Nine Years Gone (15 page)

I looked back at my house, at the door Moses Tarawally had kicked in. “I appreciate you coming down here. Good night.”

“Remember what I said. It’s not too late to come back from this.”

I had said something similar to Tess earlier, and like her, I had come to the realization that there are some things you just can’t come back from.

“Good night.”

Morgan left the yard, and I counted to thirty before I closed my eyes. I had known Isaac as long as I’ve known anyone, and while we had our differences and we occasionally fought, he was as good and loyal a friend as I’ve ever had. Before his death could hit me, I took out my cell phone and called Vince. The call immediately went to voicemail, so I left him a message asking him to call me back as soon as he could. Likely, Morgan or someone else from SLPD had called him as well, but I didn’t think they’d be so crass as to mention Isaac’s death on a voicemail.

With that call made, I called Tess next. The phone rang once, then twice, and finally a third time. I didn’t think she was going to answer, and that made me fume and clench my jaw. When she picked up after the third ring, I couldn’t speak.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that calling a girl so you could pant on the phone is creepy?”

I gritted my teeth and counted to five to calm myself down. “Thank you for taking my call.”

“If I didn’t, I was afraid you’d barge into my room. All these late-night phone calls, the messages at my hotel, the heavy breathing on the phone. Your behavior lately is not endearing, sweetheart.”

“Don’t ever call me sweetheart again.”

“Ouch,” said Tess. “Testy this evening, aren’t you?”

I haven’t been in a fight since I was in elementary school, never hit anyone in my life since then. I’ve wanted to. There were times that I wanted to break into my father’s office while he was at work and beat him to death with a baseball bat. I never did, but that wasn’t a weakness, I don’t think; I’ve simply seen enough people abuse one another to know that it doesn’t solve anything. But at that moment, I felt an almost overpowering desire to find Tess and squeeze the life out of her.

“Isaac Cohen is dead.”

“We all knew that was going to happen sometime.”

My hands started shaking. “He’s dead because of you. I know what you’ve done. I know about the pictures you sent Katherine, I know about Holly Olson and Brandon Yates, and I know that you’re working with Moses Tarawally. Don’t lie to me now.”

“I won’t,” said Tess, her voice calm. “You got me. I admit it. Moses and I have a very special relationship. I asked him to hire a private detective to take pictures of us and send them to Katherine. If you’ll hear me out, you’ll find out that I had very good reasons, though. I’ve had very good reasons for everything I’ve done.”

“I don’t give a shit about his or your reasons. You and I need to talk face to face.”

“With the mood you’re in, I’m not sure that meeting you is the best idea.”

A tremble passed up my arms and into my chest. “I don’t care what you think. We need to meet to talk terms.”

“Terms?” she asked, almost laughing.

“The conditions that will get you to leave me alone for good.”

“You don’t really want that, do you?”

I nearly swore and had to hold my breath to keep from saying something. I counted to five, and when I spoke, I tried to make my voice as icy as I could. “Stop it, Tess. Stop the bullshit, stop the lies, and stop pretending you actually want to be with me. I’m tired of it, and I want this over.”

“Fine. I’ll come by your office. We’ll talk terms.”

“No. We meet somewhere public,” I said. “The statue of St. Louis in front of the art museum. Seven tomorrow morning.”

She paused. “I can meet you tonight if you want to meet sooner. You can come by my hotel.”

“No. I’ve given you enough opportunities to hurt me. Tomorrow morning at the art museum.”

“All right, then,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at seven.”

“Good.”

Tess started to respond, but I hung up before she could get more than a few words out, and called Vince again. This time he picked up.

“Are you somewhere we can talk?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m in my hotel. Sorry I didn’t answer earlier; I was getting dinner. What’s going on?”

“Are you alone?” I asked.

“No, I picked up a pair of hookers on South Broadway. What do you think?”

I clenched my jaw. “Are you alone or not?”

“Yeah, of course I am,” said Vince, any trace of humor gone from his voice. “What’s going on?”

“I need you to sit down.”

“I’m sitting. What’s wrong?”

“I got a visit tonight from a police officer. Isaac has been murdered.”

Vince didn’t respond for about thirty seconds, and I didn’t press him by saying anything.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Moses Tarawally shot him. Before he died, Isaac stabbed him in the leg and almost killed him. Moses is in police custody now.”

Vince went quiet again for another few seconds before speaking. “Where are you? I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “There’s a good chance I’m going to be arrested soon, and I don’t want you caught up in that. I need you to keep watching Katherine.”

