Cheated By Death (16 page)

“Yeah.” What else could I say? I looked back
at my father, frowned, then turned and headed for the exit.

I’d lied
to Patty. I didn’t have to be
at work for a couple of hours. Instead, I took a drive, needing the
distraction.

Like old times in my job as an insurance
investigator, I checked out the addresses the phone company had
given me. Just as I’d thought: the crank calls to Richard’s phone
had been made from taverns, bars, and strip joints. I needed a
picture of Willie to flash to the bartenders—a description alone
wouldn’t cut it. I was pretty sure Brenda hadn’t saved photographic
souvenirs from her brief marriage. Too bad. It wasn’t likely anyone
working the day shift would’ve been at the bars when the calls had
been made, anyway. I’d have to come back at night.

The afternoon evaporated. I headed back
across town to go to work.

The Whole Nine Yards was busy for a Tuesday
night, usually the slowest night of the week. It had been a long
day, and I was wiped by ten o’clock, with another two
hours—minimum—before I could leave. I needed the money and was
damned glad it had been days since I’d had one of those
incapacitating headaches. That was about the only thing to keep me
from being gainfully employed. And keeping busy kept me from
thinking about other unpleasant situations—like my father
dying.

I was in back, getting a case of beer, when a
coarse, familiar voice called out, “What’s it take to get some
service around here?”

It was the pony-tailed man from the protest
line.

He wasn’t the same social scale as the rest
of the bar’s clientele. Still dressed in the same grubby,
grease-stained jacket, he sat on a stool at the bar, resting his
arms on the polished oak surface.

I set the case of Labatts on the floor beside
the fridge and straightened. “What can I get you,” I asked,
reminding myself that the customer’s always right.

“What you got on tap?”

He didn’t recognize me. Good. “Molson Golden,
Budweiser, and Coors Lite.”

“Gimme a Bud.”

I turned for the tap, poured the beer, and
gave it a generous head. He tossed a five on the bar. His nails
were bitten down to the quick, grime embedded in the skin. What was
he, a mechanic? I rang up the sale, set the change in front of him
and turned away, started putting the bottles in the fridge.

“Hey, I know you,” Pony-tail said, lighting a
cigarette —strictly illegal in public places in New York State.

“I don’t think so. And please put out your
smoke.”

“Yeah. You’re that Ass-cort I see at the
clinic couple times a week,” he said, ignoring my request. “The
nigger lover.”

The muscles in my arms tightened and I
straightened. My aversion to the phrase must’ve been plastered on
my face—which was just the reaction he’d hoped for.

“Yeah, you’re a big man taking care of that
baby-killing whore. Is she a good fuck?” he said, taking another
drag and exhaling. Heads turned in his direction,
eavesdropping.

I leaned over the bar and kept my voice low.
“Finish your beer and get your redneck ass out of here.”

He exhaled smoke into my face. “You can’t
tell me what to do,
nigger-lover
.”

“Have we got a problem here?” Tom, my boss,
asked. Though in his fifties, his years as a bouncer in other
people’s taverns had served him well. He was still capable of
beating the shit out a troublemaker. “Hey, pal, don’t’cha know it’s
illegal to smoke in a public place.”

“The gentleman was just getting ready to
leave,” I said.

“Am not. I haven’t drunk my beer yet.”

“Sir, we’ve got ladies at the bar. Your
language is not appreciated,” Tom grated.

Pony-tail straightened his shoulders and
stubbed out his cigarette on the oak bar. “Who’s gonna make me
leave?”

Tom grabbed his elbow and lifted him off the
stool. “Me.”

“Hey!” Pony-tail dug in his heels, but Tom
had no trouble dragging him to the exit.

“You asked for it!” he yelled at me over his
shoulder. “You shouldn’t a messed with me, man! I’ll make you
sorry!”

I went back to work, cleaning up behind the
bar, ignoring the other patrons’ stares and whispers. I studied the
glass and the cigarette butt sitting before me, hesitant to touch
them. But I couldn’t afford to lose the opportunity to gain some
insight into one of the protesters’ souls.

