A Perfect Life (23 page)

“Oh.” She blushed. “Say you're Tim O'Rourke. He's a flunky in personnel. Does a little bit of everything.”

Seconds passed. “Yes. This is Tim O'Rourke in employee benefits at Boston Hospital. Our records show that a former employee, Kate Billings, had her last paycheck sent to your address. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Right. Listen, I need to speak with Ms. Billings regarding a 401-k election. I could write, but if she wants the full tax benefit, I really need to speak with her in the next day or two. So, I was wondering . . . Uh-huh, uh-huh.” Scott wiggled his fingers at Natalie, and she handed him a pen from her purse. “Okay, go ahead. Got it. Thank you very much. Good-bye.”

Natalie grinned at him. “Sneaky, aren't we?”

Scott didn't repond.

“What's the matter?”

“The number has a two-five-two area code.” He flipped to the front of the Bell Atlantic phone book and ran his finger over a map of the country. “That's North Carolina.”

“So?”

“Nothing.” He punched in the number. On the fifth ring, a child answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Yes. May I speak to Kate please?”

“Okay.” The sound of the receiver being dropped rang in his ears, then he heard the child's voice again—this time distant and muffled. “Kate? Kate! Telephone. It's for you.”

Seconds passed before he heard the next voice. “Hello?”

Scott pressed the
OFF
button on the phone and tossed the receiver onto the sofa. “She's in North Carolina.”

Natalie shook her head. “Don't guess she's gonna be waiting outside the parking deck tonight.”

“No.”

Her eyes roamed over his face. “You're not still going, are you?”

“Yeah,” he almost whispered. “I think I have to.”

CHAPTER 36

Roseland Drive was short. Maybe a couple of miles was all. On the phone that morning, Cannonball had asked when Mr. Pongeraytor would be home, not wanting to show up in the middle of the day when just the wife would be there. The old man wasn't assuming prejudice—not just because of his color. But Cannonball Walker knew what he looked like. Living fifty years every night in a bar—every night breathing smoke and washing down bar food with bourbon, eating whatever the kitchen served up—the life took its toll. Walker was a hard man. He looked it. And it scared people sometimes.

The Pongeraytor place was a white clapboard house sandwiched between two small brick Tudors. The front grass looked like a putting green, the shrubs like they had been grown inside perfect, rectangular forms. He mounted the steps and rang the doorbell.

Some time passed before the door swung open and a white-haired man stepped out. “Yes?”

“I'm Canon Walker. I spoke to your wife earlier today on the telephone.”

“Right, right.” He stepped aside. “She told me about it. Come on in.” They walked past a Victorian living room and through a long kitchen with pine cabinets and vinyl flooring. “Such a nice day. Thought we could talk out here on the patio.” Mr. Pongeraytor opened a rear door and led Cannonball down three steps onto a brick patio. “Please.” He motioned at a white wrought-iron chair. “Have a seat.”

Cannonball nodded and sat. “Appreciate you seeing me. A stranger calling like that.”

“Right.” He hesitated as if not sure what to say next. “I don't think I told you my name. I'm John Pongeraytor.” He hesitated again. “You said something about representing the Thomas boy?”

“That's right. I flew in a couple of days ago. Scott Thomas asked me . . .”

The back door squeaked on its hinges, and a sixtyish woman with light red hair brought a tray of iced tea out onto the patio. John smiled. “Thank you, honey. This is the man who called today.” He glanced at Cannonball. “Canon Walker, right?”

He nodded.

“This is my wife, Alice.”

She held out her hand. “Reverend.”

Cannonball smiled. He knew Southerners were friendly, but the quick invitation and the tray of tea had seemed suspect. These nice people thought that Scott Thomas's minister had come to call on family business. The old bluesman had his mouth open to correct their mistake when he thought better of it. Instead, he simply said, “Nice to meet you, Alice. I hope you're going to join us.”

Deep crow's feet formed at the corners of blue eyes when she smiled. “Of course. Truth be known, I'm curious about what the older Thomas boy is up to after all these years.”

Cannonball smiled back. “He's done well for himself. In school at Harvard, working on his doctorate.”

Alice lowered her tiny backside into a metal chair. A hand went to her chest. “My goodness. That is nice.”

