Back on Murder (32 page)

She nods the whole time, the details fresh on her mind from Templeton’s account.

“What’s not in the book is this . . .”

The doctor had offered to tell her for me, but this was my job, the one I took on without realizing the moment we married, the moment our daughter was born. Charlotte’s eyelids fluttered and then opened. She blinked at the gathered onlookers, family and friends from the four corners of Houston, bewildered by their presence. Then the surroundings dawned on her. She glanced anxiously at the tubes running into her arm, at the blinking, hissing machines over each shoulder. Finally, with a hint of panic in her eyes, she noticed me sitting at the foot of the bed. Her intubated arm reached forward.

“Roland?”

I didn’t tell the others to leave. I didn’t have to. At the sound of her voice they began to file out, all except her sister, Ann, who lingered at the doorway, thinking she might be needed, until Bridger urged her out into the corridor. She disappeared with a suppressed sob.

“What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked. “What am I doing in here?”

“You don’t remember?”

She bit her lip, eyes darting toward the door. “How long have I been like this?”

“A few hours,” I said, checking my watch. “About eight.”

“Eight? What happened to me?”

I took a deep breath and tried to start, but lost my grasp of vocabulary. All the words in my head suddenly gone.

“Roland,” she says, “am I . . . sick?”

“You were in an accident. You really don’t remember?”

Her eyes grew wide. “If I remembered, I wouldn’t have to ask. Why did everyone just leave? What’s wrong, Roland? It’s something terrible, isn’t it?”

I nodded my head, unable to do more.

She gazed around the room in frustration, casting back in her mind. Putting the pieces together, I suspected. Working out what must have occurred. Exhaling, her body grew small under the covers, her chin trembling.

“Why wasn’t Jessica here? I didn’t see her. Where is she?”

“She’s . . .” I willed myself to say it, but still nothing came. “She’s –”

“Is she all right? Is Jessica all right? Roland, did something happen to her? You have to look at me and tell me. Tell me what happened.”

I tried, but couldn’t even bring myself to look at her, or even imagine the expression on her face. Begging me, imploring me to do the most terrible thing, to wound her in the deepest way I could. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be the one.

“Baby, she’s . . .” But no. I couldn’t.

“There was an accident.” Her voice matter-of-fact. “Was she in it? Was she hurt in the accident?”

I nodded.

Charlotte sucked in her breath, and the tethered hand went to her mouth. I glanced up to see her eyes welling with shock.

“A car came,” I said. “The driver ran the light. A drunk driver. She ran into you, into your car.” My throat tightened. I began to cough. “She hit . . . She hit the passenger side.”

“I was driving?” she asked. “I was behind the wheel? Who was the passenger? Was it Jessica?”

I nodded again.

Her breathing took on a voice, each gasp an unknown word sighed into the air, a glossolalia of grief.

“She’s all right, though,” Charlotte said. “She’s all right.” She imbued the pronouncement with a confidence she surely couldn’t feel. The intervals between each sentence, each word, punctuated by the strange sibilance of her breathing. She’s all right, the words said. No she’s not, the breath answered. “Tell me, Roland. Tell me she’s all right.”

My head shook.

“She’s . . . hurt?”

My head shook again.

Charlotte’s lip trembled. “She’s – ?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, choking on the syllables.

Her face opened utterly, the eyes wide, the mouth a twisted gash, even the tear ducts began to burst and stream, as if a prophet had struck a rock. The moaning breath came quicker and quicker, hyperventilating, and her arms thrashed at the bedclothes, twisting the plastic tubing against her skin. I moved up the bed, my arms circling, holding her down, squeezing gently.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s my fault,” she whispered. “I did it.”

“No, it’s not your fault.”

The door opened and I turned to find Ann there, hands over her mouth. I waved her back and she retreated, letting the wood slam against the doorframe.

Charlotte shrank in my arms, emptied herself out. The sigh from her lips was like a soul departing. Her eyes fluttered again, then closed. She rested her head against the pillow, going slack.

I stood, feeling so drained, so completely flayed open and raw. But it was done. The unthinkable deed. I shrank back, edging alongside the bed, resuming my seat near the footboard. The room grew quiet apart from the occasional beep and hiss of the monitors. I felt my own eyes closing, though there was no relief.

“Roland?” she said.

