The Dead Man

by Joel Goldman

  She turned and walked out to the end of the balcony, her hands on the waist high wooden rail.

  "It's over. Come inside."

  She ignored me, rising up and down on her toes as if readying to jump. I crossed the space between us, the shotgun under my right arm, and reached for her shoulder. She whirled around, holding a knife in her right hand that must have been laying on the top of the rail, hidden from me, driving it toward my chest in a short, powerful stroke.

  I dropped the shotgun, grabbing her wrist with both hands, the blade slicing through my jacket, piercing my chest. She clawed my face with her left hand as my grip slid along her right arm, slick with blood. Spinning again, she broke the grip of one of my hands and pressed her back into me, jerking the knife downward toward my side, jamming it in my thigh. I held on to her wrist with one hand, forcing the knife out of my leg, using my knee to separate us and pushing my other hand against the small of her back, trying to pin her against the rail when the wood snapped and she plunged to the ground.

  "Jack!" Lucy called, running from the barn.

  I watched from the balcony as Lucy knelt next to her, rolling her onto her back, shining her flashlight on the hilt of the hunting knife sticking out of Maggie Brennan's lifeless chest.

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  Dear Daddy, I'm so sorry for everything. You and mom tried so hard and you did your best. I used to think I did my best too. Maybe I was just kidding myself or maybe my best just wasn't good enough. I don't know why things turned out this way. You warned me and I wish I had listened. I thought the money would take care of everything but I don't even have that so I guess the joke is on me. Hah, hah. I wish I could come home but I can't. They would send me to jail and that scares me too much to even think about it. Hold onto Monkey Girl. All that's left of me belongs to her. I love you.

  Wendy.

  I sat on the bed in Maggie Brennan's bedroom, reading and rereading Wendy's letter, holding the page to my face, hoping to catch a scent of her. I closed my eyes, trying to conjure her, summon her, or feel her. I didn't shake but I did ache. When I opened my eyes, Lucy was there. She clasped one corner of the letter between two fingers, read it, and put it with the other souvenirs.

  "At least you know," she said.

  "Yeah, and I'll tell you something. Knowing isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes, dreaming and hoping is better. Where's Goodell?"

  "Standing guard over Maggie's body."

  "He must feel pretty good, knowing he was right."

  "Unless he's crying for joy, I don't think so."

  "He's crying?"

  "Buckets. Says it's all his fault she got away with it for so long."

  "Getting it wrong or being too late are every cop's nightmares."

  "That's more weight than any of us should have to carry. We do our job the best we can with the evidence we've got and let the chips fall."

  "The weight comes with the job. If you can't carry it, you should get out. And you and I are out of it."

  "The public side, maybe. But that's not all there is."

  "You want to go private? Chase deadbeat dads and cheating wives?"

  "There's more to it than that and you know it. Simon has enough work to keep both of us busy. He's only sent a little of it to you but there's more. Plus, Milo Harper and Sherry Fritzshall are connected to everyone in town. After the way we cracked this case, people will be standing in line to hire us."

  "Look around, kiddo. This doesn't exactly qualify for the victory column."

  "Wait till you see what I found in the barn."

  "More souvenirs?"

  "And lab journals. It was like she was conducting some grand experiment. Some excuse, huh?"

  "Scientists don't make excuses."

  "Think about it," she said. "That's all I'm saying. We didn't deal these cards but that doesn't mean we can't play them."

  I got up, walked onto the balcony, looked at the rocky ground where Maggie's body lay. Lucy stood alongside me. The moon broke through the clouds as Tom Goodell raised his head toward us, moonbeams catching his tears. He ducked his head and turned away.

  "Deal me out."

  Sirens wailed in the near distance, flashing lights bobbing along the county road visible in the dark from the balcony. Quincy Carter, the Johnson County Sheriff's Department, and the FBI descended on the Brennan farm, not letting us go until close to dawn. I was unconscious the moment my head hit the pillow.

  Kevin and Wendy play on the beach, white winged gulls swooping and dipping and dancing overhead. Joy and I watch from the deck of the beach house, the waves breaking in the distance, rolling lazily onto shore, the kids squealing, splashing, and kicking the water. The sun rides across the horizon, red, then yellow and orange, the sky changing from pink to blue to ink, day passing; stars twinkling, planets shining, and the moon sharing and shading its face as a cool wind blows and fireflies christen the night in a phosphorescent shower. Wendy lays her stuffed animal at my feet. Hold on to Monkey Girl, she says. All that's left of me belongs to you. She links arms with Kevin and the wind scours the sand, sweeping them away.