“The hotel is clear. She’s fine. You sure you don’t want me coming over?”

“I’m not sure about anything.”

Vince and I talked for a few minutes more. When I hired him to look after Katherine, I hadn’t expected him to continue investigating Tess, but he had some free time that morning while my wife worked. He called two of the Salt Lake City detectives who’d looked into Holly Olson’s disappearance and was told that they were almost positive that Brandon Yates killed her, but they couldn’t conduct a thorough investigation without interference from Brandon’s father, at the time a member of Utah’s State Senate. The elder Yates was going places, and he had used his influence to shut the case down. When detectives asked for more resources or time to investigate Holly, their superiors assigned them other duties or outright refused. Officially, the case was still open; unofficially, a lot of people in the know believed the son of a powerful man got away with murder.

Vince said that he planned to follow up the next day and track down Brandon to see what he had to say.

“Thank you for everything you’re doing,” I said. “I’m sure Isaac’s parents will handle the funeral arrangements, but I bet Sam will be able to keep you in the loop.”

“I’ll give her a call. You need me for the rest of the night?”

“I shouldn’t,” I said.

“Katherine and Ashley are settled in for the night, so I’m going to hang out in my room for a while. They’re just down the hall, so I’ll hear if anything happens.”

“That’d be fine. I’m going to try to get Katherine and Ashley to leave town tomorrow, though.”

“I’ll be ready.”

Hopefully neither of us would be in jail by then.

I went to bed after talking to Vince, but I tossed and turned so much that I don’t know that I actually fell asleep. I kept thinking of all the things Isaac, Vince, and I had done over the years. How we released twelve live rabbits in the principal’s office in seventh grade, how Isaac ran an ad in the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
our freshman year of high school listing the school for sale, how I spent an entire summer at Isaac’s house after eighth grade so I wouldn’t have to live at home. I missed him, but I didn’t have time to grieve.

My alarm rang at six the next morning, and more than anything else in the world, I wanted to pull the plug, close my eyes, and sleep. I couldn’t do that, though; I had a meeting with a murderer in Forrest Park. I made a pot of coffee and dressed before heading out, a full to-go mug in my hand. I entered the park near the zoo, but drove past it and wound my way past joggers to the art museum, where I parked. Few people were about, which didn’t surprise me considering the hour. Art Hill sloped downward in front of me, while the museum, a limestone and brick neoclassical building, crested a rise in the landscape a few hundred yards to my right. St. Louis, or at least a bronze cast of him atop a horse, loomed from a platform erected directly in front of the museum.

I sat on the steps leading to the art museum to wait. Since the museum didn’t open until ten, I didn’t think anyone—museum staff or patron—would come by to disturb us as we hashed things out. At five to seven, Tess’s white rental car pulled into the lot northwest of Art Hill and parked beside my car. She wore a white and black checked jacket, black turtleneck sweater, and black pants. A white headband held her hair from her face. She didn’t smile as she came near, but she waved, almost sheepishly.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Morning.”

She looked around and then focused her gaze on me. “Is there any way we can go inside? It’s a little cool out here.”

I shook my head. “Museum doesn’t open for a few hours.”

She smiled and pulled her jacket around her a little tighter. “How are you?”

“Fine. How’s the Omni Hotel?”

“Lovely,” she said. She tilted her head to the side. “A bit lonely, maybe, but lovely nonetheless. How’s home?”

“The same as the Omni.”

She started walking down the sidewalk toward the street. “How could you possibly be lonely sharing a bed with that beautiful wife of yours?”

I wasn’t going to take the bait, but I did follow her. “I have no interest in talking about my married life with you, of all people.”

“Aren’t we cantankerous this morning?” she asked, dropping her chin.

“Fuck you, Tess.”

She laughed. “Seems I’ve found a sore spot. Something amiss in the Hale household?”

“You. It’s taking every bit of will I have not to strangle you right now.”

“I see,” she said. “I hope you believe me when I say that I never meant to come between you and Katherine.”

I stopped and put my hand on Tess’s arm. “Let’s go the other way.”

“You don’t like to let a woman lead?”

“I don’t like letting you lead me anywhere.”

She furrowed her brow. “Now why would you say that?”

“Because since you’ve been back, you’ve tried to ruin my marriage, you’ve broken into my house, you’ve killed my dog, and then you killed one of my best friends. You’re alive because we’re in a public place.”

“You have nothing to be afraid of. I’m alone. Moses isn’t here.”

