The Last Friend

by Harvey Church

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  At last, Klein nodded and let it go.

  The windows opened, and the evening air smashed against his face again. But Donovan didn’t mind it, because it forced his eyes closed and put an end to the circular conversation that led back to an unsettling feeling.

  The feeling that Klein was starting to look at him as a person of interest. Not only in his own daughter’s disappearance and death, but in the disappearance and death of all those other girls whose remains were buried beneath the flags in that forest.

  CHAPTER 38

  The four and a half hours of sleep that Donovan enjoyed felt more like nine. But even with a refreshed mind, he worried. At six o’clock Friday morning, he slipped into the shower and planned out his day. He needed to confirm Monica’s existence, for starters. He’d spent the entire night going back to Facebook, only to see that her profile still didn’t exist. And while he knew, deep down, that she had disconnected or closed her profile, a part of him questioned whether he’d imagined the whole thing to begin with.

  After he dried himself off, Donovan pulled on a fresh pair of pants and a shirt. He helped himself to a Nespresso downstairs and then left the house through the back door. Before making the commute to Roseland, he stopped at the Shell station at Madison and Ridgeland and paid for fuel with his Second City credit card.

  Then it was half an hour of driving. He didn’t listen to the radio. In fact, he kept his side window open and enjoyed the wind against his face. It felt nice; it relaxed him after last night’s driving with Mike Klein. But more than any of that, it helped him focus on what was important.

  Once he arrived at the apartment building where Monica lived, he parked half a block ahead and then checked the rearview mirror. His hair was a mess, appearing to have been blow-dried eighties-style, flowing away from his temples in wild waves. After trying to flatten it back against his scalp, Donovan stepped out of the car and crossed the street. Like the last few times he’d arrived, the building’s front door was jammed with a Popsicle stick, disabling the lock and allowing easy access to everyone.

  Donovan considered checking the back lot to see if the Mustang was still there, but none of that mattered. Not today.

  He climbed the stairs, and, at the door to apartment 304, he stopped and took a deep breath. The time on his phone said 7:13, too early for Leo Fletcher to be home after his shift—which meant the Mustang wouldn’t have been back behind the building anyway. So he curled his fingers into a fist and knocked on the door. There was no sound from inside the apartment until he knocked a second time; then he heard a door opening and someone mumbling.

  Donovan had expected Monica to answer the door. But when he saw Leo standing there, topless and in a pair of loose-fitting shorts, he swallowed the anxiety rising up his throat.

  “What do you want?” Leo asked, his voice hard and booming.

  Donovan hadn’t prepared for this. He’d expected to knock on the door and see Monica. “Where is she?” Although Leo intimidated him, Donovan was impressed that his voice came out with a fearless boom.

  Leo raised an eyebrow and poked a hard finger into Donovan’s chest. “That’s your job.”

  “I sent you a text two nights ago,” he said, shaking his head. He tried to step past Leo, move between him and the door frame, but Leo knocked him back with one of his big shoulders.

  “You’re not coming inside.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  Frowning, Leo appeared to be losing his patience. “And so do I, so get in line.” He started to close the door, but Donovan still had an ounce or two of fearlessness and focus left in him, so he kicked his foot out and stopped the door. Now Leo’s face turned red. “Are you looking for another beating, asshat?”

  Except Donovan wasn’t backing down. Not now, not after seeing all those flags yesterday, marking the anonymous graves of so many young girls who’d suffered at the hands of a man that Monica could potentially identify.

  “Listen,” Leo said, his voice turning into a deep growl, “I’m supposed to be asleep ahead of my shift, and if you don’t step away from my door, I’m going to—”

  “Let me talk to her,” Donovan demanded. “I sent you the text. I know you saw it and—”

  “She was gone by the time I got there,” Leo said with a scowl. “Now get the f—”

  “But she was there.” The effect of the wind blowing in his hair seemed to be fading fast. “Why didn’t you—?”

