by Richard Cox
But then Meredith stood up, and behind her sat a suitcase, packed and ready for transport.
“I’m leaving,” she announced.
“Meredith, I’m sorry I walked out in the middle of our conversation. I was frustrated, and you’re right, I’m feeling a little shitty after last night.”
“I’m feeling shitty for flying out here with you. You don’t want or need me here.”
“That’s not true. I asked you to come because I wanted you here.”
“You asked me because you didn’t have any choice. You were afraid I’d be hurt if you didn’t invite me, and you’ll do anything to avoid talking about our relationship. You’ll do anything to keep me happy except the one thing that would truly make me happy.”
“Meredith—”
“Don’t ‘Meredith’ me. Not only do you not want me here, but you were looking at her all night. Your childhood sweetheart.”
“I told you she’s not my childhood sweetheart.”
“Whatever, David. I saw you looking at her. And anyway, it doesn’t really matter, because childhood sweetheart or not, I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t need me.”
“I want to be with you. Look, don’t leave, all right? Come with me to Corpus Christi.”
“You want me in your life?” Meredith asked. “Or you need me?”
The answer to her question was the reason he could not present the engagement ring. But instead of telling the truth, David feigned ignorance. He understood his behavior made no logical sense and still he could not stop himself.
“What’s the difference?” he said.
“It makes every bit of difference!”
“That’s just semantics, Meredith. Want, need, whatever. I said I wanted you to stay, and I meant it.”
Meredith picked up her suitcase. She approached David and set it down again.
“There is a big difference between ‘want’ and ‘need.’ If you want me in your life, it’s a temporary thing. You could easily stop wanting me. But if you need me, if you don’t want to live another day without me, that’s something else altogether. That’s love, David. Not convenience or passing the time or a fling—if you need me, you’re in love with me. If you can do without me, you’re not.”
David stood there and didn’t say anything. It was true he didn’t need her. He could do without her just as he had for his entire life before they met.
“I’m sorry you lost your father,” Meredith said. “But this is not the way to deal with it. Not by suddenly pretending to believe in the supernatural, and not by playing rich guy detective. I love you, David, and you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but in some ways you’re a kid. A big kid with a box full of toys. Pick one up, play with it, pick another up, play with that, and ten minutes later sit there and cry because you’re bored with everything. You should be taking some time to remember your father. You should be going through his things, looking for clues about how he felt about you. If nothing else, his passing ought to give you closure, help you move on with your life. You could build a family of your own, maybe even a son or daughter you could spoil. But the way you’re going now, it seems like you’ll never need anyone but yourself.”
In that moment he almost blurted the truth to her. It would be such a relief for someone else to know what he knew, that the world was an unfair place where a fortunate few were blessed with gifts that tilted the tables of life in their favor. But the awful reality, in the end, was that he didn’t want to save their relationship. He was relieved she was going back to California. The most difficult thing in any breakup was opening a dialogue like this one, and now Meredith had done the heavy lifting. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and it would be over soon.
“To be honest,” she said, “I’m not even that hurt. Because I know it’s not me. I’m sure you have a good reason why you think I’m not the one. But see, there’s always going to be something. Until you—or should I say ‘unless’—unless you realize there is more to life than moving on to the next big thing, there will always be something wrong with whoever you’re with.”
She reached for her bag again. David, incredibly, felt the urge to put his hands on her. To stop her. How could he be so eager for her to leave and yet feel compelled to ask her to stay?
“Goodbye, David. Whatever you’re looking for out here, I really hope you don’t find it. You shouldn’t have everything you want. You need a hole that someone else can help fill.”
“Meredith, let me—”
“I’ll get myself home, David. On a regular ol’ plane. And I’ll be just fine.”
She opened the door and left. David just stood there.
60
Adam worked often on Saturdays. Not necessarily because his projects were running behind, but more to get out of the house. Because the site in Tanglewood was still under arson investigation, he had driven instead to his only other ongoing project: a large stucco home in Canyon Trails. His task here was to inspect the plumbing work, because on Adam’s previous project, another custom home two blocks away, the new owners had already called to complain about leaky pipes and pressure problems. This seemed to confirm his suspicion that Bob Barnhardt, his best plumber, was working drunk again. Adam did not like to be drunk and had never understood why someone would want to spend most of their waking hours feeling that way. It seemed unproductive to be in such a disorganized state, so out of touch with yourself.
But right now, if someone had handed him a bottle of whiskey, Adam would have gladly poured himself a shot or four. He hadn’t slept well. He was twitchy. This morning in the shower his feet had been covered with dirt.
Adam hadn’t really believed it at first. Instead he’d imagined he was still in bed, dreaming the scene. Because dirt on his feet was simply not possible. Dirt on his feet meant he had either sleepwalked or blacked out and left his house in the middle of the night.
Then it occurred to him, if he really had gone outside, there would be dirt elsewhere. Adam shut off the water and rushed to the bed, where sure enough he found more dirt on the floor. And in the sheets. Luckily, Rachel was with Bradie in the kitchen, and Adam had been able to whisk the bedding into the wash and replace them with spares. When he wiped the floor, evidence of his nighttime excursion had been erased, and he was safe again. For the moment.
