by Randy Alcorn
“I guess I should confess to you that it wasn’t really kosher for me to put the bird dog on your car. You could probably sue me. I assume you won’t, since it saved your life.”
“I’ll think about it. Maybe some time if you tell me your orangutan story, and it’s good enough, I’ll forget you invaded my privacy. But what made you decide to put the tracer on in the first place?”
“Call it a hunch, intuition, fate, I don’t know. I just got suspicious that day in the park blocks when you lied to me about why you thought organized crime could be in on this. To tell you the truth, someone else at the department had suggested that, but I didn’t tell you, partly because I couldn’t, and even if I could have it just seemed too improbable. In any case I knew I hadn’t mentioned it to you, and unless you were holding something back from me, why would you even think of it? When you lied to me I knew something was wrong. So I put the bird dog on your car myself, an hour after our stroll in the park.”
“It was that obvious I was lying?”
“Let’s just say you wouldn’t be my first choice for an undercover agent. To tell you the truth, I was a little surprised. My experience with journalists is that they’re darn good liars.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Jake said, slightly stung by his lack of cover up prowess.
“Don’t be too sorry, Jake. If you’d been a better liar, you’d be dead. The only lying you’d be doing would be out in the woods next to a dead hit man, with another trying to crawl like a slug through a soaked forest with his hands and feet tied like a roped calf, eating moss and beetles for nourishment.” Ollie enjoyed the imagery. “So maybe there is a payoff for telling the truth. Or for being a rotten liar.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Jake, I’ve got something else to tell you.”
“Yeah? Hot dogs two for a buck down on Sixth street?”
“No, it’s serious. Real serious. As of this morning, I know who killed your friends.”
“What?”
“We’re still doing follow up, but we’ve got a confession.”
“Tell me, Ollie, who?”
“Nobody you know. It wasn’t your phony FBI agents, as you probably figured out by now. Early this morning we got a call from a psychiatrist. You do know him. A Dr. Scanlon.”
“Scanlon. Yeah? Why’d he call you?”
“Because he’s required by law to report knowledge of a felony committed by one of his patients. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but the indications were very strong. Enough that I could order we bring in his patient for questioning. He denied everything, but he was awfully nervous and sometimes downright weird. There was enough doubt that I got an order to run his fingerprints and take a blood test.
“We did the blood test and ran a rush on it in the lab while I stalled the guy. I figured he’d bolt if we let him go. Three hours later we got the results. The genetic fingerprints, the DNA from the hair follicle we found under the Suburban? Perfect match with our suspect. Conclusive. One in ten billion.”
“No kidding. Great work, Ollie.”
“We had him nailed. But until they confess there’s a lot of info we still don’t have. And you know how I hate to be in the dark. So I got a little creative.”
“Creative?”
“Yeah, I told him we knew everything, so he may as well admit it. I said we knew he was wearing blue sweat pants, carrying a hacksaw with a brand new red twenty-four-tooth Snap On hacksaw blade. I told him how he was lying under the Suburban, that he moved from one side to the other, and caught his beard when he brushed against the undercarriage. That he was nervous and shaky and made a lot of noise sawing the thing, and kept looking back and forth to see if anyone was watching. I even showed him my saw blade, you know the one I used when I timed the cut job? Still had it in my desk, hoping for a chance like that. You should have seen the look in his eyes when I showed him that blade. He knew for a fact we had a witness who saw the whole thing, and somehow we’d even found his blade. I never said that, mind you, but I think that may be what he concluded.”
Jake looked at Ollie with feigned disapproval, unsuccessfully masking his admiration.
“Hey, it’s not my fault if he jumped to conclusions. Anyway, suddenly he just gave up. The floodgates opened. He almost seemed relieved to talk about it, like he was in group therapy or something.”
Jake tried to imagine Ollie as a therapist, but gave up quickly.
“Oh, and guess where the perp works?”
