Forever Man (13 page)

Wariness bled into the man’s features. His eyes darted to the paper in Sten’s hand.

“That’s right,” Izzy said. “Now, they didn’t find anything during their look around the room—you’re obviously too clever to leave anything out in the open. So I also left orders for them to go through your possessions.”

Owens’ eyebrows rose in surprise. “Without a search warrant?”

“My daughter’s missing,” Izzy said evenly. “I don’t give a damn about a warrant.”

Owens stared at her for a moment, then nodded heavily. “You may as well tell me what they found.”

“Why don’t
you
tell us what they found,” interjected Sten.

“I don’t know,” answered Owens. “Because I had nothing to do with this.”

Izzy snatched the paper from Sten’s hands and shook it at Owens. “They found my daughter’s necklace, you lying bastard! It was hidden in the bottom of your duffel bag!”

Owens laid his hands flat on the tabletop. “That necklace wasn’t in there when I left this morning. I promise you.”

Sten placed a restraining hand on Izzy’s arm. Then he turned his attention to Owens. “I doubt that’ll score you any points with a judge, Mr. Owens. But for now”—he turned the recorder back on—“I’m placing you under arrest.” He read Owens his Miranda Rights. “Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?”

“Listen to me,” Owens said, his hands closing into fists. “This is the worst thing you could do right now.”

“Do you understand your rights?” repeated Sten.

“I can’t be locked up,” insisted Owens.

Izzy threw the paper onto the table. “Then tell me where my daughter is!”

Owens raised his voice for the first time. “I don’t know where she is.”

Sten got up and placed his muscular body between Izzy and Owens. “All right. We’re done for now. Come on, Owens. You need to be processed. Looks like you’re going to be our guest for a while.”

Izzy was about to protest—this man knew where her daughter was!—when Sten turned to her.

“This back and forth is useless, Chief. For now, let me dig a little deeper into his past. See what I can find. Then I’ll come back and talk to him.” He lowered his voice. “We’re not giving up on your daughter.”

Izzy’s mouth worked silently as she struggled with her emotions. She knew Sten was right. He needed time to do his job properly. And that didn’t mean she was giving up on her daughter.

But why did she feel like she was?

Chet Boardman arrived early at Memorial Park. Picnic basket in hand, he strolled toward the large gazebo that sat at the western edge of the park; past the rusty swings and monkey bars and slides that made up the playground; past picnic tables and little steel barbecue units crusted black from years of grilling burgers and franks; past the Little League field where Stanley Morris had organized the children’s Fourth of July baseball games. Behind the gazebo, the land gave way to a sandy beach and the dark water of Black Pine Lake gently lapping at the shoreline. The sun was a smear of vermilion clinging to the horizon, the sky a broad brushstroke of crimson clouds.

“Red sky at night, sailors delight,” said Chet, reciting an old fisherman’s rhyme he’d learned from his father when, as a boy, he’d helped his dad pull fish from Lake Superior. Fishing was a hard life. It’d taken his old man with pneumonia at the age of thirty-seven. Chet, then only seventeen and the oldest of three boys, had become the man of the house. He hadn’t even been laid yet, but he was expected to work daily and provide for the family and help his mom raise his two brothers. So he’d dropped out of school—no great shakes since he’d never done well anyway—got all the necessary licenses and permits, and began his life as a fisherman.

Forty years on the water hadn’t been easy on him either. His hands were like granite slabs, thick with calluses. His fingers were gnarled—they’d been broken countless times and set using Popsicle sticks and duct tape because Big Blue wouldn’t insure him without taking every last dime he pulled out of the lake. Clothes hung loosely on his thin frame. People often mistook him for a pushover, the skinny kid in those Charles Atlas ads he’d seen in the comics long ago. But pulling in loads of fish day after day wasn’t easy, and Chet was wiry strong, the veteran of many bar fights. Wearing his faded red-and-black checked cap and rumpled blue shirt, he looked like an extra from
Jaws
.

