Rough Draft (42 page)

“Wow,” Misty said. “Now there's a cheery one.”

“It's a David and Goliath story.”

“What?”

“Doesn't matter how little you are, or how weak,” Hal said. “If your juice is strong enough, you'll win.”

Hal turned in his seat and looked at Misty. Then he turned further and examined Randall. The boy's eyes were open but that was the only way you'd know he was still alive.

“We need to get rid of the kid,” Hal said.

“Get rid of him?”

“Somebody drives by, a neighbor or something, they might recognize him. He's trouble. He could get us caught, Misty. We need to get rid of him.”

“Are you saying what I think you're saying?”

Hal met her eyes and nodded.

“Hey, he's just a kid.”

“A kid who could get us in trouble. Spoil everything.”

“Jesus, Hal. Doing away with a kid, that could be very bad karma. You and me, we're at the beginning of a relationship. It could be like a dark stain on things. We'd be haunted by it.”

“It's got to be done.”

Hal opened the door and got out. He waited till a car had passed by on the street, then tugged open Randall's door and hauled the boy into the vacant lot and dragged him over into the tall grass behind the car.

Misty jumped out and hustled back there. Hal was hidden behind the trunk of one of the oaks. He had his hands around Randall's throat and was beginning to squeeze. The kid wasn't resisting.

“Wait a minute, Hal. Wait a goddamn minute.”

She slapped him on the shoulder and his hands relaxed on Randall's throat.

“Look, we might need him,” she said. “We might want to show him to his mother once, let her know for sure we have him. He didn't say a word to her on the phone, she might not even believe it's true he's been kidnapped.”

Randall's eyes were closed. His face was red, and there was the bluish-yellow beginning of a bruise at his throat.

Hal looked at Misty, then looked back at the boy. Hal's face was bland. He wasn't mad or worried or anything. Like some kind of Zen master, peaceful and far away.

“Okay,” he said. “But he has to lie down on the floor in the back. And if he makes a noise, he's finished. You got that, kid? One noise, you're gone.”

Randall just kept looking off at the horizon. Dusk was settling in, lights coming on in the houses nearby. A mosquito whined at her ear.

They walked back to the car and Randall got into the back and lay facedown on the floor.

Misty got in front with Hal and set the computer in her lap.

“What's your father doing now?”

She watched the screen for a few seconds.

“Still yammering,” she said. “Jesus Christ, that's got to be the sorriest man who was ever born.”

Hal smiled.

“Not half as sorry as he's going to be.”

With Fielding's site running in the background, Hannah navigated through Randall's computer and located again those protected E-mail files from
Dad
.

She double-clicked the first one and the gray password protection box appeared. She typed in the word
Pardner
but didn't hit the enter button. She sat there and looked at the seven letters filling the box.

She made a silent pact with God. If he granted her this one, she vowed to radically change her life. She would shut off her computer, exit her fabricated world, and force Randall to do the same. All he'd been doing was copying her. Losing himself in his own electronic universe, cutting himself off from the complications of the real one. Just as she had done, Randall had tried to flee the troubling emotions, entering a place he could control and define. It was a sickness. It was a paltry, synthetic substitute. By God, she would do better, if he would only grant her this one prayer.

She took a careful breath and let it go. Nearby on the desk, Spunky rustled the shredded paper.

Hannah tapped the enter key.

And the E-mail file opened. Thank God, thank God.

 

Dearest Randall, my son:

I found your Web site today and was so excited I had to E-mail you. I know it has been a long time since I wrote you or spoke to you, but I'm sure you understand how hard it is to speak freely with you since your mother hates me so. I was hoping we might correspond in this manner. If this interests you, please let me know. Of course, please don't mention this to your mother.

Your loving father.

 

Hannah sat staring at the screen. Her vision was clear, her breath was coming clean and painlessly. After a moment she closed the file and used the same password to open the next one.

