Dearly Departed (23 page)

“I know.”

I hung up the phone and stared out the window. Every muscle and bone in my body hurt. Even thinking hurt. “Run it off,” my coach used to say. That had been his cure for everything. “Run it off, sweat it out.” During those few brief years when I had the audacity to consider myself an athlete, I would follow his advice like it had come down from Mount Sinai. I wondered what had become of him as I crawled back into bed and pulled the blankets to my chin.

D
ean Bernelle can’t cook. He was one of those older-generation gentlemen who bought into the theory that cooking, that anything to do with the kitchen, was women’s work. But he made a valiant effort nonetheless, whipping up fried eggs, toast, and canned chili for a late lunch. I thanked him profusely even though the toast was burned and the yolks of the eggs were rubbery.

The death of his daughter, Laura, and his granddaughter, Jennifer, had hit him especially hard. Yet he never discussed it. At least not that I was aware of. But it was always there, just below the surface.

“I’m putting in a wall of blueberry bushes near the shed,” he told me. “I remember Jenny used to love picking blueberries. She’d eat a berry for every one she dropped in the bucket, then come home with her mouth and fingers all purple. Laurie would get so angry at us.”

“That was just for show,” I told him. “Mostly she didn’t mind at all.”

“Guess you’re right,” he agreed, then rapidly changed the subject. “Are you in trouble?” he asked. “Do you need help?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You look it.”

“I admit I could have used a hand yesterday.”

“Cops beat you up, is that right?”

I nodded.

“They used to do the same thing when I was young. They see a guy they thought was trouble, they’d smack him around a little just to keep him in line. I saw that a lot when I was young. I bet you did the same when you were a cop.”

“No, not at all,” I assured him.

Dean just smiled. I don’t think he believed me.

“You’re going back, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Back where?”

“Back where they beat you up.”

“I suppose,” I admitted.

“Yeah, I knew it. I remember telling Laurie when she first started bringing you around, ‘One thing about Taylor,’ I said. ‘He’s no quitter. He’s not going to quit on you. He’s like a marine. You can kill him, but he’s not going to quit.’”

“Did you really say that?”

“Yes, I did.”

“No wonder it took her so long to accept my marriage proposal.”

“Don’t give me that,” he said. “If you only had the guts to ask, she would have married you the weekend after you two met.”

“Really? She said that?”

Dean nodded.

The things you learn.

T
he warm sun played peekaboo behind white, fluffy, daydream clouds—perfect weather for lake watching. I descended the long, steep flight of stairs that led from the Bernelles’ home on top of the hill to the lake below, carrying three cans of beer that I’d found in the refrigerator. About halfway down I realized I was overburdened and stopped for a half hour to drink one of the beers. My load reduced, I continued to the L-shaped dock, making myself comfortable on the bench at the base of the L.

Like most forms of human endeavor, lake watching can be elevated to an art form in the proper hands. Me? I’m the Monet of lake watching. I can do it for hours, thinking about nothing and everything, whereas less dedicated artists grow weary and bored after thirty minutes or so. The difference is that most people look for answers in the gently rippling waves while I search only for questions.

“I wonder how much that cost?” was one of the questions. It was directed at the sailboat moored to the stem of the L. I remember the day Phyllis had launched it. Dean and Laura had both asked, “Where did you get it?” I asked, “How much did it cost?” I wondered what that said about me.

I was tempted to pollute Phyll’s lake with the empty beer cans, thought better of it, and set them on the dock. A short time later Phyllis herself came down the stairs. The sports jacket was gone. In its place were pink shorts and a white tank top. She was a fetching woman, my mother-in-law. Like her daughter.

She sat next to me and looked out over the lake. She asked me how I was feeling, and I said I was okay and asked her how the meeting went, and she said the customer bought all five lots. The exchange pretty much exhausted us, and we sat there without speaking for a good half hour. Finally, Phyllis took my hand, gave it a tug, and asked straight out, “Have you found anyone yet?”

“No.” I answered quickly, without even thinking of Cynthia—and when I did, I didn’t take the answer back. I guess that said something about me, too.

“I’m sorry.”

“I can’t imagine getting married again,” I said.

“I wish you would,” Phyllis told me. “Imagine it, I mean.”

I shrugged, wincing at the pain the gesture caused me.

“There is a woman,” I said. “Her name is Cynthia. My mom can’t stand her.”

“Why not?”

Because she defended the man who killed your daughter and granddaughter, I nearly said. “It’s a long story,” I told her instead. “Anyway, she’s
somebody
. I just don’t know if she’s
someone
, if you know what I mean.”

“I know. It’s just that I see the loneliness in you.…”

I turned quickly to face her. How could she see that?

“It’s in your eyes, the way you carry yourself.…”

Nonsense.

“Maybe I recognize it and others don’t because I knew you before the loneliness came.”

“I’m not lonely,” I insisted. “Alone, okay, but not lonely. There’s a difference.”

A small cloud passed over the sun before Phyllis replied, “It’s time to move on. Laurie would say so, too.”

A few more clouds came and went.

“I want you to come visit us again real soon, and I want you to bring a girl with you.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“‘Most people are just as happy as they make their minds up to be.’ Know who said that?”

“Who?”

“Abraham Lincoln. Find a girl,” Phyllis told me. “Start over.”

I thought of Alison. She had tried to start over. Look what had happened to her.

“It’s not that easy.”

“It’s not supposed to be easy. Loving someone is the hardest thing there is.”

She got that right.

“Find someone. If not this Cynthia, then someone else. A life unshared is a life wasted.”

“Yeah? Who said that?”