“But something has come up that . . . Well, something very disturbing for Scott has happened recently. Two things, really.” Cannonball took a glass of tea from Alice's outstretched hand, took a sip, and smiled appreciatively before going on. “First of all, someone at the Birmingham Police Department has reopened the investigation into the fire that killed his family.”

The Pongeraytors shared a look, then John asked, “What's the second problem?”

“Strange as it may sound, a young man—uh, someone whose face looks shiny like it was burned—has shown up in Boston. He's following Scott. Showing up in the strangest situations.” He stopped to think, to decide how much to tell, and John interrupted.

“Bobby” was all he said. His wife nodded her tinted hair.

Cannonball was genuinely shocked. “That's what Scott thought. You do mean Scott's brother? You think this young man is Bobby Thomas. Is that what you're saying?”

“Makes sense. Had to happen sooner or later. Bobby got out of the hospital about a year ago.”

Cannonball tried to think. “A year ago?”

“Well.” Alice spoke up. “John's putting a nice face on it. It's true that Bobby was hospitalized for months and months following the fire, but . . .” She looked off into the distance and straightened her dress. “This is so . . . unpleasant.”

“I need to know, if you can tell me.”

She sighed. “I guess it's common knowledge. You see, Bobby was burned so badly in the fire that he just never looked like a normal boy. And, well, you know how cruel children can be.”

“Oh, good Lord,” John Pongeraytor interrupted. “The kid's a thug. He started out beating up other kids and moved on to teachers and coaches. They kicked him out over there at the high school, and the next thing we heard he'd killed a guy over a six-pack of beer.”

“When did this happen?”

“Oh”—John looked at his wife—“about seven, eight years ago. I guess he was about fourteen at the time.”

“Young enough to get youthful offender status,” Alice said.

“And he just got out?”

Alice sipped her tea. “Like we said, about a year ago.”

Cannonball started to ask something, and John held up his hand to stop him. “Let's back up a minute. There's something wrong about the first problem you mentioned, too. You know, what you said about the Birmingham police reopening the fire investigation.” Cannonball could see a fine intelligence working in the man's eyes. John said, “Let me explain something about Birmingham. It's gotten to be a pretty big place. Lots of people in what they call the Metro Area. But what we all call Birmingham is really a collection of mostly small towns. Course, Birmingham itself is big, but the suburbs—Homewood, Vestavia, Mountain Brook, Hoover—they're all independent, incorporated cities.”

“I don't understand what that has to do—”

“The fire was here in Homewood.” He pointed to a brick Tudor next door. “That house right there. Birmingham police got nothing to say about what happens in Homewood.”

“Oh.”

“Now, like I said, most people just say Birmingham to talk about the whole area, and maybe that's what somebody meant when they said the Birmingham police were reopening the investigation, but . . .” He paused. “It seems fishy, anyhow.”

Cannonball noticed the glass in his hand and placed it on a glass table. “What do you mean, fishy?”

Alice spoke up. “What did you say your relationship with Scott was?”

Cannonball could actually feel his face blush. They couldn't see it, but he could feel it just the same. These were not people he wanted to mislead. “I'm his friend.”

“His minister?”

“No. I'm his friend. I guess I'm more of an advisor than anything else.”

John said, “Canon Walker? I hope you won't be insulted if I ask for proof that you're here to represent the Thomas boy's interests.”

“No, sir. Not insulted at all.” Cannonball reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a copy of the power of attorney executed by Scott. He unfolded the document and handed it to John.

John smiled and handed the document in turn to his wife. “Alice was a legal assistant at the biggest firm in the state for thirty years.”

Now Alice blushed. She said, “Just a secretary, really.” But she consumed the document with extraordinary speed and focus before looking up to nod at her husband. “I think we can quit worrying about Canon Walker's intentions.” She turned to smile at Cannonball. “He's here for Scott.” Her voice sounded soft now, almost appreciative.

The old bluesman's eyes moved from Alice's face to John's. Both looked hard into his eyes. Both looked a little bruised by what had to be said. John broke the silence, first by speaking to his wife. “The boy doesn't know.”

She shook her head.

John turned to Cannonball. “Nobody's going to reopen that investigation. Heck, it wasn't much of an investigation to begin with. Everybody knew what happened.” He took a deep breath. “Scott's father, Robert, got in some trouble at the bank. Nobody knew it until after the fire, but apparently he'd been embezzling funds. He worked in the trust department, you know.”

