Saving Max (17 page)

Danielle runs into the hotel lobby just as the skies open. At the front desk, the clerk hands her the brass room key with a quiet smile and a polite inquiry about her day. She mumbles some response and, out of habit, asks for her messages. There is one from Max. “Call me.” How does he know what hotel she is in? She shakes her head. She can’t talk to him right now, not without a shred of evidence that would justify her impulsive flight to Chicago, and certainly not when weighed against the fact that her folly may send her to prison, where she will never be able to save him. She also can’t tell him why trying to blame Fastow for the murder isn’t good enough or that his best shot may be accepting a plea that will result in his being virtually imprisoned at Maitland—possibly for years. Georgia called yesterday and Danielle filled her in on why she is in Chicago. Georgia was terrified that Danielle had taken such a risk, but promised to keep mum about her whereabouts. She assured Danielle that Max is all right, but Danielle can tell from the tone in her voice that Max’s mind-set isn’t the best. She knows that he must be frantic that she is gone. She sends him a text telling him she loves him and will call him soon.

All she wants to do is go upstairs, draw a hot bath, and forget the hopelessness that is now her life. The elevator is empty. The quiet thrum of well-oiled machinery acts as a metronome upon her nerves. By the time she reaches her
floor, she is exhausted. She puts the key in the door, turns it, and goes inside. The curtains are drawn. She takes off her shoes and her jacket. The combination of the dusky afternoon and the thick carpet under her feet make her suddenly sleepy. Too weary to even run a bath, she heads for the bedroom. Before she can reach it, she hears something. It seems to come from the living area. She stops. She listens. Nothing. She starts once more toward the bedroom, but hears it again. She tiptoes slowly into the living room. It is dark.

A figure is seated on the leather couch—a man. His feet are propped up on the glass coffee table. “Do you have any idea how fuckin’ stupid you are?”

She flips on the light. “Doaks!”

“Yeah, Doaks—who’d you expect?” he asks. “The Feds?”

“How did you—”

“I’m a detective, remember? I talked the girl at the desk into giving me an extra card to your room. Told her I was your stinkin’ husband, of all things.” He grins. “Besides it’s what I do—find nutballs like you who pull boneheaded stunts that wind ’em up back in the slammer where they belong. Didn’t hurt none that your boy is trackin’ your ass and kinda trusts me now, at least enough to tell us where you were.” He shakes his head. “He’s a whiz with that gadget, ain’t no doubt about that. And man, he got a bad case of the red-ass when he found out where you were.”

So much for keeping her crazy trip on the Q.T.

Doaks wears an oily raincoat and an old felt hat that looks like it was trampled by a herd of elk. “Do you have any idea how pissed off Sevillas is at you? You better be good and glad I talked him into lettin’ me come up here and drag you home. If he had his way, he woulda flown some cop here on a jet
to slap you in irons and take you back to Plano.” He pulls an envelope out of his raincoat. “From Tony.”

The cream-colored page has but a few, hastily scrawled words.

Danielle sits in the chair opposite Doaks. All she feels is tired—bone tired. “I don’t see any point in defending myself.”

“Nah, I just bet you don’t,” he says. “What in Sam Hill you doin’ up here, anyway? Not to get off the subject of how you finagled your way outta that fancy bracelet of yours.” He chuckles. “I gotta hand it to you. If they figure it out before I get back, which I doubt, old Reever’s gonna be the laughin’-stock of the force. When I saw the box under your bed, I thought about tyin’ it up in a red bow and givin’ it to him for Christmas.”

“How did you get into my apartment?”

He just looks at her.

“Okay, okay.” She sighs.

“You shoulda answered your cell phone,” he says mildly. “Told us you was havin’ female problems or some such. We woulda backed off for a few days.”

“I had a lead,” she says. “I asked you to look into it, but you wouldn’t.”

“A lead, huh?” He rolls his eyes. “You sound like goddamned Perry Mason. So, is that where you been all day, followin’ your ‘lead’?”

She nods.

“Did it pan out?”

She shakes her head.

“Uh-huh.” He kicks his dusty feet on top of the glass coffee table and surveys the room. “Say, you got somethin’ to drink around here? I’m parched.”

She gets up and takes a variety of small bottles of alcohol out of the minibar. He points at two of them. She puts out the glasses and he pours one for both of them. After the first, long swallow, Doaks glances at the papers on the desk and her suitcase. He points to the latter. “Okay, Ms. P., drink up and get packed. We’re outta here on a six o’clock flight. If I can sneak you back into your apartment without those dipshits down at the station figurin’ it out, maybe we’ll both get out of this with our asses intact.”

