Safer (18 page)

“
You
called
me,
man.”

He has a point. “Bennett, meet the man who attacked Sara.”

Bennett says, “Excuse me?”

“Darius here broke into our house in July.”

“Motherfucker hit me with a golf club,” Darius says.

I nod. “It’s true.”

Now Douglas Bennett looks at me closely. He looks at our new friend Darius Calvin.

I say, “Remember when you said we didn’t have to worry about how crazy anything was going to sound?”

Bennett stands there.

“I spoke prematurely,” he finally says.

He takes off his coat and slides in beside me.

I HIT THE BUFFET while Darius Calvin tells Bennett everything I already know. That he moved to Clark Falls ten months ago, from Ames, where he’d been out of work. That his cousin had gotten him a job at fifteen dollars an hour as a forklift operator in a medical supply warehouse on the south side of town.

According to Darius, he hadn’t been aware of his cousin’s side business until one Saturday night in June, when he was pulled over in a borrowed car, searched, and discovered to be carrying a loaded pistol, four glass pipes, and a spare tire lined with Baggies of methamphetamine.

“Told the cop that shit wasn’t mine,” he’s saying as I return to the booth. “He’s got his thumbs all in his belt, says yeah, he’s never heard
that
one before. Look. I pay my bills, go to work, do my job, go home. Right? It ain’t even my car.”

My plate was still warm from the dishwasher when I
started down the buffet line. Now it’s loaded with pot roast and mashed potatoes, two chicken drumsticks, and half a dozen deep- fried shrimp that caught my eye. I’m actually salivating.

“And this was Sergeant Stockman,” Bennett says. “The officer who pulled you over?”

“How many times you want me to say it?”

“I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

I start eating while Darius tells Bennett the rest. This food tastes incredible. I might have to go back for a second helping myself. When our waitress comes by with coffee, I want to hug her. She frowns at me. “Happened to your face, hon?”

“Long story.”

“Always.” She winks and fills my cup. Bennett and Darius fall silent while she goes around the table, topping off each of our mugs. She hardly stops pouring.

After she moves on, Bennett says, “I don’t understand.”

“He’s telling me maybe he can do me a favor. Tells me if I do
him
a favor, maybe he cuts me loose on this stop. Says maybe he can call in an abandoned vehicle on State 175; that way, when it comes back on Tree, Tree just says somebody stole it.”

“Tree?”

“My cousin.” Darius shrugs. “He’s six- ten.”

“Ah.”

“I wasn’t gonna hurt your lady.” Darius looks directly at me when he says this. “You know I wasn’t.”

I tell him that I believe him. I told him the same thing two weeks ago. The night I followed him home from the medical supply warehouse.

“Mr. Calvin,” Bennett says. “Darius. I don’t—”

“Dude told me it was all put on. Training volunteers or some shit. Tells me I’m supposed to walk in some house like a big black mofo and then scoot out the back when the people come home.”

He makes quote marks in the air around
the people.
Listening to all of this, Bennett looks like he’s just woken up in a strange room.

“Tells me some white folks got broke into last year, and he wants it to play like that. Shows me where to stand, what door to go in. Night he calls, tells me the car I’m looking for, tells me to wait ‘til I see the headlights come up. White lady in bed when I go in, I figure it’s all part of it. I’m just playin’ along when this guy here comes in like Die Hard, starts whackin’ on me with a golf club.”

“Wait.” Bennett actually pushes at the air with his hand, as if trying to make the words back up. “Sergeant Stockman took you to Paul and Sara’s house? Before the night of the break- in?”

Darius shakes his newly bald head. Scratches his freshly grown beard. I’ll bet his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him at first glance. “The other one. Dude from the TV commercials, ‘bout three one mornin’.”

“Roger,” I tell Bennett, growing impatient. Why isn’t he getting this? “Roger staged the whole thing. He hired Darius to break into my house, scared the hell out of the whole neighborhood, earned thirty new volunteers for his goddamned neighborhood patrol, and told us not to thank him for the new alarm system.” I tear off a piece of chicken with my teeth. “Roger Mallory hired this man to break into our house.”

“Shit,” Darius says. “He gave me a key.”

Bennett looks at me.

He looks at Darius.

After a long minute, he says, “Please go on.”

