Not Even Past (3 page)

Fullbright, sleeves pushed up, tie loosened, stood behind his desk. Donne sat across from him, feeling completely underdressed in his jeans and Pearl Jam T-shirt.

“Do you have the email?” Fullbright asked when Donne was finished telling him the story.

“I do.” He pulled out his phone and handed it to Fullbright, with the text message open. “And the text message.”

Fullbright looked at the text. “Can’t do anything with this. Where’s the email?”

“I need to access it on your computer.”

“Like hell. Just pop it up on here.” Fullbright shook the phone.

“It’s Outlook. Doesn’t really work well on the phone.”

Fullbright shrugged. “Apple sucks anyway. Listen, Mr. Donne, you don’t have much to go on here.”

Donne’s nostrils flared. He knew where this was going.

“Let me show you the email.”

Fullbright nodded. “Our tech guys will take a look if your forward it to me. Just don’t send me a virus.”

“This isn’t funny.”

Fullbright put his hands in his pockets. “Jeanne Baker, by your account, has been dead for six years. There is a record of that. The medical examiner signed the death certificate. We have it on record here.”

“I saw the video. I saw Jeanne.”

The special agent nodded. “Someone is messing around with you, Mr. Donne. Someone with a sick sense of humor.”

“If—”

“Forward me the email, Mr. Donne. I promise you I will look into it.” Fullbright went into his desk, came out with a business card. Slid it across toward Donne. “Has my email on it too.”

Donne took it and stood up. He left without thanking Fullbright. Why thank a guy you’ll never hear from again?

F
ORTY-TWO
MINUTES
later, Donne was parked in front of his apartment again. He looked up at his building. Kate wasn’t looking out.

There was one contact Donne hadn’t lost track of. He got out of the car and walked south on George Street. Traffic eased the closer he got to the theaters. It was the midpoint of New Brunswick. Here, the fancy restaurants and college pubs faded. Houses with faded siding and broken windows started to appear. Only residents and campus buses traveled this part of town. The city was expanding, and expanding in this direction, but the gentrification was slowed by the economic collapse. The university and Johnson & Johnson had been unable—or unwilling—to jump-start it again.

Eyes were on him because he didn’t fit in. Even if they couldn’t see his face, they could see his skin color. He was either buying or busting.

It took only five minutes before Donne heard his name being called. He whirled to his left to see Jesus Sanchez limping up Dumont Street.

“What the hell are you doing here, man?” Jesus asked as he crossed the street to Donne.

Jesus had ascended the ladder. After some cops had knocked off his boss, Jesus took over and now wasn’t a street dealer anymore. That was three years ago. Sanchez apparently had an eye for business, or the cops had an affinity for him. He probably gave his boss up to the cops.

Jesus shook Donne’s hand. He didn’t say anything, just waited for Donne to explain.

The story of the email and Jeanne came easily out of Jackson, like a waterfall. He spat the words out, and when he was done he was out of breath.

“Holy shit,” Jesus said. He wiped at his nose. “Why are you here?”

“Where else would I go?”

Jesus shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and turned away from Donne. He headed up Dumont toward Douglass College. He stopped after a few steps.

“Go home, Jackson. I don’t know shit.”

For an instant, Donne believed him. He ground the heel of his shoe into the sidewalk and started to turn. But something tickled at the back of his neck. Maybe just a spark of his old instincts trying to fire up again. He froze.

“You’re lying,” Donne said.

Jesus tilted his head. “What you say?”

“You heard me.”

Now Jesus’s head started to shake. Back and forth slowly.

“Don’t do this, Jackson.”

“Do what?”

Jesus turned back toward Donne, but he was looking further down the road. He waved. Donne turned his head. As he did, his gut tightened. A black car rolled toward them. Tinted windows, shiny rims.

“I like you this way, Jackson,” Jesus said. “The new you. You’re happy, and this new girl, she seems good for you.”

“How—”

Again Jesus shook his head. “The old you rushed into things. Didn’t think. Fuck. You should be dead.”

Donne didn’t say a word. The car rolled up and stopped at the curve.

“I didn’t like the old me either. Scared. Talkative. Not no more. I buried him.” Jesus pulled the passenger door of the car open. “You should do the same. Old you comes back, it ain’t gonna be for long.”

“It’s Jeanne,” Donne said. “They have her. And they said I have to help her.”

“You don’t even know who
they
are. And you’re better off that way. Go home. Study.”

“She might die.”

Jesus got into the car and shut the door. He rolled the window down.

“And how is that different from what you thought yesterday?”

He rolled the window up as the car pulled away from the curb.

T
HREE MINUTES
.

The parking meter had been expired for three minutes. The driver, who had exited the car thirty-three minutes ago, was nowhere in sight. Bill Martin tapped twice on the steering wheel, exhaled, and allowed himself a smile.

Time to go to work.

He grabbed the summons and got out of his car. After straightening his tie, he crossed the street and stopped at the Volvo—one that belonged to a Mr. Shaun Smith. Smith—Martin loved the alliteration—couldn’t be more than a sophomore and was probably getting used to parking on campus. And by getting used to it, Martin meant not doing it. The university had one of the largest private bussing systems in the country. Don’t try to goose the meter.

People like Bill Martin were watching. And he was going to do his job.

