Man Who Loved God (28 page)

That would mean—if she gauged correctly—that none of the three execs was involved in Al’s death. Of course Martin and Jack would be much more believable liars than Lou. In the end, though, she had no proof of any kind that one or another had taken out a contract on Al.

Nor on the surface of it did it seem that any of the three had any sort of scam going on at the bank. Like feathering their nests against being dismissed. Lou, the one who had most to fear on that score, seemed genuinely to feel that he had turned a corner and was on—for him—fairly solid ground.

Which led to the final consideration: paternity.

Impossible for Martin and Jack—if their claims bore out.

Entirely possible for Lou.

Unfortunate for Barbara: of her four candidates, the least qualified as Mr. Romantic was Lou Durocher.

One thing was certain: Pat Durocher, should she learn of her husband’s infidelity, might well divorce him, but she certainly wouldn’t need to as far as Barbara was concerned. Under no circumstances was she in the market to marry Lou Durocher. That would be a case of out-of-retirement into the hell of war. At least Al hadn’t had anything physical to do with her. Lou would be all over her.

Just send money.

Yet the bottom line had not been written. All she really knew was that Lou
might
be the father of her child. He had no reason to reject the possibility.

Still, another county remained to be heard from. Tom Adams was to check in this afternoon. And until Tom spoke his piece, there was still a chance that Lou Durocher—and she herself, for that matter—would be off the hook.

There was more talking and thinking to be done. Until then, she would rest.

Twenty-Two

Barbara sat at her kitchen table. She looked out the window at a parking lot where cars baked under a blazingly hot Dallas sun. A child’s cry broke her despondent mood.

She turned to look into the living room where her baby girl fussed as she awakened from her afternoon nap. Debbie had thrown her toys from her playpen. Barbara walked by the pen, absently tossing the toys back into the enclosure.

She gazed out the living room window. Approximately twelve feet of parched, fissuring clay separated her apartment from an eight-foot-high brick wall.

Debbie had her prison. Barbara had hers.

The air conditioning pumped in its battle with the intolerable outside furnace. It was a Mexican standoff.

She went to the dining room table on which she’d dumped today’s mail. All of it was addressed either to her husband, Lou Durocher, or to Barbara Durocher, or to both Mr. and Mrs.

Tom Adams had fired Lou after learning of his adulterous relationship with Babs and that Lou was the father of her baby. He offered Lou the opportunity to do the honorable thing. Having no sword to fall upon, Lou was given the chance to divorce his wife, Pat, and marry Barbara, the widow.

Lou refused. So he was fired. Pat divorced him and got a huge financial settlement plus all their property. And he ended up married to Barbara anyway. No one had ever accused Lou Durocher of being exceptionally intelligent.

In truth, they would have been on the dole had it not been for Lou’s brother, who owned a used car franchise in Irving, Texas—a suburb of Dallas—where the Durochers now lived in a vast rabbit warren of an apartment complex.

On the rare occasion when Barbara ventured outside, she seldom saw anyone. Not a human, not a dog, not a cat. It seemed that Dallasites stayed inside their air-conditioned apartments, homes, offices, cars. While swimming pools bubbled in the simmering heat. Some more enterprising citizens dumped 500-pound blocks of ice in their pools to render them swimmable. And one woman’s published letter to the editor claimed that she preferred to think of the Dallas temperature as a wind chill factor of 123 degrees.

Barbara turned the fan on the baby to maximize the a/c’s cooling. Debbie first looked startled, then burst out crying. Barbara felt like screaming.

The doorbell rang.

Who would venture out on a day like this? The discomfort would discourage Jehovah’s Witnesses. She opened the door—and staggered as if she’d been struck. “J … Joyce! It can’t be! You’re dead!”

Joyce Hunter smiled. “May I come in? Or would you rather watch me melt?”

Wordlessly, Barbara stepped aside to let her erstwhile lover enter. Joyce looked wonderful, just the way Barbara remembered her.

“What’s going on? You committed suicide!”

“That’s what we wanted everyone to think. I worked it out with Harry. In return for my ‘disappearance,’ he and I faked the suicide.”

