Water's Edge (39 page)

“And I’d like to see my client,” he said. “Please have her brought up to one of the interview rooms.”

“Just a minute,” the deputy responded, staring at Tom’s card. “I’ll have to check on that.”

The woman disappeared through a door. Tom calculated the chance of receiving a favorable response to his request at less than twenty-five percent.

“What’s going to happen now?” Esther asked.

“It depends on who she talks to.”

Several minutes passed. When the deputy returned, she was accompanied by an officer about Tom’s age. He opened the door for the cubicle and came into the lobby. His name badge read “David Galloway, Assistant Chief Deputy.” Galloway and Tom had played together on the same high school football team.

“Tom,” Galloway said, extending his hand. “I’m sorry about what’s happened. Between you and me, there are folks in the sheriff’s department who don’t like the way this has been handled. Everybody knows your family, and this just doesn’t add up.”

“They’re right.”

Tom introduced Galloway to Esther.

“I know you’re a lawyer,” Galloway continued, “but under the circumstances you’re going to have to tell me a way I can let you meet with Rose Addington without getting into a lot of trouble.”

Tom thought for a moment. “Call Judge Caldwell and ask him.”

Galloway’s eyes opened wide. “Are you serious? Call the judge at home on a Sunday morning?”

“He’s the one who will eventually decide if I can talk to Rose. I may as well find out now.”

“I don’t have his cell phone number.”

“I do.”

Tom took out his phone, found the number, and showed it to the officer. Galloway pressed his lips together.

“He’s probably at church,” Tom continued. “But it would mean a lot to me if you’d try.”

“The worst thing he can do is yell at me.” Galloway shrugged. “And if I were in your shoes, I’d want an old teammate to help if he could.”

Galloway left. On an issue like this, without any specific rules that applied, Nathan Caldwell was the kind of judge who didn’t need to hear from the lawyers. He would do what he wanted to do. When Galloway returned, the officer’s face was impassive. Tom’s heart sank.

“You can meet with her,” Galloway said.

“You talked to the judge?” Tom asked.

“Yes. I told him what you wanted to do. He said if anyone asked me about it to have them contact him on Monday.”

“Thanks.” Tom turned to Esther. “Wait here. I’ll ask the guard on duty to take Rose to the visitation area as soon as we’re finished.”

Tom followed Galloway through a metal door. They turned right into the much smaller women’s area of the jail. There was a single interview room.

“Wait here, and I’ll have her brought up,” Galloway said. “One of the guards will take you back to the front when you’re finished.”

Tom’s heart beat faster as he waited. Rose entered the hallway wearing a smaller version of the orange jumpsuit. She looked at him with a steely gaze. The female guard left them facing each other.

“We can talk in here,” Tom said, motioning toward the interview room.

“About what?” Rose asked, not moving.

“Everything. After we’ve talked, you can see your mother in the visitation room. I gave her a ride to the jail.”

“I want to see her now. I have nothing to say to you.”

“But I have plenty to say to you. Please, let’s go in here so we can talk in private.”

Rose slowly walked into the interview room while Tom held the door for her.

“Why aren’t you in jail?” she asked as she sat down.

“Someone posted my bond, and I got out last night.”

“I don’t have a bond.”

“I know. It’s because you’re considered a greater flight risk as a non-US citizen.”

“How did you get in here to talk to me?”

“Your mother hired me to be your lawyer. It’s a—”

“What?!” Rose exploded. “That’s the most outrageous—”

“It’s just a way for me to meet with you,” Tom said, holding his hands out in front of him. “I’m going to help your mother find a lawyer who can actually represent you. I need to tell you why we were arrested.”

Rose sat with her jaw clenched. Tom quickly explained what had happened with Owen Harrelson and Arthur Pelham.

“I got trapped, and you had nothing to do with any of this. That’s what I’ll tell your lawyer, and I’ll work with him any way I can to get you out of this.”

“Is there anything else you need to tell me?” Rose asked.

“About what?”

“Our fathers and how they died.”

Tom swallowed. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I think you know exactly what I mean.”

“The autopsy?”

