Danny had read The Dumping Ground three times. He probably knew the book as well as Lopez’s editor. It was as though Lopez had read his mind. The end of the book focused on the guilt that the lead character felt over how he once treated his neighbor. Danny knew that exact feeling, but he had never talked about it with anyone in his life, nor could he remember touching upon such themes in any of his own class writings. Did he just wear his experiences in a way that any half-talented person could decipher?
Lopez’s book read so true, as though he had been the therapist to whom Danny disclosed the guilt he harbored for mistreating Pete Peterson. Maybe Danny should have been angry about Pete’s behavior toward him, but that wasn’t how it worked. When the former theater owner began to spiral into his own form of madness, Danny blamed himself. Because Danny and his dad lived next to Pete, Danny had to watch what happened. From his bedroom window, he couldn’t avoid knowing that Pete played those old silent movies on the garage door after dark. Danny knew how townspeople came to think of Pete as one of the town kooks, never understanding that his projecting of films was a form of contrition, never knowing that Pete was seeking absolution from Danny, and never understanding what the movies really meant.
But in those days Danny could never give Pete the forgiveness that the man sought. Instead, he would draw the curtains and pull the shades until he was certain the last flickering lights of projector were gone and the town onlookers had backed their cars away. Then he might sneak a peek through the window, and whenever he did, Pete would still be outside, standing in the darkness, watching for that glimmer of light from Danny’s window, seeking some sign of grace.
There was nothing that Pete needed forgiveness for, but this realization came too late for Danny to act upon.
He needed to pull his life together. He needed to understand what every person currently in his life was seeking . . . before everything proved too late again. His mother was gone; he didn’t talk to his father; and he betrayed the one adult friend he had as a child. Was he to blame for it all?
He exited the stairs and crossed the narrow street. His house loomed above. He leaped across the low stone wall and walked to the back door. After so many walks, there was now a trodden path through the otherwise natural landscape of the steep lot. He used a key to open the door, heard the buzzer of the alarm, and pressed the keypad installed by Josh after the break in.
The phone was ringing. He rushed forward and picked it up.
“Danny is that you?”
It was Cynthia.
“I need you. I want your help.”
INTERLUDE
Session Eleven
Before you can look in the mirror, you have to open your eyes. I feel like Danny is about to open his eyes. I think he really wants to know what he will see.
Don’t you think that’s exciting? I do. It’s what I’ve been working for all along, and that’s been a long journey. I had to make some tough decisions, and not always easy ones, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
I don’t know how you do it, doc. Day after day, patient after patient. Of course, I don’t suppose most of your patients are as interesting and noteworthy as I find Danny. It’s probably hard to even stay awake while some of them yammer.
Do you have that problem with me? Do I keep you awake? Or do I just repeat myself?
I don’t think so. I’m not here to waste your time. I told you from the start what this was all about.
I need Danny to make a choice. Between hope and despair. It’s as simple as that. It’s the only way I will ever know who he really is.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dossier
Exiting the plane at Phoenix Sky Harbor, Danny scanned the waiting crowd. Cynthia promised to meet him at the gate, and he was eager to see her again.
When she requested he join her in Phoenix, he immediately said yes. Instinctively, he knew it was necessary even though Josh totaled up many reasons that a jaunt to Arizona would be a waste of Danny’s time. Once he might have found Josh compelling, but Danny was no longer allowing Josh to tell him what was appropriate and what wasn’t, so he mentally weighed each statement and he judged Josh’s overall argument lightweight.
Cynthia was standing alone and still, even as the crowd coursed by her as though she were a stone dividing the current. She appeared tanned and relaxed. A few weeks in the sun with her father had released the visible lines of tension. A smile broke through her composure. He walked over. She looked good, comfortable in the casual clothes common to the tennis-loving, sun-seeking upper class of Scottsdale.
“Thank you so much for coming.” Cynthia hugged him tight, and he felt forgiven, not that he had done anything wrong.
“Thank you for calling,” is all he replied.
