“What?”
“Nick, he was murdered.”
I felt ice in my veins again. My chest constricted. I couldn’t breathe. My vision blurred as I stared past the windshield to the traffic light ahead.
“His body was found in a Dumpster at his hotel in Los Angeles.”
My mind flashed to the image of the two Terry’s in the elevator on the security video, and then to the image of the Terry in the casket. Now suddenly, Terry’s identical twin brother was dead in Los Angeles. So the big question was, who would want Harrison Shelby dead? The obvious answer seemed to be the same person responsible for the corpse in the tub.
I knew right then I had an important call to make.
“I have to go,” I told her. “I’ll talk to you when I can.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to dig up a dead body,” I said.
CHAPTER 39
I stood in the rain holding an umbrella. It was already dark. The Manhattan skyline was shrouded in gloom. I wasn’t thrilled to be back at the cemetery so soon. I had never watched a body being exhumed before.
Detectives Ballard and Curry stood beside me in the pouring rain. They had made the necessary calls to important people and set into motion the process to get a backhoe out here on short notice to start scooping the dirt out of the fresh grave. The turned dirt on Terry’s grave was now mud. The backhoe driver wore a yellow rain slicker, his face obscured by the hood. The bucket scooped out the dirt and moved it aside. The driver worked with practiced efficiency.
By now I had seen the news and listened to all the sensation details of the Harrison Shelby murder investigation. I had called Curry and Ballard and asked them to meet me at Carmen’s hotel room. They had been prepared to arrest me, but that changed when I started laying out the story Chandler had told me. They were more than a little interested. Then our questions turned to Carmen. She’d been drunk, of course, so she was perhaps a tad less guarded than she might have otherwise been, and she answered our questions with surprising openness. I listened with rapt attention as she revealed what she knew of Terry’s family background.
“He was one of three brothers,” she said.
“Were they identical?” I asked.
She had closed her eyes and taken a sip of vodka, then nodded her head. “Yes,” she said, “identical triplets.”
Two hours later we were standing in the rain watching an earth mover plow up the packed dirt covering Terry’s casket.
Carmen had been very drunk, but there had been no mistaking the truth in her words. She had known about the two brothers — Harrison and Hank. She said that Terry hated them both and had mentioned them only on rare occasions. On a very personal, emotional level, he had separated himself from them decades ago, as if deep in his soul they had never existed at all. Harrison’s success had been hard to ignore, and Hank was an embarrassment — a gay drug addict who couldn’t keep his life together. Terry had long believed that Hank was slowly dying from AIDS.
Carmen claimed she had all but forgotten about the brothers and seemed genuinely shocked when I showed up with the cops and started asking questions. She seemed to lack the energy or interest to deny something that no longer mattered. There was nothing to protect Terry from anymore. Terry was dead. His secrets could no longer harm him. When we told her about Harrison Shelby’s murder, her only response was to pour another drink and say, “Maybe the two of the them will get along better in hell than they did here.”
“Who is in the box?” Curry asked me.
“I have a fairly strong idea,” I said.
“Is it Terry Burgess?”
“I’m almost positive it’s not,” I answered.
Curry and Ballard exchanged looks. I stared at the backhoe as the old diesel engine growled and the tracks fought for traction on the wet grass. Police lights flashed from cruisers parked along the paved lane that wound through the cemetery grounds. The wind kicked up and suddenly there was a chill in the air. The coroner was there. He carried a clipboard and his rimless glasses were beaded with rain. He was there to document whatever we discovered when they opened the casket.
The backhoe backed away and the driver shut the engine. The air became very still and quiet. The casket was lifted out of the hole and was then lowered to a level place on the grass. My heart started beating faster as we gathered around the box.
The coroner opened the lid. The body was still there. It was hard to believe we had buried him that same morning. It felt like weeks had passed. I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes past midnight. This was like a scene from a cheesy horror movie — opening a casket in a cemetery in the rain at the stroke of midnight. Stephen King, eat your heart out.
The body was loaded into the coroner’s van and taken downtown for identification.
Within hours, the truth was revealed: the man in the casket was not Terry Burgess.
CHAPTER 40
I flew to Los Angeles.
Terry was in a hospital there. He’d been in a coma for several days. Even after he emerged from the coma the doctors gave a less than twenty percent chance that he would survive, or speak again, or survive to the end of the week. The collision with the car had done severe internal damage to his body, and numerous MRIs showed that the impact of his head with the pavement had done permanent brain damage. Even if he survived, he’d be a vegetable.
The story had become a national sensation. It had all the necessary ingredients.
My memory had fully returned. All the gaps had been filled in, and all the mysteries of my life now had answers. So I felt like myself. That made things very interesting. Very interesting, indeed.
I landed in LA and took a taxi to the hospital where Terry was hooked to life support. LAPD cops were posted at his door around the clock. So I wasn’t able to just walk into his room and say hello. I had to jump through a few hoops and cut through some red tape, but Ballard and Curry pulled some strings and made things happen.
