“Oh, yes, I’ve seen your advertisements. ‘We’ll grow your money; we’ll earn your trust.’” Noel’s voice matched perfectly the sonorous tones of the ad’s voice-over actor. The Englishman nodded knowingly. “It has been a hard year for investment firms. But you’ve made out well personally, haven’t you?”
“I did okay.” Gleason, indeed everyone at BE&S, was careful with compensation queries these days. Last year’s bonuses had unleashed a firestorm of criticism.
“Good. A man’s worth his salt.” As Emma arrived with a new whiskey sour for Gleason, Noel said, “Please put that on my bill, my dear.”
“Thank you, Charles,” Gleason said. “Have you been here before?”
“No, this is my first time. I recently purchased a pied-à-terre in a development near Prior Lake. I noticed this tavern on my way home, so I thought I’d give it a go. Do you come here often, Sully?”
“Most nights after work. Usually, things are quieter.”
The singers were now arguing heatedly over whether there were seven lords a-leaping or swans a-swimming.
“The sounds of the season,” Noel said wryly.
“Fingernails on a chalkboard is more like it. Oh, Christmas is a benefit for business, but that’s all it has going for it.”
“So you’re in the ‘Bah, Humbug’ club.”
“That I am.” Gleason sipped his drink. “I had a bad experience last Christmas. I doubt I’ll ever enjoy the season again.”
“What happened, my friend?”
Gleason was immediately wary, realizing he’d said too much. A few months earlier, a woman slapped him in the face when she discovered who he was. “Uh, never mind. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Wait a minute. Sullivan Gleason? I’ve heard that name before. Ah, I’ve got it—the Good Samaritan case. That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Gleason said carefully, ready to duck.
“Goodness me, I’ve read about your travails. I am so sorry.”
Gleason relaxed. “Thank you. It’s been a trial.”
“It must have been horrible, having that poor girl drown and then finding yourself blamed for the tragedy. It’s absolutely chilling!”
“It could have been worse,” Gleason said. “My lawyer fended off the police and a civil suit the family filed. Today he said that unless there’s some spectacular new evidence, I’m in the clear.”
He said it confidently, though his thoughts drifted to Maggie. She wouldn’t hurt me with this, would she? She was all passion and fire, which made her wonderful in bed and unbearable out of it. Their breakup had involved shouted curses and a hurled hotel-room lamp shattering within inches of his head. But if she ever changed her story, she’d face charges and likely be sued as well.
“Excellent!” Noel raised his glass. “To a good man of business.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Gleason said, clinking his glass against Noel’s. Draining the liquor, he set it on the bar as he stood up. “I need to make a pit stop.”
“Fine. I’ll have a refill ready when you return.”
“You’re a good man yourself, Charles.”
After finishing his business, Gleason stepped to the men’s room sink. He closed his eyes and dropped his head, feeling the alcohol numbing his skin. Reaching out, he twisted the cold water tap. Air in the pipes caused a quick triplet of hollow clangs before the water streamed out.
... Clunk, clunk, clunk. Fists on safety glass. Can’t break it, yet she tries. Staring at him. Shouting! Pleading! Then black water swallowing the car ...
Gleason’s eyes burst open, his heart racing. Damn it! He hadn’t flashed back to the accident in months, long enough that he felt he’d put the night behind him. Gleason quickly splashed water on his face, unmindful of the splatters flying onto his suit coat.
When he returned to the bar, Noel handed him a fresh drink. Gleason downed half of it, seeking to quiet the echoes of that night.
“Perhaps you should take care,” Noel said. “Don’t the police believe alcohol was involved in your case?”
“Yeah. It’s a lie, of course. I’d only had one drink here before heading home that night. There were plenty of witnesses.”
“Of course. My worry, Sully, is that the police might want to catch you driving drunk. That would toss petrol onto the flames, don’t you think?”
“Damn right it would!” Gleason’s face turned granite-hard. “That lead detective, Abernathy, would like nothing better than that. Good thinking, Charles. I’ll switch to coffee and get a sandwich before driving home.”