Danielle takes a healthy sip of her drink. “I’m not going back. I have one more thing to check out.”

Doaks shakes his finger at her like a father who has caught his teenaged daughter sneaking into the back door after midnight. “Don’t go gettin’ horsy with me, missy. You’re gonna get your kit and come with me. We’re goin’ back to that one-horse town and get ready for that hearing. I ain’t got time to keep runnin’ around haulin’ your ass outta trouble.”

She puts her glass on the coffee table and forces conviction into her voice. “Look, John, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I have to follow up on this one last thing. Then I’ll go with you—I promise.”

He empties his glass and reaches for hers. Before she hands it to him, she squeezes his outstretched hand. “I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be with right now.”

His voice is gruff, but his eyes soften. “Okay, cookie, you better fill me in.” He holds up his right hand. “I ain’t sayin’
I’m goin’ for it. I’m just sayin’ you got five minutes before I throw you over my shoulder and drag you home. Shoot.”

She shows him the paper and the address penned in under Jonas’s name. She emphasizes her concerns about the incongruity between the Jojanovich referral, her meeting with the doctor, and what the Maitland admission papers reflect. He studies it for a moment. “This ain’t diddly. You know that.”

She sighs. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s all I’ve got. There has to be some information somewhere about whether or not Jonas has ever been suicidal.”

He stares at her. “That don’t prove Max wasn’t lying there or that you weren’t standin’ next to him with the murder weapon in your purse.” He tosses the papers on the coffee table. “And just what’re you plannin’ to do now, Miss James Bond? Break into some house you don’t even know has anythin’ to do with the dead kid? I been doin’ this my whole life, and this is a waste of time.”

“It may be. But it’s my time.” She stands and puts on her shoes. “And I’m going to check it out before I go back to Iowa.”

“Don’t you want to know what we’ve come up with since you flew the coop?”

Danielle pauses. “What?”

Doaks settles back into the couch and puts his hands behind his head. “Been doin’ a little research on our boy Fastow. He ain’t as squeaky clean as that old-bat nurse thinks he is.”

Danielle sits down. “What did you find out?”

“Wasn’t me—it was that brainiac kid of yours. He used that phone thing of his and Googled the dweeb—not that I have a clue what that means. Ain’t never had a computer, ya know.” He takes a grimy notepad out of his pocket and flips a few pages. “Looks like you were right. He’s knee-deep in some kinda newfangled research.”

“We already know that he’s doing psychotropic research. Isn’t there anything more specific?”

“How am I supposed to know?” he grumbles. “I’m right in the middle of it and I gotta hop a bird and tend to another one of your grand mal fuckups.”

“Have you gotten Max’s blood analyzed?”

He looks at her with weary eyes. “I pulled some strings. Oughtta have it tomorrow. I still ain’t figured out how you’re gonna use it.”

“I’ll just have to tell the court how I got it. The court will revoke my bond, but Tony will make a motion that they order another blood test to confirm the results of the one I took.”

“You think the court will do that?”

“I hope so. If it shows what I hope it will, the blood results will be offered to the court as evidence that whatever Max did, he did it because of the meds Fastow had him on. We’ll claim that there isn’t any other explanation for Max’s increased aggressiveness and other odd behaviors. It will go to intent, motive and Max’s state of mind at the time of the murder.”

Doaks waves a dismissive hand. “Whatever.”

“What about the pills?” asks Danielle. “Same.”

“In time for the hearing?”

“That’s the theory.” He stands up. “And another reason we gotta get the hell outta here and catch that plane.” He points at her suitcase. “Let’s go.”

She doesn’t move.

“I ain’t askin’ twice, Danielle.” It is the first time he has called her by her first name.

She stands. “I’ll come back. After I check out that address.”

“Goddammit. Dames.” He picks up his hat and reaches for the paper in her hand. “Give it to me.”

“No.”

He strides over to her. “I said hand it over.”

She gives him the paper. “It doesn’t matter. I have the address memorized.”

“Ain’t you a wonder.” He stuffs it into the pocket of his raincoat. “If we didn’t have time to kill, I wouldn’t be doin’ this at all. Now, you park your ass on that sofa and keep it there until I get back.”

Danielle starts to argue with him, but takes one look at his set jaw and reconsiders. He heads for the door. She follows him, feeling useless. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

He gives her a look.