He arrived at the gazebo and climbed the risers. The wood boards creaked with each step. As he set foot on the floor of the structure, the sun dipped below the horizon and winked out. Chet set his wicker basket on the picnic table in the center of the gazebo. Thankful for the lack of wind, he pulled out two thick, white candles and placed them at either end of the table. He used his Zippo—the only thing his old man had left him—to light the wicks. Next out of the basket came dinner plates, silverware, and a platter of fried chicken covered with plastic wrap. Then two bowls, one filled with coleslaw, the other with corn. Last out were two bottles of wine—red, which a guy at the Kwik-N-Go said you were supposed to serve with meat—and plastic cups. After uncorking the wine—this was something else the guy had told him, though Chet wondered how could wine
breathe?
—he sat on the table’s bench seat, listened to the chorus of frogs singing from the woods lining the northern edge of the park, and looked out into the darkness. The park was empty. Perfect, he thought with a smile.

His date should be here soon.

It wasn’t long before a pair of headlights appeared at the park entrance. A car crawled across the blacktop and pulled alongside his old Ford F-150. Chet winced when the front of the car came too close to his and the grating sound of metal kissing metal cut through the air. It silenced the frogs, allowing the sound of branches breaking far in the woods to filter through. Chet shook his head. Damn deer were everywhere this year.

A car door slammed shut. A figure started walking toward the gazebo. Darkness seemed to gather around the person. It wasn’t until she’d reached the pavilion’s steps that he could make out her features. The flickering candlelight made her skin look sallow, transformed the dark circles under her eyes into angry bruises. Her light brown hair looked like it had been worked with a curling iron, and a small blue bow had been clipped to her hair at either temple. She wore a pale blue dress with frilly white lace at the hem and shoulders. Another bow with wide loops and dangling tails decorated the front of the dress at her waist. Chet, who may not have done well in school but had his own measure of smarts, wondered if she realized all the bows made her look like a present waiting to be opened.

“Hi, Chet,” she said with a smile. Her teeth were perfectly straight. It was her smile that Chet had always found attractive.

“Why Jenny Bethel, don’t you look wonderful tonight,” was his reply.

“Thank you, Chet,” said Jenny after they’d finished the candlelight dinner. “You’re a marvelous cook.”

“Welcome,” he returned with a nod of his head.

“You caught me off guard when you called.” Jenny refilled her glass with wine. One empty bottle already lay in the picnic basket. The other was half gone as Jenny worked her way through the wine. Chet had had only one glass—the last twenty-four hours had dried him out more than he would’ve expected—and he found he’d lost most of his taste for alcohol. Some strange shit had gone on, enough to give him the creeps. And a bit of perspective.

“Why?” he asked. “We’ve seen each other before.”

She sipped her wine. “It was always you sneaking over to my place after Katie went to bed. We’d have a few drinks, fuck around a little, and you’d be gone before she woke up. But a date? A
real
date with candles and food? And look at the place you picked.” She waved her glass around in a wobbly arc, sloshing a little wine on the table. “It’s beautiful here. The full moon and the sounds of the lake. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were up to something.”

He brought the cup to his lips, but then set it down before taking a drink. Jenny sat opposite him with slightly unfocused hope in her eyes, wearing what must be an old bridesmaid dress, their knees touching, her hand resting inches from his. And that smile. Bright and inviting in the darkness that surrounded them. He opened his mouth to say something, paused, and then did take a drink of his wine. After wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he pushed on.

“I ain’t up to nothin’,” he said. “I just…I wanted to get together. You know, not just mess around. I’m tired of just messing around.” He swirled wine in his cup. “I never had much of a life. No wife. No kids. Been all by myself. I’m tired of having no one and nothin’ to look forward to.” His eyes lit up. “Like a boat that’s broken its anchor line, I’ve been drifting all these years with nothing to hold me steady.” He grinned, impressed with himself. That’s about the most romantic thing he’d ever said.

Jenny stared at him. One bushy eyebrow crept up like an inchworm. “Did you just call me an anchor? A big, fat piece of metal?”

Chet’s grin crumbled as his jaw fell open. He blinked, unsure of what to say. Had he gone and screwed it up, after all?

Jenny laughed and clapped her hands, which, wearing that dress, made her seem more a child than a widow in her mid-fifties. “Relax, Chet. I was just kidding! Seriously, men have no sense of humor.” She placed her hand back on the table, but this time it covered his. “I appreciate what you did tonight. It’s been a while, long before Adam died, that anyone went to so much trouble. But what I really want to know is, why? Why do you want something more now?”