The glass had nothing. He hadn’t held it long
enough to leave a psychic signature. I dumped the beer down the
drain and left the glass to soak. I grabbed the cigarette filter
between my thumb and forefinger. Anger. Stupid, petty, fury. But I
couldn’t focus on the source. Maybe there was none.

I tossed it in the trash.

Tom came back in. “He got in his truck and
left. He won’t be back.”

I nodded, hoping he couldn’t see how the jerk
had shaken me. Of all the bars in Buffalo, why had Pony-tail chosen
to quench his thirst here?

When the basketball game ended after eleven,
the bar cleared out. A few stragglers watched a rerun of a
middleweight title fight while I washed glasses, then wiped down
all the tables. Near the end of the fourth round, Tom told me I
could leave.

Huddled in my jacket against the cold, I
headed for the bar’s tiny parking lot. It was twenty-three days
until the official start of winter—but what did Mother Nature know
about calendars?

My car was in the farthest spot but even in
the dim light I could make out the garish red lipstick against its
white exterior. The message wasn’t inspired. Pony-tail’s vocabulary
was extremely limited. The aura left behind was the same unfocused
anger. I kicked aside the glass from the smashed headlight,
grateful he’d taken his petty revenge out on the car and not
me.

I spent the next hour in a self-serve car
wash, scrubbing away the evidence. I was supposed to drive Brenda
to the Women’s Health Center in the morning. I didn’t want her to
see how low some asshole would stoop to show the depths of his
hatred.

My phone
never rang in the middle of
the night with prank calls or bad news from Patty. I got up at the
usual time, ready to take Brenda to the health center.

I tossed the envelope of prints I’d made over the
weekend onto the back seat of my car and started the engine. If
Brenda noticed the broken headlight, she didn’t mention it.
Instead, she chatted about the furniture she’d chosen for the
nursery. The words were right, but there was a forced cheerfulness
in her tone. Likewise, it was getting harder for me to fake a smile
of encouragement.

Emily Farrell was back on the protest
line—Pony-tail wasn’t. I parked the car and walked Brenda into the
clinic. On my way out I waved to Emily, received a shy smile from
her and hateful glares from other protesters on line who shouted
promises of fire and brimstone to the damned who entered the
clinic.

I hiked to the coffee shop down the street,
got a couple of cups of hot chocolate to go, and headed back to the
line.

“Can we talk for a few minutes?” I asked.

Emily’s smile was tentative. “Sure.”

Some of the women glared at her—like she was
fraternizing with the enemy—but Emily set her sign down on the
ground as I handed her a cup. We walked down the block to a bench
that overlooked Main Street.

“The whipped cream is probably all melted by
now.”

“That’s okay,” she said, removing the cover
and taking a sip of the steaming cocoa. “Mmm. Good.”

“Where’s Hannah?”

“Preschool. She loves playing with the other
kids.” She eyed the envelope on the bench beside me. “Is that for
me?”

“Oh. Sorry. Yeah. I hope you like it.”

She opened the clasp and took out the photo.
I’d dipped it in sepia toner, shading it a warm brown, and then
mounted it on black art board.

“Oh, it’s beautiful. Thank you.” She studied
the picture for a long moment. It was good, but then I’d had an
equally good subject. My lens had caught Emily as she’d crouched to
adjust her daughter’s hat, her smile filled with a mother’s
love.

“You’re welcome.”

She replaced it in the envelope, and set it
beside her.

Traffic whizzed past and we sat for long
moments in awkward silence. I cleared my throat. “Why do you come
to the health center?”

She swallowed, her mouth going slack. “A few
years back I almost made a terrible mistake.”

“Hannah?”

She nodded. “My parents wanted me to have an
abortion. They said I was ruining my life. The truth is they were
embarrassed. They didn’t want their friends to know how their
daughter had shamed them.”

“But you didn’t go through with it.”

She shook her head. “It would’ve been easy.
Just make an appointment and show up. But I wanted to keep my baby.
I was a sophomore in college. Old enough to know better. My
boyfriend dumped me. My father threw me out of the house and I
ended up on welfare.”

“Things are better now, though, right?”

She nodded. “I finished my degree last
semester, but I haven’t found a decent-paying job, yet. I get some
child support from Hannah’s father. Right now I work part time in a
book store.”

