by Andrew Gross
“I can feel him too,” Charlie said. Then he choked up, realizing that whatever had befallen Evan-his innocent, only son-had been aimed at him. Had been meant to hurt him. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Evan…”
He sat down at the table, like a mound of broken bones. He was sobbing too.
“There was a note,” he said, drawing in a breath. “In Evan’s shoe. I didn’t give it to them.” He ran over to the chest. He dug through one of the folders in the bottom drawer and came out with it, and brought it to her.
She read it. Then put it down on the table.
The handwritten scrawl read: “ Music’s over now, Charlie. Want to know how it all ends? ”
Gabby’s eyes shook with ire. “Who would do this to us, Charlie? I want to kill these people.”
“I need to show this to Sherwood,” he said. “And to Jay.”
“No, no,” Gabby said, holding his arm. “They don’t have to see this.”
“They do. It’s possible that-”
“No.” Her tone was adamant, but there was a gentleness to it too. She placed her hand on top of his and gave him a soft smile. “What is left for us, Charlie? You know this as well as me. It’s over for us. Your brother has everything. Everything we have not. Yesterday, he could have died as well. For this ? For whatever we have brought him? No. This is our business, Charlie, these people. Our fate. Let him be free of this.”
It took a moment for him to completely understand. And it scared him. “No, it’s my fate, Gabby. You have to get out of here too.”
“No .” Her hand was still on his and she squeezed. “We both know there’s nowhere for me to go.” She brushed his hair away and put her hand on his face. “I’m sorry, Charlie, what I just did. You are my husband and I stay with you, whatever fate has in store. You ask me what I want? Okay. What I want is to know the truth, Charlie. To hear it from them. The real truth about my son. What I want is the one chance to look the person who did this to him in the eye. Who made me feel like my boy was crazy. Who sent this to you-our son’s shoe-as a trophy, to torture us. I want to show them that we are not animals, Charlie. To make us suffer this way. This is all I want now. Nothing more. You see? What else is left for us?”
Charlie’s hair fell around his face like a shroud. He knew she was right. Their time was up. He wouldn’t put Jay at risk. It was their fate. He squeezed her hand. It was trembling, but at the same time, it was strong too-like the light in her eyes. You are wrong, Gabby, he was thinking, there is something else we have left, one thing no one can take from us .
“My whole life.” He gazed at her. “Has been a tale of wrong choices. All the drugs and my time on the road. How I threw away the one chance I had. All of them wrong. All but one …”
Tenderly, he wrapped his palm around her hand.
He kissed her. It had been years since they really kissed. Felt in their hearts the charge of what had brought them together.
“You couldn’t help it,” Gabby said, placing her head gently on his chest. “You were sick, Charlie. Evan was sick.”
“No, I could help it,” Charlie said. “I could.”
He pulled away and picked up the note. He read it again, and for the first time in a long time, years maybe, he felt perfectly clear. He said, “I can never make it right, not now. But I know what I can do to make it end.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Sherwood’s call caught me just as I was coming back from a late-afternoon jog along the shore.
His tone sounded peremptory. “I have a few things…”
I sat down on a bench near my hotel. “I’m listening.”
“I got some word back on your brother’s old girlfriend. Her full name was Sherry Ann Frazier. She did live in Michigan. In a town called Redmond. On the Upper Peninsula.”
“Michigan. ” Charlie was right!
“Apparently, she was killed eight days ago. Her body was found in her home by her daughter when she arrived for a visit. She ran a small bakery in town and was separated from her husband. She lived out in the boonies by herself so no one caught a glimpse of anything suspicious. Nor was there any knowledge of anyone who would want to do her harm.”
“So they don’t even know if it was committed by a man or a woman?” I asked, wondering if Susan Pollack had done it or someone else.
“No.” Sherwood exhaled. “They don’t. But something did come up you might find interesting.”
“Okay…”
“I asked a Detective Douglas up there if there were any distinguishing signatures that might fit into our own case profiles. Like with Zorn or Greenway or Evan, if you know what I mean.”
I said, “You’re talking eyes, I assume, right?”
He didn’t respond right away, but his silence suggested I was on the mark. “At first he had no clue what I might be talking about. Then, ten minutes later, he called back. It seems the coroner there had found something worth mentioning.”
My heart rate picked back up. “And what was that?”
“The victim was wearing a single contact lens. In her right eye.”
“Only her right eye?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what sounded so strange about that. The woman was beaten and repeatedly stabbed. She’d probably fought for her life. The other lens could’ve fallen out at any time.
“That’s right,” Sherwood said. “Just the right. But that’s not what was interesting… According to everyone there, Sherry Ann Frazier didn’t wear contact lenses. They even checked with a doctor in town. Her vision was fine. She didn’t even wear glasses…”
My heart came to a stop. One lens. An eye! Watch! “Jesus, Sherwood, you know what this means…?”
“Before you tell me what I already know, doc, I asked another detective up in Jenner to check in on Susan Pollack for me.” The gravity began to deepen in his voice. “Just to make sure she was still there.”
“And was she?”
