The Short Drop

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  He had not seen his aunt since the trial. Miranda had taken him in after his father’s death, and it was fair to say he had not been a grateful child. She had been more than understanding of his tempestuous moods and bad behavior in the way that only a mother who had already raised teenage sons could be. He returned her kindness in the form of an FBI raid on her home.

  During the trial, contact with his aunt was reserved and frosty. He couldn’t rightly blame her, but, young and angry, he’d resented her for it anyway.

  Legal bills had eaten through his father’s estate, and his last correspondence with his aunt had been when the house was sold. It had taken time to find a buyer, and he was nearing graduation at Parris Island when the envelope came—plain, white, and with a check inside. There was no note, and he’d seen no cause to reply. Eventually, he’d used the money as a down payment on the house Nicole and Ellie lived in now.

  He didn’t know what to expect from the meeting and realized that he only had a child’s memory of his aunt. He didn’t know what kind of a person she was. She was just Aunt Miranda, who’d looked after him and made sure he didn’t starve while Duke was out of town. Whatever else may have happened, he told himself, she had done more than most would have. He’d lost a father, but she’d lost a brother. Still, he didn’t have the first idea what Duke Gibson had meant to his sister. If he was being honest, he had stayed away from Charlottesville out of the stubborn desire to avoid this very meeting.

  The Blue Moon Diner wasn’t the same. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. It had been ten years, more, and management had changed yet again. He felt a sadness for the place that surprised him.

  A young white woman with tattoos down both arms touched his arm and told him to sit anywhere. He chose a booth in the front corner so he could watch the front door for Miranda.

  Gibson thought the new owners had done a nice job of maintaining the feel of the place, but his father surely would have expressed disdain for most of the changes.

  Duke Vaughn was progressive on a lot of fronts, but on some matters, like his diners, he was fussily old school. Take the records overflowing the windowsills, or the beer and liquor for sale. Neither belonged in the Duke Vaughn school of American diners. The chalkboard schedule of nightly singers would have surely drawn a groan. “Diners don’t have singers!” he could hear his father pronouncing. And the menu, which had items like the Mountain Trout Club and the Tandoori Chicken Sandwich, would almost certainly have earned Duke Vaughn’s scorn.

  The club sounded pretty good. He handed the menu back to the waitress.

  His thoughts turned to Billy and to Hendricks and Jenn. Were any of them alive? George Abe. Kirby Tate. Terrance Musgrove. So many lives bound together in the Gordian knot of one missing girl. But for Gibson, it came down to his father. He was under no illusion that he was safe, but it was a question he needed to answer before deciding his next move. As horrible as the truth might be, Gibson knew that the doubt would drive him insane. What had driven his father to suicide? Gibson could feel the opaque fingers of his suspicion tightening their grip.

  He just prayed that his aunt had kept it.

  Miranda Davis came in through the front door. Gibson stood to greet her, unsure how. His aunt solved that riddle and drew her nephew into her strong arms. He sank into her embrace, and both their eyes were wet when they parted.

  The years had treated Miranda fairly. She had aged, of course, but lost none of her vitality. Her tall, thin frame, strong from years of competitive running, including six marathons, looked nearly the same. Only her hair appeared noticeably different.

  “I like your hair,” he said.

  “Oh, I got sick of the gray. Bill thinks I look pretty as a redhead.”

  Bill was her husband of thirty-some years. Gibson had only ever heard him speak on two subjects: UVA sports and his lovely, lovely wife. Otherwise, he left the talking to Miranda.

  “He’s right. You look great.”

  Miranda waved the compliment away. “Well, I don’t know about all that, but thank you. And, my goodness, Gibson. Look at you. A man. Lord, it’s been so long.” She became quiet. “Which is my fault, I know.”

  “No,” he said with a vehemence that surprised him. “I was a shit.”

  “You were a child,” she corrected. “I was the grown-up. I should have acted like one.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She covered his hand with hers. “I’m so glad you called.”