It’s past nine o’clock by the time we get back on the road.

We ride most of the way home in silence. The lights of the Flying J slowly recede in the distance behind us, becoming a white glow on the horizon, slowly blending into the black. Ahead of us, the Interstate is dark and vacant.

We’re halfway back to Clark Falls by the time Douglas Bennett finally speaks. “You found him how?”

“In our files.”

“Your files?”

“The files I found in Roger’s house.”

“Ah.”

For the first time all day, my headache is gone. My face doesn’t seem to be throbbing anymore. I’m stuffed to the gills with food from a truck stop diner, the first I’ve eaten since that fried egg sandwich this morning in jail. It’s hard to believe that was only this morning. It’s hard to believe this morning was only earlier today.

I wonder if Sara is home. Is she asleep? Is she crying? Is she stuffing my clothes in the fireplace and dousing them with barbecue lighter fluid from the garage? I imagine her making her rounds, battening down the hatches before turning in for the day.

I lean my head against the passenger window. The glass is cold and feels good on my skin. The car’s luxury glide seems to work like a lullaby; I doze for a few miles, wake up when my head falls forward. I can’t get comfortable after that, so I sit up and watch the road.

Ten miles from Clark Falls, Douglas Bennett tilts his head and says, “And you’ve been keeping this to yourself why?”

“The victorious warrior wins first,” I tell him. “And then goes to battle.”

He looks at me. “What the hell does that mean?”

I’m starting to wonder.

MY KITCHENETTE SUITE at the Residence Inn is clean, comfortable, and larger than my first apartment. There’s a bedroom, a living room, and the advertised kitchenette, a spacious bathroom with a whirlpool tub, and a deck overlooking the river. Two televisions, two telephones, and free high- speed Internet access, if you have a computer. The Clark Falls Police Department has mine. Still, a person could live here comfortably.

I call my real house. Nobody answers. I call three more times before giving up.

The shower stings my swollen eye. When the hot water runs out, I dry off, put on sweats and a T-shirt, punch the button for Guest Services, and ask them to bring me a six- pack of anything.

While I’m waiting, I call my house again. Nobody answers.

There’s a knock on the door, I sign for my beer. Good old-fashioned Budweiser in cans. My dad’s beer. I wonder if Sara’s gotten in touch with my folks.

Time passes. I want to sleep, but I can’t seem to keep my eyes closed. I want to read, but I can’t seem to concentrate. I crack a new beer and flip through television channels. There’s not much on.

I end up watching a nature program about honeybees. Apparently, there’s this virus, endemic to the American honeybee population, which causes some pupal bees to develop deformed wings. No flying. Early death. Very sad for the colony.

But according to the nature show, some Japanese scientists have managed to isolate a different virus, which is
99
percent the same as the deformed- wing virus, in the brains of aggressive guardian bees. According to the show, this 1 percent variation may be the difference between mangled wings and the instincts that serve to protect the colony.

This shit about bees amazes me. I finish another beer and pick up the telephone. It’s one o’clock in the morning. Normal people are asleep.

“Hello?”

“You must be happy,” I say.

Roger sighs in my ear. “Paul.”

“You need help.” I imagine him sitting alone in the dark. “Professionally. Do you even realize that?”

“It’s late. Why don’t you try and get some sleep.”

“Why don’t you tell me how you can do this?”

“I didn’t create the situation.”

I can’t help laughing. Where have I heard that one? “You’re a piece of work.”

“I think we’ve established that you wouldn’t be able to understand.”

“Explain it to me again.”

I crack open my last beer while I wait to hear what he’ll say. Have I struck a nerve? Have I forced him to reconsider his actions? Or is he just wondering if I’ve got him on speakerphone?

During the long pause on Roger’s end of the line, Roger also appears on the television. The effect is surreal. It’s almost as though he’s paused our conversation to stroll onto the screen in a pair of khakis and a denim shirt. In the background, guys in hard hats and safety glasses work on tying a rope to a tree limb.

Remember,
TV Roger says.
Trees can provide second- story access to nimble intruders. And overgrown shrubs make good hiding places. Prune your low- hanging limbs and keep your hedges trimmed.

This neighborhood safety message is brought to me by the Safer Places Organization.

Telephone Roger says, “ Good- bye, Paul.”