He turned his hand to hold hers, his thumb caressing her skin. “I’ve had an odd couple days. Seen some of the uglier side of people I thought was my friends. Denny and me, we met this guy. He wants us to help him do something here in town, help him stop some…colored guy Gene’s got playin’ at the Lula. Said this Owens fella wants to cause trouble, hurt a few people, maybe kill someone. He thought the guy might even have Izzy’s daughter.”

“Wait a minute,” Jenny said with a befuddled frown. “You think this guy knows something about Natalie? Have you told Izzy?”

“I don’t know if he’s telling the truth, Jenny. I mean, something ain’t right about this Webber, the guy Denny and me met. He…when you’re around him, you feel funny. See things that don’t sit right. I suppose that could be the shakes. Hell, I had ’em before when I stopped drinking.” He looked up at her. “But I feel fine. This wine? Tastes like water. I really don’t want to finish it. And I don’t even want a smoke. But that’s a good thing, ain’t it?

“What I’m trying to say is, I want to make a change, while I still have time. I want to make a difference. For you
and
me. This Webber fella? Denny drank his Kool Aid and is with him all the way. But me? I’m scared, Jenny. I gotta get away from all this. Try to live right for however many years I got left. And I don’t want to be alone anymore.” He tried to put all the sincerity in his voice that he felt inside. “I want you to come along for the ride.”

She pulled her hands from his and looked down at her cup of wine. When she spoke, her voice was soft and sad. “You know me, Chet. I drink too much. Way too much. I’ve tried to stop, but that damn vodka bottle keeps calling to me from the freezer. I can’t help myself.” She looked back at him. “I’m damaged goods. If you really what a ‘happily ever after’ ending for your life, find a better person.”

A coyote howled from the woods, giving voice to Chet’s dismay. “Please, Jenny. It’s not too late. At least, not too late to try.” He lowered his voice. “Look at me. I don’t got a lot of money. I certainly ain’t no George Clooney.” He slowly brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “But deep inside I think I’m a good man, a
deserving
man. More so, I’m hoping you feel the same about yourself.”

She looked at him for a while, silently regarding him or his words. Her grip on the cup tightened enough to crease the red plastic. She blinked several times, licked her lips. “I’m sorry, Chet. But I’m not like you. I’m not that strong.” The hope fled from her eyes. “Adam used to say the same thing. That we could stop our drinking and be better parents for Katie. It didn’t work out then, and it won’t now. You
do
deserve a better life, just not with me. I’d only bring you back down. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that to another person.” She shuddered. “Once was enough.”

The old Chet, hidden somewhere deep but still alive, screamed from the pain of another rejection, and the faint desire for a bourbon and cola swept through him for the first time in a day. The new Chet, still at the helm and steering the ship, ignored his old habits and smiled.

“How about this? We have another date. No fooling around. You and me have dinner again. We take it a day at a time. No promises, no commitments. Whadda ya think?”

Setting her cup of wine aside, Jenny sighed. “You know you’re setting yourself up, right? You’ll end up getting hurt, or worse.”

“I figure my pain’s my own business. I can risk it if I want to.”

The coyote howled again. Only this time it was
much
closer, and maybe it wasn’t a coyote. It sounded off. Funny.

Jenny threw a nervous glance toward the woods. “They don’t usually get this close, do they?”

“It’s probably just the chicken bones.” Chet scooped up the scraps and dumped them into a bag. “Damn animals can smell food a mile away.”

“But what if—?”

A shape emerged from the tree line. In the pale moonlight, it was a dark mass set against the darker backdrop of the trees. Larger than any coyote he’d ever seen. Larger than a bear….

“Chet,” Jenny said worriedly.

He grabbed her arm. “Get behind me.”

As he pulled her around the table, the animal broke into a loping run. It covered the distance with surprising speed and halted near the gazebo’s steps. A growl issued from its throat, a thrumming, two-toned sound, as if it were using different sets of vocal chords. Chet could make out sleek fur, but it looked uneven, patchy. Twin flickering points of red flame danced in the darkness: the candlelight reflected in the eyes of whatever it was.