Fallen SEAL Legacy (28 page)

“You can’t just take them out of the home without knowing where they’ll go. Foster care isn’t always the answer,” one man scoffed.

“I don’t have time to interview all the potential homes. That’s not my job,” the other answered.

“Maybe His Highness could donate some of his considerable salary to bankroll another part-time position. It’s the least he could do. He’s getting all the awards and plaques. That way he could
earn
them.”

Libby saw the other man’s eyes grow wide as her father positioned himself behind the man who just spoke.

“I gather I didn’t have your vote, then, Charlie.” Dr. Brownlee said to the back of the man’s head.  Charlie jumped, turned and mustered a brittle smile.

“Austin, it wasn’t what you think,” he gushed.

“Just tell me, Charlie. Is it the plaque you object to, or my
considerable
salary?” Libby could see Charlie was trying to think of something to say. “A salary that most doctors right out of college would turn down. Or, are you thinking of my
private
practice?” Her father frowned, and then continued, “And how the hell do you know how much money I make working for the Foundation?”

Brownlee appeared to leave the pause long and awkward on purpose. Then he gathered himself, and poured out the charm in a smooth voice thick as honey. “We have to trust the system. Way from perfect, but it’s all we have. You’re right, for once. We do need more caseworkers, not admin or doctors. You can ask our contributors. Everyone’s spread thin these days with all the budget cuts.”

Brownlee tossed back his drink and turned to the bar for another while his two colleagues fidgeted.  “Not so much ice this time,” Brownlee whispered to the bartender as a co-conspirator.

Libby noticed the bartender roll his eyes, dropping two cubes into a fresh glass and filling it with Dr. Brownlee’s choice of Scotch.

“Sir.” He held the drink out, with military bearing. Brownlee grabbed it without saying a word and turn back to his guests.

Libby saw her dad finally notice her and raise his glass in salute. After taking a long sip, he addressed his friends. “Gus and Charlie, I want to introduce you to my daughter, Libby.”

The two men looked like they wanted to be anywhere but at Brownlee’s side, being introduced to his daughter. Libby had a hard time taking her eyes off the drink in her father’s hand. It was nearly gone already.

She leaned in, “Dad—“

“Libby,” her dad interrupted, “Dr. Statler and Dr. Shane.” He pointed to them one at a time.  “I went to school with Charlie at Stanford.”

“Nice to meet you.” She shook their hands. “This is my friend, Calvin Cooper.”

“Austin, you can be glad she takes after Carla,” Dr. Shane said. Everyone laughed.

“Pleasure, Libby,” Dr. Statler said as he bowed and left with Dr. Shane to go find their seats.

“We should sit down too, Dad,” Libby said as she locked elbows and pulled him toward the stage. She could hear Cooper’s footsteps following closely behind.

Half the room had seated themselves and were being served. As they stepped up on the dais, Carla was talking to a white-jacketed server who was pouring white wine. He bent over her with lavish gestures and laid her white cloth napkin across her lap, but his fingers lingered. Carla giggled. She was blushing.

“Are you through?” Dr. Brownlee boomed, addressing the waiter. It caused a momentary pause in the conversations below. Libby’s father sat down, bumping the short black-vested server, and apologized a little too loudly.

Dr. Brownlee leaned forward toward Coop, who was already seated next to
Libby, at the doctor’s left. “Probably not the type of dinner you’re used to, son.”

Libby could feel Cooper flinch. She squeezed his hand, which had buried itself close to her thigh on her padded chair.

“You’re right.” Coop leveled a sharp glare at Dr. Brownlee. “Had to borrow the shoes, sir, and they hurt like hell.” He dropped his eyes to Libby’s lips and she could feel him soften.

Brownlee shrugged and dove into his Waldorf salad.

Cooper ate everything put before him, including the basket of bread after everyone else passed on it. He struck up a conversation with an older gentleman on his left Libby recognized as Dr. Fredrick Dolan, a former partner of her father’s. She presumed that perhaps Dr. Dolan was going to introduce her father and present his award.

Libby’s dad whispered to her, “Brownie, tell that sailor of yours he’d better be careful or he’ll get a bill in the morning.”

“I’m sure Cooper can take good care of himself,” she answered.

