Best Place to Die

by Charles Atkins

  TEN

  Wally Doyle had never felt such fear and desperation as he listened to Dennis’s words through his cell. He stared dull-eyed through the second-floor windows of the guest/cabana house behind the pool. His thoughts oblivious to the budding spring woods.

  ‘Dennis, don’t, please. There’s got to be a way.’ His hand to his ear, the small prepaid phone mashed to the meaty side of his buzz-cut head. Tears streamed down his corpulent face, his eyes squeezing into red-rimmed slits.

  ‘You’ll come up with something. You always do.’ His thoughts on his best bud. Dennis, the red-headed wild boy who’d picked him out of playground obscurity in first grade. Him, the fat kid – Wally the Walrus – and took him under his wing. And from day one: ‘It’s you and me, Wally . . . And don’t you take nothing from no one.’ His status as an object of scorn and taunts, shifting 180 degrees to where kids trembled at his approach, and readily handed over anything of interest in their lunch bags. What kind of cookies are those? Dennis would ask an intended victim, his chuckled answer always the same: ‘Ours.’ They were a feared duo that not even the toughest kids would challenge. Wally cornering some scared nerd, his bulk making escape impossible, while Dennis danced around their face with lightening punches and a steady stream of taunts: ‘Cry baby, pussy, faggot.’ Their pact revised a single time in Junior High when the Warrens moved to town, and their twosome became a threesome with the addition of slick Jimbo. And from there . . . local history took root. Playground bullying was fun, and, while none of them realized consciously what they were doing, they had a single goal: to be the best in everything, to dominate and annihilate any competition. ‘You got to be first,’ Jimbo would say.

  To which Dennis would add: ‘Second’s just another word for loser.’ And while Wally could never keep up with his best buds academically, he made up for it with dogged determination on the playing fields. And it was there, in the peewee league of Pop Warner football that the three Ravens of the Apocalypse began their steady climb to small-town royalty, untouchable . . . until now.

  ‘It’s all gone to shit, Wally,’ Dennis said, emotion choking the words. ‘The cops picked up Jim a couple hours ago. And they’ve had a car outside your place, they’re watching everything you do. They know everything. Just waiting till they have all their ducks in a row and then . . . bam bam bam.’ He snorted. ‘Three dead ravens. Shit!’

  ‘He’s too smart for them, Dennis,’ said Wally. ‘They’re not going to find anything.’ Never having heard this defeated tone in Dennis’s voice. It had him freaked, even more than the two dark-suited men in the unmarked car now parked behind a forsythia hedge at the end of the drive. He’d first seen them when he’d left Nillewaug after the fire. At first not thinking much about the dark car behind him, but his nerves already wired from what he’d seen and what he’d done, making him hyper vigilant. They’re not following you, he’d thought, glancing in the rear-view mirror. Then another turn, and another and they were still there. He’d even made a couple false turns, and they’d vanished. He’d told himself to chill, but as he’d pulled into Eagle’s Cairn there they were again – so screwed, did they see you do it? Do they know?

  ‘Wally, it’s done.’

  The silence scared him. ‘Dennis? You’re wrong. Everything’s tighter than a virgin’s pussy.’ But as he spoke, Wally felt an agonizing doubt – you’re screwed. And it wasn’t just the bad thing he’d done at Nillewaug in the early a.m. of Sunday morning . . . it ran deeper. When the accounts would be examined for his Nillewaug clients, patterns of practice would emerge that might be construed as concealing funds. It was for the most part legal, but taken in total it would be considered fraud, as he’d learned at a recent symposium on estate planning. ‘It’s not the action, but the intention,’ the speaker had explained. And, as often happened, Wally got lost in the nuance. To him it was simple good-sense business, old people with money needed to get rid of that money before they died. ‘They can’t take it with them’ was one of his go-to expressions as he’d lay out strategies to eager sons and daughters of potential Nillewaug residents. ‘There’s no reason to wait for them to die to begin benefiting from resources they want you to have anyway . . . yes, very legal, and a number of ways to proceed.’ And for the most part he provided sound advice that saved families from watching fortunes get torpedoed by ruinous inheritance laws. Which of course led to the second big problem on his list, he should never have steered Nillewaug residents to his financial consulting practice. As the CFO of Nillewaug that was a conflict of interest, which no seminar on corporate compliance needed to point out. But there, as with so much over the course of his fifty-two years, he’d let Dennis and Jimbo talk him into something questionable. ‘Way too much money to leave on the table,’ Jimbo had argued. ‘Nillewaug is all about taking the worry out of getting old. And let’s face it, a lot of that worry has to do with money. “Will I have enough?” “Will my children be taken care of?” What we’re doing is helping people. And yes, if we profit by it, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s doing well by doing good.’