Rose’s eyes filled with tears that she angrily wiped away. She stood to her feet. “How could you deceive me about that?”

“I didn’t deceive you. Charlie Williams wasn’t sure what to make of—”

“That’s not what he told me,” Rose said, cutting him off. “I saw the autopsy results. My papa was trying to expose a multimillion-dollar theft by people at Pelham and trusted your father with the information. The money—”

“I know how it looks, but—”

“Don’t interrupt me! The money transferred to your father’s trust account was going to prove what was going on, but once your father got control of it, he decided to kill my father and keep it for himself.”

“That’s not true.”

“Stop lying to me! Williams showed me the check your father wrote to himself !”

“Let me explain. That check doesn’t mean—” Tom protested.

“No,” she replied, spinning around. “Listening to you is one mistake I’m never going to make again! Leave now and stay away from my mother.”

Rose jerked open the door. “I don’t want to talk to this man anymore!” she shouted down the hallway. “Get him out of here. He’s not my barrister!”

chapter
THIRTY-TWO

R
ose ran down the hallway toward a female guard, who opened a metal door. The door slammed shut. Tom stared down the hallway for a moment, then slowly walked away. A guard in the booking area for the female prisoners pressed a button so he could leave. Esther Addington was waiting for him in the lobby.

“How is Rose?” she asked anxiously.

“Upset with me. She doesn’t want me to have any contact with you.”

“Why?”

There was no use keeping silent. Tom told Esther about the results of the autopsy. The older woman’s face, already pale, became more ashen.

“I know how it looks,” he said, “but there has to be an explanation.”

“Rose is right,” Esther replied in a trembling voice. “I’ll make other arrangements to get home.”

“There’s a taxi service on Oakdale Street. Someone from the jail can call and—”

“I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

Tom nodded glumly and left the jail. Getting in his car, he leaned his head against the back of the seat. The encounter with Rose had drained every bit of fight from him. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine his life twenty-four hours earlier. It wasn’t possible. He was being pulled apart on a rack, and his future would be nothing except humiliation and ever-increasing pain. Then an idea he’d never thought would cross his mind appeared with a sudden and surprising appeal.

Tom could leave this life for the next. It would be better for him. Better for everyone.

There was an old deer rifle in a gun case beneath the bed in the bedroom where his father slept when he moved in with Elias. The rifle fired bullets that were powerful enough to kill a buck two hundred yards away. From close range, it would be an instantaneous and painless death. Tom saw himself kneeling in Elias’s study for a final prayer, then taking the gun outside to a spot behind the garage. He could sit down, lean against the wall, place the barrel of the rifle beneath his chin, and pull the trigger. The key to the gun case was in a small envelope in his father’s desk at the office.

He started the car’s engine and drove to the office. On the way he passed two downtown churches that were now disgorging the morning’s worshippers. No one seemed to recognize his car. Adjacent to the church his parents attended was the cemetery where they were buried along with more than a score of Crane relatives. Elias owned a couple of plots in the cemetery. His uncle only needed one for himself and would certainly allow Tom’s body to be buried in the other.

Tom didn’t bother trying to hide his car. He parked directly in front of the office, got out, ripped off the police tape, and fumbled for his key. It wasn’t there. He’d not replaced the key confiscated by Detective Keller.

Tom calmly returned to his car, opened the trunk, and took out the lug wrench. Glancing around to make sure the side street was empty, he carefully aimed the wrench at a spot near the lock and smashed the glass. He reached inside and flipped the lock. He went straight to the desk. The key for the gun case was still in the envelope in the bottom left drawer of the desk. He slipped it into his pocket and left. Now the police couldn’t deny there had been a break-in.

A strange peace descended on Tom as he drove to Elias’s house. He’d passed into the eye of the storm, a place of calm where he could act dispassionately before the swirling insanity of everything else that was going on around him returned on Monday morning. Elias’s car was gone. Tom parked beneath the large oak tree and went into the house. Rover was lying on his side in the front room. He raised his head when Tom passed, then rolled over. The dog would be happier with Elias than he had been with Tom.