“How many psychiatrists do you think he’s used to talking to?”

Libby looked at Cooper’s thick neck and shoulders, the back of his head and chuckled in response, “I’m going to guess none.”

“I rest my case, then,” her dad said.

The dishes were cleared. Coffee was brought out, along with thin slices of chocolate torte. The lights dimmed and the crowd settled back into their seats for the presentation honoring her father. The gentle tinkling of silverware and coffee cups was a comforting background to the low rumble of polite conversation.

Dr. Dolan stood up, walked past Libby and lightly traced his fingers over her shoulders, which made her jump. Then he slapped her dad on the back as he made his way to the podium.  A water glass and spoon was in his left hand. He pinged the glass and the sound was repeated throughout the room until all were focused on the stage.

“Welcome to the annual Lavender House Jewel of the Bay awards banquet.” The crowd was still. A photographer’s flash blinded everyone at the head table momentarily.

“We’ve prepared a short slide show presentation, a little departure from our usual menu of boring speeches. And Austin,” he leaned toward Dr. Brownlee as he tilted his head and winked, “if you don’t like the pictures, you’ll have to take it up with your wife.”

The room erupted in titters.

Carla looked at Dr. Brownlee, smiled and shrugged.

Libby could hear her dad ask, “What the hell did you do?”

Libby felt Cooper’s rigid attention. He had dropped her hand and had his left hand swinging free at his other side. He jerked as a white screen was lowered behind them. Just before it stopped unrolling, she saw him dip his head and search behind it before the back of the stage was obscured. Recorded music filled the room, at first blaring, then adjusted down. She recognized some of her father’s favorites: Credence Clearwater and the Grateful Dead.

The entire head table turned to watch the screen behind them. Pictures flashed of a handsome young dark-haired man with the distinctive jawline and lanky frame she knew so well. Her mother looked just as beautiful as she was now, in a peasant blouse with hand embroidery, her shiny brown hair reaching all the way to her waist. There was a picture of her dad with Libby as a toddler, while he smoked a pipe in his study. Libby bounced on his knee and waved at the picture taker, presumably her mother. There were pictures of Libby and her brother, Neil, at the beach with their parents. In every photo, Austin was either smoking a pipe or had his nose in a book. His face seldom bore a smile, as if the picture-taking were somehow painful for him.

There was a yellowed photo of her father and Dr. Dolan in front of a bungalow with a sign out front
Psychotherapy Associates.
She remembered playing as a preschooler on the wooden floor of that older post-war building, and recalled the white and black octagon-tiled bathroom. Libby remembered the bathroom windows had wavy glass with thin wires embedded in them.

Dr. Dolan leaned forward and spoke to her father. “Should never have sold that place. We’d have made a fortune, Austin.”

Her dad was staring off into a dark corner, biting his lip absent-mindedly.

One picture took Libby’s breath away. It was of the six of them. Libby’s father and mother with a teenage Libby and Neil. Next to them stood a childless couple, Dr. Dolan and his wife. They were childless because their daughter had committed suicide the summer before. Jennifer had been in Libby’s class and the two girls had been friends. A year later, Mrs. Dolan herself had a heart attack and died. It was an odd addition to the happy biography of the man they were honoring tonight. Jennifer had been one of Dr. Brownlee’s patients.

“What’s wrong, Libby?” Coop whispered in her ear.

“I’ll tell you later,” she murmured. She noticed her dad was looking at his lap.

Several more pictures followed, including one of the costumes her parents had worn to a Halloween party at the Lavender house. Dr. Brownlee was dressed as a very pregnant woman and her mother was dressed as the physician in a white lab coat. Making the picture more humorous was the fact that Dr. Brownlee was drinking a pink cocktail and looked like he’d had several already.

“Where did you get these?” he asked Carla loudly enough for the whole table to hear him.

“That wasn’t one I gave him,” she said and looked back up to the picture behind them.

The last frame appeared as the music ended. Dr. Brownlee and Dr. Dolan were cutting a light purple ribbon tied around the front door of their little non-profit clinic, with the distinctive purple sign affixed to the top of the building. The logo was filled with painted flowers blooming on green lacy vines. A small group of pregnant teenage girls was sitting to the right on freshly painted wooden steps. 

