Body Of Truth (34 page)
Authors: Deirdre Savoy
Dana watched Joanna leave. She wasn't fooled by her friend's easy agreement to fetch her husband. She figured Joanna hoped she'd ferret some information out of Ray that would explain his change in behavior. Fat chance of that considering that until recently, she and Ray weren't exactly speaking to each other.
Feeling restless, she got up from the sofa and walked to the bookcase along one wall. Most of the shelves were taken up with copies of medical journals, texts or books written about the medical field. Only one shelf housed a variety of hard cover and paperback novels. She scanned the titlesâall mystery or gory horror, the type of stuff that usually bored her. She saw enough real horror every day to not be fazed by made up stuff.
The edge of what she thought was a square piece of paper jutted out from among the books. Without thinking, she pulled it out and immediately realized what it wasâa photograph. Given Joanna's concerns, she wouldn't have been surprised to find a woman's picture there. But the photograph was an old one that depicted three boys, teenagers with wild hair and leather jackets and a look of mischief in their eyes. Someone had scrawled “Us 1979” as a caption on the back.
She recognized the boy on the left as Ray. Next to him stood a shorter boy who looked Hispanic, complete with a mustache that hadn't quite grown in. There was something familiar about that boy's face. Maybe the grown up version of this kid was one of the guests outside. She focused on the third boy, taller than the other two. His face bore a cocky expression she'd seen before, more times than she'd wanted to. She knew those eyes and that mouth twisted into a cruel smile. Her head swam, her brain trying not to comprehend what this picture might mean for all of them, since she knew without a doubt she was looking down at the teenage face of Thomas Moretti.
Twenty-three
“Joanna says you're ready to go home.”
Hearing Ray's voice behind her, Dana jumped. She still held the damning photograph in her trembling fingers. She didn't know what Ray would do if he knew she'd seen it, but she didn't want to find out. Casually, she tucked the photograph into her pocket as if she were straightening her skirt. She turned to face him. “I don't want to drag you away from your guests. Maybe Zack can take me.”
“Nonsense. It's no bother. If you want to know the truth, this party is more Joanna's gig than mine.”
He smiled at her benignly, his face showing no trace of malice or the knowledge that she'd discovered his secret. Besides, he was a doctor. If he wanted to get rid of her, he could have slipped something into her food or drink, either here or when she'd visited Joanna in the hospital. He'd have to be a fool to try to harm her now when Joanna would know the two of them were together. But she couldn't take that chance.
“Really, Ray, I was just in a mood because Jonathan had to leave. I think I'll stick around until he gets back.”
Ray shrugged. “Have it your way. If you change your mind again, let me know.”
She walked toward him, her nerves screaming, wondering if he'd try to hold her back or let her pass. When she got to the doorway where he stood, he stepped aside, saying nothing. But she didn't let her breath out until she'd made it inside the small bathroom by the stairs and shut the door behind her. With trembling hands she splashed some water on her face and patted it dry with a towel. She had to get out of there. If Ray hadn't noticed she'd taken the picture before, he must surely know by now. She didn't intend to wait on anyone else to take her. She made her way to the front of the house, slipped out the front door and walked the block and a half to an all-night diner. She called a cab from there.
Sitting in the back seat, she finally relaxed. As soon as she got home, she'd call Jonathan, as she hadn't bothered to bring her cell phone with her. He'd know how to handle this. She paid the driver, got out and hurried toward her house.
Once inside with the door closed, she leaned against the wooden surface, and exhaled her pent-up breath. She was safe. All she needed to do now was to call Jonathan and make sure he got back here as quickly as possible.
She started to push off the door, when the bell rang, startling her. She turned and opened the door, only to gasp, finding Ray standing on the other side. In the short time since she'd seen him last, he looked changedâweary, with lines of stress evident around his eyes and mouth. Or maybe that was a trick of the stark porch light. Something about him frightened her, beyond what she thought she knew about him. But she refused to let him see that she was afraid. In a stern voice, she demanded, “What are you doing here, Ray?”
He extended his hand toward her. “For starters, I'd like to have my picture back.”
