A Hero's Homecoming

by Havel, Carlene;

  Rich had a sinking feeling Rita had something to do with this. He handed his Master Card to the agent and said, “Let’s try this one.”

  The Master Card transaction didn’t go through either. After swiping a third card, the young man said fearfully, “I’m very sorry, sir. American Express is asking that we, uh, confiscate your card and return it to them.”

  Rich stared at the scared young agent. A lot of people must vent their anger out on this kid when their credit cards flunked. As for Rich, he couldn’t waste the fury that was building inside him. He was saving every bit of it for someone else, someone named Rita. He surrendered the American Express card without argument.

  “Okay,” Rich said. “I’ve got enough cash to cover a three day rental, so let’s...”

  “Oh, uh, I am so sorry, sir, but you see we only do credit card rentals. Unfortunately, we can’t accept cash.”

  The situation was so ridiculous Rich couldn’t help but see some humor in it. He laughed and put his wallet away. “Son,” he said, “would you mind calling me a taxi?”

  The rental car agent seemed only too happy to get Rich off his hands without a screaming match. In a few minutes, Rich was in the back seat of a cab, riding through familiar streets to his dad’s house.

  A tremendous sense of relief rolled through him when the taxi driver pulled into the circular driveway of the stately old Martino home. He was delighted to see his dad’s blue luxury car parked outside the garage.

  Rich rolled his suitcase onto the front porch, rang his dad’s doorbell, and waited. After a few minutes, he rang again. Then he knocked.

  If some stranger comes to the door, he’s a dead man, Rich thought.

  When there was no response to the knocking, he took out his keys, found the one to his dad’s front door, and went inside.

  The high-pitched beep of the security system wailed, reminding him to enter an access code. He punched in his private number, the one his dad always reserved for him, but to his surprise the beeping did not stop. In disbelief, Rich punched in the number again. No luck. Another alarm would start in another two minutes.

  “Hey, Dad, where are you?” he yelled. Rich walked back toward the kitchen. “Dad? Dad?” he called. Rich went up the stairs to his father’s bedroom. “Dad? Are you here?” he hollered.

  A piercing wail filled the house. But the earsplitting alarm was the only sound Rich heard—there was no sign of anyone else in the house.

  When the telephone rang, Rich answered, aware it would be the security monitoring company. He knew they would check to see if the alarm had been tripped accidentally. He gave the authentication code. “Do it Junior’s way,” Rich said instead of hello.

  “This is the monitoring company. Are you all right?”

  “Sure, everything’s fine. I guess my dad must have changed his security codes and forgot to put mine back in,” Rich answered. “And, as I said—do it Junior’s way.”

  “Thank you, sir. We just had to verify everything’s all right. Have a nice day.”

  Although the noise of the alarm was extremely loud and most annoying, Rich knew it would cycle off in about ten more minutes. He also knew how to disable the alarm. Doing that would lead to some repairs by the security company and his father would be irritated. No, it was better to gut it out. The luxury car sitting in front of the garage made Rich think his Dad had probably stepped over to a neighbor’s house. The alarm should bring him home quickly enough.

  Rich hauled his carry-on bag to his upstairs bedroom. He went back downstairs and rolled his suitcase into the living room. He stood for a moment, trying to decide whether to roll it up or put it over his head and carry the bag upstairs the old-fashioned way.

  As he bent to pick up the suitcase, Rich heard a male voice right behind him shout, “Police! Put your hands up and turn around. Slowly.”

  Rich did exactly as he was instructed. Placing his hands in the air, he turned around very, very slowly. Policemen are getting younger every year. This one couldn’t be more than twenty-five, probably less. Rich decided it would be best not to offer to shake hands. Instead, he smiled and said, “Hi. I’m Rich Martino. This is my dad’s house. Pleased to meet you.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Saturday morning started for Charlotte like every other day, with her devotions. As she promised, Charlotte prayed for Dick to come out of his coma. She also asked God to give her and Jerry the wisdom and strength they needed to cope with Dick’s affairs until he was able to manage for himself.

