Window of Guilt
Page 4
Laurie covered his hand with her own. “I’m sorry to be such a bitch. I’ve been so bent out of shape about passing my real estate exam.”
“Stop making me your private punching bag.”
“I’m still hurt you don’t believe I found a body on our front lawn.”
“You make me crazy,” he yelled, grabbing her arm.
Little prickles of fright ran up and down Laurie’s arm.
“Angry electricity around here.” Her son plopped into a seat at the kitchen table.
Laurie yanked free from her husband. “We were just having a discussion,” she said, rubbing her arm.
“If I was yelling that loud, you guys would be really mad at me.”
“You’re a smart guy, know that?” asked Ryan, kissing the top of his son’s head.
“Guess what, kiddo? The police found that guy who was hanging out at your camp. He won’t be bothering you anymore,” said Laurie.
“Did they put him in jail?” Rory asked, pouring milk in his Golden Grahams cereal.
Laurie and her husband exchanged looks. “He’s not in Wisconsin anymore.”
“Will he be in Chicago when we get home?” the boy asked, his cereal-packed spoon raised in midair.
“The police took him far, far away, son,” Ryan said reassuringly.
Rory turned to his mom. “After I’m done eating, can I go swimming with Dad?”
Laurie started. She’d totally forgotten it was Saturday. No way was she allowing her son to personally experience the chaos taking place outside their window. “Later. Your dad rented Coach Carter last night.”
“My favorite!” cried Rory. Jumping up from the table, he guzzled his glass of milk, then ran into the family room.
“You guys go on,” said Laurie. “I’ll finish up in here.”
5
Laurie punched in Mitzy’s number on her cell phone. Thinking better of it, she clicked “end.” Too late. The Latin Tango on her cell phone announced the return call.
“Hey, Laurie.” Mitzy’s voice came through the speakerphone. “You must have hung up on me by mistake.”
“No mistake,” said Laurie as she piled newly dried breakfast dishes into the cabinet above the sink.
“Just read an article in the Chicago Tribune about that guy in Oconomowoc found dead on your neighbor’s driveway. Your name’s not mentioned.”
“Because someone hauled the dead kid to Helga’s house,” said Laurie.
“Unless he up and walked away. You sure he was dead when you found him?”
“No response to CPR? Yep, I’m sure.”
“I want to believe you, Laurie, I do. But you do tend to exaggerate.”
“Tell that to Rocky. He’s been peeing all over the house since yesterday.”
“Urinary tract infection?”
“Emotionally traumatized.”
“From a urinary tract infection?” Mitzy asked incredulously.
“From discovering a dead body in our yard! That poor kid. No ID on him, just ‘TG,’ a smudged Greyhound ticket receipt, and an empty peanut shell.”
“You never mentioned a ticket receipt.”
“Totally undecipherable. Kid wore an army canteen around his neck, too.”
“Hello! You mention those tidbits to the police officer?”
“I was so out of it, I honestly don’t remember.”
“Well, call her back.”
“And get our family’s portrait plastered all over the evening news? I prefer Officer Gomez consider me loony rather than a suspect. Maybe you could talk to your friend, Maggie.”
“Maggie’s a Chicago police detective.”
“You owe me from last night,” Laurie persisted. “What if it turns out the kid’s from Chicago?”
“You’re relentless!” Mitzy groaned.
“They say people who’ve been friends a long time adopt each other’s mannerisms.”
“Fine. I’ll run the unidentified kid past Maggie,” Mitzy grumbled.
“You’re a good friend, Mitzy.”
“That’s spelled p-a-t-s-y.” The phone clicked in Laurie’s ear.
*
Ryan Atkins allowed his son’s Yu Gi O chatter to wash over him as he silently congratulated himself on his Super Hero strength. Who would have imagined that he, a recovering heart attack patient the size of Elton John, could have pulled off such a job?
“Which one’s your favorite Yu Gi O! trading card, Dad?” Rory asked.
“Can’t really say, bud.”
Rory hit his Yu Gi O bedspread. “Pay attention again, Dad!”
