The Shimmer

by Carsten Stroud

  Clete Redding slept the sleep of the dead, still in his suit, splayed out on his back on top of the spread, his face slack and his chest rising and falling with a slow tidal rhythm.

  A square of sunlight was shimmering across the floor and making its way up the side of the bed when the phone rang, a shrill insistent clattering buzz.

  It jerked him up from a deep blue sleep, like a gaffed fish being plucked out of the water. He sat up, his head spinning, confused, and now full of alarm as he remembered Mary Alice and the danger Jack said she was in.

  But no, he’d handled that, he’d sent a County car. And he had spoken to her. And she was going to be okay until the thirtieth anyway. And Declan was safe too. Safe with Frank and Helen Forrest. Both of them were safe.

  And today was only Wednesday, the twenty-eighth of August.

  The phone stopped ringing just as he reached for it, and he sat up on the side of the bed, holding his head in his hands, trying to shake himself awake.

  Call the front desk, find out who just called, probably Jack.

  He was reaching for it when the phone rang again, sending an electric jolt through his nerves. He snatched up the receiver, fumbling it a bit, got it to his ear and said, in a growling snarl, “Yeah, Redding here, what?”

  “Clete? Did I wake you?”

  “No. Not at all. I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”

  “Clete, this is Beau Short.”

  Clete sat up straighter, stared into the middle distance. Beau Short was the CO of his Detective Unit. And a good friend.

  “Yeah, Beau, what’s up?”

  “You alone, Clete?”

  Clete laughed, because a lot of guys on the job believed in the Five Hundred Mile Rule. If you’re more than five hundred miles away from your wife, it’s not adultery.

  “Yeah, of course. I love my wife. This about my call the other night?”

  “Can you just sit tight for a bit?”

  “Sure, of course. Why?”

  “Stay on the line, will you?”

  Now his belly started a slow roll.

  “Why? What’s going on, Beau?”

  And then there was a double knock at the door.

  “Hey, Beau, hold on. There’s someone at the door, okay—hold on?”

  “I will.”

  Clete went to the door, opened it. There were two New Orleans Police Department harness cops filling up the doorway, one black, one white. They both had their hats in their hands and they both looked a bit scalded.

  “Detective Redding?”

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  “Can we step in, sir?”

  It was said gently, softly, politely.

  Too softly.

  “Yeah, sure, come in, hold on, I got a guy on the line here.”

  The two cops came into the room, stood in the middle of it, looking deeply uncomfortable.

  “Beau, look, I got—”

  “You have two New Orleans PD guys in your room, right?”

  “Yeah. I do. But why?”

  He looked at the cops, waved them to a couple of chairs. “Sit, guys, will you?”

  They sat. He went back to Beau.

  “Why do I have two cops in my room?”

  “Clete... I didn’t want you to be alone.”

  Clete went silent. He felt that he was on the brink of a whole new reality. That his old one was about to change. And he had the thought that if, right now, he didn’t ask the next question, if he just said goodbye and put the phone down, then everything would be all right. Nothing would change.

  “Beau?”

  “Yeah, Clete.”

  “Is it Mary Alice?”

  There was a long silence. Too long.

  “Yeah, Clete. It is.”

  “She hurt? Is Declan okay?”

  “There was an accident—”

  “A car accident?”

  “She was out driving—”

  “With Declan?”

  “No. Alone. Or not. We’re not—”

  “How? Fucking how? I sent a County car on Sunday night! They were told, nobody in, nobody out!”

  “They were there. At the Forrest house. Two civilian cars in the driveway. And they were there for two days. So last night, the house was all dark, so they just parked it and settled in for the night. Babysitting. Two hours later, the house got a slow pass, a black Caddy—it looked hinky—they rolled after it, lights and siren, and the Caddy took off. They pulled it over a mile down the road. It was two Vizzini guys.”

  “Who?”

  “Tessio’s kid, Anthony, and Sergio Carpo.”

  “What the fuck were they doing down there?”

  “They said they were just out for a shore drive.”

  “In the middle of the fucking night? Right where my wife happened to be staying? Bullshit. You still got them in custody?”

  “Clete, there was nothing to hold them on. The Vizzini guys, I mean. No law against a drive down the shore. They released the Caddy, deputies went back to 77 Florala. There was only one car in the driveway. Not Mary Alice’s Oldsmobile. They went looking for it.”

  “What about Mary Alice, Beau?”

  The two NOPD cops looked at each other. They heard the rising tone in Clete’s voice and they came over to stand a little closer to Clete, hats still in their hands, but braced for anything.

  “Clete... I’m so sorry.”

  “What happened?”

  “They found her two miles up. She lost control of her car, went off the highway, up by Matanzas Inlet.”

  “She’s okay? Right?”

  “No, Clete. She’s not okay.”

  * * *

  They took two cars back to St. Augustine, because Clete wouldn’t—or couldn’t—be in the same car as Jack, and he insisted on driving alone, and nothing anyone said was going to change his mind, so he drove off in his motor pool squad, and Jack followed behind, a mile or so back, in Annabelle Fontaine’s cobalt blue Lincoln Continental.

