by Gayle Roper
Edie sat on the sofa and clutched a pillow in her lap. “Tom was already known here in Amhearst as Tom Whatley when I met him. How do you tell people that you’ve been using a false name without them wanting to know why? And then all that pain would be raked up all over again. I mean, who wants to live through that twice?”
“How did he come to be known as Tom Whatley in the first place?” I asked.
“Ah. Now there’s a weird story. I bet you didn’t find that in your magic little machine, did you, Randy?”
“You know I didn’t,” he said. “Come on. Talk. Tell me why I shouldn’t be mad at you all over again.”
“I love you.”
He rolled his eyes and slouched down in the chair.
Edie paused and ordered her thoughts. “You already know that Tom and Tom were best friends and had been for years. The TomTom Twins. My Tom—” she looked at Randy “—our Tom had done well, graduating from college and the police academy with honors. He was doing well on his job. Tom Whatley, the golden boy of Audubon High, had done poorly, getting kicked out of the Naval Academy, drifting from job to job, unable to cope when no longer the golden boy.”
“The moral here,” Randy said, “is that I should be glad I’m only second string JV and not one of the popular jocks in the starting lineup?”
His mother smiled at him. “You’re popular with me, kid.” She blew him a kiss.
His expression said clearly that while he might be having a change of heart about many things, being popular with his mother still didn’t cut it.
I’d had enough mother-son bonding. “So Tom Whatley was a failure. I found that out in Audubon.”
Edie looked sad. “He fell into drugs big-time. My Tom was never sure how it began. He asked and asked, but the other Tom was always frustratingly vague. But as the years passed, Tom Whatley became more and more heavily drug dependent. Tom put him in detox programs more than once, but the other Tom would always leave, sometimes before even one day had passed.
“Our Tom knew that the other Tom was going to die soon if something wasn’t done. The problem was that the other Tom didn’t seem to care. Then came the word that Tom Whatley was involved with the ring about to be busted.”
“How did Tom hear that?” I asked. “A source on the street?”
“A comment from his chief, if you can believe that. ‘A hero’s going to fall in this one,’ he said the afternoon before the bust. Tom asked what he meant. The chief was an older guy who had a son named Bobby who had graduated with the Toms. Bobby played football, and he always lost out to Tom Whatley for everything from quarterback to team captain. There may have been a bit of satisfaction in the chief’s comment when he said, ‘Such promise wasted, not like you and Bobby.’ Right away Tom knew what the chief meant. It was his worst nightmare.”
I could imagine. Talk about an ethical dilemma. He couldn’t tell Tom what was going to happen because Tom might tell his associates. Then they would either disappear and set up shop elsewhere, or they would arrange an ambush. But how can you let your best friend get caught up in a situation that could lead to his getting arrested or shot?
“Our Tom went to the other Tom’s apartment, by this time little more than a mattress on the floor in a horrible part of inner-city Camden. ‘Don’t go out tonight, Tom,’was what Tom ended up telling him. ‘I’m worried about you. Promise me you won’t go out and shoot up tonight.’The other Tom didn’t even ask why. He just promised to make Tom happy, then did what he wanted. As Tom has said many times since, he should have realized that druggies will agree to anything, then do what they need to.”
“So Whatley went to the drug drop.” I found the story fascinating. “I take it he was financing his own habit by selling?”
Edie nodded. “He went and got shot, and my Tom still holds himself accountable.”
“But it wasn’t Tom’s fault,” Randy protested. “He told the other Tom to stay home. Besides, the other Tom was killing himself anyway.”
Edie nodded. “Tom knows that, but the other Tom was still dead, and he had been unable to save the friend he loved better than a brother.”
Randy looked thoughtfully at the rug. “Maybe I don’t understand because I don’t have a friend like that. But if something happened to Sherrie and I couldn’t save her….” His face said it all.
