The Last Day

by John Ramsey Miller

  “It matters to me,” Ward told her. And he had never spoken truer words. “If you don't believe me, who will?” He tried to look at her eyes but couldn't, so he looked down.

  “Your hands …” he said, noticing that her fingers were trembling.

  He knew he would never forget the look she gave him, and what was left of his heart broke into pieces. And he felt an odd lightness just before the room vanished.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Ward opened his eyes to find himself lying on the floor in his son's bedroom. He looked up at Barney, who was seated on his bed, staring down at Ward. He dangled his legs back and forth. “It'll be all right, Daddy.”

  Ward knew this event wasn't real, but he hoped somehow he wasn't dreaming, but that he was dead, too, and this meeting could last forever.

  Suddenly the windows darkened, as though fast- moving, rain- heavy clouds had blocked the sun, and Ward felt a sense of growing danger.

  “You and Mama have to be together,” Barney said, looking at the windows. His legs stopped swinging.

  Ward jerked awake on the couch to the sight of Natasha looking down at him, the odor of ammonia burning his nose.

  “Ward?” Natasha said. “He's awake, Gene.”

  Ward slowly sat upright and saw the ampoule in his wife's hand.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “You fainted,” she told him.

  “You okay, buddy?” Gene asked. He had a cell phone in his hand.

  “I'm fine,” Ward said, putting his hand to the back of his head. “My head hurts.”

  “You hit it on the floor,” Natasha said, studying her husband's pupils for signs of a concussion. “Just rest there for a few minutes.”

  “Never mind,” Gene said into his phone. “I won't need EMS. Yes, he's with a physician and she says he's fine.” He closed the phone.

  “I couldn't catch you in time. Sorry,” Gene said sincerely.

  “It's okay.”

  “As soon as you feel steady enough, you need to go lie down on your bed,” Natasha said, in her professional voice.

  “I have to run,” Gene said. “I have a meeting with Tom Wiggins, who looks to be your other lawyer.”

  Ward had met Wiggins at a formal dinner at the hospital to raise money for the children's oncology wing of the medical center. He was a mild-mannered man in his mid- sixties, and a top- notch criminal attorney from Charlotte who was the attorney of choice for the wealthy—whom everybody usually figured were guilty He was known to the legal establishment, and much of the public, as “Reasonable Doubt Wiggins.”

  “I think he's going to be our best shot at getting this crap handled. Any problem with that?” Gene asked.

  The bell rang, and Natasha went to the door. When she came back Leslie Wilde was with her. Leslie came over to where Ward was lying on the couch and peered down at her boss.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. Her look of concern was comforting to Ward.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I just passed out.”

  After pausing to place his hand on Natasha's shoulder in a show of support, Gene left for the front door.

  Leslie said, “I told the FBI that I started Mr. McCarty's computer, because mine was on the fritz. It's my fault it happened.”

  “It wasn't your fault,” Ward said.

  “They asked me if I'd put any disks into your computer and I said I had, that my computer was on the blink last week and I used yours a lot when you weren't in your office. I told them that I found some unmarked disks on my desk and that I looked at them to see what they were, but none of them had porn on them.”

  “Is that the truth?” Natasha asked her.

  She looked at Natasha and shrugged. “The FBI agents are jerks. The truth is that I came in early because I had something to do for Mr. Brooks in accounting, and when I brought my computer up, it started displaying the porn. I didn't call anybody for like ten minutes. If I'd called Paul Wolfe sooner, maybe he could have stopped it. I'm sorry. I have used Mr. McCarty's computer, which is the truth, but I've never put any disks into it that I can recall. So this is sort of my fault. And I know Mr. McCarty didn't do what they said.”

  Ward told her, “You shouldn't have put yourself in such a position. I don't want you to lie to anybody. I appreciate your loyalty, but this is bad enough without you being pulled into it.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That's probably Todd. I called him after the FBI left the office,” Leslie said. “I hope you don't mind.”

