Dead Last

by James W. Hall

  He heard the shush of his own blood in his ears, and then the slow restarting of the world, its mad scramble, its bric-a-brac, its jumble of books on shelves and papers and flowerpots and the rumbling of some appliance as it switched on again after a short sleep. Thorn looked around this pleasant room, seeing it with a sudden vividness as if he’d just been transported here from some faraway place. Startled to find himself with this woman, in this study, on this July morning with everything changed.

  “You tell the bozo yet?”

  Garvey was in the doorway, braced inside an aluminum walker, wearing gray slacks and a bright red T-shirt, with her dark hair braided in two pigtails.

  “Hey, handsome stranger, you missed all the fun. Shitty diapers, fistfights in the living room, broken teeth, screaming nightmares, braces and the mumps and chicken pox. All that never-ending teenage angst. You missed the drama and the sulking, then you come sweeping in just in time for dessert. If you weren’t such an irresistible dreamboat, I’d kick your sorry ass straight out the front door myself.”

  NINETEEN

  THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK IN THE corner chimed nine times, then went back to counting off the seconds. Thorn stood near the front window of the study, looking out at Boxley, who was giving a thorough crotch sniff to Frank Sheffield. Sheffield patted the dog’s head and tolerated the nosing with a faraway smile.

  Frank pulled out his phone and tapped in a number.

  “Sheffield’s here,” Thorn said.

  “That’s your reaction?” said Garvey. “Like no biggie, this happens every day? Get two brand-new sons, twins no less. Come on, say something, loverboy. My daughter and I have devoted the last twenty-five years to taking care of the results of your shenanigans with a schoolgirl, a teenager who hadn’t even graduated twelfth grade. Which, if it isn’t illegal, it should be. So come on, Don Juan, what the hell do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Leave him alone, Mother. He’s absorbing it.”

  The phone in Thorn’s pocket began playing “Hey Jude.” McCartney back at his piano.

  Thorn drew it out and pressed the answer button.

  Frank Sheffield said, “Tracked down Sheriff Hilton’s cell number. Now we know you’re a liar and a thief. How am I supposed to trust you?”

  When Thorn didn’t reply, Frank said, “I’m at the front door, could somebody let me in.”

  “Agent Sheffield is at the front door,” Thorn said.

  April stood up and walked toward the doorway, but Garvey hobbled into her path.

  “I’ll get it,” Garvey said. “I’m no cripple.”

  When she was out of the room, April said, “Let me answer the two questions that you haven’t asked yet. Yes, I’m absolutely sure you’re the father. And no, the boys don’t know. Unless somehow they’ve figured it out on their own the way Sheriff Hilton did. But I doubt it. They’re so preoccupied with the Zentai Killer, and what all this means for their show. I don’t think they’ve even noticed you yet.”

  “We need to talk, April.”

  “Yes, I suppose we do.”

  “I mean all of us. All of us together.”

  Frank knocked, gave the doorbell a quick buzz.

  “You, the boys, and me. Can you arrange that? All of us sit down.”

  “Talk about what, Thorn? I don’t know what that would be.”

  “Where we’re going with this. What it means.”

  “What it means?”

  “I don’t know. Like the role I’ll play in their lives.”

  “Good lord, Thorn. It’s too late to be their father. The boys don’t need a heart-to-heart from you about making something of themselves or whatever wisdom you think you can give them. They’ve been doing damn fine just the way they are, and so have I. So, okay, I’ve got no problem if you want to speak to them, get to know them a little, let them have a glimpse of who you are.

  “But don’t think you’re going to be anybody’s mentor. They’re grown. They’re who they are and you aren’t going to change that with any talk. And just so you know, neither of them have ever expressed any interest whatsoever in tying flies or lying around in a hammock all day or dropping out of the ordinary world. So, if you feel compelled, then speak your piece, but please don’t start thinking you’re part of our family, Thorn. You’re not. What happened between you and me was a biological mishap. Nothing more.”

  A moment later Sheffield came into the study, followed by Garvey.

