Lie in Wait (26 page)

 

Chapter 64

W
H
EN
T
EST KNOCKED
again on the front door of The Village Far, a young man with of black wavy hair and an olive complexion greeted her in a maître d's classic black suit. He offered a beatific smile and showed her in as if she were an celebrity guest, his hand at the small of her back in a way that managed somehow not to be offensive as he led her to the rear of the restaurant, where he greeted another young man of no more than eighteen in checked pants and a white smock. “Drew,” the maître d' said to the boy, “I believe this woman wishes to have a word with you.”

The maître d' faced Test and said, “May I get you a bottled water?”

“I'm fine, thank you,” Test said.

“I'll leave you two then.”

Test and Drew sat at the bar, Drew setting a glass of soda on a leather coaster before him. The soda was poured in a highball glass that looked like genuine crystal. The bar was solid cherry or mahogany or some dark, rich wood. Maybe teak. Claude would know. He'd covet it.

“I have a question for you,” Test said. “The owner said you were working the night of the Jessica Cumber murder.”

“This about that girl?”

Test nodded. “Were you working?”

Drew nervously sipped soda through a straw. “Yes. I was. I hope you don't thin—­”

“I hope you might help. When I spoke to the owner on the phone before coming, she mentioned that something strange happened.”

He squinted, sucking the last of the soda with a slurp. He wore an earring, a single stud in his left earlobe. The earlobe was red and irritated, if not infected. He pinched the lobe, gave it a tug. “Strange? No. Nothing strange.”

“Did you not have something odd happen when you cleaned the restroom? A man who—­”

“Oh. That. The owner had said to wait outside the gents' before I cleaned it, as a prominent patron had just gone back to make use of it. I waited what I thought was more than enough amount of time. Then knocked, afraid he might need help or something. No one answered. When I opened the door, no one was there, but—­”

“Yes?”

“I cleaned it and left. Soon after I got out on the floor, I realized I'd left my comb on the sink, having used it. And there was a man heading down the hall at me as if from the gents'. Like he'd just appeared back there. It was a strange, but you know, in the scheme of things, on the spectrum of strange, not so much. I figured I must have missed him going back there in the short time I was out on the floor.” He shrugged.

“Right,” Test said.

“I mean, there's strange and then there's
Strange
.”

“You remember what time it was?”

“I went back the first time at six forty-­five. Waited maybe ten minutes before I knocked. The bathroom took five to clean. Then was on the floor a few more minutes.”

“How do you know the time for certain?” Test asked.

“I do the same things at the same times every night. It's my job.”

Test thanked him and left, confident that the DVD she held in her jacket pocket would confirm her theory as fact.

 

Chapter 65

V
ICTOR SAT ALL
morning nursing several coffees until he could drink no more of it. He ordered several sticky buns and ate them slowly, then read through local real estate guides. It was far past lunchtime, when the employees started to give him odd looks.

He'd never laid eyes on Merryfield.

He needed to stretch and move, so left and went a few doors down and bought a
Sports Illustrated
and a
Patriots Weekly
at Whipple's Pharmacy. He sat on a bench outside and read the magazines as he watched for Merryfield. When he'd read the magazines front to back, he worked again on his notes. Laboring to get it just right.

He sat out there reading and growing agitated as the day grew long and Merryfield never showed. Victor knew Merryfield wasn't living at his home, but he had not idea where to find him other than his office.

Cold, he returned to Brew Ha Ha, where fortunately the staff had changed for the late afternoon.

He was on his fourth cup of Kenyan and third blueberry muffin, fingertips abuzz, when he looked up to see Merryfield duck into the office building kitty-­corner to the Brew Ha Ha.

It was 4:42.

Victor stood. His legs tingled and he felt dizzy as he pushed past the ­people entering the shop and stepped out onto the street.

Outside, he leaned against the building, panic gripping him. He put his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath. Then hurried across the street.

In front of the old building that housed Merryfield's office, he stared up and down the street, as if he were about to rob a bank and wanted to make certain of his escape route.

He went inside.

A duct in the entranceway's ceiling blasted dry hot air down on him, causing sweat to sprout at the back of his neck. He unzipped his coat.

A steep, narrow stairway smelling of the rubber mat beneath his boots rose in front of him. A chandelier, suspended from the ceiling at the top landing, cast a glow of splintered light along the mahogany stairs as Muzak floated down, the sounds of flute and strings.