  “Dude, it’s a forty-minute drive. Nobody takes that long to pound back a fancy coffee. Now get the fu—”

  “But—”

  “She. Was. Gone,” Leo repeated, his voice firm, his face red, and his eyes narrowing.

  Donovan considered the man’s threatening stare, the veins protruding from his neck and flowing down across his naked upper body, stretching like the branches of a tree. Scratching his head, Donovan wondered what his next move was. At least the psychopath with the tattooed scalp acknowledged Monica’s existence. That was a start.

  Or was it? Donovan didn’t remember Leo ever saying her name. Were they even talking about the same woman?

  “Find her, okay? Talk to her all you want while I’m driving out to your house to collect her.” Leo stepped out of the apartment and moved into Donovan’s personal space. “But she’s not here.”

  At last, Donovan nodded. He didn’t back down, though. “I . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Damn straight you are, bro.” Leo shook his head and started backing into his apartment.

  “Listen, can I use your bathroom?”

  “No.”

  “I really have to pee.”

  Leo started closing the door, but Donovan stopped him again. And this time, Leo seemed even less impressed.

  “Please.” He even tried the face that Monica had used on him, batting his big eyes.

  Allowing the door to open just a little bit, Leo balled a fist and took a swing at Donovan, his punch landing on Donovan’s shoulder and pushing him off balance.

  “Okay, okay,” Donovan said, raising his hands. “I’m leaving.”

  The door to apartment 304 slammed shut.

  As he took the stairs to the first floor, Donovan felt the vibration of an incoming text in his pocket. He grabbed the phone and saw that Leo had been the one to send it, a short but clear message: next time, I’ll kill you. Any other day, he’d care; today, Donovan was on a mission.

  He pocketed the phone and started toward the main entrance when he noticed the mail slots for each apartment. Although the building seemed newer, the mail system was older, the kind that was made of thin metal, the same grade they used for high school lockers. The mail doors had small slits if you wanted to slide a late-rent notice into a box, but nothing big like a CD. Each door opened with a key, but the corners could be pried back.

  At the door marked “304-Fletcher,” Donovan noticed the bundle of mail inside through the tiny slit. Glancing around, he saw that he was the only person in the lobby, so he used his fingers to pull on the door. With enough force, the lock snapped and the metal door to box 304-Fletcher swung open.

  Reaching inside, Donovan pulled out the envelopes. Leo Fletcher’s name showed up on all but three. Those other three were addressed to the “occupant of apartment 304” in one instance and then to Carmen Drouin with the other two. As his heartbeat accelerated, pounding hard in his ears and drowning out all other sounds, Donovan realized he needed to get out of there. Peeling the two mail items for Carmen Drouin out of the stack, he threw the rest of the mail back inside the damaged box and then hurried out the front door.

  Although he was well outside of Leo’s reach, Donovan still heard the drumbeat of adrenaline in his ears. He tried his breathing exercises, attempted to bring himself back to a calmness where the pounding sounds would recede, but that didn’t work, and possibly for a good reason.

  Sensing someone’s eyes on him, he glanced over his shoulder and noticed the black vehicle rolling a few feet
behind him on the road. He recognized the car, too—a Ford Taurus. The driver sped up so that the car’s passenger window aligned perfectly with him.

  When the window lowered, Donovan spotted Agent Klein in the driver’s seat.

  “What do you have there, Donny?” He nodded at the envelopes in his hand.

  “Nothing.” He moved the envelopes to his other side, using his body as something of a barrier between Klein’s prying eyes and Carmen Drouin’s mail.

  “Uh-huh.” Completely unconvinced. “Hope you didn’t steal someone’s mail. That’s a felony offense worthy of a prison term.”

  Forcing a grin to his lips—a felony? Really?—Donovan offered a mild-mannered wave. “It’s all good, I promise.”

  “Yeah? You’re all good?” Still completely unconvinced.

  Donovan nodded.

  Klein sped up a little but then stopped directly beside Donovan’s car, leaving less than an inch between the Taurus’s passenger-side mirror and the Impala’s driver-side door. Nobody could squeeze into the Impala with so little space available.

