"Will I see you again?" Mary asks.
"Probably not," I answer, honestly and a little sadly. "I’m not sure how this is all going to turn out, but I doubt it will be good."
Mary looks down at her milk glass.
"Take care of Jake, okay?" I say, struggling to hold on to my smile.
At the mention of his name, Jake looks up. There’s a chocolate ring around his lips. He extends his hand to me once again.
"Pleased to meet you," he says.
I take his hand, this time in both of mine, and hold on.
"Pleased to meet you," I answer.
He tugs against my grip, wanting his hand back so he can continue with his Devil Squares. I reluctantly let go. When I look back at Mary, I see tears on her cheek.
"I’ll do it just like you said." She’s speaking so quietly again I almost can’t hear her. But I appreciate it. I’m glad someone finally knows what I’m doing and doesn’t think I’m completely insane.
I push back from the table and get up to leave. Jake doesn’t offer his hand again, which must be my final cue to be on my way. Mary follows me back to the front door and lets me out, her face barely visible in the dim porch light as she holds open the screen door.
“You’re doing a good thing," she says.
"Maybe I am, Mary. And, maybe, I’m doing a really stupid thing."
TWENTY TWO
It’s almost 10:30 when I pull away from Mary’s house. She has to play her part well to convince Howard to come after me, but I actually think she can do it. She’s been pretending for months that everything with her father is 'okay'; it should be easy for her to finally dump on Howard and tell him there is a problem he might want to look into.
I should have time to swing by the condo and check my messages before I go back to meet Brad and the boys. Traffic is light in the waning hours of a Tuesday night. Except for the stop lights, there’s nothing and no one to slow me down. I turn the corner onto my street and my headlights sweep across the condo’s driveway. Lily’s car is parked there. There’s a light on in the living room. She’s waiting for me. I resist the temptation to step on the gas and race out of the neighborhood. The opposite side of the street is empty but for one lone car, a black BMW. Its parking lights are on low. I slowly press down on the accelerator and drop my head as I drive past both cars.
At the end of the block, I turn right and head down toward the Blue Lake parking lot. If the BMW recognized me, he could already be following. I continue past the entrance to the park and drive instead onto a nearby side street. This street is crowded with cars along both sides. I jimmy in between a giant pick-up and a jacked-up Monte Carlo and kill the engine.
I crawl across the seat and slowly open the passenger’s side door, half stepping, half rolling out of the car and into the shadows along the sidewalk. It’s close enough to the lake that the trees and bushes surrounding the houses blend into the densely forested perimeter of the park. Between the moonlight and the street light, I have just enough illumination to run along the edge of the lawns, stopping every few minutes to listen for an approaching car or a barking dog. I pause in front of a small bungalow near the very end of the street, just a few yards from the entrance of the park. The house was probably once very lovely, perhaps even a summer lake retreat for city escapees. But the streets around here have gone downhill in the last ten or twenty years. Too close to the action now, too much traffic, too much noise for any civilized souls. They’re mostly rentals now, rundown and shabby with cars parked on the lawns and sofas on the front porches. Even in the dim light, I can tell this little place is crumbling in on itself, going back into the earth.
I listen again for tell-tale sounds. Car? Dog? The last thing I want to do is run into a snarling pit bull guarding someone’s backyard marijuana patch. I look over my shoulder. Nothing there, no one. I step into the yard and start walking toward the forest just beyond its boundaries. Running now, but carefully, skirting dropped bicycles, abandoned lawn chairs, and a single cowboy boot. The lights are out inside the house, but I’m not taking any chances. Quiet, must be very, very quiet. My foot kicks a discarded gas can buried in the tall grass. I freeze, offending foot in mid air, and suck in my breath. I wait for the lights to flick on inside the house. Still dark. From the far end of the neighborhood, a dog barks. Once, twice, three times, and then he too goes silent. I drop my foot, let out my breath and continue the last few feet into the safety of the forest.
I should be able to run under the cover of the trees all the way around to the back of the condo. In the summer, the park’s maintenance crew does a good job of keeping the underbrush to a minimum, but it’s still pre-season and winter’s foliage has reclaimed a good deal of the forest floor. Ferns and ivy slap at the bottom of my pants. My shoes are heavy with mud and dead leaves. Scurrying noises to my left and right signal the presence of nocturnal wildlife distressed by the lummox crashing through their habitat.
This is way more of a cardio workout than I’m used to. If it weren’t for the adrenalin coursing through my veins, I’m sure my heart would have burst inside my chest quite a while ago. I’m not sure exactly where I am. The smell of the lake is everywhere, moist and rich, but I think I’m still quite a ways up from the shore, from the circling pathway, from Jake and Martin’s horseshoe courts. I have to stop for just a minute to catch my breath and remember what the hell I’m doing.
I picture Lily sitting on my couch. I wonder if she checked my messages. There are likely to only be messages from her, so that won’t help her curiosity. The condo is a mess. I ran out in such a hurry this afternoon, I left clothes all over the bedroom and dishes in the sink in the kitchen. I don’t suppose she cares. I do suppose she wonders what’s happened to me, where I was when she woke up to an empty house, why I left her such a strange note, how I seem to have vanished into thin air. Does she know someone is watching her, or more to the point, watching her and waiting for me?
