Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) (37 page)

“So you were willing to talk with them?”

“Willing? We all got together on a pretty consistent basis at first.”

I frowned. Another revelation. “And then…”

“Noah informed me they were making money demands. I can’t begin to tell you the hurt I felt. Ultimately I chose to forgive them and gave them the money. They felt slighted, hurt, abandoned. I get it. Some people attach monetary value to their pain. I never have, but I cannot outright dismiss those that do. I decided to pay my children their price.”

“But you wouldn’t have paid again?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why do you think they changed?”

“I don’t. I believe it was there from the start. The Bible says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. I wanted the happy ending. Eternal optimist, you know? I was warned they might be trouble but…Jesus directed that we should forgive those who sin against us seven times seventy. Seven times seventy. I forgive them, Shell. My hope is the money will help them to someday forgive me.”

I noticed that he spoke of them, always, in the present tense. “How was the money paid?”

“Noah facilitated it with our financial people. I used my personal funds, didn’t touch the church’s money if that thought crosses your mind.”

“And you haven’t heard from Darren or Nevada since?”

His voice broke. “No.”

“When was the money paid out?”

“Three weeks ago?” he said, frowning as he tried to recall.

“You haven’t harmed them?”

“No.”

“Uncle John, Wallace Devlin, Cole Enger?”

“What?”

“Ever heard any of those names?”

“Enger, the councilman, of course.”

“Uncle John? Wallace Devlin?”

“No. Never.”

“Enger and your son were lovers. Were you aware of that?”

He shook his head and looked away. After a while he said, “You’ve caused me grievous harm, Shell. Treading in my daughter’s life. Dredging up painful parts of my life. Rubbing my son’s…sexual choices in my face. Accusing me of the unthinkable. If anything has happened to Darren and Nevada, God forbid it, I am not involved. I cannot abide any more of this, though. Noah was physically ill after you were removed from the church.”

“I’ve noticed that your tone changes when you speak of Noah,” I said.

“I suppose it does, Shell. He’s been a Godsend to the church and me personally. Once again, my wife accuses me of being too overprotective, but Noah had a very difficult childhood. A familiar story I guess. He’s like a son to me. I treat him as if he’s from my own blood. Overcompensating for what I missed out on probably.”

“From Newark?” I asked carefully.

He nodded. “McKinty Homes. They had a nasty shooting in the stairwell of one of the buildings recently. If you pay attention to the news at all you’ll come to realize that’s pretty commonplace there. That’s where Noah comes from, Shell. And yet he was able to rise above it all. He’s a remarkable young man. Seeing him ill yesterday further agitates my frustration with you. I’m done here.”

“You didn’t say mister,” I said.

“What?”

“That’s more than once that you’ve referred to me as simply Shell.”

He looked at me. “It’s the only name you go by. Nevada spoke of you.”

And at that the Bishop eased from behind the wheel and moved toward Artisanat to check on Candace. I sat there with my thoughts for a long moment before letting myself out.

THIRTY-TWO

I WANTED IT TO begin, but not to end. Wanted to somehow prolong the sensation working up from my toes toward my midsection, but she tightened her thighs and dug her fingernails into the meat of my back and wailed as if she were kneeling at a prayer wall in Israel, drawing me in so deep I could do nothing but succumb to the propulsive physical release. Afterward, she lowered her hand, eased me from inside her, and collapsed on my chest. Her skin was warm like fresh laundry and damp with sweat. I could feel her heartbeat and smell the shampoo in her hair, taste the balm on her soft lips as I leaned down and kissed her. That stirred her, and she smiled as she opened her eyes and observed me.

“What?” I said, discomforted by her survey.

“You tell me.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means what we’ve been doing has been…inspired. Tonight more so than the other times. Something has renewed your vigor.”

“Are they teaching you all of those big words in Grad school?”

“Uh-huh. So what’s on your mind?”

“Noah Avery,” I admitted after a brief hesitation.

“Ah…” She rolled off me, sat up on the side of the bed. “Hemming Bishop Holliday’s disabled daughter into a corner wasn’t enough?”

“Something is not right about Noah Avery. I’m just following whatever course this thing sends me down. This is unscientific work, at least the way I’m doing it.”

 “Don’t you think you’ve taken this thing too far?”

“No,” I said. “Nevada isn’t home safe. From the very beginning, the moment you first called me, it has been my goal to see her home safe. Nothing changes that.”

She looked at me for a beat, sighed, and said, “Okay. You’re right. Why the sudden alarm on Noah Avery, though?”

“Bishop Holliday said Avery was physically ill after we left yesterday. That seems an extreme reaction. Also, Avery was involved with the money that changed hands during the so-called blackmail. Bishop Holliday had nothing to do with it, if he is to be believed. And I do believe him. Lastly, Avery comes from a rough background. He appears to be prim and proper, but I know better.”

“So his background automatically means he is involved?”

“He’s worth checking out,” I said. “Don’t turn this into something else.”

“I don’t see a lot in your points,” she said. “He was physically ill. Okay. He’s obviously close to the Bishop. You have to admit your presence was disturbing.”

“Still…”

“He’s the Bishop’s personal assistant. Of course he would handle the money. The Bishop doesn’t strike me as a dumb man. I would think someone would have to earn his trust. And he trusts Noah Avery.”

“Blind trust perhaps?”

“Perhaps. And Noah’s background…you know how I feel about that sort of thing. I have to admit, I resent your insinuation that his background makes him a bad guy.”

“Like I said, don’t turn this into something else. He’s worth checking out.”

“How?”

I smiled. “Where it all began.”

“English, please?”

“McKinty Homes. His mother still lives there.”

“You’ve already started checking up on him?”

I nodded.

