Harlan Coben

by The Best American Mystery Stories 2011

  It was during this time that both Ralph and I realized that we probably wouldn’t be beating the prognoses we’d been given. With me it was a small but certain track of new cancer suddenly appearing on my right thigh; with Ralph it was the return of heart problems he’d had off and on for two decades.

  We didn’t talk about it much to each other. There isn’t much to say when you get to this point. You just hope for as much decent time as you can get, and if you’ve been helping people here and there you go right on helping them as long as you can.

  We followed Callie home one night, found out that she lived in a tumbledown farmhouse as isolated as a lighthouse. The next night we followed her home, and when she stopped off at a shopping center we waited for her by her car.

  She smiled. “My two favorite patients. I guess you don’t get to see me enough in chemo, huh?” The cat-green eyes were suspicious despite her greeting. She’d developed another one of those mysterious limps.

  “That’s right. Tom here wants to ask you to marry him.”

  “Well,” the smile never wavering, “maybe I should talk that over with my husband first. You think?”

  “That’s what we want to talk to you about, Callie,” I said. “Your husband.”

  The smile went and so did she. Or at least she tried. I stood in front of the car door. Ralph took her arm and walked her about four feet away.

  He said something to her I couldn’t hear, but her I heard clearly: “My personal life is none of your damn business! And I’m going to tell my husband about this.”

  “He going to beat us up the way he beats you up?”

  “Who said he beats me up?”

  “I was a cop, remember? I’ve seen dozens of cases like yours. They run to a pattern.”

  “Well, then you weren’t a very good cop, because my husband has never laid a hand on me.”

  “Three restraining orders in five years; six 911 calls; the same ER doctor who said he’s dealt with you twice for concussions; and a women’s shelter that told me you came there twice for three-night stays.”

  The city roared with life—traffic, stray rap music, shouts, laughter, squealing tires—but right here a little death was being died as she was forced to confront not just us but herself. The small package she’d been carrying slipped from her hands to the concrete and she slumped against her car. She seemed to rip the sobs from herself in tiny increments, like somebody in the early stages of a seizure.

  “I’ve tried to get away. Five or six times. One night I took the kids and got all the way to St. Joe. Missouri, I mean. We stayed in a motel there for two weeks. Took every dime I had. The kids didn’t mind. They’re as scared of him as I am. But he found us. He never told me how. And you know what he did? He was waiting for us when we got back from going to a movie the kids wanted to see. He was in our room. I opened the door and there he was. He looked down at Luke—he’s eight now; he was only four then—and he said, ‘You take care of your little sister, Luke. You two go sit in my truck now.’ ‘You better not hurt her, Dad.’s Can you imagine that—a four-year-old talking like that? A four-year-old? Anyway, then he looked at me and said, ‘Get in here, whore.’ He waited until I closed the door behind me and then he hit me so hard in the face he broke my nose. And my glasses. He forced the kids to ride back with him. That way he knew I’d come back too.”

  This was in the food court of the mall where we’d convinced her to come and have some coffee with us. You could reach up and grab a handful of grease from the air. I’m told in Texas they deep-fry quarter sticks of butter. If it ever comes up here, this mall will sell it for sure.

  “But you always come back.”

  “I love him, Ralph. I can’t explain it. It’s like a sickness.”

  “It’s not like a sickness, Callie. It is a sickness.”

  “Maybe if I knew I could get away and he’d never find me. To him those restraining orders are a joke.” Then: “I have to admit there’re sometimes—more and more these days, I guess—when I think maybe it’d be best if he’d just get killed driving that damned truck of his. You know, an accident where he’s the only one killed. I wouldn’t want to do that to anybody else.” Then: “Isn’t that awful?”

  “It is if you love him.”

