A Long Time Coming, page 9
Do I have your full attention?
Despite the bombshell that had been delivered, he was able to compose a coherent reply.
Yeah.
The principle behind it was as simple as the message itself. The shorter you keep it, the less chance of embellishing it with an outpouring of abuse. There would be time enough for that later. The guy’s next text came in fast.
Where are you? I’ll pick you up.
Evan sent him the details. Then leaned his back against the wall, slid down it until his butt was on the ground, legs straight out in front of him. Just another drunk on the sidewalk people would say as they stepped over his legs, disapproving looks on their puritanical faces. He wished it were true. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he would need all his mental faculties for the upcoming assignation—one that would lever a wedge into the crack that the audio clip had opened up—he’d have got up, run all the way to the Jerusalem, seen how much beer he could get down his throat before the guy turned up. See if he couldn’t wipe his mind clear. If your mind is a blackboard, alcohol is the merciful eraser. And his mind was a blackboard the size of a barn door, every inch covered with crazy scribblings.
So many things going through his mind, disparate thoughts and memories as foggy and sore as a tequila hangover all screaming for his attention.
Standing with Newcomb beside the grave where he claimed Sarah was buried, talking about her condition. He’d assumed he meant the memory loss. Now he knew better.
Kate Guillory’s nervousness on so many occasions. Seeming as if she had something to tell him, some suspicion she was desperate to share with him but afraid to do so, for fear of what it might do to him. To them.
And the letter left to him by Jay Killinger.
I don’t feel good about this and I hope you understand. There’s only so much you can tell a guy who turns up on your doorstep one day and says, hey, you’ve been living with my wife. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you face to face. And there’s no point in me telling you now. Better if you read it for yourself. So I’ve left you some papers.
The papers were gone, of course. Stolen by Newcomb’s men. But he knew where they were from. The hospital. He hadn’t known what was in them. Now he did.
All of it coming together now as the coldness from the damp sidewalk seeped into his butt, rising up through him to join with the icy chill spreading outwards from his gut.
Sarah had been pregnant when she went into the asylum.
The audio clip proved that she’d given birth, hadn’t lost the child as a result of the road accident that wiped her memory. Then the child had been taken from her.
Just one little question.
Who was the father?
Was it him? Get yourself to the Jerusalem, beers all round. Or was it Cole Nix, the man she’d gone on her road trip with? A casual encounter between two people thrown together in dire circumstances. How about Nix’s half-brother, Jay Killinger? If you live with another man’s wife, then why not have a child with that other man’s wife while you’re at it? Be my guest.
The sound of a car driving slowly down the street made him look up. Was the guy stupid? He was looking for a man standing up on his own two legs. Idiot. He should have been sweeping the gutter with his headlights. He pushed himself to his feet, made it easy for him. Waved. The car’s lights flashed as it pulled to the curb, the same vehicle as the previous night.
The driver didn’t say anything as he got in, pulled back into the traffic. Evan knew where they were going without having to ask. And because he also knew that once he asked the first question, he wouldn’t be able to stop, he kept it simple.
‘What do I call you?’
‘You can call me Stinson. There’s no need for first names.’
He doubted it was his real name. He hadn’t known Newcomb’s real name for a long time, referring to him only as Smith. Then Stinson surprised him. He pulled to the curb again.
‘You want to bring your friend along? The cop.’
So much for keeping it simple. First thing the guy had said and already he didn’t know what to do. He knew what he ought to do. Call her, give her the choice. Except that would be a waste of time. Might as well go directly to her apartment for all the chance there was of her saying no. Seemed he was taking too long thinking about it.
‘Hurry it up. We haven’t got all night.’
He pulled out his phone, made the call. It went straight to voicemail. He thought about leaving a message, decided against it. Stinson was impatient—more than that, he was nervous—and wouldn’t want to sit and wait until she called back. There was another way of looking at it. It wasn’t meant to be. This was a journey to be taken alone.
Then Stinson surprised him for the second time in as many minutes.
‘Probably out with that fat fuck partner of hers.’
The remark was so out of left field that the bark of laughter was out of his mouth before he could stop it. In other circumstances it would have been a pleasant surprise to come across such an unexpected kindred spirit. They could have shared a laugh, him encouraging Stinson to call him Donut. Just not tonight. Because the off-the-cuff remark gave away more than Stinson had intended.
It was difficult to be sure in the dim light inside the car, the shadows from the streetlights disguising Stinson’s features, but Evan saw what looked like residual swelling to the nose, black bags under his eyes. He heard Ryder’s voice when he’d interrupted him and Guillory in the diner.
I see you didn’t tell him about the headbutt.
Was this the guy Ryder had headbutted?
‘I take it you don’t like him.’
That’s when Stinson gave himself away. He touched his nose gingerly, an automatic gesture, winced.
‘I don’t know him.’
‘You just don’t like fat people?’
Stinson pulled away, paid a lot of attention to the traffic in the side mirror instead of answering. An idea was forming in Evan’s mind, one that gave him some reassurance. This was the guy that Ryder had butted, ridiculed in front of Guillory and his own partner. Had Newcomb rewarded his incompetence by firing him? Hence the animosity in the words used the previous night: that bastard Newcomb.
