CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Butch
January 17, 2017
Tuesday
My alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m., coldcocking me from a dead sleep, and I hit the floor. Literally. I assume the prone position and await further instruction like the well-trained inmate I am. Was. Twenty-three years of alarm procedure will do that to you. Nose to the hardwood, I can’t help but laugh at myself. I lift my head and peer up at Sebastian’s side of the room, concocting a story to save face. Pushups. He’ll buy that.
But his bed is empty, the sheets carefully smoothed, like he ran his hands over them more than once. Something about that—knowing he did it while I slept—makes me shiver. Or maybe it’s just this block of ice they call a floor. I crank out a hundred pushups just for the hell of it to get my middle-aged blood pumping. Then I plunk down at the edge of the bed, breathing hard and listening to the steady brag of my heart. Still here…still beating.
I catch a glimpse of my face in the cheap mirror Sebastian stuck to the back of our door like we’re college freshmen. Apparently, I slept hard. So hard my pillow creased the side of my forehead and did a real number on my hair. I lick my hand and smooth it down—what can I say, I’m a regular Vidal Sassoon—but it springs back up, as stubborn as I am. Anyway, I’ll take it. Because a hard sleep is a dreamless one.
Today’s the day, I remind myself. I’ll give Evie her license. Fess up. And let the chips fall. “A man can do bad things and not be a bad man.” That’s what she’d said with those earnest eyes telling me she’d meant it. I’m just not sure I believe it. Sometimes, I feel like the baddest apple in the bunch. Rotten to my very core.
I slip my hand under the mattress. And come up empty. Still here. Still beating. I try again, reaching farther this time, shoving my hand in, shoulder deep. Nothing. And now, my chest is pounding. STILL HERE! STILL BEATING! I drop to my knees and lift the mattress, exposing the cheap box springs. Peer underneath the bed. Not even a respectable dust bunny. STILL HERE! STILL BEATING!
“Butch? What the hell are you lookin’ for?”
I blink at Richert, hoping I don’t look as mental as I feel. “My cell phone. I think I dropped it.”
“You mean this one.” He taps the phone on the top of my dresser, chuckling at me. “C’mon. Your PO called. He wants to see you before work.”
“Yes, sir—I mean, okay, Frank. Just gimme a sec to…” Freak out. “…to, uh, get dressed.”
“Hey, where’s your roomie?”
“I was hoping you’d seen him. I need to ask him something.” Like who the fuck he thinks he is. And what kind of punk he’s mistaken me for. As usual, Young Butch is first out the gate and hitting his stride before Old Butch gets himself going.
“He must’ve taken off before I got here this morning. Early riser, that guy.” Richert pauses at the door, takes a second look at me. “You okay? You look a little peaked.”
Breathe, Butchy. “I’m alright. Probably just worn out from yesterday.”
“Well, keep it up, man. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks. I plan to.” And just like that, Old Butch is back in the running, threatening to edge out the odds-on favorite by a nose.
****
Agent McElroy reminds me of my dad. What I remember of him anyway. A no-nonsense, straight shooter with the uncanny ability to see right through my bullshit. Like the time Dad had caught seven-year-old me red-handed outside the dollar store with a Matchbox car in my pocket. He’d had a way of making me fess up without saying a word. Just his eyeballing that pocket—so hard I’d swear his eyes had burned right through it—and I’d given it up. Marched back to the store myself and placed the tiny 1957 Corvette back on the shelf, my heart breaking a little as I’d left it behind. “Calders work for what they have,” he’d told me on the way back home. “And you’re a Calder, son. Don’t ever forget it.” That memory comes with a heaping dose of guilt. All the times I’d let him down, even if he wasn’t around to see it.
“Butch, I heard you got a job.” McElroy runs a hand across his rust-colored beard and sizes me up. He’s got his cop face on today, and it makes me nervous that he can tell what I’m thinking. An impromptu meeting with your PO is a lot like being called to the principal’s office. Sometimes you get lucky and end up with detention. Other times, you wind up with your pants around your ankles, getting paddled by Mr. O’Shaughnessy.
