At least once, Corinne Curry tried to put a stop to Gunner’s account—“No, no, no,” her head swiveling from side to side in denial—but Daniel Curry shut her down with a look, paving the way for Gunner to make it through to the end. He took it all in without having uttered a single word himself. Wringing the life from a white handkerchief clutched in his right hand, Del’s father had no greater desire to believe what he was hearing than his wife, but this was the puzzle he had charged his nephew with piecing together, and he was bound to receive it with an open mind.
“So you’re saying Noelle and Zina were shot in a fight over the gun, and then Del used it on himself? Why would he do that?” Daniel Curry asked.
“The struggle for the gun started with him. Noelle was dead and it probably looked as if Zina was, too. He thought he’d just lost the two most important people in his life and that he was the one responsible.”
“But he wasn’t responsible!”
“No, of course not. But, in his mind, Noelle’s adultery and Zina’s affair with Hopp were both a direct result of his failure as a husband and a father, respectively, so what happened in that house was ultimately on him.”
“That’s plain foolishness,” Corinne said.
“Of course it is. But that’s how Del would have seen it, nonetheless.”
“And this man Buddy that Noelle was seeing?” Del’s father asked. “What about him?”
“I still haven’t identified him, and I’m not sure there’d be any point in my continuing to try. Because he played no part in what happened at Zina’s home Monday, whoever he is, and from all indications, he and Noelle were together on only the one occasion. He’s a sleeping dog. We should probably let him lie.”
“Yes, but—”
“Zina likely knows who he is and I suspect she’ll let us all know, too, eventually. There’s nothing to be gained by giving him a name now other than to have one more person to share some part of the blame for all this.”
They all fell silent for a moment, Gunner feeling suddenly and thoroughly exhausted. Del’s mother returned to shaking her head, the movement muted this time as she wiped tears from both eyes. Her husband, meanwhile, continued to strangle the handkerchief clutched in his hand, fingers biting down on the cloth to exorcise the anger he was desperately trying to contain.
“Glenn Hopp,” Daniel Curry said, bringing them all back to the present.
“Yes,” his wife said bitterly. “Are we supposed to treat him like a ‘sleeping dog,’ too?”
“Well, he’s certainly less innocent than the other,” Gunner said. “In fact, you could argue he bears more responsibility for Del’s and Noelle’s deaths than Del did himself. But there’d be no way to prove that in court, and there’s nothing illegal about what he did, in any case. Sleeping with a man’s office assistant and his adult daughter, both, may be highly unethical, but there’s no law against it, no matter how much damage he causes.”
“We could sue,” Del’s father said.
“Yes, Uncle. You could try. But based on what? Most of what I’ve just told you is conjecture. I’m fairly confident it’s accurate, but the reality is, we’ll never know what’s true until Zina gives a full account of what happened, and there’s no guarantee she ever will. Especially if she thinks the truth will interfere with her future relationship with Hopp.”
“‘Future relationship’? You don’t mean to say the child expects to go on seeing him?” Corinne Curry asked.
“I’m afraid that’s how it sounded to me at the hospital an hour ago. As far as Zina’s concerned, Hopp didn’t cause her to do what she did Monday—Noelle did. Noelle’s the villain here, not Glenn Hopp.”
The thought was appalling, even to him. Zina had lured her mother into a trap. Whether she planned to use the gun or not was almost immaterial; her intent was to point a loaded weapon at Noelle and let whatever happened, happen. All because she didn’t want to be told who to sleep with by a woman who was herself an adulteress. An adulteress whose infidelity had come at the expense of Zina’s beloved father.
Had Del not shown up without his daughter’s invitation at her crib Monday—either by chance or at the urging of his wife—perhaps things would have turned out much differently. But as it was, both of Zina’s parents were dead today, and the events leading up to their deaths could be traced straight back to her decision to draw an unarmed woman into a heated argument while she herself was armed to the teeth.
Again, silence was threatening to overwhelm them when Corinne Curry stood up from the hotel sofa and said, “We have to go. Zina’s waiting for us.”
Her husband and nephew both turned to give her the same look of disbelief.
“Corinne. I can’t. Not right now,” Daniel Curry said. Pleading.
“You can and you will. We must. No matter what she’s done, the child’s still our granddaughter, and you and I are all she’s got left.”
“You go. Let Aaron take you.”
“We’re both going.”
“No!” Gunner’s uncle erupted, and for a moment Gunner thought he might have to put himself between Daniel Curry and his wife to keep him from taking her in hand. “Not tonight. If I go to that hospital tonight, I don’t know—I don’t know what….” He dared not speak the rest. He shook his head, determined, and one more time, told Corinne, “You go.”
But his wife had lost her tongue.
Gunner rose to his own, unsteady feet. There was nothing for him to do but what he most wanted to avoid. “Come on, Miss Corinne. I’ll take you.”
