Our Fathers (Conner Beach Crime Series)

by John Chabot

"I noticed," answered Terry. "She also has a boyfriend bigger than both of us put together."

  He told her about the will and the challenge Matt had left for them. When he came to the reason for Alex being included, she remarked, "So there really is a sixteen-year-old. I think her mother showed very good sense. It's a good thing she doesn't know you as well as I do."

  The part about his fracas with the chair brought a stern look. "I don't suppose you saw a doctor?"

  "What for? He'd have told me to take some aspirin and go to bed, and that's what I did."

  Her look was skeptical, so he decided to skip the part about the 3:00 a.m. prowler.

  The house was ideal. It was almost directly across the street from the target, and had a large picture window. They had pulled comfortable chairs far enough back that, with the lights off, they couldn't be seen from outside. The chairs were angled, one on each side of the window, to give each of them a clear view of the house and a long stretch of the street in opposite directions. They could see anyone coming a hundred yards before they got there.

  Harry asked, "How's it going at Harrison Plaza?"

  "Steadily," said Mickie. "We're almost finished with the four buildings of the Plaza. Then we'll start on the area around it."

  "Who's working it with you?"

  "Reynolds and Bentzen."

  "Have you thought about what it might be?"

  "Sure, but there's lots of things."

  "Carlsberg's note said that it might be of value, depending on luck and what they did with it. He also said that they had to find it before the end of the year. Presumably, it was no good after that. Earlier, he said there was one for each of them, and they were paper and about so big. So what's paper and valuable if you're lucky and use it right, but not after the end of the year?"

  Mickie frowned as she thought of it, then smiled slightly. "How about an invitation to a New Year's Eve party with a really cute guy?"

  "Something that costs a hundred thousand dollars."

  "Hah! Nobody's that cute."

  Harry had to admit that, so far, this stakeout had been better than most. They had seen Diane Carlsberg arrive in the orange MG, and then seen the blue Miata pull up. They had sat silently watching, Harry thinking, So that's Kelly. Aloud he said, "I'll bet he sleeps better tonight."

  Mickie gave him a dark look. "I feel like a Peeping Tom. Don't you?"

  He flashed a cynical smile, but didn't answer. Actually, he didn't care one way or the other.

  The phone was on the table beside him so that, when it rang, he had only to reach for it and say, "Chervenic." He listened a few seconds, then said, "It's for you."

  Mickie took the receiver, gave her name. She didn't say anything for several minutes, then, "Good work. Yes. Yes, it's exactly what we need. Thanks."

  She hung up. "Well, now we know where the money went." She gave him the name and address of an investment firm. "The picture did it. As soon as she saw the sketch, she recognized him."

  "That isn't in Harrison Plaza."

  "No, it's across the street."

  Harry nodded. "What did he buy?"

  "Stock options—whatever they are."

  He shrugged. "We'll have a talk with the broker. You have his name?"

  "Her name. A woman."

  "Then by all means, we'll have to talk with her."

  "Harry," she asked, "when's Karen getting home?"

  "Day after tomorrow—Sunday."

  "Good thing."

  He shot her a sour look, but thought, Amen to that.

  Silence settled in. She was not uncomfortable in silence, especially with Harry who sometimes seemed to invite it, but thought this would be a good time to bring up something that had been bothering her. "Harry, I've got a question. You may not even remember it. It was something Faber said."

  He shook his head. "He said a lot of things, but I think I remember most of it. Senility isn't rampant yet."

  She looked at him doubtfully. "That's good, Harry. Anyway, just after he told us about Hanover shooting himself, he said something about a person blowing his brains out."

  "Actually, he asked you if you'd ever seen it happen."

  "Yes. Then he looked me right in the eye and told me to think about it."

  "Did you?"

  She shifted uncomfortably. "Not for long. Why would I want to think about something like that?"

