Very Bad Men Read online

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said. “I had an accident. Slicing apples. I sliced my palm instead.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  He gazed at her across the counter. She stood like his reflected image, her brown hands resting on the folded towel. On the back of one of them he saw two thin, curved lines. Cat scratches, a few days old.

  “I didn’t feel it,” he said. “Not at first.”

  She’s still suspicious, he thought. She wants to see underneath the gauze.

  He brought his left hand up and contemplated the palm. “It’s funny how that works sometimes, isn’t it? You don’t even feel it.”

  Casually, as if the idea had just occurred to him, as if it were a natural thing to do, he peeled the tape from the gauze with the fingers of his right hand. He unwound the bandage and let it fall in a heap on the countertop.

  He made sure she saw the back of his hand—smooth and unmarked—and then showed her the palm. The cut was short and straight and looked nothing like a cat scratch.

  She made a sympathetic face when she saw it. “That looks painful.”

  “It’s getting better,” he said.

  The shy smile returned and she seemed to decide, finally, that he was harmless. He thought for a moment that she would want to stay and talk some more.

  Instead, she picked up her flyers—all but the one she had given him.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said.

  He nodded. “Same here.”

  “You’ve got my number,” she said, “if you see Roscoe.”

  It might have been his imagination, but something in the tone of her voice made him think she might not mind him calling even if he didn’t see Roscoe.

  “I’ve got it,” he said.

  She went to the door and he went with her. Watched her cross the hall to her apartment.

  Back in the kitchen he wrapped the gauze around his hand again. He opened the drawer and brushed his fingers over the handle of the knife.

  He could go across the hall right now and knock, and she would answer. It would be easy.

  The letters on the flyer—LOST CAT—had settled into a smooth blue-green, gently bobbing like a boat tied at a dock.

  Lark remembered being hungry and thought about take-out Chinese. He closed the drawer, found his keys, and went out.

  CHAPTER 23

  I talked to Lucy Navarro again on Monday night, but before that I heard from Nick Dawtrey and the senator had his accident.

  I’d left my card with Nick and told him to call me if he got the urge to ride his bike in circles around the Chippewa County sheriff’s office again. I had filled him in about the man in plaid, but I knew he didn’t want to let go of the idea that the cops were somehow behind his father’s death, and that they had deliberately murdered his half brother Terry. I’d asked him to be patient, to wait and see what Elizabeth could find out.

  He reached me on my cell phone at the Gray Streets office. His voice had the same tone I remembered, older than his fifteen years.

  “I’ve been watching the sheriff, sport,” he said.

  “Hello, Nick.”

  “Walter Delacorte—he went shopping today. Bought paint and rollers. You think that means anything?”

  “Probably not.”

  I waited for him to tell me what he thought it meant, but he had already moved on.

  “I heard Paul Rhiner came down your way, tried to shoot somebody else.”

  “He didn’t try to shoot anyone,” I said.

  “I heard the Ann Arbor cops hauled him in, but then they let him go.”

  “Elizabeth talked to him,” I said. “She thinks he’s genuinely sorry about having to shoot Terry. She thinks it’s eating away at him. He told her he only meant to wound your brother, not kill him.”

  “And she believed him? What’d I tell you, sport? Your wife’s a cop. She’s gonna side with the other cops.”

  “That’s not the way it is, Nick—”

  “He’s back up here now. Rhiner. Got back yesterday and hasn’t left his house. He lives alone, but somebody brought him sacks of food and bottles of booze. Left them on his porch. I’m not sure who.”

  “You shouldn’t be spying on Rhiner. Or Delacorte. This isn’t a game—”

  “Don’t worry ’bout me, sport. Nobody saw me.”

  “You need to stop.”

  I heard his breath over the line. “I’ll stop as soon as you can tell me what really happened to my father and Terry. You find anything out yet?” His voice made it anytheen.