 

Dearest Randall:

It was so wonderful to hear from you by E-mail. Yes, I have been living in Oslo these last few years. I am working at a university teaching mathematics. I miss you very much and think of you every day. And yes, I have a picture of you, but not a recent one. Maybe you can E-mail me something that was taken lately. I'm sure you're a big strong, handsome boy by now. Your loving father.

 

She read a half dozen more, the same short, businesslike notes. But with a new subject emerging. Norway. What a beautiful country it was. How clean and orderly it was. And how much Pieter loved his son, how he yearned to have him by his side. And as always a reminder to Randall to destroy these E-mail notes so his mother would never learn of the bond growing between father and son.

Randall quickly tired of the exchange. In one of his recent notes, he wrote:

 

I'm sorry, Dad, but please stop writing me. I love you but I don't want to do this anymore.

 

And Pieter's reply was bitterly direct. The loathsome man she'd married.

 

Dear Son:

I was shocked and sorrowed to receive your E-mail. I can only think that your mothers destructive influence holds you in its power. This is too bad. This worries me greatly. I wonder if I can trust you still with the secret we share. Please write me immediately and assure me that I have nothing to fear. For if I thought my own son would turn against me and tell terrible stories to the authorities, I do not know what actions I might be forced to take.

Your father.

 

Hannah sat back in her chair. She was shivering and the breath wouldn't fill her lungs.

She managed to lift her hands to the keyboard and opened Randall's final reply, a desperate plea.

 

Dear Dad:

I promised, didn't I? I haven't told anybody what you did to Granddaddy and Nana, but if you don't stop bothering me, I'm going to tell Mother. I will. I'll tell her everything. So just leave me alone.

 

And in an instant the story she'd been telling herself for these last five years dissolved. And the new scene played before her, complete and vivid, as if she were witnessing it firsthand.

Five years ago, Pieter Thomasson, her ex-husband, must have been hovering on the edge of their lives, watching,
waiting. The coward didn't have the nerve to try his stunt with her around. Then early one morning after Hannah left for work, he showed up at the Kellers' door. Entering through the kitchen, confronting Martha Keller first. Making demands. He was going to take his son away with him to Oslo. He was the boy's rightful father. This was all Ed Keller's fault anyway, for taunting Pieter in the courtroom that morning, provoking him to such rage before the judge that it wrecked his chances for shared custody.

Pieter was carrying a pistol. He expected Ed and Martha to simply cave in. Wave the pistol in their faces and watch them cringe. But Martha didn't react as he expected. She would have none of it, this craven man trying to abduct her grandson. She would have told Pieter exactly what she thought of him. He was sick and deranged. A man who preyed on young girls. A pedophile, as far as Martha was concerned. And in a sudden rage, Pieter must have fired. Ed heard the shots and came running half-dressed from the back of the house.

But the shock of seeing his former son-in-law standing in his living room, made Ed Keller falter for a second, just long enough for Pieter to unload his weapon.

And where was Randall and what did he see? Hannah knew now that he was not on the seawall as he'd claimed. That was a lie, part of the story he concocted to protect his father. So he must have been inside the house. Perhaps eating his cereal in the kitchen, and eyewitness to his father's savagery. And when the last of the shots were fired, what happened between father and son?

Maybe Randall managed to hide. And his father must have searched, frantic, calling out for him. Two bodies on the floor and the killer, the boy's own father, was stalking through the house speaking to his son, trying to cajole him out into the open. Maybe that, or maybe Randall stood face-to-face with the man and refused to leave with him. Refused to be dragged outside and taken away. And his father, shaken by what he'd done and by his own son's repudiation, finally took flight.

No wonder Randall could not speak for weeks. Terrified, full of guilt. Afraid to incriminate his father, afraid for his own life and that of his mother. Locked in a horrible standoff with his own emotions.

Then with every passing year, Pieter's worry grew. His son could incriminate him, send him to prison, the gallows. Even though Randall's cover story held up, Pieter must have been haunted with dread. Three men in a white van, dressed as house painters. An invention of Randall's. A story that had deceived everyone. But Pieter's anxiety grew. When his son reached maturity, would his silence be broken? Would Randall's sense of right and wrong finally outweigh his loyalty to his father?