Up ahead I can see the trees begin to thin out. There’s a light high above. Too yellow to be the moon, it has to be the security spotlight behind the condo. It has to be because I don’t think I have the stamina, emotional or physical, to go much farther. I start running again. My shoes are heavy. My heart is heavier.
I come out from under the trees and there it is. The back of the condo rising up on its stilts, the new bedroom window glinting a little in the light. There is no clear line of sight from the front of the house to the back. I’m sure there is no way whoever is in that black BMW can see me back here. The security flood is clamped to the back of the condo like a giant bird of prey and lights up the entire backyard. I bend over and survey the ground for something to throw at the window. Sticks, stones. What’s that old kid’s rhyme? Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me. At this point, if I could take back my words on that rainy February day at St. Mark’s Cathedral, I’d willingly endure a hail of sticks and stones. But I’m afraid all I have now to save me are my words.
There’s nothing around here but leaves and pine needles. I look up at the window a story and a half above my head. I wonder how they got that branch through my window in the storm? No normal human could hurl something that size that far. Must’ve been like the window repair kid said; must have been an old snag. Maybe I’m paranoid. What if Howard and Gavin have nothing to do with Michael’s death? Lily trusts them. Regular people seem to like them. They’re fine, upstanding citizens and I’m a kook who goes to strangers’ funerals. Who would you believe?
I shuffle forward a little, kicking through the leaves, looking for anything I can throw. Pine cones. Under the fir tree just below the window are dozens of pine cones. They look like little hand grenades. Perfect.
I could be wrong about everything. I could be sneaking through the woods like some deranged commando for nothing. I could be, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. I believe I know the truth, and even though the truth has never been my strong suit, I think I know it when I see it. Lily deserves to kn
ow the truth, about me, about Michael, about how I feel about her.
I grab a handful of pine cone grenades and launch them up at the bedroom window. The first one falls pitifully short, but the next two hit their marks. I collect more and continue the barrage. At best, they’re probably making a dull thump of a sound. Lily is likely in the living room, not the bedroom. My only chance is repetitiveness. If she hears enough dull thumps, she has to come back to the bedroom to investigate.
My arm hurts from throwing, but at least I’ve hit the window more times than I’ve missed. All close-at-hand pine cones are gone, forcing me to run back and forth between the forest and my launching site.
Come on, Lily, for chrissakes. Do you have the stereo turned up full blast or something? But there’s no light, no face at the window. I’m running out of ammo.
I tilt the face of my watch toward the security light and check the time. 11:10. Shit. I have to get back to the lab. Those guys are not going to wait around for me at this time of night. I have two more pine cones in my hand. I hurl one and then the other in rapid succession. They both hit dead center of the window. A few seconds later the light goes on in the bedroom. That’s it. Come to the window, Lily.
I see her outline through the glass. I wave both my hands over my head. The floodlight is too bright to make out her expression, but I imagine it is one of shock and surprise. Like a bad silent film actor, I make elaborate shushing gestures, holding my fingers to my lips and shaking my head. I see the side vent window crank open. It’s a narrow pane, meant only to facilitate air circulation, but Lily manages to snake her head and one shoulder through the opening.
"Albert?"
I shake my head side to side more violently and cover my mouth with my hand.
"What are you doing?"
I jump up and down, slicing the air with my arms, trying every motion I can think of to shut her up. I point to the back door that leads into the garage. She looks at me then pulls her head back inside. I wait. Please, Lily. Please understand. You have to come out the back. You can’t come out the front or the BMW will see you. I run up and stand right outside the small door. It has a heavy deadbolt latch that requires a separate key. What if she doesn’t have the key? I wait.
There’s a knock on the inside of the door. I knock back. I hear the deadbolt click and Lily yanks open the door. She is standing just inside. The fluorescent tubes in the garage are still flickering and their light is dim. I reach around the door jamb and slap off the switches before they can glow into full bloom.
"What the hell are you doing, Albert?" Lily asks. Her voice is a snake-like hiss.
I step inside the garage and carefully close the door behind me. The only light now is a thin line seeping in where the garage door and the concrete don’t quite meet. I can’t see Lily very well, but I reach out and grasp for her hand. Finding it, I pull her toward me and wrap my arms around her. She doesn’t resist, but her body goes rigid underneath my hug. I let go and she steps away.
"Where have you been?" she asks. "What is going on? Have you gone completely insane?"
"Not completely," I answer. "But I’m well on my way. Someone is watching the condo. That’s why I had to get you to come out back. There’s a black BMW parked out front. I’ve seen it here before."
"It probably belongs to one of the neighbors. You’re scaring me, Albert. Why did you leave this morning?"
"My name isn’t Albert, it’s Charlie."
The revelation comes out painlessly, in a rush of words. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Like hell they can’t.
"What are you talking about?"
"My name is Charlie Sandors. I’m not a writer, I’m just a guy. A guy who likes to go to funerals. I didn’t know your husband and I’m not writing a book."
