“Agreed, but this is crazy talk. Look, forget about the business with Goldsmith. It’s going to be okay. And the thing is, while we sit around waiting to be sure the problem’s gone away, we’re wasting valuable time. We need to sit down now and plot out our next move. We need to decide on key people, who we’re going to use. We need to start studying our opponents’ weaknesses. Jesus, Howard, I hardly need to be telling you this. You wrote the playbook.”
“I know.”
“Let’s get together tonight.”
Howard knew what that meant. It had been their routine, over the years, to get together after midnight and work through till dawn, drawing up battle plans. It was when they got their best work done, when there was no fear of interruptions.
“Yes,” Howard said. “That’s what we’ll do.”
“Good. Talk to you later, my friend. Lace up those boxing gloves.”
Morris hung up.
Maybe, before tonight’s meeting, Howard hoped, there’d be some answers from Ray Kilbride.
LEWIS was about to board his short-haul flight north when his cell rang.
“Hello,” he said.
“I understand you’ve been trying to reach me,” a man said.
“Victor,” Lewis said. “Thank you for calling.”
“What can I do for you?”
“It’s about a former employee of yours.”
“Living or dead?”
“Living.”
That narrowed it down for Victor. Very few people left his employ. “Okay,” he said.
“I engaged her services, and she made a very big mistake.”
“Really.”
“It’s reflected badly on me. She’s rectifying the problem she created, but when the matter is resolved, I have to make this right. For my own reputation.”
“I understand.”
“But I felt I owed you the courtesy of letting you know about the course of action I want to pursue. If you object, I won’t do it.”
“I should have done the same thing myself, but I was weak,” Victor said. “I took her in, treated her like a daughter. How does she thank me? She leaves. You won’t get any trouble from me on this.”
“Thank you. How are things in Vegas?”
“Too many people are bringing their children.”
Lewis said good-bye, put his phone away, and got on the plane.
FIFTY
BACK at the house, I said to Julie, “Let’s take a walk.”
We headed out the back of the house and down the hill, to the creek.
“I’ve got some calls in to the cops in Tampa,” Julie said, tapping the cell phone bulge in the front pocket of her jeans. “See what else I can find out about Fitch.”
I nodded.
“You’re kind of quiet,” she said.
“I’m thinking about some things Harry said. About Thomas.” I told her about his speculation, that Thomas might be making some of this stuff up. Doctoring the image online, making up his chat with the landlord.
“You think that’s what he’s doing?” she asked.
I hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, he believes things we know are not true, but he really believes them. Like the online map meltdown, and talking to Clinton. But some things aren’t made up at all. It was you who found out about what happened in Chicago, and now Florida.”
“Would Thomas deliberately lie to you?”
I’d never really thought about that. “I guess it’s possible. But when I asked him about this thing that happened with Dad, about pushing him on the stairs, he admitted it. Although it wasn’t like he volunteered the information.”
“He pushed your Dad down the stairs?”
I shook my head, like I didn’t have the energy to get into it now. “When there’s something Thomas doesn’t want to tell you, or own up to, he just keeps quiet. He clams up.” I stopped, watched the creek water trickling past. “Well, he lied to Dr. Grigorin. He told her he’d watched a movie with me when he hadn’t, trying to get her off his back, I guess. God, I just don’t know.”
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“I’ll try. In the meantime, like I told you, Harry knows a guy, a detective with the Promise Falls police. He’ll bounce all this off him so I don’t have to worry about making a fool of myself with another call to the cops.”
“That’s good,” Julie said. “Duckworth is a good guy. He doesn’t instinctively hate reporters.”
I said, “Some other stuff’s nagging at me.”
“Like?”
I opened my arms, gesturing to where we were standing. “This is where it happened. This is where my father died.” I pointed to the hill. “That was where the tractor rolled. Stopped about here. This is where Thomas found him.”
She looped her arm into mine. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about him. About Dad. And about Thomas. He told me when they had this incident on the stairs, it was about something that had happened to him when he was thirteen. Something he didn’t want to talk about. And Dad, according to Thomas, was trying to tell him he was sorry, that he’d understand if Thomas didn’t forgive him.”
“He didn’t say what it was about?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. But”—and I hesitated—“there’s something more.”
Julie looked at me and waited.
“I haven’t talked to anyone about this, but there was something kind of weird on Dad’s laptop.” I told her about what I’d found in the search history.
“Child prostitution?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s kinda strange.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Julie shook her head strongly. “I didn’t know your dad, Ray. Why’s this got you worried? You think he was into something weird?” Then the implications started to sink in further. “God, you don’t think your dad assaulted Thomas when he was a kid, do you? You think that’s what he was talking about when he said he’d understand if Thomas didn’t forgive him?”
“It’s a huge leap, putting it together like that,” I said, “but without any real facts, your mind starts going places it shouldn’t.”
“Did your father, with you, did he ever—”
“Never,” I said. “Absolutely never.”