I had to wait for visitor hours before I could see him. It was late afternoon before I was able to take the elevator up to ICU and get cleared through security. The cops at the door were beefy and serious looking. They cleared me, and I went inside and closed the door behind me.
Terry was asleep. I had no interest in waking him. He was hooked up to all kinds of machines. He didn’t look much better than the corpse we had buried in his place. It was clear that he was dying. I felt much different about that than I would have imagined. I guess I had already grieved for him once, so now it wasn’t such a big deal, or maybe the reality of what had really happened that night allowed me to see him for what kind of man he really was.
I stood at his bedside and stared at him.
“Terry,” I said. “Can you hear me?”
His eyes were closed. He didn’t make a sound. Didn’t move a muscle.
“It’s Nick,” I said.
No reaction. I knew he wasn’t dead because the equipment around his bed clearly displayed his vital signs. A bag hanging from a pole was feeding meds into his body. He was off in dreamland, or maybe even bargaining with God for one more chance.
I turned and glanced at the door. The blinds over the windows were closed but I could see the silhouettes of the cops standing outside. I stepped closer to the bed. Stared at his face. I remembered Hank’s face from the casket at the funeral home, and the images of Harrison Shelby on television and was blown away at the uncanny resemblance. Any one of them could have passed for the others. It was remarkable.
I wanted to talk to him, but that wasn’t going to happen right now.
“Terry,” I said, “don’t die on me yet.”
Then I turned for the door and nodded at the cops as I headed for the elevator.
I called Ellen’s number but there was no answer. So I tried Whitney and the call went straight to voice mail. I tried them both numerous times with no luck. It didn’t take much insight to understand that there was nothing left for them. They were impostors in
my life and they would fade back into the woodwork. They had turned up in Terry’s world with the sole intent of coercing money from Harrison Shelby, and with the senator dead, the mission was aborted. Obviously, they had already disappeared. I would never hear from them again. I leaned against a wall outside the hospital as images of Ellen briefly flashed through my mind. She had been a fictional character from the beginning. I pushed all the images away.
I reached Connie on her cell to check on Nate. She put him on and I smiled instantly. He told me a real stinker of a joke and I told him one that was even worse. Even in his dark little world he was full of joy. He told me about some music he had downloaded and we again rehashed our debate over the top ten drummers in the world. I’ll admit, the kid has great taste.
Heather was still at the office when I called. She caught me up on the usual office drama. I spoke briefly with Louis and he asked if I’d seen Terry yet. I said I had but that he was sleeping. Louis was on the way to meet his wife for dinner, so I told him I’d call in a day or two and would pass on his best to Terry when he woke up.
I had dinner alone. There was much to think about now that my full memory had returned. I ordered a bottle of wine and pushed pasta around my plate with a fork. I was starving but nothing tasted good.
I walked from my hotel to the hospital. It would be easy to get spoiled by the Southern California weather. I took my time. The wine had given me a minor buzz. It felt good. A new rotation of LAPD uniforms were stationed at Terry’s door. They asked for my ID and found my name on the same clipboard as before.
Terry looked about the same as last time. I closed the door behind me and stood at his bedside, again staring at his pale face. I was loaded with things to say, but it again looked like I’d have to wait it out and hope for a chance before the machines against the wall flatlined.
Then he opened one eye.
It startled me.
“Terry?” I said.
The eye stared at the ceiling for what felt like eternity before focusing on me.
“It’s Nick,” I said.
His tongue appeared and wet his lips.
“Nick,” he whispered.
I smiled and nodded. The whisper had been like a baby’s breath, barely there at all. I stepped closer.
“How are you?” I asked.
The eye blinked, painfully slowly, like a greasy slug moving up the bark of a tree. He didn’t respond. When the eye opened again, it drifted away from me and again found the ceiling tiles above him.
“It’s good to see you, man,” I said. “We’ve all been worried about you. Me, Carmen, everyone at the agency. You’ve had us all very scared.”
He didn’t attempt to speak. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. He was weak. I had to assume that the machines were doing all the work of keeping him alive. It seemed obvious that he wasn’t going to walk out of this hospital. He’d be lucky to last a few more days.
He closed his eye and a long moment of silence passed between us. I glanced at the door, not sure how long they would give me alone with him. I needed to say what I had come to say while I had the chance.
“I know what you did, Terry. It took awhile to figure out how, but I managed to piece it together over the last few days. When I woke up the morning after our dinner with the clients from Kellogg’s, my memory was gone. It was as if I had awakened in someone else’s body. Do you have any idea how that feels? It’s a trip, man.”
The monitors continued to hold steady. He didn’t respond. He could have very easily been asleep but something in my gut told me he was listening to every word.
“For a few days, my life was a riddle, a slowly unwinding mystery. There I was in bed that morning, with a beautiful woman dead on my bedroom floor. My memory was a blank slate. I couldn’t imagine who she was, how she had gotten there, or what had happened to her. I was scared to death and terrified to mention her to anyone. I had to assume that I was somehow responsible for her death, yet I couldn’t put a name with her face or remember her from anywhere.”
