Gone Too Far (11 page)

Noah didn’t know what to do.

So he did what he always did when he didn’t know what to do. He ran to get his grandfather.

Walt came into the living room as fast as he could with his bad leg, but when he saw Roger’s battered face, he stopped short and made a sound like someone had punched him in the stomach.

He scooped the little boy up—and at that moment, with tears running down his face, Roger looked every inch a little lost boy. Walt held him on his lap, his big arms around him. He just held him and rocked him and murmured that it was all right, that Roger had found a place to come where he’d be safe.

It wasn’t until Walt pulled Noah down onto the sofa and wrapped one of his big arms around him that he realized he was crying, too.

They sat there together for a long time.

“What do I do?” Roger finally asked, in a very small voice. “I don’t want to pretend you’re not my friends until he goes back out on the road. But . . . I’m scared of him. I’m such a coward.”

Noah held his breath, hoping that his grandfather understood how terribly hard it must have been for tough-as-nails Roger to admit that.

“We could call the police—”

“No.”
Roger was adamant. “I won’t do that. He’s my
father
.”

“Then you should stay close to your home for a week or so—until he leaves town again,” Walt advised.

“Let him win?” Roger scoffed. “No way. I’m coming over here whether he likes it or not. He can just beat the shit out of me every night. I don’t care.”

“But I care,” Walter told him. “And Noah does, too.” He sighed. “Has Noah told you why I have this limp?”

Roger shook his head.

“Young Ringo, I’m stunned,” Walt teased. “Am I supposed to believe that you never so much as asked?”

That got a small smile. “Well, sure, I asked, sir. But Noah said I had to ask you. And I didn’t because I didn’t want you to think I was rude. I thought you might not want to be reminded about being wounded in the war—”

“This limp isn’t from a war wound, young man,” Walt corrected him. He rubbed his knee almost absentmindedly. “No, I made it through World War Two with nary a scratch. It wasn’t until I returned to the States, in 1945, that I nearly lost my leg.”

“In a crash?” Roger asked.

Walt chuckled. “Not the kind you mean. But it was certainly a crash—of free-thinking people head on with ignorant ones. You see, I came back from Germany in late 1945 to find that my life—as I knew it—was completely gone. Now that the war was over, there was no longer a place for a black pilot in the new Air Force. After serving for so many years, I was a civilian again. An unemployed civilian. My wife had died shortly after I’d been sent overseas, and my daughter—whom I hadn’t seen since she was an infant—was living here in Fort Worth, Texas, with Dot, my wife’s best friend, who had opened her own crop dusting enterprise, along with a flight school.

“Seeing Dot again was . . .” Walt chuckled. “Well, we’d exchanged hundreds of letters during the war, but let’s just say she gave me quite a welcome home—the kind that warranted an immediate marriage. When that news got out, her family was less than pleased. A white woman marrying a black man—not a very popular concept, not in this part of the country at that time. We talked about going to California or New York City, but Dot’s business was already doing quite well, and my daughter, Jolee, had settled in, so . . . But then Dot’s brothers came a-callin’. She had three brothers, two older and one much younger.

“They came and told their sister that she would no longer be part of their family if she married ‘that nigger.’ Forget about the fact that ‘that nigger’ was more educated than the three of them combined. Forget that ‘that nigger’ was a former colonel in the Air Force, who had spent years fighting for this country, for freedom, for
them
. By marrying ‘that nigger,’ Dot would bring terrible, awful shame upon her family.

“Well. As I’m sure you can imagine, Dot told them in no uncertain terms where they could go and what they could do with themselves when they got there.” He laughed softly. “Back then she had a mouth that rivaled yours, Ringo dear. She sent them running for their very lives. Or so we thought.

“It turned out that Dot’s youngest brother—he couldn’t have been more than seventeen—stayed behind. When I came out of the house to see what vegetables the garden might yield for our evening meal, he was there, waiting for me. He was holding a shovel, but I didn’t think of it as a weapon. I didn’t think to be on guard. He was just a boy. It never occurred to me that out of all Dot’s brothers, this one might be the most dangerous.

“He came at me, swinging that shovel like a battle-ax, and it hit me in the leg, right beneath my knee. The blade had been sharpened, and the damage done was severe. There was so much blood—you boys know what that’s like. He was shouting to Dot about how maybe she had no qualms about marrying a black man, about the kind of life she’d have with everyone in town shunning her—shunning
them
—but maybe the idea of being married to a
crippled
black man would make her change her mind and save their family from this awful embarrassment.”