  He’d shaved his stubble and gotten his hair trimmed, and was dressed in black slacks and a white button-down business shirt with a blue linen sport coat that he was probably wearing only to cover his sidearm. He looked at Thorn, then at April.

  “Did I just walk into a therapy session?”

  “We were just finishing up,” April said.

  She stepped over to Thorn and patted him on the back. A buck-up gesture that roused Thorn from his daze. He blinked and looked at April, but something was jammed in his throat and he couldn’t speak.

  “Can I borrow your charming houseguest for a few hours? We have some errands.”

  “Take him,” Garvey said. “Just don’t let him loose around any schoolgirls.”

  Garvey wobbled past him inside her walker. A sour grimace puckered her lips as if she intended to spit in his face. But April put a hand on the old woman’s shoulder and helped steer her toward the door.

  Outside in the driveway, Frank led Thorn to his dark green Taurus. “Schoolgirls?”

  Thorn shook his head. Still nothing to say.

  He got in the passenger seat, shut the door, then immediately opened it and got out. He walked over to the red rental and retrieved the computer bag from the trunk, and returned to the Taurus. Frank started the engine.

  “Let me guess,” Frank said. “You also came across the sheriff’s iPad?”

  Thorn didn’t reply. He looked out the windshield at the satellite trucks that had begun to roll up and gather along the sidewalk outside April’s house. One of the blond female anchors climbing out of the CNN truck spotted Frank and jogged over to block his exit.

  Frank put the Ford in neutral and gunned the engine at her good-naturedly, but the CNN woman didn’t flinch. Her camera guy peeled off and stood directly in the car’s path while the newswoman came to his window, bent down, and pointed her microphone at him.

  Frank sighed and zipped his window down.

  “Could you give us an update, Agent Sheffield, on the progress of your investigation?”

  “Nope.”

  “Just now you were inside with April Moss. Could you describe her state of mind? Is she feeling remorseful?”

  Thorn threw open his door and walked around the car, shouldering the cameraman out of the way. Other reporters and their attendants were flowing through the front gates, converging on the Taurus.

  “What the hell kind of a question is that? She has no reason to feel remorseful or guilty or any of that. Where do you get this shit? She writes obituaries, for god’s sake. She doesn’t have the slightest shred of blame for any of this. Somebody should take that microphone and—”

  “Hey, buddy,” Frank called. “Tranquilo. Dial it back.”

  Unruffled, the blond pointed the microphone at Thorn and said, “Are you Ms. Moss’s significant other, her boyfriend, her agent, what?”

  “Please identify yourself, sir, for the record.” A roly-poly reporter with a flushed face had wedged himself into the tight circle that was forming around the Taurus.

  “Get in the car, buddy,” Frank said. He was standing behind his open door, using it as a shield against the news people. “Get in the car now.”

  Frank said to the chubby reporter, “This gentleman is assisting with a federal investigation. If you continue to obstruct his activities or mine, you’re going to spend some of your very precious time twiddling your private parts in an interview room. So if you want to keep your pretty faces on the air, get the hell out of our way.”

  “I’m Joe Sharpe with Fox News, investigative re
porter, Agent Sheffield. I have every right to ask any question I want of a public servant like yourself. You can’t threaten me or any of the rest of us. This isn’t a police state. Not yet anyway.”

  “Investigative reporter,” Frank said.

  “That’s right.”

  “I know your work, Joe.”

  The stout man nodded as if such recognition was to be expected.

  “And I know you couldn’t investigate your way out of a used barf bag. I’d be shocked if you could unearth a pubic hair in a Mexican whorehouse.”

  Some chuckles passed through the news crowd.

  Thorn glanced back at the house and saw April staring out the study window. From that distance, Thorn couldn’t read her face. She stood there for a few seconds until someone in the throng of news reporters caught sight of her and called out her name. April lowered the Venetian blinds and a second later they snapped shut.

