by Jan Smolders
Doyle looked at Edith.
“It’s about the water, right?” she asked, looking worried.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Some guy Dave complaining. I’ll get back to him tomorrow, at a decent hour.” He picked up his paper from the floor.
Chapter 32
“Could you have the garage door open and your car in the driveway, Mary?” Frank sounded slightly embarrassed over the phone. It was about five-thirty on Saturday. “I’d like to park inside. We’ll be carrying food.”
Mary smiled. Frank wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t telling it all. She figured he would close that door as soon as he had driven in: the Supren crew still worked around the clock seven days a week across the street at Harriet’s. “I know, Frank. Thanks so much. And Joanna won’t have to worry about being seen with you.”
“Oh? Yes, that’s right.”
Mary winked at Joe, who had overheard the conversation. She had trouble understanding why Joanna wanted to keep hiding her relationship with Frank, just to cling to her lousy job. She knew it had the poor girl drudging impossible hours, serving a detestable boss who imitated her accent, despised Frank and made fun of her in front of businessmen.
“Why doesn’t she just run away?” Joe asked.
“All I can think of is that maybe Frank wants Joanna to stay close to Doyle. Maybe she’s both Frank’s lover and spy?”
Joe didn’t respond but went for another practice walk without his cane, floundering from the kitchen table to the sink, resting, holding on, then on to the refrigerator, resting, then to a chair—only to sit down and ask for his cane.
At ten to six Frank’s car entered the driveway.
“Don’t run out, guys,” Mary said to Jimmy and Andy. “Stay here. Wait until Mr. Anderson knocks on the kitchen door from inside the garage. Then you can open the door for him and his friend. And help them carry the food.” As if Frank and Joanna were bringing five-course meals for four adults and two kids. “And don’t let Jake in,” she added nervously, checking her nail polish.
She wore her favorite silky tan blouse over a short black skirt showing much of her shapely legs on high heels. Joe’s glances had complimented her on her free-flowing, volumized hair as well.
When Andy opened the kitchen door, Joanna stood in front of him, smiling, purse dangling on left arm, her right hand supporting a twenty-inch glass platter. “Hi big boy. I remember you.”
“What a beautiful salad!” Mary exclaimed. “You guys did too much work.”
“Freshly made. Frank and me.” Joanna walked in, her face dripping pride.
Andy offered help, but Mary held him back. “You might drop those cute little tomatoes.”
A smell of burned meat wafted into the kitchen as Frank followed behind Joanna. He carried a stack of polystyrene boxes, controlling his white tower with hands and chin, his glasses uncomfortably askew.
The kids stood uneasily idle. Jimmy touched his nose and pointed at the contents of the boxes.
Andy nodded. “Steak,” he whispered.
“You’re spoiling us,” Joe said to Frank. “Thank you so much.”
“It’s not the Ritz Carlton quality you must have gotten used to at the Milos Center—”
“Right, but it seems close, smells close,” Joe roared, tapping his cane on the floor.
“Take a seat,” Mary said to the guest-caterers when finally they had their hands free. She pointed at the metal chairs around the kitchen table. “Let’s chat.”
All managed to secure a seat on five metal chairs and a small stool. Mary held up a bottle of Merlot and handed it to Joe. He opened it and poured the wine. The adults clinked glasses as did the boys, plastic cups filled to the brim with pop. Mary renewed her welcome to the guests.
“We’d better start the meal,” Joanna said, “or the hamburgers will get cold.”
“Hamburgers?” Jimmy asked, his voice hushed. He looked at Andy.
“I was close. Almost same as steak,” his brother mumbled.
The conversations started. All the bad news that had come in on Monday and Friday was no match for the exuberance about Joe’s return home and his prospects for a near-full recovery. Dinner was a festive affair, the mood upbeat, Mary’s joy contagious. The boys listened in on the discussions, which the adults adapted somewhat for the ears of their youthful but keen listeners.
Around eight, the playful tunes of “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” alerted the partiers. Frank dug his phone out of his pants pocket and said, his voice low, “Hi Vince.”