  “I can’t get into my car,” Donovan said, throwing his hands into the air.

  Agent Klein smirked. “Then why don’t you hop into mine?”

  Smooth.

  Glancing down at the envelopes in his hand, Donovan knew what Klein was telling him—they were going for a nonnegotiable drive. He saw Carmen Drouin’s mail and wondered whether Klein would find the same humor in the mail snatching.

  “Hey, Donny, get in the damn car, okay?”

  Unlocking the Impala’s passenger door, Donovan tossed the envelopes onto the seat, making sure they were facedown in case Monica/Carmen or Leo happened to walk past and see the items. When he looked up, he saw that Klein had edged the Taurus forward, just enough so that he could open the passenger door of that car and slip inside.

  “Have you had any breakfast?” Klein asked before driving off. “There’s one of those old-fashioned diners just a few blocks that way. What do you say? My treat.”

  Nodding, Donovan stared out the window at the houses they passed. For it being so early, there were enough people out on the sidewalks and front porches. The day was getting into full swing, and he could really do without wasting any of it on trivial and inconsequential things like eating.

  CHAPTER 39

  The diner that Agent Klein had in mind was busy with blue-collar workers at this time of morning. Most of the patrons, largely men, were wearing some sort of work uniform. They had come to fuel their bodies before a long day of heavy work. Donovan realized very quickly, as he settled into a window booth with Klein, that even in a pair of clean jeans, he stood out. It didn’t help that Klein wore a dark suit and a crisp white shirt; even without the tie, he seemed to carry around a neon sign that announced him as a member of the law-enforcement community.

  “Come here often, Special Agent Klein?” Donovan said it loud enough that some of the others glanced over.

  Klein smirked from the other side of the booth. “This was one of the last breakfast diners to phase out smoking in ’08.” He shrugged. “A lot of cops would come here for that specific reason. And in this part of town, the administrators weren’t in a hurry to come see for themselves that their front-liners were turning a blind eye. I can’t smoke here anymore, not since 2010, but the food’s grown on me. I love their breakfast special; they don’t overdo it with the cooking oil.”

  A big waitress approached their booth and smiled at Klein the same way she’d smiled at some of the men seated in the stools at the counter. “Special and grapefruit juice, hon?”

  Klein smiled back, but his grin was genuine. “Same with my partner.” He turned to Donovan. “Scrambled, white toast, and sausage, trust me.”

  Shrugging, Donovan said, “Sounds delicious. Except I’ll take a big glass of water.”

  The waitress mumbled something before hurrying off. With a bit of privacy, Klein’s smile melted away, and he studied Donovan. Donovan couldn’t escape that stare in the car, and it was starting to get uncomfortable in their booth.

  “I have to ask,” Klein said. “What would bring a philosophy professor to this end of town?”

  Donovan stared back. He hadn’t thought of a response. In hindsight, he didn’t know what he’d been expecting to talk about with Klein. The unmarked graves? DNA results on the shirt they’d dug up? The Cubs?

  “Tell you what I think,” Klein went on, “and you can stop me once I hit a nerve, okay?” He waited for Donovan to give him a signal that it was okay to proceed, to tell him what he thought.

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, so I see you entering and leaving a building where eight of the twelve tenants have served time for some sort of offence. Crimes ranging from petty theft, indecent exposure, all the way to murder, sexual assault, and assaulting an officer.” He tilted his head, narrowed his eyes, and took a deep breath before raising a finger and pointing at Donovan’s face.

  To Donovan, Klein’s gesture felt like he was aiming a gun at him.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say you were there to spend a bit of time with one of the worst of that group.” Pause. “Leo Fletcher ring your bell?”

  Trying to act cool, Donovan added, “Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.” And then he leaned forward on the table and waved his hand over the bruised but healing areas of his face. “This artwork is a product of Leo’s fists and steel-toed boots.”

  Klein nodded and sat back against the bench. “Yeah, that makes sense. Leo’s the one who assaulted the officer and was picked up for sexual assault.”

