My Soul to Keep (22 page)

J
OHN
M
ULVANEY HAD FINISHED
his evening meal, complete with an extra helping of tapioca pudding, then taken off his jail coveralls and tied the pants around his neck, twisting them so tightly he eventually passed out naked on the concrete floor of his jail cell. As soon as he lost consciousness, of course, his grip had loosened, leaving him with a plum-colored bruise on his neck but very much alive. Why he thought he’d die rather than pass out eludes me. But, of course, that’s not the point. The point is that he wanted to check out in the first place.

I hung up the phone and put my head in my hands. In spite of myself, I felt profoundly sad for him. A drop of water plopped onto the page I’d been reading. I looked up, thinking maybe condensation was dripping from the air-conditioning vent, then back down at the page. It took me a second to realize it was a tear. My tear. I’d reached a new low. Crying (in public, no less) over John Mulvaney. What had I become?

I sat there awhile, watching the sunbeam move across the table, trying unsuccessfully to pull myself together so I could finish my research. But too much live-action information was squirming around in my head to allow me to concentrate on the canned kind.

I noted the page in the book I’d been working on, scribbled out a quick summary of my findings, shoved my notebook in my bag, and left.

John Mulvaney had tried to kill himself. Why? Was it relevant to the rest of this mess or just a sick coincidence? I couldn’t knit any of it together. It just didn’t fit.

I slammed the truck door, started the engine, shuddered, and said out loud, “Will somebody please tell me what’s going on? None of it makes any sense.” I half expected my phone to ring with the answer, but of course it doesn’t work that way.

I turned on the radio to keep myself company and got nothing but static. I twisted the knob, my temper rising with each mark on the AM dial. I finally stuck my head out the window at a traffic light and discovered that my luck was indeed holding. Someone had broken off my antenna. I cursed and clicked the radio off.

As my truck squeaked and moaned, navigating the potholed streets of Harry Hines Boulevard, I took a mental inventory. I needed a new set of shocks, a tune-up, a can of WD-40, and now an antenna.

So, for that matter, did my truck.

I parked in a crummy, tight spot, smack in the hot sunshine, under a ledge populated by a half-dozen fat pigeons. They squabbled for space on the cramped ledge, then settled in and stared at me. I could just feel them eying my hood. I glared back at them for a minute, longing for my childhood BB gun. I needed to blow something away right about now. A flying rat who was preparing to poop on my truck seemed to me to be a perfect candidate.

My shoulders began to tense up as I started the hot trek across the asphalt. We’d all spent too much time at this hospital. I submitted yet another request to the Almighty to release Christine today.

Cold air laced with the foul industrial smells of floor wax and disinfectant blew out of the lobby doors as they slid open, pushing my hair back with a whoosh. I pressed the button for the elevator, then crowded in with the rest of the forlorn parents and friends and stared at the numbers until it was my turn to get off.

Liz and Christine weren’t in the room when I got there. I tracked down the charge nurse, who said they’d gone for another test. Christine had developed some complications, she said. She wouldn’t tell me what complications she was talking about.

“Blame the federal government,” she said. “That HIPAA privacy nonsense has got us all hogtied.”

I sat in the Lysol chair and made phone calls.

Molly Larken was first on my list. For some reason, I felt like she should know about John Mulvaney. I left messages at her home and on her mobile.

Maria didn’t pick up either. I figured I’d have heard from her if she had any news. But I hadn’t talked to her in a while and wanted to check in, at least to let her know I was thinking about her.

I tossed out a pitch to the universe and called David, though I knew there wasn’t a gnat’s chance he’d pick up. I left him a breezy, “Just thinking of you; hope you’re well,” message. Maybe if he heard my voice, he’d realize how much he missed me.

I briefly pondered whether or not to put in a call to Ybarra. I knew he wanted me to stay out of his case, but I knew equally well that I had absolutely no intention of doing any such thing. The more I considered the call, though, the more certain I was I shouldn’t do it. What would I say? That Christine Zocci was somehow tuned in to Nicholas and was having asthma attacks that weren’t really asthma attacks? That the spiritual radar Ybarra thought was nonsense was really quite accurate and seemed to indicate that Nicholas was longing for red Kool-Aid? That the snake represented subterfuge and stolen power? I rolled my eyes and looked around, embarrassed, even though it was just me sitting there.

It took me a few minutes to track down Martinez. He wasn’t in his office and didn’t pick up his cell phone when I called. He called me back a short time later, though. I was relieved to hear his voice.

“Any news?” I asked.

“A little. HP police ticketed a white Ford Fairlane for using a handicapped spot at the park that day.”

“A Fairlane? They stopped making those forever ago, didn’t they?”

“Yeah. Sometime in the seventies, I think. Talked to the cop who wrote the ticket. Red leather interior. Cracked. Oxidized paint on the hood. Said he thought about just towing the thing, it was such a wreck.”

“You’re kidding me. That’s got to be the car.”

“It was parked at the wrong end of the park—too far away for the guy to have been parked there when he snatched Nicholas.”

“What time was the ticket?”

“Four in the afternoon.”

“That’s right when we got there.”

“Maybe he watched for a while, picked his target, moved his car to the other end of the park, and waited.”

“So they know the plate number now, right?”

“The plates don’t match the make and model of the vehicle.”

My heart sank. “Someone switched the plates.”