  “Of course I don't mind,” Ward said. “Maybe he can offer some suggestions.”

  Natasha shook her head. “I feel like the maid in a sitcom, except there's nothing amusing about this,” she said, leaving to answer the door.

  When she came back, Todd Hartman was with her. He put his hand out and gently squeezed Leslie's before letting it drop, turning his eyes toward Ward.

  “Leslie told me what happened,” he said. “Maybe I can help.”

  “Mr. Hartman,” Natasha said, “can I get you something?”

  “Nothing for me, Dr. McCarty,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Todd,” Ward said. “This is all totally insane.”

  “It's all over the radio,” Todd said. “I made some calls and found out from a friend in the sheriff's department that the deputies were going to be pulled off their guard detail here after the FBI finished their search,” Hartman said. “So I took the liberty of putting two of the security guys I use at the end of your driveway to make sure you aren't bothered. I hope you don't mind.”

  “I had to take the phone off the hook,” Natasha said, frowning. “There was a constant stream of calls. Angry strangers saying hateful things.”

  “If you'd rather use someone else, my guys can stay until you make other arrangements. But my guys are good at their jobs and no more expensive than any guards would be.”

  “Do we really need them?” Natasha asked.

  “This is a big story,” Todd said. “The media will be under pressure to get in here to it. The guys I use are professionals. Ex- military mostly. They'll keep the press from bothering you.”

  “That's great,” Ward said, relieved. “Glad you were on top of it.”

  Todd said, “I don't know what else I can do, but if your lawyer needs any work done on this, I'll make myself available.”

  “If you'll excuse me,” Natasha said, “I'm going to straighten up some.”

  “I'll give you a hand, Dr. McCarty,” Leslie offered.

  “That would be nice, Leslie,” Natasha said. “If you don't have anything else you need to do. This is a little overwhelming.”

  Leslie said, “I'd like to help in any way I can, and I'm sort of a neat freak.”

  “And both of you call me Natasha, and call Ward Ward.”

  After the women went off toward the bedrooms, Todd sat down. “By the way, I spoke to Alice Palmer.”

  “Who?”

  “The car thief from the plane,” he said. “I guess that isn't the priority it was yesterday.”

  “It's less pressing.”

  Ward flashed an image of Barney and what he'd said in the dream. “I still want it back,” he said. “Let's say it's a secondary priority. The virus is number one.”

  “I assume this whole virus thing is a setup of some kind.”

  “It has to be. Before today I've never even seen any child porn.”

  “Disgruntled former or present employee?”

  “We don't have any disgruntled employees that I know of. We have very little turnover because my father and my uncle Mark believed in taking care of the employees and so do I. More likely it's related to the fact that someone wants to buy RGI and I won't sell to them. The Dibbles.”

  “Flash and Trey?”

  Ward nodded. “It's hard to imagine why anyone would pull this kind of crap for grins. I haven't had any enemies of any kind since fourth grade when Warren Pepper beat me up after school because I pitched a fastball into his ribs.”

  “If
you want to tell me about it, I'm already working for you.”

  Todd opened his briefcase and pulled out his notebook and pen, and for the first time since Unk's call that morning, Ward McCarty felt some small measure of relief.

  THIRTY

  Ward stood in the doorway to Barney's room disbelieving his eyes. The dresser drawers had been dumped out onto the floor and leaned haphazardly against the wall. His son's toys were piled on the twin beds; the sheets and pillows had been balled and cast into a corner. Looking at the model cars he was sickened at the thought of the scratches that would be left from their rough handling. The searchers’ actions had defiled Barney's bedroom. Natasha sat on Barney's bed looking crestfallen, a model car in her hands. Ward could hear Leslie in their bedroom straightening up the FBI's mess. She looked up and saw Ward looking in.

  “How could anybody leave a child's room like this?” she asked sadly “Where do we start?”