The adults instantly became quiet and put their forks down.
Mary captured a few words from Vince. “Beta…Carrollton….”
Joe raised his heavy eyebrows.
As Frank listened, frowning, he gestured to Mary, suggesting it might be bedtime for the kids. “We have to discuss.”
She nodded and, eyeing the boys, pointed silently in the direction of the bedrooms.
They pouted with reluctance, got up, said “goodnights” and “thank-yous” to their parents and visitors and filed out of the kitchen, feet dragging. Andy muttered something inaudible to Jimmy as they exited.
Mary tried again to listen in on Vince’s call. Joe and Joanna continued their meal, handling forks and knives with extra care.
“What?” Frank exclaimed, his eyes shouting surprise. “The logs? Cementing…How fast? …What? …Incredible…Ultrafast? Damn right! Man! …Yes, I agree…Could we go…? We must talk first…Can you come over here? I’m at Mary’s….” He turned to the hostess, questioning her with his eyes.
She gave him the okay sign.
“Okay, buddy. Ten-thirty-four Maple Road.” He paused and chuckled. “Of course you know. Across the street from your second home. Bring your bulletproof vest!” he roared. “Hathi may be watching you!”
While they finished their dinner and waited for Vince, Frank explained that in Vince’s absence Doyle had summarily blocked access to the drilling logs at the Beta site.
“Wow!” Joe said. “The Beta logs? Doyle? Why? To hide…what?”
Mary shrugged. “Who knows what he’s up to? But he sure seems to be going after Vince now.”
Joe nodded. “Yeah. And Vince after Casanova, who’s been messing around—”
“Okay, Joe,” Mary said, her hand on his forearm, “the kids have perfect hearing.” She stood up and went to the bedroom. “Brush your teeth with Dasani, boys,” she said as she closed the door and returned to her guests.
Minutes later a car blew its horn. Mary hurried to the front door and waited on the threshold for Vince. The young man looked disheveled as he dragged his heavy frame out of the car in slow-motion, but once he started moving toward the house he suddenly got an air of determination about him.
Frank came to the door as well. “He’s tired, but it looks like he’s grown some balls,” he commented. “About time.”
“I must get him a chair,” Mary said and ran back inside.
Once in the kitchen, Frank introduced his visitor, who nodded curtly and said, grinning, “Heard a lot about you guys.”
“Take a seat,” Frank said. “My God, I couldn’t believe my ears! That gentleman, Mr. Michael Doyle wants to throw you under the bus for the methane that must have flowed up from the Beta site into our aquifer. You didn’t say that when you spoke about those logs, but that’s what you meant, right?”
“Yep. I bet that’s what he’s going to do: blame me.”
“For sure? You heard from someone?”
Vince lowered his voice. “I didn’t, but I’ve convinced myself—”
Frank put his hand on his shoulder. “Join the club, man,” he said. “Mike tried to finger me for polluting the aquifer with methane from Alpha. He had no proof. I shut him up. At Beta he did almost all of the drilling. Himself. And now he’s hiding the logs. His ultrafast cementing must have created the meth
ane problem. Of course, he’s going to blame you. It’s your turn.”
Vince had to blow his nose. “You know Doyle literally chased me away from Beta like a dog when I’d barely started drilling there. I never understood why.”
“I think we may have figured it out,” Frank replied. He paused and looked around the table. “Once the spill in Carrollton happened he got you away from Beta in a big hurry. Too big. Agreed? As if he had been waiting for the accident.”
Hmm. Mary was unconvinced. “Doyle needed a good man in Carrollton,” she countered.
“Yeah,” Frank mocked. “One with zero experience in clean-ups. Sorry Vince. I bet Supren’s got plenty of spill experts in Houston. Doesn’t that accident look a bit too convenient for Mike? Suspiciously convenient? To me it does.” His eyes were wide.
Vince’s expression grew dark.
Joe looked on in disbelief.
Frank leaned his head. “Couldn’t it have been a set up? Carrollton gave Supren a black eye, but it also offered Mike an excuse to pull Vince off the drilling job so he could take over Beta himself. And create the mess we now have at Beta and in our water,” he intoned.
