The Hidden Man (24 page)

Sammy was listening intently. He nodded slowly.

“Right,” I continued. “But I’m sitting here thinking, Smith is working for someone who killed Griffin Perlini. Maybe they feel for you, maybe they want you to beat the rap, but their main concern is that they don’t want me out there trying to find new suspects, because they’re afraid I’ll find
them
.”

Sammy didn’t answer. He’d given me ample reason to think he killed Griffin Perlini, though he hadn’t come out and said it. But he’d also been the one to mention that I should consider other victims of Perlini’s crimes.
Look at other people he hurt
, he’d suggested, the first time we talked strategy.

“Should I be looking for Griffin Perlini’s killer, Sammy?”

Sammy looked away, turned his head. He hadn’t shaved for a while, and a thickening red beard was forming. “I don’t get this stuff with Smith,” he said. “Doing all that shit to Pete and all. But there’s one guy, I think—a good guy, but I could see. . . .”

Was Sammy proclaiming his innocence?

“The name,” I said, but I thought I already knew it. I just didn’t want to be the one to say it first.

“Archie,” he said. “Guy named Archie Novotny. His daughter—Jody—was one of the victims.”

I hadn’t told Sammy of my visit to Novotny. “Why him?” I asked.

Sammy shook his head slowly. “He took the thing with Jody real hard. And he seems like the kind of guy who might have it in him.”

“He’s close enough to matching the description,” I noted.

“Oh, you’ve met him.”

“I did, Sammy. And I managed a peek in his coat closet. Guess who owns a brown leather bomber jacket and a green stocking cap?”

“No shit? Wow.” Sammy fell back in his chair, new animation. “You think Archie did it? For real?”

I felt an uneasy heat to my face, a weight on my shoulders. “Sammy,” I confessed, “I thought
you
did it.”

He showed a brief hint of a smile. I wasn’t sure what to make of this.

“Novotny says he has an alibi,” I said. “He says he was at a guitar lesson. I’m checking it out.”

Sammy thought about that. “Maybe it’s a cover. Yeah, shit.” He looked at me. “But that don’t explain Smith.”

I agreed. “I suppose Novotny could be the guy using Smith. It’s just hard to imagine. The guy’s a laid-off painter for the electric utility. Where’s he get the money to hire a guy like Smith, and a bunch of goons to scare the shit out of my brother?”

“Don’t make sense.”

It didn’t make sense. But at least I was making progress. I had a more than plausible suspect in Archie Novotny. Now, I would need to find a way to punch some holes in the eyewitness testimony placing Sammy at the scene of the shooting. I’d left one message with each of the witnesses already. On my drive from the detention center, I called each of them again, leaving them my office, home, and cell phone numbers.

When I got to my office, I amended my witness list in Sammy’s case to include Archie Novotny and put it on the fax machine to the prosecutor, Lester Mapp. I’d have preferred to spring the witness on Mapp, but judges take a dim view of such things, and maybe—just maybe—if I convinced Mapp that Novotny was the guy, he’d walk Sammy.

Next, I did an Internet search for hotels in nearby suburbs and booked a room for Pete in a town just outside the city boundaries. Now I’d just have to make sure Pete got there without anyone noticing. He needed to fly under the radar for the time being.

Joel Lightner called me on my cell phone and gave some information I’d requested. He had found J.D.—John Dixon, Pete’s supplier who escaped arrest when Pete got pinched.

“You want me to put a tail on him?” he asked.

“Not just yet, Joel. Thanks. I’ll let you know.”

“I’m worried about you, kid. Play it smart.”

I smiled. Lightner had a pretty good head on his shoulders. “Always,” I told him. “Always.”

31

S
UNDAY PRACTICE at State is usually the easiest of the week—film of the previous day’s game, then a brief, no-contact workout in sweats and helmets, no pads. But today will not be your finest day. They are on you, the seniors, the team captains, before you make it to your locker.