  Annabelle was at the wheel, Jack in the passenger side of the long white-leather bench seat, staring out at the highway, watching Clete’s unmarked squad car pulling rapidly away into the blue distance.

  They were now out in delta country again, heading east on Highway 90, two-lane blacktop all the way to the Atlantic, under a clear blue sky, a golden light on the land, and other than the music on the car radio—Johnny Mercer singing “The Midnight Sun”—nothing was being said. Nothing had been said for the last fifty miles.

  * * *

  They were both in a state of shock, both of them mentally still back in the suite at the Monteleone this morning, replaying the scene, both of them sitting at the low round table in the front room, sipping black coffee and eating chocolate croissants, Annabelle in Jack’s oversize white terry-cloth bathrobe, Jack in his suit pants, shirtless, shoeless, the early morning sunlight filling the room. His Highway Patrol uniform, starched and crisp and fresh, was hanging on a hook behind the front door.

  When Clete kicked the door open, the uniform flew across the hallway, and then Clete was in the room, in the same rumpled blue suit he had been wearing the day before.

  He had his .357 out and he came straight at Jack, who was on his feet by now, and behind Clete he saw two uniformed NOPD cops, who showed every sign of chasing after Clete.

  Clete got about two feet from Jack, stuck the .357 in Jack’s face, his finger white on the trigger and Clete had time to say, “Can you go back, can you fucking go back and fix this?” in a strangled growl, before the two patrol cops took him down in a tangle, shoved him face-first into the rug, bent his arms back and wrested the revolver out of his hand, one cop kneeling on the back of Clete’s neck.

  The other cop pulled out a pair of cuffs, jerked Clete’s arms behind his back and clamped the cuffs on Cle
te’s wrist.

  Clete turned his head sideways, lifted up and looked at Jack and then at Annabelle, both of whom were standing now, staring back at him, stunned into silence.

  “Can you go back? Can you fix this?” Clete asked, in a ruined voice, and then he put his head back down, and Jack realized that the deep rasping sound he was making was Clete Redding crying.

  The cop who had put his knee on Clete’s neck, a fridge-sized black man, got slowly to his feet, breathing hard. He looked at Jack, took in the room and the woman, and noticed the Highway Patrol uniform crumpled in a heap by the wall.

  “Sorry,” said the cop. “He got away from us.”

  “What is it?” said Jack. “What has he done?”

  The cop shook his head, his eyes soft.

  “Nothing. We’re here to help the poor guy. Jacksonville PD called, asked us to show up here, see that he didn’t do anything crazy when he got the news.”

  “What news?”

  The cop hesitated.

  “Mind if I ask you to identify yourself, sir?”

  Annabelle stepped in.

  “I’m a detective with 8 District—”

  “Yes, you’re Detective Fontaine. Everybody knows you, ma’am. But who’s this gentleman?”

  “My name is Jack Redding. I’m a sergeant with the Florida Highway Patrol.”

  “You a relative of Detective Redding, then?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  He nodded, considering Jack, deciding.

  “Well, I’m sorry to tell you, Sergeant, but Detective Redding’s wife got killed last night.”

  Jack sat down in the chair, suddenly chilled through, a steel band clamping around his chest. He felt limp, boneless. He looked down at Clete, who was lying motionless on the carpet, still making that terrible rasping sound. Annabelle, silent, was standing beside him, her hand on his shoulder.

  Annabelle took a deep breath, tightened her hand on Jack’s shoulder, and asked, “How did it happen?”

  The cop ran his fingers through his hair, still breathing hard from the takedown.

  “You’d have to get the whole story from Jacksonville, Detective Fontaine. But what we got told was the lady, Mrs. Redding, was out driving along the coast there, middle of the night, northbound on Highway One, near a place called Matanzas Inlet—”

  Annabelle felt the shudder run right through Jack’s body when he heard the name.

  “When something goes wrong, and she swerves into the bay, and that’s about the size of it. Except, now they’re saying there’s more to it, doesn’t look so simple. Like I say, you gotta check with Jacksonville.”

  Annabelle looked down at Clete.

  “Thank you, Officer. Can you help Detective Redding to his feet?”

  They thought about it, and then managed to get Clete upright. His control was back. His face was pale white and he was stony silent.

  He looked at Annabelle.

  “Ask these guys to uncuff me.”

  Annabelle nodded to the cops, and the smaller one, the silent white cop, did that, easing the cuffs off. Clete rubbed his wrists, looked at both of them, Jack and Annabelle, took in that situation, smiled grimly, went back to Jack.

  “Jack, do you think you can undo this?”

  Jack was still sitting, looking sick.

  He shook his head slowly, lifted his hands, palms up.

  “I don’t know.”

  “So that’s a maybe?”

  Jack said nothing.

  “You got any idea what the fuck happened? Today’s the twenty-eighth of August. We had until the Friday. The thirtieth. That’s what you said.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “Looks like you were fucking wrong, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. I was wrong.”

  “So, like I said, can you fix this?”