Forcing himself to concentrate, Ryan flipped through the deluxe edition starter deck. He removed the card of a dinosaur dancing on neon-pink, zebra-striped rods. “This guy looks ferocious.”
With his semi-flabby abs, Ryan was light years from ferocious. But returning home from the lake to find a dead body lying on his front lawn had transformed him.
Rory plucked the dinosaur card from his hand. “Great choice, Dad. Uraby’s way cool.”
Warily approaching the twenty-something body, Ryan’s nose had been assaulted by a strong urine smell. Yet the ground around the bottom portion of his body was dry.
His son read the card. “This dinosaur rips its enemies to shreds with its sharp claws.”
Ryan had laid his left ear on the jersey-clad chest, softly at first so as not to inflict pain, then more forcefully as a frantic feeling overtook him.
Another card was thrust into his hands. “Here’s the guy I like best, Dad.”
Ryan looked down at a picture of a robot the size of a sumo wrestler. “Giant Soldier of Stone,” he read. “Great warrior.”
Did a warrior’s heart pump as wildly as his own when faced with a threatening outcome? Thrusting aside the army canteen hanging from the young man’s neck, he’d searched the kid’s pockets for identification. Somehow the young man’s face looked familiar. He racked his brain for a connection.
Rory grabbed the card and read. “A punch from this creeper.”
Ryan leaned in closer to see the words printed on his son’s card. “That’s ‘creature,’ bud. ‘A punch from this creature has earth-shattering results.’”
Suddenly Ryan blanched. Long straggly hair, shoulders and arms almost skeletal. Could Todd Gray’s appearance have changed so drastically since bursting into his insurance office fourteen months before?
Sorrow overtook Ryan as he’d gazed at the dead figure. And yet, it was for the best. The kid had refused to take no for an answer. No doubt he’d hustled up from Chicago to blackmail him and his family.
It nauseated Ryan to pretend to his wife that no dead body had garnished the front lawn of their summerhouse. But if she learned his denial of this kid’s medical claim had put their family in jeopardy, she’d leave him. His fortuitous stop at home had saved them all.
“Daddy, are you getting sick again?” asked Rory, concern dripping from his eyes.
Ryan willed himself back into the moment. “I’m fine, big guy.”
He’d forced himself to focus on the dastardly job at hand. Due to soaring temperatures, no sunbathers or castle-building youth dotted the landscape. Yet it was broad daylight and he had to think fast. At first, he considered disposing of the body in the dumpster behind Taco Bell, but a dead body would stink up his wife’s car.
Next he considered rolling the young man down to the beach and letting the waves carry him out into the middle of the lake, but he wanted the young man found as quickly as possible. It would be cruel to cause the boy’s parents sleepless nights over their son gone missing. If, God forbid, his child ever met a similar fate, he’d want the same compassion for him.
In the end, Ryan adhered to the logistics of completing the task. Gently, he slipped a black plastic trash bag beneath the young man’s body and carted him over to the rusty wheelbarrow in their garage. He dashed back to retrieve the army canteen, then carefully lifted the bagged cadaver into the wheelbarrow and covered him with a picnic blanket.
“Daddy?” Rory asked in a worried tone.
Oh, that it had only been a bad dream rather than a fresh memory that would plague him through eternity. “I’m terrific,” he responded, his voice falsely illuminated. “How ’bout a book?”
“Arthur Goes to Washington!” His son jumped up and down on the bed, scattering the trading cards onto the blue carpet.
Just watching his son’s simple joy convinced Ryan he’d done the right thing.
6
Balancing a teacup in one hand and a beat-up walking cane in the other, Helga Beckermann eased herself into a threadbare rocking chair. Her parakeets twittered joyously atop the kitchen curtain rod. “Pour a shot of whiskey into this here tea.”
“Yes grandma.” A stocky, broad-faced young man with bulging eyes scurried to her side. He fumbled with the bottle top, then carefully tipped the brown liquid over the coffee cup.
Helga abruptly shifted her cup. The flowing liquor puddled at her feet. “You clumsy good for nothing. Clean it up.”
