite your betrayal of Candy and Molly—and of me, for that matter. You’re my friend, Egon. That’s what’s important in life. Friends fuck up, occasionally they do the wrong thing, they’re forgiven. The religious thing—well, in my view, it’s not relevant here. It’s what you do now as a man, Egon, as a human being, that will determine whether you live the rest of your life as a lie, or whether you begin to change. Whether or not that includes telling Candy is entirely up to you.”

  The Everly Brothers were singing “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” The two listless women on the dance floor seemed to have fallen asleep in each other’s arms.

  “This is a chance to get to know yourself, Egon, the real you that’s been hidden away for years beneath the Bible. I’ve seen bits of him out in the woods with our daughters, fishing, looking up at the stars, telling ghost stories.”

  Schiltz downed the last of his bourbon, stared down at the table with its empty glasses, damp rings, crumpled napkins. “I don’t believe I fully understood you, until tonight.”

  He turned away, but not before Jack caught the glimmer of a tear at the corner of his eye.

  “I don’t …” Schiltz tried to clear the emotion out of his throat. “I don’t know whether I have the strength to get to know myself, Jack.”