“Now, of course, I very clearly remember Veronica Wagner. I knew her very well. Not like you though, right? You were having an affair with her. She was the one who put the drug in my drink. Isn’t that right, Terry? I’ll admit I was puzzled by it. I couldn’t figure out how you could have reached across the table and put it in my wine without my noticing, but Veronica was seated next to me, and she was so charming, and gorgeous, and such an amazing flirt. She could have easily done it, and that’s the way it happened. Then you sent her home with me to make sure I got there safe and sound. So, why would you need to drug me, Terry? Huh? What would be the need in doing that to your best friend?”
I could see his pulse beginning to slow, the needle on the digital display losing momentum.
“For a guy with no memory, none of it made sense to me for the longest time. Then my memory came back and I realized what had happened. You were trying to get rid of me, Terry. The drug was just a way to get me home without me causing you any trouble. Then I was supposed to die. Veronica was supposed to get me home and make it look like an accident. What was the plan, to smother me with a pillow? That would have been easy enough. Both of you wanted me dead. Because you needed to cut me out of the money. Ellen had given you the idea that your brother’s dark little secret provided the perfect opportunity to get a piece of his wife’s fortune, but her plan failed. So we came up with a better one, didn’t we, pal? Yes, we did. But Veronica presented an even bigger temptation.”
“My guess is that at some point you got drunk and started bragging about the money and her eyes filled with dollar signs. Nothing could be more tempting to a struggling Hollywood actress than the prospect of a cool hundred million dollars. It was probably her idea to cut me out, wasn’t it? After all, why settle for a third, when you can keep half. I would never be able to compete with a woman who looks like that. Once she got into your pants and inside your head, I never had a chance.”
There was activity outside the room. I walked to the window and peeked through the blinds. A nurse was pushing a cart and had stopped to flirt with the cops. She was smiling and laughing as the officers acted macho. There was nothing of interest out there.
I returned to his bedside. Both his eyes were still closed. I still believed he was awake and listening.
“So she was supposed to finish me off back at my apartment, but something went wrong, didn’t it? Something very unexpected. It turns out that Ellen had made an enemy when she tried to blackmail Senator Shelby, and he sent a couple thugs to take care of me and her and they knew she’d be staying over at my place. To them I’d just be collateral damage, but by the time they showed up I was already unconscious from the surprise Veronica had dumped into my drink. So the Mexican and his friend killed her and made it look like rough sex. They didn’t touch me because there was no reason to.”
I watched him. Most of the color had already drained from his face. There was so much brain damage he probably couldn’t form a complete thought. I kept half expecting his eyes to flutter open at any moment and for him to start explaining what really happened, to start shooting holes in my narrative. He didn’t do that — he just kept right on dying.
“Terry, my friend, I have several very good reasons for being happy that you are going to die in that bed. For starters, you were screwing my girlfriend behind my back, though I fully acknowledge she was only using me to get to you. Really though, that pales in comparison to the fact that you tried to kill me. Forget about the women and the money for a second, and let’s focus on the fact that we’ve been best friends and partners in crime at that agency for longer than I care to remember. You chose women and money over friendship. How sad is that? I’m not going to hold that against you, because in the long run it’s all going to wind up in my favor.”
His breathing was shallow. There were tubes in his nose. He looked very old. I planned to skip his second funeral. I assumed most people would.
“Then there’s Hopper,�
� I said. “It took me forever to figure out where he fit into the puzzle. As my memory returned, it hit me right in the face. See, he got all turned around and confused the morning after Veronica was murdered, because I was the one he expected to be dead, not the girl. So when he saw me, he had to make up a story about me delivering her for some clients of his. That, of course, was a lie. Veronica was supposed to meet him at Grand Central and they would meet you. Then later he panicked and decided to take care of me himself. That didn’t work out too well. Hopper’s real job was to find Hank for you. Hank was the key to it all, of course. Hank’s dead body in the bathtub threw everyone off your trail. No one would come looking for you, because Hank was you. We came up with a great plan, didn’t we?”
I folded my arms over my chest and smiled, but the smile quickly faded.
“You put a knife in my back, Terry, and you got what you deserved. As did Veronica. As did Hopper. Payback is a bitch. You’ll die in a day or two. That’s probably best. Otherwise you’ll be eating meals through a straw for a few years until you swallow your tongue in your sleep. Better to go now, like this, I’d say. Save yourself a lot of misery and walk toward the light, old friend. Don’t fight it, just go.”
I touched his hand. It was cool and dry. I glanced at the monitors, watched the lights, listened to the hum of the electronics.
I went out, closing the door behind me, and made small talk with the cops for a few minutes. Then I took the elevator down and stood on the sidewalk.
My memory was fully restored. I remembered everything. Every detail. Including all the account numbers where Terry had hidden Harrison Shelby’s money. All I had to do was be patient for a few months, even a year or more, if necessary, and let things cool off until interest in Terry faded from everyone’s mind. I could wait as long as needed, because I was going to be a very rich man. I could easily wait twelve short months to collect a hundred million dollars. I could do that standing on my head. I stared up at the stars above the smog and smiled big and bright, very proud of my dumb luck.
Dead and Gone Page 23
