Healing Waters (45 page)

Sully was glad the podcast was audio and not video, because he looked like he was doing
The Jerry Springer Show
. He put down the microphone and went to the fridge for the last of the Frappuccinos, which he took onto the balcony. The air out there was hotter than the surface of the afternoon sun, but the room was closing in on him.

Just like everything else.

He poked his sunglasses onto his face and was about to flop into the canvas deck chair when movement by the river caught his eye. He had to blink to make sure he was seeing correctly.

Lucia was knee-deep in the water, pants rolled up, with Bethany beside her. They were splashing Chip, who crashed in after them, hoisted Bethany up onto his shoulder, and took off with her, to the tune of a full octave of happy squeals.

Sully watched, mouth open, as the brute who'd flattened him tossed a sturdy six-year-old in the air and called out, “Who wants to grill some hot dogs?”

Sully turned his eyes away. But the image stayed with him. Bethany was more Lucia's child than Sonia's in every way he could think of, and the mad wrestler had turned into every kid's dream of a dad. The irony of it pricked at him.

Now
the guy was there, acting like a family man, just when Lucia had begun to see their past for what it was. Not that he would ever advise her to leave him; that had to be strictly her decision. Miracles happened. There could still be healing and family for Lucia. With a lot of ifs.

Sully propped his feet on the railing and took a drag from the bottle. For him the chance was gone. No matter what he did to change his life, no matter what he believed in, he was never going to carry Hannah on his shoulders or roast a weenie for her or watch her play a tooth in the school play. Lynn had taken that away forever. And he would probably never know why.

“That is a thing I know to be true,” he murmured into the bottle.

Now
there
was something uplifting to release out there into cyberspace.

“J. Edgar!”

Sully pulled his feet off the railing and leaned over. Bethany ran toward the pug, who raced down the slope to meet her as if she were already holding one of those hot dogs. They fell to the ground together in such a tangle of tails—pigtail and canine—Sully couldn't tell where one stopped and the other began.

One thing he knew: Agent Schmacker wouldn't be far behind. She appeared, clad in mint green, just as Lucia joined the puppy pile. Chip was slower to approach.

“Sorry to interrupt the family gathering,” Sully heard Agent Schmacker say.

“Oh, I don't think you're sorry at all,” Chip said.

His face was congenial. His voice was not.

“How can I help you?” Lucia said.

But Schmacker had spotted Sully backing away from the railing.

“Dr. Crisp—perfect,” she said. “Will you come down and join us? I have something to show you.”

Three faces looked up at him: Bethany's shy, Lucia's startled, and Chip's as hard as the muscles twitching in his arms.

Sully nodded.
Dang
. He should have stuck to his podcast.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

W
hen Sully joined us on the deck, where I'd suggested we sit so I could keep an eye on Bethany with J. Edgar, Deidre Schmacker already had a manila folder open on the table in front of us. Chip stood behind me, and I could feel him glowering.

“Do any of you recognize this man?” she said.

She pointed a clear-polished fingernail at a mug shot. My instinct was to recoil from it, only because the scrawny character who glared back at me looked like every other wanted man whose picture I'd seen in the places I'd been forced to go. He was squinty eyed and surly lipped and not to be trusted. But this particular scumbag?

“No,” I said.

“You're sure.”

“Positive.”

I could hear Bethany's happy chortles going up and down the scale, and I was missing it.

“Do you, Halsey? I'm sorry, I mean Chip.”

“No. Who is he?”

Chip clipped off his words, but so far he hadn't threatened to throw her off the property. Still, my stomach churned.

“We found his fingerprints on one of the letters you turned in to us, Lucia,” the agent said. “Which means you may have been instrumental in giving us a lead to the person—or persons—who tried to kill your sister.”

“What letters?” Chip said.

“Some hate mail Sonia got,” I said.

He muttered something I didn't catch. If Agent Schmacker did, she let it go.

“Anything about the shoulders or the shape of the head look familiar to you, Dr. Crisp?”

“You're referring to the guy I got into it with on the lawn?” Sullivan nodded. “He was built this way from what I could tell.”

“Somebody want to tell me what we're talking about?” Chip said.

“What about the name Garrison? Derrick Garrison. Does that ring any bells for anybody?”

“Guess not,” Chip said. He moved to the corner of the deck.

“I don't know anybody by that name,” I said.

Sullivan shook his head.

Agent Schmacker didn't seem disappointed. “That's probably an alias, or he's using another one by now. He's made a career out of changing his identity to fit the crime.”

“What crime?” Chip said. “Or don't you want to tell me that either?”

“Mr. Garrison is not currently incarcerated,” Agent Schmacker said, hardly looking at him. “He bears some kind of grudge against your sister; that's apparent from his letter, so there may be motive. We can't link him to the crash yet, but we're working on that.” She gave me the droopy eyes. “I hoped you had seen him at the airport that day.”

“Haven't we been through all that?”

I could hear Chip trying to shift his voice into something less abrasive.

