Line of Vision

by David Ellis

  I turn as I’m leaving. “I have not yet begun to fight,” I say.

  49

  PAUL RILEY OFFERS HIS APOLOGIES. HE’S TEN minutes late for our meeting, where Paul will summarize his conversation with Rachel’s lawyer about the terms of her deal. Mandy is nowhere in sight. Paul thought it might be better, just the two of us.

  As always, Paul cuts to the chase. “Rachel isn’t going to testify that you two were having an affair. She still denies this.” There hasn’t been a day since this thing started that Riley wasn’t sure we were sleeping together. “So that’s good.”

  “And?” I run my hands over the marble table. If that’s as good as it gets, I don’t want to hear what’s bad.

  Paul’s eyebrows raise. “She says you were infatuated with her.”

  My eyebrows lift as well. Infatuated. I never thought of it that way. “Ridiculous,” I say with a shake of the head, hoping my facial expression is consistent with my denial.

  “She says that you followed her around like a lovesick kid. That you continually asked her out. That you told her to leave her husband.” There is a hint of scorn in Paul’s voice. Have I been keeping something from him, he wonders, definitely not for the first time. “She also told the C.A. that sometimes you would stand outside her house at night, literally just standing around out there, looking through windows and trying to signal her.”

  I move my tongue against my cheek. “Is that all?”

  “No. She also will testify that on the night of the shooting, her husband wasn’t about to kill her. He did beat her up, yes. But in her opinion, he was not going to kill her. He hit her once or twice, but that was all.”

  I see that the prosecution has anticipated one of our possible defenses, that I was rescuing Rachel from a life-threatening beating. Or maybe this testimony is just to make the doc look like not so bad a guy, after all. Either way, I don’t really care. There’s only one more thing I want to know. I steady myself. “Did she see who came into her house?”

  Paul meets my stare. “No.”

  “She said no?”

  “She said no. She doesn’t know who it was.”

  I take a moment to consider this. Rachel’s told them I was a pathetic, lovesick puppy who would die for just a glimpse of her inside her house. That will go to motive, but it’s nothing too damaging. She said I mentioned her leaving her husband, which is getting a little more dangerous, but still not too bad. And she said her husband wasn’t a threat to her life.

  All in all, she could have done a lot worse by me. We weren’t having an affair, she said. And she didn’t see who came through the door. Truth is, she probably gave them as little as possible to get her deal. It seems she’s done her best to straddle the line, saving herself without doing too much damage to me. The fact that Roger Ogren took this deal, with what little Rachel gave him, shows his desperation. Nice work, Rachel.

  I bring a hand to my chin. “So there’s no evidence that I was at the house that night.”

  “That’s right, Marty. Nothing.” Paul, as always, maintains his Solomonic poker face, but I can see he’s eager. He has just explained to me that our affirmative defense, that I was saving Rachel’s life, has taken a severe blow with Rachel’s testimony. Now he’s gauging my reaction, wondering if our paths have finally met.

  “That’s good,” I say finally. “Because I didn’t do it.”

  50

  THURSDAY NIGHT’S A GOOD TIME TO BE DRIVING out of the city, if you’re hoping for traffic. For someone who’s lived in and around this area as long as I, I’m surprisingly unfamiliar with the outlying area. I’m not one of these guys who can explain the three fastest routes to the Calder Theater out in Lindenwood or to the stadium downtown, who can make one trip someplace and then recite the directions ten different ways. Mine is not an attentive eye, not as far as streets and towns and directions go. Put me inside a building and I couldn’t tell you which way’s north any more than I could name you the capital of Togo. Give me directions to someplace, you better give me directions back, too, or I’m lost. One could say—many have said—that my head’s in the clouds, I have no practical sense. I’d say that’s half right. I just don’t really care. I don’t care if First Avenue intersects the expressway north of Clinton and beats the bottleneck. I don’t care if taking the 280 is a faster route as long as you’re heading south of Oak Hills.