I thought of Tom Willis, quiet, unimpressive, kind, living with all this hurtful history while he helped Edie overcome hers. And I looked at Edie, living with all these secrets, protecting the man she loved, helping him learn to cope. How much easier it would have been if they had known that God sent Christ to bear just such pain for them.
Dear God, help me help them.
Edie wasn’t finished. “I’ll say one thing for Tom Whatley. While our Tom was weeping beside him, knowing his wound was fatal but not knowing the bullet came from his own gun, Tom Whatley looked at him, smiled and managed to say, ‘Thanks. You tried. Love you, man.’”
I thought about that for several minutes. “You tried.” How would I react if someone I loved said that, using his last breath to free me from guilt?
“What?” Edie asked me. “You’re shaking your head.”
“‘You tried.’I was wondering if that would free me. I don’t think it would any more than it did Tom. I think that’s one that only God can set you free from.”
Edie looked at me with something like respect in her eyes. “Tom still has nightmares about that night.”
“But it wasn’t his fault,” Randy said again. “It’s not fair.”
“It’s not,” his mother agreed. “But then life’s not fair.”
That’s sure true, I thought. “By the way…” I smiled at Edie. “I met your mother-in-law.”
She stared at me. “Mom Willis?”
“When I went to Audubon.” Edie stood and began to pace. “I don’t think Mom understands all that happened to Tom. She just knows he’s living here in Amhearst and using a different name. He visits her often, usually at night so there won’t be questions from the neighbors, and he sends her money every month. Without it, she wouldn’t be able to keep her home. I think she talks about him to her friends. I know she brags on Randy a lot.”
Startled, Randy looked at his mother. “Tom’s mom brags about me?”
Edie smiled. “I heard her once on the phone talking about her handsome grandson.”
He blinked. “But I’ve never even met her.”
“That doesn’t stop Tom and me from talking about you. She’s got your pictures plastered all over her refrigerator.”
“If she thinks I’m nice,” Randy looked uncomfortable as he spoke, “then you haven’t been telling her the truth.”
“Let’s just say we’re selective,” Edie said. “You do well in school, you play a mean game of football and you are a computer whiz. We tell her things like that.”
He blinked rapidly a few times. “Can I meet her?”
“When Tom comes home.”
“She’s a little, tiny lady, Randy,” I said. “You could carry her around in your palm.”
“Sort of like Tom.” But he smiled, and there was no mockery in his voice.
“Yes,” his mother said as she made her way back to the sofa. “Sort of like Tom.”
Randy had shut down his laptop and closed its lid. He leaned an elbow on it. “I still have two questions. Why or how did Tom Willis become Tom Whatley?”
Edie took a sip from the now lukewarm cup of tea I’d made for her. “It’s one of those dumb things,” she said. “Tom had gone to ground after the shootings, staying at a friend’s cabin in the Poconos.”
“Did the friend know he was there?” Randy asked.
“I don’t think so,” Edie said. “He’d stayed there before. In fact, he and Tom had stayed there a couple of times in failed attempts to get Tom clean. This time our Tom went to be alone and grieve. He stayed there for a couple of months in the winter, reeling with the pain, only venturing out to go to the store for the bare essentials. But
come spring, he knew he couldn’t live the rest of his life like a hermit, eaten with regret and what-ifs.
“He got in his car and began to drive. Somehow he ended up in Amhearst just as his car died. He coasted into Hamblin Motors prepared to buy a car. Mike Hamblin himself was the salesman he talked with, and Mike was impressed with Tom’s knowledge of cars. ‘I need a salesman,’ he said. ‘I need a job,’ Tom said. ‘What did you say your name was?’ Mike asked. Before Tom could answer, Mike was called away for a minute.
“While he waited for Mike to return, Tom saw a newspaper on the corner of Mike’s desk. The headline read Cop In Drug Bust Killed Best Friend. A picture of him in his uniform stared out at him. He wasn’t worried about being recognized as the man in the picture. He looked much different than the rookie cop with the earnest face staring out at him from under the bill of his hat. Regret and sorrow had aged him, his hair was much longer and he looked a bit scruffy. But it was the first time he knew he had been the one to kill Tom.”
