Never Go Home (18 page)

Traffic in the
strip mall’s parking lot picked up. Every car that drove by increased Leon’s
adrenaline level. A cop car came flying down the highway. Leon’s heart nearly
stopped. But no one paid any attention to him. Lulled into a state of
relaxation, he stretched his arms along the back of the bench. Head leaned
back. Eyes closed. The sun beat down on him and warmed his face.

A car pulled up
and stopped. The passenger window rolled down. Leon looked at the man in the
driver’s seat. He had shoulder length brown hair and a full beard.

“Vera sent me,”
the guy said. “Get in.”

Leon hopped up.
He looked left and right, taking in the scene along the walkway. The few people
out there paid no attention to him. He walked to the car and pulled the door
open. His hand went to his pistol.

“You won’t need
that in here,” the guy said.

Leon pulled his
hand away. He didn’t know this guy. His faith in Vera was the only thing he had
to go on.

“All right,
man,” he said as he slid into the seat. “No problem. You got a name?”

“Sure do.” The
guy grabbed the shifter, slammed it into first and peeled away without saying
another word.

I pulled into
the hotel parking lot and found a spot close to Sean’s room. His door was open.
I couldn’t see inside. My heart skipped a beat. Every possible worst case
scenario ran through my mind. They all ended with Sean, Deb, Kelly and Dad
dead.

I swung the
Suburban’s door open, hopped down and ran to Sean’s room.

Kelly stepped
through the doorway, her back to me. My footsteps echoed through the covered
walkway. She looked over her shoulder, and said, “He’s here.”

I stopped,
pulled in a deep breath and held it.

“Hey, Uncle
Jack,” she said.

“Hey, kiddo,” I
said as I exhaled. “Your mom and dad inside?”

She nodded.
“Grandpa, too.”

I tousled her
hair as I passed her on my way toward the door. It took a second for my eyes to
adjust to the dimly lit room. Sean stood in the hallway, on the other side of
the closet and bathroom door.

He said, “You look
good in my suit.”

Deb stepped out
of the bathroom, said, “He looks better than you do, Sean.”

“I always
have.”

“He takes after
his mother,” Dad said. “Sean’s ugly like me.”

Everyone
smiled. No one laughed. The gravity of the day pressed down on us all. I
wondered if we’d escape it.

We left the
room and piled in the Suburban. Deb drove, Dad sat up front with her. Sean and
I sat next to each other in the middle row Captain’s chairs. Kelly sat on the
bench seat behind us.

I decided to
drop the bomb on them.

“I’ve got
something to tell you,” I said, reaching for my wallet.

“What is it?”
Sean said.

I pulled out a
picture of Mia and handed it to him. I watched his expression as he studied the
blue-eyed girl with a slight gap between her two top front teeth. She had pale
freckles on her nose. Her hair was pulled back. Blond strands hung down on the
sides and across her forehead.

“She looks like
mom,” Sean said. “What? When?”

“About eight
years ago, I guess.”

“Where is she?”

“London.”

He looked at
me, looked up, back at me. “Erin?”

I nodded.

“How come you
never said anything?”

“I only found
out recently. We’re still getting to know one another. Erin and I are on
friendly terms, but there’s nothing between us, so I see the kid every other
weekend and take her to dinner during the week if I can.”

“So that’s
where you’re living now? London?”

I nodded. “For
now.”

“I have a
cousin?” Kelly said.

“Sure do,” I
said. “Her name’s Mia. She’s a little younger than you, but not by much. Maybe
you’ll get to meet her soon. Christmas, perhaps.”

“You’re gonna
come back for Christmas?” Sean said. “Two visits in one year?”

“I was thinking
you guys could come out to visit.”

“What are you
doing out there?”

I looked away.

“Right, right,”
he said. “Can’t say.”

I looked up at
the rear-view mirror. Deb glanced back. She smiled.

“Glad to see
you’ve grown up, Jack.”

Dad said
nothing. I figured he was off in another world at the moment. I hoped things
worked out so that I could introduce him to his granddaughter.

