Undertow

by Sydney Bauer

  ‘You’ll have a full list of attendees just in case, although I am sure the gate and door security will be tight and efficient.’

  ‘So what’s the bottom line?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘What do you think is gonna go down? You must be afraid of something otherwise I wouldn’t be here.’

  Silence.

  ‘Look,’ Joe went on. ‘I can’t see the Martin woman breakin’ out of jail with a posse and Haynes is a little too subtle to invite the KKK for a bonfire on his front lawn so . . .’

  ‘Really,’ Katz jumped in. ‘This is going too far. This is slander.’

  ‘Which part, Katz?’ asked Mannix, turning quickly towards the ADA. ‘The part about Martin and the posse or Haynes and the Klan?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Scaturro, trying to calm them down. ‘The press will have to be controlled and the extra precautions are simply in place to thwart any unlikely disturbance by ah . . . how should I put this . . . ?’

  ‘African–American extremists,’ said Katz.

  ‘Ah well, I wouldn’t have put it quite so strongly, Roger.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Joe, up and out of his chair. ‘That it?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks, Joe.’

  ‘Sure.’ And he was out the door before Katz had a chance to say another word.

  Senator Theodore Buford felt the fire rise inside his chest as beads of sweat broke out on his furrowed brow. He should have been born in California, he thought to himself. Lettuce leaves and cranberry juice would be a lot better for his aging constitution than his home-grown Louisiana fare. Still, he thought, his wife’s Cajun cooking was delicious, and he would rather go to his grave with the taste of crawfish in his mouth than live an extra ten years on tofu and pumpkin seeds.

  The Republican Senator had represented his state for some thirty-five years and was proud of it. He was proud of his people and his party, and even prouder of his wife of forty years who had been there with him for the entire term. Now, at this late hour, he sat at his study desk to open the remainder of the day’s mail. The subtle green lamp was casting just enough light to read without attracting the summer bugs which still managed to break into the house despite the numerous flyscreens and pest control lamps.

  ‘Well I’ll be . . .’ he said to himself as he opened the final letter, a thick cream-coloured envelope of top stock with the gold Republican insignia on the top left-hand corner.

  ‘Well I’ll be . . .’ he said again, and this time loud enough for Meredith to poke her head around the study door.

  ‘What is it, Ted?’

  ‘An invitation.’

  ‘And a good one by the sounds of things?’

  ‘No, well yes. Good as in a good laugh, unbelievable really.’

  He had her now. ‘Go on then,’ she said. ‘What’s all the fuss?’

  ‘It’s an invitation for us to attend Rudolph Haynes’ banquet. Friday, the 28th.’

  ‘Well I’ll be . . .’ she said, repeating his words.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Must be a mistake.’

  ‘Yes, and a doozie.’

  Despite the fact Buford and Haynes were both Republicans, they had been adversaries, some would even say enemies, for years. Haynes thought Buford a liberal wimp – a naive idealist who deferred realistic action for non-interventionist pacifism. Buford thought Haynes a narrow-minded thug, a hard nosed bigot who hid his intolerance in PR campaigns and calculated lobbying.

  Once he even made up his own little joke about the Senator:

  Q: What did Rudolph Haynes say to the little people he stepped on as he made his way up the political ladder?

  A: A little less wax on the toe and a little more elbow grease on the heel.

  ‘A little rude, isn’t it?’ said Meredith.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Sending such an invitation only a fortnight before the event.’

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean. It must have been a clerical gaffe. Don’t think old Haynes would appreciate me walking into his big social soiree.’

  Meredith moved into the room and stood next to her husband looking down at the invitation.

  ‘I feel for them though, losing a daughter.’

  ‘Of course, but I also feel for that poor woman sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial for murder. It’s preposterous.’

  Meredith moved behind her husband and started to massage his still strong shoulders.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘I have more important business on . . .’ She looked over his shoulder at the invitation again. ‘Friday 28 June.’

