Revenant (28 page)

“Carson, this sounds dangerous and not hypothetical at all. I think you should talk to the police.”

I thought of Avery. It would be a relief to talk to him, but I couldn't. “I'm going to,” I lied. “I just want to be sure that I have my ducks in a row. This is a powerful man I'm about to accuse of murder.”

“Let me just say that I personally doubt he's totally unaware of his actions. I don't buy the Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde defense. Is this man married?”

“No. Never married.” That, too, was incriminating, though I'd never thought of it.

“That would fit the pattern. It's hard for a person to lead a double life if they share space with someone else. Does he date?”

“I went out with him a couple of times. I haven't heard of any serious relationships.”

“Forgive my questions, Carson, but it will help me think this through. Did this man make any sexual advances toward you?”

“No.” I hadn't found it unusual at the time. Mitch and I were both adults. We weren't randy teenagers who couldn't keep our hands off each other. Mitch was a man with political ambitions; he had to use caution in his relationships. Even as I was trying to rationalize Mitch's conduct, I remembered the night I'd spent with Daniel.

“Would you say he's asexual?” Richard asked.

“I don't know.”

“You should be very careful, Carson.”

“I've heard that most people who commit this type of crime want to confess. They want to be caught and stopped.”

“A word of caution, Carson. Don't corner this person. If this man feels helpless, he'll do whatever it takes to protect himself.”

“Thanks, Richard.”

“What are you going to do?” His voice was threaded with worry.

“Nothing rash.”

“Do I have your word on that?”

“Absolutely.”

I
made another martini and sat in my favorite chair. No matter how I turned the clues over, I still came up with Mitch Rayburn as the answer.

A bold knock at my door startled me. Miss Vesta jumped off my lap and ran toward the bedroom. The door swung open and Dorry stepped into the room. Her face was splotched with the aftereffects of crying. For a moment I thought she'd gone off the deep end over my missing Emily's party.

“Carson, will you help me?” she asked.

I got up and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. Dorry had long ago given up coffee, though it was what I would have preferred. “Come sit down,” I called to her.

She came into the kitchen and slumped into a chair. She put her face in her hands and rocked back and forth, not making a sound.

“What's wrong?” I asked. This was more than disappointment at my conduct. I stepped behind her and hesitated before I put a hand on her shoulder. Dorry had never been one to accept my offers of comfort. Even as I thought it, I realized I had no memory of attempting to comfort her. My fingers gently kneaded her tight muscles.

“Tommy didn't come home last night. I haven't heard from him today. When I went to the hospital this evening, they said he wasn't there.”

I thought of the videotape and the pictures lying on the desk in my home office. They were only fifty feet away. All I had to do was hand them to Dorry. I continued to rub her shoulders. “There could be a reasonable explanation.”

“Like what? The phones in Mobile quit working? Or maybe he went to a doctors' conference and forgot to tell me. Could be that he's flown to Africa to volunteer his surgical skills for the wretched poor.” Her voice had risen to a near shout. “The problem is, any of those things could be true. Tommy never talks to me anymore. He never touches me except as an obligation. It's like we're strangers condemned to serve out a sentence together.”

Her shoulders were so rigid I stopped rubbing them. “Divorce him,” I said.

“He's my whole life.”

“Dorry, that's not true. You're complete without him. You could be anything you want to be.”

“That's easy for you to say.” She jerked out from under my hands and turned so that she could look at me. Her face was white with anger. “You live alone. You can't even put a kid like Emily in front of your own needs. But I'm not like you. I need someone to share my life with.”

“And you really think I don't?” I wasn't angry; I was shocked.

“You don't need people the way most of us do.”

Her words were an accusation. The kettle began to scream, and I went to the stove and turned it off. I could feel Dorry's hot, angry glare in my back. I thought of handing her the pictures of her husband in bed with the little redheaded nurse with the big ass. Dorry had always assumed a position of superiority to me. Even now, she thought she felt more—hurt more. It was always more when it came to Dorry. I got two cups from the cupboard and put them on the counter, then grabbed tea bags from the shelf.

“I want a drink,” she said.

I pulled a bottle of vodka out of the refrigerator. I made a vodka tonic and handed it to her. The anger was gone from her face, and her gaze slid away from mine. She was ashamed.

“I'm sorry, Carson,” she said. “I came here to ask for your help, not to insult you.”

I finished making a cup of tea for myself and sat down at the table with her. “What do you want?”

“Can you find out what Tommy's doing?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” My attempts at comfort were over.

“Yes.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“You're not my fucking analyst,” she snapped. She took a long drink of the vodka and stared at the glass when she set it back on the table. “I need to know so I can make a reasonable decision.”

“Will you leave him if he's cheating on you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

She spoke so quickly that I knew she was lying. She'd use the photos to gig him, to threaten him with financial disaster. But she wouldn't leave him. Not yet.

“I'll check into it,” I said.

She took a deep breath. “Thank you, Carson.” She looked down at her drink. “Mother would be so disappointed if I screwed this up. She adores Tommy. When you—” She stopped, aware that she was about to be too honest.

“She was disappointed that her daughter's marriage failed,” I said. “But be truthful, wasn't she a little glad? She never cared for Daniel. Now he's out of the way.”

She swallowed and met my gaze. “Mother isn't the way you see her. She cares about you, Carson. She only wants what's best for you. Daniel wasn't right for you. It was bound to end in divorce.”