“But all this time! Why didn’t you contact me? How could you not contact me?”

“It was part of the deal. Something like the Witness Protection Program where a person is given a new identity. The agreement I reached with Harry was that I would move far away and continue to practice psychotherapy. In return, Harry would not reveal that I was gay.

“But I couldn’t tell anyone … especially not you. It was part of our agreement. Otherwise I would have been destroyed as a therapist.

“This … this is such a shock. I mean, you’ve come out of nowhere. What are you doing here? What about your agreement with Harry?”

“Harry’s dead … a little while ago. Cancer. So now, all bets are off.”

Barbara felt faint. “It’s … it’s going to take me a while to get used to this.” She shook her head.

“I understand. After Harry died I began looking for you. You were hidden away almost as well as I was. Then, once I found you, I wasn’t sure how to handle this. If I phoned you, you’d never believe it was I. I had to come in person. So … here I am.”

“So here you are. And what are we going to do about this?”

“Why … take up where we left off.”

‘“Take up …’? Joyce, I’m married. Lou Durocher. You never met him. He came along after … after you died. What am I saying? You didn’t die. Anyway, you didn’t know him. And we—he and I—we’ve got a baby.”

“So I see.” Joyce walked over to the playpen, leaned over, and picked up the baby. “Boy or girl?”

“Girl?”

“Name?”

“Debbie.”

“Pretty. I like it.”

“Joyce! How are we going to pull this off?”

“Why, the same way we did before. Only now in reverse.”

“Reverse?”

Joyce continued to bounce the baby gently. Debbie seemed to love it. “Sure. When we first became lovers, you had the freedom to get a room at a motel, or when the coast was clear, we met at your apartment. I had the husband and family. Now you’ve got the family and I’ve got the open house. See how simple it is?”

“It’s not that simple, Joyce. What am I going to do with the baby?”

“Why … bring her along, of course.”

“I don’t know …” Barbara tapped a tooth with her fingernail. “It could get complicated in a hurry. Lou is an idiot, but he comes home at unpredictable times. The chances of his finding out about us are too good.”

“There’s another, even better solution.” Joyce smiled broadly.

Barbara raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Leave him.”

“Leave him! You mean divorce Lou?”

“Sure. He means nothing to you. Dump him. If he had an offer like this, don’t you think he’d dump you in a minute? You never should’ve married him in the first place.”

“I know … I know.” Barbara was filled with remorse. “I thought I had that all figured out when Al—he was my husband—”

“I know.”

“Well, when Al died I had four guys on the string. Any one of them could’ve been Debbie’s father.”

“You wicked thing, you!” Joyce said with a smirk.

“I thought I could get all four of them to contribute to me and the baby. I thought I had it made. Then, one by one they proved they couldn’t have been the father. Only one had no excuse. He had to be the father, and he knew it.”

“Lou Durocher.”

“Lou Durocher.”

“Even so, Babs, you shouldn’t have married the jerk.”

“What was I to do? I was going to have Lou’s baby. The only way I could get support from him was to marry him. He was virtually destroyed by the scandal. There was no alternative. I
had
to marry hi—” She looked up, startled. “What’s that noise?”

“I don’t know.” Joyce held the baby aloft and, like a sword swallower, fed the baby into her mouth and down her throat. Somehow, Barbara did not find that odd.

The phone rang. It rang again. And again.

Barbara awakened. She was covered with perspiration. She was alone in her apartment. Instead of a parking lot and a brick wall, she looked out on the magnificence of Belle Isle and the Detroit River.

Struggling to return to the present, she sat up and reached for the phone. “Hullo …”

“Barbara? Is it you?”

“Yes, it’s me, Tom.”

“You don’t sound yourself.”

“I was resting. I fell asleep and had a ghastly nightmare.”

“You’re all right?”

“Yes, I’m okay.”

“Listen, Barbara, I’m coming over now, a little early. I just wanted to call ahead. I’ll be there in a little while.”

“I’ll be here.”

“See you soon.”

She replaced the phone in its cradle.

She had just had one of the most realistic dreams of her life. Where on earth had it come from? With a little thought, the answer was obvious.