  Sheffield tooted his horn, then nosed through the camera crews and headed west through the city. The traffic was light, Frank driving smoothly, in no hurry. Thorn watching it all, but lost inside his head. Hearing a buzz growing in his ears, like his blood pressure kettle was about to whistle.

  “In case you were wondering, we’re going to Sports Craze, a big box store out in west Miami. The ID techs found the torn-up receipt in the sheriff’s luggage like you said. Receipt for the spear used in the murder of Michaela Stabler shows it was purchased on July twenty-second, and just so happens that same store also sells purple aluminum baseball bats, one of which was bought with cash late yesterday.

  “I made a date with the manager, Hilda Ramirez, who has been so kind as to pull security videos from the twenty-second and yesterday. The lady is all aquiver. Apparently she’s a crime buff. Never met a real G-man before. So Frank Sheffield is going to make her week. That’s a big deal to me. I haven’t made a lady’s week in quite a while.

  “Hilda tells me the Sports Craze folks have their surveillance broken down by departments, got like thirty cams running in each store. Snooping the shit out of the employees and customers. She can separate out the baseball and softball department. Save everybody a ton of time.”

  “You a father, Frank?”

  Frank looked over. Thorn’s eyes were trained on a spot in the distance.

  “Had a semi-stepson for a while, when I was living with Hannah Keller. We got close, the kid and me. His name is Randall, smart little boy, computer whiz, not too keen on playing catch, but I took him out on the water and he dug that. It’s been nearly a year since Hannah and I split, so I don’t see him anymore. Miss the little guy. Why do you ask?”

  “And your own father, he play ball with you, take you fishing?”

  “Some of that. He wasn’t the most involved pop on the block, but sure, we played pitch. Took in some ball games. Can’t say we ever fished.”

  Frank wheeled the Taurus out of traffic and into a Shell station. He drew up alongside the vacuum and air hose concession. He patted Thorn on the shoulder.

  “What’s wrong, man? You sound like day-old shit.”

  “My parents died in a car accident the day I was born. I was adopted by a cardiologist and his wife. More like grandparents than parents. The doc was a good, decent man, I respected him, but he was a busy guy. We didn’t play ball. We didn’t play anything. I spent a lot of my time alone. Not that I minded, but most of what I learned as a kid I learned on my own.”

  “Is this your concussion talking?”

  “My head’s fine, Frank. It’s not my head.”

  A yellow Hummer pulled up to the Taurus’s back bumper and honked at them to move along. A soccer mom with a cell phone at her ear. The Taurus was blocking the lady’s shortcut through the gas station to an adjoining road. Frank didn’t move. She honked again, holding it down for several seconds, and Frank drew his pistol from beneath his sport coat and held it out the window, aiming up at the sky, turning it to the left and right so the Hummer lady could admire its beautiful lines. A south Florida nonverbal communiqué. There was no more honking.

  “How does someone who never had a father learn to be one? From reading books, watching dads on TV? How?”

  “Most guys, it probably comes naturally. Or else they do a lousy job, there’s a lot of that going around. Anyway, what the hell is this? At this late stage, you thinking of going into the father business?”

  “I never missed being a dad,” Thorn said. “Never thought about it one way or the other. It’s always been a full-time job taking care of myself, all the crazy shit I’ve fallen into; it’s been no kind of life to raise a kid around.”

  “If you’d had a kid,” Frank said, “you probably wouldn’t have been falling into so much crazy shit.”

  Thorn shrugged.

  “Chicken or the egg,” Frank said.

  After a minute of silence, he pulled back into traffic. Thorn kept his thoughts to himself as they drove west along Tamiami Trail, then headed south for a while and finally pulled into the vast parking lot of Sports Craze. Big as a Wal-Mart. Filled with everything a dad could ever want to buy his boy.

  Thorn drifted along behind Frank as he moved through the maze of recreational equipment, working his way to the manager’s office.

  “I got it all set up,” Hilda Ramirez said after Frank introduced himself. She was a middle-aged woman with harsh red hair, large gold loop earrings, and impossible breasts. She had on the same Adidas jogging suit that all her sales staff wore, but it didn’t look like she’d ever sweated in it.