What’s this disappearing act you pulled yesterday?
Tony Karmeier, a massive offensive tackle and four-year starter, is breathing heavily into the side of your face. Apparently Tony—and by the looks of it, the rest of the team—didn’t look kindly on you walking off the football field yesterday, after the referee ejected you, and driving home.
You want to forget that scholarship and go back to being a loser?

You don’t answer. You open your locker and remove your helmet. Your right hand is still sore from the number you did on Jack, your father, last night.

I’m thinking
, you say.

He shoves you, and when a six-six, three-hundred-fifty-pound lineman pushes you, you fly sideways, landing on the floor.

You slowly get up and recover your helmet, still spinning on the floor. You feel your internal reservoir refilling with the hot venom from last night, the assault on your father. It felt good, you have to admit, better than it should have. Your hand balls into a fist and releases. You look again at the team captain, Karmeier, a physical mountain, mean as a snake, and you realize how much you hate him, how much you hate all of them.

Don’t ever try that again
, you tell him.

Or what
? Karmeier moves forward, held back by some of the others gathering around the spectacle.
No, he’s a big boy. I think he’s threatening me. Are you threatening me, Kolarich?

Your fist closes and releases. Close and release. You want him to do it, you realize. You began to feel it last night, with Jack in the parking lot, and now the momentum builds into a free fall: You are letting yourself go backward. You’re a loser. A pretender. You don’t deserve all of this, a free ride at State, all the acclamation. You’re never going to make it. You’ll become like him.

You feel a smile on your face.
Come here and say that,
you tell him.

Oh, you’re gonna square off on me?
he says, approaching you.
You wanna—

It happens in an instant, a release so satisfying, one-two, a right and a left like lightning from your fists, the second punch producing a sickening crunch as this heap of a man crumbles to the floor. You are on fire, breathing heavily, watching him writhe on the floor in agony, his hands on his face. You part the spectators, shaking your left hand, wondering if you broke it, sure that you broke Tony Karmeier’s jaw. You use your right hand to push open the locker room door, never to return.

I CALLED PETE before I left work and checked that he had packed his bag. When I got home, I drove my car into the garage and closed the garage door. Pete came out through the kitchen door with the clothes he’d brought from his house following the arrest—and some of my wardrobe as well—in a bag, which he threw in the trunk. Pete was wearing a leather jacket and a blue baseball cap.

We waited a few minutes before leaving, so the whole thing wouldn’t look too strange, so no one would wonder why I pulled into the garage, closed the door, only to leave again right away. I backed out the car and drove away from my house. The tail, today a blue Chevy sedan, followed my car from a safe distance. We drove to the Supermax movie theater about a mile away and bought two tickets to a sequel about a wisecracking treasure hunter who seems to wear tuxedos a lot and, for a history nerd, shows tremendous composure under pressure.

Pete, in his leather jacket and blue baseball cap, bag slung over his shoulder, was silent as we walked toward the movie theater. We found Shauna Tasker where we said we’d meet, in the back row of the theater, so I could see anyone walking in.

“Hey there, fellas.” Tasker was in her typical contrarian mood. More important, she was wearing a leather jacket and blue baseball cap, identical to Pete. I checked my watch. In ten minutes, a cab would be pulling up on the street behind the theater. From the exit on the right of the big screen, Pete could walk to the cab in about ten steps.

“You have your money?” I whispered to my brother, as I kept my eyes on every person who walked into the theater. Pete couldn’t access an ATM machine without the possibility of someone inquiring. I’d taken out a couple thousand dollars in cash for him.

“I’m good,” he said. “I’ll pay you back.” Pete was doing his best to wear a brave face. He’d been shaken up pretty bad by those guys in the alley. It was more humiliating than physically painful. He had a lot of worries right now.

“I know you will.”

He nodded. The lights dimmed. Animated popcorn boxes and sodas told us to turn off our cell phones and keep quiet.