  It was Harry's turn to be uncomfortable. He had known this was coming, had even thought about what he might say, but that didn't help much. It was a subject his own emotions were plugged into in too many places. Some of the sore spots were fresh. He stretched out as far as his stocky frame would let him, his eyes on the street and the house opposite. "Have you ever seen a man shot?"

  "I saw him after it happened. Two guys went out to the parking lot to settle something. One pulled a knife, but the other one had a gun."

  Still watching the street, he asked, "What did you think of them?"

  "The two guys? Not much. If the victim hadn't been shot, he'd have cut the other one. I couldn't see much difference between them."

  "We see a lot of them."

  "Yes, I didn't know there were so many."

  "You're lucky, working here. Something like that is fairly rare. But what if you saw half a dozen things like that every night? A fifteen-year-old whore with her throat cut in an alley. An out-of-towner beaten to death for the change in his pocket. A man strangles his wife, and when you get there he's sitting beside her, stunned, wondering who did it. His mind is so horrified it won't let him remember. Every day, every night, on and on. You catch them—some of them—you put them away, but it doesn't change anything. It never ends. Have you ever investigated a fire?"

  "Arson? Sure. You were there. That house up on the point that burned."

  "That doesn't count."

  "Why not?"

  "There was no one in it."

  "For Christ's sake, Harry."

  "I remember a house that was torched to cover a narcotics operation. It was a family affair. Mom and Dad in the kitchen, and baby in the crib. I've seen three kids, or what was left of them, after a good hot fire. There's not much."

  "Harry, stop it!"

  He looked over at her for the first time. His voice had a hard edge. "What's the matter, Wilder? This is Criminology 102. I thought you signed up."

  Instead of answering, she stared out the window, furious, mostly at herself.

  His voice softened, just a little. "I'm not trying to be a bastard. I just want you to know what's coming."

  "In Connor Beach?"

  "Remember Matt Carlsberg? Yes, in Connor Beach. Or somewhere else. It doesn't make much difference. If you stay in this business, you'll see it. Here it just takes longer, that's all. But you'll see it, and if you're half a human, you'll feel it. And no, you don't get hardened to it—not unless you were that way to begin with. You just get numb, and you pretend it doesn't affect you. You kid yourself. But it's cumulative—that's the worst of it. Every one adds to the stack, and you have to carry it around with you.

  "And it's not just the victims. They're easy. They're out of it. You talk to some lousy pimp who's killed one of his girls, and you know he did it, and he knows you know, and you both know there's nothing you can do about it. Or some woman who's half crazy wondering why her child is dead, and you can't do anything about that, either.

  "Most of the time you see people at their worst, the good ones and the bad. After a while, you have a hard time telling which is which. You meet someone at a party and you wonder, 'What nasty little secret are you carrying around?' You start looking at your friends differently, even your family. You talk with them and smile, but all the time there's a part of you that holds back and wonders. It all piles up and, like it or not, it changes you.

  "I've known some who've tried to drown it in bourbon. Some go a little crazy. Some go bad. They figure, 'What the hell? I can't beat them—I might as well get some for myself.' And there are some . . ." His voice was very low, his eyes
unfocused. "There are some who can't find a way to let go of it, and they bring it home with them."

  He sat up straighter and looked at her again. "That's what Faber was talking about. He wanted you to know. You'll find that you're constantly angry and looking for someone to take it out on. You become suspicious of everyone—you take it for granted that everyone is guilty of something. Depending on your own personality, something like this is going to happen to you. Whether or not you make it as a cop is going to depend on how you handle it. That's why Faber drinks gin and tonics with no gin. Don't go to the bottle, don't go bad and don't, for God's sake, take it home."

  He had meant to stop there, to say something like, 'End of speech,' or 'Okay, now I'm off my soapbox.' But he said nothing. Mickie thought she should probably say something to let him know she understood, but nothing she thought of seemed right.

  "I have a grandson." He hadn't meant to say that. It just came out, like some great tidings that had to be proclaimed.

  "Really? I thought your daughter didn't want children."

  "She doesn't. They both travel a lot in their work. They decided against. It's not hers. It's my son's boy."

