Empty Ever After

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  Of course not! “Yeah, why do you ask?”

  “Come on outside a minute.”

  Vandervoort and I stepped out onto the little concrete stoop in front of the house. Two moths prayed at the altar of the porch light, unable to break free from the bonds of their devotion. The sheriff took a lazy swat at the faithful and refocused.

  “It’s not just about hearing voices anymore,” he said. “She’s seeing ghosts now too. That’s why Katy’s in bed. Took two of those pills the shrink at the hospital gave her.”

  “She called you?”

  “No. Your kid did. Sarah’s a beautiful girl … and smart. You should be proud of her.”

  “I am.”

  “Me and the wife don’t have kids. Can’t. We’ve been to every doctor in the county. Even went to see a few in the city. My family name dies with me.”

  “Siblings?”

  “Two big sisters.”

  “How about adopting?”

  “We’ve thought about it, but it’s not for us, I don’t think.”

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  “No, I’m sorry, Moe. I got sidetracked there. So your daughter phoned me a few hours ago. She said that they were in town shopping, having lunch and your wife started acting funny.”

  “Funny?”

  “Looking over her shoulder at odd times. Apparently, while they were at Molly’s having lunch, Katy practically jumped out of her seat and ran out of the diner. When she came back, she was white,” he said. “Your kid asked her what was the matter and she—”

  “—wouldn’t say. That’s Katy. In most ways, she’s nothing like her dad, but she couldn’t escape him totally. She can hold stuff back sometimes. So what happened?”

  “They stopped at the PrimeOil Station on the way back here. When Sarah was pumping the gas, your wife ran out of the car and darted across Stuyvesant Street. FedEx truck nearly cleaned her clock. She was pretty lucky, Moe. Took quite a spill. I guess when Sarah got her back here, Katy finally confided to her that she’d been seeing Patrick here and there all day long.”

  “Jesus Christ!” My jaw clenched.

  “There’s more to it.”

  “More how?”

  “Come over to my car a second,” he said, walking toward the Crown Vic. I followed. He reached into the front seat and came out holding a video tape. “The PrimeOil’s been robbed a few times since they expanded it from just a gas station to a convenience mart. They got surveillance cameras all over the place now, so I figured I’d stop by on my way over here.” He handed it to me. “Get it back to me when you’re done with it.”

  “Is there something on it?”

  “Wouldn’t’ve told you about it if there wasn’t.”

  Without thinking, I started for the house. Vandervoort grabbed my arm.

  “Not so fast. You better wait till they’re both asleep,” he said. “Maybe we should talk in the morning.”

  The first part was a suggestion, the second part wasn’t.

  “Okay, Pete, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Until tomorrow then.” Vandervoort shook my hand and, like Connie before him, was slow in letting go. “Look, Moe, I like you and your family, but I’m going to need more from you than what I’ve gotten so far. Your wife isn’t the only one holding back. Somebody’s got to have it in for you and your family to go to this much trouble. That tape in your hand is a gesture of good faith on my part, so when you come by in the morning I hope you’re in a generous and sharing mood. Do we understand one another?”

  “We do.”

  He let go of my hand and said goodnight. I watched him pull away. Then I stashed the tape in the front seat of my car.

  I MADE SURE both Katy and Sarah were asleep before retrieving the cassette from my car. I watched the black and white surveillance tape over and over again. Apparently, the gas station had recorded and re- recorded over it a number of times. To say the images were muddy would be insulting to mud. Nonetheless, there was no mistaking Patrick. He knew he was on camera the whole time, giving a somber nod and salute when he came into the frame. He mouthed something that was beyond my abilities as a lip reader to decipher. The ghost wasn’t taking any chances if someone thought, as Pete Vandervoort had, to retrieve the video. He arranged energy bars on the counter to spell out:

  SO ALONE

  The people behind this were good, very thorough. They had done their prep work, but the prep work was a blade that cut two ways. Yes, it meant they could pull off this haunting crap with great aplomb. It also meant they had done their research, the kind of research you can’t do online or in libraries. That might be an opportunity for me. I rewound the tape and watched it again.