It must have been that worry that drove Pieter to contact the boy, engage him in these secret exchanges. Test his devotion. And when Randall could take his disturbing presence no more and raised the possibility of revealing the truth to Hannah, Pieter had no choice but to act.

Pieter Thomasson was the tourist from Norway who'd reported his rental car stolen. Pieter Thomasson was the shooter outside Garcia's Café. That was, after all, the simplest solution to his dilemma. With Hannah dead, no further legal action would be necessary. Randall would be terrified, totally alone. And Pieter would simply step forward and repossess his son and spirit him away. Murderer and eyewitness living unhappily ever after.

Hannah stared at Randall's words on the screen.

“I promised, didn't I? I haven't told anybody, but if you don't stop bothering me, I'm going to tell Mother. I will. So just leave me alone.”

But he hadn't confided in hen Randall continued to harbor his secret. Corrosive, vile, poisonous, it had burned holes in the boy's soul. The guilt of what he knew but could not tell was more than he could stand. The shame, the terror, the agonizing bewilderment he lived with every day. No wonder he had retreated into his room, and into the safe, electronic universe.

This was the true story. She was almost certain of it.

But it was entirely possible Hannah would never be absolutely sure. This might well be the only version she would ever know. For even if she managed to get Randall home safely, the task of extracting the truth from him about the events of that July morning might prove so damaging, so hurtful that it would be impossible to carry out. She might never know. She might only have this imagined account.

Hannah sat staring blankly at the screen, eyes stinging with tears. She dropped her head into her hands, but just as she began to weep, J. J. Fielding's voice filled the room.

She wiped her eyes quickly.

She took a long breath, then put her hand on the mouse and killed the E-mail screen, moving back to Fielding's hospital room. The old man was talking. He was not apologizing anymore. His lips were moving and he was speaking in the same frail voice, but with fresh words now. Words that, by God, had to work.

“Hey, listen to this,” Misty said. She tapped the volume button.

Hal was filing his thumbnail. The point was dagger-sharp. He set the file down and tested the nail against the palm of his left hand. A dot of blood jumped to the surface of his skin. He wiped the blood on the steering wheel.

“Listen to this, Hal. Listen. This is it.”

Frank Sheffield was at his desk at the north Miami field office, cleaning out his drawers, doing it now when the building was nearly empty and when he was fueled by righteous anger and three margaritas from Paco's on the beach. He had his computer switched on, set to
Deathwatch.com.
J. J. Fielding's final minutes on earth.

Frank had bummed an empty Jack Daniel's box from the bartender at Paco's and he'd decided when he filled that one box to the brim with his desk stuff, he was going to declare himself done. Whatever bullshit was left he'd donate to the Bureau's national museum. They could display the stuff in the Hall of Shame wing. Along with the wax statues of all the other idiot agents who'd administered unsanctioned uppercuts to the bellies of U.S. senators.

Frank was sitting in his familiar green leather swivel chair with the nasty squeak in the hinges. Over the years Sheffield must've unloaded three cans of WD-40 on that chair, but the squeak was still there, louder than ever. Now the Bureau could fucking well find the squeak themselves. Pass Frank's chair on to some junior agent, an industrious kid fresh out of Quantico, a squeak specialist.

Frank dumped a handful of yellow pencils into the box, then he opened the flap on a paper envelope full of snapshots, a couple of rolls he'd taken last summer of a few of his three-week romances. Mostly middle-distance shots at the tiki bar, the ladies sloshed, sitting there in the sun, in their bikinis, giving Frank a variety of sloppy grins.

Sheffield dropped the envelope in the trash can, which
was already overflowing with a lot of other sentimental crap. All that was left in the middle drawer was a sheaf of departmental stationery. He was pulling that out to toss it too when an old glossy of Hannah Keller fluttered out. One of her publicity shots from way back when. A leftover from the murder investigation of her parents. He must've stashed it and forgotten.