Leaving the airport, they headed north toward the hills above Scottsdale. Danny avoided the topic of Chip; he didn’t want to risk losing Cynthia’s good cheer. Instead, he allowed her to chatter about her parents and their life in the desert. In her gossip, there was a dash of the Cynthia he knew long ago, but there was also something different. He said little, feigning interest in Red’s golf game and Barbara’s frequent stays in Chicago. It was good to simply soak in the energetic aura of the once familiar Cynthia persona. She was coming back.
In the dim confines of the house, sitting around the dining room table, Cynthia placed a large folder in front of them. He sensed a change in mood that happened without warning. The familiar and emotional Cynthia seemed replaced by a straightforward woman—not the calm one in the airport but rather the one that had been happy to see him leave Los Angeles.
Cynthia didn’t mince words. “I waited to tell you this because we needed to be together as I wanted to see your reactions first hand. I’ve learned something about Chip.”
Later, Danny reflected that her words would have prompted most people to consider the negative possibilities—Chip always plotted to run off, or he schemed the disappearing of funds, or some other dark disclosure. But Danny assumed it was something positive—maybe they discovered that Chip left a letter or the detective discovered a clear clue to the killer’s identity. Danny’s ESP failed to work for him that afternoon. He never considered a third possibility in which Cynthia’s detective uncovered something implicating him.
“What did you find out?” he asked.
“Chip talked to Daddy the morning he disappeared,” she replied.
“About what?”
“Daddy considered it nothing. Just their usual stuff. I didn’t know but apparently Chip talked to Daddy all the time. That morning, Chip brought up a topic out of the blue.“
She stopped there and repositioned herself to have a clear view of Danny. But she didn’t say anything, so finally Danny asked, “Well, what was discussed?”
“Chip asked if Pete Peterson was really dead.”
“Why would Chip want to know that?” he managed to ask.
Cynthia shrugged. “I thought you might know,” she said. Danny couldn’t decipher the look on her face.
Cynthia’s stare was intrusive, unforgiving, demanding, and without merit.
Danny wanted to escape that gaze even though he knew that she understood nothing about Pete and him. Well maybe she did but in any case the past had nothing to do with present. He tried to mimic her calm, but he couldn’t control what he felt. His face flushed, his eyelids fluttered, and he felt a need to gasp for air. That was ridiculous. He was overreacting. She wouldn’t see anything odd in him. He was who he was. She didn’t need to know that Pete’s name could have such impact on him after all these years.
Everyone knew that Pete was dead, and Danny couldn’t even imagine why Chip might have asked his question, but the funny thing was that Danny often wondered whether the man was still alive. He knew better. Even his father had told him about Pete’s funeral. Or was he imagining that story? It didn’t seem possible though that his adolescent guide was really dead, because Danny should have felt a shift in his universe the day Pete died. That’s how Danny�
��s life always worked: the universe nudged him along. But in this case he never felt an iota of loss.
Danny owed Pete so much. Even now, years later, he felt a need to protect him. Without Pete’s presence, Danny knew he might have killed himself during his troubled adolescent years. After his mother’s suicide, he felt so abandoned and life held no promise. His father was as lost as Danny was, but as a fourteen-year-old boy, Danny didn’t realize that. He only knew that he existed alone. After his mother failed to care enough to explain why she took that overdose of pills, he had nothing to hold on to. There was no suicide note. All Danny ever discovered was a packet of letters and clippings, none of which made sense to him and which he burned in frustration. He couldn’t forgive his mother’s silence. Even in those times when he felt that the answer to his pain was to emulate his mother’s actions, he vowed he would leave behind a detailed letter—not because he would care whether his father really knew what drove Danny’s act, but because he would want to be certain that he could force his father to weep over the son he lost.
Only Pete kept Danny sane. He paid attention to him; he listened to him; and he showed him that there was more to life than grief. Their unusual friendship started with Danny doing odd jobs for the guy next door, then eating snacks on the man’s front porch, and eventually watching old movies in Pete’s abandoned theater. Pete selected those movies with such care. Eventually Danny realized each film was meant as a pathway for Danny to crawl forth from his deep emotional sinkhole.