“Yes, sir. Those interviews finally paid off.” That can’t be the only reason he’d asked me here. So I match his face with my own. My prison face. “Maintenance and custodial at the building off Jackson Street. I started yesterday.”
“Well, it’s about damn time. Anything else you need to tell me?” A pure Dad line right there. Making you think he had something on you. And damn if it didn’t work.
“Actually, sir, I think you should know that the lady from the other night…Dr. Maddox…Evie. I know her—knew her, I mean—before I got arrested. She’s the one who got me the job.”
“How about that? Quite a coinkydink. Evie, huh? She pretty?”
I’m so screwed. This guy is good. “Uh…”
“That’s what I figured. You remember what I told you, don’t you? Drugs and—”
“Drugs and women. A parolee’s kryptonite. The two things most likely to send me back to the joint. I remember, sir.”
“Good. Just checking.” He finally cracks a smile. “So Jackson Street…isn’t that building near the spot where that girl was killed this weekend?”
Now we’re getting to it. I steel myself. “Yes, sir. It’s right across the street.”
“I assume you don’t know anything about that.”
“No, sir. I went straight home after the thing with Evie. You can ask Mr. Richert. He drug tested me.”
“Alright, alright. I believe you. It’s just…well, the similarities. You might get some questions from the boys at the station.”
“Similarities?” My blood runs hot under my skin, and if I could, I’d crawl under the table. Anything to stop him from looking at me like that. Making me feel like I’m eighteen again. We know you did it, Calder. We just don’t know why. But these things happen. It was an accident, wasn’t it? You’ll feel better if you come clean.
“Teenage girl. Strangled. You know.” I do know. I killed a girl. With my bare hands. It wasn’t an accident. And I’m reminded again it’s the most important thing about me. The only thing that matters. It’s colossal. The eclipse that blocks the sun.
“Was she raped?” I fire back. It’s all I’ve got left. Because there’s no defending who I am—a bad man who’s done bad things. Not who Evie thought.
“What kind of question is that, Butch?”
“Just wondering. I mean, Dr. Maddox runs a sex offender group in that building. I was thinking maybe the cops should talk to those guys.”
He gives me a funny look. Like I’ve surprised him. “You looking to take my job, Detective? You know something you’re not telling me?”
“No, sir. I’m just trying to be helpful.”
He pats me on the shoulder the way Mr. O’Shaughnessy did after every one of those whippings. It’s more control than comfort, but I don’t squirm away like I used to. I just sit there and take it. “You stay in your lane, alright? Stick to fixing leaky toilets. And don’t go falling in love.”
****
It takes me an hour and a half on the bus to get to work from the parole office in Berkeley. And for half the ride, I’m holding on for dear life to a handgrip while another man’s sweaty armpit is smack in my face. Public transportation. Just another perk of life as an ex-con. What’s worse, I can’t stop thinking about Sebastian. And Evie’s license.
Why he took it and when. What his plans are. For me.
What my plans are. For him.
“Fear and anger, Mr. Calder. Do you know how they’re alike?
” Parole hearing number three, and I still had been clueless. Now the answer beats inside me like a second heart. They’re both about one thing. Control. I’d been hunting for that nearly my whole life, since the day I’d lost it. Like some kind of demented old man with a scrawled treasure map that has control marked with a big red X. Because control’s the first thing to go when you become a ward of the state.
I look at my hands, clenched tight above me—imagining them instead around Sebastian’s scrawny neck, wringing it like a chicken. Until his face purples and his eyes bulge. However long it takes. Control. I allow Young Butch that one wicked indulgence, then I push the thought away gently like sending a paper boat into a stream. I watch it go, but it makes my skin crawl. Because I know that by just thinking it, I’ve crossed a line.
It’s another ten-minute walk from the bus stop to the office, and I book it, running from myself. I fling open the door to the office and clock in like a man possessed. It’s gonna take a helluva lot of leaky toilets to fix the level of crazy going on up in this f’d-up noggin. Oblivious, Mr. Vinetti pokes his head in and waves.
“Hey, Butch. You busy?”