“Doaks, I…” The words stick in her throat.

“Yeah, you owe me one, all right, big-time.” His voice is gruff, but she sees real affection in his eyes. “Do me a favor, huh?”

“Of course.”

“Keep your goddamned cell phone on and answer it when I call you.” He chucks her on the chin, gives her a wink, and stomps down the hall. She closes the door. And waits.

The sky is as dark as Doaks’s mood. A heavy rain drives against the windshield and covers it like a second sheet of blurred glass. The cab winds its way through unkempt streets. The tires jolt through deep potholes and spray water that joins a dirty stream that flows down the side of the curb. The driver studies his street map every few stop signs and peers through the deluge to stay his course. Row houses stare out from behind buckled sidewalks and full garbage cans. Here, mold is a smell and a color. It rises out of the ground and creeps up to the rafters.

Doaks knows these houses, these people. They’re hard working folks afraid to hope things will get better and more afraid that no amount of hoping will make it so. The driver finally pulls up curbside and points. Doaks tells him to beat it for a while. He grabs his raincoat; yanks at the collar; and runs onto the porch of an old brick house that looks like all the others. He shakes off like a wet Lab, then bangs on the door. No answer.

He peers through a grimy window with cupped hands. As he rubs it with his sleeve to get a better view, he realizes the dirt isn’t on the outside. Squinting harder, he makes out a dim light in the front hall. He pushes the doorbell. While he waits, he looks at the porches of the adjacent houses, but sees no one. Probably at work. If it weren’t raining so hard, there
would be kids in the streets or old people on chairs smoking—somebody for him to talk to.

After five minutes of pounding, Doaks curses. He feels the cold in his bones. He grinds an old cigarette butt into the porch with his heel. It breaks and smears. He crams down hard on the buzzer for another long, irritating minute. There, he’s done it. A dead end, just like he told her. He checks his watch. He’s got plenty of time to pick her up and head for the airport.

He starts down the rickety stairs when he hears a noise behind him. He sees the blurred outline of a figure behind the filthy window. A pink palm bangs against the glass. He walks to the door and makes out a small female form whose mouth is moving. The door opens a crack. A harsh, smoky voice speaks. “What in the hell do you want?”

“Good afternoon, ma’am.” Doaks holds his old hat in front of him. “I’m—”

“Trying to sell something?” Her voice snaps as the door opens an inch. “Well, you can turn right around and get out.”

He catches a slice of a short, gray-haired woman with steel eyes. As the door closes, Doaks does his classic toe move, so fast it makes the door bounce back instead of slam shut. Before she can react, he’s talking. “I’m really sorry to bother you, but I’m lookin’ for a woman who lives here—or used to live here.” He holds up the scrap of paper with Marianne’s address on it. “If you could take a minute to help me out, I’d really appreciate it.”

The old woman starts to close the door again. “I don’t talk to nobody in this neighborhood, mister. Get your head blown off that way.”

“Please, lady, it’s my wife,” he says. “She’s taken off, and you’re the only one who can help me.”

The door remains open a few inches. The old woman gives him a hard once-over through the chain’s half-moon arc.

Doaks puts on his lost-my-last-buddy-in-Nam look. “Hey, I’ll stand right out here in the rain. I’m just a guy lookin’ for his kid, that’s all.”

Bingo.

The door opens wide and she appears in full view. He figures her for seventy-five, maybe eighty. She wears a chenille robe so worn out even the pockets look tired. A threadbare nightgown shows where the robe gapes open. Her breasts hang low and sad, almost flat to her stomach, like dead birds strung up by their claws. “You got a name?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “Edwin Johnson. Pipe fitter from Norman, Oklahoma.”

“Who you looking for?”

“A lady—my ex-wife.”

“She got a name?”

“Marianne Morrison. About so high…” He holds his hand up to his chest. “Blond hair, blue eyes. Forty or so.”

“Nobody like that here.” Her eyes are hard.

He can tell she’s getting ready to bolt. He moves closer. “Yes, ma’am, I know, but she lived here a while back. She put this address on a medical form for my son.”

“No blondes in this house. Brunette, maybe,” she says. “How old’s your boy?”

“Seventeen.”

Her eyes flash. The door opens a little wider. He starts to walk in. She steps out onto the porch and forces him back into the full brunt of the rain. He smiles again. His wet, pathetic attempt to be adopted and taken in is ignored.

“Got a question for you,” she says.

“Yes, ma’am?”

Her cold eyes search his like a spotlight. “Anything special about that kid of yours?”

