The taller of the two officers held out a business card. Oliver sucked in his breath when he realized he was looking down at his own business card, the one on which he’d written Eli’s number on the back, which was now nothing more than just a smear of blue ink. “Where . . . where did you get this?” he finally managed to croak, his tongue thick in his mouth.
The second officer licked at his lips. “From the dead body of a man. He was struck by lightning around eight o’clock last evening. The M.E. gave us this card and his personal effects. We went to the address on his driver’s license, but that location is empty and for sale. His company’s offices weren’t open yet, so we came here. We didn’t have your home address, just this address on the card. Are you Mr. Carlisle’s attorney?”
Oliver thought he was going to black out. All he heard were the words, dead body. He tried to calculate how many hours had passed since he’d parted company with Mace, but his frozen brain wouldn’t cooperate. “I am . . . was . . .” Suddenly, it was all important that these officers know he was more than Mace’s attorney. “I consider . . . considered Mace my oldest, closest, and dearest friend in the whole world.” His voice cracked, and he had to sit down. Again, he thought he was going to black out.
“If you’re up to it, Mr. Goldfeld, we’d like you to come with us to identify Mr. Carlisle’s body, unless you think someone from his company would be the better choice. Is there any family that you know of?”
“No family. I’m all the family Mace has. Of course I’ll come with you,” Oliver said, his voice cracking all over again. “But first I want to call Mace’s physician to meet us there. His name is Jonah Levin.” Oliver hit the number four on his speed dial, then spoke in a harsh whisper.
The city was alive and already going at full throttle when Oliver and the two police officers climbed into the squad car. The driver hit his siren and turned on his flashing lights as he whizzed into the teeming traffic. Oliver had never ridden in a police car before. He didn’t like the way it smelled.
Oliver’s thoughts were chaotic as he tried to come to terms with what had happened and what was going on at that exact moment in time. His eyes were wet as the fingers on his right hand caressed the watch he was wearing. Suddenly, he loved this watch and vowed at that moment never, ever to take it off.
Oliver was stunned to see Jonah, whom he and Mace called Jonesy, already in the hospital morgue. He wrapped his arms around his doctor and let the tears flow.
“I don’t want you to see him, Oliver. I made the identification and signed off.” The doctor’s eyes were just as wet as Oliver’s.
“No, Jonesy, I want to see him.”
“No, you don’t. Trust me on that.”
The two officers mumbled something that sounded like they were sorry for their loss, and left the morgue room.
“Why?” Oliver asked.
Jonesy told him. This time Oliver did black out, but Jonesy managed to catch him before he hit the floor.
“Okay, you’re coming back with me to my office. I need to check you out. You’re white as a sheet.” Oliver didn’t protest, as he struggled to put one foot in front of the other.
“We have to . . . to make arrangements. We need to tell . . .”
“And we will, but not right this second. Harsh as this may sound, Mace isn’t going anywhere.”
Oliver knew that Jonesy was right, so he kept quiet.
Ninety minutes later, blood drawn, blood pressure taken, Oliver waited for Jonesy to say something.
“Your blood pressure is off the charts. I want you to go into my office and lie down on the sofa. It’s not a request, Oliver, it’s an order. The tech who drew your blood took the sample to the lab, and we should have the results later today. That means you are not going anywhere until I say you are. Consider this a wake-up call. I mean it, Oliver.”
Oliver looked up into the doctor’s kindly eyes and nodded. He obediently trotted into Jonesy’s office and did as instructed. He thought his heart was going to punch right out of his chest. He talked himself down until his breathing returned to normal. The moment he was feeling clearheaded, he called his secretary, issued orders, and ended the call saying, “No, I am not going to change my mind. Be sure to call Marion. Start the ball rolling.” And then he dozed off, because he had to escape the horror that his life had become since he had first seen those two policemen at his door.
When Oliver woke several hours later, Jonesy was sitting in a chair across from him. “I canceled all my appointments for the day. How are you feeling, Oliver?”
“Like shit! How do you think I feel? Want to take my BP again?”