I looked at her and then down to Art Hill. “That’s what I thought at that gun range. Let’s walk.”

I turned right around to walk the other way, and she slipped her arm through my elbow and pressed herself against my side. I stiffened.

“Forgive my forwardness, but I’m cold,” she said. “That’s the price of a walk.”

“Fine.”

We followed the sidewalk down the hill, passing the lot in which I had parked. Clouds covered the sky, but already the sun had started to burn them away as it rose over the city. Tess’s body felt firm but still yielding as she pressed herself against my side. A male jogger’s gaze lingered on her as he ran by, but Tess barely seemed to notice; seemingly, she had eyes only for me.

She squeezed my arm. “This is nice.”

I chose not to respond.

“I remember when we used to come here in college.”

On Friday nights, the museum stayed open a couple of hours later than usual, allowing people who would typically be at work during regular visiting hours a chance to see the exhibits. It was a great art museum, especially for a city the size of St. Louis, but art rarely drew the crowds like the zoo, and even on those Friday evenings, few patrons trod its hallways.

“It was a cheap date.”

“Is that all it was to you?” she asked, looking at me. “I thought you liked coming.”

“I did.”

Not only had I liked our dates at the museum, I visited two or three times a week by myself during college, especially in the weeks after Tess left. The museum had a couch in one of the galleries facing a Monet painting that stretched seven feet tall and fourteen feet wide. I could sit on that couch and stay for an hour, maybe even an hour and a half, and not have a single person talk to me. It became my escape from reality. For just a few hours a day, I could unplug and look at something beautiful without worrying about the rest of my life.

“It’s funny,” said Tess, walking beside me, nowhere in particular our destination. “I used to go there with you and hear the people around us talking about the art, whispering like rats in the walls. The way they spoke about it, you’d think there was something there, something beneath the oils and canvases. I never understood their fascination. I tried—I even took that art history class in college. Do you remember that?”

I nodded, and she put her head on my shoulder.

“Have you ever seen Picasso’s
The Old Guitarist
?” she asked. “It’s hanging in the Met in New York.”

“I’ve seen a picture of it,” I said.

Tess nodded. “He painted it during his Blue Period after one of his friends committed suicide. Picasso poured his grief onto that painting. The old man is isolated, completely alone, just like Picasso thought he was at the time. When the professor showed a slide of the painting, a girl in my class even started crying. I looked at it, and I could see the workmanship, I could appreciate the skill that went into painting it, and intellectually I understood what my professor said, but I felt . . . nothing. Oh, I pretended to be moved, I pretended to feel, but I didn’t. Truth be told, I don’t remember the last time I felt anything at all. Do you think it’s possible for a person to be born without that part of their soul?”

I didn’t know what to say and Tess didn’t seem to care. We kept walking down beside Art Hill until we reached Lagoon Drive at the base. On one side of the street was the Grand Basin, a formal, man-made lake and accompanying promenade, while on the other side of the street was a shallow lake beside a golf course. An older man and a little boy—probably his grandson—threw crackers to ducks from its bank. I didn’t want the older man or his grandson to hear us, so I nodded toward a bench overlooking the basin.

“Let’s have a seat.”

“Sure, sweetheart,” said Tess, walking to the nearest wood-and-cast-iron bench. She sat down and crossed her legs, and when I sat beside her, she leaned against my chest as casually and familiarly as my wife would have done. At one time, I would have welcomed that contact, but now I no more wanted her in my arms than I wanted to hug a wood chipper. Still, I didn’t push her away. She and I needed to talk, and if that meant having her against me, so be it.

“I know you and Brandon Yates killed Holly Olson.”

She gave me a curious sort of half-smile. “Are you wearing a microphone and wireless transmitter, Steven?”

I shook my head. “Of course not.”

“I didn’t feel one, but I wanted to check,” she said, straightening so that she no longer leaned against my chest. “I didn’t kill Holly. That was all Brandon.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so because it’s the truth,” said Tess. “You wouldn’t believe the things people said about her after she died. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was some sort of saint But she wasn’t. I don’t like to be the one to say this, but she deserved to die.”

“That wasn’t your call.”

“Wasn’t it?” asked Tess, her eyes glassy and distant. “She volunteered as a high school reading tutor, but nobody ever said why. Nobody said she used her position to sell ecstasy to high school students, or that one of her clients overdosed on her product and died of heat stroke. She killed a child.”

“Is that why you convinced Brandon to kill her?”

“As far as I know, Brandon had no clue about his girlfriend’s part-time job. He killed her because he was under the delusion that if she was out of the way, he and I could be together.”