“What?” Mary had her palms up. “Why would he have planned to create all these problems? How could he have wanted to?”
“Who knows? Hard to understand he would’ve, indeed. Looks like we’ll have to find out.” Frank eyed Joanna.
She had morphed into a sphinx.
Vince nodded. His eyes traveled full circle around the table. “I’ve decided to speak up,” he said. “I don’t fear losing my job any longer. The bastard will sack me anyway.” He paused and sighed. “The moment I arrived at the scene in Carrollton I saw motorbike brake marks, skid marks, on Route 39, about fifty or a hundred feet past Joe’s wreck.”
A brick hit Mary’s stomach.
“What?” Frank sounded indignant. “Why didn’t you—?”
“Let me finish,” Vince begged, red-faced. “A traffic sign was knocked down and an old oak tree had lost some bark. Not sure that happened at the moment of Joe’s accident, but it couldn’t have been much earlier. The brake marks led straight from where Joe went off the road to that tree.”
“And you didn’t tell Doyle?” Frank sounded angry. He turned and stared at Mary and Joe.
Vince put his hand up. “I called him right away, of course, but he snubbed me, scolded me, and ordered the area roped off immediately. He hissed. ‘If you mouth off to the police, one word, I’ll kill you. I’m in control, remember! Me!’ I couldn’t believe my ears. I was still very new in my job at Supren and bit my tongue.”
“So you did tell him!” Frank now sounded even more upset.
Vince nodded, looking sheepish.
Frank shook his head, dejection written over his face. “Too bad you never mentioned that to me. To us.”
“I’m sorry. I think you understand.”
Frank muttered something indecipherable through his teeth.
“By now that evidence must be gone,” Mary said, feeling powerless.
Joe took the floor. “Mary must have asked me a hundred times whether I remembered anybody hindering me and causing my accident. But I just recall waking up in the hospital with a splitting headache, and Mary said that was days later. If she would’ve known this…too late now….” He shrugged.
Frank tossed Joanna another smile and gestured with his chin that it was her turn to speak.
She threw an apologetic glance at Mary and Joe. “Frank and I have kept a secret,” she said almost inaudibly.” She turned to Vince, compassion in her eyes. “Two days after the accident,” she went on, “a crying, young Asian woman burst into the office. ‘I need money,’ she screamed. ‘Monnaie. Maintenant. Now!’ I think she might have been Vietnamese. ‘My boyfriend’s in the hospital. Supren must pay the bill! The boss promised! La compagnie! We have no assurance. Where’s the man? My boyfriend’s leg is badly injured. His arm too. He needs surgery.’ She sounded hopeless. And out of breath. Shaking.”
Joe frowned. “How did the woman know where to find Doyle?”
“She said, ‘Everybody knows where Supren’s boss’s office is. I drove here and asked. I’m a cook in Medina.’ I asked her for her telephone number but she refused. ‘I’ll come back, we need money, he has to pay,’ she said, still crying and lamenting in French.”
“And Doyle?” Mary asked.
“Not there. He arrived an hour later. I told him about the woman and that she refused to give me her phone number. Dios mío! I thought he was going to explode—or kill me! I couldn’t believe how angry he was. ‘You have no right…!’ he thundered and stopped. He pointed his index an inch from my nose and hissed. His voice was so low I could barely understand him. ‘Don’t you ever mention that lady’s name. Or that she was here.’ She hadn’t told me her name. I wondered why he didn’t fire me, but Frank later explained to me why he didn’t.”
Frank smiled.
“Doyle had to be able to keep you silent, Joanna,” Mary said. “Did she come back, the Vietnamese?”
“Oh no! Nunca. Never.” Joanna sliced the air with her hand and let out a long sigh.
Vince didn’t look convinced. “All fine and dandy, Joanna, but we have no proof. And, if I heard Joanna right, the Vietnamese didn’t say anything about an accident.”
“Indeed, she didn’t,” Frank interjected. “So far we only had Joanna’s word, but now we also have yours. That’s two. We can make them work as proof, against Doyle’s. I’m ready to confront the bandit. You, Mary? Vince?”
