by Laurel Dewey
“Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. What’s the reward up to for this girl from California?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I guarantee you he got cozy with the girl’s mother and found out there was a reward fund. His presence on the case will fuel that fund and his personal involvement will deepen with each dollar that is added to the kitty. Clinton told me a lot of shit when I was out there on the road with him. He likes to drink and I know how to act drunk. He’d get loaded and I’d drink tonic and pretend to be fucked up so he’d feel comfortable talking to me. When Clinton’s sober, he’s a fucking asshole. When he’s drunk, he’s a Chatty Cathy doll with a psycho twist. For example, one night he gave me his ‘recipe’ for the perfect media crime event. Mix a child—preferably a girl—add a small town, pepper it with a high-profile mystery, get the parents to like you, spice it up with a large cash reward, and you’ve got the perfect showcase for Clinton Fredericks.”
“Jesus....” Jane squashed her cigarette into the dirt.
Carl hesitated. “You know what else he told me?” Carl improvised a slurred, drunken voice. “‘Bottom line, Carl, I don’t give a fuck about the hostage. Do you have any idea how much pussy I get from what I do? Women want to fuck me from one side of the country to the next and I just stand back and take numbers.”’ Carl pulled out of the drunken imitation. “So I say to him, ‘But Clinton, what if the hostage gets killed?’ And he says, ‘We all gotta die sometime!’ Then, he laughs like the fuckin’ psychotic he is. Next day, he sobered up, but he’s not like some drunks who forget what they tell you. He remembered everything. He pushed me up against my hotel room wall, held me by my throat and said, ‘If you tell anyone what I said last night, I’ll destroy you.’ And that SOB has the connections to do it. So I did what I was told, knowing full well that somewhere down the road, some other victim was going to have a target on their forehead when Clinton got involved in their case.”
“Clinton crossed the line with that statement. He went from being an asshole to being a physical threat to the victim! He needs to be exposed!”
“Not by me! Hey, I’m not proud of it, cousin. We all start out with this genuine desire to speak the truth. Then, if we’re smart, we realize real quickly that the truth is not what matters when the lie is what you’re selling.”
Jane took a step toward Carl. “The truth still matters to me and it matters even more to that twelve-year-old girl.” Jane weighed the circumstances. “Look, if it all pans out, you get the exclusive with me and my quotes annihilate Clinton in the story, not yours.”
Carl considered the offer and nodded in agreement. “Okay.” He smiled warmly. “You always had more guts than I did. We didn’t see a lot of each other growing up, but when the families did get together, I always quietly envied your strength.”
Jane lit another cigarette. “Appearances are often deceiving, Carl.”
“Naw. You are strong. You’re a survivor.”
“You got the survivor part right,” Jane said, taking a long drag on her cigarette.
A quizzical look came over Carl. “You mean surviving the media frenzy over that homicide case this past summer?”
Now it was Jane’s turn to look puzzled. “No. I mean...life.” She waited for her response to sink in. “Growing up, you know?”
A pall fell over Carl. “I hear you.” He cast his eyes downward, drawing circles in the dirt with the toe of his boot. “We turn eighteen, break free of the home, and spend the rest of our lives trying to right all the perceived wrongs against us. Along the way, we do too many drugs and drink a lot booze trying to suffocate the memories.” Jane studied Carl’s somber face. For the first time, she noticed an edge of sadness that hung close to this heart. “I hope your dad found peace in the end,” Carl said. “I don’t think mine ever did. Were you with him when he died?” Carl asked.
Jane’s body stiffened. “No,” Jane replied with a low flush of ire.