A couple
minutes later we reached the small church. It was on the western edge of town
and sat on a hill. The cemetery was set off to the side. You could see the gulf
from both spots.

A line of
people stretched from the front door to the street. We exited the Suburban,
made our way to the line. Someone passing by said that the service would be
standing room only. I offered to stay back with Kelly so Deb and Sean could go
in. I had a past with Jessie. Deb had talked to her weekly, if not daily. She
deserved to be in there, and Sean needed to be at her side, supporting her.

People stepped
aside and let her go through. Generous, considering.

I stood amazed
at the throng of people who showed up to offer their respects to Jessie. Was it
the result of living in a small town? Or was it the impact that Jess had on
their lives? A little of both, I supposed.

Kelly and I
walked around the back of the church. We spotted three cranes. They flew off as
we approached. When we reached the front of the church again, three sheriff’s
department cruisers pulled in. Skagen got out of one. A guy I didn’t recognize
out of another. April was already walking toward me.

She hadn’t
pulled her hair back yet. The wind kicked it off her shoulders, and the
sunlight shone through from behind, turning brown into gold.

“Get any
sleep?” she said.

I shook my
head. “You?”

“A bit.” She
looked down and smiled at Kelly. “I see I’ve got competition for your
attention.”

Kelly giggled.
“I’ll be finished with him soon. You can have him then.”

It was a light
moment set against a heavy backdrop.

Behind me,
Jessie’s lifeless body lay in a casket in the middle of the church. The blood
on her body had been washed off. Her wounds had been concealed. Someone would
have put her in a pretty dress, did her hair, and covered her face with makeup.
All this in the attempt to make it appears as though she were only sleeping
peacefully.

Everyone does
at the end.

So Kelly, April
and I waited off to the side, near the church entrance, for thirty minutes. We
hardly spoke. When we did, it was small talk. Neither of us wanted to say
anything important with Kelly around.

Skagen and the
other guy were positioned near the parking lot exit. I didn’t need April to
tell me why. Glenn and those two drunks weren’t getting out.

Most of the
line had made it inside. Two dozen people were left on the front steps. The
doors had been propped open. The congregation sung in unison, louder than they
had all morning.

“That’s the
final hymn,” April said. “They’ll be coming out soon.”

The crowd out
front stepped down off the steps. The doors were no longer blocked by flesh,
unleashing the sound of a couple hundred feet shuffling along the old,
weathered hardwood floor of the church. Six men I didn’t recognize held
Jessie’s casket, three to a side. Her parents followed behind. A couple kids
were with them. I recognized them from the family photos in her house. Glenn
followed behind. Matt and Jed were at his side. No reason for them to be so
close unless Glenn had expected company.

Matt saw me. He
reached out and slapped Jed in the gut. They both walked toward me.

I ignored them
for the moment and kept my focus on Glenn. He touched Jessie’s dad on the
shoulder, said something, and broke free from the line. Matt and Jed stopped
about twenty feet away and waited for him.

“Kelly,” I said.
“Go find your parents.”

She ran toward
the church, avoiding the oncoming men.

“What the hell
are you doing here, Noble?” Glenn said. “I oughta lay you out right here, man.”

I said nothing.

April stepped
forward. “Just keep it down, Glenn.” She waved a finger at the other two. “And
you two keep back.”

“Get lost,
little girl.” Matt headed right for her. “You ain’t fit to be a cop. I don’t
recognize your authority.”

April reached
for her belt, pulled out a black jack. One flick of her wrist was all it took
to drive the club into Matt’s stomach and knock him to the ground. His hollow
gasps for air were overruled by a collective gasp from the crowd.

I looked past
Glenn and Jed. My dad stared at me. He nodded once, clenched his fist and held
it out in front of him.

I stepped in
between April and the men. They’d killed Jessie. I knew they’d have no issues
attacking April.

The crowd
shifted like an amoeba. Sean stepped away from the group and headed toward me.
He bulldozed his way between Glenn and Jed. The latter tumbled to the side and
stuck one hand in the dirt to keep from face planting.

“Just in case
you guys think about doing something stupid,” Sean said.