In some ways, it worked. Pete was there at every step. Danny counted on the older man and looked forward to seeing him every day. He filled a role that Danny’s father never did. But even when the friendship started, Danny sensed unmentionable undercurrents. He saw the sad longing in Pete’s eyes, and the way Pete would flinch but then accept Danny’s hugs. It gave Danny power. He knew he had something that Pete hungered for, and it gave Danny the importance that he longed for. Over the course of two summers as Danny grew into his own body and his own longings, Danny’s mind blossomed into a pretty clear understanding of Pete’s emotions.
Danny learned to sneak up to the very edge of forcing Pete’s feelings to become overt, but never to go too far. It was exciting not only because it was dangerous, but also because it reinforced his power over a much older man. In a way, it was an exhilarating ride on a roller coaster of his design. Whatever insult or careless taunt he flung toward Pete, the man had to accept it—no matter how painful. Danny would see the strained smile emerge on Pete’s face, knowing it masked some deeper emotion, and Danny would revel in his ride into the victory lap. This guy wouldn’t leave him; this guy wouldn’t down a bottle of pills; this guy wouldn’t disappear forever. He was Danny’s.
By his fifteenth summer, Danny grew more and more creative in devising ways to test the boundaries. After spending an afternoon swimming at the beach at Promontory Point, Danny would jump on his bike, cycle toward home, stop at Pete’s house for lemonade or cookies, lean back against the faded pillows of the glider on Pete’s porch, and laugh at his own jokes. Danny could still remember the muted colors of those pillows and the look on Pete’s face as he tried to keep from staring at Danny’s long legs downy with blonde hair or his smooth chest.
Danny never gave a thought as to what would happen when he pushed Pete too hard. Maybe he didn’t foresee that Pete was a man with limits, and maybe he didn’t think he would care if one day he prompted Pete to take the lure he dangled.
Of course, it eventually happened—one afternoon in mid-August when Danny was still fifteen. The week before, he read a Mary Renault novel about the ancient Greeks. Completing the novel made him feel cocky about his understanding of Pete. But Danny didn’t really understand, and moreover he hadn’t a clue about himself. One afternoon after swimming he arrived at Pete’s house, still wet, but also sweaty from his rapid pedaling. He jumped off his bike, sat on the glider next to Pete, and pushed his near naked body against the older man. He flexed his arms and said, “You should feel my muscles.”
It was true. That summer, he was developing into a man and for the first time could feel the strength of a lean body within. But the provocation was too much. Pete suddenly leaned over to kiss Danny on the lips.
Even though he had been pressing his bare skin against the man, Danny pulled back sharply in shock and fear. Pete realized immediately that he had fallen over the edge. He too pulled away, and muttered, “I’m sorry.”
But Danny wasn’t content with that. He pushed Pete off the swing, stood, and shouted, “You filthy pervert.” His voice bellowed unimpeded by sense or care that his voice might carry next door to where his father was already home. It was amplified as much by guilt and shame as fear. There was certainly no surprise.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he cried.
He dashed down the steps, jumped onto his bike, and pedaled to the safety of his own yard. He rushed up the stairs to his bedroom. His father didn’t even bother to ask what was wrong, and perhaps he didn’t even notice. Once safe in his own space, Danny snuck to the window that overlooked Pete’s house. He saw Pete sitting on the porch glider with his head in his hands. He knew the man was sobbing, and he wanted to go back and comfort him, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
That was the start of Pete’s decline. He had always been a loner and a bit odd in the eyes of people in Thread, but on that afternoon he snapped. That very first evening he showed a movie on his garage door. No one but Pete (and Danny peering from his upstairs window) was there to watch. Danny knew the film was intended for him as an overture of forgiveness. But he couldn’t give Pete what he wanted. It would have been admitting too much.