Tears welled up in Arnold’s eyes. He knelt and attempted to gather the mess into his hands. “Why’d you move your cup away, grandma?”
“You making up stuff again, boy?” she asked, her voice as cold as an ice pick.
“No grandma,” he said earnestly.
“Any idiot knows to use a rag.”
“You’re out of rags, grandma.”
“Use your shirt then,” she instructed.
“My shirt will get dirty.”
“You back talking me?”
“No ma’am.” With sticky hands, Arnold pulled the oversized gray t-shirt over his stout chest. Kneeling on the wooden floor, he began to mop up the puddle with his shirt.
“Even though you’re way past twenty-one, I can un-enroll you from that retards group home anytime I like,” Helga said menacingly.
“Don’t under-enroll me, grandma,” the half-naked man said, mopping faster.
“Wring that shirt out in the sink, dummy.”
Arnold jumped to his feet and hastened to the kitchen sink. “They find out why that guy was sleeping on your driveway yesterday?”
Helga’ s voice lost its hard edge. “Told you he was dead, not sleeping.”
“Dead’s a sleep that lasts forever,” said Arnold.
“Most likely he got heat stroke.”
“If it gets too hot outside, you can die?”
His grandmother nodded.
“So he was thirsty ’cause he didn’t drink lots of fluids?”
“Didn’t see no canteen or water bottle on him.”
“Maybe he was sick,” Arnold mused.
Helga’s voice once again clothed itself in barbed wire.
“Don’t bother that feeble brain of yours about who died on my driveway. Go take that stinking wet shirt off and hang it on the clothesline.
“Yes ma’am,” said Arnold. Swiping at his eyes, he headed out the back door.
7
Ten Months Ago
Chicago’s evening rush hour was just ending as Brad Hamilton, Jr. fed the last of the paper correspondence through the shredder. A rap on the door forced him to break focus. A silver-haired gentleman sporting a bow tie and mustache marched into his office.
“Good evening, Brad. I trust all Ryan Atkin’s e-mail correspondence concerning his suspicions of illegal medical claim tampering has been erased?” he asked, the early evening sun reflecting off his silver toupee.
“Not to worry, Gerald,” said the younger man, slipping a manila folder through the slats. “Just cleaning up a few loose ends.”
“Well done.” Gerald MacFerron eased his tall frame into a cherry leather desk chair and crossed his legs.
Brad sat down behind his desk, and then peered into the older man’s eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you, Gerald. You’ve been a trusted friend to our family since I was a kid.”
“Don’t delude yourself into thinking any of this is about you, Brad.”
Brad hung his head.
“Rumors are circulating throughout the health insurance community. I refuse to allow your father to be used as fodder should the insurance board choose to examine Great Harvest, a business that’s operated for forty years with the utmost integrity until Brad Sr. hoisted you on-board.”
“I understand, sir.”
A tall, imposing woman, her hair combed into a neat gray bun, entered Brad Jr.’s office carrying a tea tray. Her eyes briefly flickered to the meticulously dressed senior partner as she silently glided across the room to the younger man’s desk. She set a tray of finger sandwiches and a ceramic teapot and cups on a stack of papers and wafted out of the office.
Brad moved the tray to an empty spot on the cluttered desk. “G’s at it again.”
“Obviously her efforts are in vain,” Gerald said dryly. “Your desk is disgraceful.”
“A clean desk is the sign of an empty mind,” Brad spouted. Gerald rolled his eyes. “Your borderline business transactions have caused your father much chagrin over the years, Bradley. What was particularly despicable was sending a good-for-nothing hoodlum to rough up Ryan Atkins.”
Brad shot a paper plane glider across the room. “I needed to warn him off reporting us to the board.”
Gerald slammed the glider to the floor. “Due to your shady endeavors, this company lost a conscientious employee who performed his job to our high ethical standards. I trust you were able to stop the evil hand from raining down upon Atkins and his family.”
Brad nonchalantly tossed the injured plane into the metal trash can. “Actually, I never heard back from the dude.”
Gerald stiffened.