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Jonathan met Andrea Weathers at the bar around the corner from her house, ironically the same bar in which Freddie Jackson had almost met his eternal reward. The name of the place was the Hazard Inn. Jonathan figured that was as good a name as any for this place.
Ms. Weathers was already seated in one of the booths when he walked in. He slid in across from her, noticing from the redness in her eyes and the puffiness of her face that she'd been crying. Why she, why any woman would waste her tears on a piece of trash like Moretti, he couldn't fathom. He didn't have any sympathy for her and didn't try to pretend he had any either. He only hoped she hadn't gotten him down here on some wild goose chase or to try to convince him that Moretti wasn't so bad. “What do you have for me, Ms. Weathers?”
She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “First I wanted to say how sorry I am that Tommy hurt so many people. I knew he wasn't a saint, but I didn't know he had that in him.”
He didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. He wasn't about to debate the merits of Moretti's character with her.
She licked her lips. “But the one person I know he didn't hurt was Amanda Pierce.”
For a moment he stared at her nonplussed. He hadn't expected that, nor did he believe it. Still he asked, “How can you know that?”
“My mother had a stroke the night before that Pierce woman got killed. Tommy was with me at Mercy Hospital. You can check with the doctors there. He didn't want to leave, but my mother was better and I didn't want to get him in trouble at work. But he didn't leave until nine-thirty, at least a half hour after that woman was picked up.”
Adrenaline whooshed up through Jonathan's system, putting his nerve endings on alert. If Moretti hadn't picked up Amanda Pierce, then someone else had, someone Moretti had covered for to the point of taking his own life. One of his old running buddies, no doubt, or maybe both of them. If they'd really killed Father Malone, none of them would want that getting out. But as far as he knew, no one had found out who those other two men were or if they were still alive or in the area. He wasn't even sure anyone was still looking.
“Who was he covering for?”
“I don't know. He got a few calls that he left the room to take. I didn't hear him use any names. I thought it was another woman.”
Damn. He was no better off now than he had been when he walked in the door, except that if another person was involved, Dana was still in danger. He pulled out his phone and called his sister's house. Joanna came on the phone to tell him that Dana had just left with Ray.
“Do me a favor, Sis? Call Ray and ask him to wait with Dana until I get there.” He didn't want to call Dana and risk upsetting her when he wasn't there. He would have preferred it if one of his brothers had seen her home, but Ray would have to do in a pinch.
“Is everything okay?”
He didn't want to upset his sister, either. “Yeah. Just do what I ask, okay?”
“Sure. Call me later?”
“Will do.” He clicked off the phone and clipped it to his belt. He looked at the woman sitting across from him. “I have to go.”
She nodded.
He slid from the booth and walked out. He could probably make it back to Dana's in less than ten minutes. Even though Ray was with her, he wouldn't breathe easily until he saw Dana again for himself.
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Dana reached into her pocket and pulled out the picture. She handed it to Ray. “If that's all you want, please go. I'm tired and I want to go to bed.”
Ray looked down at the picture before slipping it into his shirt pocket. He looked up at her, his face bearing the bleakest expression she'd ever seen. “Don't worry, Dana. I'm not here to hurt you.”
She'd believe that when he got his behind off her porch and left. “Go home, Ray. Joanna needs you.”
He shook his head. “I won't be going home. Maybe not for a long time. When will Jonathan be back?”
She lacked the presence of mind to lie. “I don't know.”
“Do you mind if I wait for him?”
“Here?” she asked, meaning the porch.
He nodded. “Can I have something to drink first?”
She scanned his face again. His expression seemed more desolate than dangerous. She didn't know what to make of that. She still didn't trust him, but to some extent she felt sorry for him. Whatever his role in all this, his life as he knew it was over. She'd see to that, even if no one else did. “I have some iced tea,” she ventured.
The look on his face told her that wasn't the kind of drink he had in mind. “I'll be right back.” She went inside, closing the door behind him, shutting him out. She was tempted to call the local police and have him escorted from her property. She called Jonathan instead, who picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “Is Ray with you?”
Jonathan already knew he was there? That changed things. “Yes. He's out on the porch.”
“Make sure he stays there until I get there, okay? I'll be home in five minutes.”
“All right.”