  I stood by my office window and thought about my conversation with Lucy Navarro. About her meeting with Terry Dawtrey and what Terry had told her about Callie Spencer. I could tell Nick about it, but it would only feed his suspicions.

  He listened to my silence and said, “That’s what I thought.”

  “Things take time,” I said.

  His laugh sounded bitter. “No kidding. Maybe you tell that to Kyle Scudder. They still think he killed my father. My mother, she went to Sault Sainte Marie today, talked to Kyle’s lawyer. Lawyer talked to the prosecutor, but the prosecutor says he won’t drop the charges. Kyle’s lawyer filed a motion to dismiss, but he says it’ll take time. Everything takes time.”

  “It does.”

  “My mother spent all afternoon on the phone, calling everybody she can think of. I don’t know what she expects to do. Maybe have a protest march or something.”

  “Maybe that’ll help.”

  “You’re killing me, sport.” Killeen.

  “Listen,” I said. “You need to let your mother and the lawyer handle things. And stay away from the cops in Sault Sainte Marie.”

  “If I don’t keep watch on the cops, who’s gonna find out the truth? You really think your wife’s gonna do it?”

  “Yes.”

  The line went quiet for a few seconds, but then I heard his voice.

  “Tell her to hurry up.”

  AFTER I GOT OFF the phone with Nick, I spent an hour updating the Gray Streets subscription list. The magazine was supposed to have a secretary to deal with things like that, but the old one had left in the spring and I hadn’t replaced her yet.

  Around five-thirty a couple of the magazine’s interns wandered through. At one time all the interns were students from the university’s English department, but lately I’ve been branching out. One of them was a computer science major. Another studied history and wanted to be a playwright. I sent them each off with an armload of manuscripts from the slush pile. Maybe one of them would find a gem. Probably not.

  By the time they left, the glazier I’d hired to replace the broken glass in the hallway door had finished the job. I wrote him a check for a sum that made me think I’d chosen the wrong line of work, and he packed his tools and went away.

  When I left Gray Streets, I stopped at Whole Foods and picked up grilled shrimp and red peppers and zucchini. I had them warming in the oven when Elizabeth got home. She and I were on our own; Sarah had gone to a friend’s for dinner.

  We ate in the backyard, lounging in Adirondack chairs, watching the low clouds turn golden in the western sky. Afterward, we got out the clippers and trimmed a wisteria vine that had begun to send tendrils over the fence and into the neighbor’s yard. From there we went at the hedges on either side of the house, and soon the ground was strewn with branches that would need to be bagged and hauled to the curb.

  I went to the garage to look for bags, and when I returned Elizabeth had her cell phone to her ear. She said something I didn’t catch, and then, “I’m leaving now.”

  I watched her close the phone. “Work?” I said.

  “Traffic accident.”

  “And they need you there? How bad is it?”

  “It’s not a question of how bad, it’s a question of who.”

  SENATOR JOHN CASTERBRIDGE sat on the grass beneath an oak tree. Legs crossed, forearms resting on his knees. His car, a Mercury Grand Marquis, rested askew in the street nearby. Third Street, near the in
tersection with Jefferson.

  Elizabeth parked half a block away. She cut the engine, left the windows rolled down. Without turning to me she said, “Technically, you ought to stay here.”

  She got out and I trailed behind her. In the center of the intersection sat a patrol car with its lights whirling silently. As she approached it, a uniformed cop stepped over to meet her. A young guy named Fielder.

  They spent a few minutes going over what had happened. The senator had been driving south on Third. Another driver—a twenty-year-old in a Jeep—had been heading east on Jefferson. The intersection was a four-way stop. The senator had entered it first, but the Jeep had run through a moment later, striking the rear fender of the senator’s Mercury and spinning the car a hundred and eighty degrees.

  We could see the Jeep a little way up Jefferson, two wheels in the street and the other two up over the curb.

  “We’ve got witnesses,” Fielder said, indicating a young couple who stood nearby. The woman rocked a stroller back and forth, trying to entertain a toddler with curly red hair.

