Last Call
Page 22
He glanced at his watch. “We have plenty of time before I have to pick up Chris. You want to see if we can find his place?”
“I was only there once when he had some of us over for a BBQ last summer. I rode with Sam, but I think I could find it again, so yeah, let’s try.” I gave him directions and said, “We’ll pass a few farms and produce stands. You’ll see signs from there for the forest hiking trails and campgrounds.”
“Do you like camping?”
“Hell, no. My idea of roughing it is when the hotel doesn’t have room service. Or only gives two lousy packets of sugar.”
He just shook his head at me and laughed. I guess he thought I was joking.
After a while, I told him where to turn off. We made our way through the winding path and ended up at a visitor information shack. The nice lady inside gave me directions to Pete’s site. She told me to beware of the alligators, and to not feed them. No problem, lady. No problem at all.
We drove another five minutes on a well-tended dirt road. Nestled among tall, scrawny pine trees sat Pete’s home. A canopy attached to the roof extended out over a picnic table and chairs. Pete sat in one of the chairs and looked up as we approached.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said and got out of the car. I really didn’t think Pete was a killer, but I couldn’t deny that I would never have felt safe coming out here alone. There’s no way anyone would hear a cry for help with how isolated these campsites were. Even so, I decided to keep a healthy distance between myself and Pete.
“Maggie. Michael,” Pete said, nodding at us as we approached. “What can I do for you?”
“Hey, Pete, how’s it going?” I waited for a smile, anything friendly. Nada. Zip. Zilch.
“Fine.”
He was not going to make this easy for me. “We saw Abby last night. Nice club. She told us how you rescued her and all that. Didn’t surprise me one bit since I know what a great guy you are.”
“Yeah, okay.”
I felt cold despite the heat. An unsmiling Pete was just unnatural. I looked at Michael and silently begged him to take over.
“Mind if we sit and talk for a bit, Pete? We came all this way to see you.”
“I’ll be leaving soon for work. Got a heavy week ahead of me.” He seemed to mellow a bit when he looked at me again. Maybe the tears welling up in my eyes got to him. “All right, have a seat. I can give you a few minutes, I guess.”
I brushed pine needles off the bench and sat down at the picnic table. Pete stayed in his chair across from me and Michael, his arms folded against his chest.
“Only have a few minutes. What’s on your mind?”
I was starting to get a little ticked off at him. I mean, really. So what if people knew he was gay? That didn’t make him a bad person. It wasn’t my fault that information had to come out. Okay, maybe it was my fault, but still. He didn’t have to act this way toward me.
“Pete, I’m really sorry, but—”
“I know Abby told you why I was at her club.” He blew out a long breath. “She called me last night, realized you didn’t know and maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. Look, I’m not mad, really. You could’ve just asked me. I would have told you. Well, maybe I would’ve. Once word gets out, it’s over. The friendships, the camaraderie, the whole idea of being a part of something important. The loss of all that hurts.” He rubbed the heel of his palm across his eyes, then looked at me. He stood and I went over to him, fell into his warm embrace. I knew all about loss, and the pain that goes with it. I squeezed Pete’s waist, then stepped back.
“We still have to tell you about Dick Reid.”
“Dick? What happened to him?”
“We don’t know anything definite yet,” Michael said, telling Pete what little we knew.
“Oh, Jesus. First Jack, now Dick? What the hell is going on?”
Kevin’s motorcycle was parked outside the Legion. I almost dreaded going in there, but I knew we had to. I was glad Kevin hadn’t left town. After what happened to him, and knowing he didn’t have family in North DeSoto, I figured he might. No reason to stay.
We found Kevin sitting at the bar, only one empty stool next to him. I moved onto it and put my hand on his arm. He smiled and looked surprised to see me.
“How you doing, Kevin?” I felt a weight lift off of me when I saw the smile.
“I’ve been better. But I’ll be all right. How’s Dick? Any word?”
I shook my head. Michael came up behind me and reached his hand out to shake Kevin’s. “Can we go get a table and talk for a few minutes?”
“Sure,” Kevin said. He picked up his beer bottle and followed us over to a round table with four chairs. I was glad it wouldn’t be me and Michael sitting across from Kevin, interrogating him. This was more comfortable. As comfortable as it could be, I guess.
Before I could think of how to start, Kevin spoke up. “Why? Why’d you go looking on the Internet for information about me?”
I explained to him about Brenda and the photo, how it all got started. I told him how sorry I was that it ended the way it had.
“It was a stupid thing to do,” he said. “I just wanted to belong. That’s the only damn reason I did it. They don’t look at social members the same, you know.”
“Were you even in the military?” Michael asked.
“Hell, yeah. I didn’t stoop that low.” Kevin snorted. “Like that makes any difference. What I did was bad enough, and now I got caught so I have to live with it.”
“What exactly did you do, Kevin?”
He looked around before speaking and then said, “Got kicked out, sent home, dishonorable discharge. I don’t want to go into that. Let’s just say I royally screwed up, and it bit me in the ass. Didn’t mean too much to me until after 9/11, when the whole damned country had gone patriotic. I wanted to be part of that. I know it sounds crazy.”