21
FRIDAY MORNING, Gunner allowed Kelly DeCharme to cajole him into joining her for a meeting she had set up with Harper Stowe III’s father, Harper Stowe Jr. She had briefed the elder Stowe on the latest developments in his son’s case over the phone the night before, and now she wanted to do so in full, in person. But not without Gunner riding shotgun. Despite the good news she was bringing him, the old man was nearly as mercurial as his son and twice as large. Kelly didn’t care to be in a room with him alone if he chose to turn their conversation sideways.
They arrived at Harper Jr.’s tiny but clean Spanish-style home in Hyde Park at the agreed upon time of 11 a.m., sharp. Green lawns cut as flat as a tabletop lined the block, and a leaf blower growling several yards away made the only sound on the street as they left Kelly’s car.
Harper Jr. opened the door for them before they could ring the bell, as if he’d been watching out for them for hours. Gunner had never met the man before but had been warned by Kelly what to expect, and still Stowe made an impression. He looked like an ill-tempered, sixty-year-old triathlete. His hair was as white as driedout driftwood, pulled back into a single cord of dreadlocks, and he was dressed for a yacht party out at Marina del Rey: blue silk shirt, tan slacks, and brown closed-toe sandals. The brown leather belt cinching the slacks to his waist might have last fit Gunner twenty years ago.
“You’re late,” he said. Making an accusation that only held merit if one measured punctuality to the nth degree.
They paused in the foyer just long enough for Kelly to make introductions, then Stowe led them through the house and out to the back patio, a simple red brick affair dotted with potted plants and a single reclining deck chair. The view was of a backyard lawn as green and immaculately trimmed as the one out front, interrupted only by a lemon tree rising from its center. Stowe waved his guests into seats at a round wrought-iron table and took one for himself.
“Just made a pot of coffee,” he said, a cup in his hand. “Or I can get you water, if you prefer.”
Both Kelly and Gunner declined the offer. Getting down to business, the attorney said a few words to lay the groundwork for him, then gave Gunner the floor to describe at length the previous day’s events, which she’d only briefed Stowe on the night before. Harper Jr. listened intently, anger building, and allowed Gunner to finish before speaking his piece.
“You know where they’ll find him, don’t you?” he asked.
The questi
on wasn’t directed at him, specifically, but Gunner volunteered to answer it. “Woods?”
“He’ll be with Tyrecee. At her mother’s place, or a friend’s. Wherever he is, she knows about it.”
“It’s certainly possible.”
“It’s more than possible. They were in this together. She’s no less responsible for what Eric’s done to my son than he is.”
“You’re saying Tyrecee put Woods up to framing Harper for murder?” Kelly asked.
“Of course. Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stowe, but I haven’t seen anything yet to suggest that’s the case,” Gunner said. “In fact, depending on who you believe—the girl’s mother or her girlfriend—Woods’s infatuation with Tyrecee might be strictly a one-way street.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He chuckled derisively. “They stabbed my boy in the back. Both of them. But they aren’t going to get away with it.”
They waited for him to go on, curious to hear what he was inferring, but he just sat there staring back at them.
“Mr. Stowe,” Kelly said, “I think we should just wait to see what Woods has to say when he’s taken into custody before we make any assumptions about Tyrecee.”
“Oh, I’ll wait. Not much else I can do. But I’m not going to wait long. If that little bastard doesn’t turn up soon, I’ll go out and find him myself.”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Gunner said.
“You think I give a damn whether it’s a good idea or not?” The old man turned all his ire Gunner’s way. “Harper’s been through hell. Fought in a goddamn war we shouldn’t even be in, for a cause no sane person could explain, and he came back less than half the man he was when he left. Can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t go four hours straight without the pain in his head and his legs driving him to madness.
“And for what? How do people show their thanks for all his service and sacrifice? By treating him like a dog, that’s how. A sick, mangy dog unworthy of their time or pity!”
He stood up from his chair, tossed the remainder of his coffee into the yard. When he turned back around, his eyes were filled with tears. “He used to be beautiful. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. And now….”
He paused, shifting from morose to furious in the blink of an eye. “He loves that girl, do you understand? And he looks upon Eric as a brother. When he finds out what they tried to do to him, how they murdered that woman just to be rid of him, it’s going to tear him apart. They may just as well have put a bullet in his head!”
Gunner and Kelly shared a glance, neither wanting to be the one to warn Stowe again that any assumptions about Tyrecee Abbott and Eric Woods being coconspirators in Darlene Evans’s murder were as yet premature.
“Mr. Stowe—” Kelly said.
“No.” Harper waved a hand to cut her off. “Don’t. I’m all done talking. Justice is going to be done for my boy, and words aren’t going to do it. How soon before he can be released?”
“That’s hard to say. But certainly not before Woods is found and questioned.”
“And Tyrecee? What about her?”
“I’m sure the police will want to talk to her, as well. But—”
Stowe broke in on her again. “I want to thank you both for all you’ve done for my son. And I appreciate your coming by.”
And just like sheep, Gunner and Kelly were herded out to the front door.
