The Evil That Men Do (13 page)

Donne sat with Susan, his hand on her back, quietly listening.

“She’s going to die anyway, Jackson. She doesn’t have much time left. If it just happened a little quicker, we could end this nonsense. Franklin and I could get on with our lives. And I could see her dying in my head. I wanted it to happen.”

Taking a deep breath, Donne said, “There’s a lot more going on here than Mom being sick, Sue.”

“I know,” she said. “But it started with Mom being sick. That started all of this. Before you were even around. And now Franklin’s gone. One of the restaurants is gone. Our life is ruined. And you’re going to go back to New Brunswick and forget this ever happened.”

He took his hand off her back.

“I’m not going anywhere right now. We’re going to solve this together.”

“No,” she said. “You’re a quitter. You probably want to leave right now.”

“What I want to do has nothing to do with what I’m going to do.”

Susan took her face out of her hands and looked at Donne.

“You mean that?”

“I do.”

“We only have eighteen hours to go. Before they kill him.”

“I know.”

“I’m not going to be able to get the money.”

“We’ll figure things out. Just need to find out who took him.”

“Do you think I can see her?” she asked.

He looked at the group Iapicca had corralled.

“Probably not tonight,” Donne said. “I think the screaming freaked everyone out.”

Susan nodded but didn’t speak.

“Let’s get you home. I’ll drive.”

She slowly gave him the keys to her car, but she didn’t move from her seat. He walked over to Iapicca.

“I think they realize that sometimes stress gets to be too much. Next time your sister visits, though, they’re going to be in there with her for everyone’s sake,” Iapicca said.

“Of course. Want to follow me back?” Donne asked. “I’m going to drive Susan home.”

“I’m not gonna get my night off, am I?”

Donne’s watch told him Susan was right. They had only eighteen hours before Franklin’s kidnapper’s deadline. Hopefully, Donne could find him by then.

“Not if you want to help.”

Iapicca shrugged. “My wife’s on vacation, so I have nothing to do anyway.”

“Good. I just need to talk to my mother.”

“You got time to do that?”

“She might be able to help us.”

The nurses who were talking to Iapicca were moving off in different directions now, sensing they were no longer needed. And that they didn’t have to worry anymore.

“How about this? I’ll drive your sister home. Ask her a few questions. Maybe she’ll tell me something she wouldn’t tell you. And when you’re done, you drive her car back.”

“Sounds good,” Donne said.

Susan would find out he called the cops sooner or later.

Following the scattering nurses, he walked down the darkened hall toward his mother’s room, hoping she’d continue what she’d started to tell him days ago.

Susan Carter sat in the passenger seat of the detective’s car. It smelled like cigars and the cherry air freshener that hung from the rearview mirror.

She put her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, then reopened them.

The detective, who on the way to the car had introduced himself as Detective Mike Iapicca, started the engine and smiled at her.

“Hell of a night,” he said.

Susan met his glance but didn’t say anything. Jackson had called the police. She’d trusted him and now here she was sitting next to a detective.
Son of a bitch
.

They pulled out onto Berdan Avenue.

“You know,” Iapicca continued, “I remember when my mother-in-law died. She suffered from Alzheimer’s for years.”

Fuck this.
She was not going to let him get in. She knew the tricks, and there was no way she was going to let this sob story get her to talk to him. The cops could not be involved. No story about how this guy’s mother-in-law died of Alzheimer’s was going to get to her.

“She wasn’t that bad. Not according to my wife. I wasn’t around much, was working a lot. Just went on what she said. But there was this night when Kerri had to go out. I took the night off and stayed home.”

Big fucking deal.

The detective turned right onto Valley Road. Mini-malls on the left were closing, and the apartment complexes on the right were waiting for the renters to come home.

“I make dinner. Nothing fancy, I think it might have been Manhattan clam chowder, right? So we sit down to eat and I’m slurping this stuff up and my mother-in-law’s not eating. She’s got her mouth squeezed shut and she’s shaking her head no.”

That never happened with Susan’s mother. Her mother was always good. Just that one time to Franklin. No, her mother didn’t deserve to be in this home. Didn’t deserve to have this disease eating away at her brain. Didn’t deserve to have someone as awful as Susan as her daughter.