  “Me too.”

  “Lord but we can be a stubborn lot. Are you in town long? Bill would love to see you.”

  He said that he was leaving tonight. Miranda looked disappointed, and he promised that when he had time he’d like to come for a visit.

  “I have a daughter.” He told Miranda about Ellie, and about Nicole. Miranda asked questions, and he filled her in on his life as best he could, trying to keep the narrative upbeat. He was surprised at how much good stuff there was to tell, and at how good it felt to have someone who wanted to hear it.

  “I hope to meet her someday,” she said.

  He promised that he would bring her to Charlottesville soon. That brought a fresh round of tears and self-recriminations. She smiled through her tears.

  “Bill says I cry if the wind changes direction. I suppose that’s true. Oh! I have what you asked for. I almost forgot why I was here. Such a space cadet. I found it.”

  She reached into her bag and lifted out a small marble bust of James Madison. She put it on the table between them. His father had bought it at a yard sale as an undergraduate at UVA. Duke called it his first “important purchase,” and it had held a place of honor on his desk until the day he died.

  They talked a few more minutes, Miranda all smiles, even as he walked her outside and they embraced once more.

  “You look just like him, you know? Especially the eyes.” In the air, her fingers traced the features of his face. “Just like him.”

  Back at the table, his food was waiting for him. He pushed the plate away untouched and held the statue in his hands, feeling its weight. Turning it over, he searched for the indentation in the pedestal. His thumb found it and released the panel concealing the cubbyhole in the pedestal. Originally intended for notes and the like, it was just big enough to hide a thumb drive. Still, he was a little surprised when it fell into his palm.

  Duke Vaughn had kept a diary since he was an undergraduate at UVA. Always a believer in his own destiny, he claimed it would be instrumental when it came time to write his memoirs. Although Duke spoke of it often, no one had ever read a word, and so Duke Vaughn’s “diary” had become something of a family legend.

  Gibson had seen his father back up his computer and hide the thumb drive in the statue a million times. After his arrest, the FBI had seized his father’s PC, which had contained enough incriminating evidence to destroy Duke’s reputation. The computer had never been returned, and, more than likely, the thumb drive was the last remaining copy of Duke Vaughn’s writing.

  He plugged it into his laptop.

  A single folder appeared on his screen labeled “PRIVATE.” Subtle. A window appeared, prompting him for a password. When he’d first become interested in computers and encryption, his first project had been his father. The first password he’d ever hacked. His first criminal act. Second if you counted the time he’d been pulled over for speeding when he was a kid. Gibson entered the password and the window disappeared.

  In the folder were more than thirty files, each named for the year in which it had been written. The earliest dated back to the late seventies. In total, they covered Duke Vaughn’s life from university, through his rise in politics, up to his “suicide,” running to well more than two million words. Some entries were incredibly short: “October 7, 1987—I hate canvassing for voters. I hate it,” read one from a campaign trail. Others were much more serious and went on fo
r pages. The writing became insightful and articulate. Encounters with party bigwigs, legislation Duke had been involved with, philosophical musings on politics.

  Gibson opened a program that would search all the documents simultaneously for keywords. He typed in “baseball” and waited while the machine combed through his father’s journals. It came back with close to two thousand matches. Gibson frowned and added “Suzanne” and “Gibson” to his search. The program did its work again and dinged to announce it had finished. A single match this time.

  On the surface it was perfectly innocuous—an outing to a baseball game cut short by a difficult child. Gibson read slowly, hearing his father’s voice in the words, listening for anything out of the ordinary. But it sounded merely like a man concerned for his friend’s daughter. Gibson came to the part when Bear really flipped out. It matched his recollection until a part came that he didn’t remember:

  I’d arranged a face-to-face with Martinez. Social. Low pressure. A chance for Ben to clear the air with the Whip after we broke ranks on the unemployment bill. It was the right call, but it’s cost us. Midterms were eighteen months out, but we needed to pave over the cracks now.