Still, people did not suddenly black out or sleepwalk for no reason. And if he could not account for his whereabouts during the night, he could not know exactly what he had done while he was out. There could be more evidence than just the dirt on his feet.
When he had finished his notes on the plumbing, Adam walked across the red dirt of the home site to his pickup. That’s when he noticed a man approaching from the street. The guy was dressed in a worn cham-bray shirt, jeans, and black boots. On his head he wore a grease-stained cap branded with the logo of Thomas Petroleum.
“Adam Altman?” the man said.
“What can I do for you?”
The guy was old, in his sixties, maybe. His skin was permanently tanned, creased deeply, as if it had been twenty or thirty years since he’d been indoors.
“My name is Kenny Steele. You may not know it, but I did some work for you a couple a years ago. I occasionally fill in on Juan Romero’s framing crew.”
Adam looked the guy over again. Kenny Steele? That made him—
“I’m Bobby’s dad. You and me may have met a time or two when you were a kid.”
“Yes,” Adam said. He walked closer to his truck, as if that would excuse him from this situation, but Steele followed.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Altman. I feel awful having to come here, but in this case I don’t really have a choice. It’s about my boy.”
Adam kept trying to elude his past, but it kept chasing at him, nipping at his heels.
“I know he done wrong,” Steele said, “and I ain’t asking for much. I was just hoping you might talk to Jonathan Crane for me.”
“I don’t really know Jonatha
n anymore.”
“I figured so. He won’t even talk to his own mama these days. But I got his number right here. I was hoping he might be able to help us out with the burial. Bobby didn’t have insurance, and as it stands now I’m gonna come up short. Carolyn don’t have much money left, neither.”
Steele was holding a yellow scrap of paper. His shaking fingers appeared to have been carved from wood. Dirt was a permanent stain under the nails.
“Please. I ain’t asking much. If you could just call Jonathan. He won’t pick up the phone if he sees the call come from us. I’m hoping he’ll find a bit of mercy in his heart and help us out.”
Adam was horrified to see Steele on the verge of tears. He grabbed the scrap of paper.
“Sure. I’ll call him.”
“Thank you much,” Steele said. “I appreciate it, I really do. There ain’t much worse in this world than having to bury your only child. There just ain’t much worse.”
Adam wanted to shout something to him, something like There are things much worse than that! So don’t whine to me about your stupid burial!
Instead he said, “I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll call Jonathan today.”
“Thank you again, sir.”
Adam stared at his feet. He couldn’t call Jonathan without being asked about the fires again, about the music Todd played, about what had happened to Joe Henreid. If he was forced to talk about that shit again, Adam might lose his fucking mind.
If he wasn’t already losing his mind.
61
Jonathan had never ridden on a private plane before, had never even seen one in person, so he was unprepared for David’s Gulf Stream. From the outside it looked more like a regional commercial jet, and Jonathan would have guessed the plane could seat fifty passengers, maybe a hundred. But then they boarded, and Jonathan found a space maximized for luxury, not economy. The maximum capacity was sixteen passengers, David said, though he’d never flown with more than eight. There was a couch, adjustable leather chairs, and a kitchen. A couple of bathrooms. Private quarters for the flight attendant, a smiling, sparkling blonde named Kimberly.
Moments later they climbed into the air, turned south, and Jonathan realized the cabin was quieter than his bedroom when the air conditioner was running.
“Too bad Alicia couldn’t join us,” David said. “Since she’s so skeptical, maybe she would benefit from hearing what Todd’s mom has to say.”
“She seems pretty dedicated to her own mother,” Jonathan replied. “They’d made plans already today and she didn’t want to break them.”
“I see.”
“Sorry about Meredith,” Jonathan said. “Relationships are tough, man.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to dwell on it. We should figure out what we’re going to say to Mrs. Willis. We’ll be on the ground in half an hour.”
“I’m just hoping she’ll be home.”
“You think we should have called first?” David asked.
“No. Calling would give her a chance to prepare for us. I want to see the look in her eyes when we start asking questions. How she reacts will tell us a lot, I think.”
“Okay, so we ring the bell and she answers. You think she’ll let us in?”
“Even if she does, then what?”
“Ask how her son could see the future?”
Jonathan smiled. Chuckled a bit.
“We’re going to sound ridiculous,” David pointed out. “There’s no good way to address it.”
“There isn’t. But how else are we meant to interpret that tape?”
“Meredith thinks you’re trying to turn real life into one of your books.”
“Like I’m faking all this somehow? Even though you remember the song, too?”
“That’s what I told her,” David said. “But she thinks you’ve convinced me of something that didn’t actually happen.”
“Honestly, I would be saying the same thing if I were her. I still can barely believe it even after we listened to the tape. And we haven’t talked about Joe Henreid yet.”