Walt rubbed his knee again. “I was in and out of the hospital for quite a few months. Those doctors had to work hard to save my leg, but save it they did. And I should have known better, but after I came out of my first surgery, I asked Dot if she was sure that she still wanted this, wanted
me
. She just looked at me. Then she walked out of the room and came back about thirty minutes later with the preacher from the Baptist church, who married us right then and there.

“Some months later, I was walking again. With a cane, but I was finally up and about. And I realized some things Dot had been withholding from me for a while—that whenever she drove into town and parked on the street, her car windshield would be smeared with cow manure. That our postbox had been mangled, that a dead cat had been hung from a tree out back, that small fires in the shape of a cross had been started on our lawn, that she’d received obscene phone calls and hate mail calling her a nigger lover and worse.

“It was obvious that her brothers were behind it, but when I called the police I was told ‘Boys will be boys.’

“Well, when I heard that, I put on my Air Corps uniform with my chestful of medals, and Dot and Jolee put on their best dresses—and boys, I’ll tell you, Dot’s an eye-catching woman in a pair of coveralls, but in a yellow dress with high heels . . . We climbed into the truck and we went into town.

“We parked on Main Street, and together we did a little shopping, making a point to patronize every store in town. Dot introduced me—even to those who knew me—as her ‘new husband, Colonel Gaines the war hero.’ We told everyone of our plans to expand our little airstrip, to acquire more planes, to hire more pilots and mechanics, to expand our flight school—all of which would pump life and money into this part of town. Nearly every shopkeeper jumped at the chance to shake my hand, especially when I opened a business account with them.

“Our last stop was at the hardware store, and by then we looked like a parade. After having spent two thousand dollars on various supplies and lumber—which back then was a substantial amount of money—we had folks tagging along to see what we might purchase next.

“I also think there was some anticipation, because all three of Dot’s brothers worked at the hardware store.

“We sent Jolee across the street with some girls from her school, to the soda fountain, and went into the store. The owner was very happy to see me. He had no clue of the trouble between Dot’s brothers and me. All he knew was that I was there to spend a pile of money.

“Other people from town
did
know of the tension, and the crowd grew—hoping, I think, that a brawl would break out.

“There was, of course, no chance of that. One does not brawl when one’s beautiful wife, dressed in her best yellow dress, is by one’s side. Instead, I purchased bullets—both for the side arms I’d picked up in Italy and Germany, and for the double-barreled shotgun Dot kept down at the airfield.

“I bought enough ammunition to supply a small army. Or to fight a small war. Boxes and boxes—and they were heavy, too. I told the store owner I couldn’t manage it with my bad leg and my cane. He was more than happy to call his hired help out of the back room to carry our purchases out to our truck.

“The chief of police came in at that point, no doubt to make sure I didn’t have murder in mind. ‘Going hunting?’ he asked me.

“ ‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘Boys may be boys, but here in America a man has the right to be a man—to protect his property and keep his family safe from harm. We’ve had a bit of trouble out our way and my intention is to see that it stops.’

“Now, all three of Dot’s brothers were there, and I knew I hadn’t made them happy—they were going to fetch and carry for me, a black man.

“But I had their attention—as well as that of most of the rest of the town. So I told them that when I was first attacked, I hadn’t expected that kind of violence. But from now on, I would be ready. And the next time—if there
was
a next time, and I fervently prayed there would not be—I wouldn’t be the one lying bleeding in the dirt. ‘I killed plenty of Nazis during the war,’ I announced, ‘and I am not at all adverse to killing a few more.’

“And then I turned back to the storekeeper and I did something that made Dot a little angry.” Walter chuckled softly. “She didn’t say anything at the time, but, believe me, Ringo, I heard quite a lot about it later.

“I bought a shovel,” he told them. “The same kind that Dot’s youngest brother had used against me. I paid for it, and I handed it to him. ‘This is to replace the one you lost,’ I told him. I thought he was going to soil his pants. That’s one thing I’ve learned about bullies, boys. They scare easily.

“Well, we walked out of that store,” Walt said, “loaded all of that ammunition into the truck, and went on home. Dot held her tongue until Jolee was in bed, and then . . . Me oh my oh, she was furious. She felt I’d put myself in terrible danger by putting that shovel back into her brother’s hands.