Libby curled her finger and Cooper lent his ear. “After his daughter’s death, he wanted to do something for the young unmarried women of San Diego County. My dad helped him acquire this building and get the clinic started. Dad got the investors together.”

Coop nodded in understanding.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Three years ago, when we opened, I was given this award,” Dr. Dolan began. “I suggested Austin receive it, but he turned it down.
Turned it down!
” Dolan leaned back on his heels as the white screen rose with a faint mechanical buzzing noise. The lights had been turned up on the raised platform, but the gallery was still dark.

Dr. Dolan spoke again. “He took his name off the nomination list two more times, ladies and gentlemen.
Always
selfless.
Always
thinking about the other guy, aren’t you, Austin?”

Libby noticed how her dad squirmed and was breathing hard. He was bouncing his right knee until Carla laid her hand on it to stop the motion.

The floodlights gave Dr. Dolan a ghastly pale coloring. Libby noticed how his skin had aged, red veins and lines scarring his fleshy jowls. Sweat dripped from his jaw line onto his white shirt. Under vacant dark eyes were caverns of pain. He had a twitch she had never noticed before.

“He’s one in a million, ladies and gentlemen. The last of the really good men. So without further ado, I give you Lavender House’s 2012 Jewel of the Bay, Dr. Austin Mercer Brownlee.”

The crowd erupted in applause. Libby could see flashes from the dark gallery and glitter of jewelry here and there. Dark bodies were silhouetted against the lighting in the lobby of the hotel beyond. The table votive candles did little to help her see the faces of the audience.

Cooper was at full attention. She could smell sweat soaking into his blue suit. He had beads of perspiration on his upper lip. His breathing was full and raspy.

As Dr. Brownlee stood to address the group shrouded in darkness, Libby saw the deep crease on her father’s forehead, punctuated by raised eyebrows. He didn’t look like a man happy to receive an honor.

He looked like prey.

Chapter 30

Detective Clark Riverton watched the crowd from a corner in the ballroom, back in the shadows. These people always made him nervous. Movers and shakers and people who could end his career with a phone call, and nothing the union could do would save him because they were in bed with them, too.

He’d watched Libby dance with the guy she was definitely involved with. It didn’t take a detective’s eye to see the comfortable way in which their bodies glided across the dance floor. She was a gushing young bride, if he wasn’t mistaken. He’d have to talk to them again about cavorting with someone who was a suspect. He thought he’d made himself pretty clear earlier.

Hormones.

He’d seen girls fall for these sailors before. His sister had been one of them.  Thought she’d snagged a SEAL, but in the end he’d been killed in Afghanistan. She was left with a broken heart and a little girl she had to raise on her own.

The SEAL married her in spite of the fact that they didn’t love each other, but at least the guy tried to be a good dad. Give him credit for trying to do the right thing. Clark knew his sister made the young man’s life hell. The guy asked Riverton to be his best man, but he declined. He always felt a little bad about that.

Riverton’s legs were tired, but he didn’t want to go expose himself sitting out in the open at one of the tables, and he didn’t want to hang out with the wait staff or dirty dishes. He grabbed an unused chair and kept to the shadows.

The women were lovely. If he were a younger man, he’d be interested. He had convenience girlfriends to take care of his needs. He didn’t do long term relationships. Saw too many ones that proved destructive. Besides, he knew a lot of the people here were not nearly as happy as they made out to be.

Demons. Everyone has demons.

His sister’s kid was a sweet girl, a little shy. But then, living with his sister wouldn’t be the easiest. And now his sister was obsessed with doing all kinds of new husband interviews. Riverton knew she was entertaining men at her house overnight, and there was something just wrong about that. Her attempts to find a replacement daddy for his niece were bound to be hard on the little girl. Wasn’t a good thing for a seven-year-old to witness. Besides, his niece was the one who had loved her daddy more than anyone else. Of course the kid would be shy. She probably still missed her dad.

He thought about the tats his brother-in-law had, just like the ones Coop and his buddies had. Maybe they’d served with him.

Now he knew many of the SEALs got the same tats. So that meant the perp hounding the Brownlee family was a SEAL. More than likely ex-SEAL, since it didn’t make sense otherwise. It definitely was someone who had a big beef with someone.