Bad Games 2 - Vengeful Games (13 page)

A third officer came out of the kitchen holding a cup of coffee. He extended his hand and Patrick shook it.

“Sergeant Bennett,” he said.

“Patrick Lambert.” He motioned towards the sofa where Amy was still hugging Audrey. “That’s my wife Amy—Bob’s daughter.”

Amy glanced up at Bennett, and the sergeant immediately took off his hat and nodded.

Amy kissed Audrey, whispered into her mother’s ear, then stood and joined Patrick and Sergeant Bennett. The female officer resumed comforting Audrey.

“What exactly happened?” Amy asked, wiping away tears.

The sergeant motioned the couple to join him in the kitchen. Patrick and Amy both nodded and followed.

“So what exactly happened?” Amy repeated.

Sergeant Bennett was curt but professional. “Your father went off one of the embankments on Woodmere Road. Car was upended when we found it by the river.”

“And the other car?” Patrick said.

Bennett shook his head. “As of now, it looks like no other car was involved.” He nudged his chin towards the kitchen window. It was fairly dark when Patrick and Amy had arrived, but dawn was now seeping in. “We’re going to have a better look in an hour or so to confirm.”

“I don’t get it then,” Amy said. “If there was no other car…?”

Sergeant Bennett glanced at Patrick as though looking for support.

Amy said, “Look, I know he was drinking, okay? But, my dad, he …” Bennett opened his mouth to speak, but Amy suddenly continued, cutting him off with: “He was a
good drunk driver.
” She laughed pathetically at her own words. “I know how insane that sounds, but my dad—” Her voice cracked and she stopped.

“Mrs. Lambert,” Bennett began, placing his coffee cup on the kitchen table. “I knew Bob. He was a good man. But he did like to indulge. Nothing wrong with that … except for when it’s time to head home. Now, I know you’re upset—and you have my deepest sympathies, you truly do—but I’m sure a rational woman such as yourself can agree that you can only play with a loaded gun so many times …”

Amy looked at the floor. When she lifted her head, she asked: “You’re still going back to look again though, right? Back to Woodmere?”

“Yes, we are. But, Mrs. Lambert?”

Amy kept her eyes on the sergeant but said nothing, just folded her arms across her chest: a guarded gesture for him to continue.

“I’m quite certain we won’t find anything new,” Bennett said. “I don’t say that to upset or discourage you—I say it because I owe it to you to be honest. I don’t want to instill any false hope. Your father’s blood alcohol level was very high. Woodmere Road, as I’m sure you know, is notoriously treacherous—
especially
at night. Now if you take those facts into consideration and look—”

“How did he die?” Amy interrupted.

Patrick squeezed Amy’s shoulder and said, “Amy …”

She shrugged him off. “How did he die?”

Bennett said, “Your mother already made a positive ID, Amy.”

“Why can’t I know how my father died?”

“His neck was broken,” Bennett said evenly.

Amy took a sharp breath and looked away. Patrick tried putting his hand back on her shoulder. She let him this time. Still looking away, Amy gave one small appreciative nod and said, “Thank you.”

With a sympathetic face, Bennett said, “You’re welcome.” He put his hat back on and tipped it to both Amy and Patrick. “I’ll be in touch. I can reach you here?”

“Yeah,” Patrick said.

Bennett frowned for a second. “Audrey mentioned she had grandchildren?”

“They’re with my parents,” Patrick said.

Bennett tipped his hat again and left the kitchen. Patrick could hear him give more condolences to Audrey in the living room before he told the female officer they were headed back to Woodmere. He heard the front door open and close. The house was now exceptionally quiet. Amy’s head was down, her eyes glazed—likely trying to process events that could not and would not be processed for some time.

“Baby?” Patrick said.

Amy blinked from her daze but didn’t look at him. “I should go be with my mother,” she said, beginning to walk past him.

Patrick stopped her march and pulled her close. His chest burned with helplessness as she sunk into him and began to weep. Patrick wished for the goddamned time machine again.

Chapter 24

Father and daughter sat across from one another in a small diner in Harrisburg—Monica drinking coffee, John shoveling down enough food for three men. They were both tired and needed rest, but the drug of adrenaline from last night’s event was still surging; sleep would be too difficult right now.

