A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) (26 page)

"The big blue wall came in handy," Julie said as we retraced our steps out of town.

"Once in a great while."

"Do you think he'd arrest you if things got rough?"

"Without a doubt," I said. "He'll swing by later, see if I did anything stupid. He's probably at the station, filling out the paperwork now."

What passes for traffic in Waynesboro had picked up since I'd arrived in town, but a veteran of DC rush-hour wouldn't have even noticed it. I spotted a better place to park this time, a notch in the road obscured by a drooping oak tree branch that still gave us a view of the house despite the dying winter light. I turned the car off, knocked the seat back, and waited.

Julie unlatched her seat belt and turned to reach in the back seat. She caught my look. "I really just want something to drink, Singer."

I counted thirteen cars on the road, going both directions, before a pale green Kia appeared out of the dusk, slowed down, then pulled into the driveway, taking up a spot right behind the van. The engine rattled to a stop. A minute later, the driver's side door opened and a woman got out. Mid-thirties. Comparing her to her car door, she was around five and half feet tall, with a mess of curly blonde hair that she probably hadn't been born with. She was heavy set and ponderous. Her charcoal gray skirt and jacket combo with ruby red turtleneck sweater, too tight to be flattering, emphasized rolls rather than curves. The same arm hugged a bucket of fried chicken she'd already broken into. A cell phone was tucked between her cheek and shoulder and she carried on a lively conversation from the car to the door. High-heels forced her to take short, mincing steps that were comically at odds with the thickness of her upper body. She climbed the steps to her front porch, juggled the chicken and her keys around so she could unlock the door, then went inside. The lights came on, spilling thin, glowing lines through the blinds.

"Let's say you're hiding your semi-fugitive brother," I said to Julie.

"Okay."

"He doesn't leave the house except to drive to our nation's capital to harass graduate students once a week. Do you bring home one bucket of chicken at the end of the day?"

She frowned. "What are you asking?"

"Put another way, let's say you're a single, overweight woman with an appetite. Can you finish a bucket of fried chicken by yourself?"

She thought. "It's either not enough or a lot, depending on how you look at it."

"So the bucket of chicken doesn't tell us anything."

"No."

"Shit," I said.

Fifteen minutes would give her time to change out of her work clothes and maybe grab another drumstick, so we waited. I tapped the steering wheel to some nameless tune, then we got out of the car and strolled down to her gate for the second time that day. I went up to the door and knocked while Julie stood behind me and to the side. It took three solid raps that shook the door and made the porch light shimmy; I was fighting the latest Travis Tritt album with the volume cranked to ten. The music stopped and a shadow approached the door. I took a step back as it opened.

It was the blonde that had gotten out of the car. I smiled. "Hi. Layla Green?"

"Yeah," she said. I watched her face. She was suspicious, but not scared. "Can I help you?"

"Ms. Green, my name's Marty Singer and this is Julie Atwater. I'm a retired police officer and Ms. Atwater is an attorney. We're from Washington DC. I was hoping I could take a few minutes of your time."

"What about?"

"I wanted to ask you about your brother."

"Terry?" she said, her eyes popping wide and her mouth dropping open. "What's wrong? Is there something wrong?"

"Uh, no," I said, nonplussed. "Not Terry. Michael."

Her face froze in that expression of worry for a split second, then her face scrunched into a scowl. "Michael? Michael Wheeler? He's my step-brother."

Step-brother. That would explain why he hadn't come up on any of our searches. "What can you tell me about Michael? Have you talked to him lately?"

"You said
retired
police officer," she said, eyes narrowing.

"That's right."

"So, you're not here officially?"

"Not yet," I said. "We're in the question-asking phase."

"So you can't make me talk to you."

"That's true," I said. "But all I need is five minutes of your time, Layla, and then you'll never see me again."

Her face took on a deep, reddish color. "I can't understand why you people can't leave Michael alone. After all these years, after dragging him through the mud when he didn't even kill that woman."

"We'll have to disagree on that one, but that's not why I'm here--"

"He told me not to come up to DC for the trial, told me that they'd hound me and stick cameras in my face. He was right. That jury found him innocent and it didn't mean shit, people after him constantly, trying to track him down."