  "Your son? I didn't know you had a son. You never mentioned him."

  "No, I guess not."

  He sat very still, facing the window but not seeing. Mickie felt uneasy, wanting to speak, but afraid to break the silence. At last, Harry stirred. His voice was so low she had to listen carefully. "He was two years old yesterday. That's why Karen is in Baltimore—for the birthday."

  Mickie waited for him to go on, but the uneasy quiet settled in again. She had decided that was all she was going to hear, but then he said, "When he was born, I stood across the street from the hospital. When I saw my son leave, I went up to the nursery and they showed me my grandson. A nurse held him up and I saw him through the window. All I could see was the blanket and most of his face. Red, squinty-eyed, kind of ugly. That's the only time I ever saw him."

  Mickie saw the stony expression and flat, blank stare, and could feel the hurt behind them. "Why? Why, Harry? That's not right."

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Maybe not, but it's just. The sins of the father are visited on the father. My son's name is David. He's very proud, which I suppose is another way of saying he's stubborn."

  "Like his father."

  "I guess so. Maybe we're too much alike. Or maybe it was just bad timing. I'd been working homicide for three years. We were overworked, as usual, and things seemed to be going from bad to worse. Not things—me. I don't know how Karen stood it. She should have picked up the kids and left. A lot of wives do.

  "Dave was in his early teens. He needed a father. Instead, he had a policeman. I'd seen so many kids his age looking through steel bars, or wired out of their skulls, or being carried away with their faces covered. Whenever I saw him I . . . I wasn't much good to him. I was always on him about something. His friends, his clothes, whatever. Everything either of us said would set the other one off. Both of us in the same room usually meant trouble. Then, one day we stopped. We just turned off. During his senior year I don't think we said twenty words to each other.

  "When he finished school, he moved out. He got a job and moved in with a friend. I didn't want him to go, and he wasn't about to stay. And then we both had plenty to say. A real blowup—no holds barred. Three years of frustration and anger and fear and resentment. You'd think something like that would clear the air, but it didn't. Too much was said and too much was done. Too many stupid things that hurt too much."

  He didn't remember the words, just the heat of them. The fog in his brain, the fury rising from his stomach, his shoulder muscles bunching, the animal sound he made as he swung his fist, the shock on his son's face as he fell. And most of all he remembered his son sitting on the floor, looking up at him. And the coldness of that face. He had wanted him to get up and hit him back, to even it out, to feel the pain and the shock. There was no more anger in the eyes that stared at him, just a resigned finality, like someone paying his last respects to the dead. He had gotten to his feet, turned, and left.

  "He left the house, and we haven't spoken since. Karen tried to fix it up, but it didn't work. I don't think either of us wanted it to—not then, anyway. It was too soon."

  "How long ago was that?"

  "Six years."

  She stared at him in disbelief.

  "That's right. And you don't have to look like that. I didn't mean to tell you any of this, so just shut the hell up about it, okay?"

  She looked away from him and saw the car coming. It braked quickly, pulling in behind the Miata. Glad of a chance to change the subject, she said, "Looks like the rest of the troops are here."

  CHAPTER 21

  Kelly had changed into blue jeans and a sweater. She sat cross-legged on one end of the couch, studying Terry's copy of the clue. Diane was in the lotus position on the other end, apparently keeping a distance between herself and the strange words. Terry sprawled in a chair, content to watch, wondering how anyone could be limber enough to sit that way and still look comfortable.

  When they heard the car pull up, Diane brightened a bit and said, "About time."

  Ben came in first with, "Alex was late. Has anybody solved that stupid thing?" He saw Kelly and stopped as if he'd hit a wall. The sun was not far from setting. Its light picked up the red in her hair, giving her an auburn halo. She pinned him with those very blue eyes, and smiled. Terry, who had been appreciating the same sight, could almost see the hormones begin to rage in the almost man. He didn't blame him. He knew the feeling.