Jonesy did. He smiled. “It’s still a little high, but I think you’re out of the crash-and-burn state, and I want it to stay that way. A shock of this nature will do that to a person’s blood pressure. I took the liberty of making calls and taking care of things. Closed coffin for obvious reasons; we’re doing the one-day thing. They actually tried to talk me out of the coffin, but I was insistent. People need to see one. I don’t know why that is, it just is. Then it’s St. Barnabas and cremation. I know for a fact that was Mace’s wish, because we talked about it once not too long ago. Just a service. I assume you’ll want to take possession of the ashes.” Oliver nodded. “The service is at five tomorrow afternoon.”
Oliver struggled to sit up against a pile of cushions. “You want to hear a crazy-ass story, Jonesy? Mace had a new will made just yesterday. He was hell on wheels about doing it yesterday. He was leaving to go back to Alabama this weekend. Oh, God! Where is Lola?”
Jonesy smiled. “She’s with my staff. I sent them over to pick her up. Right now, she’s in the conference room and loving all the attention. She’s yours now, Oliver.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t believe this.”
Jonesy licked at his lips, and it looked to Oliver like he was trying to make up his mind if he should say something or not. “Mace was in here yesterday morning. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. If you tell anyone I broke my Hippocratic oath, I’ll deny it. Before Mace left to go to Alabama, before the dark stuff hit the fan with the eviction and divorce, we ran some tests. They weren’t good, Oliver. Mace had both colon and prostate cancer. I was sending him his drugs. Hell, he could have gotten them himself or even written his own prescriptions because he was a pharmacist, but he didn’t do that. He rejected chemo and radiation. That was one of the reasons he wanted out of his marriage so badly. He wanted it all over and done with before he . . . passed.”
Oliver reared up, his feet thumping on the floor. “What the hell are you saying, Jonesy? Mace would have told me if he was that sick. He never said a word.”
Jonesy sighed. “Mace said you wouldn’t be able to handle it. He knew you as well as he knew himself. You were the brother he never had. He wanted to spare you, that’s the bottom line. As sick as he was, all he could think about was you, Oliver.”
Oliver was so choked up, he had to do battle with his tongue and vocal cords to speak. “He kept talking about smelling the roses. Just yesterday, he tried to talk me into buying a getaway house close to where he was going to buy a house in Alabama. He said he would fix up a room in his house that would be just for me. He met a lady while he was there. Actually, she was his landlady. He thought the world of her. Since you broke your oath, I’m going to break mine and tell you he left everything to that lady, Julie Wyatt. I tried to get him to wait, not to rush into things, but he was adamant. I guess it all makes sense now,” Oliver said brokenly. “I have to call and give her the news. I’ll need Mace’s cell phone to do that, though.”
“It got fried along with the body, Oliver. I have his belongings out in the clinic. Maybe you can get her number from the information operator.”
“I seem to recall Mace saying she had an unlisted number because of her ex-daughter-in-law, who harassed her. I’ll try. If I can’t reach her, I’ll make a trip there to tell her in person. Is it okay for me to go home n
ow, Jonesy?”
“How are you feeling?”
“Sad. All I want to do is cry my eyes out. I don’t know what I’ll do without Mace in my life. We weren’t attached at the hip, but it was damn close.”
“Crying is very cathartic. Don’t hold it in. Let it all out. There are no rules when someone passes on. If something works for you, then go with whatever it is.”
“How long did Mace have?”
“If he was lucky, a year, maybe a little longer. The last few months would have been hell for him.”
Oliver struggled to his feet. He wrapped his arms around his doctor and patted him on the back. “Thanks, Jonesy. For everything. I’ll see you in the . . . at the service.”
“Call me, no matter what the hour, if you need me, Oliver. And do not drink any alcohol this evening. Promise me. And don’t forget to pick up Lola on your way out.”
Oliver nodded as he shuffled out the door.