"I'm not here to relive the past, Layla," I said. "But someone is threatening the murdered woman's daughter and all signs point to your step-brother. I need your help to protect that girl."

"Protect?" she shrieked. Tears welled up on the edges of her lids and spilled over onto her cheeks. "Protect
her
? Who protected Michael? Who the hell protected him? You? You were probably the one that put the cuffs on him. Why didn't you shoot him when you had the chance? Why wait?"

"Now, hold on a second--" I started.

"I can't believe you've got the guts to come here and after what you did."

"Layla, what are you talking about?"

She pointed a long, burgundy-colored nail at me. "Don't call me Layla. You don't know me, you have no idea who I am. Now get the hell off my property before I call the police."

"Look, if you can tell me--"

Her voice went up three octaves and the skin around her lips went bloodless as she bawled, "Get off my property, you son of a bitch."

I put my hands up and backed away from the door. "All right. Calm down. I'm leaving."

She watched as we back-stepped all the way to the fence. I wasn't as afraid of Wheeler jumping out and shooting me now as I was that Layla might do it instead. We went through the gate and out, walking up the road with long, steady steps. The door slammed shut behind us and I glanced back. She'd gone inside. I thought I saw the blinds move, but couldn't be sure.

We walk back to my car, got in, and sat.

"That went well," Julie said.

"Did you see her face?" I asked. "She wasn't faking any of that."

"You don't think she knows where he is?"

"I don't think so. No one pretends that well. I thought she was going to have a stroke."

"It could be she's angry that we've found her out. Her asshole brother gets her involved in something illegal and now the cops are on her."

I thought about it, then shook my head. "I want to believe that, but there wasn't any panic, no shocked innocence. She went straight into full-on fury."

Fifteen minutes later, we were still sitting there in the dark, trying to make the math work, and suddenly aware that we'd have to either drive back to DC or find a hotel for the night, when the porch light came on. We leaned forward and peered through the windshield. Layla came out of the house, closed and locked the door, and walked to the Kia. On the way, she squinted, giving the yard a hard looking-over, as though I might be crouching behind the plastic deer. She decided the coast was clear and got in the Kia. It wheezed to life, and backup lights winked white, then red as she backed out of the driveway and headed towards town.

"This could be our break," I said to Julie.

"Or she could be going to Wal-Mart."

"I'll take that chance," I said. I counted to ten, started the car, and followed.

It wasn't the hardest tail I've ever done. Traffic was non-existent and the tadpole-colored car was like a neon light bobbing ahead of me, though Layla drove fast and so recklessly that I had to scoot through two red lights in a row to keep from losing her. She skirted the downtown historic and through several suburban neighborhoods, eventually turning down a wide, tree-lined lane named Abernathy Road.

Julie was quiet, watching the road with an intense stare, but I could guess what she was thinking: maybe a cautious Michael Wheeler--aware that someone might know about Layla and was watching her house--wasn't living with her, he was simply holed up nearby. She could be bringing him food and money once a week. Maybe Julie was right, maybe the reaction I'd seen from her was anger that she'd been dragged into her brother's mess, and we'd spooked Layla into running straight to him. We might be heading directly for whatever shitty motel or rent-by-the-week apartment Wheeler was using as his base.

Abernathy turned from a sedate suburban boulevard into a true country road with steep dips and sharp curves. The surface twinkled with frost. Pastures and meadows flanked the road, their few remaining corn stalks showing up stark and skeletal against the sky. Cars were scarce and I was forced to give the Kia a quarter-mile lead if I didn't want to blow the tail. I continued to give Layla room until we topped a short rise and I squinted into the dark. There was no sign of Layla's taillights in the distance. I squeezed the steering wheel tight and stepped on the gas.

"Wait," Julie said. "Did you see that?"

"What? See what?"

"There was a sign back there. Maybe a driveway, you were going too fast."

"Shit," I said, slowing down.

Decision time. She could be dead ahead and putting miles between us. Or two hundred yards behind us and fading fast. I came to a stop, made a quick three-point turn and headed back.