  The door opened again. Christy and Alex came in. As he came through the door, Alex said, "Sorry we're late. I overslept this morning and was late for work. After that it was one of those days. Ah, someone new."

  Terry did the introductions. Diane finished with, "Kelly's joining in the hunt—at least for the weekend."

  Ben smiled to himself at that.

  Alex said, "Glad to have you aboard."

  Christy said nothing, keeping a secret to herself, but just barely.

  They settled in and Ben asked again about the clue.

  "Not me," answered Alex. "I've been running my tail off all day."

  "Well, I've been thinking about it," said Ben. "Especially the part about the nudes."

  "You would," said his sister.

  He ignored her. "Matt said we should start at the beach, but he didn't say which one. So the question is, where is there a nude beach?"

  He looked around, but drew blank stares. Finally, Diane said, "I saw one in Mexico. Isla Mujeres has a nude beach. Well, topless anyway. I didn't see anyone actually nude."

  "There must be some closer than that," put in Kelly.

  "Not around here," answered Alex.

  Ben didn't want to give up on the idea. "But it must be something like that."

  It was quiet as they tried to think of something. Christy could hold it no longer. "Not necessarily," she said quietly. Her expression, as she became the center of attention, was definitely smug.

  "I suppose you have it all figured out," said her brother. He was afraid she had.

  "No, but I think I have part of it. When we got home last night, I showed this to Mom and Wes."

  Her brother looked suddenly stricken. "You didn't tell them what happened here, did you?"

  She did her long-suffering eye-rolling thing again, as if asking why it was always she who had to put up with the village idiot. "Be real! I just showed them the clue. Anyway, Wes said it looked like something from the London Times crossword puzzle."

  "Oh, my God!" said Alex. "Of course it does. I knew there was something about it that looked familiar. Did Wes know what it meant?"

  "No, I don't think so. He said he didn't think it would be right for him to work it out. But I asked him what that kind of puzzle was like, and he said there were about five different kinds of clues. He told me what he could remember about them. I've been working on it between classes."
r />   "What did you get?" asked Terry.

  "Well, one of the kinds of clues is that they take a noun and change the letters around to make another noun. Then they describe it as 'mixed up' or 'broken' or 'jumbled' or something like that."

  "I don't get it," said Diane.

  "Ditto," said Kelly, which pleased Diane.

  "Well, for instance, they might say something like 'not pleased', and what it would really mean is 'elapsed'. The same letters but shuffled around. You know, an anagram."

  "Oh, God!" said Diane.

  Alex asked, "So what did you find?"

  "The only one I could see like that is 'confused nudes'. When you get that, it starts to make some sense."

  "Snude?" asked Ben. "Denus?"

  "Dunes," said Kelly.

  "Right! 'Confused nudes' is dunes. That's why he said to start at the beach. It has something to do with the dunes."

  "What a shame," said Alex. "Then we don't have to go to Mexico, after all."

  "Yeah," said Ben. "What was the name of that beach?"

  "You might be disappointed," answered Alex. "The ones you'd like to see topless, usually aren't."

  "Take it from him," added Diane. "Believe me, he checked."

  "Really?" said Ben. "I didn't know you guys had gone to Mexico."

  Diane shrugged, but left it at that.

  Christy began looking like her mother. "I don't suppose we could get back to the quest."

  "Sure," said Ben. "But where do we go from here?"

  Kelly said, "Well, what we have so far is, 'You'll find the key where the dunes get cross with the ancient supporters of something not quite ripe'. Now what?"

  Alex said, "A question for the Quest Master. This puzzle wasn't really left for me. I'm just here to protect everyone from the child molester. Am I allowed to get in on this?"

  "You can take my place," offered Diane.

  Terry had wondered about this, too. Was it meant that only the three cousins should work it out? What about Kelly? She had already been invited to join, and no one had objected. "It seems to me," he said, "that all good quests have a party of heroes, and sometimes they add more, and sometimes they lose some. I think it's in the best tradition of quests. Besides, we might need all the help we can get."