“I ask her to eat her soup. Nicely, right? ‘Mom, you gotta eat.’ And my mother-in-law, you know what she says?”

“Did she tell you to go fuck yourself?”

Iapicca took his eyes off the road. “Yeah, actually she did.”

“Get that a lot, huh?”

The detective laughed at that one.

“Anyway,” he said when he was done laughing, “I ask her again. And she crosses her arms and tells me to go fuck myself again. And now I’m pissed off. It’d been a long week, I was working this robbery case, and I was getting nowhere with it. And now this old woman is giving me shit? I get out of my chair and I’m yelling at her to eat her soup. Yelling.

“And now I’m in her face. ‘Eat your soup!’ Ridiculous, right? And she’s still refusing, and finally, I don’t even know what came over me, but I just up and slapped her. And her face was red from my hand. Her eyes teared up. So did mine, if you want to know the truth. After that, I poured her soup bowl out. I never told my wife and I don’t think my mother-in-law did either, if she even remembered it.

“It wasn’t too long after that she passed away.”

Susan looked over at Iapicca, whose eyes were now back on the road.

“She didn’t deserve that,” Susan said. “You didn’t have to hit her.”

“I know. Sometimes you just think they’d be better off if they died. Better off if they went quick. Better off for themselves, better off for everyone. If she had a heart attack, I’d have never been pushed to that limit.”

Susan put her head back.

“My husband is going to die. I can’t pay. And I wanted my mother to help us.”

“Yeah,” Iapicca said, stepping on the gas. “Let’s talk about that.”

SOMETHING HAD BEEN AWAKENED IN HIS MOTHER.
Donne didn’t know what doors Susan unlocked during the incident, but his mother was a ball of energy. Two nurses were standing over her, preparing a sedative.

“The headlights!” his mother screamed. “Oh my God!”

“Hold her down,” one of the nurses said to the other.

“Wait,” Donne said.

They both turned toward him, his mother still screaming about headlights.

“Who are you?” the blond nurse asked. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

“Please, let me talk to her. I want to calm her down.”

The brunette looked at the blonde. They both had bodies like they worked out. But it didn’t help the bags of exhaustion under their eyes.

“Sir, you really shouldn’t be in here.”

“THE HEADLIGHTS! They’re coming right for me.”

Panic laced his mother’s voice. In all his years living with her, he’d never heard fear like that.

“Mom,” he said. “Mom, listen to me. It’s okay.”

His mother stopped screaming. For a second.

“Daddy! Help me!”

“Mom! Mom, it’s me, Jackson. You need to listen to me.”

She paused again. She turned her head in his direction, and again he noticed the dark, heavy wrinkles around her face. The skin hung from her skull. She was no longer human, her soul barely holding to her body. He needed to talk to her before it left her completely.

“Jackson,” she said. There was a speck of her left. “My dad. My dad wanted to hurt me. He put me in front of the headlights. I was going to die. I don’t want to die.”

The force of her words cut through his skin.
She didn’t want to die
. He didn’t want her to either. The realization gave him pause for a moment. Susan did. Donne clenched his fists. How could she imagine killing her own mother? How could he then promise to help her? Susan was crazy.

He gathered himself and stepped through the two nurses and took his mother’s hand. He gave it a squeeze and felt her return the pressure.

“Mom, you’re not going to die.”

Yes, she is. Don’t lie to your mother.

“But you have to tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Cars. It’s so loud.”

“Mom,” I said. “Mom. Come on, Mom.”

“Oh my God! HELP ME!”

There was nothing more to say. She wasn’t responding to his voice. He turned to the nurses.

“Give her the sedative.”

“Connor O’Neill says hello,” his mother screamed. Then she looked directly at Jackson. “We never wanted to tell you he was arrested. And it was Daddy’s fault.”

The blonde nodded, slowly, as if she was commiserating with him. As if she knew what he was feeling. His mother knew something, he was sure of it.

But he doubted if he would ever know what it was.

The blond nurse injected her with something and the screaming stopped immediately. The brunette shushed her, cooed her.

What it came down to was listening to your son. Delshawn Butler thought he was a good father. He’d listened to Damon tell stories of chillin’ with Carlos down by Rutt’s Hut.

