Dead Man's Song (14 page)

It was only the second of October and the leaves were already turning colors. They seemed pretty, but somehow Mike didn’t like the look of them. It was like they were too bright, too flashy, like the shiny suit of one of those guys who hangs out by the schoolyard and tries to dazzle you with his clothes and his ride and all the time he just wants to sell you some weed.

He scratched his bruised cheek. It hurt, but not as much as it should have.

Even when it slumbers the chrysalis continues to change.

(5)

Vic Wingate switched off the radio and stared through the windshield as his pickup rolled quietly down A-32 toward the canal bridge. He’d just heard the load of horseshit Terry Wolfe had foisted on the press. He snorted and slapped his jacket pockets until he found his cigarettes, shook one out of the pack, and punched in the dashboard lighter. That gullible bunch of dickheads had swallowed every scrap of nonsense Wolfe had tossed to them, and it was very convenient to Vic’s plans to have such a master of spin control as Terry Wolfe. Quiet and calm was good for business. Well…for Vic’s business at any rate. He lit his cigarette. Vic’s and the Man’s.

(6)

Crow was back in Val’s room, and Saul Weinstock was with them, all of them glued to the TV as Terry worked his magic with the press. Every time Terry made a particularly brilliant statement Crow and Weinstock yelled “Boorah!” at the screen. Val just rolled her eyes.

“Terry looks pretty sharp,” Weinstock said. “Better than he has for days.”

On the TV a pair of news commentators were dissecting every single word Terry had said. “I have to admit,” Val said, “Terry was in rare form. He really owned that crowd of reporters.”

“Except for that little guy,” Weinstock said. “The one that looks like George from
Seinfeld.
I’ve seen him around. He’s the one that broke the whole story. Willard Fowler Newton, from Black Marsh. Doesn’t look like much but he must be a hell of a reporter if he was able to figure out everything that was going on.”

Crow pursed his lips. “Well, the story is coast-to-coast now, so strap yourselves in, kiddies, I think we’re about to have a helluva ride.”

Totally without inflection, Val said, “Yippee.”

Weinstock looked at his watch. “So…you two ready to check out of this hotel or what?”

(7)

Terry and Sarah Wolfe arrived in late afternoon to take Crow and Val home from the hospital. Two armed police officers—Head and Golub—escorted them from their rooms, one leading the procession of two wheelchairs and the other bringing up the rear. Both of them carried shotguns at port arms. A half-dozen other officers had been brought in to create and enforce a cordon that kept the press back from the hospital entrance as the patients were carefully handed into Terry’s Humvee and buckled in. Once everyone was in, Head and Golub lead the way in their unit, with the Humvee following, and another police car following, with Coralita Toombes behind the wheel. Police barricades were set up across the parking lot entrance, blocking the press vehicles in for ten minutes, allowing them all to make a clean getaway.

Val’s farm was still a crime scene, so Crow and Val spent the night with Terry. Just the effort of leaving the hospital and getting in and out of cars exhausted them, and Sarah got them into bed and tucked in, bullying them into taking their pills. In ten minutes they were asleep, face-to-face, their foreheads touching. Terry headed back to the office, his artifice of calm slipping inch-by-inch.

Golub and Head stayed in their unit, parked in the driveway, eating turkey-and-cheese sandwiches Sarah made for them, sipping hot coffee, watching the flocks of tourists go by, listening to the frustrated reports of the officers engaged in the search. Between bites, Golub said, “You think this Boyd clown is still here in town?”

Head shook his head. “Nah. He’s long gone by now. My guess, he’s over in Jersey somewhere. Probably looking to boost a car and head north to Newark or the Apple.”

“I hope you’re wrong, man,” Golub said, and took another bite. “I would love for us to catch this prick.”

“Catch?” Head said with a cold smile that looked like a shooter’s squint. “Nah, nobody I knows wants to catch him.”