“No. The gate was up blocking the driveway. A couple of days’ worth of mail and newspapers was in the mailbox.”
“You know why, Sherwood, don’t you?” My blood began to rush like rapids. “Because she’s here ! She’s here, and she’s not alone. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know that, doc,” Sherwood said resignedly. “Look, I worked it out with a few friends to keep a heads-up out there for her car. I can’t have her arrested-you understand that, right? So far we can’t prove she’s done anything wrong. But I can damn well have her brought in. And let her know that we’re onto her.”
“Thanks. And what about Charlie and Gabby, Sherwood?” They were exposed. I felt a drumming of alarm.
He sighed. “Don’t worry about them. I have a car watching their apartment. Twenty-four/seven. I’m actually handling the late shift on that. I’m heading home now.”
“Okay, thanks, Sherwood. Thanks.”
“One last thing…,” the detective said, and took a long pause. “You know those chickens Susan Pollack was raising behind the house?”
“Yeah,” I replied, wondering why he would bring them up. “Her buddies…”
“The detective I sent up there said he found them. Apparently they’re all dead. Throats cut. You know what that means, don’t you, doc?”
“Yeah.” I felt a shiver travel through me. “I know what it means.”
It meant whatever Susan Pollack was planning, she wasn’t planning on going back there again.
Chapter Sixty-Six
After we hung up, I remained on the bench, staring out over the cliffs, sure that something terrible was about to happen.
Cooley. Greenway. Charlie’s old girlfriend in Michigan. Zorn.
Evan .
It was like this whole thing had been some kind of long, orchestrated countdown leading directly to Charlie. And if Susan Pollack was there-an “if,” but one I felt sure about-it meant whatever the countdown was leading to was happening now.
I had to warn Charlie and Gabby about this.
“Dude!”
I looked up
, shaken from my thoughts, and saw Dev, the panhandler.
He was in his usual worn Seahawks cap, the same old woolen plaid shirt over his straggly carpenter’s pants, with beat-up sneakers. “How’s it going, Jay?” He lit up a smoke.
This time, his overly familiar use of my name rubbed me the wrong way. And anyway, he was about the last person I needed to deal with right then. I realized how foolish it had been to make him a part of what was going on. I shrugged, barely meeting his gaze. “Just watching the birds.”
“The birds are gone, I hear. Cleared out everywhere. Used to be all over the damn place… Now look at them. Like everything around here. Gone. Maybe they got a sixth sense or something… So, hey, I was wondering, you ever find that dude?”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t.” Then I remembered I still owed him some money. I reached in my pocket. I wasn’t even sure if he had followed through or not.
“Nah…” He waved me off. “Save it, man.” He took a drag off his cigarette. “You gave me enough already. I didn’t do much for it. Anyway, I’m cutting town.”
The guy was just being friendly, but he was the last thing I needed right now. Anyway, I’d brought it on myself. “Leaving?” I tried to act surprised and looked around. “All this?”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “Paradise, huh? Isn’t that what they say? Look around, Jay. Nothing but busted dreams around here. Anyway, my reasons for relocation here are coming to an end.”
Reasons for his relocation . I tried to read the smile upon his face. “Where you heading?”
“East .” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe New York.”
That surprised me. “I’m from New York,” I said.
“That right?” Dev grinned, one as wrinkled as his trousers. This gave me the uneasy feeling that I was telling him something he already knew. “Maybe I’ll look you up there.” He smiled.
Something in his slate-colored eyes locked on mine. He was making me uncomfortable, and what I needed to think about was what Sherwood had just told me, not him. “Maybe you will.”
The guy just stood there for a while, like a bent stick, his clothes ripped and way too big for him, and took another drag on his butt. The conversation had gone on about as long as it was meant to.
“Well, adios,” I said. “I have to get back. I wish you luck.”
I was about to put out my hand; then I hesitated. He didn’t seem to want it anyway. He just smiled at me with an odd steadiness, which at first I thought was just the sum of the million differences between us but later realized was something far more.
He took a final drag off the cigarette and tossed it on the path. He rubbed it out with his sneaker.
“See you around, doc.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
He backed down the pathway with a wave. I watched him go, his hands in his pockets, stopping a couple along the way to hit them up for a little cash. He pocketed some change and, pleased, seemed to look my way once more. Then he disappeared around the bend.
That remark about back east- Maybe I’ll look you up there -didn’t sit well with me at all.
I’d let things go way beyond where they should’ve.
I glanced at my watch-it was going on seven P.M. I thought about calling home but didn’t want to worry anyone. I figured I’d shower and change and head over to Charlie’s. Check out the protection Sherwood had arranged for them.
A nervousness ground in my stomach, and it took maybe thirty seconds until it hit me just what it was.
What Dev had said as he walked away. See you around, doc.
My head suddenly throbbed. I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t recall ever telling him I was a doctor.
I sat there, going back over my three interactions with him. The first time we met, in my first few days of being there, he had come up to me, asking for a handout. For Veterans Day. Every day is Veterans Day when you’re looking for something to eat! You’re in my office, brother.