  There was no reason to look professional on Saturday, the one day of the week when Charlotte didn’t attempt to blow dry her long, thick hair. She washed it, toweled it dry, and made pigtails. What a relief it was for that one day not to have the weight of her hair pinned upon her head. Less than a week with this mop of hair, she thought gratefully.

  Charlotte lit into her Saturday cleaning with gusto. She never felt she could justify spending money for someone to clean her house. While she didn’t particularly enjoy housework, she had disciplined herself over the years to set aside an established time to get it done and stick to the schedule. Her one luxury was to have her yard maintained by a professional lawn service, which she started using when her son, Christopher, went away to college two years ago.

  By noon the kitchen sparkled. The laundry, vacuuming, and dusting were complete for another week. Clutter accumulated during the past seven days was cleared and put away. Mingling scents of soap and lemons made the air appealingly fresh. Though exhausted, Charlotte looked around with satisfaction. How pleasant her home was, especially after it was cleaned and scrubbed.

  Not surprisingly, a call to her mother’s cell phone went directly to voice mail. Charlotte ate a sandwich and called Chris, her son and the delight of her life. “Hello, sweetheart. How are things at school?”

  “I’m doing fine, Mom. What’s happening in good old San Antonio?”

  “Nothing but the weather—hot and humid, like the rest of south Texas. I hope you’re staying inside, in the air conditioning. Once you’ve had too much sun like you did last summer, it’s not safe for you to be out in this heat.”

  “Don’t worry. I haven’t seen the sun in a week,” Chris replied. “Funny, I never thought about fourteen hours a day in the computer lab being a way to avoid sunstroke.”

  “Fourteen hours! You’re working too hard, Chris. You shouldn’t be taking so many courses. I’ve told you time and again to go ahead and take the full five years to finish your degree. That’s not going to send me to the poor house.” Charlotte took a breath. I’m becoming my mother, she thought, treating her son like a baby. “Besides, college is a time to have some fun. I’m not saying you shouldn’t study, but you have to take a break occasionally."

  “I don’t study all the time,” Chris replied. “As a matter of fact, I went to a concert this week with Amy. You should been there. The guy at the piano never looked at one page of music. Can you imagine that? Two hours and I didn’t hear a single sour note.”

  “Amy? I haven’t heard you talk about her before.”

  “Sure you have,” Chris replied. “We’re good friends. We met at church. She’s the nurse, remember? Lives with her parents?”

  “I’d like to meet her someday.”

  Charlotte stared at the phone after they said goodbye and hung up. A nurse. Probably older than Chris. The right time would come for him to fall in love, get married, and have children of his own. Not yet, however. Not until he finished school. Wait for some maturity. Live a few years before making that crucial choice of a life-long partner. Charlotte prayed her son would never suffer a broken heart. Do as I say and not as I do. Or did, she thought.

  Earlier that morning, Charlotte noticed soap scum accumulating on the agitator of her washing machine. After removing the central dispenser cup, she uncovered more flaky residue underneath. Darn this hard San Antonio water, she thought, taking the agitator from the washer and scrubbing it in her kitchen sink. The job took much longer than expected
. By the time she put the washing machine back together and cleaned up the mess, it was almost five o’clock. A quick shower would leave barely enough time to swing through Alamo Hills and pick up Dick’s mail before going on to the hospital. Chores finished, Charlotte wanted her well-earned hot shower, not a ringing telephone.

  Finally, her mother’s voice! Lottie bubbled about the good time she’d had in Dallas. “Mom, what is the Loyal Order of Doves? What do you want me to do for them?”

  “No. No, Charlotte, it’s the Loyal Doves of Texas. We want the state legislature to ban the hunting and killing of those beautiful birds. The Doves have a conference next week in Houston. Anita said you would be free on Wednesday and that’s perfect because that’s our horizon-broadening workshop day. Your workshop is from one till two-thirty. People with all different kinds of jobs are going to come and hold sessions to tell the Doves what they do. You know, the same talk you do at schools for career day.”