“There sure is,” he replies. “His name is Jonas and he’s got some—problems. He’s autistic and acts a little strange…”

“You willing to pay her debts?” Her eyes are sharp and clear. “You being her husband and all?”

“Sure might be, ma’am.” He clasps his hands like a Baptist preacher. “I don’t have two nickels to rub together, but I’ve always paid my family’s obligations.”

She glares at him, but waves him in with an impatient hand. “Bitch left owing two months’ rent. Ain’t no big trick for brunettes to be blondes or vicey-versey, I guess.”

Doaks can’t believe Danielle might actually have stumbled upon something, even if it probably won’t mean much. He starts to follow when he sees something out of the corner of his eye. The cabdriver has pulled up in front of the house next door. He glances quickly at the old lady to make sure she hasn’t seen. Just what he needs—for her to get a gander at the poor Okie who’s riding around Chicago in a metered sled. There’ll be no end to the cash he’ll have to slip her. Once she disappears into the house, he makes a circular motion with his hand, telling the driver to cruise awhile. Shouldn’t take long. He’ll either be onto something or she’ll have thrown him back out into the wet.

She waits in the narrow hallway and makes him wipe his shoes on an old towel she uses as a doormat. He hangs up his dripping raincoat and sopping hat on a rickety stand and follows her into a cramped living room. She sits in a recliner that was new when Eisenhower was president. The stuffing hangs out and the seat is caved in over the springs. On a spindly table are an ashtray and a pack of Lucky Strikes—filterless. She pulls one out and lights up. She inhales deeply and closes her eyes, not reacting at all to the first punch of
pure tobacco. He feels around in his pocket for his Marlboro Lights. No real man would smoke such pantywaist crap. She’ll think he’s a pussy. They sit and smoke, eyeing each other.

The living room is stifling. The dim glow that filters through the one overhead fixture outlines the bodies of fifty years’ worth of moths, their corpses illuminated grotesquely against the bottom of the glass. Brown water spots dominate plaster walls that have been patched to hell and back. A plastic crate supports a small television set. It looks so old that he wonders if it even gets color. He tips his chair back and tries to see more of the downstairs.

“Stop that!” the old woman says. “Don’t try to snoop around here. This ain’t your goddamned house, mister. It’s mine.”

Doaks assumes the pose of a penitent. “Sorry, ma’am. It’s just that I’m trying to imagine my wife and son here. How they lived; where they might have gone…” He lets his voice trail as he gazes ruminatively into space.

Her look is forged steel. “Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said ‘bullshit.’ Let’s cut the crap, shall we, Mr. Johnson?” Her jagged smile shows good dental work gone bad. The old bird’s already smoked her cigarette down to her stained fingers. She gives a quick snort and stubs it into the overflowing ashtray. “Come on, whoever-the-hell-you-are. You’re not bad, but I’m better. You don’t know a goddamned thing about that woman and her kid, do you?”

Doaks is silent.

She jerks her head toward the street with a sly grin. “You belong in that cab out front as much as I do. You got private dick written all over you.”

Doaks smiles. He doesn’t mind being found out if she’ll
talk. He drops all pretense at charm. “Yeah, I know about ’em, but you’re right, they don’t belong to me.”

She nods as if he has passed a test. “So what are you bothering an old lady about?” She catches his eye and motions to a fifth of whiskey and a smeared glass on top of the television set. He brings them to her. She pours a healthy shot—at least two man-size fingers—and then offers the glass to Doaks.

“That’s okay. You go on.”

She shakes her head. “Take it.”

“Want me to fetch another glass?” He can get a better look around if she’ll let him go into the kitchen.

“Nah, I like it straight from the horse’s mouth.” She tips her head and lets the cheap, brown liquid run down her throat. Her lips purse in a satisfied smack as her eyes narrow. “Let’s get down to business.”

“Look,” he says. “Here’s the deal—no bullshit. A seventeen-year-old autistic kid was murdered or committed suicide in a mental hospital in Iowa. The kid used to live here. I’m tryin’ to track down the mother.”

She looks up, a parrot poised for a cracker. “Why do you care?”

“I represent another boy who was in the same hospital, and they’re tryin’ him for the murder,” he says. “I don’t think he did it. I’m just tryin’ to dig up some information about the dead kid so I can help prove he offed himself. So, what can you tell me? How long did she live here? She leave anything behind?”

The old lady grins. “What’s in it for me?”

