Not Even Past (34 page)

A
NOTHER SHORE
town. He didn’t even know the name of this one. Ocean Grove? Ocean Town? Something along those lines.

Donne dumped his car as soon as he got off the Parkway, leaving it in a supermarket lot. He jogged across the lot and made his way toward the street that led to the beach. He undid his tie as he walked and dropped it and his jacket into a dumpster. Across the street was a beach shop. Donne ducked inside and, with the only cash he had, picked up a bathing suit, a beach-themed T-shirt, and sandals. He got changed into the dressing room, leaving the rest of his clothes behind.

Before he left the shop, he checked his cell phone. Kate had called twice. Donne turned the GPS locator off and walked down to the beach. He called her back. The phone rang while he found a spot on the sand.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Can’t tell you,” he said. She could probably hear the water crashing.

“You didn’t do this. I know you better than that.”

The knot in his stomach eased. He’d expected a question, not a statement. He squinted in the sun looking out over the beach. It was moderately crowded, full of people on their day off sitting in plastic chairs. He and Kate rarely came to the beach, and when they did, they never sat in the sand. They went somewhere like Point Pleasant and had beers on the boardwalk. They played Skee-Ball and redeemed tickets for T-shirts with stupid sayings.

They had hoped to support the Sandy rebuild this summer by spending a ton of cash there. He never gave them the chance.

“I didn’t,” he said.

“They think you did. You have to run.”

“You—your dad. You can help me.”

“I don’t think I can,” she said.

She was right.

“Where will you go?”

“Some place with good craft beer, Kate. You know me.”

A situation popped up in his mind. One he hadn’t even considered. Bill Martin had talked about being sick and not being able to steady his hands. Not an easy condition for a sniper to have. It was possible Stern survived the wound. Maybe it didn’t hit any vital organs. Maybe the bullet dug itself into his shoulder.

Bill Martin had missed Donne at close range. What could he hit at three hundred yards?

“Did Henry Stern live, Kate?”

“No. They said he got shot in the head. Oh my god, you
were
there?” She sniffled, a sound Donne had become all too used to recently. “The car chase on the news. Was that even you? Jesus, tell me they’re lying to me, please.”

“Who have you talked to?”

Please say the cops.

“Someone from Henry Stern’s protection committee.”

Donne’s ribs constricted, trying to crush his lungs. “Guy named Luca?”

Donne didn’t mind using names. It was unlikely the cops were tracking his calls already. Even if Luca gave them his number, it was too fast to set that up. They should have still been scrambling with crime scene evidence.

“They think you did it. All of them.” Kate paused. “Luca—he’s so angry.”

“Is he still there?”

Donne dropped his head and looked at the sand. A cigarette butt stuck out of a mound of it. He kicked it over with his foot. Particles of sand stuck to his foot. They itched. He slapped some of it off, but it didn’t relieve the sensation.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“He’s going to hurt you, Kate,” he said. He jumped to his feet and started to run back to the street. “I’m coming.”

“No. You have to go. Get out of here.”

“He’s going to kill you!”

“I’m coming to get you right now.”

“You can’t. They’ll find you.”

“Who?”

A long pause. Donne listened to the waves and the mumbled, happy conversations of other beachgoers.

“Don’t worry,” she said. Her voice caught for a second. “I have my beer goggles on. They’re very focused.”

Donne stopped running. His muscles eased.

A kid on a waveboard wiped out. Out of the corner of his eye, Donne noticed the lifeguard stiffen. The kid popped back up, laughing. The lifeguard relaxed.

“Good luck, Jackson.”

Donne hung the phone up, opened the settings, and turned the GPS back on. He got up and walked down to the edge of the water. Out in front of him was a vast blue nothing. At the edge of the horizon was a fishing boat. Beyond that, nothing else. Swimmers were more toward the south. The kid on the waveboard paddled out to find more.

Donne threw his phone as far as he could. It landed in the water with a small splash.

“Beer goggles,” he said to himself.

Twenty minutes later, Donne was in a stolen car cruising north. He planned on driving more than ten miles this time.

There were no cops to be found. He made a stop just before the New York border to take all the money he could out of an ATM. He dropped his card at the bank. It was a drive-up ATM, so he had to ditch the stolen car just over the border.

After boosting a 1980 Cadillac, he didn’t stop driving for nearly four hours.

K
ATE PUT
the phone down and turned toward Luca. The barrel of the gun obscured his face.

“I don’t like loose ends,” he said. “Where is he going?”

She rubbed her hands together. He wrists were cold, but the rest of her was warm. It was an odd place to be cold.

“He didn’t say.”

Luca leaned in close. The gun touched her temple. Kate fought back tears. Just make him talk a little while more.

“I know he said. I’m going to find him. If you tell me, maybe I’ll go get him instead.”

Kate swallowed. She strained her ears, but didn’t hear anything. If only she’d listened to her father and not plastered her address all over the place. He’d always told her that if she wanted to be a lawyer, her home would have to be unlisted. The metal of the gun dug into her forehead. It felt as cold as her wrists.

“He did not say. I wish I knew.”

The emails she sent, the phone call she made when she saw him walking toward the door had to have registered by now. She gritted her teeth together and prayed, begged.

“If you don’t tell me—“ Luca pressed the gun against her even harder. His voice was as sharp as diamonds.