  “I say that, Tom. I always say that. But the woman at the shelter had me see a counselor and the counselor explained to me what she called the ‘dynamics’ of how I really feel about him. We had to take two semesters of psych to get our nursing degrees, so I’d always considered myself pretty smart on the subject. But she led me into thinking a lot of things that had never occurred to me before. And so even though I say that, I’m not sure I mean it.” Then, shy: “Sorry for all the carrying-on in the parking lot. I attracted quite a crowd.”

  “I collected admission from every one of them.”

  She sat back in her curved red plastic chair and smiled. “You guys—you’re really my friends. I was so depressed all day. Even with the kids there I just didn’t want to drag myself home tonight. I know I was being selfish to even think such a thing. But I just couldn’t take being hit or kicked anymore. I knew he’d be mad that I stopped at the mall. Straight home or I’d better have a damned good excuse. Or I’ll be sorry. It’s no way to live.”

  “No,” I said, “it sure isn’t.”

  “Now let’s go get him.”

  Callie had mentioned she was taking the kids for a long weekend stay at a theme park, which was why we’d decided on tonight.

  Neely didn’t hear us coming. We walked through patches of shadow then moonlight, shadow then moonlight, while he tried to get out of his truck. I say tried because he was so drunk he almost came out headfirst and would have if he hadn’t grabbed the edge of the truck door in time. Then he sat turned around on the edge of the seat and puked straight down. He went three times and he made me almost as sick as he was. Then of course, being as drunk as he was, he stepped down with his cowboy boots into the puddle of puke he’d made. He kept wiping the back of his right hand across his mouth. He started sloshing through the puke, then stopped and went back to the truck. He opened the door and grabbed something. In the moonlight I could see it was a pint of whiskey. He gunned a long drink, then took six steps and puked it all right back up. He stepped into this puke as well and headed more or less in the direction of the stairs that would take him to his apartment. All of this was setting things up perfectly. Nobody was going to question the fact that Neely had been so drunk it was no surprise that he’d fallen off those stairs and died.

  We moved fast. I took the position behind him with my ball cap, shades, and ball bat, and Ralph got in front of him with his Glock.

  Neely must’ve been toting a 2.8 level of alcohol because he didn’t seem to be aware of Ralph until he ran straight into him. And straight into the Glock. Even then all he could say was, “Huh? I jush wan’ sleep.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Neely. You shouldn’t drink so much. You need to be alert when you’re beating the shit out of women half your size. You never know when they’re going to hit back, do you?”

  “Hey, dude, ish tha’ a gun?”

  “Sure looks like it, doesn’t it?”

  He reeled back on the heels of his cowboy boots. I poked the bat into his back. I was careful. When he went down the stairs it had to look accidental. We couldn’t bruise him or use any more force than it took to give him a slight shove. If he didn’t die the first time down he would the second time we shoved him.

  “Hey.”

  “You need some sleep, Neely.”

  “—need no fuckin’ sleep. ‘n don’t try’n make me. Hey, an’ you got a fuckin’ gun.”

  “What if I told you that I’ve got a pizza in the car?”

  “Pizza?”

  “Yeah. Pizza.”

  “How come pizza?”

  “So we can sit down in your apartment and talk things over.”

  “Huh?”

  “How—does—pizza—sound?”

  Ralph was enuncia
ting because Neely was about two minutes away from unconsciousness. We had to get him up those stairs without leaving any marks on him.

  “Pizza, Neely. Sausage and beef and pepperoni.”

  I allowed myself the pleasure of taking in the summer night. The first time I’d ever made love to Karen had been on a night like this near a boat dock. Summer of our senior year in college. We went back to that spot many times over the years. Not long before she died we went there too. I almost believed in ghosts; I thought I saw our younger selves out on the night river in one of those old rented aluminum canoes, our lives all ahead of us, so young and exuberant and naive. I wanted to get in one of those old canoes and take my wife downriver so she could die in my arms and maybe I’d be lucky and die in hers as well. But it hadn’t worked out that way. All too soon I’d been flying solo.