"It's up here," Julie said. "There, across from that tree."

I saw it now, a modest white sign with cramped black lettering. Two weathered pillars and a rusty gate formed an entrance for a driveway. I pulled in slowly so we could read the sign. "Abernathy Memorial Garden."

"Damn it," Julie said. "This isn't it."

"No, wait. Look," I said, pointing in front of the car. Tire tracks cut through the frost and headed up the drive. "Let's take a chance."

The gravel driveway split into three paths after the gate. I followed the tracks down the right-most path. Lamps lit the drive every hundred feet, so I turned off the headlights and crept forward, glancing left and right among the headstones, crypts, and memorials. A breeze blew through the grounds, tearing the remaining leaves off the oaks and maples and scattering them in front of my car. A man-shaped silhouette, standing at ground level, almost stopped my heart until I saw it was a statue of a mournful Confederate soldier--hat in his hands, rifle at his feet--framed against the night sky. After ten minutes of creeping, Layla's car, parked in the puddle of light emanating from one of the street lamps, came into view. I stabbed the brakes, then backed up behind a bend and turned the car off.

"Not what I was expecting," I said.

"I'll second that," Julie said.

We got out, careful to close the doors softly. It was cold. Using headstones for cover, we crept towards the Kia, staying in the shadows and scanning the ground to make sure that we didn't slip on decaying flowers or drop-kick the miniature brass urns that decorated some of the headstones. The musty smell of rotting leaves filled my nose. We sidled up to the Kia, but from twenty feet away, I could see it was empty.

Julie sighed, then cut it off suddenly. She leaned towards me to whisper. Her breath billowed in the air. "Do you hear that?"

I held my breath and listened. The wind had picked up and rattled the few remaining leaves on the trees. Then, I heard it.

Crying.

We followed the sound. Fifty or sixty feet from the Kia, we spotted Layla squatting near a headstone. A flashlight on the ground pointed straight up, illuminating her. Her head was bowed, held in one hand, while the other hand rested on the ground, supporting her weight. She swayed in the awkward position, rocking back and forth in time to her sobs.

Julie tugged at my sleeve and we retreated to a nearby tombstone for cover. The marble was cold under my hand. I looked over my shoulder a few times, feeling exposed. We watched while Layla's crying wound down. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, then got on her hands and knees to clear the headstone of leaves and debris. When it seemed she'd done all she could for the grave, she hauled herself to her feet, brushed at her pants, and headed for the car. I peered over the tombstone as she started the Kia up and pulled away, heading out of the cemetery via the driveway loop, away from my car. She took a left at the gate and I watched her headlights rise and fall with the dips in the road until they faded away completely.

We moved forward, but without a flashlight of our own, we had to use the tiny bit of lamp light and my memory to get me to the headstone she'd knelt in front of. We looked down into blackness. It was impossible to read in the dark. I swore. Had the chemo destroyed all of my brain cells? I had a flashlight in the car and I hadn't thought to grab it.

I turned to go get it when Julie stopped me. "Singer, wait."

She pulled out her cell, which had a large screen and flicked it on. The light wasn't great, but all I needed to do was make out a name and maybe a date. She turned the weak electronic light on the headstone. Inscribed in brass on the flat headstone were the last words I'd expected to see:

Michael A. Wheeler

1968-1997

Beloved Brother

"Jesus," I said, stunned.

"What the hell is this?" Julie asked, her voice hoarse.

I said nothing.

"Singer?"

I traced the letters with my fingers, feeling light-headed and strange. "I don't know."

"If he's… Marty, who's doing all of this? Who's following Amanda?"

"I don't
know
, I said."

I crouched there with my brain racing, trying to reorganize years of memories and assumptions that had been set into solid, inflexible lines while simultaneously trying to assimilate how it changed our situation right now. All the pent-up feelings of guilt and anger now had question marks beside them. Not erased. Put into doubt. If I could believe the writing under my hand, Wheeler had still gotten away with something, but not for very long. And whoever was torturing Amanda now probably knew something about that.