The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man (27 page)

“My dad…” She cleared her throat and looked around the room. I caught sight of Nathan Burby standing in the corner, looking unctuous, and was nearly felled by the heat of my anger. “My dad called me Kathy. He liked to go running, and when he got back we would walk together. He told me I could be anything in the world I wanted to be.” Her mouth trembled. “I knew he didn't leave us.” Her eyes flashed at her mother, briefly, before settling back on the people in the room. “He would never leave. I knew in my heart something really bad had happened to my dad.” Her tears ran down her cheeks, and when she inhaled it was like a hiccup. “I didn't want him to be dead, but I knew that's the only reason he wouldn't be there when I was growing up.” She gave us a crooked smile. “He was the best dad in the whole world.”

Her wet eyes probed the room and when they found mine I was wiping the tears away. Alan and I sat there, both crying, and the stares were now frank and openly curious as they assessed me and my reaction.

Marget stood and hugged her daughter and they both wept, while people swarmed around, wondering how to help.

I caught sight of Sheriff Strickland watching me from across the room. His expression was, as always, dark and unreadable, but I knew he couldn't be happy to see me there.

After a time the room broke into individual groups and then developed some organization: People would file past a display of photographs, sometimes touching Alan's coffin, before murmuring something to Katie and Marget and then shaking Nathan Burby's hand on the way out the door. I waited until Timms was involved in a conversation across the room before stepping forward. I took my time looking at the pictures.

Alan had always been tall and thin, with very dark eyebrows and curly hair that he'd passed on to his daughter. Sometime in the eighties he allowed too much hair to pile up on his head until he looked like a Chia Pet, but his clothing was always pressed and clean. He had lean, muscular legs and arms. In most of the photographs he was not smiling, though whenever he was caught holding his little girl he was grinning through even, white teeth.

“That one is from her fifth birthday party,”
he said in wonder. Katie was a little brown-headed girl who always seemed to be wearing muddy dresses and chocolate face paint.

I went and stood in front of the coffin, tentatively setting my hand on it.
“I'm in there,”
he breathed in awe.

Actually, no, I wanted to tell him, you're in
here,
inside me.

I met Marget next. She was a pale, pretty woman, thin, with a weary expression in her eyes. I told her how sorry I was and she nodded distractedly. It must be difficult to be the official widow of a man you divorced many years ago.

I held out my hand for Katie, but she surprised me by pulling me into a tight hug. “Thank you so, so much for coming. It really means a lot to me. I know my father would have appreciated you being here.”

“I'm so sorry for your loss,” I told her, which sounded stupid to my ears—the loss had taken place a long time ago. We were here for closure.

Katie steered me slightly to the side. “Most of these people were the same ones who said my dad ran away. Do you think they admit that? No, now they all act like they knew something bad had happened the whole time.”

I didn't know what to say to this. I shrugged, cursing my inability to help her. I wanted to slay dragons for this woman, pull her out of a burning building, be her hero, instead of just standing there like a tree trunk.

“You heard? They said he was shot in the head.” Katie put her hand to her mouth. “Do you think he suffered?” Her eyes searched mine.

He's dead.

No, I'm not.

“No! I mean, no, he didn't suffer, Katie. I can promise you that. Your father died almost instantly and never felt a thing.”

“I never even knew I was shot the second time, I just fell down. It didn't hurt at all,”
Alan told me.

“Katie?” A woman her mother's age touched Katie's shoulder, and I took my cue and said good-bye.

Nathan Burby held out a hand as I headed for the door. “Very good of you to come,” he murmured, acting as if he'd never seen me before.

“What will happen to the memorial now that you have a real body?” I asked curiously.

He frowned, not liking the question. “That hasn't been decided yet.”

“You were going to show me where it is.”

His eyes turned cold. “You're not a cousin.”

“No, I'm not.”

“You're the man who found Alan's body. Why did you come here and lie to me?”

“I can't believe the nerve of this man,”
Alan choked angrily.

“I don't know, Nathan, why did you lie to me?” I asked pleasantly.

He clearly regretted engaging in conversation with me. “Good-bye, thank you for coming.”

“Poor Alan, do you think he suffered?”

Burby blinked at me.

“Not from the shot in the head, I'm sure he didn't feel that. But that shovel had to hurt, don't you think?”

The color drained from his face. I leaned forward. “I know what you're thinking, Nathan. I was in prison, right? I'm sure somebody from Strickland's office told you that by now. So I couldn't have been there, hiding behind the trees, watching the whole thing. But if that's the case, how do I know? See, that's what you should be wondering about. How do I know?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he responded faintly.

I slapped him a little too hard on the shoulder, sensing the room drop into quiet at the sudden noise. “Sure you do, Nathan.” I winked at him. “See you soon, pal.”

I walked out into the late afternoon sun.

“My God, Ruddy, that was amazing. You just got right in his face.”

“He killed a friend of mine. Pisses me off,” I explained. The blood was still pounding through my limbs and I half hoped Burby would follow me outside and try to start something. If he wasn't available, I'd take Timms.

After a bit I'd calmed down and Alan and I decided to check out his memorial, which turned out to be a restful park bench set beneath some trees. Off to the side was a large boulder with a brass plaque bolted into the rock.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF ALAN LOTTNER. WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU
. I sat down and let Alan work through his feelings.

“Second day in a row with some sunshine. We'll be covered with mosquitoes before you know it,” I remarked after a while.

“Why would a funeral director and a factory board member want to kill me? Why would they deprive me of my family, of my little girl?”
Alan asked plaintively.

“It was something you saw that day, I'm convinced of it,” I replied, thinking of Wexler's shocked expression when he spotted the car bouncing past. Burby didn't appear so surprised, but his profession probably gave him a lot of practice masking his reactions.