After writing down the license plate number, Martin started to fill in the rest of the summons. The scratch of pen against paper made his smile grow even wider. None of this newfangled computer crap. Pen and paper—the right way to do things.

“Hey! Hey, wait!”

Martin looked up from the pad. Shaun Smith was running away from College Avenue toward him. Two pieces of change flew from his hand and clattered against the sidewalk. The kid stopped for a second, looked at the sidewalk, and then gave up—rushing again toward Martin.

Martin let his arms fall to his side, still gripping the pen and pad.

“Officer, please!” Smith skidded to a halt in front of Martin. “I’m just—wait a second. Are you even a cop?”

“I’m writing you a ticket, aren’t I?” Martin asked.

“Where’s your uniform?”

Martin shrugged his shoulders. He pulled his sports jacket open and flashed the badge on his belt.

“I’ve been around a long time. Wearing a suit on the job is a perk for me.”

Smith opened his mouth, closed it. Then said, “You can’t give me a ticket.”

Here we go.

“Why not, son?”

Smith ran his hand through his shaggy blond hair. “Because I was just coming back to feed the meter.”

“But you’re three minutes late.”

The kid looked behind him, then back at Martin. “I dropped my quarter back there, but I have the cash.”

“Cash for the next half hour.”

Smith nodded. “Come on, I have an exam. I’m going to be late.”

“But you didn’t pay for these last three minutes.”

Smith shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling around for another coin. Behind them, a campus bus rumbled by. Martin figured it was headed to Busch Campus. That one seemed to be on schedule.

He went back to writing.

“Come on, man, don’t be a dick.”

Martin shook his head. “I’m not. I’m doing my job.”

Smith exhaled. “Is this fun for you? Torturing college students?”

Martin tore the piece of paper away and handed it over to Smith. The kid took it and read it over. He shook his head.

“This is a blast,” Martin said.

He turned around and went back to his car. As he crossed the street, he heard Smith call him an asshole.

“Don’t forget to feed the meter in another thirty minutes,” Martin called out.

Another stream of curses followed. Martin couldn’t hold the smile back any more. Great start to the week.

Just a year after his promotion, after the shakes started, they demoted him to this job. They wanted him to retire.

And miss out on all the fun?

Hell, no.

Time to go back to the office to drop off all the tickets he’d written.

D
ONNE HEADED
back toward home. Off to the north, some thunderclouds hung over Piscataway, threatening a midday storm. It felt like it was too early in the year to be expecting a heat-breaking thunderstorm, but it was already early May. Time passed quickly when you weren’t paying attention.

Jeanne had already been gone six years, cut down in a car accident with a drunk driver. She was coming home from work, only a few weeks after Donne had left the force and started his own private investigator business. Someone came too hard around a curve and slammed into her. She was dead before the ambulance got on scene. The driver of the car had run off, leaving the car and several liquor bottles behind.

Now, as he passed the theater district, he tried to remember the days that followed. They were fuzzy, blurry—no, that was wrong. They were nonexistent. The weeks following Jeanne’s death were a black hole of alcohol and drugs, exactly what he’d promised his fiancée he’d give up for her once they decided to get married.

A sober man may have gone on a quest, tracked down the drunk driver. But he just let it go. He let Jeanne’s parents handle everything. Never asked if they found the guy. Never asked if they’d checked the plates to the car and caught anyone.

And then, just three years ago, her parents told him they never wanted to see him again.

Now, somehow, Jeanne was back in his life and Donne had nowhere to turn. His phone vibrated again, and his fingers tingled as he reached for it. He expected another warning from the blocked number, but all it was only Kate asking where he was. A few clicks of the keyboard later, and she knew he was on his way. But Donne had to make one more stop. Only one place left to turn.

If that car accident was faked and Jeanne was in danger, there was only one other person who could help him. It was not a place Donne wanted to go, not a place he ever wanted to walk into again.

T
HE
N
EW
Brunswick police station was a big, modern brick building off the beaten path of downtown New Brunswick. Kirkpatrick Street was buried behind a parking deck and was considered a small side road. Donne hadn’t walked down that side road in many years.

When he pulled the glass door open and stepped across the threshold, it felt as if a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around his neck. Air caught in the back of his throat.

He walked up to the reception desk, and the cop on duty looked up and did a double take. Maybe there was a picture of Donne in the break room and all the new recruits had to curse it out.

“Can I help you?” The cop sounded like he’d swallowed a thornbush.

“You know who I’m here to see,” Donne tried.

“Because I’m psychic?”

Donne closed his eyes. A tough guy act wasn’t going to work in the building where it was perfected.

“My old friend, I know he’s still here.”

“Well, I’m not about to announce you, so go find him yourself.”

Clearly this guy knew Donne wouldn’t be able to walk two feet without being stared down by six or seven other armed men. He just crooked his neck and nodded Donne toward the back. Didn’t even check his ID.

Sometimes being hated makes things a lot easier.

Donne walked past the desk and into a series of cubicles. The police department always reminded Donne of a small-town business.

Cubicles, coffee, and water coolers.

The clicking of computer keys and mumbled chatter.

He expected all that to stop as he made his way through the office, but it didn’t. He heard a few people mutter sounds of surprise, but the world didn’t end. The boa constrictor left, but a rat had nested in his stomach.