“Me.”

I had to smile.

“Find someone to share your life with,” Phyllis added.

I gave her hand a squeeze.

“How ’bout you?” I asked, waving at the sailboat and the lake and the house on the hill. “Let me take you away from all this.”

Phyllis laughed. “Then who would feed Dean?”

T
he next morning I waited in bed as long as my conscience would allow. When I finally shuffled into the bathroom, I was appalled by what I saw in the mirror. I touched each bruise that marked my body from face to upper rib cage to belt line—connect the dots and see a gruesome picture. There was some physical pain, some stiffness, but nothing I couldn’t live with. My mental health was a different matter. My hand shook when I borrowed Dean’s razor to shave, and I caught myself humming the theme songs to movies in which the hero got killed—the part of my brain that decided I was going back there was having a hard time convincing the rest of me that it was a good idea.

Dean lent me a shirt, and to my great relief, Phyllis had run the rest of my clothes through the washer, so they were lemon fresh—she’d even managed to remove most of the bloodstains; it was a miracle. I put them on and examined myself in the mirror, full face and then profile. I was convinced I looked presentable if not downright handsome; pretended that no one would notice the dark splotch beneath my ear or my bruised lower lip or the blood clotted in my right nostril.

After a while, I stopped humming.

D
ean was standing by the kitchen sink drinking coffee when I entered. Phyllis, dressed like she intended to skip down to the dock and jump into her sailboat at any moment, was sitting at the kitchen table and reading the newspaper.

“You’re leaving now,” she told me, looking up from the paper.

“Yes.”

“Are you coming back?”

“When I can.”

She folded the paper neatly before asking, “Is there anything we can do for you?”

“I need a favor.”

“What?” Dean asked.

“I want to borrow the Walther PPK that I gave you that Christmas.”

“My gun?”

“I’ll make sure you get it back.”

“No problem,” he said and left the room.

“You didn’t tell us exactly what happened in Kreel County,” Phyllis reminded me.

“I’m not sure I know myself,” I told her.

Dean put the gun down on the table in front of me. It was lightly oiled, in the box it came in. The Walther PPK weighed only twentythree ounces but it felt heavy in my hand. My reason told me to leave the gun. But my instincts—and my bruises—told me to load the Walther and slip it into my jacket pocket. So I did.

“I have to go now. Thank you both for everything.”

“Holland,” Phyllis called, stopping me at the door, hugging me. “Remember what I told you.” There were tears in her eyes.

“I’ll remember.”

Dean smiled at me. “
Semper fi
,” he said, reciting the Marine Corps motto.
Always faithful
.

nineteen

I
announced myself at the reception area of the Kreel County Sheriff’s Department, speaking to the secretary through an intercom on the other side of a bulletproof glass partition. If I was going to have more trouble with the sheriff, I wanted to get to it—I’d be damned if I’d spend the day looking fearfully over my shoulder for irate deputies. A moment later the secretary buzzed me through the door and led me to him.

Sheriff Orman’s office was small and cluttered and dominated by a large canvas hanging behind his desk. It was an oil painting of a magnificent twelve-point whitetailed buck at sunset, the buck looking real enough to move, his reflection shimmering on the lake he was drinking from. In the bottom right corner of the canvas, the name
R. ORMAN
was painted with an unobtrusive brush.

Orman was sitting behind the desk. He took a good look at my battered face but said nothing. His face wasn’t in much better shape: two days’ stubble, bloodshot eyes, sagging cheeks. But I didn’t say anything, either. Instead, I stood staring across the desk at him, trying to act like a pro boxer just before the bell rings. I wasn’t desperate for a rematch but if he wanted one, I’d be happy to oblige; this time my hands would be free.

“I am a licensed private investigator from the state of Minnesota; I am here looking for a woman named Alison Donnerbauer Emerton who is going under the name Michael Bettich,” I informed him defiantly, explaining my presence and purpose in an out-of-state jurisdiction to the proper authorities just like the handbook suggests, pretending the sheriff and I had never met before.

“Michael is in a coma,” Orman said sadly, looking down at a framed photograph lying flat on his desk blotter—a photograph of Alison. “They took her by helicopter to Duluth General. They have a better-equipped trauma unit up there, better-trained staff. That’s what they tell me.”

“I’m sorry about Michael,” I said and I meant it.

The slight smile that flashed and then disappeared suggested that he believed me. I also think he liked that I used the name Michael and not Alison.

“If there’s anything I can do …” I added.

“Loushine!” he shouted so unexpectedly that I flinched.

“I spoke with the doctor,” Orman told me in a softer voice. “She said whoever administered first aid at the scene probably saved Michael’s life. I’m grateful.

“Loushine!” he shouted again.

“The other day, you didn’t ask who I was or why I was here,” I reminded him.

“I know who you are and why you’re here.”

“Want to tell me?” I asked. “I’m a little confused.”

“Dammit Loushine!”

“Yes,” the deputy said, coming through the door. He looked surprised to see me.

“Gary, this is Holland Taylor,” Sheriff Orman said. “He’s a private investigator from Minnesota. I checked on him. He did ten years for the St. Paul Police Department, four in Homicide. I’ve asked him to consult with us on the Michael Bettich shooting. If he’s willing, you’re to give him full cooperation.”

Loushine clearly wasn’t thrilled with the order. “Sheriff …?” he began.

Orman cut him off roughly. “Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sheriff.” The answer came reluctantly.

Of me Orman asked, “Are you willing, Mr. Taylor?”

“Yes,” I told him without reluctance. The last time a private investigator received such an invitation was never.