  “There’s something wrong.”

  I nearly had a heart attack. It was Sarah, standing in the dark of the hallway.

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Long enough. There’s something about that guy that’s just not right.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, stepping into the living room. “I can’t put my finger on it, but give me time.”

  “I don’t think it’s a ghost either, but it looks a lot like him.”

  “I guess.”

  “You’re not the best judge, Sarah. You’ve only ever seen pictures of him and those are mostly ones of him before he changed.”

  “Changed?”

  “Before he redid his hair, got the tattoo and the earring … Just before. There aren’t very many pictures of him like that.”

  “Yeah, Dad, but you also only know him through pictures.” She knelt down by the screen and placed her right index finger on his face. “I’m telling you, something’s just not kosher with this guy.”

  Sarah was right about one thing: I didn’t actually know Patrick any better than she did. We’d never met, not face to face. It was just that Patrick, a man who was never really there, had consumed such an unnatural amount of my life that I felt as if I did know him. I shut off the VCR.

  “Go back to bed, kiddo.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Me neither. Hey, you wanna go grab something at Molly’s?”

  “Sure, Dad. Just let me throw some jeans on.”

  “I’ll check on your mom.”

  Katy, still fully dressed, didn’t stir when I came into the room. She seemed utterly zonked. We had shared the same bed for twenty years, but I wasn’t sure I recognized the woman before me. It can take a lifetime to become familiar and only seconds to become strangers again. I made to leave, but stopped. I removed the message tape from her answering machine, took one more look at Katy, then left.

  I THINK I knew something was wrong even before I turned the car back onto Hanover Street. Sarah sensed it too. I could see it in her expression.

  “Dad, what did you do with the security tape?”

  “Oh, shit!”

  Our worst fears were confirmed when we saw the flickering light through the otherwise opaque living room window. It was a bit of a blur from then on. I couldn’t remember putting the car in park or closing the car door behind me or putting the key in the front door lock. The first thing that stuck was the image of Katy laying face down in a sea of broken glass, blood oozing out of the gash on her forehead, the VCR remote clenched in her right fist.

  “Dad! Dad!” Sarah was screaming. It didn’t register as screaming. Her panic reached me as a tiny voice at the end of a kid’s string and soup can telephone. “Dad, Mom took pills, lotsa pills.”

  I think I said for her to grab the bottles. I was already carrying Katy to the car.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHEN VANDERVOORT CAME in, I jumped at him.

  “This isn’t funny anymore, Pete,” I growled, pinning him to the wall. “This is attempted fuckin’ murder.”

  If anyone in the emergency room waiting area hadn’t heard the first part of my rant, that second part surely got their attention. I must’ve been pretty scary, not because Vandervoort looked frightened—frankly
, I was rage blind and couldn’t’ve described the sheriff’s expression—but because a steel hand clamped down on my right shoulder.

  “You okay, Sheriff?” a deep voice wanted to know.

  “I’m fine. Thanks for asking. He’s just a little upset is all.”

  Deep Voice was unconvinced. “You sure?”

  “Why don’t you go and sit back down,” Vandervoort said. “You look like you could use some help yourself. What the hell happened to you?”

  “Had to lay my hog down when some asshole in a SUV ran the light at Blyden and Van Camp.”

  The steel clamp eased off my shoulder and I turned. I regained the use of my right arm and my vision. Deep Voice was a big man, barrelchested with a beer keg belly to match. He had a thick neck and thicker arms that were covered in blood and tattoos. He had a young doughy face, but was no kid. His gray beard was braided like a pirate’s. It too was soaked with blood and the gash on his forehead was nastier than Katy’s.

  “Don’t go anywhere. When I’m done with this gentleman,” Vandervoort said, nodding at me, “I want to talk about your accident. Maybe we can discuss why you weren’t wearing your helmet.”

  “Okay, Sheriff.” Deep Voice was sheepish, touching his hand to the cut on his head. He went and found his seat.