There was no point arguing with Dorry. She lived in a world of three-story houses with gingerbread trim and was the envy of all her neighbors for a marriage that was only a husk.

“I'll check into it,” I said again. I glanced at my watch. It was only eight o'clock. Plenty of time left. “Go home, Dorry. The kids will be wondering where you are and what you're doing.”

She stood up. “You're right.” She started toward the door and then turned back. “Thank you, Carson. You'll tell me what you find out, won't you?”

“Sure,” I said, the lie not even bitter on my tongue.

I waited ten minutes until I was sure she'd made it out of town. Then I got in my truck and drove to Mobile. I found the house where the redheaded nurse lived. Tommy's Porsche was in the garage.

Instead of knocking on the door, I hit it with the lug wrench from the boot of my truck. The wood splintered. I hit it again and again, taking chunks out of it.

“What the fuck do you want?” a woman shrilled from behind the door. “I'm calling the cops.”

I hit the door again. “Tommy!”

There was a pause. I hit the door harder, feeling the strain in my shoulder and back. My scar burned as if it were on fire again.

There was the sound of locks being turned. The door opened a crack, the chain still on it. Tommy peered out. “Carson?” He sounded as if he'd just been awakened from a long sleep.

“I need to talk to you,” I said, my voice calm and reasonable.

“How about ten o'clock tomorrow?”

I hit the door only a few inches from his face. He jumped back, and I leaned forward, speaking into the crack. “How about now?”

“How did you find me?” he asked from several feet away.

“Open this fucking door or I'm going to knock it off the hinges,” I said softly.

The door shut and the chain rattled. Then it swung open. Tommy stepped back. The redheaded nurse was hiding behind him, peering over his shoulder with wide, brown eyes. They both looked startled, but they also moved in slow motion. Demerol? Codeine? I wondered what narcotic Tommy had gotten from his closet full of samples.

“You're going to jail.” Tommy shifted, easing across the room. The nurse clung to him, staying behind him as if the lug wrench had turned into a gun and I could shoot her from ten feet away. Tommy reached for the telephone. “I'm calling the police.”

“Do that,” I said.

My reaction stopped him. He frowned, trying to think it through. His mouth opened but no words came out.

“Listen, Tommy, I have a business proposition to make,” I said. I didn't recognize my own voice. “Keep your dick in your pants and go home to your wife or divorce Dorry. One or the other. I don't care which. But if you divorce her, you give her everything she wants.” I pulled the pictures out of my jacket and threw them on the floor. Tommy and the nurse looked down at them, their expressions shifting to consternation that was almost comic.

“Has Dorry seen these?” he asked.

I wondered how I'd ever thought him good-looking. His face was slack, his eyes vacant. “No. She doesn't know. Yet.” I toed the photos, spreading them out. “I'll send copies to the hospitals where you work. If you move, I'll send them to the next hospital you go to. It shouldn't take a lot of effort to run down your patient list, too.”

Life leaped into his eyes. “You can't do this—”

“Don't tempt me. If you hurt my sister, I'll make it my life's goal to follow you wherever you go. I'll ruin you.”

He stepped away from the nurse. When she tried to slip behind him, he pushed her away.

“Tommy!” She glared at him. “What—”

“Get the fuck away from me,” he said.

“Don't piss her off, Tommy,” I said softly. “Give her whatever she wants. Pay her.”

She looked from me to him, realizing that the time for negotiation was now. “You promised me a car and a swimming pool.”

When he didn't say anything, I did. “You'll get what he promised, but if you ever do anything to hurt my sister, I'll make sure you regret it.”

“Get your clothes and get out of my house,” she said to Tommy. “You get out, too.” She spoke nicer to me.

“I'll wait for you outside,” I said to Tommy before I walked out the front door.

“You're going to have to get me a new door, too,” the nurse was saying. “And the pool has to be twenty by forty. Not one of those little ones. With a slide and a diving board. And a red Mustang convertible, like you promised. With white interior…”

Her voice faded as I continued down the sidewalk to my truck. I got in it and put a Rosanne Cash tape in the player.

Tommy came out of the house ten minutes later, his clothes looking as if he'd been caught in a hurricane. Whatever drug he'd taken was wearing off, and he walked with authority. He came to my window, his face a mask of hatred.

“You think you're smart, don't you?” He didn't expect an answer.

“What are you going to do, Tommy?” I asked. More than anything I wanted him to say he would divorce Dorry.

“I'm not giving up everything I worked for.”

“That's your choice.” Rosanne sang softly about the need to be loved by someone who'd already walked away. “If you hurt Dorry, if you give her any kind of disease, I'll make you wish you were dead. That's a promise.”

“Who appointed you the vigilante committee?” he asked. “Did your mother send you here?”

“I appointed myself. No one in the family knows about this, and I want it to stay that way.” A gentle breeze brought the sweet smell of wisteria to me, and I thought of the long spring afternoons when Dorry had sat with me in a chinaberry tree and planned her life. She hadn't made room for a husband who cheated on her.

“You won't tell anyone?” He sounded hopeful.

“Keep in mind, Tommy, that you'll never know who's looking over your shoulder. For as long as you're with my sister, you'll always have to wonder who I've hired to keep tabs on you.”

“You're a bitch.”

“Yeah,” I said, starting the truck. “I am.” I hit the switch to roll up the window. The glass slid between us as we stared at each other. I drove away.