“Sounds like a busy life.”

She nodded. “Not half as exciting as working
for the newspaper.”

“I’m just freelancing,” I said, kind of the
truth. Had Pony-tail told the others he’d seen me?

She sipped her cocoa as I gave her a much
abbreviated version of my life history. If I could figure out a way
to touch her, I might get more information out of her.

“You’re here on a regular basis,” I pressed,
hoping my tone seemed casual.

“It’s part of our prayer vigil. Some of our
older members can’t take the cold, that’s why I’ve been here more
lately.”

“Just how organized is your group? Do you
have regular meetings?”

“We meet weekly at the church. Then there’s
the phone chain,” she answered. She looked at me with sudden
suspicion. “We’re not a bunch of kooks. And we’re not
dangerous.”

“Are you sure of that? Have any of those
people ever been arrested?”

“We take that chance every time we picket.
Being arrested doesn’t mean you’re violent.”

“I guess that depends on why you’re arrested.
Your movement hasn’t always been violence free. Acid drops, clinics
bombed, doctors and nurses shot. And it’s insidious. It starts out
with small things—like writing slogans in lipstick on people’s
cars. Egging their windshields.”

“I heard about that, but I don’t know who did
those things. It wasn’t any of us.”

“Are you sure?”

“No one in our group believes in violence. We
believe in the sanctity of
all
life!”

“What about that guy with the Pony-tail?”

“Lou Holtzinger?”

“Yeah. He vandalized my car last night.”

“How do you know it was him?”

“He came to the bar where I work part-time.
He left me his calling card. Is he really a member of your
church?”

She looked away. “He hasn’t been with us
long. Just since he—” She lowered her voice. “—got out of
jail.”

“For what?”

She wouldn’t look at me. “Stealing cars.
Something like that.” She stared at her quickly cooling cocoa. “He
joined us in good faith. If he’s breaking the law I’ll . . . I’ll
have to tell Reverend Linden. He’ll have to decide what to do.”

“Maybe the police should talk to Bob
Linden.”

Emily stood, her cheeks flushing. “Look, I’m
tired of being branded a nut just because in the past some people
in the movement got carried away. Hannah’s the best thing that ever
happened to me. I just want to make sure other women don’t make a
terrible mistake.”

“And I admire your conviction.”

She looked away, biting her lip as her eyes
welled with tears.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I’m only here because I’m
worried about my friend. Maybe we’re here for different reasons,
but we can still be friends, can’t we?” I held out my hand to her,
willing her to take it.

Emily looked down at me under her fringe of
blonde bangs. “I guess so.” She reached for my hand, wrapped her
cool fingers around mine.

I opened myself to her fading anger,
embarrassment, and curiosity—about me. Her pulse was racing, her
sudden smile shy. Too soon she withdrew her hand, sat down again,
and avoided my gaze.

I’d pushed her too hard, too fast, and I
hadn’t gotten any information on Bob Linden—but I did have
Pony-tail’s name.

It was time to make nice once again.

“I’d like to take your portrait sometime.
It’s not my specialty, but I think you’d make a great subject. I
could take one of you and Hannah. Sort of an early Christmas
present. What do you say?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Fair enough.”

She looked to where her friends were still
shuffling in a circle on the sidewalk across the street from the
Women’s Health Center. “I’d better get back.”

“Sure.” I stood, tossed our cups into a
nearby trash barrel. “Can I see you again?”

She looked at me shyly. “I’ll be here
Thursday. Maybe we could go for coffee.”

I gave her a smile. “I’ll plan on it.”

Sam Nielsen
was at his desk at the
newspaper. After a little persuasion, in the form of coffee and a
vending machine candy bar, he did a search of the paper’s database
and let me read everything they had on Robert Linden. He’d been
married to the same woman for thirty-seven years, had four
children, and six grandchildren. He was an expert marksman, a
decorated Gulf War veteran—no doubt the cause of his Post-Traumatic
Stress Syndrome—active in his church and the Boy Scouts. Not very
helpful.

Notes attached to the file indicated Linden
had once been considered militant, but after some of the more
publicized violence, he’d softened his rhetoric and was now
considered a moderate.