  ‘What’s that, my dear?’

  ‘Hanging the picture rails in the family room and making my husband some good old fashioned etouffee.’

  ‘Well said,’ he replied, reaching up to pat her hand. ‘But let’s go a little lighter on the spices next time, eh?’

  She smiled, bent to kiss him on his forehead and pointed at the invitation.

  ‘Put that where it belongs then, and come on up.’

  And with that, he tossed the invitation in the waste paper basket, took his wife’s hand and headed upstairs for bed.

  29

  Lisa Cavanaugh was worried. It was ten past nine in the morning and David’s cell was ringing out. She had tried home and got the machine and had just hung up from Nora who promised to grab him by the ear as soon as he got in. They hadn’t spoken since that morning at Myrtle’s, almost two weeks ago. She knew he was busy, but after their discussion in Newark she thought he would at least have called.

  She rubbed her temples. It wasn’t just the lack of attention that worried Lisa today. It was the girl, her ‘patient’. She was dirty and unkempt, a sad young woman who had entered the ER around eight this morning looking for treatment and asking for Lisa specifically.

  ‘I’m not a doctor,’ Lisa explained. ‘If you’re sick you need to be examined by a resident.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if what I have can be treated,’ she had mumbled, head down, avoiding any eye contact. ‘I think I just need to talk to someone and I thought you would understand.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lisa, taking the girl’s large clammy hand. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘No,’ said the girl. ‘But I know your brother.’

  Lisa led the girl into a private room and sat her down. She got her a coffee, pulled another chair from the corner and sat across from her, not wanting to push, but curious as to where this was going.

  ‘How can I help you?’ she said.

  ‘I’m not sure that you can. I’m not sure anyone can. It’s too late.’

  ‘It’s never too late. What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Yes it is, it has always been too late for me,’ said the girl. ‘Your brother said he would help but he let me down.’

  Then, it hit her. ‘Oh, you know my brother through his work. Is he your attorney?’

  ‘He was. Not anymore.’

  The girl lifted her head and Lisa saw something else besides sadness in her large green eyes. She saw anger, or something stronger and it sent a chill through her body.

  The girl took a deep breath. ‘I want you to give him a message from me. I came to you because you are his sister and I know how much a sister can mean to someone. Tell him he let me down. Tell him I hold him responsible for not working it out.’ The girl started to get up.

  ‘Look,’ said Lisa. ‘I know my brother. He just isn’t like that. I am sure there is some explanation. Please, sit down, I want to help.’

  Lisa put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, and the girl turned sharply, grabbing her wrist and holding it tightly.

  ‘Don’t you see. It’s beyond that.’

  Lisa held her breath.

  ‘Make sure you tell him,’ she said in a cold, firm voice, her eyes never leaving Lisa’s.

  ‘Tell him what?’ Lisa said, unable to move.

  ‘Remind him how important sisters are. Mine is dead. So I know. Your brother has no idea what I went through – watching my li
ttle sister die in a pool of her own blood. Does your brother love you, Lisa? Because if he does, I am sure he’d hate to see the same thing happen to you. But then again, he was the one who screwed up so maybe it’s time he paid the price.’ She finally released Lisa’s hand and turned to leave.

  ‘Wait, I don’t understand. Why are you saying this? I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘My name?’ she said. ‘He should know who I am. My name is Pepper. Stacey Pepper.’

  ‘I just think, if I see someone, they might be able to help me remember an important detail – something that’s locked in my head.’

  ‘It’s not a bad idea,’ said David.

  ‘Can’t hurt,’ said Tyrone.

  Rayna was worried about herself. She was forgetting things. First the reindeer references, and then the anklet. These were important details but they had been temporarily locked in her subconscious, eventually trickling to the front of her brain in spurts. She now feared that there were other details she was overlooking – pieces of information that could save her, or worse, others that could condemn her. And that’s when she came up with the idea of hypnotherapy.