  “Maybe we shouldn't put it back like it was,” Ward said, surprising himself as much as what he'd said seemed to surprise her.

  “What do you mean? We have to clean it up,” she said.

  He thought about what Barney had said to him when he'd been unconscious earlier. “Barney will never be here again. I guess it's time to face that.”

  Ward stepped into the room and sat on the other bed and stared at his wife.

  She said, “Ward, I don't think you are responsible for the virus. I was just so angry that it happened I said things I didn't mean. Call it … displaced frustration. When I said you weren't the man I married last night, I was serious, but whatever else happens between us, I know that inside you are still that man.”

  “I want to be him again,” Ward told her.

  She looked at her hands, balled tight in her lap. “There's something else I haven't told you. Lately my hands have been shaking. It's probably nothing, but I'm going to see a neurologist and find out what's causing it. My colleagues have had to take over my surgery and I'm sidelined until I get it figured out. I'm sure it's just stress.”

  Ward took her hands in his and held them. They trembled gently in his.

  “See?”

  “Why didn't you say something? Dear God, I…”

  “It's all right, Ward. At the moment there's no point in wasting time worrying over that. If Dr. Edmonds tells me there's something to worry about, we can worry about it then.” She frowned. “I think there's some boxes we can put Barney's things into in the storage room.”

  “When did it start?”

  “Two or three weeks ago. Been getting worse.”

  Ward said, “We can decide what to do with his things when we feel up to it. One step at a time.”

  “Even the cars?” she asked.

  “Even the cars.”

  Ward knew that he had to do it before he had time to think about it, or he might change his mind.

  Natasha bent over and picked up, from among Barney's clothes, a small black box about five inches long. When Natasha opened it, she gasped loudly, and dropped it to the floor and backed away as though it were a rattlesnake.

  Ward knelt down and looked at the replica of a casket complete with gold handles fashioned from wire. Lying inside the casket was an effigy—a Star Wars action figure of ten- year- old Anakin Skywalker—with bold black lines crossing out each of its little blue eyes.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Ward's finances wouldn't allow him unlimited help from investigators and attorneys. His house was mortgaged. He didn't have a fortune in the bank. No gold bars, jewels socked away in a vault, or valuable paintings. He kept between ten and twenty- five thousand dollars in his bank accounts; at any given time he had maybe two hundred thousand in other stocks and bonds he could liquidate. The company had plenty of money in its various accounts, but corporate funds weren't his to spend as if those were his personal funds. The McCartys were comfortable, not wealthy. Ward thought about that when he thought about what it would cost to get his life back.

  The FBI had left the storage room a wreck, but Ward quickly stepped over the debris scattered on the floor and found three boxes stored flat behind the shelves. He located a roll of clear tape and enough bubble wrap to pad the model cars.

  Packing Barney's things was difficult for them both. Leslie sensed this, working in the other parts of the house, finishing up before the boxes were packed, taped up, and labeled. Ward put the small coffin in a shopping bag and that in the back of the pantry.

  “Leslie lied to the FBI for you. How did you inspire such loyalty in an employee?”

  “She's good people,” Ward said. “I do wish she hadn't done it, though.”

  Natasha said, “She obviously admires you. This will all be straightened out and the fib lost in the shuffle. I'm not sorry she lied for you.”

  “Would you lie for me?”

  Natasha frowned at him and began taping closed the last box. “I suppose I would.”

  Ward, Leslie, and Natasha finished straightening the rooms before they went to the kitchen, where Natasha cooked eggs, bacon, and toast. They ate a late breakfast for lunch. Ward had known Leslie Wilde for almost three years, but, as the trio talked and laughed, it was as if he was actually meeting her for the first time that evening. She and Todd seemed to have a comfortable relationship. He decided that, as soon as he could get back to work, he was going to give her a substantial raise.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Watcher held the knife up and ran his eyes over the curve of the gleaming blade. On a cold October night in Afghanistan, he had killed three men with this knife in the space of thirty seconds, give or take. They became notches on the hilt.