  But this route, this one I remember.

  The gas station, Guenther’s Body Work, was just a repair shop with a couple of pumps as an afterthought. The lights were off in the store and the main garage; the place looked deserted. I half expected it to be open; a station off the highway could be doing decent business, even past midnight on a Thursday. Off to the side of the garage were several rows of cars, junkers the owner would sell off part by part and a couple of decent foreign ones. I parked my car and killed the lights. Someone driving by, seeing my car, would take it for just another car in for repair.

  I found a deep trash can by the gas pumps. With little enthusiasm, I reached in, fished around until I felt some paper. I pulled out a fast-food restaurant bag and a brown paper bag from some drugstore. I looked around, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.

  I popped the trunk and reached under the cardboard floor I’d replaced after burying the doc. I lifted the gun with two fingers on the handle. I wiped it best I could with my flannel shirt, then wrapped the gun in one bag, then the other.

  Behind the store was a row of trees, bare now for the winter. I stepped into the thicket, careful not to lose an eye on a stray branch, and stomped my foot at the base of one of the trees. The ground was hard, but I could manage. Keeping the shovel with me in the car probably wasn’t the smartest idea, if I’d been pulled over, but I was glad to have it now. I found a good spot on the hard ground and started digging.

  I’m off the ramp now. The light turns green, and I follow another car in making a right turn. It’s just a half block down here. No one behind me.

  The sign, GUENTHER’S BODY WORK, is turned off, the letters nothing but sticks of metal. The rest of the station is dark. It’s safe to turn in. But I don’t. I check the rearview as I drive past the gas station. There’s a restaurant down the way, maybe fifty yards. It’s still pretty busy, just past ten. I pull in and park my car between two others. Then I kill the engine and wait.

  Five minutes pass. No cars have gone by.

  Another five minutes. Some people come out of the restaurant, walking to a car on the other side of the lot.

  Christ, am I paranoid. I look at my watch: 10:23. It’s starting to get cold in here. The sign says, restaurant patrons parking only. Violators will be towed!

  Well, I won’t be long.

  I reach under the front seat for the little garden shovel. Then the adrenaline hits me, like it did on November 18, when I was sitting in my garage, wondering if I should drive to work for an alibi, wondering whether I was about to make one wise move too many. It’s not too late to turn back, I told myself then. It’s not too late now, either.

  I reach for the door handle and pull my hand away, like I just touched a hot stove. The left side of my brain is telling me I’m making a big mistake. The right is telling me how brilliant I’ll be. If I don’t get caught, the left reminds.

  I slowly reach for the handle. My fingers curl around the leather bar. My heart is racing, the sweat forming on my face. If I get caught, it’s sayonara. Marty’s gonna have a tough time explaining what he’s doing with Dr. Reinardt’s gun.

  But if I don’t do it, I’ll always wonder if I should have. That sounds familiar.

  It’s about fifty feet to the station. I walk casually to the rear of the garage, collar turned up, treading carefully to soften the echo of my shoes on the concrete. I inch sideways through the narrow space between the back of the station and the trees, taking a couple of stray branches in the face. It smells like human waste back here, and I don’t even want to think about what my feet are stepping in.

  Last time I was here
, all the trees looked alike. But I have no trouble recognizing the spot. There’s not much for lighting, but what the hell, I’m only digging a hole.

  I plunge the little shovel into the earth. The tool’s not made for ground this hard, I soon realize, as the handle bends backward. Adapt and overcome. I cup my hand around the metal part of the shovel, like it’s an extension of my hand. I feel the dirt sink into my fingernails. And I scratch and claw with the little scooper part of the shovel.

  Almost ten minutes and one very sore wrist later, the shovel hits metal. I use my hands now, gently sweeping away the dirt. I can feel the trigger. Careful. Last I remember, this thing’s still loaded. I lift it out of the ground gingerly by the handle. I put the gun in my right hand, the hand I held it in as I stood over Dr. Reinardt.