Closing his eyes, Victor clutched the railing and waited for the dizziness to pass, then he all but vaulted up the stairs.

At the top, he stopped in front of a placard, read it, and turned left to a door marked “Law Office of Jonathon Merryfield, Esquire.”

“Esquire,” Victor mumbled.
The brat
.

He turned the porcelain doorknob and went inside.

He had expected to find Merryfield sitting behind a desk, alone. Instead he walked into a reception area the size of his home, the area decorated with leather wingback chairs, a coffee table of some dark exotic wood, an antique map of Vermont and sporting prints of waterfowl and fly fishermen on the walls. Behind the table was a marble fireplace, inside of which a fire crackled.

“Can I help you?”

Vic turned from the fire, blinking.

A woman sat behind a reception desk. She looked to be about forty, and wore her hair cropped tight. Like a lesbian.

“I'm here to see Jon,” Victor said.

The woman picked up a pair of eyeglasses, put them on and studied Victor. “I don't have anyone penciled in for this morning, Mr.—­?”

“Jenkins. Victor Jenkins.”

“I see. Can I arrange an appointment for you?” she glanced at a leather-­bound appointment book. “Say, Tuesday after next?”

“I'm here now. It won't take long.”

“He's very busy. You understand.”

“You tell him Victor—­” he paused. “You tell him Coach is here to see him.”

The woman's eyes roamed over him. “I'm afraid I can't. He's extremely taken with a case. He's taking no appointments at all this week.”

“This isn't an appointment. You tell him I'm out here. He'll want to see me. He's been expecting me.”

“I'm quite certain if he were expecting you he'd have informed me, sir.”

“Not about this. And he may not have expected me this very morning. But he's expected me. And here I am. So you might as well tell him.”

“Have a seat,” the woman said and stood. “I'll check and see what he has to say.”

She pointed at the wingback chairs.

Victor remained standing.

He was afraid if he sat, he might not have the strength to stand again.

The woman watched him as she made for Merryfield's office door and rapped on it.

Victor heard nothing from behind the door, but she opened it and went into the office and shut the door behind her.

At the fireplace, Victor hefted a fire poker from where it leaned against the hearth. He tapped the heavy point of it in his palm. He jabbed it into the burning logs. Sparks exploded up the chimney like a swarm of maddened bees. He jabbed the logs again.

The door opened behind him. He turned, poker in hand.

The woman stared at him, her hand on the doorknob behind her back.

“He says he couldn't possibly have any idea why you would think he wants to see you. I'm afraid you'll have to go.”

“I'm afraid he's wrong. You tell him I know what he's done. I
know
. And I know
why.
He'd better talk to me or I'm going to the police. You hear me? You tell him I'm going but I wanted him to know first.” His voice was rising, cracking like a piece of shattering ice that had became so cold it could not longer hold itself together any longer.

“He's far too busy for whatever grievance you may have to—­”

“This isn't a
fucking grievance
.” Victor tapped the fire poker in his palm. It was hot from his jabbing it in the fiery logs.

The woman clutched the doorknob.

Victor stepped toward her. “You either get away from that door on your own power—­” He tapped the poker in his hand. The heat of it seared in his palm. “Or I remove you.”

The woman looked toward the door that led out to the stairway. The exit. Then looked at the poker in Victor's hand.

She turned the knob behind her and disappeared into Merryfield's office.

Vic came at her waving the poker and threw open the door.

 

Chapter 66

T
EST STARED A
T
the video footage of the Village Fare restaurant hallway.

Now, here before Test, were the seventeen minutes she'd needed.

She watched it again and again, rewinding and fast-­forwarding. Pausing. There. There it was. Again and again.

“The kids are waiting,” Claude said behind Test, startling Test and setting her heart skidding. “We're going to be late if we don't leave in five minutes. Elizabeth's whining. She didn't go down for her nap.”

“Her throat's dry,” Test said absently as she clicked
PLAY
on the video again. Rewound it. “Did you pick up filters for her humidifier like you said you would?”

“I got busy. You could have done it, while you were out.”

“I would have if I'd known you weren't going to, like we discussed.”

“We didn't discuss it. You told me.”

She bristled. Rarely, only when truly upset and in the right, did Claude wield the truth with such a barbed tongue.