  ‘I’ve used it before,’ she said. ‘I had a client, a young girl. She blocked out the memory of a domestic dispute which saw her stepfather put her mom in hospital. The hypnotherapist worked with her over several weeks until eventually the girl remembered every detail, without having a nervous breakdown.’

  ‘I’ll arrange it.’

  ‘Thanks, David. At this stage anything’s worth a shot.’

  They were interrupted by the beep of Tyrone’s pager. ‘David, is your cell on?’

  ‘No, they make you turn it off before you come in. In fact,’ he said patting his jacket pockets. ‘I think I left it at the office.’

  ‘It’s Arthur. It says “return to office, urgent”.’

  David felt a surge of panic rise from the pit of his stomach. They both looked at Rayna.

  ‘Go, go,’ she said. ‘But promise me you’ll call.’

  ‘We will, we promise,’ said David.

  ‘I know. Just go.’

  It was late afternoon and she was starting to get nervous. Rudolph had decided to work from home, something about not wanting any distractions. His door had been shut all day. Obviously, she was seen as one of those distractions. No matter, considering what the evening held, she found this whole situation quite ironic. She doubted the door would be shut to her tonight.

  He was on the phone to Vincent. She knew this because Vincent was the only man Rudolph would talk to in such a tone – with authority but comradeship. A father to son. They were speaking about a man named Tyrone Banks. He was, from what she could gather, related to the Martin woman, an in-law. He was becoming a pest, a problem. He was asking a lot of questions, digging up a lot of dirt. He was a Democrat.

  She had had enough of waiting and wandered towards the study to see if her husband cared for afternoon tea, or perhaps an early drink? A few stiff whiskies might take the edge off what she knew would be a surprise turn of events later on that evening. The ‘surprise’ had been largely her doing. She had made Caroline promise that there would be no pre-promotion for tonight’s show. She knew her husband would have prevented the interview from going to air if he had had any pre-warning of its existence. But he will be thanking me tonight, she thought. He will be proud of me tonight.

  She reached his study and put her ear to the door. That was another thing she had learned in the past few weeks, listening could be very useful indeed.

  ‘How dangerous is he?’ she heard her husband say. ‘Good Lord, how dare he. What the hell is he playing at? That is none of his business.’

  Poor Rudi. He was looking so tired and so old.

  ‘For God’s sake’s, Verne, what are you doing about it?’

  He was in stage two. No doubt about it. But he had to learn that vocalising was counter-productive. He was angry, which was good, but he was not using this anger effectively.

  Her husband went on to ask Vincent to monitor the man named Banks and to keep him abreast of any further invasions of his privacy.

  ‘I also want you around at the banquet,’ he said. ‘Yes, at the Regency Plaza and then here, in the background. Yes, that’s right, Theodore Buford.’

  Ted Buford. Good God, she thought. Her husband had not mentioned that tree-hugging radical for years. What did he have to do with any of this?

  She made a mental note of both names – Banks and Buford – before starting to knock on the library door.

  ‘Rudi?’

  ‘Yes,’ she could hear the frustration in his voice. ‘Give me a minute, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘I am going back into the office tonight, a late budget meeting I could not avoid,’ he said down the phone. ‘Yes, later, or over the weekend. Just keep me posted on Banks.’

  And with that he hung up and Elizabeth entered, a fixed smile on her face.

  ‘Darling, you must be tired. Let me pour you a drink.’

  David pushed open their office door with Tyrone fast behind him. ‘What is it?’ he said.

  And then he saw her – his sister Lisa, her green eyes red with panic, her normally smooth brow distorted in folds of concern. She was seated on the sofa – with Sara on one side and Nora perched on the armrest to her left. She looked up at him as he rushed in. ‘I’m okay, David. I’m all right.’

  ‘No, no you’re not,’ he said kneeling in front of her. ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘Take a seat, son,’ said Arthur, pulling a chair over to where David was perched. ‘Lisa has something to tell you and I think you’d better hear it from the beginning.’