“Brother,” “doc”… Maybe they were both just similar expressions of familiarity.
The next time he’d been cozier, asked what I was reading. End of Days, huh? Now there’s a book I can surely relate to. My life’s resembled the End of Days for years!
Or had I asked him how things were going? I couldn’t recall.
But if he had wanted to find me, I wasn’t hard to spot.
If he’d been somehow interested in Charlie.
I was taking my brother around, getting involved with the police. I’d even accompanied Sherwood when we went to see Susan Pollack.
And then to Pelican Bay!
Suddenly my heart started racing. I ramped back to all the things Dev had said to me. One in particular hit home: Days ago, when I gave him the thirty bucks and joked about his getting out of town, he’d come back that he had been recently.
Out of town.
This time my heart jumped like a needle indicating a seismic tremor.
Michigan. That was where he said he’d been. Seeing an old friend.
In Michigan .
Where Sherry Ann Frazier had been killed.
Suddenly that tremor rocketed around inside me like an 8.0!
I put my hands to the sides of my head, desperately trying to recall the voice I had heard on the phone in my hotel room, the man who had threatened me. The one who had left the lit cigarette outside my door. My heart was pounding now. Yes, it could be . I’d never even thought in that direction. Why would I have? But there was a similar sort of accent. It was possible.
Oh my God. It was all right there in front of me.
I was leaning forward, elbows on my knees, my head throbbing, and I realized I was looking directly at the walk path.
At the butt Dev had just put out.
I scanned down the pathway, searching for him, but there were only a few stray pedestrians in sight, not him.
I bent down and picked it up between my fingers.
My stomach started to climb its way up my throat.
Salem . Salem was the same brand as the one left outside my door!
I started to feel the sweats come over me, recalling those horrible images of Sherry Ann Frazier in Michigan. The police pictures of Walter Zorn strangled. The eye carved gruesomely into his tongue.
Could Dev be the one who had called me? Allied with Susan Pollack?
With Houvnanian .
Jesus, I told myself, calm down. This could all just be your own crazy paranoia, Jay . Dev could have just as easily bummed that butt from someone down the road. I stood up and looked down the path again. I almost felt him watching me, observing me coming to the conclusion. Enjoying this! I wasn’t quite sure what to do next. Call Sherwood?
It would just be another of those countless uncorroborated fears: Susan Pollack at the rock with Evan; the black or dark blue Kia outside Charlie’s apartment; my brother’s thirty-year-old lyrics echoed by Houvnanian.
This time I needed something more. Something real.
And suddenly I realized that I might have something more. Something that could pin Dev to this.
I wrapped the butt in some paper and headed back to my room.
I hurried, my heart beating rapidly now. I looked back around, like he was watching me out there. Toying with me.
I got to my wing of the motel and bounded up the outside flight of stairs. I hurried down the hall and jammed the card key into the lock. It took a couple of times for it to open and I let the door shut behind me, switching the metal bolt, just to be sure.
I went over to the bed and took the book off my night table.
Greenway’s book.
I flipped it open, skimming to where I wanted to go. My blood certain that this was it.
I located the insert of photographs. All the shots of Houvnanian and his other conspirators. The evidence photos: the guns, the knives, bloody clothing. Their VW van.
I’d been through them all before.
I searched until I found the photos taken on the ranch. There were two or three of the “family”
all gathered around-drifters, hippies, outcasts, as they were in their days there. Making music. Working the farm. Gethsemane. Their paradise, before their world collapsed.
One shot was of a group sitting out on boulders they had cleared from a field. The same one I had searched for my brother’s face only days before.
I recognized a younger Susan Pollack. She was there.
As were Sarah Strasser and Carla Jean Blue, who had participated in the killings.
And some other names I recognized.
But no Dev. He wasn’t there!
I skipped a few photos ahead. There was another group shot of them, this time clearing brush for their vegetable garden. I’d read that there was always a lot of work that had to be done there. Two of the gals were raking soil. Carla Jean again. And Tel. And another guy in a long ponytail, planting, who looked vaguely familiar. But when I checked, his name was Scott Oulette.
It wasn’t him.
Three or four others were standing around holding tools. None of them even resembled Dev.
Damn.
I was about to give up when behind them I noticed someone perched on a small, dilapidated tractor.
My breath stopped. It was like a hand had put its icy fingers around my heart-and squeezed. I bore in on the face.
And I felt my blood about to explode.
It was the same person, except his hair was long then, a thin dark beard on his chin, wearing a bandana. He was grinning innocently, one arm on the wheel, but I could see it, as clearly as I could see the faces of my own kids when they were young.
I looked among the credits for a name.
And I read it twice, just to make sure I had seen it correctly.
Devin Dietz (on tractor).
I put down the book and just sat there for a while, everything slowly sinking in. I knew I had to call. I fumbled in my pocket for my phone. I located my previous call-to Sherwood-and pressed Redial .
He answered on the second ring, sighing when he saw who it was from. “What’s going on there, doc?”
“Susan Pollack’s accomplice,” I said, trying to hold my voice together. “ I know who it is! ”