“A wise plan, my friend.”
Gleason smiled at the thought of putting one over on that cop. He drained the drink, and moved to set the glass on the bar.
He missed.
Somehow Noel caught the glass before it crashed to the floor. Gleason’s stomach wrenched violently. Sweat beads erupted on his forehead.
“I feel sick,” he moaned. “Oh, God!”
“I say, we best get you outside. Can you manage? Do you need an arm?’
“No ... I’ll make it.”
“You head on. I’ll settle up for us both and meet you outside.”
Gleason nodded. He moved with exaggerated care, slipping his coat on as he walked. Once outside, he dashed to the corner of the building and bent over. Everything in his stomach spewed out like a geyser. For a while he thought he might die. Then he prayed that he would—anything to make the episode pass. When the nausea finally receded, he felt as wrung out as a twisted dish rag.
The cold Minnesota night bit at his skin. December had been temperate, meaning the thermometer flirted with freezing during the day, but the nights remained frigid. Sounds were softened by a comforter of snow.
He felt a hand pat his shoulder. Turning his head, he found Noel holding out a water bottle to him.
“Here. Rinse your mouth and then drink some. It will make you feel better.”
After Gleason did as told, Noel helped him straighten and braced him beneath his arms. “We need to get you home, Sully. I’ll drive you there.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t; I volunteered. I’ll call a cab from your place. I’ll be fine. Now, which car is yours?”
“It’s the Escalade, over there.” Gleason managed to pass the keys to Noel. After getting him into the passenger seat, Noel circled the SUV and climbed in behind the wheel.
“What’s your address, Sully?”
“Seventy-five forty-nine Needham Drive, in Brandywine Estates. It’s a new development, south of Cleary Lake Park and the Legends Club.”
“I looked there when house-shopping.” Noel withdrew his BlackBerry and searched for the address. “There it is, off of Black Farm Road.”
“Uh, yeah, but take Silverton. It’s a better road.” Gleason reached across the console and patted Noel’s arm. “Thanks for doing this.”
While Noel drove out of the parking lot, Gleason reclined his seat and closed his eyes. He was feeling a bit better now. He sipped more of the water before recapping the bottle and dropping it into the cup holder.
“My, it’s a beautiful night,” Noel said as he drove. “We don’t have snow like this in London often, and when we do we don’t know what to do with it.”
“Yeah, nice night,” Gleason mumbled.
“It’s as if we were in an illustration for Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It’s a powerful image Dickens creates, with Scrooge observing the consequences of his actions throughout his life. He had a chance to repent, to face those consequences and renew his spirit.”
Consequences, Gleason thought. That silly old miser knew nothing of consequences! Not ones that could destroy you if acknowledged. Ones you had to lock away in your brain and try to forget ...
Instead of forgetting, Gleason remembered that horrible night—every pungent, awful moment.
Until his life twisted like a corkscrew, it was a wonderful day. He’d let the staff leave BE&S’s Bloomington regiona
l office at two-thirty P.M. A few were going to the nearby Mall of America for last-minute presents, while one or two were heading to Minneapolis-St. Paul airport to catch flights home. Gleason knew MSP well; his region had local offices spread over ten states.
A few employees commiserated with Gleason about having to stay for a six P.M. conference call. After giving them ten minutes to clear the building, he opened his cell and dialed the number he’d been waiting to call all day.
“They’re gone,” he said when she answered.
“See you soon.”
Twenty minutes later, there was a knock at his private entrance. He rushed to open the door.
“I thought you’d never call!” Maggie said, entering. She wore a calf-length black fur coat and carried a bag from Whole Foods market. “I brought food for later, and I got you a Christmas present.”
Closing and locking the door, he turned to her. “What’s my present?”
Setting the bag on his desk, she undid her coat and turned to him, holding the coat open. Beneath she wore nothing but a black corset, panties, and nylons, along with a green ribbon with a bow around her waist.