  I sat up in bed, glancing at my watch. It was almost eleven. I'd been asleep five hours, not enough to clear the brain fog. I rubbed the dressings on my chest and thigh, feeling the stitches that a paramedic had used to close the wounds.

  I tried to untangle Wendy's letter from my dream. Her letter said hold on to Monkey Girl; all that's left of me belongs to her. In my dream, she said all that's left of me belongs to you, the pronoun making the difference, giving new meaning to her letter.

  Monkey Girl occupied its familiar perch on the shelf in my closet. I took it down, kneading its synthetic fur, probing until my finger slipped into a fold along the inseam of one leg, rubbing against an implanted narrow strip of Velcro. I ran my finger along the inside length of the leg, then squeezed and shook the toy without finding whatever had been attached to the Velcro. There were no other hidden pockets.

  I was certain that Wendy had left something for me inside the stuffed animal, her letter and my dream the clues. Whatever she had hidden, it had to lead to the stolen money. There would have been no other reason for her cryptic message. My dream had parsed the letter for me.

  I sat on my bed, my gut sick at the realization that Lucy had also read Wendy's letter and may have understood its meaning. I was sleeping so soundly I would not have heard her had she taken Monkey Girl, removed whatever Wendy had hidden, and put the stuffed animal back.

  I had asked Wendy what she would do the next time she was tempted by an easy, big score and she had asked me what I would do with the money if I found it. They were the same question but our answers were different. I knew what I would do and she was scared of the choice she might make.

  I pulled on my clothes and went looking for her. The house was empty and my car was gone. If the dogs knew where she was, they weren't talking. I started to call her cell phone when the doorbell rang. It was Kent and Dolan. I'd forgotten that my forty-eight hours were up.

  Chapter Seventy

  "We've come for the monkey," Dolan said.

  "Anyone else, Dolan, and that would be the dumbest thing they'd ever said."

  "C'mon, Jack," Kent said. "We've seen the letter your daughter sent you. Ammara Iverson knew about the stuffed animal. She's the one that put it together."

  "You're telling me that you got a judge to sign a search warrant for a stuffed monkey?"

  "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Kent said. "The harder you fight us, the harder we come at you."

  He was right and I was buying time until I could find Lucy.

  "Wait here."

  I ran upstairs, coming back with Monkey Girl.

  "You can look at it here. You want to take it with you, get a warrant. Until then, you've got my word I'll take good care of it. Deal?" Kent nodded and I handed it to him. "There's a pocket on the inseam of one of the legs. There's a piece of Velcro inside. I don't know if something was hidden there, bu
t if there was, it's gone."

  Kent handed it to Dolan and stared at me, deciding what to do next when his cell phone rang.

  "Kent," he said, listening, the veins in his neck bulging. "You're shitting me! That is total bullshit! All right, all right! Here."

  He handed me the phone, grabbed Monkey Girl from Dolan, and threw it on the floor, pulling Dolan to one side, whispering to him, flapping his arms like he was drowning. Dolan's face turned red and he tried to push past Kent who bodychecked him.

  "You son-of-a-bitch!" Dolan screamed. "We'll get you for this if it's the last fucking thing we do!"

  Kent dragged him into the kitchen. I walked into the living den where I could see them, holding Kent's phone to my ear.

  "Hello," I said.

  "Jack, it's Ammara. I hope you know what you're doing."

  "At the moment, the only thing I'm doing is watching Kent and Dolan pitch a fit. It's a good show but I don't know what it has to do with me."

  "Don't play with me, Jack. This is serious shit," she said.

  "I'm not playing with you. I have no idea what you're talking about."

  She hesitated. "Okay. Here it is. We got an anonymous tip this morning that two and a half million dollars each was wired into Kent's and Dolan's bank accounts. We checked it out and the money came from an account in the Caymans that was closed immediately after the transfer was made. We don't know whose account it was or how the transfer was made but we'll find out and when we do, you better hope you still don't know anything about it."

  I looked out the front window as Lucy and Simon pulled into the driveway, Lucy in my car, Simon in his. They got out and waved to me. Simon pointed at the government sedan parked at the curb, his eyes asking the obvious question. I nodded and they high-fived, kissed, and drove away in Simon's car.

  "Maybe they won the lottery," I told Ammara.

  "That's the best you can do?"

  Dolan was on his phone, his eyes popping out of his head, Kent pacing circles around him. Roxy and Ruby raced in through the doggie door, jumped up on them, and peed on their shoes.

  "What can I tell you? Every dog has his day."

  After Kent and Dolan left, I showered and shaved, went to the grocery store, and came home. A taxi pulled in the driveway behind me and Joy got out of the backseat. She was wearing jeans, a down vest over a turtleneck sweater, her hair tucked behind her head, the only color in her cheeks coming from the cold. The driver pulled her suitcase from the trunk. She paid him and he drove away. We looked at each other, my arms filled with grocery bags, hers hugging her chest.