  Neely started puking again. This time it was a lot more dramatic, because after he finished he fell facedown in it.

  “This fucking asshole. When he’s done you take one arm and I’ll take the other one.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to touch him.”

  “That’s why you shoved those latex gloves in your back pocket same as I did. You gotta plan for contingencies. That’s why cops carry guns they can plant on perps. Otherwise we’ll be here all night. Clint Eastwood would know about that.”

  “Yes, planting guns on people. Another admirable Eastwood quality.”

  “Right. I forgot. Tender ears. You don’t want to hear about real life. You just want to bitch and moan like Garner. Now let’s pick up this vile piece of shit and get it over with.”

  He’d worked up a pretty good sweat with all his puking. It was a hot and humid night. His body was soggy like something that would soon mildew. Once I pulled him out of his puke I held my breath.

  “We don’t want to drag him. They’ll look at his boots. Stand him upright and we’ll sort of escort him to the steps.”

  “I just hope he doesn’t start puking again.”

  “I saw a black perp puke like this once. I wish I had it on tape.”

  “Yeah, be fun for the grandkids to watch at Christmastime.”

  “I like that, Tom. Smart-ass remarks in the course of committing murder one. Shows you’re getting a lot tougher.”

  We took our time. He didn’t puke again, but from the tangy odor I think he did piss his pants.

  When we were close to the bottom step, he broke. I guess both of us had assumed he was unconscious and therefore wouldn’t be any problem. But he broke and he got a three- or four-second lead while we just stood there and watched him scramble up those stairs like a wild animal that had just escaped its cage. He was five steps ahead of us before Ralph started after him. I pounded up the steps right behind him. Ralph was shouting. I’m sure he had to restrain himself from just shooting Neely and getting it over with.

  Neely was conscious enough to run but not conscious enough to think clearly, because when he got to the top of the stairs he stopped and dug a set of keys from his pocket. As he leaned in to try and find the lock, his head jerked up suddenly and he stared at us as if he was seeing us for the very first time. Confusion turned to terror in his eyes and he started backing away from us. “Hey, who the hell’re you?”

  “Who do you think we are, Neely?”

  “I don’ like thish.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t like it either.”

  “He got a ball bat.” He nodded in my direction. He weaved wide as he did so, so wide I thought he was going to tip over sideways. Then his hand searched the right pocket of his Levi’s. It looked like he’d trapped an angry ferret in there.

  Ralph materialized Neely’s nine-inch switchblade. “This what you’re looking for?”

  “Hey,” Neely said. And when he went to grab for it he started falling to the floor. Ralph grabbed him in time. Stood him straight up.

  But Neely wasn’t done yet. And he was able to move faster than I would have given him credit for. Ralph glanced back at me, nodded for me to come forward. And in that second Neely made his sloppy, drunken move. He grabbed the switchblade from Ralph’s hand and immediately went into a crouch.

  He would have been more impressive if he hadn’t swayed side to side so often. And if he hadn’t tried to sound tough. “Who’sh gotta knife now, huh?”

  “You gonna cut us up, are you, Neely?”

  All the time advancing on Neely, backing him up. “C’mon, Neely. Cut me. Right here.” Ralph held his arm out. “Right there, Neely. You can’t miss it.”

  Neely swaying, half stumbling backward as Ralph moved closer, closer. “You’re pretty pathetic, you know that, Neely? You beat up your wife all the time, and even when you’ve got the knife you’re still scared of me. You’re not much of a man, but then you know that, don’t you? You look in the mirror every morning and you see yourself for what you really are, don’t you?”

  I doubt Neely understood what Ralph was saying to him. This was complex stuff to comprehend when you were as wasted as Neely was. All he seemed to understand was that Ralph meant to do him harm. And if Ralph didn’t do it, there was always the guy in the ball cap and the shades. You know, with the bat.