“And you did nothing to encourage that belief.”

She turned to face me and then tilted her head to the side, shrugging. “Sure, I fucked him, but I didn’t make him fall in love with me.”

I shook my head, not having anything to say.

“Do you ever think about death?” she asked, finally.

“I try not to,” I said.

“I do. It’s comforting, knowing that it will all end one day. Death is always watching over us, following us, whispering into our ears. That’s love, isn’t it? A type at least, maybe even the best kind. Ever present, always faithful, like the best kind of friend. Some days, I find myself looking forward to meeting him . . .”

Her voice trailed off, and for a moment, I saw something of the girl I knew in the woman before me, but then she disappeared.

“What’s wrong with you?”

She looked off into the distance. “I don’t know any more.”

“You killed Simon.”

She nodded, almost absently. “Moses did, but only because I asked.” She shrugged. “I used to love that dog, too.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say? Simon never hurt anybody in his life. He was helpless.”

Tess put her hand on my chin, directing me to lift my head. I jerked my head away and stood.

“I wish you could see yourself right now, the way the light seems to have slipped away from your eyes. It’s like a dark cloud passing in front of the sun. I didn’t know if I made the right choice until now, but I think I did.”

“What choice?”

Her lips curled into a smile, but her eyes were a window to something twisted and gnarled, something deeply, deeply wicked. I backed away from her, but she stood and matched my movements step for step.

“What do you really want, Tess?” I asked.

She put her arms behind my neck, like she was going to kiss me.

“I want you to feel what I feel every day I wake up.”

“Psychotic?”

“Righteous. Of all the people in the world I could give this to, I choose you, the one person in the world I love more than myself.”

I reached behind me and pulled her hands apart. Prior to the past few days, I’ve never wanted to hurt Tess in my life, but for one split second, one eternity in my mind’s eye, I could see myself wrapping my fingers around her neck and squeezing.

“Was your journal even real?”

“Of course,” she said, looking me straight in the eye. “Everything in it was the truth. I almost broke up with you over it because I didn’t want Dominique going after you once he killed me.”

My hands trembled in my pockets. “I wish I could believe that.”

“You don’t have to believe it. Look at me. You’ll know it’s the truth.”

And I did know. As I looked into her pale blue eyes, no guile stared back. Just regret.

“I’m very sorry.”

“I’m the one who’s sorry. I left my journal out on purpose where you’d see it. I used you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Looking back, it did seem convenient to find it sitting on her desk when I had never seen it there before.

“You knew I’d do something when I read it.”

“Not just
something,”
she said, shaking her head.
“
I wanted you to kill him. He deserved it.” She looked away. “I know now that I shouldn’t have put you in that position. It was unfair of me, but I thought . . . I thought maybe the journal would give you the strength to do what’s right. I wanted him dead, that’s all. And afterwards, after you killed Dominique, we could have killed your father. He deserved it, too. If you wanted, I would have even pulled the trigger. That would seem only fair.”

“I see,” I said, nodding. “Did you plan to go to prison with me, too?”

She smiled and looked away from me. “Of course not. I had some money stashed away. As soon as we did what we needed to do, we could have used it and run before anyone knew what had happened. We wouldn’t have wanted for anything. I only went with your plan because I never expected Dominique to go to jail. I thought he’d get out, and you’d finally live up to your responsibility.”

“What I did was wrong, but killing him would have been infinitely worse.”

She ignored me. Her eyes took on a distant gaze. “I even had a place chosen. It’s called
Ko Lipe
. It’s an island in southern Thailand. It’s gorgeous. We could get a place on the beach, and it wouldn’t be too expensive. The locals catch fish and bring it right to you.”

“I’m not a murderer.”

She smiled at me, almost wistfully. “I know. You’re too sweet.” She paused, and the smile slipped off her face. “I really do love you, you know. That’s why I came back. That’s why I need your help now.”

“What do you want me to do now?”

“Kill my mother and change her will so that she gives ten percent of everything she owns to St. Nicholas’s Food Pantry of Goshen, Utah.”

“Is that a charity?”

Tess shrugged. “Sure. We’ll call it that.”

“Why do you think I can change her will?”

“Because your father wrote it, and I’m willing to bet it’s still in his office.”

I shook my head. “Before Dad died, he sold his practice to another lawyer. Our file cabinets are empty.”

She reached over and patted me on the cheek. “Then I guess you’re going to have to do some work, aren’t you?”

“And this is why you really came back. For money.”