  I backed off Vandervoort and gave him the details as we walked outside.

  “She was totally asleep when we went to Molly’s. I didn’t think—”

  “Stop beating yourself up over it. You couldn’t know what she was going to do. Where’s your kid?”

  “She’s in the treatment area with her mom.”

  “So that guy on the videotape with the candy bar message, he—”

  “—looks an awful lot like Patrick, but the tape’s so fuzzy. It would be impossible to make a positive ID from it.”

  “Look, Moe, don’t take this the wrong way, but your ex-wife did try to … Well, she seems pretty convinced.”

  “So you believe in ghosts now too?”

  “Nope, I’m just saying …”

  “I wasn’t kidding in there, Pete. This isn’t funny. If I catch that motherfucker, I’ll—”

  “Watch what you say and do,” Vandervoort cut me off. “Maybe that’s what these folks want, the ones behind all this. Your ex-wife goes off the deep end, you end up killing somebody and get shitcanned for life. Your daughter, for all intents and purposes, winds up an orphan. I’d say that’s playing into their hands, wouldn’t you?”

  “You’re right. You’re right. I know you’re right, but you shoulda seen Katy laying there on the broken coffee table glass. I thought she was dead, for chrissakes. Sarah was freaked.”

  “How is she now?”

  “Sarah? She seems all right, but it’s hard to know.”

  “And Katy, what do the doctors—”

  “She’ll be okay. They pumped her stomach. It’s a good thing we got back when we did or more of that crap might’ve gotten into her system. They’re keeping her here for observation.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” he said. “I’ll keep a man posted outside her door for the duration.”

  “Thanks, but I doubt they’ll try anything here. Too many people around.”

  “Let’s hope so. Listen, I better go talk to that biker in there, but don’t forget our appointment later this morning.”

  “It’s a date.”

  We shook hands. This time he gave my hand back promptly.

  Sarah was waiting for me outside the treatment cubicle when I went back inside. She’d been strong through all of this, but now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the fear and exhaustion were showing through. She was white, her eyes shot red with blood. For the first time in her life, Sarah looked old. Welcome to adulthood.

  “Dad, you’re bleeding. Your shoulder.”

  “Oh, that,” I said, pulling my shirt around to look. “No, that’s somebody else’s blood. A guy who had a motorcycle accident, put his hand on my shoulder.”

  For some reason, that was the last straw. Sarah broke down. She fell into my arms and began sobbing.

  “Shhhhh, kiddo. It’s okay. Everything will be okay. Shhhhh …”

  When she was a little girl and would come crying about scraping her knee or some kid in her class making fun of her red hair, those words were magic. Now when I said them, she simply cried harder. Had she finally outgrown the magic, I wondered, or was it that the magic wouldn’t work if the magician no longer believed in his powers?

  LATER THAT MORNING, I was quite amazed at how easily I rattled off the litany of secrets and sins to Sheriff Vandervoort. Yet, rattle them off I did. No hedging, no holding back, no compromising, no spin, just the raw, unvarnished facts. I suppose most of the people in my life knew some of the details of my involvement with the Maloneys, but drips and drabs of reality, no matter how sordid or saintly, never amount to the whole truth. And regardless of what people say, there is only ever one truth of things. There are different versions of reality, not of the truth.

  Vandervoort now knew more about what had gone on between the Maloneys and me than anyone on the planet besides myself. By the look on his face, I wasn’t so sure he was happy to hold the honor. It was a tossup as to whether Pete seemed more horrified by the revelation that Francis had once raped and beaten a transvestite prostitute or that he had once encouraged Patrick to commit suicide.

  “Christ … I’m not sure which I want to do more, throw up or take a shower,” he said. “Do Katy and Sarah know any of this?”

  “Not the real details, no. I’ve carried this shit around with me for twenty-two years. It ruined my marriage and that’s where the damage has to stop.”