“Make it work…?” Vince seemed to be figuring out how, but deferred to Frank. “Now? At this late hour?” He checked his watch.
“Any hour’s fine. Now’s perfect. Every day counts, Vince. Let’s go. You and me.” Frank turned to Joe, who winked. “And Mary. Right now.”
“Wish me luck,” Mary whispered to Joe.
Ten minutes later she was rolling her eyes and ringing the bell at 1426 McKinley. The stately Doyle residence looked threatening in the dark. The lighting needed maintenance. A dog barked.
“It’s the neighbors’,” Vince explained. “He doesn’t bark when I come alone.”
“I think they’re doing popcorn.” Mary nervously threw her hair back, exhaling heavily.
They hadn’t heard any footsteps when Mike Doyle opened the door.
Barefoot, red tee-shirt reaching over belly, shorts barely visible, toenails pointing like daggers, he planted himself on the threshold to face Mary.
“Almost ten! What’s the matter? Are tree-huggers that rude? You know where my office is!” He tried to slam the door shut but Frank jumped forward and stopped him with his shoe.
Doyle looked livid. “Get out of here or—!”
“Are you threatening me again? Forgotten about the pictures?” Mary asked, teasing.
He backed off, his eyes firing anger. He opened his mouth as he noticed Vince on the side but didn’t say anything.
Frank and Vince moved forward, gently pushing Mary over the threshold.
“Apologies for our lack of manners, but we’re in a big hurry. We just want to make sure about a couple of things. Whether we understand them correctly,” Mary said politely, standing almost as tall as Doyle on her high heels.
Without saying a word, Doyle ran back toward a door leading to what looked like a sitting room, carefully closed it, and returned. He panted, his voice low. “Say it. No shouting. Two minutes. Shameless you are.”
Frank took over. “We have the name of the biker who caused Joe Bertolo’s accident in Carrollton. Why did you pay him, or his Vietnamese girlfriend? Just because you felt so bad for them?”
“What?” Doyle recoiled. He looked back in the direction of the sitting room. “Where did you get that crap?” he breathed.
“You know damn well where,” Frank said.
“Where?” Vinc
e jumped in. “I’ll tell you. From the tree and the traffic sign. I told you but you shut me up.”
“I didn’t! A tree? A Vietnamese?”
Vince looked at him askance.
Frank smiled. “Mr. Doyle, your memory’s failing you. Happens to the best.”
“I’ll sue the pants off you guys for slander if you ever….” The Texan kept his voice low and looked intermittently at the door behind him.
Frank winked. “Oh. Slander! You know a thing or two about that shit. I’ve made a few copies of your latest article, your labor of love in the Noredge Sentinel. For my grandchildren, you know. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Neither could Mary, I bet. Mary my lover, right? You’re excellent indeed at slander.”
Doyle had listened with surprising calm. Until now. “Get the hell out!” he hissed. “Out!”
Frank didn’t budge. “Soon, Vince Davis will get the Mike treatment, right? You destroyed my name and Vince’s is next in line. Another article in the Sentinel, another smear job, and I know why.”
“You!” Doyle shouted. He threw a lightning-fast glance at the door behind him.
Frank paused and went on, “You played it well: all proof of Vince’s innocence has been blocked, hidden. Or destroyed? Which is it? No drilling logs at Beta. Bad luck, Vince! Or maybe you could make them available again, Mike, those logs? Supren might want to see them too—after your thorough study of Vince’s ‘screw-ups.’”
Vince had teared up. Mary felt sorry for him.
Doyle kept silent, seemingly pondering his response, chest heaving.
Mary went for the jugular. “Why, Mr. Doyle? Why do such bad things happen? Almost simultaneously? The spill in Carrollton, my poor husband saddled with heavy antibiotics for the rest of his life, and a foot that will never again kick a soccer ball with his kids. And now the methane? Why can’t our kids have clean water any longer? Do you know why? Is it all an act of God? A God in a bad mood? Or what?” She shot him a fiery glance.
