Tribe

by R. D. Zimmerman

  “Don't you see, pumpkin?” continued her father with a huge, sly grin on his face. “We've got Zeb now. We're going to get your baby back and we're going to make that husband of yours pay for the sins he has committed.”

  A huge sob billowed up but then stopped, and Suzanne wiped her eyes. What was her daddy talking about now?

  “Satan may be wily, but I'm more clever, I must say.” He held up a piece of paper with a name and number scribbled on it and proclaimed, “Zeb's right here at this man's house.”

  “Wh-what are you talking about?”

  “Don't you see? Zeb's at this guy's house, this Mark…Mark Olson, and this is the phone number. You see, Zeb called here and that little contraption over there,” he said, pointing to small box by the phone, “identified the name and number of the phone he was calling from. That means we've found him. Tomorrow morning we'll have Paul and Rick head right over there and then you'll have your baby back!”

  23

  Almost two hours after they'd left, Todd and Rawlins pulled up again in front of Janice's snow-covered house. Parking his four-wheel-drive Cherokee behind both Jeff's and Rawlins's buried cars, Todd shut off the engine and let out a deep sigh.

  “I can't believe he got away like that. If only we'd been a few minutes earlier.”

  “Don't worry,” said Rawlins, giving Todd a reassuring pat on the thigh. “This'll all get worked out.”

  Shaking his head in frustration, Todd pulled up his collar, and then they climbed out, dashing through the snow and clambering up the front steps of Janice's walk. When they reached the front door Todd twisted the doorknob, pushed, and was surprised to find the front door open.

  Stepping into the entry, Todd hesitated, looked around, and then called, “Janice?”

  Both Todd and Rawlins stomped their feet and took off their jackets, which they tossed on a hall chair. When there was no response Todd glanced at Rawlins and then looked around anxiously.

  “Janice, where are you?”

  A moment later she softly replied, “Out here.”

  Followed by Rawlins, Todd ducked into the living room and found Janice staring out the front windows, her shoulders covered by a small lap blanket.

  “Any luck?” she asked without turning away from the window.

  “Kind of. He does in fact work at the Edina Hospital.”

  “Oh?”

  “He took a job as a janitor just a couple of days ago.”

  “I see.”

  “And he was there tonight.”

  “Really?”

  Todd hesitated, then asked, “Janice, are you all right?”

  She bent her head, shook it, and looked at them. “No, I'm a wreck actually.”

  “Of course.”

  Todd crossed the large room and dropped himself on the couch. Rubbing his face, he wished he could offer some bit of hope. But there was none, was there?

  “We saw him from a distance,” said Todd, his frustration all too evident. “But it was like he was afraid or something. Or he was doing something wrong. We couldn't catch up with him, and then he got in his car and took off.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Janice,” stated Rawlins, “he had a baby with him.”

  “What?” she demanded, seeming interested for the first time. “It wasn't Ribka, was it?”

  “I don't know. We couldn't tell.”

  “Well, it couldn't have been, it just couldn't have been.”

  Todd said, “Janice, if Zeb's mixed up in something we need to know.”

  “Of course, but what? I don't know anything more than I've already told you.” Putting her hand to her forehead, she wandered across the room. “I just wish he'd call.”

  Rawlins said, “First thing tomorrow we'll go out and get his address from the personnel department. After that we'll try to find him and hopefully have a little chat. Then maybe we'll be able to get some answers.”

  “Sure…”

  As perplexed as he was concerned, Todd watched Janice as her eyes darted down to the floor. He understood her being upset. Who wouldn't be? But what else was going through her head?

  “Janice,” asked Todd, “is there anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone call while we were gone? You didn't speak to anyone, did you?”

  “No,” she replied faintly, her head bowed.

  “The phone didn't ring at all?”