In a twisted sort of way it made sense to me. In a very sad, pathetic way.
“Getting ribbons off the Internet was a piece of cake. As easy as forging my DD214 to have it read I was honorably discharged. No one was any wiser.” He looked at me and smiled again. “In a way I’m glad it’s out in the open. I’ll move on and won’t look back.”
Just like he moved on the last time he was caught? I wondered how many times there had been. Instead of voicing my thoughts, I said, “Thanks for being so open, Kevin. Michael and I appreciate it. Maybe you can help us with something else. Anything you can tell us about Jack Hoffman, why he was murdered, who might’ve done it?”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt now to tell you. Jack called me Saturday morning, said he wanted me to fire you. That you were disrespectful, a real smartass. He wanted to call an emergency meeting to go over a couple things. Said he didn’t want to wait until the next scheduled meeting. Jack was tired of the bullshit that was allowed to go on.”
“Like what? Like JC and Dick meeting together on the sly? Making decisions on their own and getting the others to go along with them?” Sheesh. I was a smartass. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I winced when I remembered Dick Reid and his current condition.
Kevin said, “No, none of that came up. Jack bitched about you for awhile, then started in about the book. He said he tried talking about it the night before with JC and Dick, but they didn’t want to hear it.”
Michael asked, “What about the book?”
“The daily book. Jack told me he was tired of it being rigged. Seemed the same people won over and over. He hadn’t won in nearly eight years and it was time he did. He was really pissed.”
“So, Jack tried talking to JC and Dick, what, on Friday night? My last night working there? I don’t remember him talking to them.” I also had been pretty busy that night, so there was a good chance I’d missed it.
Kevin nodded. “Jack said he went into the office while they were i
n there. He didn’t want to talk to them while we were all sitting at the bar. He said it wasn’t proper.”
Jack must’ve gone to their office when I was in the bathroom. Now that I thought about it, I remembered Jack wasn’t sitting at the bar after my break. Then I remembered something else.
“That day at Jack’s funeral reception, you told Sam to not talk about what went on in the meetings. You stopped him from talking about Monday night’s meeting, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“That was the night y’all voted to suspend me, right? What—”
“Whoa, Maggie.” Kevin raised his hands and said, “That wasn’t unanimous, y’know. A lot of us voted in your favor. But JC and Dick had gathered enough voting members that would go along with them.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore.” I shrugged. And I realized it really didn’t matter. Somehow I knew things would work out. For the past two years I’d been running on automatic, doing what I had to do to just get through each day. I sat up straighter in my chair. “What else was talked about that night at the meeting?”
He hesitated for a second then said, “Raising the drink prices, shortening the hours, closing on Sundays and possibly Mondays. They—”
This time I interrupted him. “What are they thinking? I mean, I know the VFW is nonprofit and everything, but all of that is sure to cut business. They’ll start losing money.”
“The only two things decided on that night were suspending you and raising the prices. Oh, and putting Sam behind the bar full-time.” Kevin took a swig from his beer bottle. “They said the club was turning into a bar, less of a military club.”
“I get it,” I said. “They were trying to make it less appealing to the social members, weren’t they?”
He shrugged, said nothing. Was he still being loyal? And to whom, and why? Especially after the stunt that he’d pulled. I tried another tactic.
“The prizes you’re supposed to get. Did they tell you to stop buying expensive items?”
Kevin nodded. “JC said I was spending too much money on them. Dick suggested I hold off until further notice.”
It kept coming back to money. And to JC and Dick.
Michael asked, “What exactly did Jack say to you, do you remember?”
“Let’s see … It was kind of hard to understand him—you know how he mumbled. He was mad about Maggie, about women belonging, about being blown off by Dick and JC. He said things were done right when he was commander.”
“Yeah, I do remember him saying most of that. But what about the book and being blown off?”
“He said that he told JC and Dick he didn’t like the way the book was being handled. That he wanted to bring it up in the next meeting. Jack said they more or less told him to mind his own damn business.”
Poor Jack. Except for the part about firing me and women belonging, he just wanted things to be run the right way. Right according to whom? He was of the old school, but still. If the book was rigged, it should’ve been brought up. Wrong is wrong, no matter who was involved.
“And when they blew him off, he contacted me and wanted to call a special meeting for Sunday night. Of course, all hell broke loose Sunday morning, so it never happened.” Kevin finished off his beer and scooted back his chair. Holding up his empty bottle, he asked, “Can I get you guys anything?”
Michael stood and I followed his lead. “No, thanks. I do have one more question, if that’s okay. About how you implied Sam had lied about something.”
“Shoot.”
“How did you know Sam left early, letting Pete close up Saturday night?”
“My bike wouldn’t start. I was fiddling with it when Sam came out. Poor guy had waited for the Nelsons and Reids, then me to leave. He didn’t see me still out there.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Oh, yeah, like I was in any position to chew him out.”
Thirty-Three
For the third time in four days, I approached the doors of the North DeSoto General Hospital. Michael and I entered the brightly lit lobby and went straight to the information booth.