“I’m here.”

I opened my eyes and she was sitting up in bed, examining the tubes in her forearm. She smiled wanly, preternaturally calm, glancing around the room in mild dismay.

“What’s wrong?” she said. “What am I doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

She bit her lip. “How long have I been like this?”

“Charlotte, I already told you this. It’s been eight hours – ”

“Eight?”

“I told you – ”

“What happened, Roland? Tell me what happened?”

My fist closed around the blanket. “Are you serious?”

“Am I . . . sick?”

“You were in an accident, remember?”

“An accident?” Her hand went to her mouth again, tugging the tubes taut. “What’s wrong, Roland? It’s something terrible, isn’t it?”

“You don’t remember?” I heard myself saying. “You don’t remember what I just told you? About Jessica?”

“She’s all right, isn’t she? Tell me she’s all right.”

Her hand reached toward me, eyes pleading, the bruises on her cheek glowing with lividity, and I . . . I recoiled, retreated into my chair, glancing to the floor in confusion, the gears of my mind seizing up and grinding.

“She’s hurt, isn’t she?”

I choked back a sob.

“But she’s not – ?”

“She is,” I said.

Again, the strange breathing, the primal keening grief, as fresh as the first time. Her cheeks flowed with tears, her mouth gaped, and then her arms, so recently still, flailed with renewed violence, slapping the intravenous cable against its pole. I forced myself forward, wrapping her again in my arms.

“It’s all right,” I told her. “It’s okay.” Not even listening to what I said, the words running contrary to all reality and sense.

But they calmed her. Just like before, she subsided. The tide of pain went out, leaving her adrift, her head lolling on the pillow. I got up again, weary and disoriented and a little freaked out. The chair was just a few steps away, but I barely reached it before sinking down.

Jessica. Her body was just a few doors down, unless they’d already moved her. I wanted to be with her, to stay at her side, her small cold hand clutched in mine. If I kept holding it, she would have to stay, and the doctor, sensing my state, had offered to tell Charlotte for me, to break the news. He’d volunteered reluctantly, stoically, the way a man steps forward for a thankless task, to do his duty to God and country, and I was tempted. But this was my job, not his, so I had unclasped my hand and let my daughter go.

Now Charlotte’s breathing was steady and deep, like she’d gone to sleep. I glanced at the doorway, wishing someone would come through, too tired to get up and open it.

“Roland?”

At the sound of my name, a shiver ran through me.

“What am I doing here?”

She sat up in bed, glancing dreamily at her surroundings, smiling with her chewed lip, the bruises purple and bright, like she thought someone was playing a trick on her. Like she’d been transported to the hospital in her sleep so we could all have a good laugh.

“What’s wrong?” she said, the shine leaving her eyes. “It’s something terrible, isn’t it?”

“You don’t remember.”

Her hand reached out. “Tell me what happened.”

I pushed myself out of the chair, then went to the door.

“Roland?” she called. The note of ignorant alarm, the terrible suspicion alloyed with hope, was the same as before, her memory resetting to the moment she woke up.

“Because of her head injury,” I tell Cavallo, “my wife suffered memory loss. Short term. She’d keep forgetting things, and you’d have to tell her all over again. Not who she was or anything like that, but the immediate past. The crash. She’d ask about it. She’d ask about . . . her,” I say, finally getting the pronoun out. “And at first I kept telling her, and her reaction every time was pretty much word for word like she was reading from the same script, her head playing the moment over and over again.”

Cavallo covers her mouth, peering at me over her fingertips. “That’s awful.”

“The repetition,” I say, “I couldn’t keep doing it. So for two days almost, until she finally got her memory back, I kept it to myself. She’d ask what had happened, and I’d lie to her. Our daughter’s death, it became my secret. And when she finally did remember, when I knew she wouldn’t ask again, God help me I was actually glad. Because I’d never have to tell her again, your daughter is dead. And I hated myself for feeling that.”

The bill paid and the story told, I stagger outside, dazed by emotion and blinded by the light, fumbling for the sunglasses I must have forgotten in the car.

On the curb, after a long pause, I ask for the favor I mentioned before. I need help digging some dirt on Tony Salazar.

“If you don’t want to help,” I tell her, “I’ll understand.”