Still, how hard was it to get to the store? Now Elizabeth would be up half the night.

“We'll grab them after the movie,” Claude said.

“Good.” Test sighed, glued to the CCTV footage.

“I'm dismissed then?” Claude said.

“Don't be dramatic.” In her notebook, Test logged the time shown on the bottom right of the footage.

“We said we were going to salvage this evening after you got back.”

She spun around to look at her husband. “Please don't make me feel worse.”

Claude stared at her. Did he think she enjoyed this, over spending time with her family?

“Go to the movies,” she said. “Enjoy the kids. At least one of us can. If I go I'll just be anxious and not present anyway. You know that. Go.”

But he didn't go.

“This isn't even your case,” he said. “It isn't even
a
case. The kid's all but confessed. There's heaps of evidence. I read the papers. You can put whatever it is aside for two hours.”

She wasn't going to give in on guilt.

He saw that.

He turned and left, muttering: “Elizabeth didn't nap because her
dog
is dead and her mom is AWOL, not because her humidifier is off.”

Test wanted to go after him, apologize, but what she saw on her screen kept her seated.

 

Chapter 67

T
HE SEC
RETARY COWERED
beside the obnoxiously ornate executive's desk, behind which sat Jon Merryfield, his back to an arched leaden window whose panes were warped, so the view of the town green was slightly distorted.

The woman glanced at Merryfield.

“Take the morning off, Cheryl,” Merryfield said.

“Do you want me to call anyone?” she said.

“It's fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“We close in a half hour anyway. I'll be all right.”

The woman nodded at Merryfield and slipped past Victor. At the door, she glanced back quickly, then shut the door, her footsteps hurrying away on the other side.

Victor stepped toward the desk. The scene of the town green behind Merryfield's expansive desk shifted through the vast window with each step. The sun was low, shadows deepening.

Before Victor was halfway across the room, Merryfield said, “Close enough.”

Victor thought about going straight for him, but stopped himself. He needed to keep his composure. For Brad's sake.

Merryfield folded his hands behind his head and turned his chair side to side, the arrogant bastard. “Well?” he said. His voice flat. Dead.

“You know why I'm here.”

“Do I?”

“I know you did it,” Victor said.

“I
did it
? I think it was you who did it.”

“I'm not talking about that.”

“About what?”

“That.”

“
That
?” Jon laughed a cold, heartless laugh.

“I know what you did,” Victor said.

Jon spread his arms wide. “Oh, well, guilty then.”

“I know.”

“Aren't we the detective.”

“You killed that girl.”

Jon laughed again, dramatically, and shook his head. “Just for the entertainment of it: Why would I want to do that?”

“You know why.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“You goddamn well know.”

“Careful. Taking the Lord's name in vain. I hear he takes issue with that. I think I ought to be told what my motive is, since I surely can't think of it myself.”`

“You know.”

“Can't say I do.”

“For God's sake.”

“God's got nothing to do with this. You're regressing, Coach. You sound like a crazy man. Clarify your point.”

Coach
. Being called
Coach
by
him
scalded Victor. “Goddamn you.”

“No. Goddamn you.”

“I'm sorry,” Victor said.

“Yes. You are.” Merryfield flicked his fingers at his tie, as if brushing away crumbs.

“My son doesn't deserve this,” Victor said.

“Who of us deserves anything we get?”

“He's got his whole future ahead of him.”

“Didn't we all.”

“I said, I'm sorry, for what happened.”

“It didn't
happen
. It was
done
. By you.”

Victor felt the pleading in his voice and was sickened by it. He needed to stay strong. In control. “I think they'll convict Brad if he goes to trial.”

“I know they will.” Merryfield's eyes flashed with, what? Uncertainty? Fear? Some understanding? There was a change there for sure. Realization.

“I can't let that happen,” Victor said. “I'm going to the police. I'm going to tell them your motive. I've learned a thing or two about the law.”

“I'm sure they'll arrest me right away. Except, I was with my wife in a restaurant near capacity.” He straightened his tie, but that look flashed again. Realization.