Marriage to the father of her child had been among her tentative plans. Not a fait accompli but a possibility. That’s where her dream got its manifest content. Her subconscious was drawing a worst-case scenario. Extremely worst-case.

There was nothing intrinsically wrong with Dallas. But it was terrifying to think of a parking lot or a brick wall as one’s only vistas.

She had no reason to believe that marriage to Lou Durocher would be anywhere near as bleak as her dream portrayed it. Depressing it surely would be. No use even contemplating living with Martin or Jack; they were out of the game. The nightmare had excluded the possibility of Tom’s being the father. It had no right to do that. But dreams followed their own illogic.

Well, then, what if Tom Adams did prove to be the daddy? At this stage, he could only claim it was impossible due to some physical impediment as had Martin and Jack.

If Tom were physically capable of fathering a child only a DNA test would indicate whether it was his or Lou’s. If at all possible, she wanted to steer clear of the DNA thing. Messy! Plus indicating to all that there was more than one entry in the fatherhood stakes.

As things presently stood, if Tom were the father there could be a marriage. As for whether Pat would divorce Lou, that was beyond Barbara’s control. But no marriage to Lou. Send the money.

But there could be no conclusion written yet. It all came down to Tom Adams. What if he proved to be the father? He was single—even in the eyes of his Church. So marriage was possible. Was it practicable?

She would move up several notches in the social register. There would be lots more money to spend. Tom was attractive, even if Barbara was not attracted. On the other hand, she found Jack Fradet the most romantic of the four, so what good was her taste in men?

All in all, marriage to Tom Adams didn’t look bad.

Barbara began pacing in front of the window wall as she considered the ramifications.

There was Mickey Adams. Turned out to pasture because she’d objected to Tom’s intense committed involvement with and considerable contribution to his church. That certainly wouldn’t change. Did Barbara want to—could she—play a subordinate role to the Catholic Church?

One good thing about Tom’s church: it would not condone abortion. So, for different reasons, she and Tom would be in total agreement on that matter.

However, sensitized by her recent nightmare, she would tread slowly and carefully here. For the time being, let’s just pinpoint Daddy. Then, step by patient step, she would map the course for those involved.

It was like a gigantic game of chess. And she had the controlling move.

While waiting for Tom, she wouldn’t try for a catnap; she didn’t want to chance another nightmare. After she met with Tom, she’d be able to dream peacefully. Until his arrival, she would bury herself in a book. Maybe a murder mystery.

Twenty-Three

The book she’d been trying to read lay on the end table. She just hadn’t been able to concentrate.

The doorbell rang. She went to the door. As expected, it was Tom Adams. He entered without a word.

He was stooped, and seemed drained. In spite of her self-appointed role as grand inquisitor, she felt sorry for him. She took his coat. He wore no hat. “Something bothering you, Tom?” She was all too aware that the bother might well be herself.

He sat down near the window wall and lingered over the view of the city at the height of its midafternoon bustle. “Oh … some trouble at the bank.” After a moment, he added, “Actually, we’re better off than I expected.”

She laughed. “That’s a reason for depression?”

“No. No, of course not. Still, I’d feel better if I completely understood why we’re where we are.”

Was this a poor-mouth rationale for not giving her the generous settlement she was aiming for?

“But we’re not here to talk about banking.” He turned from the window to her. “How are you feeling, Babs?”

None of the others had expressed any concern for her condition.

“Physically, I’m okay. After all, I’m barely into this pregnancy. And this is my first so I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to feel. But I don’t feel much different than I did before I was pregnant. So I guess all goes well.”

Outside of her doctor, her father and mother, and Joyce, no one had known of her prior pregnancy when she herself was little more than a child. Now all those who had known were dead. So, as far as anyone but her obstetrician now knew, the present pregnancy was her first.

“You’re under a doctor’s care?”

“Yes, of course.”

“He’s good, is he? Top-notch?”

“I’ve got an ob-gyn recommended by my GP. So far, I’ve got no negative vibes.” She tilted her head sideways questioningly. “Why this interest in my doctor?”

“I want the best. Give me your doctor’s name so I can check him out.”