The line went dead before she finished speaking. It was probably best he got off the phone since he was driving, but the abruptness with which he ended the call left her with a bad feeling. Something wasn't right. That much she knew, though she couldn't tell if it was Ray's being here or Jonathan's distractedness. But she would do as Jonathan asked and keep Ray here.
She got a tumbler from the cabinet and filled it with a mixture of ice and scotch, the drink Ray preferred. She tucked her spare house key into one of her pockets. Looking down at the drain board beside the sink, she got another idea. She tucked the small paring knife into her other pocket. The blade wasn't long, but it was sharp enough to do some damage.
She went back to the porch and shut the door behind her. Ray was sitting in a rocker looking down at the picture she'd taken from his house. Whatever thoughts ran through his mind, they engrossed him enough that he didn't react to her return. “Ray?” she said finally.
He wiped his hand across his face. When he reached for the glass she offered him, she noticed twin trails of moisture on his skin. He gulped down half the drink, before setting the glass on the floor beside him. “Thank you.”
She didn't know what to say to that, so she didn't bother. She slipped into the rocker across from him, turning it slightly so that she could watch him. At first he remained silent, but she sensed in him a desire to speak, to unload whatever burden he carried. “Why are you here, Ray?”
“Because I'm tired, Dana. I've been running from this thing for twenty-five years. It's past time to put it to rest.” He turned his head toward her, showing her the picture in his hand. “Growing up, these were the best friends I had. Me and Tommy and Miguel. They knew me by my given name, Randy, and we used to call him Mouse, a take on Speedy Gonzales, you know, the cartoon. He was a pipsqueak, and man, could that boy run. We used to get him to take things from the local stores, because even if they knew who did it, no one could ever catch him.”
He spoke with such nostalgia that she wanted to shake him and ask him what made him think she wanted to join him on this trip down memory lane. At least one of these men, his friends, was responsible for a number of deaths. For all she knew, he was, too. If that's where this was leading, she'd prefer to hear the truth of it now. “What did you do, Ray?”
“Me? I didn't do anything.”
Rather than sounding like a denial of culpability, his words sounded more like self-condemnation. “What do you mean?”
“I didn't do anything to stop them, not now, not twenty-five years ago. When that fire started, I didn't want to leave Father there. Mouse hit him and he fell, but he was alive, Dana. We left him there to burn to death because Tommy said we'd go to jail for assault and for setting the fire if Father told on us, even though it was an accident. Despite all the nonsense we pulled, none of us had spent so much as a day in juvenile hall. I was scared and I let them talk me into leaving him there.
“I never forgave myself for that. Never. But I was determined to straighten myself out. I thought we all were. At least something good could come of Father's death. A year later, my mom remarried. She met some rich guy on her job. He was good to us. He even adopted me, like I wanted to do with Joanna's kids, though I was almost eighteen at the time. I thought I had put it all behind me until Tommy called me to tell me what Mouse had done to Amanda Pierce. They left her behind old man Mario's pizzeria, a payback for all the times he told us all we'd ever amount to was trash.”
So, neither Ray nor Moretti had anything to do with Pierce's death, though Moretti had been guilty of helping to cover it up. If that were true, why hadn't Moretti turned Mouse in? She voiced that question to Ray. “Was he afraid Mouse would tell what he knew about Father Malone's death?”
“No, all three of us vowed to take what happened to Father Malone to our graves. Turning Mouse in would have been like betraying a member of our families. For a long time, we were all each other had. They considered me a turncoat since I wouldn't go along with their plans to get rid of you. You didn't know it, but you'd seen Mouse, seen the car. You didn't seem to remember much, but you might have. We'd all made decent lives for ourselves. Neither of them wanted to risk losing what they had, Mouse especially.”
“So you were willing to let them kill me to keep your precious secrets?”
He averted his gaze. “I tried to keep you out of it, Dana. But you kept putting your nose back in it. Tommy told me where those gangbangers had dumped the car they used in the drive-by. After you left the hospital, I got in the car and went after you. I wanted to warn you off getting involved any further, but I would never have hurt you. Once I found out you were staying with Jonathan, I figured he'd keep you safe. I didn't know how far Tommy would go to keep you silent.”
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