“You’re not going to eat anything?” John asked, his mouth crammed with eggs and toast.

Monica shook her head and sipped her coffee. John shrugged and continued eating. Last night had gone incredibly well. As individuals they excelled at what they did. As a team they were downright frightening. Staging the scene, posing the body, eliminating all traces, all tracks. It seemed almost effortless, and with a result that was flawless: According to the message that had recently come over Monica’s scanner, Bob Corcoran had killed himself by driving off an embankment on Woodmere Road. He had been intoxicated. End of story.

“I want to find out about the funeral,” Monica said.

John raised an eyebrow, chased a mouthful of pancakes down with milk. “You think we should risk it?”

Monica looked disappointed with her father. “There’s no risk,” she said.

“I’m not saying we couldn’t get away with it—we’ve just got a lot of shit on our plate. We need to be looking ahead.”

Monica lifted her coffee and spoke just before the rim touched her mouth. “I’m going to the funeral.”

John took a bite of his eggs and nodded. He understood. Watching them mourn, tasting their pain, knowing you were the one responsible for it all. The act of killing Bob Corcoran was only foreplay.

Chapter 25

There was not much to say on the ride home. All the facts were in, and Patrick certainly wasn’t about to lecture Amy on the dangers of drinking of driving, not if he expected to get laid again before his 40
^th
birthday. Besides, Amy was grieving, but hardly ignorant to the truth; she knew the fault lay with her father.

Patrick had sensed anger from Amy when her brother Eric arrived from Akron shortly before they left. He’d sensed it from Eric too. Nothing was blatantly voiced between the two siblings; they shared this anger with the occasional glance or passive-aggressive comment intentionally flown over their mother’s radar, yet it appeared in flashing red to a receptive codependent like Patrick, and the message on this radar had been quite clear: Their mother was not strong. It was their father’s responsibility to look after her, his recklessness had needlessly taken his own life and left Mom alone. And they were pissed, and sad, and pissed.

Patrick periodically laid a subtle eye on Amy as he drove, gauging her face, trying to determine if his instincts were correct. For now, he read only sorrow. He wondered when anger—voiced this time—might appear. Would there be a third phase after that? Acceptance, maybe? No. Amy was strong. Christ, strong was an insult. His wife was a goddamned oak. He was fairly certain she had accepted her father’s death shortly after hearing it confirmed by Sergeant Bennett when he’d phoned back earlier this afternoon. Perhaps anger and sorrow were the only two phases here, one as easily interchangeable for the other, depending on the day.

He placed a hand on her leg. “How you doing, baby?”

She stared straight ahead as she spoke. Her voice was neither angry nor sad. It was almost a dreamy, lazy tone, like talking after a long day at work.

“I don’t know,” she said. “The usual, I guess.”

“The usual?”

She shrugged. “Well how do people usually feel after a parent dies?”

“I would imagine it’s different for everybody.”

She shrugged again. “I guess.”

“So how are
you
doing?” he said.

She looked at him. “I don’t know.” Her voice was still lazy, lacking inflection. “What do you want me to say?”

Truth be told, Patrick wasn’t sure. Usually Amy didn’t need prodding in voicing her anxieties. He rubbed her leg softly, and in a tone even softer: “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. Just checking on ya. That’s all”

She rolled to the left and laid her head against the seat. “I’m just so drained.” She closed her eyes. “We’ve been through so much …”

Patrick rubbed her leg some more. “I know.”

They drove the rest of the way home in silence.

Chapter 26

Bob Corcoran was cremated while Patrick and Amy were back in Valley Forge, collecting Carrie and Caleb.

Not the most devout of families, the Lamberts still periodically spoke of God and heaven with their children. Apparently Grandpa Corcoran had been called up to heaven sooner than expected to help God with making angels laugh. Patrick had thought up that little gem on the spot, and it did the job in satisfying Caleb with a perfectly logical explanation. Carrie was not so easily swayed. Her trademark skepticism shot forth an unrelenting supply of dreaded
why?
s and
but why?
s after each explanation, and it took a deeper pocket of gems from Patrick, and finally, some exasperated
just because
s from Amy before Carrie finally accepted the fact that Grandpa Corcoran wasn’t coming back.