  ‘I’m sorry I ever got you into this,’ Dennis said.

  ‘I’m not.’ Wally sobbed, a tear landing on the remains of a mountainous platter of chili cheese nachos he’d devoured waiting for this call. Bits of sour cream, salsa and guacamole clung to the corners of his mouth, and three small spatters of bean dip had landed on his tautly stretched powder-blue polo shirt. ‘You’ll think of something,’ was all he could say. ‘We’ve been in worse messes.’ Trying not to let Dennis hear his sobs as images of scary good times flew past. The sick-in-the-gut feeling of being pulled over by the cops in high school, the car reeking of pot, open bottles of beer and a nearly empty quart of whiskey stashed under the seat. A flashlight through the window: ‘Have you boys been drinking?’

  Dennis in the driver’s seat, smashed to the gills, his words slurred. ‘No, Officer, not a drop.’

  But it was Grenville and they were the three Ravens. ‘Just keep it to the speed limit boys, and get your butts home . . .’

  ‘Yes, Officer.’

  ‘Not like this,’ Dennis said. ‘And no one gives a shit any more that we were the three Ravens; that tit ran dry years ago. Wally, people died in that fire . . . my dad is gone.’ Dennis was crying. ‘And they’re going to try and pin that on us. Even without that, we’re talking hard time. They’ll take each case and multiply it out. I can’t go back to prison. I won’t. And I’m telling you, you won’t last. You can’t imagine what it’s like in that place. The things they’re going to do to you.’

  ‘Maybe we could just hide someplace,’ Wally said, knowing it was a stupid idea, but something calming about the thought of the two of them going off, someplace warm. ‘Maybe Mexico.’

  ‘They’re watching us. We wouldn’t make it past Hartford. I’m sorry, Wally. You know I love you. You do what you think’s right, but I’m done. I think for Jen and the kids’ sake you know what you have to do. But I’m out of here. I just wanted to call and . . . say goodbye. I love you.’

  ‘Dennis . . .’ Searching for anything to keep him talking, not to do this thing. But nothing came. He stared dully ahead, his tongue flicking at a peppery chunk of salsa caught between molars. ‘Dennis . . . don’t, please . . .’ His fist clutched the phone as he heard the gun shot. ‘No! Dennis . . . Dennis?’ Frozen, he listened. ‘NO! Dennis . . .’ He looked down at the smeared platter with blobs of green, white and red, and then at his own dim reflection in the windows across from him. He was so fat, he’d stopped weighing himself when he’d passed three hundred and fifty pounds and the bathroom scale had maxed out. At one point, it had been muscle, like a refrigerator in motion, mowing down anything that got in the way. ‘Wally the Walrus.’ His beefy hand dropped the cell on to his desk. Dennis . . . an awful pain, like a hole ripped in his chest. Jimbo had been arrested and Dennis, beautiful Dennis with his red hair flopping over his eyes and that funny gap-toothed smile, which got especially big whenever he was tal
king him into something bad: ‘Go on Wally, stick it in her.’ Dennis was gone. And there were men parked outside his house in a Ford with dark windows. Almost like they didn’t care that he knew they were on to him. Dennis . . . unable to imagine life without him. That would be a life not worth living.

  He freed the clinging tomato bit and swallowed. The fear, which had seemed overwhelming just moments ago was gone. He fished his keys out of his pant pocket, flicked through them and selected the little one for his bottom drawer. Sliding it open he looked at the loaded Colt. Dennis was right; there was no other way. He could survive prison, but life without Dennis . . . He lifted the pistol, feeling its heft in his hand. He looked across at the windows and watched his reflection raise the gun and put the barrel under his chin. Using his left hand to hold it steady, and checking in the window to make sure it was pointed up and toward the back of his head, he took a deep breath and as he let it out, he squeezed.