My stomach clenched. What a terrible way to learn something of that magnitude!
“When Mike came back, Tom’s mind was still reeling. ‘What’s your name?’Mike asked again. And because his mind was full of his friend, my Tom said, ‘Tom Whatley.’
“‘Well, Tom, what do you say? Willing to give us a try?’ Tom opened his mouth to correct the mistake in the name when he caught the first two words in the article—Thomas Willis. What if Mike Hamblin made the connection? Besides, he only planned to be there for a very short time. All he wanted was a little ready cash, and he’d be on his way. Who cared if they called him by the wrong name?”
“But what about Social Security and his paycheck and all?” I asked. “How could he get paid in the wrong name?”
“When Tom Whatley died, none of his family came to the hospital. They had all washed their hands of him long before. So the hospital gave my Tom all the other Tom’s effects. He kept all the things with him all those months, actually carrying the papers in his own wallet. If Mike Hamblin thought it strange that he had to pull his Social Security card and read his number, he didn’t mention it. And of course—”she spread her hands “—Tom found out he liked Hamblin’s and selling cars and Amhearst.”
“And you,” I said.
“Well, there’s nothing very sinister in all that,” Randy said, relief evident in his voice.
Edie collapsed against the arm of the couch, exhausted now that the story was told.
“You need to rest,” I said. “This has been hard on you.”
“Yeah,” Randy added. “You need to get better for when Tom comes home.”
Edie looked at her son. “You sound like you want him to come home.”
“Well, yeah. Because it’s what you want.” He turned bright red but forced himself to continue. “So it’s what I want.”
Edie was still reeling from the shock of Randy’s comment when he and I left.
“I still have one question,” Randy said as we pulled out of the driveway. “What does all that long-ago stuff have to do with Tom’s disappearance now?”
What indeed.
THIRTEEN
Randy and I arrived at Freedom House at two o’clock. I was looking forward to my interview with Tina, and he was cringing with embarrassment. What if he saw Sherrie? Or her mother, who had undoubtedly heard about the events of yesterday from Sherrie?
“It’s called facing the music,” I said as we climbed the steps.
“Yeah, I know. But the tune is so ugly.” He tucked his laptop under one arm and looked around the porch. “So’s this building. Why don’t they fix it up?”
“Money.” I thought of the quality furniture in his family’s living room and the multitude of gadgets in his room and all the money those things represented. “Or lack of it.”
He grunted as a young woman I’d never seen before opened the door. Not having enough money was a concept that was hard for him to grasp.
“Hi, I’m Karen.” She stepped back to let us in. She was pretty in an overblown sort of way with lots of long curly blond hair and way too much makeup. Still, I could see the bruise on her right cheek.
She smiled like she hadn’t a care in the world. “We’re having Bible study now, but Stephanie’s almost finished. She asked me to take you to her office.”
I noticed that the collection of equipment and offerings for Like New had grown and was threatening to overtake the entryway. Randy stared with distaste at the clutter.
“Isn’t it great?” Karen grinned as we stepped over two supersized plastic bags of clothes, their cinches pulled tight and tied in red bows. “Some lady Stephanie doesn’t even know dropped these bags off just a few minutes ago. Word’s getting around.”
“Word about what?” Randy muttered in my ear. “That the place is the town’s new dump site?”
Karen beamed as she stopped in Stephanie’s office door. She touched the dark shadow on her cheek. “I’m going to be the first trainee at the store. I don’t have any place to live yet and I don’t have any money, but I know I’ll be okay. I have hope.” And she left us.
Randy stared after her, frowning. “Why’s she so cheery? That bruise on her cheek looked pretty bad to me.”
“She’s got hope,” I said.
“Yeah, I heard. But why? She hasn’t got a place to live. She hasn’t got money. She’s got a husband who beats her.”
“But she’s got a way out.”
He shook his head, confused. “That stuff out there…”
“That junk?” Distaste curled his lip.