In the weeks that followed, Pete continued projecting the movies. Eventually people noticed. Pete started attending one church, then another, and then all of them. It was an atonement that no god would acknowledge. Townspeople began to whisper. Inspired by Pete’s churchgoing habits, someone started calling him Reverend Willy. No one knew why, but the name stuck. Somehow it seemed to go with his showing movies on his garage door. Maybe the locals were curious, maybe they were mean, or maybe they just wanted to see a movie. The nearest drive-in theater was sixty miles away. By summer’s end, there started to be a nightly audience for Pete. And Pete played to their desire for oddity by behaving more and more strangely. But Danny knew every frame of every film was meant for him. Pete was only trying to proclaim that he was willing to do whatever it took to be forgiven and to be Danny’s friend again.
But Danny never gave in. It would have been easier to fly to the moon than to provide that forgiveness. Instead, as the year went on, Danny came to realize he had destroyed a third parent, and it reinforced his fear that he may also have been the catalyst for his mother’s suicide. Surely, Danny would have grown lonelier and stranger—if not for that summer at the Loon Town Café, the summer when he truly became friends with Cynthia, the year when he met and fell in love with Josh.
Cynthia knew none of this. Neither did Chip. Once on a particularly bad evening after a full bottle of wine, Danny told Josh the barest outline of the story, but even from Josh he held back the details. He knew that the full story reflected an unforgivable flaw in him.
Cynthia waited for his answer, and finally Danny spoke, “I can’t imagine why Chip would wonder that. Did he even know Pete?”
“I think it was because of the guy he saw wearing Pete’s hat,” Cynthia replied. And Danny recalled the car that followed them weeks earlier after their visit to the Pacific Dining Car.
Cynthia continued to watch Danny as though she thought he might say something more. But he didn’t and she decided to move on. “The detectives have sent me copies of everything. I terminated the investigation, but I thought we should look through everything and wanted to do that with you. Maybe together we can see something that they didn’t because we know Chip better.”
She pushed the folder toward Danny. He opened it and laid out elements of the report. It included photos of t
hose who had been interviewed, and Danny set the photos of Jesus Lopez and Oliver Meyers to the side.
“When they found out that Chip talked to my father that last day, they also learned he made one other call,” Cynthia added. “It was to Arnold Twin Feathers who runs the Tringush Casino. I plan to visit him, and ask him what Chip wanted. His casino is right outside Palm Springs, so if we drove back to Los Angeles we could stop on the way.”
Danny wondered why Cynthia wasn’t willing to pay the agency to do that, but perhaps she required a different path toward closure. He agreed. He looked up when he heard Red Trueheart walk into the room. He stood to shake the man’s hand; it had been a long time.
Red walked around the table but stopped in his tracks to stare at the photos on the table. He pointed at the glossy image of Oliver Meyers, and his face was as red as Danny had ever seen it. He demanded to know, “Why the hell do you have a photo of that punk?”
“That kid is one of the worst human beings I’ve ever known.”
Josh felt secure. He always did in the serene quiet of his personal study. No one was allowed in this room—not Orleans and certainly not Danny. In fact, neither even knew it existed. He needed a place where he could reflect alone. In this room lined with shelves, Josh had no need to wear a mask or worry about what others thought. This spot with its large desk and comfortable chairs was a getaway where he could focus on what was needed. This was his sanctuary.
Everything was spiraling out of control. His plans had been simple. The potential for millions was straightforward. Nothing was particularly challenging. He was only repeating proven formulas from his past. When he received his parents’ life insurance money, he found a way to transform it into a small real estate fortune. Their untimely death provided the start he needed. When others were afraid to invest, he saw the potential in Wally and Stephen’s restaurant ideas. He understood that Los Angeles was primed for a touch of the friendly Midwest. He didn’t care that his friends’ only previous experience was a failed café in a tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. He was prepared to take the leap of faith that they could conceive of a venue that would become the lively Los Angeles place to be seen. By luring Danny west, he helped the kid unleash his real talents. No one else would nurture Danny’s little germ of a food blog into something real. Josh knew how to make money flow. He could motivate all the little industrious ants to pile dollar atop dollar until a true mountain emerged.
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