The surprise is that she hasn’t asked sooner. “What do you think would be fair?” He holds up a hand. “Not crazy—fair.”

She holds out thin arms. “Look around, mister. I’m an old woman with no money, no family, no nothing.” She taps a
finger on her temple. “Except for what I got up here and the few bucks I get to rent these lousy properties for some big shot downtown. Now, what the hell is fair about that?”

“Twenty bucks.” He stopped paying real money for the sad songs of old ladies a long time ago. Whatever he gives her will be burnin’ a hole in her liver by the time he’s out of the door.

“Fifty,” she counters, eyes gleaming.

“Done.” He fishes out two wadded twenties and a torn ten and places them in her palm.

She sticks the bills under the strap of her ratty nightgown. “I’d put ’em here—” indicating where her cleavage used to be “—but they’d be on the floor the minute I stand up.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Bad news, that’s what she was,” she says. “Lived here with that crazy kid of hers about two years ago. Had brown hair ratted to the nines; fancy clothes; lots of makeup. Always late with the rent. I was stupid enough to let her get away with it.” She shrugs. “The kid, you know. I felt sorry for him. Anyway, she had church people here all hours of the day and night. They took care of the kid while she worked someplace downtown. That kid was a mess. Always making weird noises and scratching himself up all the time. After about a year, she up and left.”

“Know where she went?”

“Nope.” She pours Doaks another shot. “Don’t know and don’t care. Caught holy hell from the owner, I can tell you that.”

“Leave any personal belongings?”

The old woman hoots. “Ha! She left me with a pile of crap—that’s what she left me. The place was a wreck.”

He sighs. “She leave anything with her name on it? Check stubs, bills, notepads?”

Her eyes narrow like a cat eyeing its prey. He can almost feel his wallet burning. He’ll have to pay again to play, but he doesn’t have to make it easy on her. He pulls another twenty from his wallet. “No ticky, no laundry. You don’t see this unless you get me somethin’ I can take outta here. And I don’t mean an old boot and some bobby pins. I mean somethin’ with her name on it—somethin’ I can use.”

“There ain’t much,” she admits.

“Much what?”

“I told you,” she says. “She left the place in a hell of a mess: dirty clothes, food in the kitchen, all her garbage for me to clean up.” She waves her hand, indicating everything and nothing. “I threw most of it out for the trashman—old papers, bills, stuff like that. But I still got a box of her junk up there in the attic.” She points upstairs, eyes hungry for the cash in his hand.

“Not so fast, sister.” He puts the twenty back in his pocket and stands. “Show me first. If it ain’t worth a damn, you keep your fifty bucks and I’m on my way.
Capish?
”

The old lady glares at him, but rises unsteadily from her chair. Scotch and old bones don’t help when she tries to put it into gear. Once on her feet, she shuffles slowly as Doaks follows her upstairs into a bedroom large enough to accommodate a mattress and not much else. She points at the closet. He opens the door, looks in. It’s crammed full of clothes that smell like that stinky lavender shit old ladies like. Doaks kicks away at the mess on the floor.

“You got a ladder?” He’s already sweating like a stevedore. The air in that room hasn’t moved since 1928. She points at the corner. He stomps over and places a wobbly chair under the opening to the closet ceiling, which is so low he can poke his head into the attic just by standing. It’s pitch-black except for slats of light that come through a few roof holes. He groans
as he grapples to hoist his sadly neglected body through the attic opening. After many unattractive attempts and copious cursing, he finally succeeds. The smell that greets his nostrils is a mix of rodent feces, mold and rot. “Terrific.”

“There’s a light switch up there somewhere,” the old woman calls. “Don’t sit on it.”

“Now she tells me,” he mutters. He feels around to the right and left, but hits only dirt and rotted wood. His fingers go a little farther afield and happen upon a switch that protrudes from an old beam. He flips it. Nothing. “Got a flashlight?”

Apparently the old lady didn’t have much faith in the switch, either. While he’s up there clawing through rat shit, she’s managed to find a decent flashlight. Her third toss makes it up to his knees, and he grabs it. He’s sweating so hard dank rivulets pour down his chest.

“First the fuckin’ rain and now a damned inferno,” he mutters. He’d like to see Sevillas up here on his hands and knees, covered in bat guano or whatever kind of offal he’s wading through. Everything has a wild smell. As he flicks the light around, ugly silhouettes of a few rats and a moving wall of roaches appear and then scuttle into the darkness. There’s something about the sound of vermin scrabbling and whirring around a person in the dark.