After hanging up with Hackett, all this had come rushing back to Delshawn. It made sense; he was nervous and worried about fucking up, and he always worked best under pressure.

Delshawn took the Escalade down Delawanna Avenue toward River Road. It was only about a mile from where he had dumped the gun a few days earlier. Delshawn was pissed he didn’t think of it sooner.

After ten minutes of circling the area, he thought he recognized a kid waiting to cross the street. Delshawn pulled the Escalade to the curb in front of the kid. The boy looked like a fake. Shape-up, long white tee, baggy-ass jeans, and untied Tims.

“Yo, Mister Butler, what the fuck?” the kid said, holding his hand out toward the window.

Delshawn grabbed it, gave it a shake, then a fist bump.

“Carlos?” he asked.

“Yeah, yo. This is a nice ride.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah. I saw one the other day, just like this. I was tellin’ your son about it.”

Damon.
Delshawn hadn’t thought how this would affect his own kid. Having a friend die so young. It’d fuck him up and there was no way around it. And hell no, he wasn’t gonna pay for no therapist.

Carlos still went on. “Dude dropped this motherfuckin’ nine out the window and it got caught in the mud. So like I brought it to the cops and shit.”

“Yeah,” Delshawn said. Maybe he should let Carlos go. He was just a kid. It was a fucking mistake. He even thought he was doing the right thing. Just let the kid walk away.

“Man, that fuckin’ car looked just like this. It was hot. And the black dude who was hanging out the window. He had on a white do-rag. Yo, it was just like—”

Shit,
Delshawn thought, realizing he had the do-rag on still.

“Yo,” Carlos shouted, holding the word out. “That shit was you, wasn’t it? Oh man, that is fuckin’ hot!”

Delshawn reached into his console and wrapped his hand around his newest gun. A Glock nine, newer than the one Carlos found. New silencer and everything. Shiny as hell.

Just shut up and I’ll let you go.
Delshawn found himself rooting for the kid.

“Man, wait until I tell everybody. Your son is gonna think this is so fuckin’ cool. Motherfuck, yo, I know a stone-cold killah. You gangsta, Mister Butler. You gangsta.”

Delshawn nearly rolled his eyes.

He felt bad for Damon. He was going to lose a friend. But it would also teach him a lesson. Don’t fuck around with this crowd. Don’t fuck around with guns. Go to college. Get a job.

He leveled the gun at Carlos.

“Yo,” Carlos said. “You got another one. This one is even—”

Delshawn pulled the trigger twice.

1938

Joe Tenant and Mikey Sops sat in the rowboat, letting the current take them back to the dock. There was no need to do anything other than an occasional stroke to specify their direction. Tenant’s eyes were heavy and he just wanted to get home and get to sleep. He’d been going nonstop since Maxwell Carter’s funeral.

But as he tied the boat to the dock, he knew he wasn’t going to get the sleep his body craved. A man stood on the dock watching them. He was thin and tall, dressed in slacks and a thick jacket. The wind was cold coming off the river. The man folded his arms, relaxed and confident.

“You know this guy?” Sops whispered.

“No, but I think I’m gonna find out who he is.”

Sops nodded, finishing the knot. Tenant stepped out of the boat and walked toward the man, realizing that as tall as the guy looked from the boat, Joe still had him beat.

“Mr. Tenant?”

It was the man from the car that first night, the same Irish brogue. His face was pale, with thick lips and icy green eyes. His hair was parted to the side, like the senator’s, but it was blond and held less Brylcreem.

“You know it’s me.”

“Right, boyo. Well, I’m here just to give you some information. After your little stunt with Mr. O’Neill yesterday, we wanted to send a message.”

Tenant’s muscles tensed. He waited for a weapon and knew Sops was at his back.

“How is Isabelle?” the Irishman asked.

Now his muscles went limp and his nerves tingled. Everything was suddenly cold, like he’d just stepped outside for the first time on a winter morning.

“What did you do to my daughter?”

The Irishman winked.
“I
didn’t do anything to her. Last time I saw her—” He gestured to the large metal bridge off in the distance. “She was wandering on the Pulaski Skyway. Not a good place for a kid to walk by herself.”