  We were married a long time before we got divorced, long enough to know when something was wrong. I saw it in her flushed-out features, her slumped shoulders. I tilted my head at the front door.

  "Let's go inside."

  The dogs swarmed her while I put the groceries away. She sat on the floor with them, offering no resistance. I took my coat off and joined her. The dogs exhausted themselves, curling into our laps. I took her hand.

  "Tell me," I said.

  She cleared her throat. "It's funny. All those years I spent running from doctor to doctor and nothing was wrong with me except that I was a drunk. When I finally quit drinking, I quit running. Then, a few months ago, I felt something in the shower. I decided it was nothing, just my imagination. But it got bigger and I got scared and so I went to a doctor here and she sent me to M. D. Anderson."

  "What did they tell you?"

  "I have breast cancer, probably stage three or four. They won't know for sure until they get the rest of the tests back."

  I let out a long breath. "I'm sorry. Is it curable?"

  "Treatable. That's the new mantra. Nobody promises a cure."

  "When do you start?"

  "Soon. Surgery first, then chemo and radiation." She looked at me, her eyes filled. "If I live long enough, I get new boobs."

  She dipped her head to my shoulder and I cradled the back of her neck in my hand. My phone rang. It was Kate. I didn't answer.

  Chapter Seventy-one

  May 2009

  My parents lived in Dallas when I was assigned to the FBI office there. My dad and I had lunch together every Friday. The best part of lunch was arguing over whose turn it was to pay, each of us trying to convince the other to pick up the check. He and my mother stopped by our house one Sunday morning and the conversation turned to whose turn it was to buy, my dad reminding me that he'd bought the week before. I said he would have to pay because I was broke and turned one pant pocket inside out to show that it was empty. He pointed to the other pocket and I turned it out. It was as empty as the first. He looked at me and said wear a different pair of pants, telling me not to make excuses when it was my turn to step up.

  I told Kate that story when we had lunch at the end of May. We were sitting at a table on the sidewalk at Axios. It was my way of explaining why I had gone with Joy to her doctor appointments, sat in the waiting room during her surgery, and moved her into the house Lucy and I shared when she came home from the hospital. Joy's surgery had gone well but she was struggling with chemo and radiation. Her hair was falling out and she was losing weight and hope.

  "What's your relationship with her now?" Kate asked.

  "I'm taking care of her. When we were married, she went through some pretty hard times when I didn't do that."

  "What's that mean for us?"

  Sherry Fritzshall had been true to her word, reaching an agreement with Kate to compensate her for the damage Milo Harper had caused her firm. After the ink was dry, she tried to recruit Kate to the institute but Kate told her she had accepted a job in California.

  "I don't know. You're moving to San Diego next week so you can take care of Brian. We're both doing what we need to do."

  Kate finished the last of her wine, setting her glass down and folding her hands on the table. "Will you come see me?"

  "When I can."

  She rose from the table. "Don't wait too long."

  I watched her drive away. My cell phone rang. It was Lucy.

  "It's after one o'clock. Are you planning on coming in to the office today?"

  I never asked Lucy or Simon about the money that showed up in Kent's and Dolan's bank accounts and they never said a word about it. Some things are better left unknown and unsaid.

  "You and Simon are the partners. You're supposed to be in the office. I'm just a consultant and consultants don't punch a clock."

  She laughed. "Well, try to work us in to your schedule. You won't believe who just hired us."

  THANKS

  Thanks for adding The Dead Man to your digital library. The ebook revolution has opened new doors. Thanks for walking through one of mine.

  Find out more about Joel Goldman at http://www.joelgoldman.com

  Follow his blog at http://www.joelgoldman.blogspot.com

  Sign up for his newsletter at http://www.joelgoldman.com/newsletter.php

  Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/JoelGoldman1

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Jim Born for his help with firearms, to Doug Lyle for his help on forensic matters, to Doug Stone for his explanation of parabolic curves, and to Rick Shteamer for reminding me that the more you do the more you do. Thanks also to Starbucks for reserving my table and not raising my rent and to Jott.com for helping me remember all the brilliant insights that came to me when I was walking instead of writing.

  This book, like everything in my life, would not be possible without my wife, Hildy, whose love, support, patience, and encouragement spring from a bottomless well. As always, my agent Meredith Bernstein gave invaluable advice and my editor, Audrey LaFehr, sharpened, shaped, and shepherded the story, both making a good book better. I am grateful to all of them.

  Table Of Contents

  Front Cover Image

  Welcome

  Dedication

  The Dead Man

  Chapter One
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  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six