  The two cops were watching this back-and-forth and looking puzzled as hell. Annabelle knew what Clete was asking for, and she knew it probably wasn’t possible. Clete kept his attention fixed on Jack, a stony accusative glare. He was waiting for an answer. Jack shook himself, like a wet dog, got to his feet, faced Clete squarely.

  “I don’t know. I can try. I did what I could. Did you send a car? To cover the house?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “And did they?”

  “Yes. For two nights. But something went seriously fucking wrong, didn’t it?”

  “Yes. But what?”

  Clete dropped his eyes, rubbed his wrists again.

  “No fucking idea. But I’m going to find out.”

  He turned, held out his hand for his Colt, got it back, brushed past the two patrol cops and left the room. The black cop looked at Annabelle Fontaine.

  “Should we let him go, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” she said, after a moment. “Let him go.”

  * * *

  “The Midnight Sun” came to its majestic close, Annabelle sighed, shut the radio off and there was only the wind rush and the drumming of their tires on the uneven blacktop. Clete’s Ford was almost out of sight, and the rest of the road was empty. Annabelle glanced over at Jack.

  “You okay?”

  “No.”

  “Neither am I. There’s a flask of cognac in the glove compartment. And I’m going to need a cigarette.”

  She rolled the window down, and the scent of rich red earth and saw grass filled the car. Jack opened the glove box, found a silver flask with a little silver cup as a screw cap.

  Annabelle was lighting a cigarette from the dashboard lighter, and she handed it to Jack, so she could light another. The smoke filled the car, briefly clouding the windshield, until the slipstream drew it out. Jack poured out a capful and offered it to Annabelle, who drank it all in one shot and handed the cap back to him.

  “What do you think he’ll do?” she asked.

  “Clete?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Find out who did this and kill them all.”

  “You talked to him, just as we were leaving the hotel. What did he say?”

  “He said he’d been on the phone to a man named Beau Short. His CO at Robbery Homicide. Short told him that last night a black Caddy had cruised the house where his wife was staying, and the sheriff’s car went after them because they looked suspicious. They pulled them over a mile down the road. There were two guys in the car, Anthony Vizzini and Sergio Carpo—”

  “There you go,” said Jack. “There’s your Saturday Night Massacre.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll explain later. Go on.”

  “Okay, please do. Anyway, when the deputies got back to the Forrest house, Mary Alice’s car was gone. They went looking, found tracks running down the slope and into Matanzas Inlet. Got the divers out, and they found the car in twenty feet of water. Mary Alice was at the wheel. And Short said there was an antemortem bruise on her right temple. She’d been hit hard, possibly with a gun butt. She was unconscious when she went into the water.”

  “Not a bruise she got when the car hit Matanzas Inlet?”

  “No. She was hit maybe ten, fifteen minutes before that, judging from the spreading of the bruise mark. You don’t bruise after you’re dead.”

  Jack shook his head.

  “Yeah? That’s not been my experience.”

  Annabelle smiled, a rueful twist, said nothing, both of them concentrating on the diminishing gray dot that was Clete Redding’s squad car.

  “He’s moving pretty fast, isn’t he?” said Annabelle.

  “Yeah. He’s like a human cruise missile.”

  Annabelle needed that explained to her, and when Jack finished she said, “Yes, that’s exactly what he is right now. What I’m wondering is, who’s he going to target?”

  “The Vizzini Family.�
��

  “The whole family?”

  “Yes. He’ll go right in after them. He’ll hit their compound and shred everyone he comes across.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a guess.”

  “It isn’t. It’s happened before. They called it the Saturday Night Massacre. Now it’s happening again.”

  “What will you do? Should you warn the Vizzinis?”

  “No. Fuck the Vizzinis. Excuse me.”

  “Excused. Did you know that his wife was going to die?”

  “Yes. I warned him about it. That’s why he sent the sheriff’s car. But she was supposed to die—I mean, the last time around, she died on the thirtieth of August.”

  “This Friday?”

  “Yeah. That’s what was in the history books.”

  “But she didn’t. She died last night, or today.”

  “Yes. On the twenty-eighth. Three days early.”

  “But how could that happen?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe when Selena and I came back here, we changed how things happened. The timing, the order, something like that. In the end it doesn’t matter, does it? She’s dead, and Clete will try to kill every Vizzini he can reach.”

  “They’ll kill him.”

  “They’ll try.”

  “Are you going to let him go in there alone?”

  “No. Probably not.”

  “Then you’ll get killed too.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “And if you get killed and Clete gets killed, who goes after Selena D’Arcy?”

  “You will.”

  “Yes. I will.”

  He looked over at her, saw Pandora right there, and Annabelle too, like a double image, one riding on top of the other, and as he watched they kept switching back and forth. He loved them both and he had no idea what he was supposed to do about either of them. Annabelle sighed.

  “I can hear you thinking.”

  “Yeah? What am I thinking?”

  “You’re in a serious tangle, and you don’t know what to do about any of it.”

  He was quiet for a while. The road went into a long graceful curve and they passed a road sign.

  BILOXI

  30 miles

  “How many miles between Biloxi and St. Augustine?” he asked.

  “Around five hundred.”

  “Speed he’s going, he’ll get there by sundown.”