Four days later, Oliver loaded up his car in the underground garage where he lived. Mace’s ashes in the somber-looking urn were nestled in the corner of the SUV, with Styrofoam packed all around it. His eyes were wet, his nose dripping, as he packed his bags and all of Lola’s gear. He swiped at his eyes as he ran off his mental list of things he had done and the things he still had to do. He’d retired his housekeeper, stopped all personal deliveries, and had his personal mail forwarded to the office. They would send it to him once he had a permanent address. All his cases had been assigned to other lawyers.
The office would remain open to tidy up all loose ends, then close down permanently within three months. He had arranged for his partners and associates to join another law firm. The only things he was taking from the office were Mace’s files, at least the immediate ones. The other files would be sent on along with his mail in the next few weeks.
Oliver stared out and over the concrete wall to the day outside. He had one more call to make, to Her Judgeness. Mace had always called Marion Her Judgeness, and that’s how Oliver thought of Judge Marion Odell these days. He knew he wouldn’t get her personally, but at this point, he really didn’t give a hoot in hell. She hadn’t even shown up for Mace’s service. No one was more surprised than he when she answered the phone. “Oliver, how nice of you to call so early in the morning. How are things?”
“What things are you referring to, Marion? I’m just calling to say good-bye and to wish you a good life. I’ve retired, and I’m leaving this morning. I thought I would give you the courtesy of a personal phone call, and tell you what I think of you for not attending Mace’s service. That was a despicable thing for you to do.”
“But, Oliver, I had my clerk call and explain that I had a meeting I had to attend. What do you mean, you’re retiring? Where are you going? Does this mean you’re terminating our relationship?”
Oliver sighed. “I am. South. Yes. Oh, one last thing. You sucked in bed, Your Honor.” He could hear the judge sputtering as he clicked off.
Oliver swore at that moment he could hear Mace laughing somewhere overhead. Then he burst out laughing. “Damn, that felt good, Mace!”
Lola, who was dancing around at his feet, barked, a high-pitched sound that made the hair on the back of Oliver’s neck stand on end. He looked over in the direction where Lola was staring and saw a glob of vapor swirling about. He thought his heart was going to burst right out of his chest. Lola barked again, then one more time, as the vapor rose higher and sailed out over the concrete wall.
Oliver’s hands were trembling so badly he could barely open the car door for Lola to hop in. But he managed somehow. He slid behind the wheel, taking great gulps of air into his lungs. “You’re here, aren’t you, Mace? Lola knows it, too, I can tell.”
Oliver felt a poke to his shoulder, the way Mace always used to poke him. He closed his eyes, willing Mace to appear and, when he didn’t, Oliver’s eyes misted over. In a voice he hardly recognized, Oliver started to mumble, “I did what you said. I’m going to Rosemont, and I’ll pick up the pieces. I promise to smell all the roses. I will, Mace. I got your laptop, took the virtual-realty tour, and bought the house you planned on buying. I wired the money yesterday. I’m going to do it all. That’s the promise I made to you and to myself. So, if you want to ride shotgun, it’s okay with me, buddy. Hey, did you like the way I blew off Her Judgeness? And now I’m ready for that sing-along. Hit it, Mace!”
Chapter 15
It was barely eight o’clock in the morning, but the Darlene Wyatt household was wide-awake. Olivia was sitting in the family room, eating cooked oatmeal with no milk but loaded with sugar to make it more palatable for the little girl, and watching cartoons on television while her mother and her live-in boyfriend were screaming at each other in the kitchen. It was obvious to Olivia that neither one of them had gone to bed, because they were wearing the same clothes they’d had on when she herself went to bed. It was hard to hear the cartoon characters on the television with all the screaming.
“I told you, we’re doing it, and that’s final. She’s behind all this, and you know it.”
“No, I don’t know that, Adam, and neither do you. For all we know, it could be that asshole ex-wife of yours doing it. She hates me, but she hates you more. And Julie isn’t smart enough to steal my identity.”
“You are so stupid you make me sick. My asshole ex-wife, as you put it, couldn’t be bothered with either one of us. I’m telling you, it’s that bitch. You should go over there to her house right now and kill her. I’ll even help you. Well?”