  “Both, huh?” The sexual assault piece caused him to shudder.

  “That’s just in the past decade. I’m sure he’s got a juvenile record.” Klein winked and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Except I’m not allowed to talk about that now that he’s an adult.”

  Donovan studied the federal agent seated across from him. He wondered how badly Klein needed a cigarette. If they’d been driving, he’d have burned through two by now.

  “Are you working with Leo, Donny?” He seemed to study him for signs of a tell, something to indicate one way or another. “He’s a bad, bad man.”

  Biting down on his lower lip, Donovan barely suppressed the chuckle that slipped past his lips. He shook his head and indicated his bruised face once more. As much as he didn’t want to tell Klein about Monica/Carmen, he felt he didn’t have much choice.

  Klein leaned forward on the table, as if anticipating that Donovan had something juicy to share. “Then what is it, Donny?”

  Before Donovan could say anything, the big waitress returned with their plates. She placed them on the table, along with Donovan’s water and Klein’s grapefruit juice. She asked if they needed anything else, and Klein said ketchup.

  “On the table, hon, like always.” And then the waitress walked away, leaving them to their meals and spectacular conversation.

  Staring down at his plate, Donovan wondered if Klein had been serious when he’d said the diner didn’t overdo it with the grease. As far as he could tell, the sheen on the plate had nothing to do with its polish or finish; it was entirely due to the way the food had been prepared. He watched Klein spray his eggs and sausage with enough ketchup to make it look like a crime scene, and then, after taking a sip of water to help with what would inevitably become a sore stomach, Donovan took a bite of his food.

  And it was delicious, just like Klein had promised. Greasy enough to make him reach for his tall glass of water after just one bite but delicious nonetheless.

  “It’s art, am I right?” Klein had the biggest grin on his face that Donovan had ever seen. “Love this place.”

  “Can you taste anything past that ketchup?”

  Klein chuckled and shook his head, as if Donovan had been joking. He hadn’t been.

  The two of them ate through their sausage, but by the time they started on their eggs, their enthusiasm for the food had softened. Klein took a sip of grapefruit juice before saying, “You were about
to tell me something before Sally showed up with our food. What was it, Donny?”

  Donovan pretended he had to try and remember. Really, he was reconsidering telling him about Monica/Carmen.

  “I’ll find out sooner or later,” Klein said, and he was right. He’d found out about the money, the trip to Twilight Creek, and Elizabeth’s unmarked grave that ended up having nothing inside it but one of Donovan’s recently worn shirts.

  Nodding, Donovan told him. “I know why you didn’t recognize Monica’s name as a missing person.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Klein nodded at him to continue.

  “But now I know her real name.”

  “And what would her real name be, Donny?” Agent Klein asked with his mouth full of food.

  “Carmen Drouin.”

  Klein’s jaw seemed too stutter while he chewed. Donovan noticed it. He also noticed how the federal agent tried to cover it up and make it look like he hadn’t stopped eating at all.

  “You recognize that name, don’t you, Agent Klein? Do you think this Monica girl is for real now?” Donovan couldn’t help but smile at his little victory, at knowing something that surprised Klein of all people.

  The federal agent shrugged and continued eating. Donovan watched him, and the agent shrugged one more time.

  “Monica, or Carmen, lives or used to live with Leo,” Donovan said. “I followed her one night.”

  “Makes sense, with Leo’s past and all that. He always liked them young.” Klein frowned, then used the napkin to wipe the residual grease and ketchup out of the corners of his mouth. “You’re telling me Carmen Drouin escaped, huh?”

  Donovan smiled. “Yes. Yes, I’m telling you she escaped. She’s the survivor I’ve been telling you about.”

  “Uh-huh. And you’re telling me she willingly shacked up with someone who has a history of sexual violence?”

  Donovan wasn’t smiling anymore. He could tell from Klein’s tone that the federal agent had found his angle.

  “Here’s what I’ve got, Donny. I’m just being honest with you, laying my cards on the table, so to speak, so that I’m not blindsiding you, okay?”