“I was with my dad.” Carl let out a long exhalation. “It was good. After I learned about what happened between he and Uncle Dale, I started seeing him not so much as my dad but as a person who was still tortured by the fact that he couldn’t forgive himself. I understood why he couldn’t be there for me emotionally.” Jane felt as if she were walking into a movie that was halfway done. “It’s ironic, isn’t it, how my dad was always so passive and quiet as an adult. He was always afraid of hurting someone.” Carl’s eyes were lost in the distance for a moment. “Always afraid he was going to be forced into doing something he didn’t want to do. So he never tried. He kept it all inside. The only time he came out of his shell was when he drank. That’s when he talked about the real stuff—the stuff that made him. He didn’t want to feel. Because if he felt, he’d have to live with what he did over and over again.” Carl looked at Jane “Every time I came to your house and saw Uncle Dale, I always felt so sorry for him.”
“You felt sorry for my dad?” Her voice was shaky.
Carl furrowed his eyebrows. “Well, yeah. To go through what happened to him as a kid. It’s just fuckin’ evil.”
Jane felt disoriented. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” She tossed her cigarette into the darkness and walked inside the house. Carl followed.
Kit was still on the couch sound asleep. Jane’s nerves sparked as she crossed to the breakfast bar in the kitchen.
“Your dad never told you what happened to him?” Carl asked quietly, so as not to wake up Kit.
“Nothing happened to him!”
Kit gradually awakened.
“Oh, God,” Carl said softly, “You don’t know, do you?”
Jane’s gut twisted. “I don’t need to know!” Her voice was low but forceful.
“Yeah. You do.” Carl sat on a stool by the breakfast bar. “Starting from the time my dad was ten and Uncle Dale was six, and continuing for about eight years, Granddad Perry used to force the two of them to fight each other. And I’m not talking minor shit. I’m talking fight until you damn near kill the other one. Nothing was off limits. Punch, poke, kick. It was Granddad Perry’s way of punishing them. The old man should’ve been put away in a mental ward for what he did to his sons.”
“I don’t know where you heard this bullshit, but it isn’t true,” Jane argued.
“It is true. My dad told me all these stories when he was drunk—”
“He was drunk!” Jane countered.
“That’s when he spoke the truth, cousin!”
“This is not truth!” Jane jabbed her finger on the bar.
“Your dad was small and scrawny and four years younger. He never had a chance against my dad. He’d be bloodied and broken and begging for mercy and all Granddad Perry would do was yell out, ‘Kick the little fucker!’ My dad didn’t want to do it, but he had no choice. If he didn’t, Granddad Perry would whip the shit out of him with this belt that had metal studs on it. So my dad kicked your dad and prayed to God he would pass out so the fight could be over.”
“I remember Granddad Perry! I liked him! And he always said he liked me because I reminded him of himself....” Jane nearly choked on those last words. The enormity of the startling revelation crashed around Jane.
“It’s weird.” Carl said. “All those years, my dad was the aggressor and then he turned into this weak, passive man. And your dad became a homicide detective.”
Jane looked at Carl in a daze. “It’s not true,” she whispered. “It can’t be!” She spun around, grabbed her satchel from the floor and stormed out the door.
She got into the Mustang and sped into the darkness.
CHAPTER 16
Kit nervously waited inside Carl’s house for Jane to return. An hour passed and then another and there was no sign of her. Carl retreated to his bedroom to send an e-mail to Kyoto while Kit wore a worried path in the Native carpet. She looked up to check the time just as the sound of car wheels crunching gravel was heard outside. Peering out the front window, she saw the Must
ang trolling to an uneasy stop inside Carl’s front gate. The engine turned off, but the headlights remained on high beam. Kit watched as a lone figure emerged from the driver’s seat, then disappeared behind the Mustang. She grabbed the warmest coat she could find on Carl’s front pegs and walked outside. A biting wind swept across the front yard. Kit pulled the coat around her frame and squinted into the darkness. There was raw silence.
“Jane?” Kit’s voice was full of apprehension. No response. “Jane!” Now there was more aggravation. Nothing.
Kit’s ears perked up as she heard the distinct sound of metal clicking. Her heart raced. She took several steps toward the car. “Jane P.! What are you doing?”