Adam Fortune stared at the woman sitting across from him at the table, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. At that moment, he hated her. Really hated her.
“I am not going to Julie Wyatt’s house, and neither are you. And no one is killing anyone. If you don’t like the way things are here, leave. Go back to Kansas and live with your drunken mother.”
“You bitch! I left my wife for you! You lied to me. You said you were rich. You don’t have a pot to piss in. You own nothing. It was all lies. And I fell for it. You promised to buy me a boat and a fancy car, and what did I get? I get to move into your dead husband’s house, with his snot-nosed kid. What’s even worse is that it’s the snot-nosed kid who owns the damned house, not you. Where’s that fancy car, where’s the boat, huh? Huh, Darlene? And another thing, my ex is laughing her ass off, along with that goody-two-shoes new husband of hers. They have it made. They have fucking money. That new husband goes to a tony gym twice a week, they belong to the country club, they both have Cadillac Escalades. They eat out, they have good jobs, he buys her diamonds.”
“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to put you through the wall, and don’t think I can’t or won’t. Now, I am going to the police station and file a complaint. Even though it won’t do any good, I’m still going to do it. When they ask me who I think is responsible, I am going to say either your ex-wife or my former mother-in-law. The next step in this drama, in case your feeble brain still isn’t working, is we will be evicted from this house. I don’t know how that’s going to happen, but it’s sure as hell going to. We’ll be living in a tent, or a run-down trailer park. The money I don’t have is on the tent because I don’t have money to pay for a rental trailer. Now, what’s it going to be, Adam?”
“What about the snot? Are we taking her?”
“No, it’s too far for her to walk. We are walking. I’m not taking the motorcycle out, because they’ll just repo it. And it’s almost out of gas, even though I have half a can for the lawn mower. It might help if you fixed yourself up a little, like shave or take a shower.”
Darlene took the punch high on the cheekbone. She cursed, and whacked her beloved along the side of his face. In the family room, Olivia covered her ears and started to cry. She cowered into the corner when she saw her mother coming toward her. “I want you to go upstairs, Olivia. We have to go out. I’ll lock the doors, and we won’t be that long. Do not open the door to anyone. Do you understand me?”
“I don’t want to
be by myself, Mommy. I’m afraid to stay alone. I want my daddy. I hate you, and I hate him, too. I want Grandma and Connie and Carrie. I hate this oatmeal, and I’m still hungry. I want my grandma. Please, Mommy, take me there. She loves me. Connie and Carrie love me, and so do Philly and Pete. I miss them, Mommy. Please take me there.”
Adam started to unbuckle his belt. Olivia fled up the steps and into her room. She ran to the closet and crawled as far back into the corner as she could go. She cried for her father, grandmother, and aunts and uncles, begging and pleading for someone to help her.
Always when she did this, she felt something hovering over her. She thought it was angel wings, and that pleased her, because she knew it was her daddy who was an angel in heaven. Sometimes she thought she could actually feel the feathers, and one time she found a feather when she woke up. It was her dearest possession in the whole world, and she kept it in her Crayola box. But she had to take the brown and orange crayon out to make room for the feather. She thought she could feel the feathers brushing against her face. How soft they were. She closed her eyes and hoped she would dream about her father. “Please help me, Daddy,” she whimpered.
“You should feel right at home here, Adam,” Darlene said as she opened the door to the police station. “How many times have you been here for those kids of yours? Six? Seven?”
“Shut up, Darlene. If you keep this up, I’m going to tell these cops you molested my son. I’ll tell them how you left your husband to die so you could inherit all his money. I’ll tell them how you lusted after me and how you almost raped me that first time. I’ll do it, too, and my son will back me up. They’ll toss your skinny ass in jail, and you’ll never see the light of day again. I don’t have anything to lose, so make my day, you sorry-assed reject. I warned you not to mess with me, and I meant it. You are messing with me, Darlene.”
Gotcha! Page 14