Even as kids they had never discussed what happened to Joe. News of his disappearance had reached each of them independently, and when it became clear the police suspected the kid of burning down the house on Driftwood, their collective relief had been so great the subject had been dropped forever.
“I don’t think there’s any point thinking about Joe,” David said. “I mean, unless you killed him.”
“No, I didn’t kill him. Did you kill him?”
“Of course not.”
“But someone had to have,” Jonathan said. “Don’t you think?”
“Yeah. I think someone did. But we can’t do anything about it now. It’s in the past and that’s where we ought to leave it.”
“You took the time to come all the way out here,” Jonathan said. “Don’t you want to understand what happened so you can put all this behind you?”
“Of course I want to understand. What do you think we’re doing on this plane?”
“Trying to find Todd.”
“Exactly,” David said. “I’m a whole lot more interested in Todd than Joe Henreid. Joe was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“And Todd? What was he?”
David was quiet for a moment. A couple of times he seemed ready to say something important, perhaps reveal something personal, but finally just shook his head.
“Hopefully we’ll know soon.”
They landed at Corpus Christi International Airport just after one p.m., and by one-thirty they were in a rental car, heading into the city. David drove while Jonathan keyed the address of Cassandra Willis into his iPhone. From the plane the city had looked beautiful, hugging the curved shoreline of a large bay that opened behind the coastal barrier islands. But on the ground, Jonathan thought Corpus looked like any other Middle American city, sprawling and suburban, dotted here and there with skinny palm trees.
In a few minutes they had reached their destination. The house was small and L-shaped. There were a couple of brick planters on either side of a cobblestone sidewalk, and a clear storm door was mounted in front of the solid-wood front door. They reached the porch and David rang the bell.
As they waited for someone to answer, Jonathan began to feel ridiculous. He’d just flown five hundred miles to interrogate a woman he’d last seen as a kid, and the questions he wanted answered were absurd. He found himself hoping David’s investigator friend was wrong, that maybe Mrs. Willis didn’t live here anymore. If she was so easy to find, why had Detective Gholson not called Mrs. Willis himself?
Jonathan was about to mention this to David when they heard a sound behind the door. It opened, and a small woman with short, steely-colored hair stood there looking at them from behind the clear storm door.
“Can I help you?”
“Mrs. Willis?” David said.
“Yes?”
“My name is David Clark. This is my friend, Jonathan Crane. We knew your son, Todd, when you lived in Wichita Falls.”
Mrs. Willis didn’t say anything right away, but recognition was obvious in the slackening of her facial features, in her eyes looking briefly at the ground.
Then she said, “I remember you boys. You made it easy on my son when he woke up. You were his friends.”
Jonathan nodded and so did David.
“Then you betrayed him.”
“Mrs. Willis,” David said, “I know you must not have a high opinion of us. All I can say is we were children at the time, we were very confused, and both Jonathan and I would like to apologize for what happened. We are sincerely sorry.”
“Deeply sorry,” Jonathan added.
“So you admit it?” Mrs. Willis asked. She held the front door mostly open but continued to stand behind the storm door. “You admit you helped Todd burn down that restaurant?”
“We helped him,” David said. “It was Todd’s idea, but we agreed and were directly involved.”
“Well,” Mrs. Willis said. “I suppose it
’s old news by now, anyway.”
She stood there looking at them, as if unsure what to say next.
“But you’re not here just to apologize to me, are you?”
“No,” David said. “We’d like to ask you some questions about Todd. If you have time, that is.”
“Time is all I have, Mr. Clark. I suppose I can spare some of it for you.”
Mrs. Willis pushed open the storm door and admitted them into her house. There was a small entryway, a dining room to the left, and family room straight ahead. She gestured to a large sectional sofa.
“Please have a seat. Would you like anything to drink?”
Neither of them did.
Mrs. Willis sat in a recliner opposite them and said to David, “It was your father’s restaurant, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Does he know you were involved?”
“No, I never told him what really happened. Unfortunately he’s no longer with us.”
Mrs. Willis considered this. “I’m very sorry.”
“The reason we’re here,” Jonathan said, “is there have been some cases of arson in Wichita Falls over the past few days. At least one of them was a fire set by our friend, Bobby Steele, who also knew your son. He burned down the same restaurant again, killing David’s father in the process. And Bobby himself was also killed.”
“Oh, my word,” said Mrs. Willis. “That’s awful. I’m terribly sorry for your loss, Mr. Clark.”
“Thank you,” David said. He appeared, surprisingly, to be moved by this exchange.
“The reason we’re here,” Jonathan continued, “is because these arson incidents did not stop when Bobby was killed. And each fire has affected a small group of friends who were connected to the restaurant fire when we were kids. With Bobby gone, it seems he might have had an accomplice who is still at large, and who feels some animosity toward us. Since that person isn’t David or me, that leaves either Adam Altman or your son. At this point we don’t think the police consider Adam a suspect, because he suffered a loss as well.”
Mrs. Willis looked away from them, and for a while all Jonathan could hear was the wind outside and the ticking of a clock.