Despite having his life turned on its head within the last half hour he couldn’t help but smile to himself at the irony of the situation. That Ryder, Donut, should be responsible for him finally finding out what had happened to Sarah. If so, things had come full circle. The problem between him and Ryder stemmed in large part from their first-ever meeting, from his firmly-held belief that the police had done nothing when Sarah disappeared. They’d narrowly avoided coming to blows over it. Now he’d unwittingly made amends.
So long as the guy next to him, Call Me Stinson, could be trusted, of course. If it wasn’t all part of Newcomb’s plan, a convenient explanation that Evan could believe in. In which case Ryder became part of his downfall, not his epiphany.
He closed his eyes, biting back the questions. Trying to shut his mind down completely, a situation Guillory would’ve said came naturally to him. Thinking of her, he was suddenly in the back of a different car driven by a different but similarly stony-faced man in Newcomb’s employ as they made the identical journey they were making tonight.
He felt again the same inescapable, unrelenting draw of the place they were headed as he had back then. He couldn’t remember, didn’t think two words had passed between Guillory and himself as they’d driven in convoy in a black SUV. He suddenly opened his eyes as the car slowed, the growing sense of trepidation spiking as it had then when they drove between the imposing wrought-iron gates of the county psychiatric hospital, down the long driveway through an avenue of magnificent old trees silhouetted against the night sky.
‘Left here,’ he said as they arrived at a fork in the road that led away from the front of the institution.
Stinson’s head snapped sideways towards him at the unexpected first words he’d said since the journey began. If he could have been bothered, he’d have told him, what point is there to any of it if you can’t laugh in the face of what fate delivers.
They took the left fork, followed the road around the side of the impressive, if austere, building with its rows of equally-spaced small windows. They stopped in the deeper shadow of a stand of trees at the edge of the cemetery. He was out of the car before it had come to a complete stop. Striding out between the graves in the pale moonlight, Stinson bringing up the rear.
He knew the way. He’d made this journey a thousand times before. The first on legs made of rubber hose, Guillory’s strong arm supporting him as they followed Newcomb trudging through the wet grass in his crumpled gray suit. And the other times alone, in his own mind, a place every bit as desolate as the depressing wind-swept cemetery.
He pulled out his phone as he got near to the grave he wanted, flicked on the flashlight. When he stopped, he saw what he expected to see illuminated in the unforgiving hard light of his phone. Another man might have thought that he’d made a mistake, taken a wrong turning, all the grave markers looking so similar. But he knew he was in the right place, staring at the plain headstone.
Rita Madison
Not Sarah Buckley. Not even Sarah Killinger, the name that had been on the marker the last time he was here.
Rita Madison, the woman who’d been in the ground at their feet back then, as she was now, her rightful headstone restored after the deception was over.
Stinson caught up with him, an uncomfortable silence between them. As well there might be between the deceiver and his victim. Stinson cleared his throat, said something pointless.
‘You found it.’
‘Uh-huh.’
What else do you say? Something popped into his mind, a random thought fighting hard to hold back the deluge of questions that must surely come soon.
‘Who is she?’
Stinson shook his head, no idea.
‘Just another inmate.’
‘Don’t you mean patient? Or is today the day everyone decides to call a spade a spade?’
A mixture of bitterness and sarcasm in his voice. Because it was all too close to the bone. If Sarah wasn’t in the ground at their feet it meant she was still in one of the cramped rooms with its grubby little window. Still a patient. Or inmate. A pain in the ass whatever you want to call her, someone to be hidden away, let’s hope she dies soon. Like he’d been told. Except she didn’t.
He wanted to scream.
He switched off the phone’s flashlight, went to slip it into his pocket. Changed his mind. Opened up the camera and took a photo of the grave marker.
‘What’s that for?’ Stinson said. ‘To show to your girlfriend the cop? In case she doesn’t believe you?’
He didn’t think that at all. There was no reason for her not to believe him. Maybe it was for him. In the morning when normal life came knocking—if life would ever be normal again—and the memory of his surreal night-time visit to this desolate graveyard had faded, left him wondering if it had ever happened at all. It would provide proof and reassurance that he hadn’t lost all grip on reality.
He didn’t answer Stinson’s question, pretended instead to inspect the photo he’d taken. Held it at arm’s length, his forehead creased into a frown. Raised his arm as if he could get a better look at it from a different angle. Then took a quick photo of Stinson.
‘Hey!’ His voice a mix of surprise and indignation, anger at being caught unawares following close behind. ‘Delete that.’
‘Uh-uh. Don’t worry, I’m not going to show it to Newcomb.’
Stinson tensed, looked as if he was about to lunge at Evan, make a grab for the phone. Evan pulled it out of the way, slipped it into his pocket. His hand touched his Zippo lighter. A relic from the Vietnam war that had belonged to Sarah. He’d carried it around with him for years and it had ultimately led him to this place. It had been a comfort to him during his long search. He wished it was a comfort to him now as he ran his thumb over the faded inscription, the words that he knew better than his own name.