The rest of the trip back to Harrisburg was quiet and sad.

Chapter 27

A modest church in Harrisburg was stuffed to capacity. Bob Corcoran was indeed a popular fellow. The service over, Amy now felt a pinch of guilt in thinking the condolence line would never end. She would have to accept a million sympathies from a million strangers—beer-and-whiskey-swilling men a good number of them, the cold truth that they could have easily been the ashes in her father’s urn never once flickering across their bulbous, red faces—before she could go home and get some sleep.

Patrick and Amy stood close together, Eric and his boyfriend of ten years next to them. Audrey at the very end. Carrie and Caleb were wandering about the church, interacting but not playing with the other children attending. Somehow their young minds, although not yet grasping the gravity of the situation, sensed that playing wasn’t right today.

Patrick leaned into Amy’s ear before the next sympathizer approached. “How you doing, honey?”

They were holding hands and she squeezed his and whispered: “Tired.”

Patrick looked at the remaining line; it was still deep. “Your dad was a popular guy.”

Amy only nodded.

A balding, heavy-set man approached. Patrick bent to Amy’s ear again. “That’s the bartender from Gilley’s,” he said.

Amy turned her back to the man and said to Patrick: “Maybe I should thank him for getting my dad drunk enough to kill himself.”

“
Honey,
” Patrick quickly said with a hush face, his eyes tracing the church to see if anyone had heard.

Amy gave an
I don’t give a shit
shrug, turned back towards the bartender, and did not acknowledge his gratitude.

More people came and went down the line. Amy glanced at her mother. She was not crying. Denial? In shock? Flipped her damn cookie? Amy moved a step behind Patrick, leaned forward and tugged her mother’s elbow. “How you doing, Mom?”

Audrey Corcoran smiled. “It’s a lovely turnout, isn’t it? Everyone loved your father.”

Amy said, “It’s okay to cry, Mom.”

Audrey looked almost shocked at the suggestion. “Oh, Amy, stop it.”

Amy knew Patrick overheard. “What the hell?” she whispered to him after returning to his side.

“Honey, she
did
cry. She’s been crying for days,” he said.

“But this is his
funeral.
”

Patrick rubbed the small of her back. “Everyone grieves differently.”

Amy took in Patrick’s words and looked at her mother again. She seemed proud. Beaming, almost. And it all kind of made sense. Her mother lived in a bubble—nothing bad ever truly seeped in; she wouldn’t allow it. Whenever bad news was given, responses were automatic, uplifting, and painfully empty.

“Everything’ll be fine, honey, you’ll see.”

“I pray for you every night, honey, you’ll be fine.”

“Oh well … what’re you gonna do? … it’ll be fine …”

When Amy and her family had returned from the ordeal at Crescent Lake, it was her father who had made the fuss.

“Goddamned sons of bitches, hope they rot in hell. Try and take my babies from me …”

Audrey had remained mostly quiet, save for a few of her automatic responses here and there. Most of her attention had been geared toward the children—likely because they were not capable of popping her bubble. Their youth did not threaten with questions or comments that demanded sincere feedback. They were happily distracted with sugar and television. And so was Audrey.

So looking now, Amy realized her mother was not in denial or shock or flipping her cookie. She was being herself, living in her world-less world. And so Amy reached behind Patrick and tugged her mother’s elbow again. “Sorry, Mom,” she said. “It
is
a lovely turnout.”

Audrey smiled at her daughter as though she had complimented her dress, then turned to face the next person in line.

Amy took a huge breath, cheeks puffing, then let it out slow. She glanced towards the large oak table by the exit. People were standing around the table, smiling and pointing at pictures of her father. Some were bent forward signing the grandiose guest book Patrick had bought.

“People are signing the guest book,” she said to him.

Patrick smiled down at his wife and kissed her forehead.

A big man stepped in front of Amy and Patrick. He was an inch or two shorter than Patrick’s six feet-three inches, but had Patrick well beat on shoulder width and chest depth. Amy thought the big man looked uncomfortable in a coat and tie, as did many of the other men. But unlike them, whose buttons and seams struggled to contain bellies and chins, this man looked as if he could tear his attire clean off his torso with nothing more than a quick flex of his muscles.