  ELEVEN

  Lil’s eight-minute drive from Pilgrim’s Progress to the Eagle’s Cairn development ended with a question: ‘Whose door do I knock on first?’ Which was answered by the heart-skipping sound of a gunshot from the direction of the Doyles’ imposing three-story Tudor revival. Her thoughts raised as she tried to locate the source of the shot: the woods behind the house. What the hell? And she was out of the car and running on the spongy spring grass, her leather satchel bouncing heavily against her back. Maybe hunters, she thought, but it’s too early and no one should be hunting this close to houses. Her ears rang and her head, still tender from last night’s whiskey, throbbed with each footfall. She tried to judge how far back in the woods it had come from. Not slowing, she spotted two men, one paunchy and fiftyish, the other trim, both in suits and ties racing across the lawn to her right. As they passed, the younger caught sight of her. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’ He didn’t break stride. His pumping arms affording Lil the glimpse of a holster. His warning did not deter her, as she rounded the brick house with its dozens of mullioned windows and half-timbered accents. Obviously cops, she thought as the younger man violently kicked the hinges off a six-foot-high wood gate that led into the pool area.

  She hung back as the two men drew their weapons. Beyond the broken gate was a still-covered pool, expansive decks and a two-story smaller brick structure that matched the main house. It was a charming courtyard; the pool house with its mullioned windows and herringbone brickwork was like some fairy-tale cottage. Lil pulled out her camera and, keeping to the side of the open gate, sidled through. Looking at the LED, she snapped shots of the courtyard, with its tidy walkways and trimmed azaleas. She framed and clicked. A good shot of the older agent knocking on the door of the pool house. The younger man on the opposite side, his hand on the knob. It was unlocked, and they went in.

  Trailing behind she caught a glimpse of a blonde woman in the main house – mid forties, thin lips. She was probably in the kitchen or a back-facing family room, one hand on the window frame, the other holding a phone. Without stopping, Lil shot image after image. Jennifer Doyle – putting a name to the face. She rounded the pool, her ears attuned to whatever was going on in the little cottage – actually not so small. While closed for the winter, she could see how the lower level was designed to open up as an outdoor kitchen and cabana. Much of the architectural detail like a stage curtain on sliding panels. She heard banging on the second floor. ‘FBI, Mr Doyle, open the door.’

  More banging, and the sound of a foot kicking wood. She thought of going in, and then noticed a side stairway partially concealed behind an outdoor shower. She ran up, and peered in the small-paned windows to an office. The scene inside was in perfect frame. ‘No.’ It was as though her brain suddenly split in half, part of her registering the horror before her and the other half hooked to the camera. She clicked fast, hoping the reflected glare from the windows wouldn’t compromise the image. Her eyes fixed to the gory tableau. Her mouth silently framed the name: ‘Wally Doyle.’ No one else it could be at over three hundred pounds – head thrown back with a good portion of his lower face ripped away. She shifted slightly to the left and caught a shot of dripping blood spatter on a framed photo of the championship Ravens, one of several. She gripped the doorknob to steady herself . . . and, not meaning to do it, the door opened. Right place at the wrong time. A passing thought – just how many pictures can I fit on this memory card? Just keep shooting. She zoomed in on Wally’s pudgy hands still holding the gun, which had come to rest on his protuberant belly. Click click click. Not daring to move from the doorway, the blood oozing down the glass on the framed photo, a drop splattering the picture below, of . . . of course . . . Wally Doyle and the three Ravens of the Apocalypse, click click click. And Wally, his head thrown back, bits of tooth and bone glinting through his destroyed jaw, click click click. A platter of something on the desk in front of him. Weird . . . A snack and then . . . kills himself? Click click click, corn chip crumbs on the front of his polo shirt. A small black cell phone next to the snack. Click click click.

  It was one of those strange points in her life, like walking down the aisle with Bradley or the surreal morning she awoke to find him dead in bed, where time loses meaning. Each second stretched and warped, she couldn’t have been alone in that room for more than fifteen seconds. So many competing thoughts, as she stood in the doorway, click click click. Her finger and the dripping blood the only movement. A pit in her gut at the finality of his death . . . Suicide? Gun in his hand, shot under the jaw – ‘Did it right,’ Bradley would have said, followed by: ‘Damn shame.’