“Don’t have a clue.”
“Regent’s.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah, he probably gets his whole wardrobe there, blue sweat pants and all, with an employee discount.”
“So what exactly did he end up telling you?”
“Everything. An hour’s worth. Just finished with him at noon. Here’s the condensed version. His mother was in a coma over at Lifeline. The doctor, I forget his name, came and told him Mom had died. Well, apparently she really hadn’t, at least not by the most popular definitions of death. I’m in homicide and I was naive enough to think death was death, but after a conversation with a doctor this morning, now I know better. Anyway, she wasn’t a total flatline, but she was an organ donor, and they wanted to use her heart or kidney or something for some important guy waiting in the wings.
“Our buddy, the perp, was wiped out after hearing his mother had died. He took a walk in the hospital and happened to see Mom’s doctor from a distance. He had a few things he wanted to ask, so he followed him. Well, apparently the doctor ended up slinking off to your friend’s office, which of course is off the beaten path from the main hospital. It was night, so this guy had a pretty easy time tailing him.
“Something seemed suspicious to him. He’s not the trusting sort anyway. So he eavesdropped at the door. He heard the good doctors discussing the fact that somebody was doing the transplant on the rich guy that very minute, loading in Mrs. Dalingers heart, and that the rich guy’s lawyer would be paying them off within a few days. Like $200,000 apiece, with maybe another $100,000 going to a middle man. And, between us, I don’t think they were going to report it on their Form 1040.”
Jake stared at the hallway beyond his open door.
“Sorry, Jake. I know he was your friend. I hate to be the one to tell you all this.”
“Between Sutter and Marsdon and Finney’s notes to Doc, this isn’t all new. But I kept hoping there was some other explanation. What happened next?”
“Well, the perp waited around a corner till they both came out of the office, and when he saw your friend, he recognized him immediately from years ago.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not going to believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Four years ago this guy took in his wife or live-in girlfriend, or whoever, to get an abortion. Later she committed suicide, and the guy blamed the doctor that gave her the abortion. And guess who the doctor was? Your buddy. He’d seen him up close when he’d assaulted him at the clinic. Remember? This was our guy that Jeb gave me the police report on—marijuana tattoo on his right bicep and the whole nine yards.
“I haven’t got him to admit it yet, but a hundred bucks says he’s the same guy who came back that night and torched the clinic. Since he’s up for murder, eventually he may not mind confessing to a little arson. Maybe I’ll go pull the evidence in that case and figure out a way to convince him we had an eyewitness back then too.”
Ollie rubbed his hands together. Jake sat quietly, not feeling the satisfaction he’d anticipated at the murderer getting nailed.
“Any way, when our guy realized it was the same doctor, he flipped. He couldn’t handle it. He felt like your friend had killed his kid, ruined his marriage, drove his wife to suicide, and now he’d topped it off by killing his mother. He felt like if justice had been done against him for killing the kid and his wife in the first place, he wouldn’t still be around to kill his mom. Instead of jumping the doctors on the spot an
d getting hauled away, he decided to bide his time, make his plan.
“He became obsessed with justice. He started tailing your buddy, thought of different ways to kill him—guns and knives and poison and everything, but using a line of logic I’m not familiar with, instead of killing him outright, he decided to ’let fate decide his punishment.’ That’s when he cut the tie-rod ends.”
“When?”
“Same day as the crash. Right where it was parked at the end of the driveway while you guys were inside watching the first quarter. He’d cased out the neighborhood a few Sundays and said no one ever walked around that time of day. If someone caught him under the car, he even had a contingency plan. Had a Frisbee with him and was going to say it landed under the Suburban and he was just getting it. He would have stuffed the hacksaw up under the car’s undercarriage and no one would have suspected. But he didn’t have to. Says he was in and out in ten minutes or less, just like I figured.