Merryfield leaned back in his chair and looked straight at Victor. He smiled. Smug and sinister. “They'll see you for what you are. A sad, sick, desperate father trying to keep his son out of prison by any means. A drowning man grasping for a life jacket that isn't there. Your son
is
going to prison.” Jon locked his fingers together and pointed his index fingers at Victor as if the fingers were a pistol. “And
you
can't stop it. Not even your God. You know why? Brad killed that girl. And if he didn't, I know one thing for certain. I didn't kill her.” He crossed his arms, a smile of supreme satisfaction oozing across his face. “It will sink in after a while. Just how powerless you are. And, you'll just have to live with it. Being powerless. Like we all do.”

Victor stepped toward him; perhaps there was only one way after all to get to him.

“One more step,” Merryfiled said, “And I'll knock your teeth in and beat the living fuck out of you and throw you out the fucking window. I'll tell them you attacked me. Cheryl will attest to your crazed behavior.”

Vic squeezed his hands into fists.

Merryfield stood. Victor was fit for his age. But Merryfield was the younger man by far. A fit, broad man. No boy.

Victor stepped back and opened the door. “We'll see,” he said, and left.

F
ROM THE WINDOW,
Jon watched as Victor stood under a street lamp and stared up toward the building. Jon poured himself a double of bourbon.
Let him go to the police,
Jon thought
. Let him pour his guts out. It won't hurt me. He has no proof. I'll deny it. And they will never believe him.

Victor looked up at the window now. Could he see Jon? Jon had no idea.

Victor had a hand at the inside of his thigh, as if pointing at something as he stared up at the window. He pointed at Jon, then to his own thigh.

And Jon knew Victor had proof. It would hurt him. It would ruin him, if the police believed Victor. Jon could not let Victor get to the police. He needed to stop him.

But Victor was already gone.

Jon poured himself a double of bourbon at his office's wet bar and knocked it back. Poured another.

He sat at his desk and opened his laptop, a headache hammering at his temples as

he clicked on the e-­mail, the sensation of being watched washing over him.

The e-­mail subject line was the same five words as one of the voice mail messages:

You Should Have Helped Me

The e-­mail itself read:

Last chance. Meet me. Tonight. Same Place. 7 pm.

Agree to confess.

Or I go to the cops myself.

He had to decide what to do.

Victor was sniffing around and threatening, too.

How could Jon explain it all to the cops without giving up the ugly truth?

Fear lurched in him. He needed to take control, as he'd always done. No emotion had ever helped him, save one: rage. He felt it pushing from inside him, ridding the fear and devouring each cell until he was the incarnation of perfect, crystalline, contained rage. He welcomed it. He would hone it and use it as a spear.

The sender of the e-­mail was weak. Soft. He'd chosen to curl up and wither. Chosen to be a victim. Chosen his plight. His destiny. Merryfield would not be dragged into this weakling's world. He would not wallow. He would not allow the coward to get away with this. He would never confess. Or be coerced. He would not be defined by acts over which he had had no control.

There had to be a way out of this.

Then, it struck him. He saw his way out. The only way.

His cell phone rang. Bethany. She'd called five times in hour before Victor had arrived. He'd let the phone ring.

He let it ring now, poured a bourbon and drank it.

He wanted to answer the phone, but he could not bring himself to do it.

Not until he finished what had been started.

His wife seemed more distant to him than ever. She seemed not to exist at all. He did not carry her in his heart. He thought of her, but he did not feel for her. He carried no one in his heart. He never had. He felt for no one. Except for himself. Ever since what had happened to him in the cage.

It had not been until he'd met Bethany his last year of law school that he'd felt any desire for intimacy. Many times when he was an undergrad and as a law student, girls had flirted with him. He'd deflected their advances. They'd mistaken his indifference and fear for shyness, or perhaps quiet confidence, and been even more drawn to him. Asked him out. He'd declined.

Perhaps it had been the enlivening spring weather that day.

He'd been dozing on the steps of the rotunda, soaking up the April sun in a rare moment of leisure he'd granted himself, when a wayward Frisbee sailed into his face from the Lawn. He'd sprung awake, discombobulated and ready to strike out at whatever had assailed him, his nose and lips bloodied. Instead he'd seen the most open and cheery face he'd ever encountered, just a nose away from his own face. Her smile swallowed him whole.

Instead of apologizing, the girl had said, “Got yah.” And instead of toadying over his bloody nose, she'd snatched up the Frisbee and skipped off down the steps, yelling over her shoulder, “Watch where you doze!”