(1)

“I saw you on the news,” said Harry LeBeau as he barged into Terry’s office in the municipal building, “and although you did a good job of handling the press, I have to say that I don’t like being left holding the bag. Gus and everyone else was looking for you all day and—”

“Oh, shut up, Harry,” Terry snapped, looking up from the stack of papers crowding his desk. “I’m not in the mood to listen to your whining.” LeBeau skidded to a halt and he stood there, eyes bugged in surprise, mouth working like a fish. Not once, not even at the height of the blight, had Terry ever snapped at him, or even raised his voice. LeBeau stood there, unable to form words. Terry’s blue eyes were hard as quartz. “You’re the deputy mayor and there’s more to that job than putting your title on business cards. Once in a while you have to step up and grow a set. If I was off the clock for five frigging minutes and you had to do some actual administrative work, then that’s just too bad. Later I’ll block out five minutes and have a good cry about it. Same with Gus Bernhardt. We’ve got killers running amok in this town at the start of our busiest season and all he seems capable of is sticking his thumb up his ass. What I don’t need, from you or Gus, is any bullshit about how unfair life is, because I can say with no risk of contradiction that I’ve got more on my plate right now than you have on yours. So why don’t you pirouette around and scamper back to your store and leave me alone? Close the door on your way out.”

There was absolutely no opening to make any kind of response to that, so LeBeau backed out of the room and pulled the door shut. His eyes were burning with tears of shame and hurt as he retreated down the hall to his own office.

Terry sat there, staring at the closed door, his fingernails scratching the hardwood top of his desk. Over the last few days his nails had become gradually thicker and harder. No one had commented on it, except for Sarah, and he’d told her it was just a side effect of his meds. He knew different; he’d read each package insert for each drug, and none of them mentioned this. Nervously he scratched at his desktop. There were deep grooves worn in the polished oak. He heard the sound of slow, ironic applause and he turned to see Mandy standing in the corner by the window, her face half-obscured by the leaves of a potted ficus.

“You can shut up, too,” Terry said to her and turned his face away. In his bloodstream a cocktail of Xanax, Risperdals, and Oxycontin was coming to a boil. He had the worst case of dry mouth he ever had, but at least his hands weren’t shaking. “I don’t have time for you, either.”

Mandy looked at him for a long minute, but the next time Terry glanced over to the corner of the room, it was empty.

(2)

Crow sat hunched forward, elbows on knees, pajama top pulled up as Saul Weinstock probed the bullet grazes on his sides and made hmm-ing sounds.

“So, how’s it look?” They had been out of the hospital for only a few hours, fresh from their naps, when Weinstock breezed in to mother-hen them. He made it sound casual, just something to kill time while they repaired the plumbing at the morgue, but neither Crow nor Val were fooled and they appreciated the gesture. Val was in the rocking chair by the window with Party Cat curled on her lap; she scratched his throat and he purred like an air compressor.

Weinstock pursed his lips. “Sissy-boy little wounds. I’m really surprised you have the balls to pretend you’re wounded in action.”

“That joke’s getting old, Saul.”

“You want sparkling bedside banter, watch a rerun of
Scrubs.”
Weinstock shrugged. “I told you already, you just got shot through some fatty tissue. No muscles were nicked, and these are already starting to knit. Just keep it clean, try not to get shot again, and you’ll be okay. The wrist will be tender for a while, though, so keep it wrapped. Next week you can go see Young Kim over at Fit & Able for some PT. Your face, though….”

“What about my face?”

“You’re still ugly as an ape. With any luck the bruises will hide that for a few days.”

“You’re not a very nice man,” Crow said.

Weinstock grinned as he put fresh dressings on each wound and secured them with white tape, then he dragged over a chair and sat down. Peering at the items on Crow’s bedside table, he selected an apple from a huge fruit basket that had just arrived from the Pine Deep Business Association and bit into it. Crow readjusted his clothes with some effort. “It’s all right, Doc, I can do it all by myself.”

“Okay,” Weinstock said, not having moved a muscle.

Val said, “I called Mark just before you got here. He said that you were planning on keeping Connie another couple of days. Is she okay?”

Weinstock shrugged. “Physically she’s just about fine, but psychologically—well…” He held his hand up and waggled it side to side.

“Mark’s not much better,” Crow said, and Val shot him a look. “Hey, sweetie, tell me I’m wrong. I’ve tried talking to him half a dozen times, and he just blows me off. That or he takes offense at anything I say. Thinks I’m blaming him for getting nailed by Ruger.”