“It’s not that.” She brushes a stray curl from her eyes. “I’m just a little overwhelmed. And to be honest, it makes me uncomfortable not doing things by the book.”

“Wanda said you were a little uptight.”

“I’m not. But keeping tabs on a fellow cop . . .”

“These guys aren’t fellow anything. And listen, I still believe there’s some kind of link.”

She puts her arm up between us, like she’s checking the distance. “You don’t have to say that, March. I already told you I’d do it. It’s that or waste my time sitting through briefings on white slavery. I’ll do what I can.”

“In your free time?” I ask, cracking a smile. “Your fiancé won’t be too happy about that.”

She looks wanly at the engagement ring, its sparkle washed out by the sun. “My fiancé’s in Iraq, March. He doesn’t care what hours I work.”

“I didn’t know.”

“What can I say?” She starts toward her car, shrugging in profile. “Noboby’s written a book about it yet.”

I’m still sitting behind the wheel of my own vehicle, soaking up air-conditioning and pondering the turn of events with Cavallo, when my phone starts ringing. Brad Templeton sounds breathless on the other end of the line.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” I say. “Your book is a thorn in my side.”

“That’s fine. I’m just touching base with all the dirt I dug up on those names you gave me, but if you’re not interested – ”

“I’m interested. Forgive my uncharacteristic rudeness.”

He chuckles. “It wasn’t easy, my friend, because you had me looking in the wrong direction with all that Internal Affairs stuff. There’s nothing there. But what I did find is a lot juicier. Did you know your friend Keller filed incorporation papers for a private security firm earlier this year?”

“Do tell.”

“He’s connected, I’ll give him that. The corporate officers are a who’s who. Looks like he had some backers with deep pockets.”

“Had? As in, doesn’t have anymore?”

“That’s where it gets interesting,” he says. “Remember that guy Chad Macneil?”

The name is familiar, but I have to reach back all the way to last week’s headlines to make the connection. “The financial planner?”

“The guy who went missing, that’s right. Sunning himself on the beaches of South America, or so the story goes.”

“What about him?”

“He’s on the papers, too. The treasurer.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. And the crazy thing is, I’m not so sure the investors realize it. I had a chat with one by phone – don’t worry, I didn’t tip my hand – and he seemed oblivious.”

“Are you saying Macneil stole the money out of the corporation?”

He laughs. “It’s a private company, March. I don’t know how I’d find something like that out. But don’t you think it’s an intriguing possibility?”

Yes, I do. Thomson reached out with the promise he could name shooters in the Morales case. Morales was, among other things, a money man – Lorenz even floated the ludicrous idea that since there were no drugs in the house, maybe the crew that hit it had come for the money. Now that notion doesn’t seem quite so ludicrous anymore. Not if Keller’s treasurer, when he absconded, took the company’s capital with him.

In fact, a lot of things suddenly start looking like they might connect. Mitch Geiger’s rogue crew jacking dealers left and right, showing no respect for the territorial boundaries. The tactical know-how of the shooters at the Morales scene, with Castro’s theory about the flanking maneuver outside the bathroom window. It would explain how Thomson could be so certain about naming the bad guys. Maybe he knew them. Maybe he was there. Something like that, it could easily eat away at the conscience of a supposedly reformed man.

“Anything else for me?” I ask.

“That’s it. Now, what have you got for me?”

“All in good time, Brad. Just keep digging for now.”

After I get him off the phone, I check my messages and find that the elusive Vance Balinski has gotten in touch. He sounds nervous, either because he’s not accustomed to leaving voicemail for a homicide detective, or because he knows what’s in the box Thomson gave him. According to the message, he’s on his way to the Morgan St. Café right now, dropping the package off at the counter. I can pick it up there anytime.

I check my watch. If I drive recklessly, I might just get there before he leaves.

CHAPTER
21

Just inside the door, Vance Balinski crouches on a café chair, head ducked between his knees, attended by a semicircle of alarmed women including the one who’d worked the counter on my last visit. Everyone turns when I call his name, a few even jump. He straightens, casting around blindly for the sound of my voice, eyes clenched tight, a wadded towel pressed to his nose. When he takes it away, the fabric glistens with fresh blood. Blond curls frame his punching bag of a face, perfect as a wig fitted after the fact. One eye opens, the blue cornea bright in a red sea of burst vessels.