  “I don’t know what being a counseling psychologist has to do with dove hunting, Mom, but I’ll be there if that’s what you want.”

  “Wonderful!” Lottie exclaimed, ignoring the implied question. “And by the way, dear, Martha—you know my good friend Martha—and I are flying home from Dallas this evening. We’ll be landing in San Antonio at eight-thirty. Could you pick us up at the airport?”

  The timing would be tight. It would only work if she could see Dr. Stephens, then go directly to the airport.

  “Of course. I’ll be glad to,” she said. “You know how I feel about you riding in a taxi after dark.” It might seem silly, but Charlotte felt very protective toward her mother. Overprotective, some might say. “I need to know your airline and flight number.”

  “Well, Martha has our tickets and she went shopping. I think it’s American Flight Airlines. Does that sound right? I wouldn’t think two planes could land at the same time, so I guess it’s whatever flight is coming in from Dallas at eight-thirty. I really don’t know. Oh, dear.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll figure it out,” Charlotte said. “Go ahead and come out the front doors by the baggage claim carousels and I’ll cruise past and pick you up outside by the curb. Now be sure to turn your cell phone on as soon as you land in case I need to call you.” Smiling, Charlotte shook her head. Her mother could get an appointment with the governor if she needed to, but didn’t know what airline she would fly with that very evening.

  The phone startled her by ringing again. “Mrs. Phillips?” a business-like voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “This is the Safe-N-Sure Security Monitoring Company. We have a confirmed alarm activation at the Richard Martino home. The Alamo Hills Police Department have dispatched a patrol car.”

  A confirmed alarm activation? She wished she had asked exactly what that meant before hanging up the phone. In any case, she would need to check Dick’s house right away. Picking up her purse, she walked to her car, praying she wouldn’t arrive before the police.

  It was normally a twenty-minute drive from Charlotte’s house to Alamo Hills. Because of pokey drivers and uncooperative traffic signals, it was more than twenty-five minutes before she pulled into Dick’s circular driveway. The huge, majestic home looked perfectly normal, except for the Alamo Hills police car parked in the driveway.

  She hurried to the front door and found it slightly ajar. A strange ruckus sounded from a nearby room. A group of men, talking, and could they be laughing?

  “...and then you kick him in the nuts,” Charlotte heard a rich baritone voice say as she walked quickly from the foyer into the spacious living room.

  A young man in a police uniform sat on the couch, grinning. Another very young officer was lying on the floor, laughing so hard he was gasping for breath. Standing over the policeman on the floor was a tall, ruggedly handsome man, not as young as the others, and not in uniform. Tall, broad-shouldered, deeply tanned and muscular, with short blond hair and sky-blue eyes. Charlotte thought the man looked like an aging California surfer.

  The two young policemen looked at Charlotte as if they had been caught smoking in the boys’ bathroom. Then the surfer looked Charlotte in the eye and spat, “Who the hell are you?”

  Both police officers were busily standing, straightening their uniforms, smoothing their hair.

  “I would never phrase it that way,” Charlotte responded mildly, “but I was about to ask you the same question.”

  “Officer Johnson, ma’am,” said the better-looking of the two young men, suddenly all business. “We responded to an alarm at this location, Patrolman Ruiz and I, approximately a half hour ago. This gentleman—” he nodded toward the surfer— “has put forth an explanation that the alarm was a mistake and we were waiting for further instructions, ma’am.”

  Charlotte considered the surfer. Granted, he didn’t look like a thief, and he wasn’t acting much like one. What was he doing inside Dick’s house? Other than burglary, what possible purpose could he have? There was something familiar about this tall blond, but she could not immediately identify what.

  “Would someone like to explain the mistake theory?” she asked.

  The surfer looked her up and down before he answered. With embarrassment, Charlotte remembered she was still wearing her house cleaning clothes—a pair of her son Chris’s old boy scout shorts that swallowed her and had a hole in one leg. A sweaty Spurs tee shirt, with washing machine grease smeared on the front. Flip-flops. And her hair in what Chris teasingly called her Pocahontas look.