“But I told her that I’d made sure I was in a position of power before I did that. I made it impossible for her brother to take a swing at me there and then with the sheriff standing by, and I made it difficult for him to come after me later. Although there was always the possibility that he would. But that was what those bullets were for. We were both going to be armed for the next few weeks—months, if necessary—and keep Jolee nearby.

“You see, my handing him that shovel was a message—as clear as the message that came from our purchase of that ammunition. I was letting him know that if he and his brothers wanted this war to continue, it was no longer going to be fought with shovels. I was telling them that I was not afraid.”

Walt looked at Roger. “I know you disagree with your father. I know you recognize that his opinions about who should or should not be your friends are obsolete—that they’re sorely outdated and just plain foolish and ignorant. But you must be careful. Think before you act, Ringo. Knee-jerk reactions are well and good if you’re six feet tall and built like an oak tree. But he is big and you are small, and he
can
hurt you. Don’t put the shovel back into your father’s hands until you are certain he won’t use it against you again.”

“Let him win,” Roger said, bitterness making his voice thick.

“Ah, there’s the magic of it, my young friend.
You’re
the one who wins. You know what’s wrong and you know what’s right. And you carry that knowledge in your heart. He can’t touch that, he can’t take that. That’s yours, forever,” Walter said. “And the other thing that’s yours forever is our love for you. Noah and Dot and I will still be here in a week when your father leaves town again. You will always be welcome here—you know that. But I hope you will be wise and not compromise your personal safety to visit us until it’s safe for you to do so without repercussion.”

“Someday me and Noah, we’re going to join the Navy,” Roger said, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“We’re going to be SEALs,” Noah said.

“Yeah,” Roger said. “And that’s going to really piss my father off because he was in the Army.”

Walter laughed. “Ringo, I really like you. Nostradamus here has excellent taste when it comes to choosing his friends.”

Roger got very quiet. “I really like you, too, Uncle Walt.”

Walt hugged him, hugged Noah, too. It was funny, but this time it was Walter who had tears in his eyes. “You better head home, son.”

“Yes, sir,” Roger said. He climbed painfully to his feet. “Maybe he’ll go back on the road real soon,” he told Noah.

“When he does, we’ll be here,” Noah said, echoing his grandfather’s words.

Forget about Janine. The son of a bitch was crying because he was scared he might have to go back to jail.

He was right where Sam had expected him to be—parked in front of the TV at the house Clyde and Janine had shared back when they’d first moved to Sarasota. It was the same address Mary Lou had given Sam when he’d called to find out where to send money, after he’d been served with those divorce papers.

Manuel Conseco had made the scene, and he and his assistant—the young blonde who’d helped interview Sam—were questioning Clyde.

Sam itched to grab the son of a bitch by the T-shirt, slam him against the wall, order him to stop sniveling, and tell where Mary Lou and Haley were.

Alyssa surely knew that, too. She was standing close—close enough to grab Sam and keep him from getting himself into trouble.

Of course, he could use a little grabbing from Alyssa Locke right about now.

He experimented, shifting his weight, just a little, toward Clyde. Sure enough, Alyssa shifted just a little bit closer to Sam.

What would he have to do to get a full body block? Although, chances were, if he did that, she’d hustle him out of there and he wouldn’t get to hear whatever lame information Clyde
did
spit out.

“Three weeks,” Clyde was sobbing. “I haven’t seen Janine in at least three weeks. At
least
. And before that, it was months. Not since she moved out.”

“And when was the last time you went to her home on Camilia Street?” Conseco asked.

“That was it. It was the first time and the last time.” Clyde couldn’t seem to speak without a fresh flood of tears and snot.

Someone give the asshole a Kleenex. Crying was bad enough, but crying in public was freaking humiliating. Sam’s face heated as he remembered the way he’d broken down himself just a few hours earlier. Alyssa, thank you God, had quickly given him some privacy—unlike the time she’d barged into his hotel room and come across him weeping like a baby. She’d just stood there and stared. That had been embarrassing—doubly so since he’d been crying over her. He’d actually had to chase her out.

“It was the only time I went to her house,” Clyde was saying. “I didn’t even know where she lived until I ran into Carol.”

“Carol who?”

“I don’t know her last name. She was just some friend of Jan’s—she worked with her at the dry cleaners.”