  “What is this, an inquisition? I said no,” she snapped as she turned and started to leave the room. “I'm sorry. I…I just can't handle this. It's too much.” She rubbed her forehead. “Listen, I checked things out in the basement and that guy broke in through a window. I got out a board and some nails and plastic, but I couldn't quite reach the hole. Would you mind covering it up?”

  “Sure,” replied Todd.

  “Thanks. I don't know if I'll sleep, but I've got to go to bed.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  But it wasn't okay.

  So, thought Todd, glancing at the side table with the leg he'd busted, on top of everything else was Janice simply still mad at him? Had his bad temper caused her to lose trust in him, or could there be something else eating at her?

  “Janice, Rawlins and I want to stay here tonight,” called Todd after her. “You know, in case anything comes up.”

  “Sure…sure.” Her back to them, Janice paused at the edge of the room. “I think there are already sheets on the bed in the guest room. If the phone rings, though, let me answer it. Oh, brother, I'm not supposed to contact the police, and here I'm having a sleep-over with a cop.”

  “Don't worry,” said Rawlins.

  Janice said nothing, only shook her head.

  Todd called, “Good night.”

  She didn't reply, and Todd sat there, listening as she slowly made her way into the entry and then up the stairs. He didn't get it, her withdrawing like this. It wasn't like her. He'd known her for almost twenty-five years, and the only times she'd pulled away from him and their friendship were when there was something she was withholding. Or avoiding. When she was angry at him—and she'd been royally pissed at him three or four times—she didn't hold back. He thought back on that school year following her supposed trip to Europe. Janice had been so cold toward him that she'd been outright rude, often not even responding to his greeting when they'd pass in the hallways. For years after that Todd had assumed her behavior was due to her coming out gay, that Todd, as her last boyfriend, represented some sort of threat; he'd always wondered how her actions toward him might have been different back then if she'd known the truth of Todd's own sexuality. But now all was perfectly clear, he understood. She'd turned away from Todd their senior year, not because she was a lesbian, but because she hadn't known how or what to tell him about the child she'd so recently given birth to, the boy who might be his.

  Unable to stem a growing sense of paranoia, Todd quickly went over to the phone, which sat on a low wooden table at the far end of Janice's living room sofa. It was a slim phone, the buttons mounted right in the handset, but instead of dialing a number, Todd searched for one particular button, which, he found at the very bottom.

  “What are you doing?” asked Rawlins, following him.

  “Being weird.”

  It did seem a strange thing to do, thought Todd, yet this method of checking on someone's story wasn't his idea. A year ago when he and his crew at Channel 7 had been taping the anatomy of a murder investigation, he'd seen a detective do the very same thing. And it had worked, had proven to be a key piece of evidence, for it had proven that the suspect at least had tried to contact the victim. So Todd now hit the redial button on Janice's phone and listened as the memory beeped through seven digits. A number started to ring.

  When, he wondered, had Janice last called anyone on this particular phone—days ago, or perhaps while Rawlins and he were out?

  Someone picked up on the other end and a voice said, “Uptown Pizza.”

  Todd hung up without saying anything. In the last da
y or two Janice had apparently been here at the house with the baby and hadn't had the energy to cook. Or something like that, so she'd had a pizza delivered instead. Not yet satisfied, though, Todd hurried out of the living room, passing through the entry and back toward the bright kitchen.

  “What the hell's with you?” asked Rawlins, tagging after him.

  Over his shoulder, Todd whispered, “I just want to see if she called anyone tonight.”

  He went directly for the wall phone, a large model with a speaker. Picking up the receiver, he hit the redial button on this phone. Again seven numbers were automatically dialed, and then a sleepy voice answered.

  “This…this better be good, girlfriend.”

  Todd recognized Jeff's voice, but didn't say anything, instead hanging up at once. Okay, he thought, turning around and leaning against the counter, so maybe she called Jeff prior to his coming over to baby-sit. That would make sense.

  “So?” demanded Rawlins, standing next to the large white refrigerator.