“Then that’s not it,” Julie said with finality. I liked it that she’d defend my father even without knowing him. “What else?” Julie asked. “I can tell there’s something else on your mind.”
“It’s…it’s nothing.”
“Talk to me. You’ve got all these things weighing on you, and you haven’t had anyone to talk them over with. What is it?”
I slowly shook my head, looked down. “I think there’s something funny about how Dad died.”
“Funny how?”
“It’s just, okay, the way they say it happened, he rolled the tractor while he was on the side of the hill here. And that’s probably what did happen.”
“So what’s the problem, then?” she asked.
“They never brought the tractor up. It was still down here by the creek. Not upside down, of course, because Thomas had managed to get it off him before the paramedics got here.”
“Okay, I’m not getting this,” Julie said.
“I came down here to see if it would start, to take it back up to the barn. And it did start. But the key was already in the OFF position, and that thing that goes around the lawnmower blades was raised, like he’d stopped cutting grass.”
Julie thought about what I was saying. “So, you think he rolled the tractor after he’d turned it off.”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“Isn’t that possible? That maybe the tractor was acting up, and he stopped it to see what was wrong? I don’t know a lot about riding lawnmowers, but if something gets caught in the blades, wouldn’t you have to turn everything off to see what was the matter? And wouldn’t you have to lift up that thingie so you could look under there to see what it was?”
I f
elt like I’d been hit in the side of the head with a two-by-four. I laughed, put my hands on Julie’s shoulders, and said, “You’re a genius.”
“I am?”
“Here I was, driving myself crazy, thinking this was some goddamn locked-room mystery, and the answer’s so fucking simple.”
“Oh,” Julie said, feigning umbrage. “So it took a simpleton to put it all together.”
“No, no, but you’re right. Okay, so he’s going along, maybe he hits a rock or a stick or something, and he figures it’s jammed into the blades. He has to stop the tractor, raise the housing, then get out and take a look. But as he’s getting off, or maybe when he was getting back on, he leans just a little too much toward the bottom of the hill, and tips the tractor on top of himself.”
If it still weren’t so tragic, I’d have had some pleasure finally putting it together. Or having it put together for me.
“That makes perfect sense,” I said, giving Julie a quick hug.
“What did you think had happened?”
“I was thinking he must have stopped because there was someone else there. Someone had walked down the side of the hill and waved to him or something, and he stopped, killed the ignition, and raised the housing. Like maybe he was going to stop and head back to the house. I’d been thinking, I don’t know, that someone was actually there and saw it happen, but didn’t tell anyone, or call the ambulance, or anything.”
Julie said, quietly, “Someone like Thomas.”
I sighed and briefly hung my head, feeling ashamed. “It had crossed my mind. That maybe he’d headed out of the house for some reason, wanted to talk to Dad, and there was an accident. God, I’m an idiot. Like there aren’t enough things to worry about, I have to invent more.”
“Maybe you’ve been doing the same thing with what you found on your father’s laptop. Lots of things have simple explanations. They just seem complicated when you don’t know what they are.”
I took Julie into my arms again and held on to her. “I know I keep saying this, but thanks.”
“Wait till you get my bill.” She put her head on my chest. “Listen, I should get back to the paper and write up a couple of things that have nothing to do with your and Thomas’s big international conspiracy. And then I’ll make those other calls, to Florida.”
“What should I do?”
“You know, honestly? Right now? Probably nothing. See what luck your lawyer has with Duckworth, and I’ll see what I find out, and you just stay here and make sure Thomas doesn’t see someone getting pushed off the Eiffel Tower or anything.”
“Don’t even joke. What about later? You want to come back?”
“Not for dinner. Your dinners suck. Why don’t I come out later, maybe around eleven? I’ve got to cover the evening session of the Promise Falls City Council. After I file my story, I’ll bring over a bottle of wine. We can try messing around again.”
“You really want to give that another shot?”
Julie smiled. “I thrive on danger.”
I walked her back to her car, gave her a kiss through the open window, and watched until her car had disappeared down the road. When I got upstairs, Thomas was exploring Stuttgart. I said, “I don’t know what the hell to make for dinner. I was thinking maybe bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches.”
“I don’t care,” he said, his eyes focused on the monitor.
I got the bacon, lettuce, tomato, and some mayonnaise out of the fridge, and was just about to start frying up the bacon when I noticed we were down to one slice of bread and a heel.
“Nuts,” I said, and wondered whether there was a pizza place in Promise Falls that would deliver this far out.
That was when someone started banging on the front door.
“God,” I said under my breath. “Just don’t let it be the FBI again.”
FIFTY-ONE
LEWIS’S flight got in ahead of Nicole’s, which gave him time to arrange the rental of a white panel van. Two seats up front with an empty cargo bay. When Nicole got off the plane she said she needed to hit a Home Depot on the way. She couldn’t take ice picks on a plane, and had to buy them as she needed them. Lewis grabbed a roll of duct tape and some moving blankets.