“He’s ashamed,” Val said, and Weinstock nodded agreement. “Dad was old and Mark was starting to consider himself the man of the family. I know it’s juvenile, but in a lot of ways Mark’s just a big kid, all his business acumen notwithstanding. He was never a physical person, even when we were little. Never liked roughhousing with the rest of us. Considered himself too cerebral for that sort of thing. Then when Ruger came along, he was overwhelmed by the man. We all were. He never had a chance against him.”

“Few would,” Weinstock said.

“Crow did.”

“Hey, I had an edge,” Crow said and made a karate-chopping motion with his hands. “I got the kung-fu grip.”

“It doesn’t matter how many black belts you have, honey,” Val said, unsmiling. “Mark is measuring what he was unable to do against what you were able to do, and he doesn’t like how that makes him feel. So he’s taking it out on himself, and everyone around him.”

Weinstock nodded. “He’s clearly taking it out on Connie, too. Blaming her for nearly getting raped.”

“Which is pretty stupid—” Crow began, but Val cut him off.

“No it isn’t. Sad, but not stupid. Mark’s frustrated and angry—I can sympathize. You think I don’t blame myself for what happened to Daddy? And don’t you dare tell me that’s stupid, too, Malcolm Crow, or I’ll toss you out of this window.”

Crow mimed zipping his mouth shut.

“I’ve known guys like Mark,” Weinstock said. “Both in college and in business. Guys who either come from money or who have made themselves into very successful businessmen, like my Uncle Stanley. When you get powerful enough in business, when people jump because you tell them to—not because they’re physically afraid of you but because it’s your name on their paycheck and they’re living paycheck to paycheck—then you start equating that kind of power with physical prowess. The hype about ‘captains of industry’ and ‘boardroom lions’ is easy to swallow, and easy to equate with actually being a tough, powerful person. Then along comes a Karl Ruger who’s right out of the jungle and suddenly it’s all about real physical power—the power to hurt, to kill—and then all the illusions are just gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Mark believed the hype that he was a corporate tough guy, and maybe in the boardroom he is formidable, but down on the level of the predators he’s just somebody’s lunch. Now who does he have to measure himself against? Malcolm Crow, who is a short half-step away from village idiot…”

“Gee, thanks, Doc.”

“We’re talking Mark’s perception. You own a small shop in town—Mark owns half a dozen businesses and has interests in, what, ten more?”

“Over thirty more,” Val corrected. “Plus he runs the financial aid department of the college and has oversight on scholarships.”

“Right,” said Weinstock. “That’s power, as far his worldview goes. He has power over companies that make your little shop look like a street-corner pretzel stand. So, measuring himself against you on a daily basis he’s the alpha and you’re way in the back of the pack. Then what happens? Karl Ruger breaks in and roughs everyone up. Does what he pleases, touches what’s not his to touch,
proves
to Mark that anything he wants is his for the taking. Mark suddenly sees that no amount of corporate muscle is going to mean a thing…and when Ruger goes after Connie, there is nothing Mark could do to stop him.”

“In fairness, Saul, he was tied up!”

“You think that matters? Do you really think that Mark hasn’t thought of what would have happened if he’d been untied when Ruger tried to rape Connie?”

Crow looked at his fingernails.

Val said, “Ruger would have beaten him up again, maybe crippled him, he would still have raped Connie, and would then have killed both of them.”

“Right,” Weinstock said emphatically. “He’s probably mad at Val because she, at least, escaped from him out in the fields, and then was able to come back and attack Ruger in such a way as to save Connie.”

“He’d have killed me if Crow hadn’t gotten there. He was strangling me outside. I couldn’t fight him any more than Mark could.”

“Yeah, but Mark didn’t see that. He was still inside tied up, and you were outside. By the time he’d been freed Crow had shown up and had done what Mark could never have done—he fought and defeated Ruger. Mark, being tied up, could not even so much as hold his wife to comfort her. He had to just lie there, helpless. Essentially impotent. And Connie—she shares the same kind of warped perceptions of the world as her husband. She saw her husband fail to protect her. That she wasn’t actually raped doesn’t much matter, because she knows—she
knows
—that Ruger would have done it and Mark would not have been able to stop him. Imagine that rattling around in your head.”