“Nothing I said would’ve stopped this anyway,” she said.

“No.”

“The experience with Candace Holliday has had no effect on you? You’re going full-bore with this thing?”

“The only way I know to go, Siobhan.”

“I’m coming along,” she said.

I nodded. “To keep me honest.”

“Some good that does,” she muttered.

I smothered those words with my lips.

She said nothing further after that.

THIRTY-THREE

MOST OF THE APARTMENTS in the McKinty Homes had grimy plastic blinds in the windows, and although the river was within spitting distance, the residents could not see it, their views obscured by a wall of rusted-out shipping containers stacked over four stories high. The older residents remembered a time before the containers. They remembered mother-daughter kickball tournaments, dance contests, summer slip-n-slides using water stolen from hydrants. However, those memories were fading like voices in the roar of jets that took off every few minutes from Newark Liberty International airport. The memories replaced by the containers and the smell of garbage carried in the wind from the incinerator only a mile away. Poverty summons hopelessness, despair, and angst. It is a face marred by deep blemishes. McKinty was a mirror in which poverty’s face was reflected.

“Do you know Andrea Avery on the second floor?” I asked a coffee-colored man fussing with the drawstring of a white garbage bag in the stairwell.

He looked up at me and frowned. “You don’t know not to walk up on people unannounced? If I was jumpy you might have yourself a world of hurt right about now.”

“I highly doubt it.”

He straightened to his full height and took inventory of me. Siobhan locked her arm in mine and moved closer to me. “You ain’t from around here,” the man said. “I’d know you if you were.”

“This where the young boy was shot? They said it happened in the stairwell.”

“The media blowed that out of proportion,” he said. “This is a safe place.”

“If that’s so,” I said, “I’m guessing you would like it to remain safe.”

“I hear the threat in what you’re saying, and I probably couldn’t do much with you,” he admitted, “but I can end this conversation.”

Siobhan squeezed my arm.

I took a deep breath. “Listen—”

“Keep your money,” he said, eyeing my hand. “I’m not for sale and I don’t involve myself in anybody else’s business.”

I closed my fingers around the twenty I’d eased out of my pocket. “I was hoping you might know Ms. Avery and could give me a sense of the woman. I need to talk with her, either way. I was just making sure she wasn’t too frail for my conversation.”

He laughed despite himself, floated the word frail back at me so softly it died in the air.

I said, “It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, sir. I can only hope Ms. Avery is equally as pleasant.”

He hefted his garbage bag and brushed past us.

“You just can’t help yourself,” Siobhan said.

“We have a door to go knock on.”

“For someone as charming as you she’ll probably answer with an unregistered Glock.”

I smiled and nodded at the stairs. “In that case…ladies first.”

FRAIL WAS DEFINITELY NOT a word that came to my mind when Andrea Avery answered her door. She was a tall woman, easily the height of an average American man, five-foot-nine or thereabouts. She was also on the north side of three hundred pounds. She had the handshake grip of an NFL running back not prone to fumbling the football and the generous smile of an elementary school principal on back-to-school night. I told her our names but nothing of what had brought us to her door.

“I was hoping for Publisher’s Clearinghouse,” she said to us. “But I like to always look at the bright side. So I’m gonna hold out hope that you still have something good to tell me.”

“I wanted to talk to you about your son,” I said.

It’s hard to describe the look that fell across her face. Almost all of the vitality disappeared from her voice. “You have children?” she asked me.

I shook my head and swallowed, thought about Nevada out in the world, frightened and alone, possibly with my seed growing in her belly.

Andrea Avery turned her attention on Siobhan. “What about you, pretty girl?”

Siobhan shook her head as well.

Andrea Avery sort of grunted.

“You’ve had trouble with your son, Ms. Avery?” I asked.

“Andrea, please.”

“You’ve had trouble with your son, Andrea?”

“What did you say your names were again?”

“I’m Shell. She’s Siobhan.”

“You’re surely a pretty girl, Siobhan.”

Siobhan responded with a tiny smile. I cleared my throat. “This is a painful topic for you, Andrea?”

“One thing I can’t find a bright side for,” she acknowledged.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “You might as well come on in.”

We settled in her small living room. Her unit was clean but not neat. A basket of unfolded laundry was on the sofa, a pile of magazines on the coffee table in front of the sofa, the dish rack in the kitchen by the sink loaded with dishes that had long since dried. She took a spot on the sofa with Siobhan and the laundry. I stood off to the side, looking down at them.

“Can I offer you folks something to drink?” she asked, edging her bulk forward on the sofa. “A slice of apple pie?”

Two pies were lined up on the kitchen counter and covered with dish cloths. They had been recently baked and the aroma of cinnamon drifted through the unit. I had a feeling that allowing Andrea Avery to carve slices would make it easier for her to focus on my questions.

“Just a little piece,” I said, giving Siobhan a nod to accept as well.

“Little piece? You’re a grown man. Little piece will not do. What about you, pretty girl?”

“Cover the whole plate if at all possible,” Siobhan said.

That got Andrea Avery to smile. “I had the same attitude when I was your size. Never thought it would catch up with me. I was a little bitty thing. Seems like forever ago.” She sighed and rocked one, two, three times before building up enough momentum to make it to her feet. “What kind of trouble has he gotten himself into now?” she said as she walked to the kitchen.

I moved after her, stopped in the kitchen doorway. “You’re used to trouble from him?”

“From the cradle to now,” she said.

“That’s a bit surprising. What kind of trouble has he gotten into?”

She paused from cutting and looked up at us. Siobhan had moved from the sofa and settled by my shoulder. “Shorter answer would be what kind of trouble he hasn’t gotten into,” Andrea Avery said.