  “I’ll do what I can. The thing is, I can see why someone might hate the father. And lord knows there’s plenty of people who hate fags—sorry, gays, but that doesn’t explain why this is going on. This has got to be about you,” he said.

  “That’s the assumption I’ve been working under since it all started.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Too many, unfortunately.”

  “Anyone from around these parts?”

  “Only the longest of long shots,” I said.

  “Yeah, like who?”

  I hemmed and hawed a little.

  “Look, Moe, I’ve cut you way more slack than—”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. Secret keeping becomes second nature.”

  “Names.”

  “There’s Katy’s first husband, Joey Hogan, for one. I’m going to see him right now. Unofficially, of course.”

  “Of course. Who else?”

  “Woman used to cut hair at the Head Shop, Theresa Hickey.”

  “Hot blond, married to a city cop, right?” Vandervoort asked, already knowing the answer.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Forget her. My big sister Mary knew Theresa Hickey. She dumped the cop years ago and moved down to Jupiter, Florida, with some rich guy owns race horses. She hasn’t been back here since.”

  “Tina Martell?”

  Vandervoort smiled sadly at the mention of her name. “Sure I know Tina. She owns Henry’s Hog over—”

  “I know the place. Outside of town, over the tracks, right?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “She owns it?” I asked.

  “Her old man left it to her. What’s old Tina got to do with this?”

  “Probably nothing,” I said, “but remember when I was telling you about how Patrick had gotten a few girls pregnant?”

  “Tina?”

  “Yeah, Tina.”

  “Well, fuck me. I can’t quite picture old Tina and Patrick. You know, Moe, for a—for a gay guy, this kid got a lot of—”

  “It’s testament to how hard it was for him to come to terms with who and what he was.”

  “I guess.”

  “I gotta get to the hospital. They’ve moved Katy into a room and I want to make sure all the bases are covered.”

  “Room 402,” he said. “You’ll fi
nd a deputy outside her door.”

  “Thanks, Pete.”

  “Remember, Moe, keep me posted.”

  JUST AS VANDERVOORT had promised, there was a deputy outside Katy’s door. It was Robby, the young deputy who had stood out in the rain with me at the Maloney family gravesite. He smiled at noticing me and, I suppose, at the chance of conversation. There are aspects of police work that can be mind-numbingly dull. None duller than guard duty. The deputy assured me that everything had been quiet, that the only people to enter the room were nurses and doctors and not too many of them. As a matter of courtesy, I asked the deputy if I might not take a look myself. He liked that I asked.

  Katy was asleep, but unnaturally still. I don’t know, maybe that was my brain talking and not my eyes. Her attempted suicide had changed everything. For all our years together, I had assumed Katy was a rock, that she could bear anything. Only once, when she miscarried, did she break down. Even then, I thought she recovered well and had gotten back to the business of life quicker than most. But now I wasn’t so sure I knew who my ex-wife had been all those years. Had she misled me or had I misled myself? Did I see who she wanted me to see or did I see who I wanted to see? Had she hidden the pain from me or had I blinded myself to it?

  I thought about lifting the sheets to see if her wrists were restrained, considered consulting the attending psychiatrist to find out if Katy was sedated or if her sleep was a natural reaction to the trauma. I did neither. It was all I could do to swallow up the guilt I was already feeling. I knew I couldn’t handle anymore revelations about the myths of our marriage, not now, not yet. When I walked back past Robby, he called out to me. Something about last night’s Mets score, I think. For some reason it just made me angry, really angry, but not at him.

  I started toward Joey Hogan’s house. Joey, what kind of name is that for a grown man, for chrissakes? Joey was Katy’s ex. Now, I suppose, first ex is more accurate. Not that I had anything against him. On the few occasions fate had thrown us together, he had been more than cordial, friendly really. He was a stand-up guy who cared so deeply for Katy that if another man made her happy, well then, that was okay with him. They had been high school sweethearts. Katy grew out of it, but Joey never did. As Katy said, she agreed to marry him for all the wrong reasons. He was loving. He was handsome. He was a good provider. It was time.