  Neely stumbled backward, his arms circling in a desperate attempt to keep himself upright. He hit the two-by-four that was the upper part of the porch enclosure just at the lower part of his back and he went right over, the two-by-four splintering as he did so. He didn’t scream. My guess is he was still confused about what was happening. By the time he hit the ground I was standing next to Ralph, looking down into the shadows beneath us.

  There was silence. Ralph got his flashlight going and we got our first look at him. If he wasn’t dead, he was pretty good at faking it. He didn’t land in any of those positions we associate with people who die crashing from great heights. He was flat on his back with his arms flung wide. His right leg was twisted inward a few inches, but nothing dramatic. The eyes were open and looked straight up. No expression of horror, something else we’ve picked up from books and movies. And as we watched the blood started pooling from the back of his head.

  “Let’s go make sure,” Ralph said.

  It was like somebody had turned on the soundtrack. In the moments it had taken Neely to fall all other sound had disappeared. But now the night was back and turned up high. Night birds, dogs, horses and cows bedded down for the evening, distant trucks and trains, all turned so high I wanted to clap my hands to my ears.

  “You all right, Tom?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

  “See. I knew you weren’t all right.”

  “But you’re all right, I suppose. I mean, we just killed a guy.”

  “You want me to get all touchy-feely and say I regret it?”

  “Fuck yourself.”

  “He was a piece of shit and one of these nights he was gonna kill a friend of ours. Maybe he wouldn’t even have done it on purpose. He’d just be beating on her some night and he’d do it by accident. But one way or another he’d kill her. And we’d have to admit to ourselves that we could’ve stopped it.”

  I walked away from the edge of the porch and started down the stairs.

  “You doin’ better now?” Ralph called.

  “Yeah—yeah, I guess I am.”

  “Clint Eastwood, I tell ya. Clint Eastwood every time.”

  Turned out Neely wasn’t dead after all. We had to stand there for quite a while watching him bleed to death.

  I was visiting my oldest son in Phoenix (way too hot for me) when I learned Ralph had died. I’d logged on to the hometown paper website and there was his name at the top of the obituaries. The photo must have been taken when he was in his early twenties. I barely recognized him. Heart attack. He’d been dead for a day before a neighbor of his got suspicious and asked the apartment house manager to open Ralph’s door. I thought of what he’d said about flying solo that time.

  Ralph had experienced the ultimate in flying solo: death. I hoped that whatever he thought was on t
he other side came true for him. I still hadn’t figured out what I hoped would be there. If anything would be there at all.

  The doc told me they’d be putting me back on chemo again. The lab reports were getting bad fast. The nurses in chemo commiserated with me as if Ralph had been a family member. There’d been a number of things I hadn’t liked about him and he hadn’t liked about me. Those things never got resolved and maybe they didn’t need to. Maybe flying solo was all we needed for a bond. One thing for sure. The chemo room hours seemed a lot longer with him gone. I even got sentimental once and put a Clint Eastwood DVD in the machine, film called Tightrope. Surprised myself by liking it more than not liking it.

  I was sitting in my recliner one day when one of the newer nurses sat down and started talking in a very low voice. “There’s this guy we each gave five hundred dollars to. You know, a down payment. He said he was setting up this group trip to the Grand Canyon. You know, through this group therapy thing I go to. Then we found out that he scams a lot of people this way. Groups, I mean. We called the Better Business Bureau and the police. But I guess he covers his tracks pretty well. Actually takes some of the groups on the trips. Five hundred is a lot of money if you’re a single mother.”

  The chemo was taking its toll. But I figured I owed it to Ralph to help her out. And besides, I wanted to see how I did on my own.

  So here I am tonight. I’ve followed him from his small house to his round of singles bars and finally to the apartment complex where the woman lives. The one he picked up in the last bar. He’s got to come out sometime.

  I’ve got the Louisville Slugger laid across my lap and the Cubs cap cinched in place. I won’t put the shades on till I see him. No sense straining my eyes. Not at my age.