Cannonball just shook his head.

“Well, anyway, poor Robert burned down his house for the insurance money.” He paused, searching for something to add. “It's just that simple. There was never . . . never any question about what happened.” John picked up his tea and killed a third of it. “And something else. Scott's
family
didn't die in that fire.”

The bluesman sat bolt upright in his chair. “You talkin' about Bobby?”

“I mean Robert Thomas managed to mess up the fire just like he'd messed up his job at the bank. We were living next door even back then.”

Cannonball nodded. “Scott told me. That's why he asked me to look you up.”

“Right. I knew Scott. Not as anything but a little tow-headed boy on a bike, but I knew him. His parents, Robert and Nancy, had us over for cookouts a few times. We returned the favor.”

“I understand what you're tellin' me ain't gossip, Mr. Pongeraytor. You knew these folks.”

“Right.” He drank more tea. “Anyway, Robert was an A-1 fuck-up.”

Alice shamed John by the way she said his name.

“I'm sorry, Reverend. But it's true. Man just couldn't get his act together. I never understood how he got Nancy. Woman was sharp as a tack. Good-looking, too. In any event, the investigator from the fire department stopped by about a week after the fire and came over here to use our phone. This guy tells me that Robert used an accelerant to start the fire—probably gasoline he kept around for his lawnmower. Said it wasn't a secret. That it'd be in the papers. And it was. But he also told me that Robert's body was burned—”

Alice rose out of her seat, said “Excuse me, please,” and hurried into the house.

Cannonball grimaced. “Sorry to make y'all talk about this.”

John nodded. “It's all right. Alice was close to Nancy.”

His words began to fall into place inside Cannonball's head. “Are you tellin' me that Robert Thomas was the only one killed in the fire?”

John let out a breath and his shoulders visibly relaxed. “That's what I'm telling you. Robert died. Bobby and his mother were badly burned. Neither of 'em ever been the same. Scott got out.”

Cannonball decided to trust this man. “Robert Thomas's old boss at the bank told Scott that people around here blamed him. Blamed Scott, I mean.”

“That, Canon Walker, is bullshit. I don't know what this guy's trying to pull, but nobody—and I mean nobody—ever blamed that boy for getting out alive.”

A heavy silence settled between the two men. Somewhere on the street a dog barked. Alice's azaleas blew in the breeze—small, pink buds bouncing with each gust. Minutes passed before Cannonball asked, “What about the mother?”

“Nancy? She's not dead, but she's not much alive either. Pretty woman like that all burned up.” John shook his head. “Bad scars, you know? Don't know whether it was the physical part or something else—her husband ruined, her family . . . God, it kills me just to think about it. Scott was well out of here, I can tell you that. His father dead and a crook. His mother burned and half crazy. His brother . . . his little brother scarred and all-the-way crazy from what they tell me.” He shook his head. “No. Sounds like Scott's done okay for himself. He was well out of here.”

“What I meant was, where is Scott's mother? Is she in a nursin' home? Is she somewhere where I could visit with her?”

John raised his hand and pointed at the house next door. “Still lives right there. Got a nurse lives in full time.”

“I thought it burned.”

“Gutted. And I mean big time. But they say the bank paid to have it cleaned up and rebuilt for the widow.”

“Nice of 'em.”

“I always thought it was kinda curious myself.”

Cannonball stood to get a better look at the brick Tudor where Scott Thomas's mother lived. “Think she'll talk to me?”

“I doubt it.”

Acid had chewed at Kate Billings's stomach for hours. The kid, Sarah, was more than she could take. So Kate had made a show of feeling the little girl's forehead at dinner and proclaiming that the child had a slight fever.

“I feel fine, Kate.”

“I'm a nurse, Sarah.” She produced three pink pills. “Take these and you'll keep feeling fine.”

“But . . .”

“If you're not going to mind, I'll have to speak with your father about keeping you in bed all weekend until you're better.” Kate smiled. “Come on, Sarah. It's not like I'm poisoning you or anything.”

Sarah gritted her teeth and clenched her fists beneath the table, but she took the three tablets and washed them down with milk. A half hour later, she was sound asleep on top of the covers in her bedroom. The tablets were just antihistamines, but so are almost all over-the-counter sleeping pills. The kid would be out for hours.

Now, finally, Kate Billings could think.