Tom headed down the hallway to his father’s old bedroom. He pulled the gun case out from beneath the bed and turned the key in the lock. The gun lay nestled in gray foam padding along with two boxes of ammunition. Tom took five bullets from an ammunition box and loaded one of them in the rifle. He slipped the other bullets in his pocket. The smooth wood of the rifle felt cool against his hands. He ignored Rover as he passed through the front room but then stopped at the front door. When he’d played out this scenario in his car outside the jail, he’d spent a few moments in Elias’s study.

Tom checked his watch. There was plenty of time before Elias might return from church. He went into the study and leaned the rifle against the wall. Kneeling in front of the chair, he bowed his head and quickly asked God to forgive him for all the stupid mistakes he’d made in his life. Suicide was probably a sin too; however, the overwhelming problems he would experience if he continued to live, and the difficulties he would bring to others, made putting an end to life a reasonable option. Once gone, he could do no more wrong. Elias’s Bible was lying on the seat of the chair. Turning to the concordance in the back, Tom looked up the word
death
. A portion of a verse in 1 Corinthians 15 caught his eye: “O death, where is your sting?” He closed the Bible. That was it. Death no longer had the ability to hurt him. Its sting was gone. He had nothing to fear.

Grabbing the gun, Tom resolutely left the house. It was a slightly overcast day. He glanced up at the sky and wondered what it would look like from heaven’s perspective. Behind the garage Elias had parked a rusty utility trailer. The tires on the trailer were flat and rotting off the rims. Tom sat on the ground next to the trailer. He raised the gun to his shoulder and pointed it across the open field. He flipped off the safety, aimed at a stump about fifty yards away, and pulled the trigger. A tiny cloud of dust sprouted beside the stump. The gun worked. And unlike the stump, Tom wouldn’t miss his next target. He inserted another bullet into the chamber and positioned the gun so the muzzle rested against the bottom of his chin. He had to fully extend his arms to press his thumb against the trigger yet keep the gun steady. He closed his eyes for a final prayer.

“Tom!” a female voice called out. “Are you in there?”

Tom opened his eyes, lowered the gun, and crawled a few feet so he could peek around the corner.

It was Tiffany Pelham.

She was standing on the front porch looking in the windows of the house. Tom leaned back against the garage and repositioned the gun. He hesitated. If he pulled the trigger now, Tiffany would be the one to find him. The high-powered rifle would be effective but messy. Leaning the rifle against the back of the garage, Tom walked around the corner of the building.

“I’m over here!” he called out.

Tiffany saw him and ran down the front steps and across the yard. She didn’t stop until she reached him, threw her arms around him, buried her head in his shoulder, and cried. Tom, his arms hanging limply at his sides, stared past her head toward the driveway.

“What are you doing here?” he asked when her sobs stopped for a moment.

Tiffany’s crying continued without an answer. There was nothing to do but wait. Finally she pulled back, sniffled, and rubbed her eyes.

“Where can we talk?” she asked.

“Uh, right here.”

Tiffany glanced over her shoulder. “No, it has to be someplace private.”

“There’s no place more private than this. Elias is at church.”

“No, but I don’t want Elias walking in on us while I’m talking.”

“Where do you want to go?”

Tiffany looked in Tom’s eyes. “Austin’s Pond.”

“Austin’s Pond? Why there?”

“Can we go there?” Tiffany ignored his question. “We’ll both need to drive. I can’t leave my car here.”

“Okay,” Tom replied reluctantly.

Leaving the gun behind the garage, Tom went into the house to get his car keys and wallet. As he walked, he quickly checked his commitment to carry through with his plan to kill himself. Freeing Tiffany from her attachment to him would be another reason to cut his ties with Earth. When he returned to the front yard, Tiffany was already in her car. She lowered the window.

“You lead. I’ll follow.”

On the way to the pond, Tom kept a close eye on Tiffany in the rearview mirror. That she still loved him despite the criminal charges showed the depth of her fantasy. He would have to be as harsh as possible with her at the pond. Her final memory of him, if not bloody, needed to end any chance that she could imagine them living happily ever after. He turned onto the dirt road that led directly to the pond. He reached the barn and let the car slowly roll to a stop. Tiffany pulled in beside him.