Nothing about funerals distressed Gunner more than the wait leading up to them. The space of time between a person’s death and their eventual internment always felt endless to him, and the relief of having all the pomp and circumstance of a traditional service behind him—the vehicular procession, the halting obituaries, the graveside ceremony drowning in real and fake tears—could not come soon enough.
This time, however, it was Del he was waiting to see set deep in the ground, which only made his impatience that much more acute.
The final two days leading up to Del and Noelle’s Monday morning funeral passed in relative lethargy, one empty hour leading to the next. The dual tracks of work he’d been doing for Kelly DeCharme on the one hand, and in the service of his cousin’s memory on the other, were all but done. Suddenly, Gunner had little to occupy his mind but grief.
He might have joined the search for Eric Woods, whom the cops had yet to find, or continued to press his niece Zina for more details about the fate of her parents, but he lacked motivation for the one and the will for the other. Woods would turn up eventually, with or without Gunner’s help, and Zina—as Gunner had fully expected she would—had shut down again, even in the face of her grandparents’ intensified questioning. Once Del and Noelle had been laid to rest, Gunner would share with the LAPD the girl’s confession that she, and not Del, had provided the gun that killed her father and mother, and whatever truths she had yet to tell would be forced from her. But for now, as a gesture to Zina’s own sense of loss, he was content to leave her be.
For her part, Kelly did what she could to preoccupy Gunner until Monday could come. He spent all three weekend nights in her company and most of the day Sunday. Otherwise, Gunner waited for Monday’s arrival as a recluse, either shutting himself up in his office at Mickey’s or in his living room at home. The thought of visiting the Deuce barely crossed his mind.
Lilly Tennell was left with no choice, then, but to bring the Deuce to him.
When she showed up at his door early Sunday afternoon, Gunner immediately recognized the moment as an unprecedented one. The barkeep had never been to his crib before, uninvited or otherwise.
“You finished with my car?” she asked the instant Gunner answered her persistent ringing of his doorbell.
She hadn’t come about the car, and had only halfheartedly told the lie, but they both played along as if Gunner were too dumb to know better.
“You want it back? I’ll get the keys.” He turned as if to do so.
“Ask me in first, fool. Where the hell are your manners?”
She stepped inside his home like the new owner and didn’t stop until she was sitting in the living room, the full freight of her giant frame taxing the cushions on his couch to the limit.
“What do you want, Lilly?”
“Somethin’ to drink, to start. Water’s good, but ice tea would be better. You got ice tea?”
He went to the kitchen and filled a glass with tap water, taking care to make it as tepid as possible, just for spite. He put the glass in her hand and she sipped at it without complaint, taking her damn sweet time, stretching his patience out like an elastic band she was testing for it’s breaking point.
“What do you want, Lilly?” he asked again.
She put the glass down on his coffee table, made a face he’d never seen her make before. “We were gonna have a baby.”
There had to be more. He waited for it. But that was all she said.
“Say what?”
“Me and J.T. Nineteen sixty-eight, same year they murdered Dr. King. I was nine weeks on in August but lookin’ like I was fifteen.” A smile crossed her face. “It was gonna be our first; we talked about having four whenever the subject of kids came up. But J. changed his mind. When the time came to put up or shut up, the nigga got cold feet. So—”
“Lilly, why are you telling me this?”
“So I killed it. I went to a doctor like he said and killed my baby, ’cause that’s what he wanted and I never wanted anything he didn’t want.”
Gunner tried again: “Lilly—”
“Shut the fuck up and let me finish!” She wiped her eyes dry with the palms of both hands. Her cheeks shone wet in the darkness of Gunner’s living room. “I cried for four days straight. Hadn’t cried like that before and I ain’t cried like that since. And when I stopped cryin’ I got mad. The kind of mad you can hardly see through, or move with it inside you. I hated everything and everybody, I wanted to make the whole world pay for what I’d done. But I didn’t hate nobody more than I hated J.T. I hated his ass most of all.”
Finally recognizing his place in this exchange, Gunner just let her go, all the way to the end.
“So one night while he was asleep I got out’a bed and got the gun he used to keep in his nightstand drawer. And I put the barrel of that motherfucka right up against his head”—she demonstrated with her hand—“and waited ’til he opened his eyes to pull the trigger.” She held the pose, arm out, finger twitching inside the invisible weapon’s trigger guard….
“I wanted to do it. Jesus Lord, I did. But somethin’ stopped me. I just stopped. To this day, Gunner, I don’t know why.” Her arm fell loose to her side.
“I thought he was gonna kill me. Hell, I wanted to die. But he didn’t. He just took the gun away from me and tucked me back into bed. Like nothin’ had even happened.” She chuckled, met Gunner’s gaze straight on. “Ain’t that some shit?”
Gunner nodded. It sounded just like the John Tennell he remembered.
Lilly wiped the tears from her cheeks again, picked up her empty water glass and held it out for him to take. “Get me some more water. And let it run cold this time.”
He did as he was told. When she was finished drinking, she took in a deep breath, exhaled it luxuriously. Decompressing.
“You understand what I’m tryin’ to tell you?”
Good Man Gone Bad Page 18