“That’s her way out.”
“She’s the town’s new trash man?”
I looked at Randy. He’d come a long way in a short time, but he still obviously had a long way to go.
“Do you think Sherrie’s smart?” I asked.
He blinked at the change in topic but came with me readily enough. “I should do so well in school.”
“Do you think she’s got class?”
“Down to her fingertips.”
“How about her mother and brother?”
“Very neat people. Fun. I like them.”
“Then why do you assume that they’re collecting trash? Why do you assume that the property is shabby on purpose?”
He didn’t look very happy at the not-too-subtle reprimand. Too bad. If I had to cart him everywhere I went, I was going to tell him a thing or two as I thought best.
“Okay.” His voice was cool. “Why the mess?”
“Many women don’t leave their abusive husbands because of money. They have no way to feed and house themselves and their kids. Stephanie wants to help them learn a marketable skill. She’s opening a secondhand store and training women in sales skills there.”
“Oh.” He looked slightly chagrined, but he rallied quickly. “But why the mess in the hall? Why don’t they put the stuff away somewhere?”
“Priorities.”
“What?”
“What’s more important? Finding a place for Karen to sleep until she can care for herself, or a neat hallway?”
He looked at me in silence for a minute. “You’re good, you know.” He walked into Stephanie’s office and collapsed on one end of the sofa from the mission in Allentown. “All of a sudden you’ve got me thinking that mess is a wonderful thing.”
“That’s nice, but what I really want is for you to take time to think first, guy. Don’t jump to conclusions about things. Or people.”
He slid so far down on the sofa he was almost sitting on his neck. “Me? Jump to conclusions about people?” His laugh was bitter and full of self-loathing. “Not me.”
He ran his fingers over a particularly dark stain on the sofa seat, then slapped at it. Dust motes flew. “Why would anybody want furniture like—” He stopped and looked at me. “They don’t necessarily want it, do they? They have no choice. There’s no money.”
Inside I felt like a proud mom cheering for her kid when he hit a home run, but I said very calmly, “You got it.
”
He nodded and stared at the stain a minute. Then he plugged in his computer and was basically lost to his surroundings and all conversation. The game he was playing had his entire concentration.
I knew when the Bible study finally ended because I could hear the women’s voices, all talking at the same time, laughing, lingering. Stephanie came into the office while women still talked.
“They don’t like to leave,” she explained. “It’s safe here.”
She saw Randy, who looked up apprehensively when somehow through his game fog he heard her enter. She smiled a welcome. “Well, hi, Randy. Nice to see you.”
He relaxed visibly at her accepting attitude, his fingers easing on the computer keys. He blurted, “I have to stay with Merry.”
Stephanie looked a question.
“It was her or juvenile hall.”
“Ah. And you chose her.” Stephanie sat in the stuffed chair. “Wise choice.”
“Is Sherrie okay?” Randy asked, flushing an even more painful red.
Stephanie nodded. “Not happy, but okay. She went to school.”
Randy seemed pleased. “Good. I need to apologize to her for yesterday.”
Stephanie eyed him thoughtfully. “Maybe not quite yet.”
He nodded sadly. “She needs time. I understand.”
Stephanie smiled at him. “I like you, Randy. With God’s help, you’re going to be okay, you know that?”
Randy was bowled over by this show of confidence. He went back to his computer to hide his self-consciousness.
Stephanie turned to me. Her smile fell away. “She isn’t here.”
My heart dropped. “Do you know where she is?”
Stephanie shook her head. “But I can guess. I’ve been down this road with so many women, including myself in the old days. I was just going to call her parents to see what they can tell me.”
She walked to her desk and sat down. As she reached for the phone, it rang.
“Freedom House. Stephanie Bauer speaking.”
She glanced at me and mouthed, “Tina.” I nodded. I could hear a happy voice splashing through the mouthpiece like verbal sunshine, though I couldn’t hear specific words. Maybe things actually were all right.