“Looks like it. Plates are registered to a guy over near Harry Hines. Red Chevy truck—2004.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“He’s clean. He’s worked at that Home Depot over on Lemmon for six years. Legal resident from Mexico. Green card, the whole bit. Family man with solid alibi for the time of the disappearance. Clean record—no priors, no known criminal associates. No history of child porn—nothing on his computer at all. He opened it right up for us. He says he reported the vehicle stolen two days before the abduction.”

“You checked that out, I assume.”

“Yep.”

“So. Dead end.”

“Right.”

“But the car’s right, isn’t it? It’s a white Ford Fairlane? What year?”

“Probably ’63. Could be a ’64. With stolen plates. We’ve got every trooper in this state looking for it.”

“Let’s hope the guy’s got a lead foot.”

“How’s Christine?”

“I don’t know. I just got back to the hospital. She and Liz are gone for another test. The nurse said she’s had some complications.”

“Maria said it’s something with her trachea.”

“Did she tell you the rest?”

A long pause. “Do you believe it?”

“Do you?”

“I’ve seen stranger things happen.”

“You told me about all those summers you spent with your grandmother in Mexico.”

He chuckled. “Yaya, God rest her soul. Some creepy stuff went down at Yaya’s house.”

“What would she have done? To find Nicholas? Is there a spell or something?”

“She probably would have called me. She was a pragmatist.”

“I talked to Joan Carmichael.”

“I knew you would. What did she have to say?”

“Just that Christine probably imagined the snake. Or superimposed it somehow from something she saw.”

“I think we all agree on that.”

“There’s this whole thing about snakes and the human psyche. It’s an iconic image. I did a little research today.”

“What’d you come up with?”

“People have always associated snakes with evil,” I said. “That’s the short version.”

“So you think Christine saw the evil in this guy.”

“That’s my theory,” I said. “I don’t think Nicholas was a random choice.”

“I know you don’t. But that’s the way it’s adding up.”

“How’s Maria? I haven’t talked to her today.”

“She’s holding up okay. Better than I am.”

“You know, I forget how close you and Nicholas are.”

“I love that kid like my own. We were going to the ball game on Sunday.” His voice cracked. He collected himself, then cleared his throat. “When I catch up with the guy …”

“There’s a special place in hell, Martinez.”

“I intend to help the scumbag arrive, then.”

“Painfully,” I agreed. “Nicholas is out there,” I added. “We’ll find him.”

“I hope we get there in time.”

I winced. “How are our odds at this point?”

“Not too good, Dylan. It’s been five days. A lot can happen in five days.”

My phone beeped. I checked the number. “I gotta go. Call me if you hear anything.”

“You’re second on my list.”

“Is Maria working today?”

“She’s on now, I think.”

“Okay. Talk to you later.”

I clicked over.

“Hey, Helene.”

“Are you trying to commit career suicide?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What time is it?” she asked testily.

I looked at my watch. “Four twenty-five. Why?”

“What time were you supposed to meet Harold?”

“Twelve thirty. But not until Thursday.”

“Today is Thursday, Dylan.”

“It’s Wednesday.”

“It’s Thursday.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s been Thursday all day long. This is a verified fact.”

I felt my stomach clutch. “You’re joking, right? You’re kidding around.”

“Why would I joke about this? Harold just called me. He’s furious. Just for future reference, Dylan, when a senior colleague—a tenured professor and an endowed chair, I’d like to point out—offers his time and guidance out of sheer generosity, it is unwise to leave him sitting at a sushi bar for an hour by himself. This might seem like fairly basic information, but it is the sort of lesson you seem to have a great deal of trouble digesting.” She sighed heavily. “Harold doesn’t even like sushi.”

I needed Mylanta. Now. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“I do hope you’re not fishing for sympathy.”

“Don’t say fish.”

“Fish, fish, fish.”

“Harold doesn’t get furious, does he? I’ve never seen him get past mildly annoyed.”

“Congratulations are in order, then. You’ve managed to tip him over the edge.”

“I don’t know what to say, Helene. I thought today was Wednesday. What should I do?”

“I’d look for groveling opportunities if I were you. And in the meantime,” she said, “I’d suggest you start looking for another job.”

C
AREER SUICIDE HADN’T BEEN
on my agenda for the day, but with my usual efficiency, I’d managed to squeeze it in anyway. I called Harold at every number I had for him. I left contrite messages, groveling as Helene had recommended, knowing even as I did that it was a vain and inadequate effort. No amount of penitence on my part could possibly clean up a mess of this magnitude.

I sat there for several long minutes just staring at the mottled tile floor. Then I dug in my bag for my notebook, pulled out a pen, and started a list of my Recent Disastrous Failures. I put the Harold debacle first, since it was the freshest and smelliest, then worked my way backward. At the end of the list I wrote David’s name, underlined it heavily, then counted the items. I couldn’t take the full blame for my lousy relationship with my father but was fully prepared to accept my half. That left me with nine and a half incidents. And that was just off the top of my head.

I leaned my head back onto the Lysol chair and closed my eyes. As though the apocalyptic apprehension I’d been enjoying wasn’t enough, now I’d managed to plummet myself into full-on, abject despair.

In this distressed state, there was no way I could just sit around and wait for Liz and Christine to come back. My mental health was no longer a load-bearing structure. My only hope was to keep moving, or the whole thing might collapse.