“Look, I don't mean to be a jerk, but we've cooperated with you— obviously my wife has, she's given you evidence—but we haven't been together for weeks, and we'd like to get back to our day.”

“Wait,” I said. I stared at the picture, and something about it poked at me.

“What is it?” Agent Schmacker said.

“Do you have another copy of this—I mean, could I write on it?”

“Of course. Do you need a pen?”

“Pencil.”

“Lucia, what are you doing?” Chip said.

Sullivan caught my eye as Deidre Schmacker handed me a pencil. That made me brave.

“What are you
doing
?” Chip said.

“I just want to see something,” I said.

I put the pencil to the chin of the man in the picture and sketched—a scrappy set of hairs here, another there. Fear came up in my throat like smoke.

“Pencil Whiskers,” I said.

Agent Schmacker looked at the drawing and then at me. “What are you saying?”

“If this guy had whiskers like this, then I saw him the day of the crash. He was on the ground crew.”

“You're certain.”

“He opened the door for me when I went in the terminal, and he gave Marnie directions when she got off the plane to come find me. I watched him talking to her.”

“Babe, how could you remember that?” Chip said. “A lot has happened since then.”

“Mr. Coffey, please.” To me, Schmacker said, “Why did you notice him, Lucia? Was he doing something suspicious?”

“No.” I felt my face color. “He barely gave me the time of day when I came in, but he was all about chatting it up with Marnie.”

“That would be Margaret Oakes, right?” Agent Schmacker said. “I'll get in touch with her again.” She tapped the picture once more. “This is interesting—because this man was not on the ground crew.”

“Then he
wasn't
there,” Chip said.

“I didn't say he wasn't there. I just said he wasn't on the ground crew—not officially.” She stood up and smiled at me. “I knew we'd make a good team, once we understood each other. Thank you. We could be onto something.”

“Are you still watching the house?” I said. My eyes shifted to Chip, who had turned his back to us, face pointed toward Bethany and J. Edgar.

“We are. It would help us if you would let us know of anyone new you're expecting, particularly at night.” She, too, glanced at Chip. “The agent was about to accost your husband last night before he realized who he was.”

If you find out who he is,
I wanted to say,
would you let
me
know?

I didn't look at Chip as I walked into the kitchen, honed in as I was on the sink full of supper dishes.

“Is she asleep?” he said.

“It didn't take long. She had a big day.”

“She told me it was the best day of her life.”

I wanted to inform him that Bethany said that every single night now, but I turned on the water instead. There was no point in starting him off prickling under the collar when we were already headed for the ugly conversation that had been brewing in his eyes since Deidre Schmacker left. Until then, we'd had a day that had given me a vague hope. Now he was brooding again.

“Give this to her, would you?” he said. “I forgot to do it before you put her to bed.”

I shut off the faucet and turned to him. He held a small stuffed frog that bore a crown and a pair of glittered wings.

“She'll love it,” I said. “Why don't you give it to her in the morning?”

“Because I won't be here.”

He picked up the duffel bag I'd apparently missed on the way in. “You're leaving right now?” I said.

“I have a meeting early tomorrow—in Memphis.”

“On Sunday?”

“This is a major deal. It could mean the start of that new life for us.” He touched my cheek and quickly withdrew his hand. “I just hope you want it as much as I do.”

Before I could open my mouth, he put his finger to my lips. “I'm going to make it happen, Lucia. You will have everything you want—everything, I promise you that.”

He hoisted the bag onto his shoulder and went for the door, stopping only to add, “I'll call you when I have it all together.”

I didn't try to stop him. I just let him leave with a promise he couldn't keep. The way he'd been with Bethany made the pain of that bite harder.

“He'll be back,” I told Bethany when she looked for him the next morning.

She didn't look as deflated as I thought she might. “He told me he would,” she said, eyes round. “But I wish I knew how many more wake-ups.”

Something in me said there might not be enough. Not for me.

“I have to ask you something, Porphyria,” Sully said.

He could feel her smiling on the other end of the phone line. “Is this of a spiritual or a psychological nature?”

“Neither. Did you see it on the national news when the prowler came onto the property here?”

“No. It didn't make CNN or any of those. You told me about it. Why?”

“Just a question.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Something Lucia's husband said has been bothering me, but never mind.” He tried to put on a grin. “How about a little
Jeopardy
, Dr. Ghent?”

She groaned. “I don't guess I can stop you.”

“Great quotes for five hundred. ‘Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.' ”

“If I played your games, Dr. Crisp, I would say, ‘Who is selling you a bill of goods?' ”

Sully buzzed. “I'm sorry. That's ‘Who was Janis Joplin?' You've never been very good at this, Porphyria.”

“And neither are you if you believe that jive.”

She so seldom treated him to a glimpse of her predoctoral self, he had to smile. He could tell, however, that she wasn't smiling with him.

“So you think you're at the end of the line,” she said.

“The end of this one. The last door I know to knock on has been slammed in my face.” He propped his feet on the balcony railing, then pulled them down. “I've been telling people for years: the whys will lead you to the ‘what next.' ” He paced back into the guesthouse.