The silence was broken by the clink of a piece of metal spinning into the air and landing in the hard dirt. Kit’s hesitation faded, replaced by frustration. “Jane! Answer me!” She moved closer to the Mustang, standing in the blinding beam of light. Another piece of metal catapulted through the air, landing in front of Kit. She leaned down to retrieve the object. It was one of Jane’s sobriety chips. “Jane!” Kit yelled into the darkness. “Where are you?”
Jane answered by tossing the snakestone toward Kit. Collecting the stone, Kit moved around to the rear of the Mustang.
Jane sat with her back supported by the bumper and her legs sprawled in front of her. In her hand, she clutched a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels.
“Oh, dear God,” Kit whispered. “Give me the bottle.”
“I’m not done yet,” Jane slurred as she ran her fingers through her stringy hair.
“Oh, you’re done. You are beyond drunk!”
“No. I can still feel, so I’m not toasted yet.”
“Jesus! You’ve drunk half a bottle!”
Jane unsteadily slid her body up the rear of the Mustang. “Oh, you know the AA saying, Kit: ‘One bottle is too many. A hundred bottles aren’t enough.’” She lifted the whiskey bottle to her lips just as Kit swiped it from her hand.
“You drove in this condition?” Kit yelled. “How dare you! You could have killed someone or yourself!”
“On this road? I might have nailed a jackrabbit or two, but aside from that, traffic was pretty clear. Give me the bottle!” Jane tried to snatch the whiskey, but Kit was too quick for her and hurled the sloshing bottle into the darkness and sagebrush. She took an angry step toward Kit. “Well, fuck you!”
Kit responded with a violent slap across Jane’s face that sent her into the dirt. “Shame on you, Jane P.!” Kit stood over Jane’s prone body in a menacing pose.
Jane shook off the rush of heat that stung her cheek and looked up at Kit. “Well, I’ve been here before! Why don’t you start kicking? Kick me as hard as you can! Kick me until I bleed! Go on! Obviously, I bring that desire out in people!”
“How could you know as a kid that you reminded your dad of his own father?”
“And that gave him the right to do what he did to me?” Jane yelled.
“Of course not! But it finally gives the whole mess some kind of context.”
“Context? This is not a fucking intellectual argument! This is my life!”
“Your dad was following an unconscious pattern—”
“Fuck you!” Jane screamed into the darkness.
“You triggered the anger in him.” Kit refused to be cowed by Jane’s drunken rage. “Maybe it was a word, or a look, or the shake of your head that was just like your grandfather—”
“Spare me the psychobabble—”
“Just like he probably triggered something in his own father’s eyes. Don’t we all just follow patterns our entire lives? Aren’t you following an old pattern right now? Life gets too real and so you have to kill the pain with a whiskey bottle?”
Jane struggled to her feet. “My father is not a victim! He could have chosen not to do what he did to us! Carl’s telling me all this shit about my dad and the voice starts in my head again. His voice! ‘Get up, you stupid bitch! You’re nothing!’ That’s what I’ve been trying to drown out of my head for the last two hours!” Jane’s voice choked up with emotion as tears started falling down her face. “But then, there’s his other voice. His younger voice! And it’s screaming at his brother, begging him to stop kicking him in the balls. Which one of those voices am I supposed to listen to?”
“Both of them,” Kit softly replied.
Jane wiped the tears from her face. “No! He can’t be human. He has to be a monster! That’s the shoe that fit him! He can’t be both the victim and the perpetrator!”
“Sure he could. Lou Peters is both the victim and the perpetrator.”
“What about responsibility? He never hung his head for what he did to us. Up until the second he died, he was a twisted asshole. He didn’t pay enough!”
“That’s not for you to say. That’s between your father and God.”
“I can’t trust God to punish my father. God has too much mercy!”
“So, God’s weak?” Kit asked with an incredulous smirk.
Jane searched for a snappy retort but came up blank. “All I know is how to hate my father.”