  Hard to do the way Suzanne was behaving. Decision time. Ben wanted to postpone, but I’d worn holes in the knees of a good suit getting the meeting. It was happening. So it was agreed that I’d take Suzanne back to Virginia. George would stay with Gibson and Ben. Felt badly leaving Gibson behind, but the Whip had a son about his age. Made sense, and from what I was told, Gibson knocked it out of the park. Kid’s got a future.

  Suzanne was a wreck until I got her out of the park. I kept my distance or she’d start to freak again. It was a scene. Offered to buy her a cap, and that seemed to calm her down some. Found a merchandise stand on the walk back to the car. She didn’t want an Orioles cap. No Orioles. No, no, of course not. It was an O’s game for Christ’s sake. What else are they going to have? She started to cry again. The guy dug around in the boxes and found two Phillies caps. Wasn’t sure why he had it. Bought them both—thought we could bond over it. Cap was too big for her, but it was a snapback so I cinched it all the way and it just about stayed on her head. That made her happy, and thank God she passed out in the backseat on the way home.

  O’s lost.

  Gibson remembered that cap now. The second cap had been left in the backseat on the drive home. He’d asked Duke about it but gotten no real answer, and his father had thrown it in the trash when they got back to Charlottesville. He’d never connected it to Bear before now.

  And it felt wrong. It was all so wrong. He’d found nothing definitive, but there was enough to feed his festering doubt. Gibson took the Phillies cap off and looked at it again. Billy was right. It was a message, and he had a sickening feeling it had been intended for him. Billy said she’d kept thinking up ways to make contact with him in jail.

  What were you trying to tell me?

  Gibson put the cap into his bag rather than back on his head. The Blue Moon was filling up. In one corner, the evening’s entertainment tuned a guitar. Gibson needed to get somewhere quiet where he could comb through the rest of the diary. There had to be more.

  He packed up, paid the bill, and went out the side door to the parking lot. It was a risk, but he needed to reach out to Jenn. Of course, his phone was lying shattered in a gas station parking lot in Pennsylvania. Older motels often still had pay phones. He needed a place where he could hole up for the night and kill two birds.

  He was at the SUV, keys in the door, when the hand, strong as cold iron, went over his mouth, deftly turning and exposing his neck. The icy silver of a hypodermic needle kissed his skin like a wasp’s sting.

  “Quiet, now,” a voice of rotting fruit whispered. “I’ll take you to see your father.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Duke smiled at his son and waved him over. He came to his father obediently and tried not to fidget as Duke rebuttoned his top button and straightened his tie for the third time. The Christmas party was in full swing, and even though the senator had a strict “no shop talk” policy at the annual gathering, politics was never far from anyone’s lips.

  A doughy beet-red man stopped to shake hands with Duke. Gibson was used to it. People were always interrupting to talk to his dad. His dad was important, and Gibson felt immense pride in the respect that everyone showed him. Yet as the two men spoke, Duke made the man feel like the center of the universe—asked after his wife and children by name and congratulated him on a recent triumph in the House. The man went away happy, and Duke turned back to his son.

  “The day that man gets a call from me is the day I’m on fire, and he’s got the only hose for three states.”

  Gibson laughed, even though he didn’t really understand the joke. He just liked when his father treated him like one of the guys. An insider. Duke ran his hand through his son’s hair, mussing it affectionately.

  “Dad… ,” Gibson complained and straightened it with the flat of his hand.

  “Where are the rest of the kids? You don’t need to hang out down here on the killing floor.”

  “They’re all upstairs watching kids’ movies,” he said with disgust.

  At ten, Gibson was in the midst of becoming wise beyond his years. His favorite movie was The Godfather Part II—not that the original was bad, but everyone knew that Part II was the superior film. According to his dad, John Cazale was the most underrated actor in movie history. Only ever made five movies, but I’ll stand those five against any five ever made, Duke had told him when they’d watched it together the first time.