  “Family out for a walk,” Fielder said. “The husband wasn’t paying attention, but the wife says she saw the senator’s car come to a stop before entering the intersection. Says the kid in the Jeep barreled on through.”

  “Anyone hurt?” asked Elizabeth.

  “The driver of the Jeep had some abrasions from his air bag. EMTs took him to the hospital. The senator refused to be looked at. Says he’s fine. He seems all right—physically.”

  Elizabeth lifted her eyebrows, waiting for Fielder to explain.

  “He wants to be on his way,” Fielder said. “Says he’s on an errand. A matter of life and death. I tried to find out more, but he says it’s top secret and I don’t need to know.”

  “Do you think he’s been drinking?” Elizabeth asked.

  Fielder shook his head. “I didn’t smell anything on him. But something’s not right. Dispatch is trying to get in touch with his son.”

  Elizabeth looked off at the senator sitting in the grass. The leaves of the oak tree fluttered in the air above him.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”

  I stayed by the patrol car with Fielder while Elizabeth crossed the street and joined the senator beneath the oak. He got up when she approached. He seemed steady enough on his feet.

  The sky had dulled to blue and black. The whirling lights of the patrol car lent an air of unreality to the scene. A few people came out onto their porches. The couple with the stroller seemed to grow impatient, and Fielder went over to talk to them.

  After a time, Elizabeth returned, her footsteps sharp in the calm of the night. The senator had returned to his seat on the grass.

  “How is he?” I asked.

  She sighed. “He gave me the same story he gave Fielder. He’s on an errand. When I pressed him for details, he said he needs to get to his wife.”

  The statement hung in the air between us. We both knew what was wrong with it. The senator didn’t have a wife; she had passed away years ago.

  “He needs help,” Elizabeth said. “I have to see if anyone’s gotten through to his son yet.”

  She waved at Fielder and started walking toward him. I circled the front end of the patrol car and drifted across the street toward the oak, hands in pockets, taking in the scenery.

  When I reached the senator’s spot, I joined him on the grass. The sleeves of his cream-colored dress shirt were rolled up to his elbows. The legs of his trousers rose to reveal his ankles. He had on penny loafers, no socks.

  “Is it your turn next?” he said. “Did they send you here to question me?”

  I gazed up at the sky of leaves and branches. “I’m just out for a walk,” I said. “It was either this or stay home and do yard work.”

  “You’re a sensible man. It’s a good night for a walk.”

  “Could be cooler.”

  He leaned back on his arms. In the light from a streetlamp I could see the veins standing out on his wrists.

  “I never minded the heat,” he said. “Have you been behaving yourself?”

  I plucked at a blade of grass. “More or less.”

  “I understand you phoned my daughter-in-law.”

  That was true. I had called Callie Spencer earlier that day, because I had promised Lucy I would. Callie had surprised me by agreeing to Lucy’s request for an interview.

  The senator regarded me sternly. “You need to be careful,” he said. “She’s taken.”

  “I know.”

  “Temptation,” he said. “We’re all tempted.”

  I listened to the rustling of the leaves. The senator had gone silent, though he looked as if he had more to say on the subject of temptation. Something had distracted him. I saw him staring past my shoulder, strands of silver hair falling over his forehead, his eyes suddenly keen.

  I turned and saw a Lexus drawing up to the curb on the other side of Third Street. The driver’s door opened, and Alan Beckett hauled himself up from behind the wheel. He wore a suit of the same vintage as the one he’d worn the night before, and he tugged at his collar as he crossed the street. He moved ponderously. The air seemed to drag on him.

  He stepped onto the curb and drew out a handkerchief to mop the sweat from his scalp.

  “Senator,” he said. “This won’t do.”

  “Al is an endomorph,” John Casterbridge said to me, as if we were still alone. “It’s in his genes. He can’t be blamed, really.”

  “Senator—”

  “That’s why he lumbers like a walrus, like a creature not meant to go on land.”