“Let me tell you something, your hate is going to do nothing to him, but it’ll suck the life out of you. Take a good, hard look at me, Jane P., because this is you in twenty years. Maybe ten, if you really let that vengeance swell up and eat away at your liver or your lungs. And when you’re lying on your deathbed, dying of cancer, and staring at the ceiling and saying, ‘Why God?’ if you listen real closely you’ll hear God reply, ‘I didn’t do it to you! You did it to yourself!’ You with your unforgiving, single-minded hatred. Go on and hate yourself to death.” Kit turned, lost in thought for a second. “There’s a lot of sayings out there. One of them is ‘Find the middle ground and you will find peace.’ You really can live a life that doesn’t drown in the extreme of hatred or rage if you stop self-destructing long enough! There’s another saying: ‘Sometimes the only cure for cancer is death.’” Kit let that one sink in. “I can handle that. Death is not a theory for me. It stares me down every goddamned day. But when I take my last breath, know this: my heart will be at peace and not at war with my past. I will die with redemption.” Kit turned and headed back to the house.
“How do you stop the memories?” Jane asked.
Kit turned back to Jane. “You stop fighting.”
“If I stopped fighting, I would die.”
“Then you’ll be reborn,” Kit flicked the snakestone to Jane who caught it. “When you let go, you don’t fall into the void. You can fall into the hand of God.”
“When you close your eyes for the last time, are you gonna fall into the hand of God?”
“No, Jane. He’s already holding me.”
DECEMBER 30
Jane emerged from the bathroom, hair sopping wet and smartly dressed in a pair of dark denim jeans and a tan turtleneck.
“I’ll fix you guys an omelet,” Carl announced, “like none you’ve ever tasted. A midget in Morocco gave me the recipe. The only thing better than this omelet is sex.”
Jane crossed to the breakfast bar as Kit walked into the steamy bathroom and closed the door. Carl opened the cupboard and brought out a bottle of vitamins. He took four large gelatin capsules out of the bottle and handed them to Jane.
“What’s this?”
“Evening primrose oil. They shorten the duration of a hangover.” Carl slid a glass of water to Jane. “They also make your skin soft and supple.” He smiled and began breaking eggs into a large bowl.
“Is that what the midget in Morocco told you?” Jane downed the capsules.
Carl’s eyes twinkled, happy to have someone to share his repartee. “We should have spent a lot more time together when we were growing up, cousin!” He added butter to a skillet and a dash of half-and-half to the eggs. “Just to know you weren’t alone.” He brought out a series of spices. “The one thing I’ve come to understand since getting sober is the concept that there is no good or bad in this world...there just ‘is.’ In that ‘is’—that pl
ace of nothing—you find true peace.”
“Jesus, you sound like Kit.”
Carl poured the eggs into the skillet. “So, I checked on the Internet this morning about that kidnapped girl in California. You’re gonna walk into a circus.”
“It is what it is, Carl.”
“I know you’re keeping your role in this close to the vest, but my probing investigative journalistic penchant made me do a little checking.”
“Checking what?”
“Katherine Clark.”
Jane snuck a look toward the bathroom and heard the shower running. “What about her?”
Carl casually worked the omelet off the side of the pan. “I subscribe to a service that gives me access to reams of newspaper articles, old and new. I entered Katherine’s name and found one with her photo on it from 1990. Had to do with her granddaughter who was kidnapped and killed.”
“That’s right.”
“From what I read, she knew the guy who did it. Lou Peters?”
Jane wasn’t sure whether her queasy stomach was due to her hangover or Carl’s questions. “She knew him. Look, I really can’t talk much about the case—”
“Did you do a background check on her?”
Jane glanced once again at the bathroom. The water was still running. “Where are you going with this?”
“I dug deeper and found that Katherine Clark is no stranger to the court system.”
The queasiness truly set into Jane’s gut. “Talk to me.”
“She was arrested in 1985, along with a group of radicals, for taking part in the bombing of a shoe factory in Monterey, California. Four innocent people who worked at the factory were killed. She was charged with aiding and abetting the ringleader of the group with materials that were used to make the bomb that blew up the factory.”
The shower water stopped running.