Conseco made notes on his pad. “Which dry cleaners was that?”

“Quickie-Clean over on Clark,” Clyde said. “But Janine stopped working there—same time she moved out, months ago. I think she quit because she didn’t want to see me.”

“Because she was afraid of you?”

“
No,
man! She just . . . I don’t know, she said she was tired of lending me money. I’m on disability—half pay. You can’t live on that. It’s been rough these past few years and—”

“So Carol told you where Janine lived?” the blonde asked.

And Sam couldn’t keep it in anymore. Who cared what Carol told him? “Where’s Haley?”

Clyde aimed his teary gaze at Sam. “Jeez, I don’t know, man. I didn’t see her when I went over there. I haven’t seen Mary Lou or the baby since they all moved out.”

“Let us ask the questions, Lieutenant,” Alyssa murmured, as Conseco glared at them both. She was now standing so close that Sam couldn’t help but get a noseful of her every time he so much as inhaled.

She smelled so good. She wasn’t wearing perfume from a bottle, at least not the way Mary Lou had, in overpowering amounts guaranteed to overdose his sense of smell. No, Alyssa’s scent was far more subtle. It came from her shampoo or soap or maybe some kind of lotion she used or, who knows, maybe it was the perfume from her laundry dryer sheets, used to avoid static cling. Whatever it was, on Alyssa it smelled incredible.

It was enough to distract the shit out of him—to make at least part of his brain start working on the best way to get her naked and wrapped around him, as soon as possible, preferably tonight.

And—he was a freaking genius—now she knew it, too. The past few hours had put him way off-balance and he was far from on top of his game. Not only was he thinking about sex—again—when he should have been thinking only about his missing daughter, but he was enough of an asshole to fail to hide the nature of his thoughts from Alyssa.

Yes, indeed, she knew him well enough to know
exactly
what he was thinking, just from looking into his eyes.

For several long seconds, she just held his gaze, the expression on her face unreadable.

God, making love to her had been exquisite. How could she not want to do that, to feel that, again?

Because Sam had dumped her for Mary Lou, for one thing. Not that that had mattered so very much in the long term. Because Alyssa had told him in very clear English that she’d never intended to have more than a hot, brief affair with him—just a few months, tops, of that brain-searing sex—with no real emotional attachment involved.

At least not from her.

Now she was in a real relationship with someone she actually loved.

Max. The fucker.

Max wouldn’t have gone six months without seeing his daughter. Of course Max was too perfect to have had a daughter with some stranger he’d picked up in a bar in the first place. But if he did have a daughter, he’d no doubt have found her and brought her home by now, instead of standing around with his thumb up his ass, wistfully hoping that the kid was still alive.

Please God let Haley be alive.

“Sorry.” Sam was the one who broke eye contact.

“Keep it zipped,” Alyssa warned him sharply, “or you’re out of here.”

Interesting choice of words and definitely not unintentional.

“Carol didn’t know where Janine lived,” Clyde was saying. “I asked her because . . . because Jan took my Phish CDs when she moved out, and I wanted them back.”

Yeah, right.

“All Carol knew was that Janine just got a new job working as a receptionist at the vet’s over in Siesta Village,” Clyde continued, wiping his nose on his T-shirt sleeve. “She told me that Janine was doing really well, that she was working hard to stay clean. She said they were letting her help take care of the dogs on the weekends, and that she really liked doing that.”

“And you figured she was probably getting paid overtime, so you went to see her?” Conseco knew the truth. Clyde had gone to see Janine to try to borrow some money. And when she’d refused to lend it to him . . .

“He wouldn’t have killed her over that,” Sam murmured to Alyssa. “Not this guy. It’s not in him.”

She glanced at him, glanced at Conseco, and then back.

“I’m not interrupting them,” he said softly to her. “As for the rest of me—I’m zipped.”

Alyssa Locke wasn’t the type to blush easily, but she definitely avoided eye contact at that. However, after a moment, she did lean slightly closer to whisper back to him, “What if he found her with another man—a new boyfriend?”

“No. Maybe he’d go home and smoke an extra doobie or two to deal with the pain, but . . .” Sam shook his head. “Nah. Besides, where’s the boyfriend? Wouldn’t he have shown up before this, saying, ‘I think something’s wrong—my girlfriend hasn’t answered her phone or her doorbell for nearly three weeks’? I mean, come on. Even assuming he’s an asshole and doesn’t come see her unless he wants some, three weeks is way too long for a guy to go without sex.”