“No White Knight anymore,” Val agreed, nodding.

“Great,” Crow said glumly.

Weinstock sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’m keeping Connie in so my counseling staff can tag-team on her and try to break through at least the initial layers of the gunk that’s formed over her perception of herself and of her husband.”

Val looked skeptical. “You think you can do that in a couple of days?”

“Sadly, no. I think Connie’s going to need a lot of therapy for a long time. As for Mark? In a way he’s lucky he had some teeth knocked out because it gives me a tenuous medical reason for not kicking him loose. Between us, though, I’m keeping him in for ‘observation’ mainly because I’m hoping the therapists will help him realize that this was beyond his control—and that its okay because some things are beyond our control. All in the hopes that he and Connie will reconnect in a way that will rebond them and start some mutual healing.”

“That’s a lot to expect,” Crow said. “You might have to knock a few more teeth out.”

“Also, to send him home now, without Connie, would mean that he would have no choice but to interact with you two. I don’t know if he can handle it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Val said. “We’re family.

Weinstock looked at Crow. “What about you, sport? You up for being there for Mark and Connie?”

Crow reached over and took Val’s hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed the engagement ring he had given her. “Like she said…they’re family.”

Weinstock cleared his throat, finished his apple, and walked into the adjoining bathroom to wash his hands. When he came out he pulled his chair over closer to Val, his face composed. “Your turn, missy.” Val had a bandage wrapped around her head and a thick gauze pad covering her right eye. Weinstock removed the wrapping and examined the bruising. He shined a light in her eye and asked her to follow it as he moved it around. “Hmm,” he said. “Some good news for a change. The eye is fine, no loss of motor function, pupils dilate correctly, visual acuity appears to be unimpaired, tear ducts seem to be functioning normally. As you know, there is a hairline crack of the orbit but that’s not as bad as it could have been. What did he hit you with, anyway?”

“Just his hand,” she said.

Weinstock whistled.

“You wouldn’t believe how strong that son of a bitch was,” Crow said.

“Overall,” Weinstock said, “I’d say that you’ll be fine and with no lasting ill effects. Headaches for a while, of course, and I’ll leave you some stuff for that. Bruising looks bad, but that’s in the nature of bruising—it looks bad and then it looks worse and then it goes away.”

“Do I have to keep wearing that bandage over my eyes? My depth perception is so crappy I keep walking into walls.”

“Nope, but just take it easy. Use ice a couple of times a day, and you might want to wear sunglasses when you go out—there may be some light sensitivity. As for your ribs—all those years totin’ barges and liftin’ bales has done you some good. You have hairline cracks of two ribs, but you’re so darn fit that your obliques are acting like natural splints. I doubt you’ll get more than a twinge out of them, and they’ll heal fast.”

“Okay. What about my shoulder?”

“Ah, that’s kind of a metza-metz thing. Initially you had a sprain of the shoulder, but after that second attack…well, I had Billie Whitby take a look at the second set of MRIs and you have a minor partial thickness tear of the rotator. Very minor, luckily, but when things here settle down we can schedule you for an arthroscopy. You’ll be playing tennis by the spring. In the meantime I’d leave that Viper of yours in the garage,” he said. “Speed shifting is not going to feel very comfortable. And—”

“Can I shoot a gun?” she said, cutting him off.

“What?” Crow and Weinstock said it together, and both rather more loudly than they had intended.

Val’s dark blue eyes were fierce and with the bruising around her face and her crooked nose and black hair, she looked absolutely ferocious. “Boyd is still out there. People keep dying on my farm. I have guns, and you know I can shoot…the question is, is it safe for me, for my shoulder, to shoot a gun?”

“Val,” Crow began, “it’s not going to come to that…”

“Hush,” she snapped, and he did hush. She tapped Weinstock’s chest with a stiff forefinger. “Tomorrow I’m moving back home. To
my
home. I can only do that, though, if I can safely carry and use a gun.”