  “The first number was a pizza parlor, the second was Jeff's.” Todd shrugged, recognizing that there was no way he could now check it out. “But she's a lawyer, which means there's at least another phone or two upstairs. If she did in fact call anyone while we were gone, maybe she used one of them up there.”

  Rawlins calmly looked across the kitchen, and nodding with his head, said, “Well, Perry Mason, what about that one?”

  Todd turned around and looked at the small marble breakfast table. There was a basket of fruit, this morning's paper, and a cordless phone, a black one with a stubby rubber antenna. Hurrying across the room, he snatched up the telephone and quickly studied the handset. He hit the on button, heard a dial tone, and then pressed redial. Watching as one after the other of the tiny LED lights flashed beneath a number, he realized the first number dialed was “one.”

  “The last number Janice called on this phone was long distance.”

  “Doesn't this constitute spying—and on a friend no less?”

  “Never mind, just grab a pencil!” he ordered Rawlins. “Over there, there's one on the counter. Write this down!”

  Todd called it out, all eleven numbers, and then listened as the phone began to ring. In the last day or two Janice might have placed a catalog order with Lands' End or some other mail-order company; perhaps she'd bought something for the baby. Or she might have called a friend who lived out of state, in which case Todd would be disturbing someone yet again. Instead, though, he reached an answering machine, and the man's voice on the other end was deep and clear. By the second or third word Todd's stomach clutched. Was it the way he said “hello,” the letter H pronounced long and slow? Whatever it was, Todd knew that voice, didn't he?

  This couldn't be happening. A blow job? Now? Was Pat crazy? Had he flipped? Todd stared as Pat unzipped his jeans in that dingy basement at Northwestern, and all Todd wanted to do was hit him. His frustration ran smack into his fear, boiled into anger.

  And yet…

  God, if anyone knew. If Pat told anyone, that would be the end. He'd do it too. Pat would tell. Tell everyone. Todd looked into his hooded eyes, saw Pat's sly grin, and Todd realized this was a part of Pat he'd never seen before. God, wasn't there anything Todd could do?

  Desperate to change the course of events, Todd blurted, “That cigarette—it dropped right in front of me before Greg fell”

  Pat stopped tugging out his shirt, said, “Forget it, man. Like I told you, just fucking forget it. Whatever you saw must have just blown off a windowsill or something.”

  “It was a cigarette. One end was glowing, it was still lit.”

  “So someone threw it out a window.”

  “Maybe, but I keep trying to remember what I saw and—”

  “Fuck it, Todd, you didn't see anything,” snapped Pat, his frustration more than evident.

  “But I think I did. When I left your room I thought I heard someone else in Greg's room. And then when I went outside I think I saw someone else out there on the fire escape with Greg.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What about you, Pat?” asked Todd, eyeing him suspiciously.

  Todd couldn't let go of the idea of the other guy, the one at the frat house Pat had also screwed. Could Pat be protecting him?

  “Are you sure you didn't see anything?”

  “I told you, no. And I was right there. I couldn't get my window open, which is when I yelled at you for help, thank you very much, Mr. Chicken.”

  “Sorry…”

  “Yeah, well, then I had to lock my door to keep those other jerks out. And then I went back to the window.”

  “So maybe someone crawled out Greg's window when you went to the door. Maybe that's when someone crawled out and pushed him.”

  “No, I'm telling you, Greg slipped and fell over the rail. ”

  Shit, nothing was making sense anymore. Was Todd merely imagining things? He recalled looking up there, at first thinking a second person was on the fire escape, then realizing Greg was dangling from the railing.

  “You must have seen Greg's shadow,” suggested Pat. “There's a big light out in that courtyard, and you must have seen Greg's shadow against the building.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, maybe.”