They pulled up in front of the house. It was still daylight.
“So we’re just bringing him back,” Nicole said.
Lewis, behind the wheel, nodded at all the empty space behind them. “Yeah. My boss has some questions for him.”
Nicole nodded. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. Finally, she said, “I know you’re not happy with how this went down.”
“No shit,” Lewis said.
“But once we bag this guy, take him back, that takes care of things,” she said.
“Hope so,” he said. “Depends on what kind of answers we get from him.”
Nicole glanced across the road to the house. “Either way, I’m done at that point.”
“Well, after he’s been questioned, we’re going to have to deal with him. This isn’t like when you’re fishing and do catch and release.”
Nicole shot him a look. “But after that, we’re square.”
“Sure,” Lewis said.
Nicole looked back at the house. “How you want to play this? You want to knock on the front, I’ll come in around the back?”
“I don’t see why we don’t both go to the front door. Do we look threatening?” He grinned at her. “We look like a nice couple. We need directions. We need the phone. Listen, once he opens the door, we’re walking right in.”
Nicole reached down, gave the top of the ice pick that was tucked into her boot a reassuring tap. Lewis rooted around between the seats for a backpack that contained a few things he might need, including the tape.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They got out of the van, crossed the street, and walked up the drive. Lewis went up the porch steps first, but waited until Nicole was standing next to him before he knocked.
FIFTY-TWO
IT wasn’t the FBI.
It was Marie Prentice. She was standing there with a dark blue soft-sided bag the size of a picnic hamper. It looked insulated. I wondered whether she’d come alone, or if Len was in the car, waiting for her. I glanced out, saw that the car sitting next to mine was empty.
“If I can’t get you boys over for dinner,” she said, her body listing to the side that was holding the bag by a broad strap, “the least I can do is bring something over for you. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long, but sometimes I don’t have as much energy as others.” There was a warm aroma wafting upward. Spices, cheese.
“Marie,” I said, “you really shouldn’t have.”
“It was no trouble at all,” she said.
“Let me take that from you,” I said. “It looks heavy.” I took hold of the bag’s strap and eased it out of Marie’s hand. “It smells wonderful. Come on in.”
While I didn’t like Len much, I didn’t have the same feelings of animosity toward his wife. I didn’t want to offend her, and what the hell. I was hungry.
“I was just thinking about ordering a pizza,” I told her.
“Oh, you don’t want to do that,” she said.
I put the bag on the kitchen table and unzipped it. “What is this, Marie?”
“It’s my own recipe,” she said, sounding slightly out of breath. “Well, not exactly. I mean, it sort of started off as a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa? But instead of using tuna steaks, I used tuna from the can, because that’s the only kind Len will eat, and she threw in all kinds of things like lentils and wasabi powder and I put in some peas and noodles, and I guess when you get right down to it there’s really nothing the same about them except both recipes have tuna in the title.”
“It looks great,” I said. “The pan’s still hot. Did you just take it out of the oven?”
“I did. Where’s Thomas? Is he upstairs?”
“He is, Marie,” I said, but did not offer to get him. Given his run-in with Len, I was worried that
finding out his wife was here might be troubling to Thomas.
“Do you think he’d like to come down and try the casserole?”
“If it’s okay with you, I’m just going to leave him be for now,” I said. “But I’ll tell him you’re the one to thank for dinner.”
“There’s some buns in the bag there, too,” she said, but her voice was suddenly less cheery. “You see, part of the reason I came by is, I just wanted to apologize to him. And to you. For Len’s behavior the other day.”
“Len and I already spoke about this,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“I heard the two of you talking in the basement and he really shouldn’t have said those things to you, about your brother. Even if Thomas is a bit off, Len shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”
“And Thomas shouldn’t have hit him,” I said. “Lots of blame to go around.”
Marie said, “Len was just trying to do a good thing. It was my idea. I was the one who suggested he try to get Thomas to go out, for lunch, or to come back to the house. Actually, he’d come here to invite you both, but you were gone for the day.”
“That’s right.”
“Where’d you go? To the city?”
“Yes, Marie.”
“Len just doesn’t understand why Thomas has to be the way he is. You have to forgive him for that. Len thinks everyone should just buck up, you know? I don’t think he gets that some people are different. That they can’t help being the way they are. He figures if he can do something, everybody should be able to do it. Sometimes he’s even that way with me. He says to me, ‘Just stop being so tired. It’s all in your head. Come with me when I go on a vacation.’ But it’s not in my head. I have a disease. You can look it up on the Mayo Clinic’s Web site. Can I sit down? I get tired when I stand too long.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs for her. She sat, letting her arms hang down straight at her sides.
“I’ll be fine in a minute or two,” she said. “In my kitchen at home I’ve got a chair right there by the stove. I can sit anytime I want, even stir things while sitting.”
Trust Your Eyes Page 31