Alyssa gave him a disgusted look, but then exhaled a short laugh and shook her head. “Men suck.”

“Some women suck, too.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know.”

“No. I wanted those CDs back,” Clyde was sticking to his lame excuse. “That’s why I went over there and waited until she left work. I couldn’t find a parking space, so I ended up just following her home.”

“Where you killed her?”

Clyde started crying again. “No way, man. I didn’t kill her. I just, you know, rang the bell and we talked and—”

“Front door or back?”

“Front.” He perked up. “You know, her neighbor was out in the yard, washing his car. He saw me go in and he saw me come out, too. And Jan was with me when I left. She came out to get one of my CDs from the car.”

“Which neighbor?” Conseco asked.

“The fat guy who lives in the house on the left,” Clyde told him, “if you’re facing Jan’s house. I swear to you, I didn’t kill her.”

Conseco was silent, just looking through his notes.

“Can you please ask him if he knows where Mary Lou worked?” Sam said to Alyssa, loudly enough for Conseco and Clyde to hear. “Or where Haley went for day care?”

Clyde didn’t wait for the FBI agents to play telephone. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Honest. The only way I knew Haley was still living with Jan was from the toys on the living room floor.”

“Can you tell me your whereabouts the rest of that evening?” Conseco asked.

“I came here,” Clyde said. “And, you know, listened to my Phish CDs.”

“You were alone?”

“Yeah, but I swear, I didn’t kill her.” He pointed to Sam. “Why aren’t you questioning
him
? Maybe
he
killed her. The SEAL. You know, before Jan moved out, she and Mary Lou were always whispering about him. Stuff like, ‘What if Sam finds out?’ Like, ‘He won’t find out, how could he find out?’ I heard Jan say—more than once—’What’s he going to do if he
does
find out? Kill me?’ I finally asked her what was going on—I was a little worried he was going to kick down the door in the middle of the night. I thought maybe Mary Lou had stolen something from him when she left. Something more valuable than a couple of CDs, you know? But Janine told me it was nothing—that back a few years ago, she gave Mary Lou a special box of condoms that wouldn’t do what they were supposed to do, if you get my drift. It was so that she’d get pregnant and the SEAL would have to marry her. Only now they were getting a divorce, so what did it matter? That’s what Jan said.

“But I remember thinking,
Man,
if I’m the SEAL and I find out about
that
. . .”

“Jesus,” Sam said. He’d heard the words Clyde was saying, but they’d stopped making sense. And then they made too much sense. Mary Lou
had
gotten pregnant on purpose. He’d always known that, but he hadn’t actually
known
it.

But apparently the condoms they’d used had been tampered with. God
damn
it, he’d always been so careful, so Mary Lou’s pregnancy had caught him by surprise. He’d spent hours trying to figure out exactly where he’d failed. It made so much more sense now.

And—perfect—now Conseco was looking at him with renewed interest. As if Sam really did have a motive for killing Janine.

It was so ridiculous, Sam didn’t say a word. He just held Conseco’s gaze. It was far better than looking at Alyssa, who had to be thinking that he was a total fool. Mary Lou had come to him, pregnant and alone and seemingly frightened to death, and he’d walked away from a budding relationship with Alyssa—a woman that he was crazy about—so he could do what he’d thought was the right thing. He’d taken responsibility for this woman he’d accidentally knocked up.

Only it hadn’t been accidental.

Jesus.

Alyssa pulled Conseco aside. She spoke quietly, but Sam still managed to overhear. “Look, he’s exhausted. Tomorrow, he’ll be giving you a complete record accounting for his time over the past weeks. If you still want to question Lieutenant Starrett after that, you’re welcome to do so, of course. But for right now, I’m taking him out of here.”

Conseco said something too quietly for Sam to hear.

“Absolutely,” Alyssa responded.

Conseco turned back to Clyde, and Alyssa headed for Sam. “Let’s go.”

He followed her out the front door, down the steps, and toward her rental car.

“You okay?” Alyssa asked.

Sam glanced at her. He laughed—a short burst of disparaging air. “Yeah, you know, that’s the best part about being a fucking idiot. You’re too stupid to know when you’re not okay.”

Alyssa opened her mouth and was about to say something, when her phone rang.