“There’s a virus that infects the brains of honeybees,” I tell him, but the line is already dead in my hand.

I meet Douglas Bennett at his office early in the morning. He’s pulled in one of his interns from her Sunday off, an attractive young woman who doesn’t seem to like me very much. At the moment, she’s out getting coffee and bagels from some place down the street.

I’m sitting in Bennett’s chair, behind his desk, in front of his computer, attempting to show him a few of the things I’ve discovered since finding Roger Mallory’s neighborhood intelligence files.

“You’ve certainly been doing your homework,” Bennett says.

“You sound impressed.”

“Actually, I was just considering the fact that the police have confiscated
your
files.”

“That’s okay. I can work from memory.”

“What occurs to me,” he says, “is that the police could be forgiven for imagining that
you’re
the one gathering intelligence on your neighbors.”

I honestly haven’t even considered this. But there’s not much point in worrying about it now. “Roger started it.”

“Of course.”

“Here.” I point to Bennett’s computer screen, where I’ve pulled up the property information on 34 Sycamore Court from the county assessor’s Web site. There’s a link to the sales data for the house in which Sara and I now live. “This is everyone who’s owned the place going back ten years.”

“And you say you’ve contacted all of them?”

“That’s right.” There are three sets of names available, listed in order of most recent to oldest. I point to the last entry in the list, farthest down from ours: James and Myrna Webster. “I talked to Myrna. They lived here almost ten years. Husband walked out on her, she couldn’t swing the mortgage alone, sold the place, and moved home to Sioux City with the kids.”

I point to the next owner: Fallon, Brett M. “Wife’s name is Tammy, they have five kids, bought a bigger house in the Himebaughs.”

I move up to the most recent name on the list, just below Sara’s and mine: Kennedy, Cynthia B. We’d purchased the house from Cynthia and her husband, Bill. “She’s a finance manager, he’s a computer programmer. Dual income, no kids, no plans for kids, moved to Denver for Bill’s job.”

“I feel like I know them already. Go on.”

I run my finger back down to James and Myrna. “These folks knew Roger’s whole family. If you ask Myrna Webster what the Mallorys were like as neighbors, you get nothing but warm fuzzies and sympathy.” I continue up the list. “Brett and Tammy were in the house when Roger started Safer Places. Ask them, and they’ll talk about Roger’s mood swings.”

Bennett listens quietly.

“Bill and Cynthia also belonged to the neighborhood association. Ask them, and they’ll hem and haw and finally admit that Roger seemed nice enough but always made them feel a little uncomfortable. Especially Cynthia. She’ll come right out. Not a Roger Mallory fan.”

Bennett appears to be digesting what I’m telling him, but it’s hard to gauge his reaction.

“And don’t forget Ben Holland,” I say.

“Who?

“Michael’s partner.”

“The one with the yard signs.”

“That’s right.”

I’m attempting to illustrate the pattern as I see it. Three sets of neighbors in the house across the circle from Roger in ten years’ time. Four including Sara and me. Our opinions of Roger deteriorate steadily.

Bennett understands what I’m getting at. “We can try talking to others in the community,” he says, though I get the distinct impression that he’s humoring me. “Maybe we can find a few other residents with complaints against the neighborhood patrol.”

“I’ve got a list of names you can start with.”

“So.” Bennett kicks me out of his chair. “The character assassination portion of our defense package would appear to be under way.”

“I was just thinking, maybe we don’t have to beat up Brit. If we can discredit Roger first, show his personality changing over the years, maybe…”

“Maybe.” Bennett waits for me to sit down on the other side of the desk, then folds his hands on his yellow notepad. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I have some news. Not the kind of news we’d like, I’m afraid.” Bennett drums his fingers and leans back. I wait. “I’ve spoken with the prosecutor’s office this morning,” he says. “She called an hour ago to advise me that additional charges will be forthcoming.”

My heart sinks. “What additional charges?”

“Additional counts, to be accurate. Based on the search of your personal computer.”

I close my eyes.

“We’ve scheduled a disposition conference for Wednesday morning. We’ll learn more then.” He writes down a date and time on the back of a business card and slides it across the desk. “For the moment, let’s set aside past neighbors, and Roger
Mallory’s mood patterns, and put our heads together on the matter at hand. Namely, your computer.”