“I really don’t know.” Her entire body shivered as she spoke.

Then she heard it. The sirens. More than one. 911 had come through. As soon as she saw the guy, just like Jackson described him, walking up the front step, she grabbed her phone and her computer and sent off an email with the files attached. One to her dad and one to the town police chief. It wasn’t enough to convict, but it was a start.

Luca flinched at the sound.

“They’re coming for you,” she said. “It’s over.”

His face went red, and the gun moved away from her head. Getting up, he ran to the window, peering through the venetian blinds.

“No,” he screamed. “I’m not done!”

“Your girlfriend Marie really helped me out,” Kate said. “You should have called her back. I have evidence about everything. The board of trustees. Your link to Tony Verderese. All of Henry Stern’s plans. And I emailed them right to the cops.”

As tough as she tried to sound, her voice still shook. The sirens were deafening now. Brakes squealed in front of her house.

Luca whirled back toward her. “No! This isn’t how it happens. It doesn’t end this way.”

Doors slammed. Voices volleyed outside. Just a few seconds more.

Kate looked at Luca. His face scrunched, his eyes squinted, his cheeks burning. He lifted the gun.

“I will not go out this way.”

And too late, Kate realized, the cops weren’t going to get there in time. She closed her eyes.

I love you, Ja—

B
ETHEL,
V
ERMONT,
was the perfect small town.

In fact, it could barely be labeled that. Which meant it was perfect for Jackson Donne. Located forty-five minutes from Killington and nestled against a quarry, it felt remote. Far away. There were a few blocks of houses and just enough bed-and-breakfasts for tourists. When Donne pulled into town at nearly nine in the evening, he was able to rent a motel room in cash. No one asked any questions.

No one even seemed to recognize him.

The next week moved at a relaxed pace. Donne found a job doing fixer-up jobs at all the bed-and-breakfasts. He mowed lawns, fixed broken shelves, and attempted plumbing. And all of the owners felt it was easier to pay cash. Meanwhile, he started to grow a beard. After a week, he had enough money to sublet out a small house on the edge of town. The owner was moving to Colorado for the winter for some “real” skiing. He was willing to rent out the house monthly, for cheap. It was another fixer-upper.

Perhaps this was a haven for ex-cons and fugitives on the run. Cash was acceptable, paperwork was scarce, and everyone minded their own business. At the same time, people smiled and waved at him. They made small talk, but never probed.

Donne didn’t care. The house had hot water, heat, a kitchen and a bedroom. He didn’t have the Internet and didn’t have a cell phone. That was fine, most people couldn’t get reception in town anyway. Two Mondays a month—his day off—he would make the hour drive to Waterbury for groceries and beer. The case of beer he got from the Alchemist—Heady Topper—was a double IPA someone had designated the best beer in the world. Donne tended to agree. Soon the employees there started to recognize him.

One of them must have thought he was cute, even with the scruffy lumberjack beard. Once a month, he’d find an extra four-pack thrown his way.

The beer kept his stomach saggy, but the housework kept the rest of him tight. The work did wonders on his wounded shoulder. He almost had complete movement back. By October, he was splitting wood at all four bed-and-breakfasts. At first he’d wake up sore, but within a week the soreness faded. He enjoyed the rhythm of work.

He wondered if name was mentioned on the news. He never checked. Didn’t want to know. Somewhere between New Jersey and Vermont, he decided his name was Joe Tennant. That was good enough, and the beard and the beer gut changed his appearance enough if no one looked too close.

No one did.

He missed Kate. And he wondered about Jeanne. Thoughts of both of them tickled the back of his brain daily. He thought about them as he worked. He thought about them when he ate. The thoughts only faded after his second or third Heady Topper.

Curiosity got the better of him the day before the first snowfall. He had finished shopping and picking up his case of Heady. He considered asking the woman at the cash register out, but that broke his rules. The idea of starting a new relationship brought Kate to the forefront of his mind. Memories of her flooded his thoughts—the way she chewed the corner of her hair, how she threw her head back—eyes closed, mouth open—during sex. His hands shook, and he finally gave in.

Pulling into a local coffee shop, he asked if he could use their computer. He bought a latte and logged into the Internet. A Google search brought up a few news stories that mentioned Kate. And Luca.

Donne logged off and exhaled. A moment passed. Then the entire coffee shop turned toward him as he screamed. They asked him to leave.

He drove home.

That night, as the snow fell and carpeted his lawn, he drank an entire four-pack of Heady Topper and passed out. The next morning, head throbbing, he went out and shoveled all four bed-and-breakfasts. He left his own front walk for last. The snow was heavy and wet, as if the temperature was just barely cold enough for snow.

The tears in his eyes blurred the whiteness away.

Dave White is a Derringer Award-winning mystery author and educator. White, an eighth grade teacher for the Clifton, NJ Public School district, attended Rutgers University and received his MAT from Montclair State University. His 2002 short story “Closure,” won the Derringer Award for Best Short Mystery Story the following year.
Publishers Weekly
gave the first two novels in his Jackson Donne series,
When One Man Dies
and
The Evil That Men Do
, starred reviews, calling
When One Man Dies
an “engrossing, evocative debut novel” and writing that his second novel “fulfills the promise of his debut.” He received praise from crime fiction luminaries such as bestselling, Edgar Award-winning Laura Lippman and the legendary James Crumley.