“I tried to contact TG, that’s the name the guy went by, but his cell phone was disconnected. Even went back to the motorcycle bar where I met him. No one’s seen him.”
“Has anyone communicated with Atkins since he left?” Gerald asked through gritted teeth.
“One of the adjusters in his group mentioned Atkins was recovering from a heart attack he suffered shortly after he left Great Harvest.”
Gerald strode to the door, then turned. “If this motorcycle goon attacks Atkins or his family, I won’t be able to protect you from the fallout.”
8
Helga Beckermann settled onto the paisley-cushion beneath the picture window. A purple parakeet alighted on one shoulder, a blue parakeet on the other.
“Your birds are so well-trained,” said Laurie, resolutely ignoring the poop chips that decorated the elderly woman’s flowered housedress.
The older woman nodded, carefully reaching up to rub the purple bird’s chest. “From this window, me and my birds watch the world.”
“I appreciate you letting me stop by. Must have been a nightmare finding that kid’s body on your driveway.”
Helga squinted. “Why you so interested?”
Laurie leaned forward in the straight-backed chair. “Earlier that day, a vagrant was spotted at my son’s camp. Scared Rory pretty bad. I’m just trying to put two and two together.”
“Kids don’t need no fancy camp. They need to be home with their parents.”
Laurie swallowed hard. “The newspaper article said you were away from the house Friday afternoon.”
“Once a month, for the last twenty years, the ladies get together for lunch at The Depot, then head over to the antique shop. Your mother, now she was a friendly sort. When your family bought old Biesterfield’s cottage, she came right over and introduced herself. She joined us every now and then.”
Laurie grudgingly acknowledged a memory track of summers involving Helga and her mother before her parents’ divorce. Card games. Scrabble. Grown-up chitchat. Ancient history.
“Friday afternoons are one of the few pleasures I got left,” mused Helga. “Only time I leave Paulie and Priscilla.” The older woman flicked tweezer-sized turds from her shoulders.
How do you spell disgusting?
Helga’s parakeets chirped ga
ily, unaware of their owner’s eccentricity.
“What time did you arrive home?”
“Five o’clock. I pulled into the driveway and what did I find?” Helga paused as if she was recounting a ghost story.
Laurie looked at her strangely. “A body?”
The older woman looked crestfallen. “Who told you?”
“Um, you did.”
“Right,” said Helga. “There passed out on my driveway was this young guy in a yellow nylon shirt with the letters ‘TG’ and a number ‘7.’”
“Did you recognize him?”
“Thought he was my friend’s grandson. Then I remembered her boy’s married with children of his own. Me, I got a ninety-one-year-old brother who lives alone in Baraboo. Then there’s Margaret, my niece. Your family invited her to their barbecue the summer before you went off to college. She and her husband live in Jefferson County now. Got those three pit bulls to keep her busy.”
Laurie grimaced. Her parents had bought her a red Porsche as a high school graduation present. She’d been screeching down the country road when three big dogs jutted out from Helga’s property. She’d braked so hard she almost went through the window.
“Good guard dogs, are Jim, Joey, and Jack,” continued Helga. “I seen your toy dog barking in the kitchen window when I take my walks. He don’t do nothing but yap, yap, yap.”
Laurie stiffened. Rocky alerted me to the dead body on my lawn, she wanted to protest. But for right now, the initial discovery of that body needed to remain holed up in her consciousness until evidence could confirm her story. She kept silent.
Helga raised her eyebrows at Laurie’s lack of response. “Your tenant get a teaching job?”
“Shakia?” Laurie. She was unaware they’d ever spoken.
Helga gently stroked one parakeet’s lime-green tummy. “Shakia was a good girl. She tutored the Spanish-speaking kids at the library on Saturday mornings.”
Chagrined her neighbor knew more about her former tenant than she did, Laurie shifted the conversation. “You’re sure you never saw that kid in the yellow jersey before?”
“People are more than a blur to me, missy.” The older woman’s trembling hands fell to her side, causing the green parakeet and his aqua-breasted friend to flee to the drapery rods.