  Finally, with an angry bang the opposite door splintered, shuddered and the brass bolt ripped out of the lock plate. Click click click and she dropped the camera into her pocket, not wanting a repeat of what she’d gone through first with Hank and then with Mattie. She felt pangs of regret for shots she could have snapped as the agents, leading with their guns, entered Wally’s office. For a brief moment the younger of the two stared down his barrel at her. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘I know,’ she said softly. Letting his dark eyes get a good look at her, hands at her sides, just a middle-aged lady out for a stroll . . . or whatever. All the while squirreling away details, the faint smell of gunpowder, the position of the body, birdsong through the open door, the time on the clock – 12.22. Lil, you have just over an hour and a half to get this story written and submitted.

  The older, heavyset agent was on his cell, breathing audibly, his face red, the back of his jacket deeply wrinkled, like he’d been sitting in a car for a long time. And weirdly, she thought of her oldest, Barbara, a Hollywood casting agent. Not her so much but the way she described people, all reduced to types for roles and potential actors. Her decisions fluidly based on the movie’s budget and a multitude of tinsel-town variables she’d describe in gleeful detail after her second glass of wine. The younger man, even featured, tall, dark and handsome would be the star. And if Barbara were here, she’d rattle off first-name possibilities: Keanu, Benjamin, Brad, Leo . . . and the older out of shape guy, his wise mentor. Get some well-known name, but past his prime, maybe Brian or Danny, possibly Bruce. Lil noted that neither one checked Wally for a pulse. What would be the point? Dead is dead.

  ‘Did you touch anything?’ her leading man asked.

  ‘No, just the door; it was unlocked.’

  He nodded. ‘Great. And you are?’

  ‘Lil Campbell.’

  ‘The reporter?’

  She felt a rush of euphoria from his question. For the first time she wasn’t Doc Campbell’s wife, or June and Arthur’s girl. ‘Yes,’ she said, not knowing if in fact that was true. I mean really, she thought, I’ve had a single news story, and the rest . . . tips for haggling at the flea market, or how to read hallmarks on English sterling. Does that make me a reporter? But clearly this man saw my byline in the morning paper. He read my article.

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘Marginally,’ she said. And, nodding in the direction of the wall of frame
d photos: ‘He was kind of a small-town hero a long time ago.’

  The agent snorted. ‘Yeah . . .’ He caught sight of Doyle’s cell. ‘Dan, we need to check the history on that.’

  His partner, still on the phone, looked at the cell, then at him and then at Lil. ‘What’s she doing here?’

  ‘Reporter,’ he said.

  ‘Get her out of here.’

  Lil’s ears strained to catch the older man’s conversation. The only words she caught: ‘Crime scene . . . now . . . stiff.’ And curiously: ‘Not our job.’

  ‘You need to wait downstairs, and don’t go anywhere,’ the younger agent cautioned. ‘We’ll need a statement.’

  ‘Of course.’ She moved slowly, taking a final look. The one door clearly had been locked and the side entrance open as she’d found it. If this had been a murder did she just screw up evidence by putting her hand on that knob? The other agent, now off the phone, was standing back. He looked at Lil, and then to his partner. ‘Alex, get the camera.’

  ‘Right.’ He looked uncertain. ‘How long till they get here?’

  The older guy – possibly a paunched-out Bruce Willis – shrugged. ‘You got someplace else to be?’

  ‘Come on, Ms Campbell.’

  ‘And your name?’ Inching back through the open door.

  He shook his head. ‘Agent Brant.’ He gave a crooked smile. ‘Alex.’

  Yes, very good looking, she thought, her eyes wandering to his ring finger – nothing there. ‘Suicide?’ she asked.

  ‘Could be –’ turning back to dead Wally – ‘or else someone making it look like one.’

  ‘I don’t see a note,’ she offered, trying to buy a few last seconds in the room, and noting his rumpled jacket . . . and how quickly the two agents had gotten there. ‘You had him under surveillance.’

  ‘Ms Campbell.’ His expression was less friendly. ‘Out, now, and don’t leave, stay in the pool area . . . please.’ He moved toward her, looking down at the door. ‘Come on.’