  She led Frank and Thorn into a conference room next door to her office where there was a large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall.

  “I copied the videos to a DVD so you could take it with you.”

  “Very thoughtful.”

  “Could you tell me what this is about?”

  “No,” Frank said.

  “Not even a hint? Is it a murder, a robbery?”

  “Let’s see the video,” Frank said.

  “Not even a little bitty hint?”

  “Not even.”

  “All right. This first one is the baseball bat. Bought at eight forty-eight in the evening on Thursday, July twenty-ninth, two days ago.” Hilda aimed the remote at the screen and clicked it. “The subject enters the picture at two-seventeen.”

  She sounded like someone schooled in police procedure by cop shows.

  The time counter in the upper right corner started at two minutes.

  The camera must have been mounted on a pillar near the register, because its downward angle suggested it was only slightly above head high. A useful perspective on the hands in the cash drawer and faces of the subjects.

  This camera was trained on a register where a hefty guy in a similar Adidas track suit to Hilda’s was finishing up with a lady customer who was buying a T-shirt. A few seconds later a figure in a bulky trench coat and a black baseball cap tugged low on their head handed the clerk an aluminum baseball bat.

  Thorn’s stomach clenched.

  “That’s the bat you were interested in. A Rawlings Plasma, chromium-enhanced alloy. Its handle flex is stiffer than most multipiece bats.”

  Hilda smiled at them.

  “A trench coat in July in Miami,” Frank said. “That should’ve been sufficient cause to arrest the guy on the way in the door.”

  “Oh, well,” Hilda said. “We get all kinds in here, but trench coats, no, not many of those.”

  “Guy was spiffed up for the video cam.”

  “Isn’t there some kind of computer trick for you to see the perp’s face?”

  “Freeze it, please,” Frank said.

  Hilda stopped the video at 2:22.

  Frank turned to her and said, “You think we’ve got some way to put a face on someone based on the back of their head?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  “Not even Hollywood has that yet,” Frank said.

  “It was just a question.”

  “Let me have the remote.”

  Frank put out his hand
and she gave it to him. Hilda shot Thorn a look, seeking his support. Thorn shrugged, and looked back at the screen.

  Frank ran the video through the complete cash transaction until the person collected their change and tucked it into the coat pocket and turned toward the camera, ducking their head as they came around, the bill of the baseball cap dipping too quickly to see anything of their face.

  Sheffield reran it a half-dozen times, pausing at intervals, freezing the image of the turning customer until he’d found a frame that displayed the face.

  “Anybody we know, Thorn?”

  Too blurry even to be sure if it was a man or a woman. Height, weight, body type, no way to tell.

  Thorn shook his head.

  “Is that clerk working today?”

  “Javier went on a cruise to Nassau yesterday afternoon,” Hilda said.

  “Great.”

  “I called him on his cell before he disembarked because I knew you were coming. He remembered the baseball bat, but he couldn’t say anything about the customer’s face. Just the big coat. ‘Kind of creepy’ is how Javier put it. And a strange voice, like he had a bad cold. But I think it is more likely the subject was disguising his voice.”

  “Good job, Hilda.”

  She smiled and touched a shy hand to the front of her track suit, honored by the praise of an official G-man.

  “That’s all he said?”

  “Well, no, he mentioned the customer asked for a different model of bat, but we don’t carry that.”

  “He specified a particular bat?”

  “He wanted wood, a Louisville Hitter.”

  “Slugger,” Frank said.

  “Yes, I misspoke,” Hilda said. “Slugger. Louisville Slugger.”

  “Moving on to the spear.”

  This time the customer was in baggy cargo pants, black high tops, and a double extra-large sweatshirt with the hoodie up. Same size person, same head duck as they swung back to the store with their purchase. Bought on Thursday, one week earlier than the baseball bat. And once again the killer purchased the weapon a few minutes before the store’s nine P.M. closing time.