“This guy thought it might be a few days or even a week before the tie-rods broke. If no one was hurt, fine. He’d live with that. If someone in Doc’s family died, then, in his weird kind of thinking, he would accept that as the judgment on Dr. Lowell, sort of a just retribution for Doc killing his child and wife and mother. The guy needs a shrink, that’s for sure.
“Actually, he felt really sorry someone besides Doc got killed. He was surprised to see all three of you pile into Doc’s car.”
Jake gave a questioning look.
“Yeah, his car was parked down the street. He followed you to and from the pizza place just in case something happened. He saw the whole thing. In fact, he was so upset he pulled over to the first phone and called an ambulance. The guy may be a fruitcake, but I have to tell you, I feel for him. He’s pathetic, and he’s been through hell. He flipped. You know me. I rarely have sympathy for the perp. This guy’s just a real sad case.”
“What’s his name, Ollie?”
“No one you’d know.”
“Humor me.”
Ollie took out his pad. “Name is … Clay Dalinger.”
“Tall dark-haired guy with a beard?”
“Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“I met him in Dr. Scanlon’s office.”
“No kidding. Small world.”
“Yeah, small world.”
Jake lay there thinking about lanky long-faced Clay in his old Levis, sitting in Scanlon’s office. He pictured him wearing some blue sweats and probably those same old Reeboks, crawling under Doc’s Suburban. Hadn’t he even said he worked in a store? Jake marveled he’d been right there a few feet from the guy he was looking for, and the thought never dawned on him. He recalled that slow self-tortured voice. “I always remember the date,” Clay had said. He thought of Clay’s wife swallowing the bottle of pills. Above all, he remembered him say, “I lost Janet because of the abortion.”
Clay had lost his Janet, whom he’d talked into an abortion. For that alone, Jake felt a strange link to this pitiful man, despite what he’d done to his friends. What was that Clay had said to Jake? “Tell the men they lie to you. They lie to your wife and you don’t find out till it’s too late.” And that last inexplicable statement in that hollow tear-drained voice — “And they lie about your mother too.”
“They lie about your mother too,” Jake said aloud.
“What?” Ollie asked. He’d been quiet while Jake absorbed all that happened.
“Nothing, Ollie. Nothing. I’m really glad you found out. I’m just sorry it was Clay.”
“Yeah. Poor guy seems pretty confused. But he’s a goner. Even if some fancy lawyer talks him into unconfessing, we’ve got him cold with the DNA match. Regent’s won’t be holding his job.”
A month ago Jake wanted to get his hands around this guy’s throat. Now other images came to mind. The image of Hyuk, his Montagnard sidekick who lost sight of everything else in his thirst for vengeance. Both men had been robbed of three loved ones they should have been there to protect. Both felt there was one man to blame. Both risked everything to get revenge or enact justice or however it was they saw it. Clay, in his own pathetic way, succeeded. Jake still wondered if Hyuk had, remembering how he’d wished for his success at the time. Jake couldn’t hate Clay, wrong as he’d been. It was hard to hate someone you understood.
“One thing still doesn’t add up though.” Ollie broke the silence.
“What’s that?”
“The yellow note card that clued us in to everything in the first place.”
“Did Clay send it?”
“Nope. Wasn’t his fingerprint. And he says he doesn’t know a thing about it. I told him somebody must have suspected him, probably a woman. He said no way. Then I showed him the yellow card. It really spooked him. Anyway, Jake, you and I’ve got more to talk about, and you need to rest. But you’ve got another visitor or two waiting and I promised I’d make way for them.”
“If Charlie and his lawyer want to see me right now, I’m not in the mood.”
Ollie chortled as he stepped out in the hallway and gestured. All of a sudden, Carly and Janet came bursting into the room. Carly got to Jake first, throwing her arms around him with reckless abandon, trying to hug him without squashing his bandaged left arm. His IV tubes were swinging in the wind.