“But what did I see? They were just standing there!”

We thought about that for some time. When we stood up from the bench, the parking lot was only half full, and people were leaving in a steady trickle. Nathan and Marget had stepped outside to talk, Burby probably trying to settle his bill before everyone left. He and Alan's widow were conferring in low, almost intimate tones.

Then she raised her face, smiling, and the two of them kissed. I heard Alan gasp in shock, and I stood there a moment, my mouth open.

“Alan,” I finally said, “I think I know why you were murdered.”

 

 

20

Why They Died

 

“How can this be?”
Alan whispered, stunned.

Burby and Marget went back inside, their arms linked. I turned away from the funeral home so no one would see me talking to myself.

“It's the most basic motive in history, Alan.”

“No, wait—even if you're right, it doesn't make any sense. Why would Wexler want to get involved? It was Wexler who hit me with the shovel, and he … I'm pretty sure he shot me, I don't know how I know, but it was him. Why would he do that?”

“Maybe he owed Burby a favor.”

“Oh come on, Ruddy.”

I thought about it. “Actually I have no idea,” I admitted. “But it's pretty clear to me that this isn't the first time those two have kissed.”

“Thanks.”

“Well sorry, but you've been gone for eight years, Alan, what did you expect?”

“It's just not an easy thing to hear.”

“Sorry.”

“It's been sort of a rough day, you know?”

“Yeah, okay,” I apologized. “You're right.”

“Ruddy?”

I turned. Katie was looking at me curiously.

“Who are you talking to?”

“Oh…” I laughed, then trailed off weakly. Her eyes were still red and swollen.

“Can you … I'd like to leave. I rode here with Mom and Nathan, but I don't want to be here anymore.”

“Sure, yes, of course.” We walked to my truck and I held the door open for her. “Where do you want to go?”

I wound up heading north on M66, toward Charlevoix. After a minute or so I flicked on the headlights to keep the highway ahead illuminated. Katie stared out the window.

“We should hold her,”
Alan said, not thinking very clearly. There was no “we,” and while yes, her father should hold her, there was no reason to feel like that would be welcome from me. If anything, Katie seemed hostile and cold.

“That was horrible,” she said distantly, squeezing the armrest.

“It must have been very hard,” I responded sympathetically.

Her eyes flashed at me. “I'm sorry, but sometimes my mother just makes me sick. When Dad … when he was first missing, Nathan would come over with everybody else, all the neighbors and her friends, but then he'd stay long after they all left. One time I saw him pulling out of the driveway
in the morning
.” Her lips twisted bitterly. “I think it started before Dad was even gone. Them, I mean. Nathan and Mom.”

I breathed deeply, feeling like a piece of the puzzle had slipped into place with an audible click.

“I knew she was probably seeing somebody,”
Alan grumbled.
“There were a lot of clues.”

“She married him like two weeks after the whole divorce thing was finalized.”

Ah. Something our funeral director friend had neglected to mention to us. No wonder he reacted so strongly when I showed up claiming to be a cousin from Wisconsin.

“Tell her it's okay, that sometimes marriages fail and that her mother is no more to blame than I am,”
Alan instructed.

I would not tell her that. “So he's the owner of the funeral home?”

Katie nodded moodily.

“I was wondering … didn't the cemetery used to be somewhere else? I mean, how do you move a cemetery?”

“Oh, right. It sold to a company that manufactures some kind of plastic pipe thing. They dug up each body and moved it to the new spot. I remember Nathan telling my mom he got ten thousand dollars a corpse, like bragging about it.” She turned in her seat to look at me. “Do you think I'm being a bitch?”

“What?” I asked, startled.

“Nathan's been very nice to me. He wanted to adopt me but I said no way as long as there was a possibility my dad was still alive. He tries, he really does. Do you think I punish him because he's not my dad? That's what my mother says. She says I've been punishing both of them.” Katie stared at me. I considered my response.

“Of course she's not a bitch. Oh, Kathy,”
Alan moaned.

“I think,” I answered slowly, “that you lost your dad at a very critical time. That you were no longer a child and had developed a social life of your own and didn't depend on him for day-to-day decisions.” I pictured myself at that age. “You were pretty independent, but then when he was gone you felt abandoned, and as the years went on, you weren't getting along with your mother and you sometimes were angry at your father for leaving, and now you feel really bad because it turns out he was murdered.” I thought about what Alan had told me. “He would have done anything to be there for you, but somebody shot him and buried him in the woods.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. “It's been the defining event of my life,” she whispered. Inside, Alan was crying again.

I nodded. “Sometimes that happens to us, way before we're ready, a moment that changes everything. Life will be going along, like normal, and then one day without warning you find out that nothing will ever be the same.” I stared sightlessly out the windshield, remembering the day it happened to me.

“What about you?” she asked softly, as if reading my thoughts. Her eyes searched mine.

“What do you mean?”

“What happened? Why were you in prison?”

As luck would have it, she couldn't have picked a better time to ask the question—I could
show
her. I slowed, pulled a quick U-turn, and headed back to Ironton, Michigan, population twenty-eight, the place where I ruined at least two lives. The scene of the crime.

There probably wouldn't even be a town called Ironton except that it was there that the long arm of Lake Charlevoix was at its most narrow, a few hundred yards across. The county operated a car ferry that shuttled back and forth across this choke. To reach the ferry when traveling south on M66, cars veered off onto a gentle curve to the left. I did this now, putting on my blinker. A trip of less than the length of a football field and there you were at the water's edge. At night, people sometimes made the mistake of going down the ramp to the ferry, thinking they were still on the highway. During my trial, my attorney handed the judge pictures of the pavement, showing all the dark tire marks from people frantically braking their speed after realizing they'd made the wrong turn. The problem was that while the error I made was mundane, the consequences were anything but.