  And that’s where she started, from when the ‘patient’ entered the ER and asked specifically for her. She spoke of her depleted appearance and dour demeanour, of her cryptic dialogue and seeming reluctance to explain exactly why she was there.

  David listened to every word, his emerald eyes focusing on the replica of his own. Lisa watched him as she let the story unfold – finishing with the girl’s veiled threats and finally with the name she had given her. As the words Stacey Pepper, left her lips, David clenched his hands and felt a hot flow of blood rush into the veins in his temples.

  ‘Lisa,’ he said slowly. ‘I need you to listen to me.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, obviously terrified of what he may be about to say.

  ‘That girl, she wasn’t really Stacey Pepper. She was an actress playing Stacey Pepper. Stacey was my client. She was also a good person, but she is dead.’

  ‘Oh, David.’

  ‘The woman was an impostor, sent to scare you. That is my fault and I am sorry.’ He took her hand and went on. ‘I want you to do something for me. I need you to go home and pack your bags. I want you to stay the night at a friend’s place. And tomorrow, I want you to go home to Jersey. Don’t argue, just do it. Ring Sean and get him to pick you up at the station.’

  ‘David, I can’t just leave, I have work and . . .’

  ‘Do it,’ he said, before realising he was scaring her. ‘Please Lisa, I’ll explain later just promise me you will go.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’m owed some free time. But what about you?’

  ‘I have to go see someone and kick his ass to hell and back.’

  Twenty-three minutes and forty-two seconds. That is the time it took for David to drive across town from Massachusetts General to the DA’s offices near Government Centre. Three minutes and forty-nine seconds is how long it took him to park in the underground garage, leave his car and move quickly to the basement level elevator. One minute and nineteen seconds is the time it took for him to reach the fifth floor – with most elevators on their way down delivering workers to the ground floor and freedom from their daily grind for another sweet weekend.

  Twenty-six seconds is the time it took for David to leave the elevator, run down the corridor to Katz’s office, by-pass his sour looking secretary who was still at her desk even at this late hour
and barge through Katz’s door. Two seconds is all it took for him to leap across Roger Katz’s pristine desk, grab his shirt front and deliver his first blow squarely on the ADA’s right eye.

  ‘You fucking asshole’

  Katz was in shock, his arms and hands now trying to cover his face and ward off the blows.

  ‘Shelley, Shelley, call security,’ Katz whimpered, slinking from his chair and trying to escape into the corner behind the bookshelf.

  ‘Shut the fuck up. This is between you and me.’

  David looked across to see the secretary who just sat there (was that a slight smile on her face?), glued to her seat as the noise attracted other late workers in neighbouring cubicles.

  ‘Shelley, for Christ’s sake!’

  It was then that Katz noticed the ‘audience’ gathering at his office door. Clerks, secretaries, even the office janitor. It was as if the director had called ‘action’ as the ADA sprung back off the wall to deliver a blow to David’s ribs and a subsequent uppercut under his jaw. The punches weren’t those of an experienced fighter, but the Kat worked out so they were strong enough to send David flying back across the office and into the filing cabinet on the far wall.

  ‘How dare you come in here and attack me like this,’ said Katz, panting and adjusting his tie and fixing his hair all at the same time. ‘What the hell is this about, have you gone completely insane, Cavanaugh? I’ll have you up for assault with grievous bodily harm before the night is over and I’ve got at least five witnesses to back me up.’

  ‘I told you, Katz, this is personal,’ David said, before bounding off the cabinet and throwing a low punch into Katz’s stomach. He felt the air leave the ADA’s lungs as he stepped back ready to go at him again.

  ‘It’s between you and me and a girl named Stacey Pepper who you as good as murdered.’

  ‘What? What in God’s name has that retard got to do with anything?’

  ‘Don’t play dumb with me. He couldn’t have done this without your help. You told him about Stacey and he went after my sister.’

  ‘Cavanaugh, for Christ’s sake. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’