  I place the gun down gently next to the hole and reach into my jacket pocket. The photo is from the basketball league this past summer. Rachel is holding a little boy’s hand, I’m standing next to them with a beaming smile. I’d like to take one last look at the photo before I drop it into the hole, but I can’t make it out even as my eyes adjust to the darkness. It’s okay, I’ve got every picture of me and Rachel etched in my mind.

  I place the photo carefully into my minitrench, so it’s not bent. We are one in the earth now, Rachel. Whatever may happen above ground, we are together here.

  51

  I SIT ALONE IN MY LAWYERS’ CONFERENCE ROOM, tapping my fingers on the marble and humming to myself. It’s a bright, sunny day today, the sky glowing with happiness, and they’re saying temperatures will hit fifty by week’s end.

  Mandy hustles into the room and spreads a pile of accordion folders on the table. She mumbles an apology and takes a seat, not even looking at me. She busies herself pulling papers out of the folders and arranging them.

  “Top of the morning,” I say.

  She looks up briefly. “What?”

  “Hi.”

  She looks down at her papers. “Hi.” Her voice is flat, dull, not the typically vibrant Mandy Tanner. She mentions the witness list, slides a copy in front of me. We start in on the people on the list.

  She’s keeping her distance from me a little, listening politely but making things more formal than befits her. Her eyes stay down, at any rate, avoiding contact with mine. Her face is tight, her hands nervous. She’s mad.

  This, basically, is how Paul Riley has treated me from the start, someone who’s really no better than the scumbags he used to put away, someone who doesn’t deserve to be in the same room with the corporate general counsels with whom he typically brushes elbows. Someone, to be sure, who will give him the spotlight again, a high-profile murder case, but who is deserving of nothing more than his tolerance.

  But Mandy has always been different. Mandy has always felt a genuine concern for me, she’s opened up to me when everybody else’s door has closed. It’s something to which I’ve resigned myself with everybody else, old acquaintances who offer little more than a grim handshake, some lame mutterings like “Tough break” or “Hang in there,” who are counting the seconds until they can get away from me, the guy who they’re not quite sure did it. But Mandy has always been different, until today. Now she’s tolerating me.

  We’re talking about Angela Siedlecki, the Reinardts’ neighbor who called the police the night of the shooting.

  “I think I met her once,” I say. “There was a meeting in our subdivision. She was on the board or something. She gave a speech.”

  “Where was the meeting?”

  “At the clubhouse.”

  She stares at me, then holds out her hands. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “You said you met her. Describe that.”

  “Oh. It was really nothing. There was a buffet. I just talked to her briefly in line.”

  “And?”

  “That was it.”

  “Well, what did you say?”

  I hold my stare on her. “Just small talk. We introduced ourselves.”

  “That’s all you remember.”

  “Yes, Mandy, that’s all I remember.”

  “Was Rachel there?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even know who Rachel was back then.”

  “Well, think.”

  “I said I don’t remember.”

  “Well, will Mrs. Siedlecki remember?”

  “How should—Jesus, Mandy.” I open my hands. “What do you want me to say?”

  “I just want to be sure she won’t remember something significant that you don’t seem to recall.”

  “Oh, you mean, like, Rachel and me holding hands? Snuggling in the corner? I told you, I didn’t even know who Rachel was back then. It was before I worked at the foundation. It was years ago. For all I know, Rachel didn’t even live there yet.”

  Mandy turns to her notepad and starts writing. “Fine.”

  “The truth is, she won’t even remember our little conversation at the buffet. The only reason I remember it is she was one of the speakers at the meeting.”

  Mandy nods her head, keeping her eyes on the notepad.

  “Have I convinced you?” I ask, exasperated.

  “You’ve convinced me.” She stops writing and looks up at me. “I just want to make sure your story’s not going to change.”

  Okay. I’m slow, but okay. I get it. “You’re mad about me changing my testimony.”