  He thought about another day when he'd used the same knife.

  Watcher crouched among trees, silent, listening. In the late afternoon light, he could see the lake, fractioned by the trees, and he heard the drone of speedboats. He had been sitting with his back against a pine tree when he saw the boy leave the tent and step out near the still-smoldering campfire. The boy picked up a stick, squatted, and began prodding curiously at the coals. The child was a beautiful creature—a tow-headed boy of three, and Watcher smiled as a shaft of sunlight illu minated the buttons of the boy's spine. Inside the tent a woman lay sleeping. Watcher was close enough that he could just hear the child's stick punching through the crusty bed of ash.

  The boy wore a wrinkled red swimsuit and sandals. After a few minutes of poking, the child grew bored, and started to wander aimlessly around the campsite. Watcher stood and crept silently within fifteen feet of the boy.

  The child turned his head and saw something that caught his attention. He approached curiously the rotting trunk of a fallen tree. The boy's excited laughter floated to his stalker. Holding the stick like a sword, the child began stabbing at something in the leaves beside the tree.

  Watcher moved swiftly, using the boy's laughter to cover his footsteps, and he swept his way quickly around behind the child. Three paces behind the boy, Watcher reached down, unsnapped the knife from its sheath, and drew out the curved blade. In one fluid motion, he flipped the knife in the air, caught the blade with his fingers, and threw the knife hard.

  The child squealed as the knife hit home.

  Watcher grabbed the boy's arm and pulled him aside, looking down to see his knife pinning down a three- foot- long snake, its sleek body covered over with a light and dark copper- colored pattern. The inch- wide triangular head rose and the snake tried in vain to strike. Small sharp fangs curved from the roof of the reptile's open mouth.

  “ ’Nake!” the boy shouted, laughing. “ ’Nake!” He raised the stick and swatted at the reptile, striking its thick body behind where the blade had it pinned to the exposed root of the tree.

  The snake writhed futilely until Watcher stepped on its head and withdrew the Randall. Watcher pressed down hard, feeling the small skull give as he moved his boot as though grinding out a cigarette. He reached down in a swift movement and severed the flattened head from the copperhead's body. After wiping the snake's
blood and dirt off onto his black jeans, Watcher slid the knife back into its leather sheath and snapped the strap.

  He reached down, picked up the severed head, and cast it off into the woods.

  Turning, he lifted the startled child into the air, raising him as high as his arms allowed. When he lowered the boy he kissed him on his warm soft cheek and hugged him to his chest.

  “Snakes will bite you, and you can die,” Watcher explained. “You never mess with snakes.”

  “Bad ’nake,” the boy said, throwing his small arms around Watcher's neck and squeezing as hard as he could.

  “You have to be careful,” Watcher said. “The world is full of danger, and I won't always be here to protect you.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Alice Palmer reached under her bed and took out the model car so her boyfriend, Earl Tucker, could see it. He took it in his hands and turned it in the sunlight streaming in through the window to get a better look.

  Her mother hated Earl, and that alone made him appealing to Alice. She told Alice that Earl lacked class, had no sense of propriety, and had been shorted crucial social filters necessary for any interaction more involved than buying cigarettes in a convenience store. She further said he looked like a shiftless, genetically crippled cartoon hick. She said that the biggest decision he'd made in life was not only that being an illiterate black man was glamorous, but that he actually was one.

  At nineteen, Earl was six feet four inches tall and had never in his life weighed more than one hundred and fifty pounds. He smoked Newport cigarettes, and did whatever drugs he could get his hands on. He had closely cropped hair, acne, a pronounced overbite, and large ears you could see light through. When he talked he motioned with his hands as though he was communicating with an invisible audience using sign language. Because he didn't have a regular job he was available when Alice wanted company. It wasn't like she planned to marry him or anything.