We the unwilling
Led by the unqualified
To kill the unfortunate
Die for the ungrateful
Except it was going to take more than a poignant verse, even one penned by men as they contemplated their own imminent deaths, to provide comfort now, now that what he’d thought had been put to rest had resurfaced.
Stinson was still looking very unhappy about the photograph he’d taken. He felt like asking him what he was worried about. Newcomb had already fired him, what else could he do? Seemed Stinson felt the need to spread the unhappiness around a little, cause some trouble.
‘You know she met with Newcomb? Your girlfriend.’
‘I know. She told me all about it.’
He gave him a tight smile. Nice try. Something else he knew. That was when Stinson got his nose broken. He wasn’t so petty as to mention it. It was a pity Stinson’s generosity of spirit didn’t extend so far.
‘I bet she didn’t tell you all about it.’ He put a lot of emphasis on the word all, accompanied it with a mocking smile.
It was late. It had been a long day, one full of surprises. Some of them the life-changing variety. He was tired and irritable standing in the middle of a graveyard for dead lunatics. And he’d had just about enough of Stinson.
‘You want to explain that? Or are you going to carry on making your sly remarks, giving me that supercilious smirk that I’m gonna knock off your face any time now?’
There were a lot of ways it might have panned out. Physical violence was a distinct possibility. Stinson could have turned on his heel and left him there, screw you. In the end he showed him his palms, shook his head. But the smirk was still there. Because he knew the damage was already done. He’d set the seed of doubt in Evan’s mind. Let that random unpredictable organ do the rest.
Which it did now.
He heard again her response to his question about why Newcomb had wanted to meet with her.
He wanted to buy my silence.
About what?
Then he’d gone and answered his own question, didn’t give her a chance.
The autopsy report.
He’d thought at the time how relieved she’d seemed. The autopsy report, something he already knew she had reservations about. But had his lack of patience stopped her from saying something else, a different doubt she carried around inside her? That Sarah had been pregnant.
So many lies. So many deceptions.
He couldn’t think about it now, needed to move on. He flicked his hand at the grave marker.
‘If my wife’s not down there, where is she?’
His voice dismissive. Like they’d lost something and it wasn’t in the place they’d been sure it would be. Depersonalize the situation, pretend it’s your car keys. Stinson responded in kind, raising his hand, pointing at the building on the far side of the graveyard.
‘In there.’
Evan looked at it, the rows of small identical windows set into the stained brickwork. A state-of-the-art facility in the 1800s, a useful place to house the unwanted ones in the twenty-first century. The windows dark now, hiding the horrors within. It made him shudder. Words and phrases from the extract of Sarah’s psychiatric report came back to him as he imagined what life must be like in such a place.
Detained indefinitely.
For her own safety.
Escalating violent tendencies.
Consider alternative procedures.
There was no point standing staring at the grave of a woman he’d never known or heard of. Nor were they about to go knock on the institution’s front door, can Sarah come out to play? He wasn’t sure why he’d been brought here, other than to set the scene, prepare him for whatever was about to follow. Looking back over his shoulder as they made their way back towards the car, he couldn’t help wondering what was coming that required such an elaborate prelude, a psychological softening-up.
He wouldn’t have to wait long now before he found out.
11
‘They’re at the asylum graveyard now, sir. Been there for a while.’
Newcomb looked up from the papers on his desk at the sound of the voice from the door. He laid his reading glasses on top of the files, massaged the bridge of his nose. Waved the man, Reynolds, into the room. Allowed himself a small smile, despite the pounding headache. Things were going well. First the all-round shitstorm they’d stirred up by killing Cody Layfield in the Webb County Jail, and now this.
‘Looks like it’s going according to plan,’ Reynolds said, sounding like he’d thought of it.
Newcomb stopped massaging his nose, started on his temples, a slow circular motion. If Reynolds had been better looking and wearing a skirt, he’d have got him to do it for him. He missed the old days before all that political correctness crap came in. It made him sick, the hypocrisy of it. They were allowed to discreetly terminate a perfectly good human being’s life, erase his or her presence from the face of the planet, but he couldn’t ask a female agent to pour the coffee without a shitstorm landing on his head. Some people needed to get their priorities right. And they called it progress? He’d bet Buckley didn’t take any of that shit, let Guillory know who was in charge. Well, maybe not.
He realized Reynolds was still waiting for a response after stating the obvious.
‘Looks like it. You think that idiot Stinson has got any idea what’s going on?’
He didn’t care that Reynolds and Stinson had been partners for a long time. Stinson was an idiot. It was a fact. Reynolds had been with him when they went to pick up Guillory. He’d told him how Stinson had deliberately antagonized Guillory’s partner, Ryder. Provoked him until he reacted. He deserved a broken nose, as well as the public humiliation that went with it. In other circumstances he’d have left it at that, the punishment fitting the crime. No real harm done.
But then he’d seen the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. It was harsh, he knew. The guy had been stupid. But he didn’t deserve to have his career trashed as a result. At least he was being useful now. Even if he didn’t realize it and would never take the credit for it.