  Mandy’s expression is tight, her eyes cold. “I guess I don’t like to see people playing fast and loose with the system.”

  “The system.”

  “Yes, the system.”

  “You must be kidding.”

  She drops her pen. “What, I guess anything goes? Is that how you figure it? You just tell us anything that’s convenient, and we’ll buy into it because it’s the best story to win? Truth or not, whatever works?”

  I sit forward. “You were the one who always told me to go with a straight denial. You were the one who didn’t like that affirmative defense stuff. So what’s the deal?”

  “I had no problem with making them prove their case,” she says with no small amount of force. “I had no problem with you sitting back in silence, like every defendant should have the right to do, and making them prove their case.”

  I open my hands. “And this is different how?”

  “This is different how?” She turns her head a moment, wetting her lips. “This is you taking the witness stand and committing perjury.”

  “You don’t know it’s perjury.”

  “I have a pretty darn good idea.”

  “Paul believes me.”

  “Paul—” Mandy pauses a moment, then lowers her voice. “Paul wants to believe you. I already told him, I won’t be the one putting you on the stand.”

  I fall back against the chair, suppressing initial anger and speaking in a measured tone. “This isn’t gin rummy, Mandy. This is my life. Pardon me if I’m more worried about staying alive than fitting into your idealistic concept of the criminal justice system. ’Cause I gotta tell you, it don’t look so idealistic from this side.”

  Mandy deflates, not satisfied but quieted. She slowly shakes her head.

  “I want to show you something,” I tell her. I pull from my pocket a copy of the passage from the court opinion I read about lethal gas and slide it across the table to her. “Please, just take two minutes and read this.”

  She moves it in front of her. Her head goes down, showing me the uneven part in that mass of thick, coarse, curly red and brown hair. I watch her eyes move from line to line. Her eyebrows move together, then up. She runs her teeth over her bottom lip, swallows hard, curls her hair behind her ear. When she’s done, she looks up.

  “That’s what I’m looking at,” I say. “I’m playing fast and loose with a system that wants to do that to me.”

  She looks down at the table, searching for the words. Finally, she straightens in her chair, takes a deep breath. “Okay,” she says. “This is my problem, not yours. I guess I thought I’d gotten away f
rom all this when I left the office. But my career anxiety shouldn’t be your concern.”

  “Well.” I give her a faint smile. “I’d be lying if I said it was.”

  Her eyes are apologetic. She smiles weakly. I sense that there’s more here than she’s said, that she’s not just mad that her client lied, but that I lied. The words will never come from her mouth, but I realize that I have betrayed her, not as lawyer to client, but as one friend to another. I have lied to her, made her believe in me as someone who did a heroic thing, only to retreat to a cowardly position the moment the going got tough. I feel a rush to my heart, a tingly, dizzying sensation, emotions suppressed for so long that I’ve forgotten they exist, that I am a man and that I can care. And more than that, that I can express myself. I want to tell her what she’s meant to me. I want to tell her that she is the only one who has treated me like a human being these last months. That she is the only one who’s shown an interest. I want to tell her more than that, too, but I know that, like Mandy, I will keep it beneath the surface. She has let the door open too far once, and the brutal slap of wind will prevent her from doing it again. And I will keep my door open just a crack, as always, so I can look through without feeling the breeze.

  “So,” Mandy says, her tone flat. “You didn’t do it.”

  52

  GOOD THING FOR ME, HE’S A SOCIAL GUY, GOES OUT every Friday night. It’s tough going into his house during daytime, however easily I manage to slip in with the copy of the key I now have. Nighttime is much better.

  I go upstairs to his bedroom window and look over at Rachel’s house. Her place is dark. I set the binoculars down on the nightstand and pick up his phone.

  I dial the number and get her machine. I leave some message about a charity drive, would she be interested? I talk until the machine cuts me off; ninety seconds. I wait a few minutes and call again. I don’t say anything this time; I’m running out of disguised voices. The machine cuts off after ten seconds.