“Merry Christmas,” she said in a husky voice, and then burst out laughing. “I’ve seen this in movies and wanted to try it. I thought my tush would freeze getting in here from the parking garage. At least my car’s got a good heater.”
He came to her and slipped his hands onto her waist. “You’d better not let your husband see you like this.”
“Don’t worry. I have some demure clothes in the bag.”
Gleason confined his affairs to married women. They were passionate and grateful, and they didn’t nag at him about marriage, a fate he’d managed to avoid thus far. That Maggie’s husband was a business competitor made it all the more satisfying.
They took a break around five to eat, washing the food down with eggnog laced liberally with rum. The conference call came in at six P.M. He was glad it wasn’t a video call, since Maggie didn’t get dressed until the call’s conclusion. After she headed home around seven, Gleason tidied the office, removing all remnants of their time together. He tossed the leftover food into a dumpster, but the remaining rum and nog went into his stainless-steel travel mug.
One for the road, he thought.
Maggie’s tastes ran to marinated mushrooms and olives, brie cheese and stone-ground crackers, which might have satisfied a runway model. Gleason headed south on Route 77 to his favorite steakhouse, in the Apple Valley area. He passed on wine with dinner, feeling he was near the limit from the rum. It was a choice he was thankful for later. Heading home past the Burnside Mall, he still made his usual stop at Jimmy’s, but only for one drink.
It always surprised him, the quick change from congestion to countryside outside of Minneapolis. For the final leg home, he took Black Farm Road since it was less traveled than Silverton, and less likely to be patrolled by the police. Near Calico Lake, the fatigue from his time with Maggie, augmented by the heavy food and plentiful alcohol he’d consumed, hit him like a crashing wave. He could hardly keep his eyes open. The Escalade weaved across the road and back again. Just get home, he repeated like a mantra.
He was far to the left when he came around a corner by the lake.
Instantly two headlights burned his eyes. He couldn’t react. He just came straight on.
Later he learned the girl’s name was Cortney Bice, a twenty-year-old sophomore at the University of Iowa. Her yearbook photograph showed a cheerleader archetype, though she was a dean’s list student. Heading home for Christmas Day, she’d left I-35 at Newmarket to travel cross-country to Chaska.
“She always enjoyed driving the back roads,” her father, Bradley Bice, told the news conference. Her mother, Ruth, stood by him, choking back tears.
Cortney did react, jerking the wheel of her Cavalier to the right. The cars came within a millimeter of each other, but never touched. While the Escalade remained on the road, the Cavalier flew off the embankment, sailing in an arc before smashing through the ice covering Calico Lake.
Gleason managed to stop the Escalade. Releasing his seatbelt, he tumbled out of the SUV and jogged back to where the car went off the road. Looking down, he saw its rear end bobbing in the water.
“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” he said rapidly.
Then he heard the clunk and saw a fist in the Cavalier’s rear window. Cortney had climbed into the backseat. Seeing him, she pounded on the glass with all the terror-driven might she could muster and shouted, “Help me! Please, help me!”
He knew what he should do—dive into the water, open a door, save the girl. He even took a step forward. Then his mind raced on. Yes, and then the police will come. She’ll tell them how you ran her off the road and the cops will give you a Breathalyzer test. You’ll light it up. Drunk driving was no longer winked at in business circles. There’d be a civil suit too, of course. The jury would delight in taking several pounds of flesh from his body.
Gleason looked down at Cortney again. At first she smiled, thinking he would rescue her, but as he remained unmoving, the crushing realization that no help was coming slammed into her. She pounded harder, but she didn’t have the strength or purchase in the flooding car to break the window. The pleading changed to an inarticulate scream of rage.
He could still hear the pounding as the car slipped beneath the surface.
But not out of sight. The car settled with its roof only a foot below the surface. Anyone investigating the gash left in the snow bank would discover the wreck.