  That fall, Gibson had landed in the principal’s office for grabbing a classmate by the face, exclaiming, “I know it was you, Bobby, you broke my heart,” and kissing him violently on the mouth. Duke had laughed until he’d cried and halfheartedly told his son not to do it again. Gibson pointed out that nothing had disappeared from his locker since.

  “Kids’ movies, huh? That sounds pretty rough.”

  “The worst. What’s going on down here?”

  “Just lining them up and knocking them down. These things are all about appearances, kiddo. Mark my words, there’s nothing phonier under heaven than a DC holiday party. The only honest words you’ll hear all night are the drink orders at the bar.”

  “So why do it?”

  “Some things you just have to do. It’s all about appearances. Did I say that already? Anyway, the trick is seeing what they’re trying to hide. What are they trying to draw your eye away from? Figure that out, and you figure out the man. Or woman. But start with men, because they’re easier. Women are more of a PhD thing.”

  “Got it.” Gibson nodded sagely, then: “Like how?”

  “All right, so take that fellow over there,” Duke pointed to a tall, thin man with a face like a strip of sandpaper. He was surveying the room and nursing a beer.

  “Is he someone important?”

  “You tell me,” Duke said.

  Gibson stared at him a long time. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because no one is trying to talk to him. If he was important, he wouldn’t be alone.”

  “Good boy.” Duke chuckled. “But just him now. Can you tell just from looking at him?”

  Gibson sized the man up. He wore a suit and shiny tie. He had a lapel pin and wire-rimmed glasses. His blond hair was combed back conservatively. Gibson couldn’t see it.

  “He looks like everyone else.”

  “Nobody looks like everybody else. We try but fail. The trick, Gib, is not to look at the center of a man. At the center every man looks the same. Suit, tie, lapel pin. He’s wearing the uniform, and he looks good. At the center he could be the president of the United States. It’s at the edge where the truth lies. It’s like hair. Everyone brushes their hair so it looks good from straight on. Why? Because that’s how we see it in the mirror. Straight on. We o
nly ever see ourselves straight on, so that’s the only angle we worry about.”

  “So I should look at his back?”

  “Not literally, but yes. Look at his shoes. What do you see?”

  “They’re scuffed. One of the laces is broken.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “He wears them a lot?”

  “And what does that tell you?”

  Gibson thought hard. The shoes reminded him of Ben Rizolli’s basketball. Ben Rizolli’s dad had split when he was little, and it was just Ben and his mom. There wasn’t a lot of money. Ben had had the same basketball since forever, and it went everywhere Ben went. The seams and lettering were worn away, and there was hardly any grip left on it at all. Gibson always felt bad that a kid who loved basketball couldn’t afford a new one.

  “He doesn’t have many pairs. He probably can’t afford a lot of shoes. He’s hoping no one looks at his feet.”

  “Not bad. Do you think the senator is wearing scuffed shoes tonight?”

  “No way.”

  “No way. That’s right. Now look at my shoes.”

  Gibson looked down at his father’s feet. Duke was wearing a pair of worn black wing tips. The leather was creased deeply above the toe. He looked up at his dad inquisitively.

  “So what does that tell you about your old man?” Duke asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It means that no one thing reveals a man. Never be so arrogant to think you know a man from just his shoes. But…”

  “But, it’s a start?”

  “It’s a start,” Duke said. “So what’s the difference between him and me?”

  “People keep talking to you.”

  Duke winked. “It’s a start.”

  Gibson felt proud and nodded vigorously. He felt like he was missing something, but he was happy for his dad’s attention and didn’t want to spoil it by asking too many questions. He’d figure it out on his own.

  “All right, kiddo. Give me an hour. I need to work a bit, but then I know a place in Georgetown that makes a killer Oreo milkshake. Deal?”