  “Man, if you tell the police about what you might have, maybe, could have seen, well, then, do you know what kind of fucking trouble we're going to fucking be in, both you and me? We'd be fucked. Totally fucked. Everything would come out about where you'd been, where I'd been, and what we'd been doing. It'd probably be in the school newspaper, man, and everyone in the world would know that we'd been having sex. And let me tell you, it's not fun having everyone call you a faggot.” Pat glanced around the dark basement, pushed his jeans down to his thighs, pulled down his white underwear. “Enough with all that crap, Todd. Forget it. Don't ever talk about it again and everything will be fine. Now get down on your knees. I need to relax. I need a release.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “What? Who was it?” demanded Rawlins.

  Having listened to the entire message, albeit short and concise, Todd hung up the phone. Of course that was Pat. Even after all these years there was no doubt in Todd's mind. He could never forget that voice, and he tensed, bristled with the bitter memories.

  But it didn't make any sense. Janice had…had contacted him?

  “Todd,” pressed Rawlins, “who did Janice call?”

  “An old friend, if you could call him that.” Shaking his head, Todd went to the kitchen window and stared into the snow-filled backyard. “You know, I think the reasons I was in the closet for so long are a lot more complex than I ever realized.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I'm not sure, exactly, but I think I've been carrying more secrets than I've been willing to admit.”

  24

  After Todd and Rawlins patched the basement window, they went to bed. Todd, however, barely slept. Of all the forks he'd come to in his life, the choice of direction he'd made that night at the frat house when Greg had tumbled to his death was the one he regretted most. Then again, he thought, naked in bed next to Rawlins, what could he have done differently? Talking openly to the police, telling them where he'd been, what had happened, and everything that he thought he'd seen, no matter how speculative, was what he should have done, even though that would have been tantamount to outing himself. It would have been the right thing, but he'd been so young. So stupid. So afraid. Never mind that outing himself back then would have altered the entire course of his life— would he have gone into broadcast journalism, could he have ever gotten a job in the late seventies as an openly gay reporter, would he have been more active sexually, would he have contracted AIDS and be dead by now?

  Oh, shit. Would that he could do it over, that night, those events. Wide awake, he lay beneath the comforter in Janice's guest room spooning Rawlins—his chest against Rawlins's back and his left arm wrapped snugly around Rawlins's muscular stomach. How many therap
ists had he seen over the years as he struggled at first to deny his homosexuality, then later to accept it? Four, he thought, including the first one, the one he'd seen during college who'd used electric-shock aversion therapy.

  “What the shock does,” the shrink had explained, “is replace any positive feelings you might have toward other men with negative ones.”

  So Todd, young and wanting so desperately to reject his past and be straight, had done it. He'd crawled up on that table, let the therapist brush his right arm with salt water to make a good connection, let the guy attach the electrodes. Then Todd had closed his eyes and conjured up men, handsome, naked, butch guys. He'd filled his mind's eye with sensual fantasies of his encounters, and when he felt his erection pressing against his jeans, he'd nodded. Then: Zap! A current of hate shot through his body all the way to his heart, overshadowing any desire with a barbed-wirelike cut of pain.

  Now lying in the dark, Todd looked blankly at the ceiling. A dozen sessions. A dozen searing shocks. Nothing, however, burned him as badly nor repressed him as much as the incident at the fraternity.

  So what had Todd actually seen? Had he witnessed a murder and had his silence prevented the real story from surfacing? And why, why, why had Janice called Pat tonight of all nights, and why in the hell hadn't she told Todd?

  Consumed by these thoughts and aching with pain where he'd been struck, he tossed until almost three, when sleep finally began to pull him under. Then at seven thirty the phone began ringing. Beneath the warm down comforter, Todd and Rawlins began to move and stretch. And then Todd quickly silenced Rawlins.

  “Don't move,” he said, suddenly awake.

  Todd zeroed in on the voice as Janice answered the call. It was a short conversation, the words unclear to Todd, and as soon as she hung up Todd jumped naked out of bed, cracked open the door, and called down the hall.