  Beckett ignored the insult. “We’ve been over this, Senator. You have a driver. If you want to go somewhere, he takes you.”

  “Al thinks I need to be carted around like freight.”

  “He takes you,” Beckett said, “and no one runs any stop signs, and no one gets hurt.”

  I broke in. “The senator didn’t run the stop sign. The other guy did.”

  The words rolled off Beckett. He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “And we avoid scenes like this, with police and onlookers and the attendant embarrassment for your family.”

  Casterbridge looked up at Beckett. Anger tensed his shoulders.

  “I don’t care to hear you talk about my family, Al.”

  “Not to mention your constituents,” Beckett said. “What do you think they’re going to make of this . . . this episode?”

  The senator smiled grimly at that. “Don’t worry about my constituents. They’ll survive this, the darlings. It may bruise their tender sensibilities, but they’ll endure. Bless their black, flabby little hearts.”

  “That’s enough,” said Beckett, wagging his head back and forth in disgust. “I’m going to talk to the police now, see if you’re free to go. Maybe it’s best you stay here.”

  The senator waved him off. “Do what you need to, Al.”

  Beckett scowled at me before he left us. I watched him lope away toward the intersection, where Elizabeth and Fielder were waiting.

  He seemed to take the tension with him. John Casterbridge tipped his head back, filled his lungs with air. Let it drain slowly out.

  “I shouldn’t have said that about Al,” he told me. “He doesn’t move like a walrus. A walrus is a graceful creature, one of the good Lord’s marvels.”

  His palm skimmed the grass. “He’s not as bad as he seems. He comes from good stock. Grew up in Battle Creek. His father was a tradesman. Salt of the earth.”

  Having said his piece about Alan Beckett, he rooted in a pocket of his trousers and produced the stub of a cigar and a box of matches. Soon he had the tip of the cigar glowing, and as he shook out the flame of the match the action jarred my memory. I reached into my own pocket and came out with a small metal cylinder.

  The senator saw it and set the stub between his teeth to free his hands. I passed him the cylinder and watched him unscrew the cap on the end. He tipped the cigar out and read the label on the band.
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  “Not bad,” he said. “Where did you get this?”

  It had been a gift from the owner of the shop that prints Gray Streets. The last time I delivered an issue, he was celebrating the birth of a grandson.

  “I got it from a friend,” I said. “I’d like you to have it.”

  He tipped it back into the cylinder, nodding his thanks. He put the cylinder in his pocket. “For later,” he said.

  After that, we sat in silence. I watched the neighbors chatting with one another on their porches, Beckett talking to Elizabeth in the blue and red light of the patrol car. John Casterbridge finished off the stub of his cigar and tapped out the remnant against the sole of his shoe. The scent of the smoke lingered sweet in the air.

  A hint of it remained when Beckett came back to us. His conversation with Elizabeth seemed to have mellowed him.

  “Come on, Senator,” he said in a voice that was almost gentle. “We’re going.”

  I got up from the ground and offered Casterbridge a hand, but he rose on his own.

  “What did they say about my car?” he asked Beckett.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll arrange to have it towed.”

  Casterbridge folded his arms. “I need that car, Al. I have an errand.”

  Beckett stepped down from the curb and into the street. “I’m driving you home, Senator. Whatever else you need to do can wait until morning.”

  “My errand can’t wait. It’s urgent.”

  I thought Beckett might get angry, but he only rubbed his scalp wearily and said, “I don’t have time for this. It’s late. We’ll talk about it on the way.”

  Casterbridge wavered, letting his arms fall to his sides. I watched him take a step toward the street.

  “I’ve got a car, Senator,” I said. “I’d be happy to drive you wherever you need to go.”

  He looked back at me and then at Beckett, who waited silently in the street. The senator’s eyes were shadowed. His indecision played itself out in small gestures: scratching at his elbow, plucking at his sleeve.

  When he made up his mind he answered me quietly, with one of the saddest smiles I had ever seen.