“When you’re in the cab, you’ll text me,” I said. “You’ll be fine, Pete.”

“I’m worried about
you
, brother.”

We looked at each other. I battled myself all over again, questioning myself, wondering if this was the right move. I was tempted to keep Pete close to me, but this felt like the better play. He’d be in an anonymous little suburban hotel, ordering room service for food and not showing his face much. It should work out.

“I gotta say this, Pete.”

“No, you don’t. I’m clean, Jase. I’ll be fine.”

I gripped his hand. Emotion strangled my throat.

“I better go.” Pete squeezed my hand and got up. I watched him intently as he walked down the aisle and out the exit door.

“He’ll be fine, Jason.” This assurance from Shauna. “And you’re covering my ticket, right?”

“Shut up.” I opened my cell phone and waited for the text message. It arrived, not two minutes later.
I’m in. Can I put porn movies on your credit card?

I laughed, a brief moment of levity. Then I said a silent prayer for the only real family member I had left in this world.

When the movie was over, Mother Nature helped out with a rain storm. I used the weather as an excuse to get the car and pull up in front of the theater for Shauna, playing the role of Pete. All she had to do was keep her head down and pop into the car with the bag he had brought. There was not much of a chance that our surveillance could have made a distinction between my brother and my law partner. The identical leather jacket and blue baseball cap would be more than enough, as long as she kept her head down.

“I’m starting to feel like James Bond,” Shauna said. It was twice now she’d helped me fake out our tail, first lending me the car, now switching up with Pete and spending the night at my house.

We hung out in my living room for a while, though it was late and Shauna had an early day tomorrow. It felt like old times, back at State. After I was kicked off the football team for the misunderstanding I had with one of the team captains, I moved off-campus, into a five-bedroom house, which sounds nice until you factor in that eight of us lived there. Shauna was one of those people. We used to kill plenty of late nights, drinking the cheapest beer we could possibly find—how bad could it be if it was “Milwaukee’s Best”?—listening to REM albums, debating whether
Automatic for the People
was an interesting diversion for the band or a complete sell-out, discussing the merits of the Reagan Revolution, listing celebrities we’d sleep with—anything and everything. Easier times.

In another sense, it felt odd, maybe wrong, having a woman in this house for an overnight stay, the slightest hint of sexual overtone even if it was just Shauna. This was Talia’s house. It always would be.

Shauna stretched her arms over her head and yawned. The movement, however innocuous, brought back a memory from high school, the short interval when we were more than friends. Her eyes linked with mine and I blinked away, feeling like I’d been caught in the act of something forbidden but enjoying it nonetheless. It wouldn’t last, it wouldn’t make sense, not with Shauna, but it had felt more like a lifetime than four months since I’d experienced the sensation. I was still alive. I still could feel.

Shauna excused herself to bed, breaking the tension and leaving me to wonder whether it was mutual. But I had other things to consider at this moment.

I went to my own room and sat up on the bed, thinking things through. At midnight, I turned off the light. The darkness felt appropriate. I sat on my bed in the blackness, trying to focus a mind running wild. It was like trying to corral a bunch of roaches scattering from light. Outside the rain was rattling the window and drumming on the roof. I thought about where Pete was right now. I had to trust that he would be safe, because the alternative was unbearable.

When I was a prosecutor, I was assigned a badge, which I had to surrender upon my resignation from the county attorney’s office. But about three years in, I’d lost my badge and had to get a new one. Law enforcement offices do not have a sense of humor about losing badges, their use in the wrong hands, naturally, being problematic. The office reserved the right to dock a week’s pay upon the first loss of a badge and my supervisor, looking to make an example out of me, took full advantage of that punishment. It was about two months later that I found my original badge. The proper protocol, obviously, was to bring it in, but I didn’t. I didn’t precisely recall why, but it might have had something to do with losing that week’s pay and figuring I’d earned the right to keep it. Shame on me, then. Good for me, now.