What to do, what to do? Gleason paced back and forth, gulping the icy air into his lungs. He could leave; no one had seen him. But what if some homeowner further up the road noticed him pass by and remembered the time?
Then a thought flared in his mind. What if I controlled the report?
Gleason worked the idea feverishly, then set to work. Grabbing his travel mug, he ran along the roadway until he was out of sight of the scene. Ducking into the forest, Gleason jammed a finger down his throat until he threw up. He poured out the remaining spiked eggnog before carefully scooping snow over the mess. With more snow he washed the mug, drying it with his handkerchief. No cars had passed; there wasn’t even the hint of an approaching engine in the air. Gleason ran back to the Escalade, where he did wind sprints and jumping jacks on the blacktop. Once he felt reasonably sober, he carefully—oh so carefully—backed the SUV around the corner and another a half-mile farther. Shifting into drive, he accelerated until, just before the turn, he slammed on the brakes and yanked the wheel to the right, ramming into the snow. He pulled back onto the road and drove to the accident scene while dialing 911.
The tape of the call was released to the media:
Operator: “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
Gleason: “Hey, I’m on Black Farm Road and some idiot just ran me into a snowbank. It was a Mustang, I think, weaving all over. I’m back on the road, so I’m okay, but he’s going to cause ... wait a minute. It looks like someone else went off the road. The guy must have cut them off, too. Let me get out and check.” The sound of a car door opening followed by footsteps could be faintly heard. Then, shouted: “There’s a car in the lake! I see a girl in it! It’s going under! Get someone here fast!”
The call lasted another four minutes during which Gleason sounded completely panicked. The tape ended with the sounds of approaching sirens.
The responders rushed to rescue the girl from the sunken car, but were unable to revive her. The police walked him through his story several times. Gleason added small details, like the Mustang’s color, to increase his story’s veracity. Eventually he was allowed to leave.
It would have been perfect, except for the damned watch.
The 911 call came in at 10:23 P.M. Cortney’s analog watch had stopped at 10:08.
That was when Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Investigator Jarvis Abernathy came on the case. He went through every inch of Gleason’s story like a proctologist. The story played o
ut in the Star-Tribune and on the local TV stations, the police saying Gleason’s story didn’t hold up, while Gleason’s lawyer proclaimed the police had settled on his client, a Good Samaritan who tried to help, just to close a case. He became the focal point of debate in the Twin Cities. Some wanted his hide, while others took Gleason’s side, viewing him as an unjustly persecuted man.
Gleason had cringed when he heard Cortney’s grandfather was some big celebrity in Hollywood, knowing it would keep the story alive. The family did try a civil suit, but Gleason’s lawyer managed to get a continuance while the police investigation was pending. As his lawyer explained, a stalled case could help get the suit tossed.
It had been months since the paper or the TV stations had run a story, but with tomorrow being the one-year anniversary, Gleason planned to stay home, ducking any reporters who might want a follow-up story. He just wanted the whole memory to fade away, especially from his own mind.
Gleason opened his eyes as the car slowed. Looking out, he saw that Noel was stopping at the accident scene on Black Farm Road.
“This is where it happened, isn’t it?” Noel asked as he put the car in park, leaving the engine idling. “Lake Calico, a few miles before the turnoff for the Brandywine development?”
“Yes,” Gleason managed to croak out of his dry mouth. He uncapped the water bottle and took a long pull.
“It was the lost fifteen minutes that made the police disbelieve your story. They couldn’t reconcile why that much time had passed.”
“Her watch was slow.” Gleason’s lawyer had used that line often in the accident’s aftermath. “That’s the only explanation that makes sense. I didn’t delay reporting the accident. Why would I do that?”
“They suggested you were trying to get sober.”
“I only had one drink that night. I was sober.”
Noel looked at Gleason. “Sully, what if this were your night to be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past? If we went back one year and stood here, would we see your Escalade weaving drunkenly along the road, forcing the Cavalier into the water? Would we see you standing there while that young girl pounded on the window until her hands bled?”
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 01/01/11 Page 15