“Oh, Daddy. I’m so glad you’re okay.” She was sobbing. Jake felt that if he died that moment he’d die happy just to have been called “Daddy” and be loved by his little girl.
Janet smiled, reaching out and squeezing his right hand with hers. Jake looked at her, still caring after all he’d done, and all he’d failed to do. He felt so different than the last time she’d visited him in a hospital.
Ollie watched from the doorway in silence. Tears came down three sets of cheeks huddled closely together on the bed. The nurse walked in the room past Ollie. Seeing the two women hovering over Jake she almost asked them to leave. But her eyes met Jake’s, and instead she beckoned Ollie to step out with her, and gently shut the door.
Nearby, unheard by the momentarily deaf of the dark world, a strong otherworldly voice quoted an ancient prophet. “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”
* * *
Two weeks later Jake finally got his arm out of the sling and no longer needed to keep it wrapped. It was a relief just to take a shower with freedom and mobility. He found himself thanking God for little blessings that now seemed bigger than they’d ever been.
He sat down on a Friday to read the One Minute Bible Sue had given him. “The core of the Bible arranged in 365 daily readings,” it said. He liked it. He could sit down with a cup of coffee, read for a minute, reread and underline. Then, like Clarence had showed him, he’d look up the surrounding context in his Bible.
“His” Bible was actually Finney’s old one. Sue insisted he keep it. He’d sit back in his recliner and think about what he had read, then try to figure out how it could make his life different that day. Then he’d get down on his knees and pray for a few minutes. It seemed so odd at first. But it was growing on him.
Even some at the Trib most dismayed by his changed perspectives had to admit he seemed a more thoughtful person. Others came out of the woodwork, affirming him in unexpected ways. He was surprised at the people at the Tribune he never would have expected to have an interest in spiritual things.
Clarence was reading the One Minute Bible too, and they’d usually touch base some time during the day to talk about what they were reading. Clarence was calling Jake his “soul brother” and Jake liked the sound of it. He told him it was the first time he’d ever been interested in reading the Bible. Clarence said, “The sure way to get excited about a book is to get to know the author.”
Sue had insisted Jake try out a dozen different music CDs she dropped by. Some just weren’t his style, but others he enjoyed. When he asked Sue where he could get his own, she took him to an interesting place he’d never been—a Christian book store. He’d been bac
k again and spent two hours looking over the books. He found himself listening to his new music as he shaved and dressed in the mornings, and again sometimes in the evenings, lights turned off and stereo turned up.
A few evenings a week Jake was home reading a bunch of Finney’s books Sue had given him. He’d underline and scratch questions in the margins. It wasn’t only interesting, it was surprisingly fun. He began to realize how much he’d neglected his intellect feeding on television, videos, newspapers, magazines, and trivial fiction. His mind had stagnated, become cluttered with trivia and politically correct buzzwords that substituted for thought. For the first time in years, maybe decades, his mind was being stretched. It felt good.
Jake found himself reading the newspaper less; it seemed to say the same things over and over. The same things would happen, just in different places with different names. But when he went to his Bible and the books he read in the evenings, there was always something new and surprising and challenging. They had a depth, a quality that could never be mined to exhaustion.
Jake wrote in his journal, I feel like a sea captain learning for the first time to chart his course by the stars. Until now, I’ve tried to find my way by watching the clouds. But they came and went, changed direction on me, led me nowhere. It’s good to finally have reference points that don’t keep changing.
It was as if one foot was now in a different world, which made things a bit awkward in this one. But the awkwardness was more than compensated for by the peace and excitement. He’d begun to sense as never before the reality of two invisible realms, of the existence of good and evil that impregnated the earthly realm, showing up here and there in brave surrenders to conscience or cowardly violations of it. Some people at some moments seemed pregnant with heaven, others pregnant with hell. Such visitations in what used to be the moral bluriness of an ordinary day thrilled and alarmed him, leaving him at times greatly encouraged and at other times troubled and depressed.