Lily is silent.
"I’m sorry. I never meant it to go this far. I never meant to hurt you."
"I don’t understand."
Her voice is very small, monotone.
"I was just pretending. It’s my hobby. I go to funerals and deliver eulogies for people I don’t know. It’s always just been for fun. I didn’t mean for this to happen."
This isn’t going well. I’m going too fast. I’m screwing up. Wrong, past tense, I’ve already really screwed up.
"Who are you?" Lily asks, still carefully, quietly forming each word.
"I told you. My name is Charlie Sandors. I’m not a lunatic or a rapist or anything. I’m not going to hurt you."
"Why would you do this?"
"I don’t know. You were so happy. It made you so happy that I was doing this book. I couldn’t bear to tell you the truth."
"So why are you telling me now?"
"Because I’ve found out things you need to know. I’ve gotten myself in too deep to walk away."
Lily steps backwards and stumbles. I reach out to grab her hand and keep her from falling, but she slaps it away. She moves further back into the shadows.
"I care about you too much," I say. "I can’t walk away from you."
My eyes have adjusted to the darkness and I can see Lily standing in front of me. She’s holding her head in her hands. I’m making her head hurt. I’m pushing her brain to accept the unacceptable. She’s holding her head so it won’t explode.
"Michael was murdered, Lily. I’m sure of it."
She doubles over. Those words hurt; they physically hurt her. A scream sticks in her throat.
"Why are you doing this?" She chokes out her words between gasps of air. It’s as if something is strangling her from the inside. As if she can’t quite catch her breath. "Why are you saying these things?"
"I’m not just saying things. It’s the truth. Howard and Gavin murdered your husband because he found out their drug was changing people, altering their brains beyond control."
My words are coming more smoothly now. Once past that initial confession, the truth just spills out over the dam. I couldn’t stop now even if I wanted do. A flash flood of disclosure.
"They were getting better and smarter," I continue. "There’s no doubt about that, but at some point they began to crossover from intelligence to insanity. They were systematically doing away with anyone they didn’t like. Some of them started small, maybe a barking dog in the neighborhood suddenly disappeared, but pretty soon, they moved up the food chain."
"You are insane," Lily says, her voice rings with disbelief and what else—disgust maybe? "They couldn’t get away with something like that."
"Why not? People get away with all kinds of stuff every day. Murder’s a bigger risk than walking out of Wal-Mart with a CD in your belt, but if you’re smart enough, you can do it. You can do it and cover it up. And who’s going to suspect sweet little grandpa or grandma?"
Lily’s breathing has quieted. She’s standing straight but her arms are wrapped protectively around her stomach. I might deliver another sucker punch of a revelation at any moment.
"How do you know all this?" she asks. "If you‘re just some guy, how come you know what happened?"
"I may have started out lying about all this writer stuff, but after a while, I really was working for you. I was researching and investigating and I’m good at that. It’s what I really do. It’s my job."
"What? You’re a private eye or something, Charlie? Charlie Chan?
I smile. That was good. Even with her world tumbling down around her ears, she can still make a joke.
"No, I’m not a private investigator. I’m an insurance investigator. Same idea but with a better suit and regular hours."
I smile again, at my own joke this time. Lily is not amused.
"I still don’t understand how you came up with such an unbelievable theory," she says.
"I cracked Michael’s notes. That’s what I found this morning on his computer. That’s why I left in such a hurry."
Lily steps toward me. Her dark hair falls loose around her face, framing her so she blends right into the blackness.
"You mean the notes th
at went with his schedule?"
"Yes. There were entries on almost every day. Just like we’d thought there would be."
"What did they say?"
A lock of hair has fallen across her face. She is so beautiful. I reach out and gently brush it to one side. She flinches and her hand flies up to the spot I’ve touched. I pull my hand away, but not too quickly. She looks at me, still touching the side of her head. Is that anger in her eyes? No, she’s not angry with me. Not yet at least.
"Michael would have made a pretty good P.I. himself," I say, finally answering her question. "He was tracking down the original test participants, interviewing them. He uncovered the pattern. Taken individually, the instances just look like tragic accidents, but together, they are a rather deadly string of coincidences. "
"How was Nesler keeping it from him?"
"Not everybody went completely off the deep end. They were feeding Michael the normal ones and keeping the others out of sight. He wasn’t supposed to see the rotten apples just the red, shiny ones on top."
Lily steps away from me, walking forward in the dark until her outstretched hand touches the wall of the garage. She turns and leans against the wall. My pupils have adjusted to the lack of light and I can see Lily’s head is tipped back. She is staring up at the ceiling. Just staring. Did you know someone with a wandering eye can still see out of his roving eye? The eye itself hasn’t stopped working; the brain simply stops accepting its signals. Back when the bad eye first stepped out of line and started sending conflicting signals to the brain, causing double vision, the brain just said," Fuck this, I’m not working that hard to keep you two apart, I’ll just ignore you and rely on the other guy." So the bad eye is still looking around at stuff, but the brain doesn’t care. The bad eye is seeing all kinds of cool stuff the brain never even knows about.
The Eulogist Page 24