After confirming Dick had been admitted, we rode the elevator to the ICU unit and followed the signs to a locked door. Beyond a wall of glass windows, a nurse sat at a desk, her back to us. A row of cubicles stretched out in front of her where she could keep an eye on all the ICU patients. I could just barely hear beeping sounds from the machines hooked up to these patients.
“I’ll handle this,” Michael said. He pushed the buzzer. The nurse turned, looked up, and moved her hand to answer the buzzer, and he said, “We’re here to see Dick Reid.”
“Are you family?” her voice crackled through the speaker.
“No, ma’am, we’re not. Just close friends.”
“I’m sorry, but the family has issued a ‘No Visitors’ for the patient.” She didn’t sound at all sorry. Michael thanked her.
“Damn,” I said. “Well, at least we know he’s alive. That’s good news anyway.” We turned to head back to the elevator when the door behind us opened. Pam Nelson came through the door and stopped when she saw us, then rushed over.
“Maggie, oh God, poor Dick.” Pam’s eyes were red, and this time her sniffling was due to crying. I immediately felt sympathetic. The Nelsons and Reids had known each other for years. Even if Pam and Diane weren’t genuine close friends, their husbands were. JC and Dick were practically joined at the hip. Sure, Pam was a bitch who thought she was better than most people, but seeing her all shaken up made me forget all that.
“How is he, Pam? Where’s JC?”
She cocked her thumb over her shoulder. “He’s in there with the family. It doesn’t look good. Dick’s in a coma. JC says he’s going to stay until Dick either wakes up or …” Pam couldn’t finish the sentence.
“What about Diane? Has anyone heard from her? Seen her?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t know what’s going on. Oh my God. Why did Diane try to kill her husband?”
Whoa. “Is that what you think happened, Pam?”
“Of course. What else could it be? She must’ve finally got tired of his abuse.” She wiped her nose with her hanky and looked at me. “You do know about the abuse, don’t you? I haven’t said anything out of line?”
“I always suspected. I’ve seen the way Dick grabs her sometimes, and the long sleeves she wears even on the hottest days.”
Pam nodded, her eyes filling up with tears. “I’ve tried so many times to get her to leave him, but … JC told me to mind my business, that Dick was a good man. If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment.” She rushed toward the elevator.
Sam’s truck sat in front of his house when we pulled up.
“Good. I thought he’d be at home. Poor guy, he really has nowhere else to go. The club means everything to him.” Man, after talking to Pete and Kevin, and reading Jack’s notebook, I realized how important, how significant the VFW was to a lot of people. Me included. Hell, that job grounded me, gave me a reason to get out of bed every day since Rob’s death.
Before Rob’s murder, it was just a job. A paycheck. With all that had been happening, everything Michael and I were finding out, my heart was heavy when I got out of the car and walked with him toward Sam’s front door.
Sam opened the door right away in response to my knock. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see us. He led us into his living room, turned off the TV, and gestured for me and Michael to sit on the couch.
“Can I get y’all anything? A beer, iced tea?” After we declined, he plopped down into his recliner. A half dozen crushed beer cans lay on the floor at his feet, one sat on the table beside him. “So, what brings y’all here?”
Now that we were actually right there in front of Sam, I clammed up. I didn’t want to know if he had anything to do with Jack’s death. And he didn’t ask about Dick.
Sam took a swig from his beer. “Yeah, I’m all right. Can’t let the bastards bring you down. Didn’t I always tell you that, Maggie?” He finished off his beer and crushed the can. “Can’t let the bastards get to you.”
I’d never seen Sam drunk and it made me strangely wary. I wanted to get out of there. Leave him alone with his misery. And his beer.
He leaned forward in his chair. “Almost made me have a heart attack. Wife’s glad I quit. She was tired of seeing me so stressed out all the time. Ain’t worth it. Screw ’em. Tired of doing their dirty work.”
“What dirty work, Sam? What did JC and Dick have you do?” Michael asked.
He pointed at me. “Suspend her, first of all. Soon as she was arrested. Assholes. They didn’t care. They didn’t have to work behind the bar, especially for free.” He poked his thumb into his chest. “I’m the one who had to do it. Sonofabitches. I’m not going to give ’em a chance to fire me, though. I left a message on JC’s machine telling him I quit. I showed them.”
“Is that why I was suspended? Because of Jack’s murder?” I had to hear him say it.
“You ticked off too many board members in the past. Too damn mouthy for your own good.”
I let it ride. Whatever they needed to tell themselves to get through the day. Like Sam said, screw ’em.
“One last question, Sam, then Maggie and I’ll get out of your hair. Did you let Pete close up Saturday night?”
He waved his arms. “Hell, that’s old news. Everybody’s talking about Kevin now. Damn shame.” He burst out laughing, a drunken ugly sound. “Correction: Guess it’s Dick they’re all talking about now.”
“Sam, who stabbed Dick?” If he did it, maybe we’d catch him off guard as drunk as he was. “Who killed Jack?”
“Damned if I know.” He lowered his head, kicked the beer cans scattering them across the room, then looked back up at me. “But it’s my fault. Jack and his notebooks.” Sam slapped his hand hard against his chest, his eyes welling up. “All my fault.”