“Not yet. What have you got?”
“23B. Dr. Maddox’s office. She said the door’s been sticking. Can you check it out?”
“Sure.” What else can I say? But I can’t help but feel the universe is tailing me again, breathing down my neck, waiting to punish me for all the sins I haven’t confessed. Or at the very least, having a roaring good laugh at my expense. “I’ll go up right now.”
It’s still early, and the sunlight—what little there is on a gray day like this one—hasn’t reached the hallway yet. It’s cold and deserted. The stillness of it all gives me hope. Maybe she’s not here yet.
I jiggle the knob to 23B. It’s locked. And the relief is so intense my eyes well. Moving as quickly as I can, I let myself in with the spare key. Sure enough, a sticky door. That I can fix, and it feels good to be useful. I grab the Phillips from my toolbox and start to tighten the screws on the top hinge. With any luck, I’ll be out of here in five minutes. I know I’m a coward, but what am I supposed to tell her now? I stole your license so I could see you again. Pretend I found it and return it to you. Be the hero. But I’d hid it under my bed for days, carried it with me too. I’d chickened out. And then, Sebastian took it. She’ll never believe that. It sounds like a bad Lifetime movie, the kind the OGs were always watching in the dayroom. Besides, she’s already been to the DMV. She’s got another one anyway.
“Butch.”
I don’t bother to shut the door so I can see around it. The voice, I know. I’ve been hearing it in my head all morning. Hearing it. Silencing it. “Hi, Sebastian. I don’t think Dr. Maddox is here yet.”
“Oh, I know.” He steps around, and we’re face-to-face. He looks tired, harmless. And I start to second-guess myself. “She’s not expecting me.”
“You left early this morning,” I say, finishing the top hinge. When I test the door, it opens and shuts with ease. But I’m too mixed up to feel good about it.
“I couldn’t sleep.” He rocks from one foot to the other. Then stops. Smiles. “But you were out like a light. You’ve gotta be careful when you sleep that hard.”
I cock my head at him, and my chest tightens in a familiar way. It turns out anger is a lot like riding a bicycle. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Relax, man. I was just joking with you.”
“Is everything okay?” And there it is. The universe’s well-timed punchline. Evie’s appearing next to Sebastian, and she’s staring at me. At my hand, specifically. And the screwdriver in it. I’m holding it with purpose, like a weapon—without even realizing—and my fingers start to tremble. Before she notices, I bend down to my toolbox and pretend I wasn’t just fantasizing about driving the thing straight into Sebastian’s gullet.
“Yep,” I say, chancing a look up at her. “All good. I fixed your door.” Evie nods at me, and there’s something behind her eyes, a kind of urgency, but it disappears as soon as she speaks to him.
“What are you doing here, Sebastian? You know we don’t have group today.” She skirts around me into the office as I gather the broken pieces of myself—my pride, my sanity—and prepare to flee.
“I know.” He’s talking to her. He’s looking at her. But it feels like his words are meant for me. “I was hoping we could chat. Just for a minute.”
“Your individual session is tomorrow. Can it wait until then?”
He pauses, glances back at me, before he answers. “It can’t wait.”
Butch
May 5, 1994
Eight days before I killed her
I’d spent the last three afternoons in the stacks of the Berkeley Public Library finding my religion. Or losing it, depending who you ask. Gwen had told her parents we were studying, and I had no one to tell. Which made it not count somehow. Like the tree that falls in the forest with no one around to watch it go.
Anyway, it wasn’t a total lie. Making out with Gwen, I had studied every inch of her body—her pouty pink lips when they’d pressed against mine; the spools of her silky blonde hair I’d fisted in my hands; and the miles and miles of long, tan legs, she’d wrapped around me, pulling me closer with the kind of desperation I didn’t know I could inspire in anybody. Certainly not a girl like her.
And then, holy mother of God, this afternoon Gwendolyn Shaw, Goddess of the Stacks, had dropped to her knees, unzipped my fly, and taken me to heaven. Right there in the religion section of all places. A-freakin’-men.