  “I’m the owner of this house. And you?” He was also the owner of that honey-baritone voice Charlotte had heard from the entry way.

  “This house belongs to Dick Martino. And you’re not him,” Charlotte said evenly.

  The man narrowed his eyes and glared at her. “I’m Rich Martino, Dick’s son.”

  “That can’t be true either. Dick Martino’s son, his only child, died last year.” Thank goodness for the police officers, she thought.

  “What? You’re out of your mind, lady. Where’s my dad? He’ll straighten this whole mess out in a New York minute.”

  Should she tell this man Dick’s personal business? “Mr. Martino is in the hospital,” she said simply. “And I really think—”

  “Hospital?” The surfer’s face contorted, clearly concerned, as one would expect from a real son. “What happened to him? Is he all right? I have to go and see him. Right now! Which hospital?”

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte said and she really was. The man looked genuinely distraught. Probably he was upset at being caught red-handed breaking into a house, but she couldn’t stop some stirrings of compassion for him.

  “Look,” the surfer said. “I don’t know who you are. But I do know who I am. The neighbors around here all know me. Ask them. Is Ernestine Longoria still alive? She knows me, so go and ask her. She lives right next door.” He gestured in the direction where the Longorias lived.

  “I’ll try to verify this if you like, ma’am,” Officer Johnson said to Charlotte.

  “Yes. Please. I would appreciate that very much,” Charlotte replied.

  The policeman returned very quickly. “No one home,” he reported.

  “Well, try the Robinsons on the other side,” the surfer demanded.

  As Officer Johnson walked by, he laid a hand of comradeship on the surfer’s shoulder as if to say, “Game’s over, pal.”

  An image flashed blindingly across Charlotte’s mind. The tall blond son in the picture by Dick’s bedside. The mother reaching to pin a gold bar on one epaulette. Dick reaching to pin one on the other shoulder. This surfer was an older version of the young man in that picture.

  She stared, sure it was him. Of course, if he really was a burglar, she didn’t want the police to leave. But she didn’t want to send her friend’s son to spend the night in the Alamo Hills municipal jail, either.

  “Do you think your father’s dog would know you?” Charlotte heard herself asking.

  “Dog?” The surfer snorted. �
�My dad never had a dog in his life. Ask him. He’ll tell you he hates the filthy animals.”

  Interesting turn of phrase—exactly the quote Anita repeated from Dick. “Well, why don’t we check the back yard and see?”

  They walked through the kitchen and onto the patio. The surfer stared at the fancy fountain and doghouse in the far left corner of the back yard, then headed past the pool in that direction.

  “What do you know?” he said. There was a sudden cascade of loud barking. The surfer began, “I’ll be a son of a b—” The last word never came out.

  Golden Retrievers are large dogs, and Buster was big, even for his breed. With a speed that took Charlotte completely by surprise, he ran barking around the side of the house.

  In a frozen moment, Charlotte feared the worst. Buster is going to kill this man and it’s going to be my fault. Still ten feet away, Buster took a flying leap right into the surfer’s outstretched arms. Charlotte screamed. The two policemen stepped behind her to avoid the splash. Buster and the surfer hit the shallow end of the pool with a huge plopping sound and enough water displacement to float a small battleship.

  Both the man and the dog stood in the pool. The surfer was hugging the dog and the dog was licking the man’s face.

  To a constant background of licks and barks, the surfer was talking to man’s best friend. “Buster. Buster, old buddy. How have you been? Was Rita good to you? I was afraid I wasn’t going to find you, Buster. You don’t know how glad I am to see you.”

  Charlotte turned to the policemen and said, “Thank you, officers. I’m convinced this man really is Mr. Martino’s son. There must have been some mistake. Thank you so much for coming.”

  “Certainly, ma’am. We’re glad to be of service,” said Officer Johnson. The two young men wasted no time making their exit.

  Charlotte took a step toward the pool. “I still have a lot of unanswered questions about you,” she said.

  “You? You have questions? For me? I’d like some answers from you. Starting with where’s my dad?”