Glenn held his
hands out in front of him. Reason escaped his mouth. “Jack, this is my wife’s
funeral. Why are you doing this?”

“You know why,
Glenn. We know what you did.”

“What’s that
supposed to mean?” he said.

“I’ve got a
witness that puts you and your fat goons at the house the night Jessie died. He
heard two shots. They woke him up. When he got to the window, you’d already
taken off.”

Glenn shook his
head. “Nah, man. We were gone two hours before they figured it happened.”

I stepped
forward. “Yeah, where were you then? You got someone who can back it up besides
these idiots?”

Glenn said
nothing. Jed looked at him, lifted an eyebrow and shrugged. Glenn shook his
head. Matt was still on the ground, on all fours. He’d got his wind back, but
his face was still dark red.

“That’s what I
thought,” I said. “You got nothing, because the only thing you were doing was
putting distance between yourself and the murder scene.”

A murmur rose
from the crowd.

“I didn’t kill
her, Jack.” Glenn threw up his hands and turned around.

“Just tell
him,” Jed said.

Glenn took a
deep breath. He turned around. His left hand was on his hip. The right covered
his eyes. When he spoke, it was slightly louder than a whistle.

“We were at my
girlfriend’s house, OK? She had a couple of her cousins there, up from Tampa,
for these two numb nuts. She’s got…” He dropped his head back and shook it.
“Christ, how do I say this? She’s got video, man. It’s all timestamped, too.
But the contents of it can’t get out.”

I held up a
hand. I didn’t need to hear anymore to know where that was going.

“It doesn’t
matter what you want,” April said. “If you want to be cleared in this
investigation, we’ll need to see it. And wherever it goes from there isn’t up
to me.”

“You’re a piece
of trash, Glenn,” I said. “She gave you two kids, and this is how you repay
her? And how convenient you’re out of the house and on tape during that time?
Even if you weren’t there, I’m betting we can make a case you arranged it.”

“Me?” Glenn
took a step forward. He was about my height, but he had a good forty pounds on
me. While his friends were fat, Glenn wasn’t. It would be an even match if it
came to blows. “Listen up. I know she’s been talking to you the past couple of
years, Jack. I walked in on her plenty of times and she dropped the phone, or
shuffled some papers, or closed whatever it was she was looking at on the
computer. No matter how many times I caught her and asked what she was doing,
she never told me. Always had some excuse. But I saw past that, man. I saw the
lies on her face. She went away with the kids not too long ago. I tore the
house upside down. Found all kinds of documents with your name on them. Places
and times to meet. That explained some of her business trips for that garbage
makeup she sold. You two coordinated it all behind my back.”

“What’s he
talking about, Jack?” April said.

“I don’t have a
clue,” I said. “Glenn, the last time I talked to Jessie was spring of 2002. I
saw her for a minute at my mother’s funeral, and that was from twenty feet
away. She smiled, I waved, then she patted her stomach and grabbed your arm and
walked away.”

Glenn’s cheeks
turned red. “Man, don’t lie to me. I’m serious, Jack.”

At the same
time I was trying to diffuse the situation with Glenn, I was also trying to
make sense of the fact that he supposedly found papers with my name on them in
Jessie’s possession.

“Kos,” he said.

“What?”

He spat on the
ground in between us. “About six months ago, Jessie told me she was in the
running for a trip to Greece. Never said much about it later, only
occasionally. Keep it fresh in my head, I guess. But I found a paper that had
your name and Kos on it, written in all caps. K. O. S. That’s the code for
their airport there. It’s near some resort. Didn’t take much to put that one
together. You were going to meet and spend a week together there.”

“I spent some
time in Greece not too long ago, but nowhere near Kos. And you’re wrong, the
airport code is KGS.”

He said
nothing.

“Glenn, I need
you to put aside what you think happened. Now reach past the beer and the fast
food and dig into your memory for me. Did it say KGS, or KOS?”

“What does it
matter?” He held his arms up. “I caught you.”

“You stupid
hick. Where’s this paper now?”

“At the house.
I made a copy of that one. The lawyer I spoke to said I should do that, since
some of the stuff went missing.”

“What do you
mean missing?”