He'd seen her again a week later in the outdoor amphitheater. Again he'd been dozing, this time to be awakened by something softly tapping his nose. He'd awakened with a start to see her smiling down at him, the sun behind her making a halo around her lustrous hair. She'd been tapping the same Frisbee on the bridge of his nose. “Thought you'd found a safe place to doze, did you?”

A tugging desire overcame him, an urgent force he'd never known. “What's that look?” she'd said, smiling.

“What look?”

“I know that look. Boy oh boy, do I.”

They'd strolled back to her studio apartment near the medical center, wending their way past the serpentine brick walls envisioned by Jefferson, the tulip trees exploding with cotton-­candy blossoms that perfumed the sweet, sunny air abuzz with the hum of busy honeybees.

In the shadows of a hickory-­tree grove, a young disheveled student who'd looked like he'd had a long, rough night had slipped past them on the narrow walk, and upon seeing Jon and the girl, perhaps recognizing the lightness in their carriage, had nodded knowingly.

In another minute, Jon had found himself naked in Bethany's futon bed, surging forward into a new life, sloughing off the old skin to be reborn. The scent of her. The softness of her flesh. The taste. The heat. The hot sunlight pouring in the window above her futon, so their urgency and the strength of the sun left them bathed with a sheen of salty sweat. His new life was beginning. Until it wasn't. Until at the critical moment, he'd thought of the face of the young student who had passed him on the serpentine walk, and he felt himself flag.

He'd collapsed with mortification and lay on his side, his back to her.

She'd laughed. He'd yanked away and grabbed a sheet to hide his flaccidness.

Wanting to end the humiliation, he'd tried to yank on his shorts and fallen over. She'd laughed again, an uproarious, excruciating laugh. “Where do you think you're going?” she'd said.

He'd worked more desperately to worry into his clothes. She'd touched his arm. He'd yanked away. “What's the matter?” she said.

That student, he'd thought. That young man.

“What gives?” she'd said.

“Isn't it obvious?”

“Like I care?”

Of course she cares
, he'd thought. She didn't have to debase him more by patronizing him. All he'd wanted was to flee. He'd made a dreadful mistake. Thinking he'd outlived his past misgivings. Instead, it had sunk him under a torrent of vile images.

He tugged his T-­shirt on over his head.

“Don't be a dolt,” she scolded. She'd stood, naked, splendid in the sunlight playing in the downy hair of her belly. She'd grabbed the Frisbee from the desk and brandished it. “You want another whack?”

He'd tried to pull away, but she had his wrist in her hand, and held fast. She'd looked up into his eyes. “I don't care. Hear me. I don't fucking care. You know how many assholes I've fucked and it meant squat?”

She must have seen the aghast look on his face.

“That's not what I mean.” She laughed. “OK. I've had my share. But, believe me. I'm a grad student. In two weeks it's the real world. I don't want just a fuck.”

He'd asked what she did want.

“A life. Family. We're all fucked up. I am too, you know. You don't have a corner on the market.”

She'd convinced him to stay; and much later managed to coax him through to a finish.

Still. That boy. That student in the shadows. What was it about him?

Later that week, Jon had been eating a burger at the White Spot when the student had strolled in and sat beside him on a stool. This time, he seemed vaguely familiar as he stared at Jon in the mirror behind the counter. “Jon?” he said, and spun his stool to face Jon.

“Yes,” Jon had said, perplexed, disoriented. He could not place the student.

“Randy,” the young man said.

“Sorry,” Jon had said. “Are we in a class together?”

The student had grimaced and gone pale as if Jon had just stuck a knife in his ribs. Except the kid didn't seem like a student at all, Jon noted then. His hair was matted and greasy, not in the practiced manner of kids going grunge, but in a seedy, unwashed way of someone destitute. His teeth were bad; gray as dirty dishwater. And a top tooth was missing. The kid had a spacey look about him, too. A twitchiness.

“We have someone in common,” he'd said and laid his dirty hand on Jon's wrist.

Jon stared at the bony hand. He'd wanted to pull away but was afraid he'd instigate the stranger into an outburst, or worse. The short, old black man behind the counter had given Jon a worried look that confirmed Jon's apprehension was not unwarranted.

The stranger was unhinged and gave off an aura of insanity that made all those in his proximity anxious. The stranger slid his hand off of Jon's wrist to sip his water, and the sour stench of the unwashed bloomed up from him, gaseous and repellent.