“So what’re you doing this weekend?” she’d asked me as we walked toward the library’s exit. She’d given a fluttery wave to the woman at the front desk. As cool as a cucumber. That was Gwen. Like she hadn’t just rocked my world.
“I dunno.” Me, on the other hand. I was still weak-kneed, and my brain wasn’t working right. “Nothing really.”
“Wanna come to a party with me? On Saturday? It’s at Matthias’ house.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Two words. That seemed about all I could manage right now.
We usually split up there, at the double doors. Gwen would go first, sashaying past the book drop to Daddy’s awaiting chariot, ready to whisk her up to her tower in the Hills. I’d hang back and count to fifty before slinking out to the double-parked ’Cuda and driving home to my Blue Bird dungeon. But that day, Gwen didn’t let go of my hand, sweaty as it was.
“My dad wants to meet you.”
My stomach lurched with the kind of instant panic I reserved for officers of the law. “Right now? Are you sure? He’s probably in a hurry. Doesn’t he have work to do?”
“Relax, Calder. He won’t bite.” She raised my hand to her mouth and sunk her perfect, pearl teeth against my skin. Instant boner. But at eighteen, that’s how it went. Lust, grief, rage—everything boiled so close to the surface, it didn’t take much to trigger an eruption.
I ducked into the nearest aisle, eyes darting from shelf to shelf, desperate for the anti-Gwen. Not just the most boring book I could find, it had to be next level. Like watching paint dry during a calculus lecture in church. Finally, I found it. The History of Farming in Central America in the 1900s. That’d work.
Gwen giggled at me as I stared at the words on the mud-colored spine and waited it out.
“It’s not the biting I’m worried about,” I told her, finally allowing myself a glimpse in her direction. Just in time to watch her set a square of watermelon bubblegum on her tongue. History of. Farming. Central America. Do not think about Gwen and her sexy—tractors, crops, ploughs—mouth. “It’s the brutal murdering that’s definitely going to happen when he sees how much I like you.”
“How much do you like me?”
“A lot. Obviously.” I let out a long breath, wondering if it would always be this way. Girls had it easy. Nothing about them was obvious.
“Well, the thing is that he has to meet you before he approves. And he has to approve before I can invite you over.” She tilted her head at me, coyly. “And I was thinking of inviting you over after the party on Friday night since my parents will be out late at a charity thing. But, if you don’t want to—”
My fairytale was already spun, unfurling like Gwen’s golden hair down her back. Her, the virgin princess, begging to be deflowered. Me, the unworthy commoner, with a fire in my loins. Alone in her room without the watchful eyes of the king. “Say no more,” I teased, jogging toward the door as she laughed. “Let’s go find him right now.”
****
Peter Shaw was the human equivalent of steel. Sitting in his black Rolls Royce, polished, solid, and ice cold. He had the first cell phone I’d ever laid eyes on—and the only one I’d see up close for the next twenty-three years—pressed against his ear. When Gwen knocked, he held up a finger, and we waited.
“Is that a mobile phone?” I asked, gawking at the IBM Simon I’d nearly spent a grand on to reserve for myself last month. Until I’d realized I had no one to call and bolted from the store like I’d been shot from a cannon.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a smart aleck. I’m sure your dad has one too.”
Busted. “Not the Simon though. That one’s cutting edge. I heard they haven’t even released it to the public yet.”
“My dad went to Harvard with the CEO, so he’s—”
The Rolls’ window began its slow descent, an unveiling of sorts. “Gwen, are you ready?”
“Daddy, this is Butch Calder. The boy I told you about.” He didn’t blink. Didn’t need to. Automatic bodily functions were clearly beneath him. When I extended my hand, prickly and hopeful, he stared at it for an eternity before he took it in his own.
“It’s uh—really, really great to meet you, sir. Really.” I couldn’t have sounded any more pathetic if I’d tried.
“Good to meet you as well.” Mr. Shaw’s mouth smiled, but it never thawed his eyes. He patted the leather seat next to him. “C’mon, Gwendolyn. I have a call with Tokyo in thirty minutes. I can’t be late.”
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